A Life Of Confidence And Meaning

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today, let's talk about you living your most confident life, fully alive, stepping into the next moment feeling fresh, ready, excited, inspired, energized, as opposed to feeling dread, feeling anxiety, feeling self doubt, self criticism, judgment, doom, and really a sense that, you know, life is restricted, you can't have what you want in life. And, you know, I've lived both of these ways, and my whole mission at this point in my life is to help as many people as I can live that first way. And there's many ways to describe that. You could call it, you know, a confident life. You could say, you know, what is living the life that you really want, the good life, a meaningful life, a joyful life, whatever term you like that inspires you. That's what we want to talk about. And I want to share a couple of key insights that I learned way, way back in one of my earliest days, when I first started realizing I wanted to learn about psychology and helping myself and ultimately helping other people. There was a teacher I learned from. His name was Robert Firestone, a brilliant cognitive. And he's way more than cognitive, though. It's definitely very emotion focused therapy. But one of the earliest teachers in therapy I ever had, and I loved his approach and it was not some sterile clinical approach. It was really coming out of his own experience of asking, hey, how do we live more fully? So very much in align with what I'm curious about, right? How do we live fully? Because if you think about, okay, we want to overcome social anxiety or be less shy, or be more confident, or be less nice. These are the things that people want and that I help them do. What's underneath that or what's beyond that? Well, more aliveness, right? So if you were less anxious, you'd feel more alive. If you were less inhibited, you'd go for what you want and fully live today. Because I think that's at the end of the day, what we really want is. And that's why social anxiety and shyness and niceness and all these cages we put ourselves in can be so painful because we're missing out on life. And that hurts because life is meant to be experienced, it's meant to be lived. It's why you're here. And so, you know, Robert talks about how there's basically a spectrum from defended to open when it comes to life. And we can start to develop a more defended stance, a defended life way of living based upon usually pain. So we experience early pain. Could be when you're a kid. It could even just be the human pain of like at some point becoming aware that you're going to die and that things are impermanent and that things can change. And you know, these things can bring a large amount of pain when they occur. You might have experienced that, you know, parents divorcing or something viscerally when you were young, that kind of shook you up. Or it could just have to be this big traumatic thing. It could just be like kids at school that are cruel to you, right? So we learn at a pretty young age, like, there's pain. We also learn that you are not, you're not protected from all of that pain by a parent now, you know, if all goes well and you, you know, you have a mother and maybe a father too, and there's warmth and nurturing in the home and maybe you're breastfed and you're held, then there can be this period of like nurturing as an infant where you really are held and kind of merged with your mother and stuff. And not everyone has that right. I understand that. And even still, as you get a little bit older and the breastfeeding stops and you start to become your more individuated toddler self, who says, who am I? And that's mine. No. And you start to realize not only is everything impermanent, but in one way I am separate, right? I'm not the same as my mom, I'm not the same as my dad or my brother. I'm separate. And you're connected, but you're separate. And then on some metaphysical level, spiritual level, we are all connected. But on a very practical, psychological, tangible level, have a separate body than you. And that also can feel scary or painful, right? It's like it can lead to feelings of isolation or aloneness, or especially depends upon the emotional warmth of your family or emotional intelligence of your family. Growing up, were you emotionally seen? Did people get, oh, you're Feeling this and that makes sense. Or you're feeling angry, or you're feeling sad, or you're, you know, versus, like an ignoring of feelings or telling you not to feel. Right. So all these things come together to create pain when we're young. Big events, small events, general culture of your family. And then we develop defenses to try to deal with that pain. Right. Just think about in military, you defend, you create a defense, defensive perimeter. Or, you know, back in the day, they would build castles with defensive walls to try to keep the bad out so that I can be okay in here. Now, what are these defenses? Well, anything that causes you to kind of go inward and removed from others and from really living your life fully is a defensive pattern. So you could use anything. What armors you up. It could be, you know, self soothing through things that aren't really serving you, like food or drugs. Or as you get older, you know, drugs and alcohol come in and people would turn. Middle school, teenage years. Porn is another one. I turned to that when I started when I was 11 years old, when I first discovered porn. And then that could be a lot of masturbation. That could be absorbing of your time. It absorbs your attention. Now, in this era, phones and all the absorbing qualities of phones that can lead to this kind of sort of a cerebral, removed, disembodied experience to be looking at your phone and interacting with all these different things, even if you're interacting with other people, it's in this sort of removed way. So really, anything can be a defense. