Confident No Matter What with Nurjahan Boulden

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 confidence no matter what. Because we talk a lot about building confidence in this show. How to develop your muscle, the skill of confidence through learning strategies and then action. Building that confidence day in and day out through bold action, consistent action, and really becoming who you're meant to be. And we tend to, especially once you've broken out of that first shell of I can't and there's something wrong with me, which as you've listened to this show, you know is complete and total bs. There's nothing wrong with you. You're not broken. You don't need to be fixed. It's just some patterns we need to change and some old stories that we need to update. But as you're doing that, you probably have noticed some growth. You've developed some progress and some more confidence in different areas of your life. Social, dating, relationships, work. And if you haven't, you may want to consider coming to a live event that will kick things in gear for you. Go to socialconfidencecenter.com and there's an events tab there at the top and you can look at all the live events. We're going to be doing four a year starting in next year. We've done three this year and, man, they'll kickstart you like crazy. But as we make this progress, whether it's at an event or on your own or whatever, there tends to be this, you know, it's almost like a fair weather growth, you know, like, have you ever heard of that term fair weather camping? That's what we do, me and my family. You know, we go out when it's nice. We go out in the summer and maybe the spring, but we don't go camping in the winter. We're not that hardcore. And so we're fair weather campers and a lot of us are fair weather confidence growth people. That means when everything's going my way and I feel pretty good, then I'll go out there and try some stuff to develop my confidence. And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's what you want to do. However, what if all your confidence growth is, is preparation for when life throws you stuff that's beyond what you prepared for, beyond what you are anticipating? Right. So let me give you an example. Let's say you're developing your confidence to be more assertive at work. And so you're practicing saying no, asking for what you want. And you're doing that in the context of whatever work environment you're in. Pretty stable place. Great. What happens when someone at work comes and challenges you out of the blue, comes and accuses you, says you did something wrong, says you're not doing it right, blames something on you. What if you find out that people have been talking behind your back at work right now? This is not the confidence that you went out and sought or the training that you went out and sought. This is what you've been building your confidence for so that when life happens, you're ready for it. You follow what I'm saying here? Now, what I'm so excited about is to have an interview today with someone who demonstrates this to the nth degree. Because we're not talking about a co worker talking behind your back or getting fired or a breakup. I mean, those things can shake our confidence enough. How about being shot? How about someone dying next to you? These are intense experiences that my guest has been through and then used to grow. So instead of it contracting and collapsing, it actually led to what's called post traumatic growth. Now, as you'll hear in the interview, it wasn't that quick and simple. It didn't happen overnight. In fact, it was a long journey to get there. But my intention, first of all, she's an extremely inspiring person. And secondly, by listening to this, you're.

Going to realize a couple of things.

One, our problems that we think are problems are not real problems. I don't want to dismiss your challenges, but for some perspective, it could be like, well, could be worse. And then secondly, notice how no matter what life gives us, we have a choice. Do I contract? Do I collapse? Do I go into victim mode? Do I go into, it's not fair. I'm broken. Or do I step up? And my guest today is Noor Jahan Bolden, who's the world's leading coach for survivors of gun violence who are ready to feel safe again. And she has a powerful story of her own of being involved in gun violence, which we'll talk about in the interview. But she's gone on now to help thousands of people all over the world not only just recover from this or heal from this, although those would be absolutely sufficient. But actually, let's go the other way. Use these experiences to heal, feel safe again, and then thrive. Thrive in life and grow more than you ever would have had you not experienced that tragedy. And because of the work she's doing, she's been featured all over the place in the media, Cosmopolitan magazine, L.A. times, Women's Health Magazine, the Trace, and a bunch of other places. So without further ado, let's dive into that interview with my guest expert, Nurjahan Bolden.

So thank you so much for joining us on the show today, Nurjahan.

Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

So you and I have had a number of conversations, and I felt like as we were talking, I thought, man, I want to record this, to share it because it's so valuable. So now we are doing that, and I really just want people in my audience and people listen to this podcast to learn from you, because the way that you have grown from your experiences and the way you communicate and share is very inspiring. And you walk your walk. So just for those listening, we did a little brief introduction here, but just so people can get up to speed, why do you do what you do? Why do you help people shooting survivors and help to help them kind of reemerge and grow into life and make it this transformational experience? Why do you do that? Why do you focus your energy on that?

So actually avoided anything to do with my shooting for almost a decade afterwards because I was so scared of facing everything that I had been through. And then it wasn't until I got to the point where, you know, everybody's rock bottom looks different. But for me, it was for sure rock bottom. Where I was so depressed, filled with so much anxiety, just struggling on a daily because of what happened to me, that I ended up reaching out and getting the help that I needed, not in one moment, but many moments over time. And as I started kind of reclaiming my life and being able to really be all the way me again and even a better version of myself than I had ever been and finding ways to actually follow my dream again. You know, my dream of being a dancer and being active again and feeling free in the world just to move through life without fear, I realized how many people around me were still struggling, how many people, even people who had experienced gun violence. You know, in my 17 person office that I worked in, five people had experienced gun violence and were still struggling and suffering in silence. So there are so many people that were struggling.

