Deep Confidence And Inner Peace With Sarah Amna (Part 2)

Coming to you from the center for Social Confidence in Portland, Oregon. Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy, Helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination with your host, Dr. Aziz.

Hello. Welcome to today's episode of the show. How are you today? If you'd like to dive into the show and find out more, I'm doing the rest of the interview with Sara Amna today. You can go to shrinkforthy guy.com shrinkforthshyguy.com and on there you can find out the show notes, you can find out about my guest experts. You can listen to the episodes as well. Shrinkforthshyguy.com and you can also go there to get a copy, a free copy of my eBook, Five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence, and that guides you step by step. I condense all of this information and knowledge that I've gotten from doing this work for maybe 15 years now, all the stuff I've learned from these guest experts and books and trainings and working with thousands of clients, and condensed it into the five key steps that anyone needs to follow in order to radically increase their confidence. So that's a. It's a packed ebook, too. It's not just a bunch of fluff. It's like 50, 60 pages of, like, pure content. And what I know, because that's what I'm here to do, is help you and everyone else break free, just as I'm continuing to always grow and break free myself. And in the spirit of that, I want to continue to share with you my conversation with one of my personal teachers who has helped me radically shift the way that I approach life and has helped me not only increase in success in business and being able to reach more people and do more things. And it was under as I was working with her that I started to do live events. I'd never done live events before that. Tons of success and growth, but more importantly, a deep inner shift to know how to calm my body and my mind and really get a deep sense of confidence. And we're gonna get more into that in the rest of this interview. But it's the confidence that comes from knowing that you can handle what's gonna happen in life and knowing that you don't need to control everything outside of you and everything's gotta line up and that person's got to accept me, and this person's gonna say yes, and then I get the raise and then I earn that amount, and then all those people like me. And then I have eight great conversations in a row. Then I can feel at peace and confident, and it's kind of flipping the whole thing around. It's putting the power back inside of you. So I could go on and on about it, but better just hear it from her. So get out some notes, get ready to learn, and. And let's dive back into that interview with guest expert Sarah Amn Expert interview. Yeah, what's interesting about this is I found that you said something that might have happened when we were eight or who knows, any other time in our lives. And what I found is I've done this a lot more over the last since I've known you, maybe the last almost two years now. There's a lot more there than I may have realized. And there's certain pains from the past that my mind says, oh, I should be done with that by now. That happened a long time ago. And there's this perception, and it's very common in our culture. Well, time heals all wounds. Time makes things go away. It's like, no. Time just makes it more easy to forget and distract ourselves consciously. But I think that to really be free of something, we need to actually heal it. And the healing comes from this. And so sometimes there's a lot there for me to keep feeling about the same thing, because I just. I never really did anything like this. Never really gave it that attention for more than five or ten minutes, honestly, over a year's period.

Yeah. It's the most courageous thing, I think, that a human can do in this lifetime is to actually show up and feel it. And there's another distinction, is we're really good in this culture at wallowing. And that usually means it's exaggerated. It's a loop. We're looping it. We're gathering more evidence to why we should be miserable rather than just really being super 100% present. Because wallowing is another form, form of distraction. Just like your iPhone or too much cake or, you know, too much alcohol or any other distraction from our feelings.

Does the wallowing always kind of involve going into thoughts and kind of building up more? You know, they did this to me. Like, is it. Does a wallowing inherently mean there's going to be a story that we're going into and out of?

That's been my experience and my observation. Yeah, there may be an exception, but I haven't seen it yet.

Right. So kind of a way to know if we're to sidestep that or to make sure that we're not doing that would be to see how much we're really just in the sensations in our body, with our attention, that's what seems.

To work the best.

Yeah, yeah, Great. Yeah. So you mentioned one of your spiritual teachers, you mentioned that you meditate every day. It seems like a part of your path has been a spiritual development. And I'd love to hear just a little bit about what are some of the things that you've done in the past and maybe what are some of the things that you do currently? I know those are two different questions. Maybe we'll start with some of the things you've experienced on your journey, your spiritual journey.