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't do any of these things. It's just becoming aware of how any behavior and of course any substance can be used to create distance, to remove yourself from others and from life. Now there's also internal voices that can be these defenses. I call these your safety police. You might have heard me talk about them. But the safety police are the voices in your head. There's a collection of them that are all geared to prevent you from living fully, so that you don't take risks, you don't engage fully in your life, you know? What are these voices? Well, one is like the one that just straight up tells you not to take risks. The scared chicken little sky is falling. Bad stuff's gonna happen. Don't do it voice. Then one that everyone's familiar with is the inner critic voice, right? Like, you suck. What's wrong with you? No one's ever gonna wanna be with you. No one's gonna be your friend. And if you follow those voices to their natural conclusion. It means don't go talk to people because they don't wanna be your friend. Don't ask that person out because they're not going to date you. Right. And where is that leading you? It's leading you to an inward, protected, defended life. And when we're in this inward, protected, defended state, we have this kind of. We tell ourselves something, whether it's consciously or not, a belief or perspective we're holding that says, you know what? I don't need anybody. I can take care of myself. And in that, exemplified in that Simon and Garfunkel song, right? I'm a rock, I'm an island and a rock feels no pain and an island never cries. Right? So it's like this illusion. Robert Firestone calls it pseudo independence, right? It's like, I don't need anybody. The truth is, you do. Right? I mean, so you're not really. So if you want love and connection and then you don't want to take the risk because you don't want the pain of rejection. And so you go home and you smoke pot and you eat a lot of food and you masturbate to porn, that would be like a typical example of me when I was in my cage. And there's sort of this illusion of independence when you're doing these things because you're like, I don't need anybody. I can take care of my own needs. And you are. But it's kind of like you're eating potato chips and saying that you're eating a meal and you're taking care of yourself, and you sort of are, but you're not really fully living your nervous system and your body's not going to be fully healthy, vibrant and alive and certainly not going to be able to do what you're capable to do in your physical body if you're feeding it only with potato chips. And it's the same thing when you're not nourishing and feeding yourself with real connection and real risk and really stepping into your life, this pseudo independence looks like you can get by. And yes, you can survive in this modern era, but you're not really alive. You're not really thriving. You're not really doing what you're here to do. You're not going to feel a life of meaning, of passion, of purpose, of love, of connection, of spiritual growth, of personal growth. And so it's this void inside. And that's where a lot of depression comes from, a lot of neurotic, repeated anxiety. And we just get stuck in These defenses and these patterns. And then we believe those voices in our head of the safety police that say, no one's going to want to be with you and you can't do it and it's not going to work out. And so we get smaller and smaller and more and more restricted. We get caught within those defensive walls. Like, think about the defenses as like a castle wall. You get stuck within those castle walls and so no one can pierce through and hurt your heart, but you also can't touch anybody else's heart. Are you relating to this? Is this familiar? You know, when I first came across this stuff, I was 21 years old or 22 years old. I was reading Robert Firestone stuff and I was, I mean, it was just like blowing my mind. I was like, someone studies this stuff and talks about it and is so insightful. And I'm forever grateful for him and his daughter, Lisa Firestone and Joyce Catlett. They're down and they were down in Santa Barbara, this amazing institute. They call it Voice therapy is the name of their therapy. They have a book called Conquer your inner Critic, which is great. So highly recommend them. I should see if I can find Lisa and interviewer on the show. In any case, that's the defended life. And as long as you're living a defended life, you're suffering and you're ultimately not fully alive. And so that's one end of the spectrum, right? It could be more intense or less intense, more defended or less defended. Then there's something else which is a more open way of life. And what does that mean? Well, it means you are open to what is happening now. You're open to experience, you're open ultimately to feel, because that's what all the defenses are, is to not feel. And so, so much of the work that I do and how we help people have these major transformations is not just some cognitive technique that says, you know, well, just switch the thought around and now you feel better. It's like, look, yeah. And yeah, you can work with your mind and we can teach you techniques on how to do that. But ultimately it comes from this place of, hey, I want to fully freaking live. I don't want to live in a cage. I don't want to live dead end in this defended life. Because if someone wants to live the protected, defended, dead end lifestyle and have relationships and success and confidence and authenticity and connection, it's like, it doesn't happen. Those are mutually exclusive. You can't have both at the same time. You have to make a fundamental choice that says, you know what? I've lived a defended way of life. Now I want to be more open to life, and that means I gotta be more open to experience. And so a lot of the work that I do in my group programs and stuff with people and coaching is teaching