Wow.

Yeah.

And you'd be, I mean, it's. It blows my mind every time, even when I'm interviewed or I'm just speaking to people casually, how many people come out to me saying, oh my goodness, I experienced gun violence too. But I never really thought about how much everything in my life has been impacted by it until, you know, hearing your story or talking to you about how things changed. So.

Right. Well, it seems like the, you know, the incidences of gun violence create an intense or can create an intense experience of mortality, awareness of mortality, survival, life and death.

Absolutely. And literally.

Right. For people that are around that. And so what can emerge from that? And I know from hearing what you've shared about your story, there can be this like, shutting down, like a lot of fear. Fear and then this kind of shutting down. And there's so many people who have not experienced that, who and yet still shut down and live in fear and that desire to control everything, to be safe. And so it can happen. It can happen no matter what. It can happen because we are sensitive and grow up in a household that has aggression in it or intensity or it can happen when we get bullied and when we're younger. And a lot of things that, that people listening to the show have gone through. And yet what I love about your story is that's such an intense form of exposure to that and it can lead to such a strong form of that fear and closing down. And so when you were, you reached this rock bottom point and then you start to step by step get help and emerge. What was that process like of kind of coming out of that anxiety of that fear?

Yeah, so, and I just want to say what you just said, I wholeheartedly agree with it. And I have people come to me who have experienced just such a wide range of things. Everything from being picked on to, you know, going through a divorce or having a troubling relationship, whatever it might be experiencing the same symptoms just in a different kind of way. So mine's kind of the more extreme version of it and it makes it more apparent. But it's so many people experience this kind of thing and find their path to reclaiming their life. For me, when I was going through that process, it was a combination of excruciating and also the most freeing thing I have ever experienced in my life because in some Ways I had to face things that scared the crap out of me. You know, little things. Some of them were really tiny, and some of them were really big, but either way, they were scaring me, and I had avoided them my whole life, so it was hard to get myself to turn toward them regularly. But for every win that I got, the more expanded, the more free, the more excited I became. And it just started feeling so empowering that it almost became a trigger for me, a positive trigger. You know, as soon as I start to feel that shutting down, that. That anxiety, that fear, I realize, oh, my goodness, this is an opportunity for me to expand. You know, it's a. It's an opportunity for me to face this, to move through it and to grow. So it's been like a freaking awesome roller coaster. Just. I never knew that life could be so exhilarating. It's been wonderful, especially on the other side of most of it. It's been incredible.

Yeah, I know what you mean. And that. That exhilaration that. That does have maybe fear or painful emotions involved in it, as well as excitement and joy. It seems like the ticket, the cost of the ticket for that ride is doing exactly what you said, which is being willing to face the fear and face those excruciating moments.

Absolutely.

It's like, otherwise, you're just, like, on the side of the roller coaster, kind of sitting on the stand, watching it go and be like, oh, I bet that's fun, but I'll just stay here.

You know, with my blanket of, yeah, even worse. You think, oh, my goodness, I would never want to do that, or, I can't do that. You know, you're looking at everybody else riding these roller coasters and thinking they're just special or different or, you know, they haven't been through what I've been through. They don't know how hard life really is, or they're naive when in reality, oh, my goodness. Man, I wish for all that time I knew what I was missing out on. Like, I was. I was missing out on life. I was living in default mode, protecting myself from living instead of living on purpose, if that makes sense.

Sounds like this reactive. You know, it just sounds like the primary program I'm running is, how do I stay safe?

Yeah.

And all I need to do is.

Get through the day.

And so you've been living that. You lived that for a long time, for years. Reached this point, this threshold moment of like, I can't do this anymore. And then you start to face your fear. Like, what are some of that you said things that you have avoided maybe your whole life. What are some of the specific fears that you faced?

