Courage As A Habit With Kate Swoboda

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. Today's episode of the show today to talk about courage.

I'm very excited about this.

I have such a good interview coming up. You're going to love this, but we're going to talk about courage. And what I love is not just that courage is good and that courage can benefit you. And I'm sure you know that courage is a key component of confidence, but actually how to build courage systematically, how it's done, the science and the habit of building courage, that's what we're going to talk about today. Because whether we think about this consciously or not, we tend to have a default assumption in the background of our minds that courage is something that you have or you don't. Some people are just more courageous. There's a vague idea of like, oh, yeah, when I have more courage, I'll do that, and somehow I'll either magically get more courage later on, I'll just. I'll have it somehow, or, you know, I'm just not one of those people that has courage. And in that way, those stories are identical to confidence. You know, we think that we're not born with confidence. We think that we're not one of those people that has it. Other people just have it. And we don't realize that confidence is a skill. It's a muscle that you can build through practice. And courage is exactly the same way. And that's why I love this idea of the courage habit. So my guest expert is someone to introduce in just a moment. And we did the interview and. And my main recording setup didn't work, and I needed to use my computer as a backup. So my audio is slightly less quality than the voice you've come to know and love through this microphone. But the content is so good that I didn't want to lose anything. So we're going to dive into that interview in just a minute. Let me introduce my guest expert. So my guest expert today Is Kate Swoboda, also known as Kate Courageous. She's the creator of YourCourageousLife.com she teaches coaches and certifies them in becoming a courageous living coach. And she has a book called the courage how to accept your fears, release the past and live your courageous life. And so she helps individuals, teams and companies see where they have old fear based habits that have kept them stuck and moving into that more courageous life by getting into the courage habit, which is a four part process for behavioral and organizational change. Thank you so much for joining us today, Kate.

Thanks so much for having me.

So the first place I got to start is I love this. On your website, right at the top you say become the most courageous person you know. And I love that that made me smile when I read that. And that's so right up my alley. And everyone listening like more courage is where it's at. So I'm so excited to talk with you about courage and confidence and beyond. But let's start with that. Become the most courageous person you know, what made you say that or have that as your kind of focus?

Well, because we often look to these external definitions of courage which of course gets us lost in the weeds around comparisons or some kind of parental standard you're trying to live up to or societal standard that you're trying to live up to. There's a lot of thinking I'm not a courageous person unless I'm like quitting my job, selling my possessions, traveling the world, jumping out of airplanes, you know, bungee diving, all that stuff. And I really think that we need to come to the work of courage from a more human perspective. It's a courageous thing to decide. I'm not going to be a people pleaser anymore. It's a courageous thing to decide. I'm having a really difficult time interacting with this person, but I'm really going to try to breathe and just hear what it is that they have to say. I think those are acts of courage that are often labeled as ordinary, but they're very extraordinary in their own way. And there's this idea that I, that I just had one day when I was thinking about this. It's like I want each person to become the most courageous person that they know because then they get to define that on their own terms, not by anybody else's.

And so would you say that put simply, courage is just doing what scares us or is there more to it that you would add?

Well, I define courage as feeling afraid because nobody gets out of that part, no matter how much people pretend not to ever have that come up. Diving in anyway, because what are the options, you know, right? Like you either dive in or you stay stuck and then transforming. So feeling afraid, diving in any way and transforming. And I think that the trans, that, that three part model or definition, I guess you could say, you know, the transformation happens one little inch at a time. And again it's about divorcing ourselves from these conditioned ideas that to be courageous we have to do things that are flashy, that are super extroverted, that get other people's attention, that are somehow bigger or better. It's like the transformation that you feel the one time that you manage not to run an old pattern that counts. You know, it's like there's room for that to count. Or even if the old pattern ran again, but you were just more conscious, like, man, I let that pattern run again. That's transformation, that consciousness, that awareness, like, oh, I got tripped up again, but I was aware of it. And I just think that's, you know, that's so much more human and so much more compassionate and so much more authentic and real. And I think that at its essence, courage is about really living on the outside, who we truly are on the inside. And that's so defined by the individual. It's going to look different for everyone. I mean, I've met some really high performers who on paper it's like they look like they have all the courage in the world, but really the most courageous thing they could do in their lives would be to stop doing, doing, doing so. It's so individual. And I think we need to give ourselves a lot more space and some room and some credit for what we are doing. Like, yeah, feel the fear and do it anyway. And be really aware that every single time you're willing to pay attention to the pattern that is a form or a step at least of transformation.

