Choose Door #3 To End Social Anxiety

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 Shrink for the Shy Guy. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz. And today we're talking about how you can take door number three to end social anxiety. And this is very fitting because I actually have a virtual event coming up that's all focused on that. How to become more bold, more free, unlock the socially confident version of you. And if you've been listening to the show for any length of time and you've never come to one of my events, virtual or in person, maybe now is the time. Because I'm going to share something in this episode that is going to be teaching you how to take door number three, and you might go do it. That's my hope. My dream for you is to go learn what you're hearing on the show and go do it. You also might not. I have a story to share about that in just a minute, but. So if you want a place that's going to really help you practice this stuff at a whole new level, an environment that's actually surprisingly supportive, fun, warm, and you're actually probably gonna have a hell of a lot of better time than trying to do everything on your own. Come check out this upcoming event. It's a virtual event you can attend from anywhere in the world. It's extremely accessible. We're doing a super early bird right now where your ticket goes down from 497 to $97 for three days of this event. And the event's gonna be in July. You can find out all the details if you go to drazeez.com that'S-R-A Z I Z.com and then look under the events tab and you should see everything about it. It's called the ultimate confidence Breakthrough. I'll share a little bit more in this episode about it, but. And how it relates to taking door number three. But definitely consider taking advantage of that. Cause it's something that's Going to help you go a lot further and a lot faster. So what are these doors and how do you take door number three to help you free yourself from social anxiety? I'll share that in a minute. But first things first. I mean, you've been listening to this show maybe for a little bit of time, but I have to say this because it might not seem obvious. Can you actually end social anxiety? Can you free yourself from social anxiety? Or is that false? Is that misinformation, false information, wishful thinking, false advertising hype? And I would say the answer is yes, you can. Now, does that mean you never, ever, ever, ever feel anxiety again? You never experience social anxiety again? No. I mean, I think that's kind of an absurd extreme. That's like saying, I don't want to feel a certain human emotion ever again. That's not going to happen. Right. You're going to experience all of what life has to offer. And at the same time, when I say free yourself from social anxiety, I mean, it's a rare passing experience, like any anxiety might be. Oh, man, I got this stressful work situation, I got this stressful health situation. You know, maybe you feel some anxiety about that. Totally normal, right? Oh, man, there's all this social stuff going on. I feel a little bit of nervousness or a little bit of anxiety, okay? But that's it. Most of the time you don't. And it doesn't in any way stop you from being who you want to be. Expressing yourself, speaking up, being bold, being direct, making friends, dating relationships. To me, that's being free from social anxiety. And that is 100% possible. And that's what we're going here, going for here by going through door number three, right? So just to get that clear. And there's a part of you that's like, I don't know about that for me. And I don't think I can just notice that what's going on there. Look at the comfort that we get from telling ourselves that things are stuck and static. And I'm not going to change. At least I know who I am and what the future will hold. It's bad, but I know it. Right? And if you're doing that, if you're getting that booby prize of certainty, just start to question that. And that's something I talk about in a lot of other episodes, so I'm not going to go deep into that. But just to address what we're going here for, what is it really like to free yourself from social anxiety? And then we gotta Take door number three to do that. What are these doors I'm talking about? Well, this actually came about from an in person event. I did my first in person event in three years, not that long ago in Portland, Oregon. And it was amazing. It was called Liberate yourself. And in it we spent four days going deep on how to free yourself from the cage of social anxiety, from the cage of niceness, to be fully you. And in that experience, something came to me. I started teaching and using as a metaphor throughout the whole three days of the event, which is in life, in any given situation, a workplace situation, a social situation, dating, you have a choice, and there's three different doors you can go down. And this idea originally came to me because my kids, who are 7 and 9 right now, love riddles. And the riddles are sometimes interesting and good. For example, I am lighter than a feather, and yet the world's strongest giant could not pick me up. What am I? Give you a moment to think on that one. Lighter than a feather, but even the world's strongest giant can't pick me up. What am I? Well, I'm