Yeah, so some of them were related to my shooting, and some of them were related to really following my dreams. So the related to my shooting pieces were, oh, my goodness, everything from going out in public without having to map out an escape plan or feel extreme anxiety when I'm going out to the movies or going out to a concert or something like that, being able to just enjoy it and allow myself to really process the emotions while I'm in it. Everything from that to. To being okay with being alive. I was. I was really. I was beating myself up with extreme guilt for surviving when so many other people don't make it. And every time I heard about somebody not making it, I would hate myself even more for having survived and couldn't understand why, you know, and hated myself for that. So those were some of the things that I was dealing with from my shooting. Then when it came to following my dreams, I realized that I needed both. I couldn't just resolve all the feelings from my shooting and then be like, all right, good, now I can live my little happy protected life. Because I still wasn't very happy, you know, I still was scared to take risks, scared to be the one to help other people, scared to even dance, you know, I had a leg injury. I was shot with an assault rifle, and it shattered my tibia, and my tibia never fully grew back. It was a. A non union, a bone nonunion. So I walked with a cane for about eight years, and it just deteriorated. It got worse and worse. Even when I got the surgery that I needed eight years later, I still had so much emotional baggage and physical pain because I had been walking on a broken leg for eight years, that I was embarrassed to try to dance again because I knew I would never be the dancer that I used to be. I believed I would never be the dancer I used to be. And I didn't want anyone to see me being. You know, it sounds so silly to think of now, but I didn't want anyone to see me being a bad dancer. I wanted to be who I used to be or nothing at all. And I wasn't even willing to try or to start, take that first little step forward and compromise who I ultimately wanted to be, just to start. So those were things that I really struggled with. And I also struggled with the idea that I would be. I looked left and looked right and tried to find who's the person that's helping survivors, who's the survivor who says, hey, if you've been through this, I've been there. I came out on the other side happier than I've ever been before and I can show you the path to get there. And I couldn't find that person. I so badly wanted it to be someone else. I was looking everywhere until I realized, oh, my goodness, this has got to be me. But I didn't feel worthy. So I struggled with confidence a lot. I struggled with my self esteem in so many ways. But all of those, in the same way that I had to face my past fears, I also had to face the idea of moving forward and maybe being amazing. You know, that was a fear. But also maybe stumbling and falling and tripping and having everybody watch me as I failed my way forward. And both of those scared the crap out of me. But having resolved so many of my past fears and realizing how much better my life could be, I decided to just. I used to say I'd peel off my face, like, cringe and then just dive in and pray that everything worked out. And sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't, Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. But, man, is my life a million times more incredible than I could have ever imagined it being just because I tried. And I continue to try and take those leaps and risks every single day. And I'm only going up from my word for this year is rise. And I feel like every single day that's exactly what I feel like I'm doing. So it's been incredible.

That's beautiful.

I love.

There's so many things that you shared in there that I could just. We could drill in on forever, but I have to just let them go. And there's so many gems in there. So thank you for sharing that. And one of the ones that stood out to me was you. Just as you were sharing that, you said, it seems so silly now when I look back at back when I was afraid to dance and, you know, dance again and maybe not be good at it. Why? From your perspective now, that's silly. What? Say more about that. How is that silly? Why do you see that as silly now?

Because I think from this perspective now that I can look back, I have so much, so much more compassion for myself than I had back then. Back then, I was so hard on myself all the time and I needed to be all or nothing. And I was willing to give up my dream because I wasn't willing to be, you know, the greatest I could possibly be. The first time I tried. What actually helped Me. And is it okay if I tell a quick story about the first time I went dancing? Okay. So it had been a very long time, over a decade since I had danced. And this was my deepest passion. This was freedom to me, dancing. And I reached out to. There was a survivors group that had just started on Facebook and they didn't have any injured survivors, but I figured I'd reach out anyways and ask for some advice. And I asked, does anyone have any advice on physical recovery? Because I really want to be able to dance again, but I can't figure out how. And this woman posted a video of a man who had been in a car accident. He had been paralyzed from the waist down and he was teaching other people who are paraplegic how to do yoga. And I watched this video and I was like, man, if this guy is doing yoga, he's following what he, he loves. He's teaching other people to do it. I have two legs and they almost all the way function, you know what I mean? To whatever degree they can, right? One of them struggles, but I have them. They're there. What's my version of paraplegic yoga? Like, what am I, what can I do if I can't do everything I want to do? And so I decided I was just going to try it. Every time I tried to go running, I would get frustrated because I would have switched so much pain and I couldn't actually do it. So I'd walk instead, but my leg would hurt and it would be felt like a waste. You know, walking is not that fun. So one day I tried to run, failed, was so frustrated, but I was listening to really good music. So I just decided, you know what, I'm just going to start dancing. And I was out in the street. I was in my little suburban neighborhood, okay, in this little tiny neighborhood where everybody knows each other. But I was like, screw it, okay? It's a Sunday morning, I don't care who sees me. And I started dancing a little bit. You know, I was embarrassed a little bit at the beginning, but then I started just dancing full out and just dancing my heart out. And of course my leg hurts sometimes. And then I'd slow down, I listened to my body. But as I was dancing, I made it to a main street. It's a really multi lane street. Cars were passing by. I knew they were watching me. And every time a car passed by, I imagine that it was filled with people who knew exactly what I had been through, who knew that I had gotten shot when I was 21. Years old, that my dreams felt like they were shattered in that moment and that they were watching me and cheering me on and just being like, you can do this. You're amazing. You've got this. And just imagining that it helped me feel more compassionate for myself. So I danced my butt off all the way around the entire block. Got some beeping. Hopefully it was good beeping. Who cares?

Either way, it was them cheering you on exactly how you saw it.