I love that because it really makes highlights that transformation is this ongoing process. And the way that we might use the word or think about it is it's this thing that happens. There's a before and then, there's an after. And it's sort of the singular moment in time. And nothing could be further from the truth. It is this really incremental process. And each act of moving towards or going into the thing that scares us builds that and contributes to that transformation.

Yeah, we're always in process. It's never linear, it's never step by step. It's always like, hey, this is how it goes. And I think for those of us like you and me who are in the self help space, wanting to hold space or set a container for other people to also shift their lives. It takes some of the pressure off of us too. And it really eradicates the guru model. Like I'm here on this episode and I absolutely claim courage as my expertise. I can rock courage, but that doesn't mean the absence of fear. I still get afraid, I still get triggered. I still make mistakes. My. My expertise around courage isn't I do it perfectly. Be like me, which is just so inauthentic. Really. It's an expertise that's about, I can be with your fear while you're in it, and I'm not going to go anywhere. And I've got some tools you can use when you're ready and I'm going to celebrate the hell out of you along the way. And I think you can do it. And I can make you aware of potential stumbling blocks and we can have lots of different conversations, but always the credit is going to be to you doing the work and being in process. It's never going to be me, you know, going, ooh, me. I get all the credit because I worked with you and I just, I love that. I love it. Whenever I find work that's just really about like, hey, we're all human. We're all finding our way together.

And I love that. And with the fear part, everyone's familiar with that. And I think there's this expectation or hope that people have and there's some truth to this with, say, gradual exposure that, okay, if you're scared of it, you lean in, take action, you discover a pattern. To use the example of deciding you're not going to be a pleaser anymore or maybe speaking up in a certain way for yourself at work. And it takes a little courage.

We do it.

The hope is that over a certain period of time, eventually that becomes easier. And that means that. Well, I think often people think it being easier means there's less fear. If I do this consistently enough, I'll have less fear. It's almost like the carrot or what people are going for in addition to whatever results that they want. What's your perspective on that? If we exercise courage enough in a particular area, will the fear reduce or is it that something different like our courage changes versus our fear? What's your sense on that?

I do think that it changes, and I've observed that it changes in my orientation in looking at how we experience fear is that fear becomes a habit, like you and I And everybody listening to this podcast, when we were born, we didn't enter the world fear based or courage based, right? Like we just came into the world, these cute little babies, and we learn certain behaviors to find our way through the world. And one of the things that becomes problematic is when we take on these behaviors and start making them into identities. And so, you know, when I talk about fear patterns, there are four predominant fear patterns that most people fall into. I think everyone does all of them, but everybody's got one that they do a little more than the others. And those fear patterns are perfectionism, people pleasing, pessimism and self sabotage. And I can take an example, like perfectionism as one of those places where it becomes an identity. People will say, oh, I'm such a classic perfectionist. And it's like, well, but again, let's go back to you being a baby. You were not born a perfectionist. You learned that behavior. You practiced it so many times that it felt natural. And then you started thinking that's who you are. It's not actually who you are, it's just a behavior you've practiced so many times that it feels like who you are. And as I began researching habit formation, what I found was that, you know, we often think of habits as like brushing your teeth at the same time each day, working out regularly, but habits are behavioral ways of thinking, patterns of responding to challenges, behavioral habits. So if we can change a habit, like deciding that we're going to become an early riser or that we're going to change what time of day we go to the gym or you know, something like that, we can change these other habits too. And the research does in fact bear that out, which was really exciting to me because I, you know, nerd out on the research a little bit and love it when self help and clinical research actually mesh well together. So I think what we need to do is we need to start thinking about it not so much in terms of fear eradication, which is not what I'm about. I'm not into the idea of fearless. I don't think anybody ever gets rid of all fear under all circumstances and instead start looking at where fear patterns keep us stuck and start trying to create new courage based habits so that that becomes the new orientation. You know, what if courageous responses to challenging difficult situations could be the new normal instead of, oh, yeah, I'm a people pleaser, it's just who I am. What if it could be, you know, your new normal could be, okay, I'm completely afraid to walk up to that person and introduce myself. But you know what, I'm the type of person who just, you know, does that. So I'm going to go do it. You know, what if that was the new normal.