just gonna tell you that one. You could noodle on it later. But it's a bubble, right? A giant can't pick up a bubble because it will pop. Okay. Anyway, my kids love these riddles, but some of them are absurd and don't make sense. My kids are making them up. They don't have accurate answers or they have like 10 different answers, but it's not the answer they're thinking of. But anyway, so I got this idea of, and one of the riddles they, they came up with was, there's three doors to go down, and behind one door, you know you're trapped. You have to escape, let's say. And behind one door is a huge swimming pool of piranhas you'd have to swim through. Behind the next door is lava that you somehow have to like jump across without burning yourself. And the third door, it's got a bunch of saber tooth tigers behind it, you know? Which door do you choose to free yourself? I'm not gonna let you sit in suspense for too long. The answer is door number three, because sabertooth tigers are extinct. These are good, huh? I could do this all show. No, but I'm not going to. Don't worry for our, both of our sake. But I was just, I just heard that riddle maybe a week before for my kids, before I was teaching that event, and I said, you know what? Those three doors, that's kind of how you get to choose every day how you're going to live your life. And much like the riddle, two of those doors lead to, if not death, the death of your spirit, the death of connection, the death of love, the death of your social life or success. And one leads to liberation. So what are behind these doors? And don't worry, it's not another weird riddle. This is actually about how you can become more free. So behind the first door, this is how you choose to show up today. Behind the first door is you try to be perfect. You strive for perfection. I'm going to look the best, I'm going to act the best. I'm going to put my best front forward. I'm going to be a great Persona. I'm going to be whatever I think I'm supposed to be. Funny, kind, pleasing, generous, masculine, feminine, sexy, whatever. I do dress. I'm supposed to dress how I'm supposed to dress. I'm really going to try my best to be amazing and perfect. And not only that's like today's choices, but I'm going to work on myself and improve myself and master these things and just become so awesome that I'm perfect. And then if I'm perfect, well, I'm gonna have fixed myself of all these problems. I'm gonna feel better about myself. I'm certainly gonna be a lot more lovable. And so I'm gonna pursue that. That's door number one is perfectionism. And if I pursue that enough, then I'm gonna have all the love and success that I could want in my life. And look, this isn't a deep dive into, you know, if you can't optimize things, you can achieve goals through effort over time. No, I'm talking about. I'm going to be this idealized version of me. You know what I'm talking about? Whatever that version is for you, the one who's always witty and always funny and never has anything in their teeth, that's the perfect version. And so many people. And you might have done this. You go through life trying to be this way, trying to appear this way. And I mean, ultimately, maybe trying to even be that way until lousy life shows up and shows you that you're not that perfect version. What the hell, man? You know, maybe you. You do have something in your teeth. Maybe you aren't funny. Maybe you stumble. Maybe you have an awkward moment. Maybe you don't know what to say in a conversation. Maybe you don't perform in a certain way. Maybe your energy isn't up to it and you just kind of, you know, roll your way, limp your way through the meeting. And now what do you do? Well, for most people when they choose door number one, there's a lot of stress, a lot of fear. This is where imposter syndrome is born. People are going to see the real me. They're going to see that I'm a fraud. Oh, no, got to keep up the front. It's the worst. If you try dating. I tried dating this way when I was a lot younger. And you know, at best you get a date. But now, even if it goes well, now there's all this stress and anxiety about maintaining it, right? So that's door number one. It's very stressful. And then if you fall from your illusion and life shows you that you aren't whatever you're demanding of yourself, then you hate yourself. You have this onslaught of self rejection, self hatred, guilt, shame, inadequacy. And after you've been kicked in that puddle for a while by your inner critic, then maybe you try to dust yourself off and say, I'm going to try extra hard to make sure I'm super perfect moving forward. And then the cycle repeats. That's door number one. That's like the piranhas. It's not, it's not pleasant and it doesn't really get you the life that you want. Door number two, and it certainly doesn't save you, help you release social anxiety, because you're going to always have anxiety in the background because what if people saw the real you? What if people saw that you didn't always have it all together, Right? So you're not free from social anxiety and you're certainly not living an extraordinary quality of life. Door number two, I'd say, is even more commonly chosen by people, especially if you experience social anxiety, which is to hide, it's to avoid. So the thing that's happening