Exactly. And so I started going on dances and actually going on those dances. Not only did it help me build compassion for myself, but it helped me understand what hurt, what didn't hurt, and then to just allow myself to adjust based on what my body was telling me until I got to the point nine months later where I ran for the first time, and then I ran for the second time. And it hurt. But I just loved on my leg. I did my best to love and accept. I had a lot of frustration around the fact that I couldn't physically do what I wanted to do. And I let myself process those emotions as I was running. And then I kept running, kept running until this year, for the first time, I joined a soccer league. So I've been playing soccer. I've been teaching dance. I feel 1000% free in my own body, which doesn't mean I don't feel pain. You know, A couple weeks ago, I had to walk with a cane again, and I felt I was a little defeated, but I bought myself a brand new purple cane and got some matching purple lipstick to go with it and rocked it. And I think because of that, it passed really quickly because I just decided to have fun with it, you know, and just enjoy whatever I can get out of it and let go of the rest.

Yeah. And it reminds me from my own experience with pain, just, you know, how much it's emotional and energetic and how we respond to it. Just, you know, I don't know what percentage, and I don't want to try to say for everyone what it is, but it seems like it's like 90% plus of all these different pains we have is heavily influenced by these things. And so it's fascinating to see that something that could have been something that was in place and so surreal, like, oh, it's my broken leg, so this is gonna have to be this way forever. And then all of a sudden, you really start to release in those dances. What I hear, there is just a deep releasing of embarrassment and fear of what other people are gonna think, and just how much that's, like, stored in you, in your leg and elsewhere. And just how much it's like when you face that and really see that there's no threat, like someone judges you or whatever, you don't even know, or it doesn't even matter, or it's a ant compared to the sacred mountain that is your ability in your own self and your own growth and what you're here to do. So it's just. It's nothing in comparison to that.

Yeah, it actually blew my mind because I thought that it would be impossible because mine felt, this is a very real injury. You know, my bone was shattered. I have arthritis, I have whatever. All of these things that have titles and names almost like excuses.

If they're Latin names, they're even. They're even more official.

And it almost felt like, okay, I have a legitimate reason that I can't get better. I was looking for the reason that I couldn't get better instead of looking for the possibility that I could. The possibility that what felt impossible was absolutely impossible and it wasn't going to happen in one moment. And that was hard for me. I had to process that too, but that over time it would. And again, when it came back weeks ago, I was like, man, I haven't walked with a cane in over nine months. How is this happening again? It's okay. Let it go. Don't let that be. I didn't need to have another emotion telling me why I can't. I just needed more permission to know that it was going to continue to get better no matter what.

And I think there's something about. So I've been really fascinated by pride in probably the last couple of months. I was rereading David Hawkins book Letting Go and looking at the emotional scale he's got in that book, and pride being one of the emotions. And for some reason this time reading it, that really stood out to me because I always thought of pride as thinking of someone who's sort of arrogant, prideful, that kind of thing. But what I realized this most recent go around was that the way that pride manifests for most of us is actually not that. It's actually this obsessive fear of what other people are going to think, because that's just as much pride as I got to be better than everyone. It's like everyone's looking at me and, oh my gosh, I got to look good for everybody. And it's so pride oriented. And what is part of that, and this relates back to the physical healing, is I found this in myself too, going through a Lot of chronic pain recovery. There's moments where there's this huge breakthrough, and you're like, oh, my God, I'm liberated. I'm free. I've solved it. And there's this desire. I think it's pride, though, to be like, now I got it. Now I'm invincible. I'm the one who, like, just the total success story and then never had pain again. And then there's. When the pain returns, it's. You know, that scared part might say it's forever, but it's really not. As you demonstrate, you can work through it pretty quickly, but there's still, like, this ego bruise of, like, oh, man, got the pain again.

Oh, my goodness. So, me, I had that really badly because I was doing this big speech. I was speaking at a commencement, and I was literally walking with a cane all week. And part of my speech was about how I can run, I can dance. And I was like, I cannot show up to this commencement with a cane. Like, I can't say all of these things. And as I'm becoming more and more well known for the work that I do, there's this part of me that feels like, you can't do. You can't let people see the fact that this comes back up, because then it completely undermines everything that you're saying. Everyone's gonna think you're a fraud. They're gonna think that you don't really know what you're talking about because, look, you still have to use this sometimes. But I was a big part of my pride I had to work through because it was. I think, I believe it was also stopping me from being able to physically recover because I wasn't being compassionate with myself. I wasn't letting myself feel what I needed to feel with my leg in order to be able to work through that pain in that moment, because my pride was blocking me. So I'm finding new layers as I continue to do this work and continue to speak, spread a bigger message. That message isn't necessarily, look, I did these three things and then snapped my fingers, and everything was gone. It's that these are tools that last a lifetime that can help you when things come back, because they do sometimes.

