Anxious About World Events? Do This!

Do you feel anxious about events that go on around you? Perhaps what other people are doing in your workplace or your industry or in your broader community or social circle? Maybe it's even further out. Maybe you watch the news or read different articles and you feel anxiety or sadness or pain about whatever's happening, whether it's conflicts or economic changes or just change in the world, and you feel freaked out, like, how am I going to survive? I'm not safe. What's going to happen? If so, watch this video. Cause you're gonna discover what you can do and how to access a source of confidence no matter what happens in your life, around you and then in the broader world. Fantastic. I'm Dr. Aziz. I'm the founder of the center for Social Confidence. And I am here to help you become your most bold, confident, free self. If you wanna take things further, you can click down below, then the subscribe button. That'll help you see these videos as they come out. And also make sure you check out Confidence University, which is a home study course that I have that goes in depth. That's like me being with you, hunting hundreds of hours of training to become the most bold, confident. You not leave it up to chance, but to actually follow a proven system. And the tools and strategies inside of Confidence University are based upon both my clinical background. We use empirically supported tools that have been shown to reduce social anxiety radically and increase confidence. Plus I combine a lot of strategies I learned from my own life. And then coaching literally thousands of people in therapy and then in coaching that I've worked with in groups and events and other places to help them make these shifts. So this is a proven system. If you want that certainty, that step by step. What do I do next? Check Confidence University out. So what to do with this anxiety? You might have a strong sense of it. Maybe it comes up in these big waves of panic. You know, when it's late at night to early in the morning. Maybe it's just like a background buzz or tension that you feel, you know, what do you do with this? And first of all, just to know you're not alone. I mean, this is extremely common. We have this really interesting era in history where we, with phones, devices, other can, at the click of a button or flick of a finger, can see something that's being recorded by another person on their side of the world. So it makes you really plugged into this network of humanity. And so you might see a lot and feel a lot. And here's the thing, everything is happening right now simultaneously on the planet for humanity. The most beautiful things, the most generous, the most like awe inspiring things that would make you cry with how amazing and sacred humans and life is. And then the most horrific things, the most scary things, the most destabilizing things, the most aggressive or toxic elements of humanity and it's all happening simultaneously right now in this moment. And that's kind of hard for our minds to comprehend. We want it to be all good or all bad, or don't want the bad or if there's bad, then why is that happening? And you can spend a lot of time and trust me, I have, trying to figure it out, trying to make sense of it all. And I'm gonna share some simple tips that will help you be confident, function and thrive and make the biggest positive contribution you can while you're here and not get just totally derailed. Okay? So first things first, you look at your sphere of influencer control, right? What do I control? This is a basic philosophy, this is taught way back in stoicism, all the way up through more modern cognitive therapies, right? But it's like, what can I do right now, today? And here are some basic things that you do have control over, right? You obviously don't have control over what's happening in the broader world or conflicts or changes on large scale political or geopolitical things. Right? You don't have control over that. I don't have control over that. You probably don't have any influence over that. Right. You know, you could put up, you can go protest or something, like, maybe, maybe you could be a part of a movement like that, but you're not going to radically change the course of human history. I'm not going to shoot you down, but less likely, right? So what do you have control over? You have control over what you focus on. Where do you direct your attention? And what I invite you to do is start to notice. Where am I focusing my attention? The days you feel more anxious, where are you focusing your attention? Are you taking in a lot of media? What media are you taking in? What are you watching? Random news stories, Disturbing events. Okay, how long did you do that for? 5 minutes? 20 minutes? An hour? 2 hours? This stuff can start to be addicting. It gives you a jolt of energy. It's kind of stimulating all these different stress hormones in your body. And then your mind's like, ah, danger, danger. I gotta watch more of the danger. So I'm prepared for the danger. You're, you're not prepared for the danger by watching more of the Danger. You're freaked out. You're not functional. So what do you need to do? You need to determine where do I want to put my focus on creativity, on contribution, on serving, on doing, on making, on connecting. What makes me feel more alive, what supports those around me? What am I here to do on this planet? Focusing your attention to that will start to strengthen you and energize you versus drain you. The next thing that you can choose is your perspective on any particular event. Right? This might be think you can think of as the meaning or the lens at which you look at it through, and you get to choose that. You