Dr. Aziz answers Wasif about repeated dating rejection and social anxiety. Rejection doesn't mean you're unlovable, he says, but often stems from parental withdrawal or internalized criticism. He recommends gradual exposure practice, scaling back anxiety-driven behavior, building relaxed confidence, and deep self-acceptance work.
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Rejected, unlovable, just totally helpless and hopeless. This is going to be an uplifting Q and A episode. Stay tuned. Here we go. You stay tuned. And now, here we go. This is a question from Wasif and he says, can you please do a video on the reasons of getting constant rejections from women for people struggling with social anxiety and how to avoid the trap of believing the story that I'm unlovable. When your mind says, see, you're constantly getting rejected, therefore you are unlovable, it's an airtight case, isn't it? Alright, look, here's how it is. You're unlovable. You go approach some women, they don't like you, therefore you're unlovable. It's reinforced. Qed. What you say after a proof? I don't know. It stands for qued. In any case, Ouch. I know, I've been there. And this one's tough. This one is really tough because we can say, hey, I am taking action. I'm putting myself out there. And it's supposed to go well, I'm supposed to put myself out there and see that my fears are false and that I am lovable. And then I, you know, sail off into the sunset with my new lady friend. Not always. And there are a number of reasons for this. In fact, when I work with people and we do coaching in my mastermind program and elsewhere, we're like unpacking. Like, what's really going on with you? Why is it not working? So stage one, someone is in fear. I don't like myself. I'm unlovable. I have all this anxiety and they don't take action. Well, they're screwed. Stage two is they start to take action. And so I'm looking for that in my group program. And also I'm like, who's taking action? Who's not? How do we get the people who are not taking action to take more action? Because I know that over time action brings results and boldness in life is rewarded. But what do we do in this case with Wasif when, like, they're getting bad results, they're not getting what they want? Well, there's a number of things I would look at. One is, how many times have you done this? Cause if it's like, sometimes I'll talk to people like, oh, yeah, I'm approaching people and nothing's working out. I'm like, okay, great, well, let's get into it. I'm so glad you're taking the action. Let's find out how many have you done Three over like the three week period. I'm like, okay, all right, well, that's a little small of a sample size. So that's one thing. Reasons you might be getting rejected. First of all, you're not getting rejected because you're unlovable. That is complete and total fucking bullshit. That's just this horrible toxic loop of our inner critic that's just attacking ourselves. We have these stories that we're not lovable. We got these stories from when we were a kid, from moments when our parents or people close to us rejected us either directly and harshly or subtly withdrew love. And then we're like, ow, that hurts. Ow, that hurts. Ow, that hurts. Ow, ow, ow. And then we internalize it. I guess I am bad. We make it about me, not the limits and the capacity of my parent to give and receive love. And look, everyone's parents have a limit on their capacity. Even me and even my wife Candice, who. My wife Candice is one of the most loving people I've ever met. And I would say I'm a very patient, very conscious dad. And I've studied this stuff a lot. And I have my limits on how much I can love. I have my moments where my son will do something. I'm just like, you know, and as much as I don't yell at him and call him names and stuff, but he can feel withdrawal of my love. I'm like, and I'll narrat, I'm like, I'm angry right now, you know, and I'm trying to work with myself and not blame him and all that stuff. So he's going to feel that, right? I'm doing the best I can. No one's perfect. And you might have had it way worse with one of your parents. So there's a limit on how much love that we can get from our parents at any given time. And if it's small, parents are restricted or closed off or armored in their hearts, have their own issues. Take it out on you. The then you're going to get more of this message of I'm not enough, I'm not okay, I'm not lovable. It's complete and total bullshit. It's not about you, it's about them. And they're not wrong. They're just human. And what we need to do is we need to wake up and say, look, it's not about this Global. Lovable or not, everyone is worthy of love. And think about this. There's an oak tree outside of my house right now. I look and see in the window. I love that thing. And then you take that oak tree and you have another oak tree and you say, which oak tree deserves more love isn't an absurd question. There's two, like, you know, hawks in the sky. Which hawk is more worthy of my love? It's absurd. It's just there is no inherent property in the hawk. It just is. You just are. And there are people that will love you just like there are people that love oak trees. And there's people that fucking hate oak trees. I don't know what's wrong with those people. It's just an oak tree. Chill out, man. There's people that hate hawks. I don't know why I think hawks are cool. I like hawks. So the same thing for any human. There's people that like me and then there's people that don't like me. What's up with that? What is wrong with them? Right? And the same thing wasif and anyone else watching. Like, there are, you know, if you're interested in women for dating, there are women that are going to like you. There are women that are gonna love you. There are women neutral towards you. There's women that are gonna dislike you and women that are gonna hate you, even if they don't even know you. And same thing, if you're interested in dating men, whether you're a man or a woman, men that are gonna love you, neutral, hate you. That's just how life it is, and it has nothing to do with you. Now, you might say yes, but I keep getting these rejections. Okay, so what's happening? There is some way that you're presenting yourself, some way that you're behaving not quite resonant with attraction. That's