If you’ve ever been one of those people who, in social situations just wants to run and hide, listen up: you’re not alone. Chances are half the people in the room feel the same way. It just happens to be the happy hunting ground for the gregarious, the ebullient, the always-delighted, and you are forced to play along.

How you deal with it is up to you, but promise yourself one thing: do not tell yourself you should be like them, or that your life would be easier or better if you were that way, or that there’s something wrong with you.

Making yourself wrong and beating yourself up internally is a childish thing to do. It’s a repeat of the familiar – what you get from your parents as children you take to be love. If your parents – with all the good intentions in the world – constantly compared you to others or to some standard, you’ll be living with this self-abasing internal voice.

The great thing in midlife is that the energy behind that voice starts to dissipate. The problem becomes, what do you replace it with? Can I trust myself when I say I’m OK? Can I just leave myself to be the way I am? It seems so wrong, so irresponsible, so unfounded! Listen kiddo, those old thought patterns are just habits, a painful memory that we replay like an old sad song just because it’s familiar. Becoming aware of them, then replacing them with something else – something you choose – is a process; it’s taken me years, and I can honestly say that a separation is possible between the automatic internal voices and a conscious awareness that can make choices about itself – who it chooses to be, and how. This doesn’t mean you can change your personality, but you can learn to love the one you have. Great rivers of peace, love, success, flow from this.