for you that is not perfect, you hide it from everybody. You live in a lot of shame behind this door. I don't want people to know this about me. I don't want people to know that about me. So there's, there's two ways of hiding, right? Well, there's probably a thousand ways of hiding, but two big ways of hiding. One is to literally not go places. I'm not going to go to that party. I'm not going to show up to that thing. I'm not going to go to that work mixer. Dear God, I'm definitely not going to go to that conference. No thank you. And that could be Literally not going at all or not going to the meal part where people are talking. You grab your food and get out. You use your cell phone and hide in a corner to look like you're busy so no one comes and talks to you. That's one form of hiding. It's literally avoiding the contact with others so that they can't see or know the real you. The second form of hiding is the hiding in plain sight where you're not, you know, standing behind the bush trying not to be seen at the dinner party. It's a funny image, like this potted plant. And you're behind it. Like a bad spy movie, Mr. Bean kind of spy movie in any case. No, in this one, you. You do. You are seen. You are. This is the purview of the nice person, by the way. You. You are seen. But you only show what you are wanting people to see. So you hide a lot of the unseemly stuff. So someone says, how's it going? You say, I'm doing great. How are you doing? Let's keep the conversation on you so we don't have to look at me. And that could be having to focus on someone else and not having a lot of eye contact as much with people. Sharing, but keeping it short. Sharing, but keeping it polite and pleasant, you know. So what do you think about issue X? And you say, well, I mean, issue X is a lot of ins and outs, a lot of what have yous. I'm gonna say a lot of mixed, vague things so no one thinks I have an opinion that could upset somebody. Right. And you go through not. People don't really know you. They don't really know what you think. They don't really know what you feel. And this, you know, is. It's not the most magnetic, I'd say, with new people dating socially, work contexts. But at worst, it's. It's actually very lonely because even in close relationships, the person's like, do I really know you? I really see you? Do I really feel you? Or am I. Where are you? Can't really get a sense of this. And sometimes people have been living this way so long that they'll get feedback from their partners. Like, I don't. I feel like it's hard to connect. Like, what do you mean? I'm right here. We just did something together yesterday. I don't know what you're talking about, but the truth is, it's because you're not. You're hiding so much. You're not fully there. That's door number Two, that's the lava. Also kind of depressing, very depressing. And look, you don't have to just pick one of these doors. You could sometimes, sometimes pick door number two, sometimes pick door number one. But neither door is getting you the life that you want. And it's certainly not freeing you from social anxiety because door number two, avoidance equals anxiety in life. Avoidance equals anxiety. When you avoid something, you're going to become more afraid of it. Your brain is going to interpret it as more of a threat or else why would you avoid it? And so you avoid it. And then now it's more scary in the future, so you avoid it again, double hard and the cycle continues. And if you do that long enough, it can entrench into a way of being, into a personality. And you might even say, I'm a private person. I don't like to let people get that close to me. Maybe you even form ideas of like, people are untrustworthy. And so I have a reason not to share myself with people. And look, look at that person over there and look what happened when this person was over there. I tried to be open with my spouse, you know, 30 years ago, and we divorced. And that showed me that I can never trust anyone again. And so you might have all these crusted stories and identities built upon it. And all the while your life is passing by another week, another month, another year. Are you really alive? And that's what door number three is about. And if you really want to take door number three, I'm going to share about it here with you. But stay tuned in a minute. I want to talk more about that virtual event coming up because that's really what we're going to be doing together is taking door number three. So what is door number three? That thing that you don't want people to see you share it. The talk where you might give a mistake, you give it and maybe you make a mistake. The emotion that you think is unsightly, you let your partner see it. You tell them, I'm feeling stressed out, I'm feeling irritable, I'm feeling pouty right now. I'm hurt because of this or that. You let people in, you let people know you, you let yourself be seen. And look, when you hear me say that, you might be like, oh yeah, duh. Brene Brown talked about vulnerability. Everybody knows that. But are you living it? Because if you just heard it in a frickin TED Talk, you don't know it. You know you know it. You can see the effects of if you're knowing it or not in your life by what kind of relationships you have and how much anxiety and social anxiety