And that would be, you know, creating a habit of courage.

Yeah. And I think that that starts with identifying where fear gets you stuck so that you can interrupt those old fear based patterns and start looking at some of the courageous behaviors. And I, you know, in the courage habit, I'm talking about what some of those behaviors are as indicated by the research. But the important thing, I guess for this moment in our conversation is we really can't outrun the part where we look at what we fear. We can't jump over to those behaviors. It's more about like, okay, let me slow down a minute. Where do I go into patterns, fear based patterns of pessimism, and not even realize it and sell myself short before I can even go do the thing that I'm feeling so nervous about doing? You know, where is it that self sabotage runs on autopilot and I don't even notice it? That, to me is the most powerful entry point.

Yeah.

So in your book the courage habit, and I love the subtitle, how to accept your fears, release the past and live your courageous life. Accept your fears. Is that kind of what we're talking about here? And being able to identify, oh, I run this perfectionism pattern here or I get really pessimistic here. So understanding what these patterns are, or is there more about accepting our fears?

Well, I'll say with accepting in the subtitle, that was something I actually had to really push for and I really appreciate that. My publisher was open and receptive, but the initial subtitle, the first passes, I guess you could say it was, as I recall it, either silence your fears or conquer your fears. And my orientation is, okay, trying to silence or conquer fear. It doesn't work. And if it did, none of us would be afraid of anything. Right. And I, in doing the research, was looking at the research of a noted feminist, Karen Horny, who was kind of like one of the first feminist psychoanalysts who looked at Freud's work. And she was saying that in relationships there are three predominant ways that people deal with conflict. They either try to avoid it or ignore it. They either try to please it or placate it. Like try to do everything right so that you're not in conflict with that person, or they try to attack it. And I was thinking to myself as I read this, like, that's so that's so in alignment with how people typically try to deal with fear. Fear comes up and we try to ignore it. Like, la la la, I don't feel fear. Or people try to placate it, which is like, I'm going to research everything to death. I'm going to ask 50 people for their opinions. I'm going to do all the right things so I don't have to be afraid. Huge perfectionism tactic in there, or they attack it. And that's where you get the memes about telling fear to f off or kick fear's ass or any of that stuff. And the thing is, it doesn't work. I think that accepting something doesn't mean being run by it, but it does mean starting to understand it. And when you understand how something works, you have a much greater chance of being able to interact with it, even if some of its patterns are dysfunctional. I mean, personally, I think I conceive of fear in ourselves as being a wound. And it's a wound that is trying not to receive any further wounding. If you're about to ask somebody out and you've been rejected before or laughed at before, when you've asked someone out, your brain is going to remember that. And so if you can contemplate asking out person number two, when that internalized critic comes up and says, whatever, loser, don't even bother. You know, like that voice. For as nasty as it sounds, unfortunately that's its defense. To try to keep you from going out there and experiencing rejection in any way that it can. And my coach used to say to me, your inner critic is your best friend with lousy communication skills. So accepting that it's there rather than trying to ignore it, placate it, or attack it is part of the process. And if anyone doubts that. One of the things I encourage when I'm working with clients is, okay, how would you treat, say, an 8, 9, 10 year old who was really just throwing a fit? 8, 9, 10 year olds still do that on occasion. Would you lock it into a closet and ignore it? Guess what that's called? Child abuse. Would you endlessly placate that child like, oh, here's a lollipop. It's okay, it's okay. Don't get