them how to navigate those feelings that they started blocking off at age 3 or 5 or 10 or 12 or 15. It's like, I don't even know how to feel. And that's one of the biggest outcomes of the group program that are on the mastermind, where people come in there because they want confidence in dating or they want confidence at work or whatever. And one of the big outcomes they talk about is, yeah, I've made these changes in my life, but the biggest thing is I actually know how to feel my feelings. I'm not afraid anymore. I'm not afraid of rejection. It's uncomfortable, but I can navigate. And the ones that really thrive in the program say it's uncomfortable and I can navigate it and I seek it out. Now, that's a whole different level. That's, you know, on the spectrum of openness. That's like way out there on the openness, but even just a little bit more open says, you know what? I'm willing to feel, I'm willing to take risks. I know that if I go forward in life, I could get pain. I absolutely could. And the alternative is to not live. And so I want this life. I want this life with all of it. I want to receive, I want to connect, I want to open. And I'll take rejection, I'll take loss. And when we experience that loss, the name of the game is, how can I remain open here? Because when we experience pain, it could be a small pain, like you asked someone out and they're like, no. Or a bigger pain, you know, some loss of a relationship or that could be friendships. You know, friend moves away or was talking to someone recently and a couple people in her company got laid off, and she was good friends with them. And that's like a major loss. I mean, you're seeing someone every day for years, and then they're just gone. It was a major change. And so there's this pain inside. And then when that pain arises, the defended part of us wants to kick up, you know, the voices inside. One of the safety police get into hyper gear and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn't agree to this. I thought we weren't going to have these experiences. I thought we all agreed that we weren't going to have pain in this life. Okay, Right. And so it tries to regain control and reenact the policies, the inner sort of tyrannical policies of totalitarian control and shutting you down and deadening you and defending you. And it might do this in a very clever way or rationalizing it, kind of like, here's why it's best not to, or here's why you don't need those people, or, no, just don't go out there and try. It's not going to work anyway. And it all sounds very reasonable. But here's how. You know, where it smells fishy is where is this voice leading me? And if that voice is leading you to an inward, protected, defended, not fully alive pattern, you know that it's the voice of your safety police. It's the voice of a defended life. And you can say, I hear you, and I know that you want to do that. And that's not what we're going to do, because I'm the captain of my ship, and we're steering somewhere else. We're steering to someplace where we're going to be more alive, and ultimately we can experience more love, more freedom, more joy. Because, yes, there's pain, but there's also a lot of everything else. And so if you think, okay, well, the good life or happiness is no pain, then you become a drug addict, right? Because that's what people. I remember I talked to a guy who was a drug and addiction counselor. Now, Vic was his name, awesome guy. And I was working in a rehab center for a year, and he'd worked there for like seven or eight years. But before he worked there, the reason he became passionate about helping people overcome their addictions is because he was addicted to various drugs. And the one he got most addicted to and stayed on the longest was heroin. And so I was talking to him one day over lunch about it and his experiences, and at one point I was like, well, tell me more. Like, why did you keep doing it? What brought you back? And he's like, aziza, I was just in so much pain, and I drank and I smoked. I did these things, and it would help, sort of. And he's like, and then the first day I tried heroin, all the pain stopped, and it was just blank for hours. And as soon as I came down off of that, I was like, I want to go back there. So if you think that life without pain is possible, the answer is yes, you want to become a heroin addict. By the way, it ends up leading to a lot more pain. And that's a fundamental truth about life. When you try to get away from pain, you just create more pain for yourself and others. So what's an alternative? Well, in the open stance to life, it's, yes, there's pain, but there's also a life of meaning that's more important than a life of just pure pleasure. It's a life of meaning, a life of consequence, a life of significance, a life that matters, a life that I'm proud of, a life that I'm excited about, a life that I'm energized about, where I look back when I'm 70 or 80 or 90 or 100 or 120 and I look back at my life and I say, yeah, I effing lived. I fully showed up in that. Like, look at my life, look at those adventures, look at those experiences. And there are up times and downtimes, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, fame and insignificance, praise and blame. You go through all of life, all of the winds of fate. But here's the thing. When you're fully open like that and you're willing and then you do get a rejection, you're like, you know what? Ow, this hurts. And I'm going to use this to keep opening and not going to shut down and avoid asking people or avoid sales or avoid love or avoid whatever for the next five years, you say, ow, this hurts, you heal, you tend to it and you get it back out there and you do it again. Not only can you experience a life of meaning, you also can experience way more success in all these different areas of life. And that's what we see in, you know, when I coach people, it's not just, okay, your inner world is better, but