it. Just learning something different. So what is. What can be off putting to people? Well, one is if you're really, really anxious, you could be really bound up. Just imagine going up to someone and being like, hi, my name is Aziz. What's your name? I don't know if you're doing that, but, you know, maybe it's a toned down version of that. I know that the more relaxed and confident I got when it came to approaching women, the better results that I got. And the more tense and nervous I was at the beginning, the more I had some really fucking awkward, messy interactions. So you want to just anticipate that. And that's why I was saying about the numbers. Like, how many times have you done this? So if someone said three, I'm like, yeah, let's make it 30. And then they're like, because we have this idea of approaching women or doing something we're scared of, we're like, oh man, that's terrible. And we've avoided it most of our lives. And then we learn we gotta take the action. So we're like, okay, well for how long? How many actions do I gotta do? Like, certainly no more than five, right? And then I could just be done with this shit. It's like, no, how about 50? And you're like, oh, no, man. Like, I know that's why you pay me, because I make you do uncomfortable shit. Actually, I can't make them do anything. I can just present what I think will work and then they get to choose. But so what are the numbers here? And here's another thing that can really help you is sometimes the action itself is just too anxiety provoking for us. And then what we gotta do is we just gotta dial it back. So if you, you know, every time you're approaching a woman, you're like sweating and uncomfortable and tense and your heart's beating, you can't talk or whatever, then scale it back a little bit. You know, just practice saying hi to women as you walk by. Make a daily discipline of that. I'm going to go out for, I'm going to park 10 minutes away from my work, or I'm going to, in my lunch break, I'm going to go to this thing, I'm going to walk up and down this busy street, or every time I see a woman at a barista at the coffee shop, I'm going to chat with her. Like I'm just going to get more comfortable interacting with women that I'd normally be intimidated by. And you can just do this with anyone. You know, interacting with humans can help you actually in your dating life too. Not just focusing on the ones that you're most attracted to, but just anyone. Because the more confident you get, the more relaxed you are on people, the more it's going to translate to those that you're most attracted to. So scale it back. And here's the other thing about that. We have to do it. You can't just be like, oh yeah, totally, that's a great idea, I'll dabble in that once. Never. You got to do it regularly. And the clients that I work with that do it regularly get results. So we have to go do the thing that we're uncomfortable, but tone it down a little bit, then you can build up. This is called gradual exposure, by the way. I go super in depth into this in all of Confidence University, but especially in the Dating Mastery course, there's multiple courses inside of Confidence University. If you're not familiar with it, it's TheConfidenceUniversity.com you can learn all about it. There's a link below in the description as well. But in there there's a Dating Mastery course and that is all based on gradual exposure. And that's how we take people from being afraid to date. And this is of course for everyone. Men, women. When you want to date men or women, doesn't matter. Just the same principles going from like, I can't do it to like baller status. And then way beyond how to really create extraordinary relationships too. So gradual exposure, super powerful. The more tense you are, the more uncomfortable you are, the less positive responses you're going to get. And also, this is the kicker. I'm going to end with this one. If you are like, I'm unlovable. No, I. I know it, I feel it. Ugh. What's happening is there's a lot of self hatred going on, right? You judge yourself. You don't like yourself. You don't think much of yourself. You don't think you deserve much. Now what message is that sending out to the world around you? And this is another key thing I cover in the dating course inside of Confidence University, but also at my live event that I do once a year called Unlimited Dating and Relationship Confidence. The whole first day of that event, really the whole event, you know, we teach strategies and skills and how to practice this stuff. But ultimately it's. How do you feel deep down that you're 100% worthy of love in a relationship? Because as long as we're like really against ourselves and doubting our value and don't think we're very good, it's really energetically we're pushing everyone away because we're doing is like, I'm this. This piece of shit. Who would want this? Do you want this? That's what we're communicating. Even if we try to. Hi, how's it going? Energetically, it's oozing out of us. You don't want this. You don't want this. And there is all kinds of fascinating research that's coming out in the last 10, 15 years about ways that we're influencing each other with our thoughts and ways that people can pick up on other people's thoughts and all this stuff. Like we affect each other. It's not just your nonverbals, it's your energy. It's what you're emitting in your thoughts and your emotions toward yourself. So what you might want to work on WASIF and anyone else who's struggling with this deep core inner self acceptance stuff, Confidence University can help you do that. My books can help you do that. This channel can help you do that. My podcast, Shrink for the Shy Guy can help you do that. But you got to work on it. You got to really get on your own side and really start to accept and love yourself as you are. And then you'd be amazed at what starts to come your way without you even changing anything. So I hope this serves you on your path. If you're enjoying this video and want more and want the Q&As and find out what's going on and click the subscribe button and then the little bell next to it so you can get notifications when it comes out and then comment below. What are you taking from this video? What are you finding most valuable? Until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon.