upset, don't go to. It's like, well, that might solve your problem for a day, maybe, but you're not teaching this child how to be emotionally resilient. And then, okay, would you attack it? Shut up. Hit them, tell them, call them names, get out of my way. Don't say that. Guess what? You're back in the child abuse zone again. You know, the internalized part of ourselves that is so afraid has a limited skill set, just like children do. And if you ignore, placate, or attack children, they don't learn what they need to grow. And what's worse, you're becoming the abuser. Like, we learn those behaviors because they're done to us often, and those are not kind behaviors. And then we end up unfortunately, so often perpetuating those behaviors, practicing them, even solidifying them by turning them onto ourselves. So that's the pattern I want people to get out of. And that's what, to me, it means to accept that the fear is there, that it's there, that it's wounded. It has this limited skill set. So my job with my fear, my client's job with their fear, and anybody who's listening to this, who wants to take it on, is to go, okay, it's here, let me start investigating what the pattern is and stop doing this thing where I try to ignore, placate, or attack, because that doesn't actually work.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And as you're talking, I'm kind of running it through my own recent experiences with fear. And we just recently did do these live events three, four times a year. And they're the most gratifying in terms of the work that I do because I get to see real time changes in face to face and of course, meet people that have been in my world for a long time and see their progression. So it's very gratifying and probably from a business or profession side of things, the most fear inducing or discomfort inducing thing that I do in that I'm interacting with a group of people and holding that space and teaching for four days. And, and there's this like, introverted small part of me. It's like, I don't want people looking at me all day. And that part will get really loud as it gets closer to the events. And then during the events, you know, and, and I can hear myself as you're cycling through the ways that we relate to the fear. I could see sometimes I'm there with it, and then sometimes it's like, okay, come on, you know, let's, let's get over this, or ignoring it or operating on top of it. And so it was really interesting to reflect on that as you were talking. And then I'm wondering, okay, so let's talk about how to be with that part. If we're not placating It. If we're not ignoring it and if we're not attacking it. And maybe I'll specify a little bit more with my experience. There's a way that I'm, like, with it and curious, like, what's. What's happening for you? And. And it. To get a little more specific, one, this is the second day of the event, and it was like, I woke up in the morning. I was like, I don't want to go. I don't want to go do it. And so I was meditating and listening to that part and feeling the fear. It's kind of coursing through my body. And then I'm with that part, and it's sort of like, I just don't want all the attention on me and people looking at me and who knows what wound is there, right. That perceives that as threatening in some way. And so what I did is I came up with this visualization of, like, okay, this part could be drawing at a little table that we have in our house that my kids like to draw at. And that part will be their drawing. And I, Aziz, like, the adult, will be interacting with the group. And that part can listen to what's happening and tell me things, but doesn't have to be directly the focus, as it were. And that really helped. And that really helped. But I would say my experience has been, you know, feel the fear and do it anyway thus far. And I've done a lot of events, maybe like, 15 or so. And there's a part of me is like, if you're going to be that uncomfortable every time, like, I'll keep doing it, but. But. So I'm really curious about what your thoughts are on how we are how to. And maybe that's not really acceptance. Right. If I'm like, okay, I'll accept this fear, is that going to make it go away? So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to really be with that fear in the most fruitful or productive way possible.

