It’s treating yourself and your feelings, thoughts and ideas as if they don’t matter, so they aren’t acted upon. It stems from a lack of self-worth.
I thought that I was a terrible writer, that my imagination was lame, that I wasn’t funny, and certainly not as funny as my heroes in Monty Python, Mr. Show and Kids in the Hall. Oh, and I couldn’t sing, was a lousy dresser, was fat and unattractive, so why bother putting myself out there at all? “They” were all just going to laugh at me. “What the hell is dis shite? Who da F are you? Get da F outta heah!”
Except all of this is untrue.
The world need your talents and skills. It does. And when you sell yourself short and hide them, you’re depriving everyone else as well as choking yourself off. That was a hard lesson or me to learn, that I’m not supposed to hide. Put all of yourself out there. That’s part of the remit for being alive, I think, as a human being.