Or in different ways. And what a more powerful. Like, I think pride. And it is in the scale. Like, pride limits us from being more powerful. And I think what. You know, it's like, all the most power of the prideful part says, like, the most. The best speech is the one in which I'm like, I was here and now I'm here and you can too, you know.

Yeah.

Get to know me. But the truth, which is actually way more powerful, is I was here and then I had this, you know, this huge breakthrough with so many insights, and now I'm here. And sometimes I go down and sometimes I come back and here's what I do, and it's just so, so much more relatable and human and like, who in the audience is like, oh, yeah, it's all gone forever. Like, they're like, but wait for me. It comes back sometimes. How does she deal with that? You know? And so your teaching becomes that much more powerful when you have the courage and the vulnerability to be like. And sometimes it comes back. And here's how I work with it. And I'm still. And I'm still not broken. I'm still not.

I will.

I will still rise.

Yeah.

And I mean, I am.

Yeah.

The inspiring part is that the joy is inevitable, that the healing is inevitable, that the feeling free in my body is all inevitable because I have the tools. I know how to get there. It's not. Yeah. It's not unhappily ever after the end. It's almost these hero stories that we tell so often that are unrealistic and they're inspiring to hear, but they're not helpful to the people who are listening, if that makes sense, because they're not realistic.

Sure. I think, you know, if you got like a minute, sure, give them the. Give them the hero story. But if there's like more time, then you can really. And I know the work that you do where you're really, you know, actually talking to people who have made. Got to the other side of gun violence and are now recovering and ultimately using it for a post traumatic growth experience. As you really work with people, you know, of course it's up and down, you know, all stuck and then all liberated. That's just, as you said, a story. But that actually reminds me of something I wanted to. To ask you about, which is the person you were looking for when you were trapped and stuck in that fear was like someone who's saying, hey, I made it to the other side of this and my life is more amazing than I ever thought it could be. And then you realize that that person is you to spread that message. And that's awesome. And I love that discovery of a. Of your purpose or one of your purposes in this life being kind of discovered or revealed to you in that way. And yet that is something that I think most people like. Man, if we could Internalize that, knowing that this thing. And again, what I love about your story is it's like other day to day things, but just the dial is turned up to an 11. Right. So yeah, getting, you know, being in that bad relationship or abusive relationship actually could be the best thing for you because it led to blah, blah, blah or whatever. Getting fired could have been that. But if you take it so far as like getting shot and having your leg bone shattered and watching people around you die, which is everyone would agree, like a horrible event that no one would want, and yet that even that can lead to something, to good, to something way better, that is something that is part of your message and I think is so essential for everyone to be able to apply to whatever it is that we're going through. So the question is, do you believe that? Is that like a philosophy you have about everything, like every sort of quote, bad event actually has the seeds in it of something great? Or do you not take that to every event? What's your way of working with that?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think the really quick and simple answer would be, I don't have any concrete beliefs in my life anymore. I used to have really concrete beliefs and I'd be like, everything that's like this is like that. And now I realize that, you know, I like ideas better because ideas allow for openings and they allow for other people to find what it means to them. So the idea, yeah, is absolutely that I think, I won't even say I believe. I think that your best, most expanded, most free life is always on the other side of your biggest fears. So whatever horrible thing has happened in your life, whatever you've struggled with for a long time, it can be, I just feel insecure. You know, I don't feel good about myself and I can't pinpoint when it started. I just feel that way. Or it can be some traumatic event that took place. It could be anything. But whatever it is that scares you the most, that is going to be the catalyst to get you to the best parts of your life. And I, for a little while I was like, it's, that's what your dream is. That's what you're meant to do. That's your calling in this world. But that's for everybody to determine for themselves. You know, it could just be your hobby. It could be that you go out dancing on the street every once in a while because it makes you feel free, or it could be that you're out there helping other people find their freedom. I Know, for me, the most incredible practice that I've started is I write down all of the things that if I'm looking forward, I write down all of the things that I want to accomplish, and I choose the one that scares me the most, and that's the one that I do first, because I know that's gonna expand me and provide openings for every single thing that I want to accomplish. I also look at what's scaring me the most in my life right now. You know, whether it's a goal that I want to move forward or something that's haunting me from my past. Whatever it is, that's the thing that I need to turn to, and that may be the direction I need to turn to move forward. But I. I wholeheartedly believe that if something bad has happened to you, and I. Remembering how I felt a long time ago, if you told me that this shooting was going to be a positive part of my life in any way possible, I would have thought that you were crazy and delusional and just didn't understand. But the truth is, on the other side of that is everything you've ever wanted. And the longer you hide from it, the longer it's going to haunt you, and the more you're willing to stand up to it and work with it. Not necessarily fight it or fight through it, but work with it and maybe get the help that you need. If you need help through it or just be able to face those fears, your life is going to be beyond anything you can imagine. I believe that fear is like a ring around the life that you know. So when you have that ring around your life, it's hard to see outside of it. Right. All you see is everything inside of inside of the life that you know with the fear on the outside. But when you break through that fear, you see. See so much more for yourself than you could have ever imagined. You can't really see that. You can't even believe that it's possible until you break through each layer of fear. So, yeah, I just. The idea of facing fear excites me beyond belief now.