Yeah. Well, I started meditating about six, 16 years ago, I think. And it wasn't out of virtue, it was out of necessity. I suffered from anxiety and I stopped drinking and I was like, oh man, now what? That was a great coping mechanism. And I'm not really sure what to do instead. And so I started to meditate. My dad actually had a bunch of tapes that he had taped. He got meditation tapes from the library cassettes and taped them on his tape to tape. And he'd done that some years before. And then he sent me his copies. So I started learning about it and I started doing guided meditation. And then I started. I had two good friends, we all became good friends at the same time. And one was a Zen meditator and one was a Jesuit priest. And the three of us really wanted to dive into meditation. And so we would get together first once a week and then it ended up being seven times a week for about a year. And really diving into that. And so just I got a bug like, you know what? I don't know what this is, but I feel so much better. And I just kept listening and my intuition started to grow and my inspiration started to grow. And then I met my husband and followed him to Los Angeles. And we weren't married yet, but a while after getting there, we broke up. Because we both had great intentions but zero coping mechanisms and no conflict resolution skills at all. Because we'd thrown out what our parents had done, but we didn't have anything to replace them. So at that time, Kundalini Yoga found me. And I have been a teacher and a practitioner of Kundalini yoga for about 13 years. And I've done Vipassana, which if you want to know how crazy you are, go do Vipassana. Because I'd been meditating for several years at that point I was like, wow, the thoughts in my head are really crazy when you are quiet for 11 hours a day or, you know, every day, 24 hours a day for 11 days. Vipassana. But I love all different kinds of teachers. I mean, Eknath Azwaran wrote about meditation and he reminded me that anyone at all can meditate. And I really appreciated that and his stories about meditation. Amma, she hugged me right before my husband was trying to come back, work his way back into my life because we broke up and we were apart for six months. Amma was, you know, she hugged me and crack my heart open. And I was able to receive him and Yogi Bhajan who brought over Kundalini yoga, this kind of Kundalini yoga that I teach and practice from India and so many others. And then, you know, people like Gay Hendricks who studies the breath and teaches the breath and teaches business and love and relationships. I've been an avid reader my whole life. And one of the ways I'm built is if I see somebody who's got something going on that I want, I go and say, how did you do that? I did it with meditation. I did it with love and romance and my relationship. I've done it with my business over and over again. You know, if I want to be fit, I go to somebody who's fit. So that's. And to transition into what am I doing these days? So I'm about to go to India, which I love India, it's the motherland. But I don't go to ashrams generally. I go to hang out with my in laws. And Eckhart Tolle says, you know, if you want to see how spiritual are, go spend time with your family or your husband or wife's family. So it'll be a different experience than what I my day to day. So I've been doing a 40 day meditation to prepare for it, prepare me and them for it. For the last two days I've been doing an hour of chanting because I've been feeling some stuff. And the peace process helps, but sometimes it's good to have another boost. As many things as I can. I've been journaling and I asked people on Facebook who wanted prayer. And I have a list of about 100 people that I'm praying for right now. And that's one of the things that really turns things around for me. If I'm feeling anxious and I can't really figure out what's going on and the peace process is helping but not getting to the other side. If I pray for other people, it's like, oh yeah, great. Quiet's everything.

We're going to pause for just One moment right now and then return with more of this interview with guest expert Sarah Anma.

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Wow, there's so much in there. And one thing that's standing out is just a level of. I don't know if work is the right word, but whatever. The word would be effort. Maybe those are not quite because they have negative connotations almost, but there's like a discipline or a commitment in there to do the work to whatever form it takes, whether it's meditating or chanting or journaling, to create the life that you want.