you experience. Because the more you let yourself be seen and known, which is taking door number three, the better you'll feel about yourself. The better your self esteem, self compassion, and being on your own side, and the less social anxiety you'll experience. And this isn't just some theoretical hope or idea. This is based upon decades of experience working with clients and guiding them through encouraging them, creating environments that support them in taking these risks for themselves. So it's not just taking my word for it and having some concept that's an actual change in your experience. And so there's a gentleman who at the event, stood up and shared something. And it was about an exercise we do. My events, virtual or in person, are very experiential. I don't want to just talk at you for three days. I want you to do and experience things so you really feel the change in your own experience. And so anyway, we did something and there a lot of feeling was coming up for him. And so he stood up and he was sharing. And it wasn't even that, I would say deeply, shamefully vulnerable or something. It was just like, whoa, I'm feeling a lot right now. I'm feeling emotional, I believe was the word he used, which is a very high level descriptor of what you're experiencing. Right. It's not the most raw and real. It's just saying, I'm feeling emotional right now. And you could hear it in his voice too. He sat back down. Other people shared. I didn't really think much of it. Right. That's just what we were doing. It was a sharing segment of the event. He came to me during one of the breaks and was like, hey, I want to talk to you about something. I said, okay, you know, I got just a minute before we're gonna start up, but what's up? He said, well, I mean, that was really intense for me to share like that with the group. I had to take a moment and like, think about it. I was like, what? What did he share? Did he share something really intense? I don't remember him doing that. And I thought, oh, geez, did I like, space out? Uh oh. And then I thought about it again. I was like, no, I think he just said he was feeling emotional. So I was like, oh, when you stood and shared that you had feelings after one of the exercises? And he's like, yeah, I mean, I just felt like I wanted to, man. So Many stories started going. I just wanted to get out of the room and run away and not come back. I was like, whoa. So just even letting others know that you even feel feelings is shameful. He's like, oh yeah. I said, wow, I'm glad you're telling me and you're in the right room, brother. Like that is. Gotta heal that. I mean, feeling emotion. I mean, I'm afflicted with something. I think I've caught a case of human emotion, right? I mean, and it's absurd when I'm teasing him like that. But yeah, he. Where did he get that? He got that from his family probably, right? You know, he should be strong. You should be as a man. You should only do this and you shouldn't feel that and all these stories that came in and as long as you're avoiding it, right? He's not letting anyone see anything or as long as he's trying to be perfect and be like, huh, I finished that exercise and I feel great. So liberated right then. Then he's staying, he's going down his doors number one and two and he's staying in the cage. He's not becoming ultimately free. And so to his credit, he actually shared again later that day about the discomfort about sharing. And it was moving and people are drawn to him. And here is the ultimate secret. When you take door number three, your safety police is going to freak out and say, people are going to reject you, you're going to die, your relationships are going to be over, you're going to get fired, your life's going to end. But the truth is that's how you experience deep connection and love and ultimately freedom and the peace of just here I am, this is me. Who are you? You can really approach others that way. And what a beautiful foundation that is to create deep connections, social relationships, friendships, romantic experiences, work progress, even being a supervisor or boss. Like, here's me, let me find out about you. And yes, we have a job to do. But I don't need to pretend like I know all the answers. I don't need to act like I have it all together. There's another gentleman I worked with who was in a position of leadership. That was one of his goals in the mastermind program 12 month program that I run. He wanted to become a leader in his life and in his business and his career. And he did. He made some major progress and then he got promoted and he was a leadership position. And then he had all this anxiety and he felt all this pressure to be take door number One, as a leader, you gotta be perfect. And one day during a group call, I was like. He was. All this anxiety. I was like, what is the pressure you're putting on yourself? What are you supposed to be like? He started to list it out. I'm supposed to basically know everything about every issue in the company in every meeting. I'm supposed to have an answer immediately to every problem. And he started listing it out. And me and the other people in the group are looking at each other like, what the hell is he talking about? How unreasonably absurd. And as he said it, he's like, yeah, I know, but I feel that. I