Access Your Own Inner Wisdom To Live With More Confidence

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. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about how to coach yourself, how to guide yourself through life, particularly through challenging circumstances, things that make you scary, difficult experiences in your life. Because you know at this point, listening to this show, that confidence doesn't just happen to you. It's not just something that you're born with. Confidence is a muscle that you build or a skill that you develop over time. And so one of the primary ways to build that skill is to take action, is to do what scares you, do what makes you uncomfortable, take the risk, whether it's going to talk to that person that you're interested in applying for that job, going to that interview, speaking up in that way, taking on that physical challenge, whatever it is, and you do that. And as you do that, you build confidence. Now that's. Well, it's fairly basic from a purely intellectual standpoint, but as you know, doing it, practicing it, living it to actually develop the confidence that you want, well, there's some nuance to that. And that's what I want to focus on in today's episode, is that nuance, because when there's something that's new or hard or you have to figure it out or navigate through it in life, there's a lot of uncertainty there. So how you can grow your confidence to date more or create a beautiful relationship, or grow your confidence to start to steer your career more? You know, there's a lot of unknown to that. It's not just do A, B, C, D and E and you're done. I mean, we love the, do you know the five point A, B, C, D thing and, you know, there's something to that. You know, my course, Dating Mastery or Social Mastery Inside of Confidence University, I do have a step by step process and I'm very careful to say in those programs, you know, this is a step by step process. It's going to set you up and you are the one who is navigating your own life. You know, so do I call that friend back on a Tuesday? It's not going to be in the course, right? You know, maybe how to be more expressive or how to speak up for yourself or whatever that's in the course. And it teaches you some principles, but the exact specifics in your own life, I mean, that's day to day. That's you navigating life. And there's only one person that can help you consistently navigate life. I know it's not me. And no, it's not your therapist. And no, it's not your friend, it's not your partner, it's not your mom, it's not your dad. It's not your anyone, not your guru. It's you. You navigate your life. Now, of course, you can get input from wise people, skilled people, mentors, teachers, coaches, friends, family, authors, anyone that you want to get input from. Great. However, all that input doesn't substitute you navigating your own life. And ultimately what that means is you being your own coach. Because if you think about navigating any situation, there's decisions to make. What action do I take? Not even before the decision of what action to take. There's the decision of how to perceive what is going on, the decision of how to be with yourself, with the situation, with your feelings, with your thoughts, how to navigate that. Because navigating that determines what you do and then what results follow. And that's extremely important. So that's the nuance we're going to focus on in today's episode. And I'll give some examples from my own life that will help highlight where I'm doing this right now. So one way that we try to deal with the uncertainty is we come up with simplistic rules that go something like always do blank or never do blank. And so you're trying to navigate your social life and who to develop deeper friendships with. Or should I end this friendship? And maybe you have a story that says you never end a friendship or never wind down a friendship. You know, friends are for life. You gotta be loyal. Okay, maybe. Or maybe you have a rule that says always. You know, maybe you're listening to some of my stuff or red knot nice or something, and you're like, always speak up for yourself. Okay, well, you know, speaking up for yourself is a pretty good idea. It's a great skill. Always. Is there a time where you might not. Maybe you just walk away. You just don't need to have that Conversation. Maybe it's an act of self care or self love to not speak up. And that's where it gets really confusing because people are like, wait a minute, I thought you said to speak up for yourself. And it's like, yeah, yeah, generally, but sometimes not, you know, or you know, if you don't feel like doing something, just do it. Always. Yeah, no, no, you gotta find when is that true? Sometimes it's, you know, pull up the David Goggins energy of just do it no matter what. You know, Jocko Willink, these like hard Navy SEAL dudes who are just like, doesn't matter if it's uncomfortable, just go do it. Sometimes it's extremely useful. Other times that's like the worst medicine and the worst mindset. You need something else. And so what we can do is we can look to others and take simplistic philosophies and just try to bam, smack them onto your life. And it doesn't work. What is needed then? You, your own wisdom. That's right, your wisdom. And here's the thing, if you're like, oh, I don't know man, that's why I'm listening to this show, I gotta get some wisdom. I need the wisdoms. Don't worry, we all could use more wisdoms. But here's an extremely relieving thing about wisdom. Wisdom isn't your smarts. It's not your brains, it's not your intellect, it's not your conscious