The commitment is there. And sometimes I waver and I also always have to start with where I am. So the first time I went to India, before I went, I had a minimum two and a half hour yoga meditation practice per day, minimum. It was usually more so I was like rock solid. And I was doing a couple of 40 day meditations to prepare myself and my future in laws. And you know, I was on it. I was in best mental, spiritual, physical shape of my life probably. And as soon as I got there, I got off my game and I didn't meditate for the first three weeks and I wanted to hurt somebody. Three weeks in. My husband, boyfriend at the time was very gently said, maybe you should start meditating again. And I couldn't start with two and a half hours, you know, even though only three weeks earlier I'd been at two and a half hours. I had to start with four minutes. But four minutes counts, one minute counts. And so on November 2nd I started a 40 day and it was, I eased up to 11 minutes because I was off my game. And so I've been doing that since the second. And then three days ago I added the praying for other people. And two days ago I added the hour long chanting, meditation and today I started journaling again. So it's like the momentum grows, but you've got to meet yourself where you are and be very gentle in the process and compassionate in the process.

Yeah. Which actually brings me to another thing that I wanted to ask you about, which is compassion with ourselves and loving ourselves. But before we go into that, there's just one thing I wanted to ask because you mentioned so many different things there that we could dive into and if we had hours, we would. But with the, your experience around Kundalini yoga, I'm wondering with the chakras, is that something that you work with or do anything with other people or yourself around specifically?

I do. I'm kind of a haphazard student in a lot of ways. I'll do stuff as it comes up. I don't know if it's haphazard. Maybe I'm just guided. Maybe I'm, you know, there's some people, like, my husband's a planner. He plans and researches everything. And you know, he's always got a plan. I am an improviser. So if stuff comes up, I'm like, great, let's do that. So for me, I work with the chakras. If I feel inspiration, like, okay, I want to work on a particular one because I'm feeling, I'm noticing the outside world is kind of reflecting back that one of my chakras might be, might could use a boost. Or I just get an inspiration like, oh, let's work on this, or all of them. So I have had periods of time where I'm very diligent about it. I'm doing actually a couple of online courses right now and both of them work on the chakras. But that's not why, that's not why I got them. I, of course, in the marketing world, I got them because I wanted the results. And then, you know, I wanted the now.

I want them now.

Yeah, I wanted the what, but. And then the how was, you know, using the chakras, among other things. So I do work with them. I'm definitely no expert at all, but I like to be open.

Sure. Yeah. And again, there's a lot more there. But I was curious about your experience with that. And let's talk more about this being compassionate with ourselves and loving ourselves, because that's actually a big part of the peace process as well, is being with the feeling and being with ourselves. But it can be so easy to be impatient with the feeling, impatient with ourselves, invalidating ourselves. I shouldn't be feeling this.

Yeah.

And yet being able to love ourselves is essential in order to do this healing and peace process and work through all this stuff. And how does that work? How do we do that? What have you seen to be. Is it just a decision like I want to. Some people, I think, struggle with that. They say, yeah, I should. Okay, I wanna.

And.

And then they almost don't know how. And I'm curious about your thoughts around that.

Sorry. Yeah. I think everything starts and finishes with compassion for the self. It must. The longer I study, the more I'm around, the more true that becomes. Everything starts with self compassion. If you're mad at somebody, you're mad at yourself, whether you got yourself into it or for feeling the way you're feeling or whatever it is. So we've got to start everything with compassion for self. Now, Annie Pratt has this great formula for getting to compassion, which I think is fantastic. And, you know, I go into the mental. I like intellectual pursuits. I try not to dwell there. But, you know, there's. They have their purpose. And so this is kind of. It's a great way to mentally get into the emotions for me. And the first one is you lean into it, whatever it is. You know, if you're being mad at yourself, stop resisting it. Because anytime we're mad at ourselves, we're resisting back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. You know, like, I should, I shouldn't. I should, I shouldn't. I'm hating myself. Oh, but I shouldn't be hating myself. So leaning into it. Leaning into the full experience. And for me, that's the peace process. And then the second one is connect. Connect with that common experience. That's why 12 step programs are so powerful, because it's people getting together, saying, me too, and being real. I've done that too. I understand going to people, going to God or spirit or the universe too. Like, hey, I need some help here. So that connection is really, really essential. And then I'm actually forgetting the third part. But those first two parts are absolutely essential. Lean in and then connect. And, you know, I had a moment yesterday where I was breaking down. You know, I'm having a lot of breakthroughs these days. And I was breaking down and just having the ability to go all the way deep into it. Something that I was kind of holding off on because it was uncomfortable. And then being able to share it with somebody who said, me, too. I get it. I understand. I've been there. There's nothing like it.