Okay. Oh, there's just, like, so much in what you said. Like, I loved it. And I. I just. Before I get into what some of those behaviors are, I just want to say what a gift it is that you laid that out for your listeners, because I just really believe it takes people who, by all appearances, you're doing the live event, it might look really like, oh, smooth moves up here. Dr. Aziz has it down, but you have it come up, too. I think that's a huge gift for your audience. So, okay, so speaking to scenarios like public Speaking and does it get better? And things like that. There was a question that came up for me while I was listening to what you shared and it was what does the fear need? And also why does the fear need to go away? And this is part of the like, understanding piece. You know, you mentioned you have kids. I have a five year old. Like, if my daughter is coming to me and she's afraid and I help her and she, you know, like in her own way and she still manages to kind of work her way through, why do we still need to keep getting rid of the fear? Like, it's not, you know, the issue really with fear is that it controls. When it controls our lives. But if it's not controlling your life, then it's just uncomfortable. And it's uncomfortable because that's the stage that it's in. But I can talk for a moment about like the. Because I heard you doing this even in what you shared, which was awesome. The four pieces or behaviors that really make up the courage habit process, and those are accessing the body, which I heard you share when you said you meditated Listening without attachment. That's the piece that's like, what does the fear need? And listening without attachment is not just like, oh, sure, the fear can abuse me. It's wounded. That's fine. It's like, no, like you're listening, but without attaching, without thinking that what the fear is saying is true. In the same way that, like, if a drunk person walked up to you on the street and was like, you suck, you're awful. Like, if you could recognize that the person was drunk, you would hear the words. It might not feel good that a human being is speaking to you that way, but you wouldn't suddenly be like, oh, wow, I must be awful. Because this person said that, you know, you'd be like, oh, wow, this person is drunk. They don't totally know what they're saying to me right now. So you listen, you hear, but you don't attach to it. You reframe limiting stories. So this is the, you know, when the fear is telling you, why bother? It's not necessarily going into, well, I'll do it because if I do it, I'll be a millionaire and the streets will be paved with gold and everything will be glitter and unicorns. You know, it's like, no, it's not that reframing limiting stories is. Why bother doing that? And then going to. Because it matters to me to try even if I fail. That's a reframe of a limiting story that you shouldn't even bother. And then the fourth behavior that really turned up in the research was reaching out and creating community, which can happen, of course, with your real IRL connections. But, you know, somebody listening to this podcast, that's an example of reaching out and creating community. So again, it's accessing the body so that you can slow down and be with those fear sensations so that they don't, you know, spur you into some kind of reactive behavior. It's listening without attachment to what fear is saying. And that's where we get into, what does the fear actually need in this moment? And then reframing, limiting stories, and then reaching out and creating community. And you can do one of those. Any of them are really great interventions. When you notice, like, I am really stuck in my fear right now. I am trying not to go into, ignore, placate, attack. What can I do? It's like, pick one of those. And of course, if you do all of them, it's all the more powerful. And from a habituated perspective, what we're trying to do is we're trying to get from a place of, oh, my gosh, I'm totally going into perfectionism mode again. Hold on, pause. I don't want to keep running that pattern. Let me reach out and talk to a friend. Let me. Hold on. Grab a piece of paper, write down, what is it the fear is saying? Let me listen with that attachment, you know, some other interruption that moves you into the direction you actually want to go in.

Yeah, this is really good. I love the way that you broke down this. This process. And I can see how they all work together. And the thing you said, which is really interesting, is that. So we. Listening to the fear and being with it, and there's this question you ask of why does it need to go away? And I think that the answer that came to my mind, which you said, was that it's uncomfortable. And then you said, well, that's the stage that it's in. Can you say more about that?

Yes. So when I first began. I'll use myself as an example, when I first began doing some of this work and particularly looking at the critical voice within, what my critic said was that it would just. When I was afraid, it would say things like, you're so pathetic. You're so stupid. You're an idiot. You're gonna look so stupid. It was just, like, vicious. And it was through a process of listening to that voice and slowing down, like, okay, got in, like, literally, like, I mean, I. You know, I'm telling everyone, listen to the voices in your head basically and slowing down and understand the parts. And when I started to ask why my fear was talking to me that way, what it came from was this place of I'm so afraid that I'm not enough. I'm so afraid that people are going to see that. I'm so afraid that, you know. And so once I started to get into some of that fear, it was more like, okay, like I hear that that's a fear that you have and we're still going to be moving forward anyway. What has happened with time is that now my critic is it's not coming in with that same viciousness. So the discomfort is way, way down. It's more things like, oh God, what if I can't do it? I don't know, I might not be able to do this. Oh, I don't know which. Like I'm personifying how my fear sounds in my head, of course. But yeah, it's still there. But that's drastically better than being told that I'm pathetic and you know, all these other things that it was saying to me years ago. So I think that that is the direct result of letting fear know that it, it is okay, that it exists. I'm not going to shame it for existing. And again, getting out of that ignore, placate, attack thing, that doesn't really work and only ever makes your fear scream louder each time because it really wants you to pay attention. Because I mean, imagine again, let's go back to a child. If a child's trying to say something's wrong and you will not pay attention, usually they escalate in some way to try to get your attention. So it's just a much more when we talk about accepting it and the discomfort and how we work with that. I'm not trying to get my fear to go away, but I'm very clear with my fear about who's going to be in charge of my life. And I'm open to hearing what it has to say, but it has to be phrased respectfully. And that's a huge shift to go through anytime I'm intimidated.