knowledge. It is guidance and intuition and the right action, the right moment at the right time as it is guided through you. And the intelligence in this case of wisdom is not coming from your left brain memory, the past conscious decision making mechanisms. It's coming from something else outside of you, beyond you. It's something out there that you can tap into. And even if you don't believe me, you're like, no, that sounds a little far out man. Well, I mean dude, I go to Burning man and take psychedelics. So of course I'm going to bring some of this wisdoms in here. But you don't have to subscribe to any particular philosophy or religion. It's up to you. And there is a lot more to this life than just our left brain verbal understanding. There is so much more. And so if you close off to that, then you're closing off to a huge resource. And what if you just decided that you're guided? I did not intend for that to rhyme, but it did and it's awesome. What if you just decided right now that you're Guided. And you breathed in and you got curious. You said, what is the next best thing for me to do right now? You might have to turn down some of the noise because there's a lot of noise in there that can stop you. And if you're constantly inputting noise, other people's ideas, videos, YouTube, this podcast, of course, this podcast, you want to keep inputting because it's brilliant. But how much of that are you doing? Are you having any space for you to listen to you with no inputs? Or maybe the only inputs are the blue sky or the gray sky, the snow or the rain or the sun or whatever's happening in the trees. Just being outside, being by yourself, being something where you're away and you can listen and be curious and wonder, how do I navigate this right now? And what's the this? It could be anything in your life, you know, oh, that person's not calling me back. Oh, I'm so stressed out. Okay. And I invite you to maybe pause the grasping and looking and trying to find something in somebody and just like, okay, I can navigate this and how to navigate it? Well, one is to slow down, turn off the inputs and be with you and start to feel. And as you do this, you're probably going to feel more uncomfortable because the inputs were trying to run away. But the confidence is going to come from your connection with yourself and the connection with yourself, like any sort of connection only comes with quality time with someone, whether it's, you know, in this day and age, the quality time might be on phone or Zoom or something else, but it's still interaction time with another human, time shared with another person. And that is, of course, still applies to you. And you and your attention might be going everywhere else. All these other people, your work, your family, your friends, your partner, kids, parents, whatever. And then the little bit of time that you might have for you is filled with input. So what if you chose to disconnect a lot of that, reduce it significantly, and then just with yourself in that time, and that could be out running, that could be, you know, going for a swim. That could be sitting in your room, that could be meditating, that could be making food without the TV on in the background, without a book or a podcast or something in your ears. I'm not saying never listen to stuff, but creating space to be with you. And then when you do, you can start to listen and remember you're not just listening to your mind. Like, what should I do here? What should I do here? I gotta figure this out. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Because that's what a lot of us are doing, is we're trying to turn off the rumination. There's so much noise already happening that I'm gonna go listen to this stuff to turn off the noise or at least get some new noise in there, mix it up a little bit, some less negative, scared noise. And that's not the solution. That's just another avoidance tactic. Useful sometimes. And then you gotta come back to being with you. I can't tell you how many people I come across who don't seem confident. They seem restless, they seem uncomfortable. They might look confident in a certain role in the boardroom or when they're performing or when they're sharing or when they're whatever. And then you start to interact with them when there's not a whole lot of stuff going on or they're not in that role and they're fidgety, they're uncomfortable in their own skin, they're guarded. They're just unable to be with themselves because they're unable to be with feelings. And if you're unable to be with your feelings, then you will not have sustained, lasting confidence. You're always hustling. You might achieve a lot, but you're not necessarily truly confident. Your confidence is probably extremely conditional. And so we need to unplug and start to be with the feelings and breathe and open and allow them. Interestingly, I was running today, and I was experimenting with this, you know, running without headphones and just being and feeling a lot. And as I was running around this park and. And it was a beautiful fall day, so it was, like, cloudy and then sunny and then cloudy and sunny. In this moment, there's, like, these big clouds that had just moved away, and the sun was shining again. It was a bright blue sky, and the leaves were changing colors. It was kind of wet from a rain the night before. And I just was breathing and feeling and breathing and feeling, and it felt like this. Like my heart. The phrase that came to my mind was, it feels like my heart is being ripped out of my chest. I know that sounds dramatic, but sometimes our mind can be