your outer life still is not what you want. But, you know, hey, at least you're a little more open. No, it's like, no. That openness gives you a level of courage and determination to go out there and create things that most people won't. So you want. You know, people can create more leadership opportunities, promotion opportunities, creating and building a business, speaking up, having much better, much healthier, much more real relationships. Because most people are both partners are defended in the relationship and so they're together, but there's a limit on their authenticity. There's a limit on their intimacy because they just don't want to go there. They're too uncomfortable. So they kind of have this. They sort of play their roles and they are connected and they are in love. I'm not saying it's not there. It's just, it's more, it's, you know, it's like five feet deep and the ocean goes down 5,000ft. There's a fraction of what's possible. But when you're open and you're ready, life opens to you in extraordinary ways. So let's talk about how you can put this into action. Time for action. Action. Action. Your action step for today is to to notice at least one of your defenses over the course of today or tomorrow or the next week. You know, is it something you say to yourself? Is it the voice of your safety police? Is it the voice of the inner critic? Is it the voice of the negative fortune telling predictor that tries to spook you so you don't take action? Is it some siren's call to a behavior that, you know, cuts you off, shuts you down, withdraws you? And the key here is to really see it. You don't have to instantly try to force a change on it. Sometimes we're just trying to force change on behaviors like, I don't want to do that anymore. But we're not really aware of why we're doing it. I remember for, you know, remember I said I used to start using porn when I was 11. And I just used it, you know, all throughout high school, all throughout college. It was like my main coping. It was my pseudo independence. And then as I got more, more, I started to break out of the cage of social anxiety, started to develop, you know, be able to date and actually meet women and date them and have relationships and have sex as opposed to just watching fake sex on a screen. And. And then over time, I was able to break out of the niceness cage and start having healthy relationships. And the more I started to develop real relationships, authentic relationships, the less of a place there was for porn in my life, right? It was just like it didn't. And for many years it was kind of like it was on the side and it was like my own secret private thing. And I was like, no, it's. That's none of her business, right? And as time got on, especially as I got into this relationship with Candice, my wife now, who I've been in for 11 years, it just became more and more like, is there space for this? And the answer was like, no. And ultimately it's like, is this what I really want? And there's a couple years in the beginning of our relationship where I kind of was like, yeah, this is what I like. And I'm a man, this is what I do. And then as time Went on. I started to study just like I'm inviting you to do. And I studied the whole thing because then I would use it and then I would feel like, oh, something's off and I. I shouldn't. And I was trying to fight with myself and eventually I just started to study it. And I said, what's happening here? And sure enough, there was. If I studied it, there was an urge. I would use porn. And I would just watch over the next day or two how it was this kind of inward defending pattern. Like I would emotionally and energetically sort of withdraw a little bit from Candace. Not huge, but it was. I would notice it. I said, wow, this is a way that I'm like deadening intimacy. It's like. Because here's the thing about intimacy and we're not. We're wrap up here in a minute, but it's not gonna turn into a whole nother podcast. But basically intimacy really being known by another, especially in a romantic relationship at the deepest levels is raw and like tender and vibrating and pulsing with life. It's not this set thing, thing like a desk in your office. It's just. There it is. That's the relationship. Like, no, it's more like an organism. It's like a moving, breathing, pulsing body of water or something. And it's real, like plugged into your heart. And there's sort of like a capacity or a strength to be able to sustain high levels of intimacy. And I could see in myself like, oh, I sort of get to a certain level and there's a part of me wants to like, let's turn that back down. Let's turn that back down. And so the way I started to break that pattern was to study, just like I'm inviting you to do in this action step. So instead of trying to force anything, I just watched the whole thing play out. You know, the urge use porn. Watched my experience, noticed the kind of contraction of intimacy for a couple of days. And then it starts to build back up. And I was just like, you know what? I want to live in more open life than this. And so then know it became easier just to choose. And then it's not this force and willpower thing, it's just choice. Because ultimately what kind of life do you want to live for me? Let's go, let's open. Let's open fully to life. I want to live fully, I want to die fully. And I want to be here with an open heart as much as I can. To connect deeply, to share, to give gifts, to have fun to energize to to live a life of meaning, of consequence, to be a force for good. So I hope this serves you and inspires you to discover what's true for you and what kind of life you want to lead. And until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you are awesome. Thanks for listening to the shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. 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 blogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com. Sam.