7 Steps To Emotional Freedom

Coming to you from the center for Social Confidence in Portland, Oregon. Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy, Helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination. With your host, Dr. Aziz.

Welcome to another episode of the show. How are you today? This is gonna be a good one. I think you're gonna find this one extremely valuable and beneficial and to help you overcome shyness or anxiety, but also something that you can use to just feel a lot more comfortable. Confident and relaxed in yourself, more at peace in any situation about anything. That could be work stress, that could be family stress, that could just be you dealing with some challenging experience in your life. This is going to be an extremely valuable sort of step by step plan to help you feel more confident, more at ease. And it's called the Seven Steps to Emotional Freedom. And we're going to dive in right now. By the way, if you are enjoying this show, go to shrinkforthshyguy.com and you can read more about it. You can look at the show notes as well as the transcripts. For some reason, if you wanted to do that, you could also ask me a question or share comments or feedback about what, how you're growing, what you're getting from the show. I'll let Shrink for the Shy Guy. You can also get my ebook there Five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence. And that book is powerful and it will help you do just that. Unleash youh Inner Confidence. So if you're benefiting from this show, you absolutely will find that ebook very helpful, I believe. So let's look at this idea of seven Steps to Emotional Freedom. Let's start with this. Emotional freedom would be, in my opinion, not feeling stuck when it comes to certain feelings. Stuck in fear, stuck in anxiety. Maybe you feel stuck with this lousy anxiety that keeps coming up in a certain situation. Maybe feel stuck with a depressed mood that hits you in different times of the year, different times in your life. Maybe you're stuck with a feeling of sadness or grief or missing an old relationship, someone that you're close to, a pet, some persistent feeling that's challenging and you feel stuck with it. And I would say freedom is to feel completely free of that. Now when people hear that, they think, oh, you mean I feel completely only positive emotions and completely happy all the time. And well, that's one way of interpreting that. I have not found the key to, to eliminating all painful or negative emotions and that, you know, results in permanent bliss and ease. Maybe someone has. Maybe Eckhart Tolle has. I don't know. But what I found, much more powerful, is a way to come to more peace and ease around whatever's happening. And this goes back to an old adage that says, what we resist, persists. What we resist, persist, persists. And that is the key behind these seven steps. And I'll give you a little story here to share how I came up with these. But basically, this was just recently, and I was in just a shitty state. One weekend started on, like, Saturday morning, and I was just irritable. And I want to be away from everyone. I don't want to hang out with my kids or my wife. I was just, like, kind of irritated and upset. And I was trying to do my best to work with that and contain that energy and still be a present loving dad. And I think it was that night I was trying to do something in the kitchen and kids were demanding something. And I just said, man, I am so angry right now. That's what I said. And my little boy Zaim, said, dad or Daddy, are you angry at me for hitting Monty? Monty's his younger brother. And he, like, hit him earlier that afternoon. And that was one of those moments where I was like, ugh, damn it. Like, no, buddy, I'm not mad at you for hitting Monty. I'm not even mad at you mad about something else. And he's like, what are you mad about, Daddy? And I knew. I knew why I was mad, why I was irritable that whole day. It's because I was feeling a ton of grief. It was an anniversary of something from four years or five years before Candice and I, when we first got together, she was coming out of a relationship. She was still living with her partner, and they were breaking up and we were getting together. And in the first month of us being together, she got pregnant and we decided hastily to have an abortion. And I don't think either of us really knew what that would feel like or what the sort of impact of that would be, but it was very intense. I felt just a ton of pain and sadness around it. And a lot of that choice came from a lack of trust. Lack of trust in life, lack of trust in myself. I'd never sustained a relationship longer than six months up until that point in time. So I was like, well, that would suck to, you know, have a kid and then six months into it, not. Not be together anymore. She was, I think, just ending this relationship. And it's like, are we going to. Are we going to be together forever? She's kind of really figuring that all out so we decided to have an abortion. And it was very painful. And then every year, right around the month that we did it, there's just a lot of grief that comes up. Especially more this month. I'd say for a couple years, I didn't really let myself feel it that much. And for some reason this year, I was feeling it a lot more. So I was feeling it. I was somewhat aware of that. But here's the thing. When we have underlying feelings that we don't want to feel, fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, we just have all kinds of weird stuff on top of that. We get irritable at people, we get closed down. We want to distract ourselves, we get tense, we harden in some way. And that's what was happening for me. And so I was laying there, actually, we went to sleep that night, and I woke up in the middle of the night and was wide awake. And I was like, I gotta do something here. Like, I can't go through all of tomorrow being like this. Like, that was so hard. I have to do something. I know I need to work with this underlying feeling, but I don't want to feel it, damn it. I don't want to feel it. And I was having all the experiences of resistance that you might know of. Whatever the feeling is, fear, sadness, anger, there's all this resistance to it, isn't there? I don't want to feel this. I don't have time for this. That's a big one. That I tell myself, I don't have time for this. I hate this. Or the feeling comes back and I'm like, ah, Jesus, you again. Damn it. I shouldn't be feeling this now. That's a big one. Do you tell yourself that I shouldn't be feeling this now? I should be over this by now. I want this to go away. This shouldn't be happening. I felt this way too long. I'll keep feeling this way forever. There's something wrong with me. So, you know, this leads to the irritability, strong reactions, impatience, what's called displaced anger. It's, you know, it's kind of misplaced, is another word of saying that. And also it can lead to kind of anxiety or obsessive thoughts. I was just a wreck that day. I was obsessing over. I bought like. Like five or six of these Banana Republic T shirts. They were like, I don't know, 16 bucks a piece or something. So what were you talking? Like, like 80, 90 bucks? 80 bucks? Something like that. And I bought them, and I already had two or three of them. That I got recently and I liked them but they were small size and I was like, ah, they're right on the cusp. Like after they get washed, they're just a little bit tight. Maybe I should have got a medium. And I was just like obsessing about that, freaking all day. I should have got the mediums. Oh man, now I'm gonna have to return that. Oh, madness, insanity. But that's what our mind does. It obsesses over things, it distracts about things, it focuses on something else. All because it's part of that resistance to feeling the feeling. So if you want to know how to experience emotional freedom, it's going to be to let go of the resistance to stop. And you might have heard that before, you might have even tried that before. But what I'm going to share right after this break is seven steps that I think are going to be extremely powerful and helpful to help you actually put that into practice. So it's not just some theory, it's actually something you can do. And this is what I discovered that night. Laying in bed, I was like, I have to find a way to get to that place of surrender and letting go and not resisting this. And so I'm going to share exactly what I did and how it helped me and has gone on to help on other, many other clients too. So stay tuned. We'll be right back right after this.