dramatic about what we're feeling, right? It was just a really strong sensation. It wasn't comfortable. It was, like, painful and achy and I don't know what. There was no specific thing that I was like, I'm so sad about this, or this is bothering me. It was just feeling. And then I remember one of my teachers that I've learned a lot from. His name is Donnie Epstein, he talks about sometimes we think. He said to me, aziz, you know, you think you're in here? And he pointed. He said, you think your heart is in here? And he pointed at me and touched my rib cage and pointed right at the center of my chest. And he's like, your heart is not in here. It's in here. It's out there. And he pointed, and he pointed at Candace's heart, and then he pointed out the window. This was in Colorado, and there was some, like, mountains in the background. He pointed at the mountains, and he said, it's out there. And he said, it's in another galaxy. I was like, okay. And I was trying to get it intellectually at the time. I didn't really get it. But in that moment when I was running and it felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest, I said, yeah, what if it isn't in my chest? And I breathed fuller and deeper. And then I saw the tree line at the edge of the park, right? The tips of these evergreen trees, right against the blue sky behind them. And I imagine my heart. One of my heart's in the trees. And then there's these big billowy white and gray clouds forming underneath the sun, just shifting and changing in this fall day. And I imagine my heart's in the clouds. And this is metaphor, right? You can take this for whatever you want. It means a lot to me. It might not mean a lot to you. It didn't mean a lot to me at first when I first heard it. But he's got this big distinction between internal and external and the energy source that, you know, all that stuff that I've learned from him over the years. He's an amazing teacher, and you can check out his stuff you want. His name is Donnie Epstein. He created Network Spinal Chiropractic. I interviewed Ian Chambers a few times on this show, who's been doing Network Spinal work for a couple decades. Anyway, boom, all of a sudden, things started to shift, and I felt way more open and could breathe more freely. Everything. You know, there's like, this wisdom that's coming, and it's partially from teachers I've heard, partially my own insights. And it all happens when you create that space, and then you start to be able to make better decisions, better decisions for you. What's right for me here? How do I want to do this? How do I want to play this? What's the next best step? And I don't think it's always Do X. It requires more nuance than that doesn't it. So in my case, I have been running more recently and I did a couple of these big treks in the mountains. I think I recorded a podcast about it around the Mount Hood one. But I ran around Mount Hood and then Mount St. Helens and then the Sisters in central Oregon. And that one was 55 miles. And I was like, whoa, if I can do 55 miles, you know, can I do 100 miles? And it was very exciting. And so I signed up for a hundred mile race and then I was like, oh my God, I'm terrified. What have I done? This is awful. And then I was like, okay, I'm gonna deal with this by like training, you know, if I train hard enough, then I'm gonna defeat this thing. And I was. So let me give you the rundown. I sign up for this thing and I'm instantly terrified, right. Cause I love this stuff by the way. You commit to doing something that you're scared of and what are you doing? You're flushing out all your old garbage, your old identity, all the stuff, all the limiting beliefs, all the past hurts, everything you force healing and growth. That's what I love. Because if you try to heal something like someone's like, I'm gonna heal my past relationship trauma, I'm gonna heal from my this thing or that or whatever, and then they're single and not dating significantly, not really opening their heart in any way for five, seven years, I'm like, I don't know if you're healing much. I mean, you could be learning, you could be figuring out a new way to be in a relationship that's healthier or better partner selection. I mean, you could be growing for sure. But the real growth, the real transformation into a new life and a new version of you and new everything is going to occur when you actually start to enter into love and experience the opening of your heart again with someone else. Because then you get to all you get to flush out that pain that you thought was gone and that time that you get your heart broken and all that stuff and you get to heal it, right? So that's exactly what's happening when I sign up for this race is all these old stories of lack and broken and blah, blah, blah, you know, flush out. And so my solution to deal with is like, I'm gonna get certainty here and train really hard. So I come up with this rigid training schedule. I'm gonna run this amount of miles, this amount of miles, this amount of miles. Never mind that in the history of my running Experience, which is like three or four years now. That kind of regime worked, never works, you know. And so I start with that and then I go. And all week I had like five running days, right? And all week, every running session I got the headphones in non stop. And there's almost like. You ever experience that? There's almost like an anxiety to go for the run without the headphones. It's like, oh my God, I'm gonna be out there by myself with my brain. I'm terrified. So I did that. And after the fifth day, my body started to hurt and