I love that and just reminds me of we're talking about dealing with the fear part, but it's really this, this self care or self love, the willingness to listen to all parts of yourself with that curiosity and that without attachment. And I can see that there's so much power. It's really like being the adult inside. And it's like, okay, that fear part can have a tantrum about something or really say it doesn't want to do something, but. And it can be heard and not shamed. And that doesn't mean that you run from all those risks or positive opportunities in life because that voice doesn't want to or is uncomfortable.

Yes. And you described that brilliantly with the part of you that said, okay, my fear needs something to do, let's have it go draw at the table and adult me. I've got this. And I think that's such a great example. It's like the fear is afraid. It needs reassurance, it needs someone being aware that it's saying something's wrong here. It doesn't need placating, it doesn't need ignoring, it doesn't need attacking. Those don't help. But often I find this with my 5 year old all the time, where when she's really, really in it with something, it's like, if I will just sit with her. The other day she was, she was melting down right before bedtime and just like everything was wrong. Like we're talking like her stuffy. I was putting it on the dresser and she's just like, my stuffy's not here with me. It's over on the dresser. And then I'm like, well, here's your here, you can have it with you. And then it's, you know, well, but you tried to put it on the dresser, Mom. It's just like, you know, she's just so upset and it's like my brain caught up to the situation and kind of went, I don't know what's going on with her right now, but this is not about the stuffy on the dresser. And then it's just like holding her and she was crying and she's telling me about the stuffy and I'm just like, yeah, sweetie, what else? Tell me more. And just, she then. And you know what? It ended up being something that had happened at school. Suddenly this thing that happened at school that she had not told me about pops up with somebody who had, you know, said or done something as kids do. And then she calmed down enough that she was able to go to bed. And I think in so many ways we are just, you know, we've got these little kid selves that are just running around in these meat suits that are adult bodies. And like that aspect of the self just needs to be witnessed. That also ties back to accepting if you try to silence it or conquer it. Yeah, good luck. It works in the short term. It does. If you scream At a small child, they will be quiet for a while. There's a cost to that child's life later. But we're really looking at how do we build resilience in the long term. Isn't that what courage is? Facing hard things and rising up again? Isn't that really what resilience is?

I love that. And what's really. I love that story too. I relate. I have a three and a five year old and I mean the spirals and what's interesting. And it's such a good comparison because when someone is with that young child and they can see, wow, these are a lot of various pointing to things in the environment, that's the source, but it's not really the source. And in a way, it's not taking the content, the surface level content too seriously. And it's really looking for the underlying wound or the underlying feeling or just meeting it with empathy. And I think that can be a challenge of listening to the voice of fear because we can get sucked into the content of the fear. Okay, is that true or is that not true? And that for me is definitely something I can get sucked in. And it's so much more helpful just to kind of ride beneath the surface of those waves a little bit, go right a little more towards the underlying feeling. And lovingly just being like, okay, yeah, that thing. Okay, that thing. And really being with that part. I love that metaphor.