Let me ask you a question. When you are about to meet someone new, do you assume they won't be interested in you? Do you predict that the woman you have a crush on won't want to go out with you? This is the default assumption. It makes you feel anxious and hesitant to connect with people. If you want to transform this and begin to see the world from a more fearless place, then you might want to check out Dr. Aziza's new ebook and audio training called the Approval Assumption. In it, he teaches you how to transform your default assumption to one that gives you more confidence, boldness and freedom around anyone, whether they're long standing friends, business acquaintances or complete strangers. This program is being offered as an exclusive bonus for people who invest in Confidence Unleashed. To learn more about how to get your copy today, go to www.confidenceunleashednow.com.

Welcome back. So to make this most impactful and useful for you, I'd like you to actually notice some feeling that you have that you tend to resist or not want to be experiencing. You might even be experiencing it right now. Maybe it's tension or nervousness or anxiety. Maybe it's Maybe in this moment you feel kind of relaxed or neutral. And if so, think about a situation in your life that tends to activate that feeling. Think about that loss. Think about that person you miss. Think about that rejection you got in your dating life or at work. Pull something to mind right now to get in touch with the feeling. And, you know, for maximum impact, you know, save this episode and come back and listen to this part. When you're in the grips of an intense feeling, that will be the best way to really use this. And I'm gonna guide you through the seven steps that will help you get to a place of more peace around any feeling. You ready? Okay. So first things first. When you're noticing the feeling, bring your attention right to it. So the first thing we need to do is stop running away and turn right towards it. That's ground zero. You have to do that before you can do any of these other. Any of these seven steps. Because if you're running away, then you're not taking any steps towards emotional freedom. Good. So bring your attention right to where you feel it in your body. Maybe it's in your chest. Breathe. Maybe it's in your throat, maybe in your solar plexus or your stomach or your jaw or your face. Wherever you notice it, wherever you feel it, just bring your attention right there. Good. And then the first thing we're going to do is just say, I consent. The first step, I consent just trying that out, noticing what that feels like. I consent to this feeling being here. Good. And then the next step is to go a little bit further and say, I agree. I agree. I agree that this feeling is here. Like, there you are. There it is. I agree. And breathe as you do this. And we're just noticing your stance towards the feeling and how you experience it in your body. And a part of you resists that is like, no, I don't agree. I don't like this feeling. I'm not saying you have to like it. I'm saying it's your favorite thing in the world or that it's even pleasant. But agreeing that this is reality, this is right here, right now. Not denying and covering our ears and eyes and running the other direction saying, yo, no, no, this I agree. This is here right now. And the next step, the third step, is to actually take it a little further and say, I'm willing. I'm willing to feel this feeling. Doesn't mean I have to like it. Doesn't mean I have to want to feel it. Like, you know, it's Something I choose to feel every day, all day. But right now, I agree that it's here, and I'm willing to feel it. And just breathe as you do that. The deeper you can breathe during this process, the better. More oxygen is kind of always a good thing for us. Just like more water is generally always good, and more vegetables are generally always good for us. Good. I'm willing to feel this feeling. Just noticing what that's like. How willing are you? Can you be more willing with each breath in? That's right. Can you soften? Can you expand? Can you be more willing to just feel? The next level is surrender. I surrender to this feeling. Because you know what? The truth is, you might have been fighting this feeling for days or weeks or years. Running away from it, hiding it, resisting it, yelling at it, banishing it, criticizing yourself for having it, and on and on and on. And has that actually made the feeling go away? Has it actually worked? Has it stopped the feeling? At best, we can temporarily not notice it because we're distracted by something else. At best. But it doesn't go away. Surrender is when we acknowledge. I don't have power. I don't have the control that my mind would like here to just flick an off switch. This feeling is stronger than me. Here it is. Here you are. You win. I bow to you. You win. Now I just surrender and let you move through me. As much as you need to, as much as you will. I surrender. Surrender to the feeling. Good. The next step I found was once I surrendered some, I started to become more curious. I stopped fighting it. The battle was over. I surrendered. And then I got really curious. Wow. What are you? What does that feel like? Where is it located? Oh, it's right there. It's a lump in my throat. Okay. How strong is it? How big is it? It's