said, okay, what about a leader who is. Their attitude? And maybe even what you literally say is, hey, you know, we're here to solve problems and progress this project. I don't know every solution to every problem. I want to know what the problems are, and I'm going to have ideas, and I also want to hear other ideas. But I know one thing, that we're going to solve every problem along the way to this launch. I was like, can you feel the power of that? There's a confidence in, like, we're gonna do this, but not some crazy pressure of, like, I know everything. That's absurd. Besides, I was like, who here. I talked to everyone in the group. I was like, who here would want to have a boss who thought they knew everything? And the moment you brought anything up, they instantly had a solution without hearing anything more from you. Nobody raised their hand. Nobody wants that. That sounds like an annoying, arrogant, very hard person to work under, right? Because, like, hold on a second. You don't. I've heard enough. We're going to do this. It's like, oh, it's a terrible solution, right? So, no, we don't actually want to be that. You don't need to be that. You can let yourself be seen and known. And in the spirit of doing that, I'm going to invite you to take the leap to come to my next event, which is going to be a virtual event you can attend anywhere. It's called the ultimate Confidence Breakthrough. It's three days focused on helping you free yourself from social anxiety and unleash the most bold version of you who's not afraid of one thing, which keeps you in the cage of social anxiety. You're afraid of one thing. Rejection. That's what this whole episode is about. If I'm me, if I go down door number three and say, hey, this is me, someone's gonna be like, ooh, that's you, you can you go back into the cage, please? Right? And that's the fear. We gotta learn how to overcome that fear. I'm gonna teach you how to overcome that fear. Overcome your default rejection pattern and how to change that so you don't respond to rejection the same level of pain, self hatred, shame, and inadequacy. And then you're gonna have opportunities at this experience to go practice door number three, being seen and known. Because you can hear me talk about it till I'm blue in the face in this episode, but until you start to experience it and guess what? It's not a one time thing. This isn't a go out there and do it and then everything is resolved. Like this is a way of living. You need to start practicing this and I would suggest start practicing it now. And the sad truth is, a lot of people you know, you might hear this episode and it becomes theoretical and you dabble a little bit. But if you really want to make a transformation, I would encourage you to take the leap. Join me in the room. It's a hell of a lot more fun, a hell of a lot easier than lone wolfing it. So if you want to do that, go to draziz.com that'S-R-A Z I Z.com click on the events tab. And then also there should be a thing called the ultimate confidence Breakthrough. We'll have one on the homepage too. So you just click it. Get your early bird tickets now. Or it's just $97. Or if you want to go to the VIP version which has longer trainings, extra bonus trainings, a whole lot of bonuses as well, then you can do that for, for 297 during the super early bird. So now is the time to dive aboard. And if you've already been to one of my events, it's a great opportunity to re up charge up. Let's. Let's do this. So speaking of doing things, time to take action. Now, maybe joining the event is your action step. But let's say you wanted to apply what you're learning in this episode. It's time for your action step. Time for action. Action. Action. So your action step for today is going to be to take door number three, right? Test it out today. Share something you might not normally share. Let something that you might normally gloss over and put a perfect Persona up. Let yourself be seen and known. I mean, it might even be simple as holding eye contact a little more than you normally do, right? That's letting yourself literally be seen as you're sharing something or as you're talking to somebody. And it could be more than that. You get to choose that. You choose your own adventure, but definitely choose it, test it out. And then ultimately to free yourself, you got to do it more than once. You got to do it a lot. It's got to be a way of being. And if you really want to become free, that's the way to do it. This is based upon, again, everything I'm teaching you here is based upon 100% applied, practical, proven methods. There's nothing here that's like, ah, I read this, it seems interesting. I've never done it, but I've never seen anyone do it. But maybe you should try it. That's not how I roll, man. It's got to be. I tested this. I'm using this with people that I'm working with. This is how it's working. You go try this out. And so it's the same with all these action steps. So go test it out. Trust me, this one works. I know that one for sure. And it's gonna be profoundly life changing as you do it. Alright, thanks for being with me today. 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. 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 shrink for TheShyGuy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com.