Overcoming shyness?

Is there anyone out there who is or was VERY SHY (such that it inhibited your ability to make friends and deepen your friedships) but who has overcome it (whithout medication)? Got any tips? I am so shy I can hardly be myself around the few friends I have. I have a husband, miraculously, who I am very close with, but I would like to have female friends, who I can be close to and who I can BE THERE for when they need me. How do you start a friendship and deepen it?