like achy, squeezing, burning. Okay. Huh? Getting really curious about all the sensations as I just breathed. And just notice that so much of the resistance was dropped. Once we surrender and get curious, good. The next step is, I honor and respect you to the feeling. I honor and respect you. Like, we bow our heads to it. Not in supplication or something, but just kind of a nod of acknowledgement. Like, wow, okay. I honor you, have value. You are valid. You belong. Because we can spend so much of our life in such a battle with our feelings that we kind of try to banish or alienate a part of us. I hate you. Get out of here. I hate the anxious part of me. I hate the sad part of me. I Don't ever want to feel that again. And we turn on ourselves and we attack this part and we try to banish it, and we don't treat it with respect, we don't honor it, and it doesn't work. We just get into this perpetual tension. That's where depression often starts. It's not sad feelings, not grief. It starts with this weird blockage that starts to happen when we don't let ourselves feel sadness or anger or fear. We don't surrender and just really let ourselves feel this. There's all kinds of fear around feeling these feelings. In fact, one of my teachers, Christian Mickelson, says all our fears are just fears of feelings. So we're so scared, but we can just. You can handle them. You can handle this. You're big enough for this. And the more you do this, the more you realize the truth of that. I can handle any of these feelings. I honor and I respect you. To the feeling. Good. Then the last step is saying to the feeling. I love you. I'm sorry to have pushed you away. And I embrace you. What would it be like to feel that feeling right now in your body and say, I love you to it? I'm sorry to have pushed you away. And breathe as you do this. You don't have to overthink this or make something happen. You're just staying with as much attention as you can right there on the sensations in your body with these gentle prompts of, I consent, I agree, I'm willing, I surrender, I am curious, I honor and respect you, I love you. Just staying in that place for a moment. And noticing what effect that has on the feeling, what effect that has on your body and your nervous system. Good. As I did this process that night, I. I found that I would take big, full breaths as I did this, and I would stay on each one until I felt this kind of softening or relaxing, the next layer of resistance melting away. And I really got to that place of really feeling that. I'm sorry to have pushed you away. Really embracing that pained part of me, that sadness, that aching. And when you do that, it's really interesting. Like, the sensations in your body might not disappear. Like, if you have an ache in your heart or in your throat or a tightness in your belly or your solar plexus, it might not just completely disappear. But what happens is, I find is the rest of my body is no longer in some sort of constriction, contracted, trying to fight it off, like it's a. Some sort of venom that's inside of me like a threat. And instead my body feels like relaxed, like there is no threat. And I can still feel that sensation, but it's often surrounded in warmth. It just feels more. I just feel more at peace, even though I might still have some discomfort. Just like you can stub your toe and be in complete rage about it and yelling and kicking and screaming and so tense in your body. Or you can stub your toe and your body can be totally relaxed and you can just feel waves of sensation or pain pulsing up your foot. It's the same with our emotions. You can just be with them. And the more you do this, the more you practice this, the better you get at it. And the more spacious you become, the more your capacity to handle uncomfortable feelings magnifies. And in fact, that brings us to our action step.

Time for action.

Your action step for today is to go through this process. You know, you might write those phrases down that I shared. You can also just once a day or as needed, if you're having some challenging feelings, just listen to that segment of the show again and again and go through that process. Once you go through it a few times with me guiding you, you'll get it. And then it's a tool you can have for the rest of your life. But if you're ever in a place of struggling, you're frustrated, you're angry, you're sad, you're depressed, you're anxious, and you want to break free, the fastest way to get there, the fastest way to emotional freedom is going to be to surrender, to let go of the resistance. And these seven steps are kind of a little walkway, a little pathway that will help you get from a place of tight and constricted and and upset about it to a lot more open, a lot more free, a lot more relaxed, and a lot more at peace with what's happening. So use this in your life and I'd love to hear more about your experience. Go to shrinkfortheshyguy.com and share more there. You can also go to facebook.com social confidence and there you will be able to share more about your experience or ask questions or just talk about your own journey to confidence. So until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Azeez. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free vlogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to Social Confidence center dot com.