Yeah, I love that, and I absolutely resonate with that. Seeking fear out after having spent so many years avoiding it and experiencing the results of that way of being and then getting a taste of the opposite. And that just really shifted to like, oh, yeah, this is a much better orientation. And do you need to remind yourself of that or kind of motivate yourself to do that or come back to your why, or is it just the lessons of your life? Have so made that so apparent that it's not even really an ongoing choice anymore, you know, because the practices you're talking about list everything I want. And what's the most scary thing? What am I scared of in my life? I'm gonna move towards it. You know, people hear that, and they're like, yeah, yeah. Just like, they hear, you know, work out every day and do this. Like, yeah. And then they, you know, it's day four, and they're like, yes, it's hard. So do you feel that? And if so, how do you work with that maybe part that resists or doesn't want to do scary stuff?

Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Of course. Of course. If I ever got to a place where I was like, you know what? I'm just good at life. I think I'm good. I got this, then that, to me, is a sign that I'm not willing to grow. If I'm willing to grow, if I'm ready to grow, which I hope that every day for the rest of my life, I'll feel this way. I ask for a guide in my life. I ask for a guide, and I ask for a community. Now, it depends on what people believe in. You know, whether you believe in God or the universe or whatever. Whatever you might believe in. I just put it out there. I just say, you know what I really need right now? I would really like a guide to help me with. Fill in the blank. Whatever it is that scares me right now? It's money. Like, I would really like a guide to help me with money in my life. And when I say it out loud, all of a sudden, things start coming toward me, so I'll say it out loud. I have two guides now who have popped into my life to help me with money, and they. For me, community is really important. I think for most people, community is really important. That's the. That energy. So I like to join programs. I love coaching. I think coaching is phenomenal. And what I love about coaching is that it's not about diagnosing or telling you what to do. It's really more about asking the right questions so that you can find the answers that are already inside you. And it's about showing up. And I. And having that community really helps me to show up, even when I don't want to show up. So, absolutely, I get scared of my fears all the time. In fact, when I write those lists and I choose the one that scares me, I try my best to call myself out to everybody that I possibly can. Hey, everybody. I'M working on this program. I'm super nervous about it. I don't know how the launch is going to go. So know that if I go into hiding, please try to pull me out because I probably need support at that point. And then I'll show up and let people know when I'm having a hard time and try to get all the help that I need. The difference between the old me and the new me was that I was scared to take up space. I was scared to tell people that I was having a hard time. I wanted to be the brave one. I wanted to be the one which I didn't know. I didn't necessarily know what brave meant. I thought brave meant sucking it up, pretending everything was okay. But I wanted to be the one that people went to instead of the person who went to people. And I realized that when I reach out for help, it gives other people permission, other people in my life to reach out for help when they need it too. It actually builds connection. It's a two way street. And when I wasn't doing that, I wasn't helping anybody, I wasn't helping myself. But I also wasn't helping the people around me because I didn't have any capacity to help anyone. I was holding in too much. So I always, I reach out for help constantly. I love help. I take up space when I can and that allows me to provide space so much more space to the people I love than I've ever been able to do before.

Yeah, just it feels like circulation of sorts versus hoarding or something, like I'm gonna keep it all inside versus like, you know, and that's that circulation being like giving and receiving, whether it's support or help. I just think of that actually as an expression of love. And it might be a very skilled kind of nuanced expression of love if someone is giving you coaching or specific guidance or teaching. But it's still this energy that you're receiving and then of course you then can give more because you've received and it just feels like this. And back to what you were saying earlier about being really open to life and it therefore being more exhilarating. And what's interesting is you mentioned coaching and I know that's how we met. We were in a group coaching mastermind together. And what I was curious about is this growth that you experienced to emerge from what many people would describe or diagnose as ptsd. And from some of the stuff you're describing, did you overcome the stuff and the help that you needed? Was it through coaching or did you need to go through a more medical or clinical approach? Did you use both? What was your experience with that?