started to tense up and I started to get uncomfortable and irritable and all this doubt's coming in. And one of the people that I have learned from, I referenced him earlier in this episode. You may have listened to his book Can't Hurt Me by David. His name is David Goggins and he is a just a badass, inspiring human. If you haven't listened to his book, I highly recommend it. It's called Can't Hurt Me and it's his story of, you know, from his grown up in an extremely abusive household to present day, where he has overcome odds that are astronomical and done things that are basically superhuman. And a fascinating guy. Lots of like pithy one liners and just very. Such a character. You really, at least for me, experience really drawn into his life and his story. But his philosophy or ethos can be really summed up as like, you know, take discomfort on and step up and face it no matter what. And I remember myself like trying during the week to be like, yeah, we're going to hit this. We're going to be uncomfortable no matter what. Let's go. And then, you know, after five days, my body's in pain. Now if it was David Goggins, he would run through that shit, just eat the pain up like a juicy cheeseburger and keep going. But I know for me that doesn't work. And I really, really tried the Goggins philosophy three years ago, you know, just to push, you know, what have I pushed further and further and further and further? I mean, that dude ran on broken legs, right? So I mean, broken shins you can listen to in the book. So maybe I just needed a higher level of pain tolerance. But my version was like, I was not able to just keep pushing. And at the same time, I'm fascinated by this other runner and her name is Courtney Dewalter and she is basically, I maybe can make a case. I think it's pretty clear that she is the greatest Female ultra runner. Currently right now I'm recording this 20, 21, but she's just domination mode in all these races and not only shatters the course records the previous winner, which was often her from a year or two ago, she beats that, beats her own time, beats the course. And not only is the fastest woman in these races, but often is in the top five or top ten of the men. And in some races, she's the overall winner among men and women. And particularly in some of the long races, she's done. So she runs 100 mile races, she does 50 mile races, she does 150 mile, 200 mile races. She runs this race called the Moab 240, 240 miles. And then I was watching this other video of her doing this event called Biggs Backyard, which is a pretty unique setup where you run four miles, you have an hour to run four miles. You complete those four miles, you have however much time you want to take to rest before the hour. If you get done a few minutes early and then you do it again, and you do it again, you do it again, you do it again, do it again until you want to drop. And they start with, I don't know how many runners, but basically it's the last person standing, right? So you keep going as long as there's at least one other person who's going to keep going. And so after, you know, 24 hours, 24 hours, by the way, of running four miles every hour nonstop, no breaks except for those five minutes or 10 minutes when you're done. And then you get to do it again after 24 hours. Some people start dropping maybe a little before then, too. So that's all day and all night and then all day again, you know, 36 hours, still going. Some people, more people keep dropping. Now it's all night again. 48 hours. More people are dropping into the next morning. Insane. So two days and two nights straight of running, no sleeping, no breaks, nothing except for these few minutes between each lap. And then they're down to like five, I think. And then it keeps going, keeps going. And one of these five is this woman, Courtney Dewalter. And I think it's all the other four are men. And then it gets down to her and one other guy, Johan something or other from like Sweden or something. And it's just the two of them, and they just keep going and going and going and going. And neither of them is quitting until 62 hours. And it's like, you know, the middle of the night, midnight or something. And Courtney stops after 239 miles. 239 miles. Straight insane, right? Just so. And what I love about watching interviews with her and stuff like that is she is completely the opposite of David Goggins. Like, there's just no David Goggins in her at all. She's, like, bubbly and kind of laughs a lot. And I listen to these interviews, and people are trying to get at her, what's underneath and what's the demon inside that she's facing and all this stuff. And, you know, she's kind of like, hey, you know, it gets uncomfortable, and I keep going. And there's a lot of wisdom in her philosophies, but they're so. It's much more fluid, feminine, and it's like a dance with these painful things versus, like, the just fucking punch it in the face and keep going. And I love that. And when I'm watching the videos of her, like, sometimes I'll just feel this. Like, it's like my heart is, like, absorbing this new wisdom. It's like, aziz, that's what you need to reach the next level, to do something you've never done before. You can't just punch your way through this. There's gonna be more nuance here. There's gonna be more flow, more fun, more feminine, more joyful. And, look, it's gonna be super uncomfortable. But when you hit that intense discomfort, how do you coach yourself through it? And it's not just words. It's an energy. It's an attitude. It's a feeling. It's a sense. It's a mindset. And so as soon as I did that, I