Yeah, yeah, I love that you have a three and five. You really are in the ups and downs of the days, day to day. And you know, man, if you put the stuffy in the wrong place at the wrong moment, it can really, really be a thing. But isn't that like life? Somebody saying something to you at the wrong moment or someone cutting you off in traffic at the wrong moment? You know, it's like, oh, man, we just. There's a lot more grace that we need to give ourselves at the same time that I, you know, again, I do think boundaries with fear are helpful. And that to me is where reframing limiting stories comes in as part of the courage habit process. It's not like, you know, we're just singing like a song together and holding hands with fear and it's all good. It's like, no, when my fear is coming up and saying something to me that isn't kind, it's like, I'm open to hearing what you have to say. It's gotta be phrased respectfully. And speaking of, you know, small children, it's similar there too, right? Like, if my Daughter, you know, has a moment where she kind of lashes out and tries to hit or something. By the way, I'm having a moment of self consciousness that 10 years from now she'll hear this interview and she'll be like, God, mom, was I an awful. No, no, no, no, no. You're great, kid. I'm just talking about these few isolated incidents. I promise, I promise. You're wonderful. But in those moments, it's like, you know, when somebody lashes out, that's not the totality of who she is, that's who she's being in that moment. Because she's upset and she's stressed and she's frustrated and she's a tiny human and doesn't have a lot of skills yet. They're developing. We need to give that to ourselves too. In those moments when, you know, our frontal lobe is hijacked because we're really, really scared and all the synapses in our body are going danger, danger, danger. We're not thinking clearly. We're not being who we truly are in that moment. Hmm.

Well, so that's a really spurs a good question, which is, I think one way that fear trips people up and I've seen this do it with me as well, is there's the, ah, I'm scared. You know, I. And then say, okay, this is an opportunity for courage. And we know to tend to that fear challenge. Some of the stories it's saying about what's possible or who we are if we're good enough, and then go take the action and then experience that transformation. One thing, though, that can be really insidious with the fear because sometimes it's, is it fear or is it truly what we want? It'll say like, I don't really. That's not me to go do that thing. Or I don't really want that goal anyway. Or did I want that because I really wanted that or because I thought I needed to to prove something to other people? And there'll be this sort of inquiry process that can be you authentically discovering what you want, but it can also be fear masquerading as this. I don't really want that story. And I'm curious how you help people navigate that.

Well, I have this blog post I wrote a couple years ago where I talked about how the unfortunate truth about really what we're talking about is discernment. You know, discernment is knowing the difference between was I listening to my intuition or did fear hijack my intuition? Was I having a really great sexually free one night stand or was I actually disrespecting my body and not really, you know, like actually I want commitment or I want something deeper and I'm just pretending otherwise. And the thing I wrote in that blog post was the unfortunate thing about discernment is that really the only way to learn discernment is through effing up discernment. Like discernment is learned through making mistakes. This is part of the like air quotes ordinary courage that I was talking about earlier. It's like the courage to follow what seems really real in that moment and evaluate it as best you can and trust that if you make a mistake, a do over is available to you, that you deserve it, that you can clean it up, that you can correct course. Now when we think about the parts of what I call the courage habit process, things like accessing the body, slowing down, what's really going on here that can help with discernment. So can like listening without attachment and reframing, limiting stories. Because if something in you is like, that's just not who I am. It's like, huh, interesting. If it's not who I am, then who I am I. Exactly right. Like often when we're actually afraid, we're so busy saying that's not who I am that we're not even asking this question about, well, but then who am I and how do I know that? And I think a huge red flag about fear is if we're really, really bought into trying to get it right. You know, at the end of the day, there are no right answers. Not really. I mean, it's funny because I just was talking to my own coach about that earlier this week when I was receiving coaching because my husband and I are considering moving to a new city. And I said, God, I really want more markers of how to know if this is the right decision. And she was Leanne Raymond, God bless her, she's so wonderful. And she's like, hey, you know this from being a coach. There are no right decisions. Like, there's no way to know. You know, you stay where you are and then you suss it out and it's good or it's not or you move and you suss it out and it's good or it's not. And there's just no way to know that if you stay where you are, you're going to be happy or sad. And there's just no way to know that if you move you're going to be happy or sad. It's just impossible. So you do the Best you can with what you have in the moment. The freedom to me from fear really comes in being willing to make the mistakes and trust that who you are on the inside is someone who can figure out their way through, someone who is deserving of second chances and do overs and just go, okay, here's what I know. In this moment, I'm doing my work as best I can. Accessing the body and maybe reaching out and getting support. Listening without attachment, reframing, limiting stories. Okay, I'm not ignoring, I'm not placating, I'm not attacking. Let me check. Is this pessimism, self sabotage, people pleasing, perfectionism? Those are the fear patterns. You know, if, as best I can I discern that none of those are up, then I make choice A. If I think some of those might be up, I pay attention and I look at that more deeply.