So I actually tried. I tried to do therapy. I tried it probably like seven or eight times throughout the 10 years. Yeah, I was. In some ways, I gave up. I gave up after I had a bad experience. I would give up and I would take. You know, I wouldn't go back for a while, but then I'd get desperate and I'd go back and try a different person. So I went about seven or eight times and I. It just never really resonated with me. I can't say, oh, and I had horrible people and they were. This isn't that. It just. Therapy wasn't, at least in the way I experienced. It wasn't what I needed, it wasn't what I wanted, and it wasn't working for me. And so I. I randomly met this woman. I had asked for a guide. I'm telling you, asking for a guide out. I was really in a bad place and I needed help and I asked for a guide. And I was pretty specific about what I wanted. I wanted a woman. I'm Muslim, so I wanted a Muslim woman that I could confide in. But in my religion, there aren't a lot of spaces for just women and women leadership. But I happened to go to an event and a woman was there and she was talking about processing emotions. And then she set up. I went up to her afterwards. She said she was putting together groups and I was like, oh, great, I want to do one of those groups. I don't know if I'm qualified or anything, but I want to do the thing that you're talking about, whatever it is. She was like, oh, let's do a free consultation. I was like, oh, crap. I just. She's probably going to try to sign me up for something. I don't want to do it. But I showed up and she did this free session with me and she was the first person who told me that, or at least acknowledged that I had a dream. For so long, I had lost sight of the idea of, you know, doing something that I loved. I was in a 9 to 5 job that I had worked at for a couple of years, and I was just kind of going through the motions. I had three kids, so it was practical and she believed in me, she believed in my dream. We actually didn't talk about my shooting very much at all, except that I wanted to support survivors even though I hadn't recovered from my own shooting. I just wanted to create spaces for survivors to recover and so to be able to connect with each other almost like support groups. And I started working with her one on one. Turned out that she was a coach. I had no idea that she's helped me break through fears. She helped me get in touch with my intuition. She helped me kind of understand what I was going through. And she asked me the right questions that I needed to ask myself and taught me how to listen for the answer inside of myself instead of telling me what to do. For me, my recovery was really important for me to have control. I didn't want anyone to hypnotize me or do any kind of like crazy Frankenstein stuff on my brain. I just wanted to be able to. I wanted to be able to own and understand my own recovery. So that was really important for me. And coaching has been. It's funny, I've never really thought about it in this way because I usually just talk about all the different steps that I've gone through with different people. But coaching has been the number one way with different people in different kind of areas of my life that I have fully recovered. And I can say fully recovered because my shooting doesn't impact my everyday life in any way that I know of right now. There are things that I'm still working on and I will always be working on because I always want to continue to improve. But my shooting doesn't haunt me anymore in the way that it used to do. And the only time anything really comes up for me is when there's a new shooting and it might trigger something that I didn't know was already there. So I love getting those weird. As weird as it sounds, I love getting those triggers because all that's doing is showing me that there's still something left to heal that I can work through and I can become clearer and more confident and more comfortable in my everyday life with everyone.

Absolutely. And that is like another facet of this reorienting that you've had. You know, you reoriented from like, I got to avoid what scares me to I'm going to approach what scares me. That is the, that is instead of the go the other way sign, that's actually an invitation to go that way. And I also hear that you've reoriented yourself to say when painful emotions arise for most people, that's like, ah, go the other way. And for you it's like, oh, this is something else that needs to heal. And I think when we make that shift towards fear, towards other uncomfortable emotions, and there's this. Not this. Like, I'm going to grit my teeth and endure this, but I'm really going to open to this because I want to see what's there and I want to see truth. And I want to do what I'm here to do and really be on that roller coaster. Then something that's when the magic opens up. There's like this full willingness in everything that. In your sharing in your stories. And I think that's really fascinating about coaching. I personally have found that similar experience in that I was actually trained in psychotherapy as a clinical psychologist, but found that I benefited so much more because I did a lot of my own therapy, being the patient or client in therapy myself. But I grew so much more through all. There's only one kind of therapy course of therapy I did that was, I'd say, very valuable, but it was a group therapy program run by a guy who ran it. Much more like coaching than therapy. And then every other thing. I looked at what produced the biggest shifts in my life, and it was all different kinds of coaching. And I actually spent a lot of time thinking about that. And because I'm obsessed with what produces shifts and results in people in confidence and beyond. And I start to think like, well, why doesn't. Why isn't the therapy working? Because it's got a lot of elements that seem good, and I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. But I do think that there's some fundamental differences in the way that coaching is approached. And the one of them being that when you go to a therapy, it's like, okay, what are the problems? Let's diagnose you and then let's get rid of that broken stuff so that you'll feel okay again. And when you come in. And it's the same thing with a lot of allopathic medicine. Like when you come in with that orientation, and no matter how skilled or loving or caring that the therapist is the container, the approach that you're. The mindset that you have going into it is already flawed.

Yeah.

And what I love about coaching is it's much more like you want to become and do this. How do we help let go and heal and clear whatever we need to to help you live that way now. And just no matter how skilled the person is, just orientation A versus orientation B, B is already, you know, miles ahead in terms of being able to produce results.