know, there's a book I read a while back called the Zen and the Art of Happiness, which I thought was a really great book by Chris Prentiss. And in that, he talks about your personal philosophy. How do you make sense of this life, of this complex world, and there is no one thing you get to choose. The question, though, is, are you choosing that consciously? So as you're taking in information, you're filtering it through this personal philosophy, and you might say, oh, look, another bad thing happened to people. Look, bad things happen to good people. This life is awful and brutal, and you might not even know it. That's your personal philosophy, and you're reinforcing it every day. And if that's your personal philosophy, how alive and happy do you think you're gonna feel? There's always something horrific to feel awful about. And so if that's your personal philosophy, then you will. And so choosing a superior life philosophy, perhaps you can choose the principle of utilization. No matter what happens to me, I can use. It doesn't matter if it's painful or if it's pleasurable. In fact, the painful events actually bring me forward more. Have you ever seen that in your life? Have you seen that? Painful experiences, the worst experiences, might have just motivated you so much. You got so frustrated, so fed up that you actually went and did something about it. Whereas if things were going good or okay, you're just like, meh. You know, I noticed that even at just a small level in my life where sometimes I have, like, a lot of demand on me or pressure or something, and I'm like, I don't like this. But I'm like, more on it. I'm more, you know, fit and active. I'm more productive. And then when things are going really well, I'm kind of like, yeah, I'm gonna just, you know, dink around on YouTube for two hours. Oh, my work day passed. Right? So some of that pressure, some of those challenges, can actually serve you. Another philosophy that I choose personally, and this isn't right for everybody, this is something for you to choose. Everyone's got to choose their own personal philosophy. The one that I choose is that there is a guiding force. There is a weaver who is weaving this web in this cosmos. That's a personal choice that I chose to adopt after having been an atheist for many years when I was younger and kind of guarded and upset at the world, to being someone who wants to be able to open my heart and give as much as possible while I'm here and receive and have this circulation that allows for an extraordinary life of growing in my capacity to give and receive love and making a positive contribution while I'm here. And so I found that philosophy is very useful for me. So when calamity strikes, when bad events, quote, unquote, bad events happen, I'm looking for how am I being guided right now? What am I being guided towards? I may know, I may not, but I know that it's happening and I'm going to search for it, I'm going to find it. And ultimately this is guiding me for what is best for my destiny. And you might say, how do you know that that's true? I just choose it and I reinforce it. You might say, well, how is that true for someone else? They're having a horrible thing that happened to them. And how do you say that that's guiding them? I mean, how dare you? I'm not saying that's their personal philosophy. They can have whatever philosophy works for them. I'm saying that's what I'm going to choose for myself. And they might choose to adopt that, too. It might serve them, but they don't have to. And so I invite you to choose your personal philosophy. Third thing and final thing I'm going to share in this video that you can feel more confident. No matter what's happening in the broader world is you get to choose and you have control over your values and how you show up today. So how do you want to show up? Good times, bad times, everything's going smoothly. The world's on fire, Rome is burning. Right? How do you want to show up today? And simple things. This is like your core values of who you want to be. You have control over that. So how do you want to show up? Do you want to be playful? This is a big one for me because I can get serious, I can get intense, and my kids are like, daddy, play with me. And I'm like, I can't play. I gotta be intense and serious, right? So I remind myself, like, hey, one of the ways I want to show up is playful. Not just with my kids, but with you. In these videos, with family, with friends, with clients, in work meetings and financial meetings, is bringing humor and play. Why? Because that's how I want to be, no matter what's going on in the world. I feel like humor is up there in sort of the ladder of human states, right? States of consciousness and spirituality. It's like humor's got to be high up there, right? It brings levity, it brings aliveness, it brings vitality. So I want more of that. I also want to be determined. I want to be committed, I want to contribute. I want to be physical. I want to breathe, I want to be connected. I want to be present. So these are things that I get to choose right now, and I have control over those. So what are the things that you want to show up as? How do you want to show up today? No matter what's happening in the broader world, what are you doing that helps you show up confident? No matter what? Share down below in the comments. We can all grow. We can all learn together. The world is changing faster than ever before. And that doesn't have to stop you from being confident today, taking bold action today, and living your life by your values, on your terms, and then creating a positive impact in the world around you, in the sphere that you can influence. 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.