was like, ah, okay. So I had these five days. I had the weekend to kind of recover and recuperate and be with my family. And then I was like, okay, okay, I'm gonna do this differently. So I went for a run. That was a run around the park this morning, where I let my heart be ripped out into the trees, you know, nad normal stuff. And then told you, man, burning man is psychedelics. Maybe all those psychedelics are still floating in my brains. That'd be a good thing. Honestly, I'll take it. And I'm like, before last week, it was like, x amount of miles to get this. This thing and this miles and this miles the next week and this and that and that's. And this. I was like, I'm just gonna go out and run. I didn't even look at my pace. And I was like, oh, I'm gonna go for seven Miles. Cause that's my goal is today. But I'll run and I'll see how I feel. Maybe I'll do five, maybe I'll do six, maybe I'll do seven. I don't know. Can you feel? It's already way more fluid and flexible. And guess whose training plan is like that? Courtney Dewalter. So what she does is she says she doesn't have an X. I'm gonna do X on X day schedule. She says if I do that, I don't get to listen to my body and change. So some days I'll go hard and go all day and some days I'll just do nothing. I mean, she's generally running probably a lot most days because she's like this ultra elite level. Right? But there's wisdom there. But I didn't get the wisdom from constantly taking in the input and then writing it down and trying to make it happen. It was receive input and then space and silence to be with yourself and let the wisdom emerge. So it's almost like you are navigating your life with the wisdom of others and maybe the wisdom of something else that comes through. That's not even what you heard from a teacher. It's just your own sense, your own knowing, your own intuition, your own, well, your own connection to God, really. And that brings us back to what I was sharing earlier about being guided. And so you know what I realized over the weekend? I was talking to Candice and highlighting some of the ways I was feeling stuck or attached or stressed out by this new goal. And she's like, you know, when you were running around the mountains in the summer, it was a very different thing. You know, you were connected into something. Like you were kind of guided to go do these big treks out there. And you just did it. And it didn't have the same energy that you're doing this with. And I was like, you're right. All of a sudden when it became like I'm training for a race, it took on a whole different mindset, a whole different. It's like I dropped some template onto it about how it's supposed to go. And she also highlighted that I would come back from these day long adventures out in the mountains and just talk about how much I felt connected to spirit and God and the mountains and just how nourishing it was for my soul. And I felt like I was receiving wisdom often not even verbal, like a clear, you know, do this or do that. Just this is good for me to be out here. This is What I need. This is helping me grow in ways that I can't even verbally describe yet. And she's like, you know, I don't think that guidance only exists when you're out on the trail. It might be the easiest place for you to feel it. It's not like the guides are like, here's what to do next. All right, you're on your own. Goodbye. Right. Maybe there's a way to stay tapped in. I was like, yes, yes. That's why I married you. You're so good. And so the next morning, I woke up and instead of popping out of bed right away, I just laid in bed for about 15 minutes and just felt and was like, what if that guidance is available right now? Not just when I'm out on a trail or something like right now. And not just for big things in life, but small things for life. How do I navigate that? How do I connect with that? How do I receive that and use that for today? And that will be my invitation for you for our action step for today. Time for action. Action, action. So your action step for today is going to. Well, one, create some space. Some space to listen and feel and receive. And then two, you know, when you first wake up, how can you open yourself to receive more guidance? And if you have a particular religious framework where you connect with God or Jesus or whatever language you use, great. You know, through prayer, through chanting. If you don't, you're more agnostic, then can you open to the universe? Can you open to receptivity to the divine, to the forces of creation? And if you're a staunch atheist, well, maybe you can just open to the flying spaghetti monster and it will give you the guidance that you seek. Whatever works for you. So thanks for being with me. Today was. Well, today was a bit of a rambly one. I appreciate you. I'm hoping that this. This is fresh stuff for me. This is what I'm experiencing right as I'm recording here. And so it maybe not have the same polished quality. I don't know if my shows ever really are polished. I don't know. But I want to bring you into this experience with me as I'm going through it, because sometimes there's a way to preserve an image or perfectionism, right? It's like, oh, I'll teach about the thing from five years ago. Like, I remember when it was charred back then, but now look at me. I got it all figured out, right? It's like, well, here. Here's me figuring out right now. Here's me getting messy and confused and struggling and pushing too hard and needing to find my way. So thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to 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. Sa.