I also love the fact that, well, this is what a lot of what I teach. So I consider myself a coach. I Don't again, I probably still have some of that coach stigma. When I first met my first coach, I was shocked because I thought life coaches were things that were people that celebrities get when they go on a bender. And I was like, this is not a normal person thing to do. But I consider myself a coach. Here's why. And maybe this is a part of what's different too. It's that for me, I remember after the Vegas shooting in 2017, it happened on October 1st. I was devastated. I was actually already getting coaching at the time, but I thought I wanted something like another level of support. So October 1st, it happens. I call my insurance and I tell them, okay, I really want to go to therapy. They say, great, our next appointment is available on November the 2012th. So I hold my breath for a month and a half waiting until I can go to this therapy appointment and try to hold everything in until I get to there. And then the morning of November 12th, they call me and say, I'm so sorry, there's been a cancellation. We can reschedule you for December. And I was like, screw this. I cannot hold my breath waiting to be in an appointment with somebody. I need to learn how to work myself. I need to learn how to heal myself so that if I hear about something at 2 in the morning, if I hear about something at 7 in the morning, right when I'm about to go to work and take my kids to school, I want to be able to work on it in the moment so that I don't have to hold my breath even for a couple of hours before I can work through this. So one of the things that I do as a coach is my goal is not to be your coach. My goal is to teach you the skills and the tools and the resources so that you can then take it and go with it. You know, if what you need is community to support you, there's community to support you. Like, here are the tools to find that community, to create that community. You know, if what you need are certain tools that are going to help you work through your emotions, here are some tools. And also here are the skills that you need to reach out and find. Find the tools that work for you. So I think being able to get, you know, I'm not giving people the power, but being able to teach people. Basically teaching people how to fish, instead of giving people the fish and then having them depend on coming to you to get more. You know, being able to learn how to work through your fears, whether it's because of your past or moving forward into your future and having those tools and resources and skills, I think it's invaluable. So that's my goal in working with.

I love it. I love it. And so I'm sure people listening can see how your support, your coaching can go way beyond. So someone listening, you don't have to be a shooting survivor to benefit. And I just think people could benefit from learning more from you. And so what are the, what is the best way for people to do that? Is there a website or a place they can go to? And if so, let's have you share.

Absolutely. So I have actually a free guide for most of the audience I speak on the as I speak with are not survivors of gun violence. And people in my, in my six week programs are people who've experienced all different kinds of events in their life or just ready to release themselves from anxiety and fear and ready to move forward. So I have a free guide, it's called Release Anxiety Today and you can go to releaseanxietytoday.com in order to find it. And I just paused for a second. Wait, is that the right one? It's Release Anxiety Today. So you can visit Release Anxiety Today to get that free guide and then to find out more information. I can follow up from there. I'm in the process of finalizing my new website. I'm doing a revamp. So I'm really excited about providing more resources on my website and I can share about that later. But for right now, that free guide will take you through every step of making sure that you don't have to live with that anxiety and really working through those fears. So I kind of did a brief overview during this conversation about the ways that I've worked through things. This guide takes you step by step through how you can face your fears, overcome them, release any anxiety that you're experiencing and start to live that amazing life that you're dreaming about.

So good. I would highly recommend it at the release it anxietytoday.com I just checked it out as you were sharing. It's the one. It works. So that's a great place to get into your world. And then later on if there's any changes, people will then know what's going on with you. But I think there's so many gems that I could. You would share something and there's like nine little lessons within there that I wish I could highlight them all. But then we'd have a 12 hour interview. So next time. That's right. It'll be a 12 hour session. Block out your calendar? No, but you know, for releasing anxiety, which I know. Geez, this day and age humans, man, we all need this no matter what we've experienced. So valuable. And thank you so much for sharing with us today, Nirjan.

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited that we got to talk.

That brings us to the end of the interview, and long interview at that. And to your action step.

Time for action.

Action, action. So my suggestion for the action step is actually a question for you.

What are you gonna do?

What's going on right now in your life that feels too much or not fair, or like life doing something to you or other people doing something to you that's not your fault, that's unreasonable, that's not right. And after listening to this interview, what are you gonna do differently? And even if you don't have anything like that going on right now, maybe you did in the past, or heck, maybe the circumstances of your life are just challenging. And my question is, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna learn from this interview? And put and think of one specific thing right now that you can actually track to see if you do it. Because we don't want to just feel inspired for a minute listening to someone being like, yeah, that sounds great for them. And then we go back to our life and don't do anything. No, we want to take this and put it into action right now. So right now, say out loud, what's one thing you're going to do? One new shift, one new action, one new mindset, one new habit, one new practice, one new decision. What's one new thing or maybe something you're already doing? How are you going to intensify it? You got it? Good. Okay, what is it? Say it out loud. I know, I know. Talking to the air, talking to a recording. But hey, I'm a real human recording this at one point in time. And maybe time is not so linear, maybe time is on top of itself. So maybe you're listening to this at the exact moment that I'm recording it. Ooh, I don't know. Or maybe not. Who knows? In any case, say it out loud.

Because it's for you.

It's not for me, it's for you to activate your own commitment, your own accountability, your own progress. So say it out loud, what you're going to do. And then of course, do it. Do it. Alright.

Thanks for being with me today.

Until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.

Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy God 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 vlogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com.

Sa.