I love that because it's almost like if one of those is running like perfectionism and someone's like, well, I don't know if I really want to do X. It's like, well, you can't really know because like, for example, I don't really want to spend time with those people or go to that party or network or whatever. And it's like, but if you're approaching that with perfectionism or pessimism, then you don't really know what the experience of that could be. And maybe you might really enjoy it if you're not running that fear pattern.

Yeah. In the courage habit, I actually break down the things that people tend to be saying, doing, thinking and believing with each of those patterns. Because again, you know, like we talked about earlier, when they're running on autopilot and especially when they become identities, they're happening like clouds passing in the sky. Right. Like you, you don't turn and remark every single time you see a cloud passing in the, in the sky because they're just there, you know, so really getting clear some of that and you know, related to this idea of that's just who I am. I, you know, there's a story that I tell about how I got into triathlon was. I was drawn to, it was such an odd thing, but I was drawn to like show up at the starting, you know, the gun going off at the start of a half ironman. Locally I felt really drawn to reading about triathlon and all of these things. But this voice was in my head of just like, oh, but I'm not an athlete, you know, and it was just like a fact. It's just like, yeah, the sky is blue. I wear shoes, and I'm not an athlete. Like, what are you gonna do? Some people are athletic. I'm not. That was just how it was. And that, to me, that this is just how it is. Whether you're saying that about who you are or other people are or the way the world works, that, to me, is always indicative of a story, a narrative that we tell ourselves, because certainly there's somebody else in the world who used to believe that about themselves. And it's not true. We can go back to. It's not like people are born athletic or not. Sure, some people have some lucky genetics, but, you know, even those people have to train. And there's also something in there about reframing that limiting story. Like, well, what if I'm not an athlete, but I want to be like, you know, it's an actual thing you can become. So I began to look at that, and really, I began to look at it when I was in the middle of trying to pull on a triathlon wetsuit. And the phrase stuffed sausage comes to mind if you want a visual for what that experience was. Like, the person's outside the door going, do you need any help in there? Outside the fitting room. And I was about to give up, and then suddenly it occurred to me that, like, fear was just totally running through my head over a wetsuit. And it was just like, oh, okay, there's something for me here. I need to look at this.

I love that. I love your. Your stories and just the. The openness and heart that you bring to courage and how you know in the way that you speak and how you share, you demonstrate that kind of courage that we were talking about at the very beginning, which is not necessarily that out there, dramatic skydiving courage that people associate with courage, but the courage to be yourself. And as you said, what's on the inside, be seen and felt on the outside. So I love how you are displaying and practicing what you're teaching, and just a joy to talk with you. I am excited to read the Courage Habit myself, or listen to it, I should say. I see that it's on audible, so I will be downloading that. And I encourage anyone listening who wants to go further to do that. And if people want to know more about you and to learn more from you in addition to the book, where would people go online?

You can find me at YourCourageousLife.com and TeamCLCC.com and then I'm everywhere on social media as KateCourageous, except for Facebook, where I'm your courageous life. But if you type Kate Courageous into Google, you'll find me.

Okay. I love it. Well, thank you so much, Kate Courageous, for joining us and sharing so much wisdom about how to access courage in such a grounded, wise, and gentle way. I love it.

Thank you for having me.

That brings us to the end of the interview, but before we complete the episode, we gotta end with one thing, which we always do. Time for action. Action. Action. So action time. Let's keep this simple. What is one way you're gonna start to consistently develop your courage? One simple action, one simple habit, One simple component of building that courage that.

We talked about today.

There's a ton of ideas in the interview, in the episode. So picking one, maybe it spurred something in you. Maybe just the idea of building courage and you have clarity, like, oh, that's the thing I need to lean into. That's the thing I need to consistently do and then make a commitment to do that over the next 30 days. I know this extends further than my.

Action steps are often for just for.

The next week until the next episode. But this one is so important and so essential that I encourage you to find some way you want to start exercising your courage just small, daily or several times a week, incremental ways over the next 30 days and see what that transforms in your life. Awesome. Thanks for being with me today and 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 guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com.

It.