Yeah. And I think that sometimes we try to do it all self contained and there's some of that is required. You know, we gotta get on our own side. But we kind of want it to be completely wrapped up in a nice little package so we don't have to show anyone messiness, vulnerability. I'll show when I've gotten through this all and I'm back to perfect, then I'll reveal myself. And then we end up obviously never really doing that because we never really are fully perfect in that definition of perfect.

Exactly.

And what's fascinating, and I don't know if you come across this is sometimes I find people are almost angered or resistant to the idea of loving themselves.

That is a really astute observation. I think part of that might be this investment in the identity of I'm the biggest jerk on the block or. Because people find their significance through bashing themselves a lot of the time and they don't know it. Right. But it can be a threat to upend that identity.

Even though it's negative, even though it's critical, even though it's putting them as inferior or unlovable to others. Still there's a sense of familiarity or comfort with that.

Yeah, yeah.

Yep. We're crazy. That's the short version there. It's true.

Yeah. But it's all me too, right?

Yeah, yeah. Well, we, you know, I've definitely had, I think one of the other resistances I've seen is people feel like they've tried to do it and were unsuccessful and it hurt. And then there's this sort of. It's almost like if someone gets hurt in a relationship, they have a phase where they're like, I don't, you know, forget love, forget women or forget men. They're nothing but pain. Yeah. And there's this kind of closeness to that. And in some ways I feel like people have that with themselves. Like. Nah, forget that touchy feely stuff. Doesn't work.

Yeah, yeah, totally. Because I mean, what's more risky than a relationship with yourself? If you can control it by damning it before you can make it happen, then you've got the control. Right. Oh, I know how this is going to pan out. So I won't be disappointed. Finally.

Yeah. And that's actually something that you said earlier that as we get to the end here, I'd love to loop back around to is control. And you mentioned something earlier when we were talking about trusting that we're going to be okay. We're going to pause for one more moment and then return back to the rest of the interview with Sarah Umna.

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Well, before I started working with Aziz, I definitely had a lot of doubts. Sure, yes. I thought that, you know, is this guy a scam? Is he, you know, I'm paying all these money, investing all these time into building my confidence. He might just be some guy that I found on the Internet who knows that if it's going to work or not. Definitely. Definitely. I know that a lot of guys have this kind of experience too, but you know what? It's like taking a risk versus just living in my small life for the rest of my life. I say, you know what? I'm gonna do it and see what happens and just see what's out there. I just want to tell Dr. Aziz, Man, I love what you do. I love the fact that you are just really willing to help people to make this world a better place, a more lovable, more confident, Just really bring out the full potential in people. Because, you know, when I first. When I first met you, I was really small. You know, my boss hated me. My dad thought that I was a failure. I thought that no girls, no woman's ever gonna want to date me. But now, you know, I'm starting my own business. I got my own patent. I'm just really looking forward, aggressive. I want to do business with Walmart, Costco, and I have multiple women, you know, different numbers, wanting to just date me and just hang out with me. My dad thinks I'm an awesome person. Just over this past one year, I've shifted dramatically. And I just want to thank you, Dr. Aziz, for just bringing the full potential in me. And thank you.

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And I think that's an interesting thing because that's where a lot of our need for control is like, no, this has to go this way, and this has to go that way, and everything has to unfold because I'm not going to be okay. And there's this inherent fear and distrust of other people or life around us or God or the universe or we're sort of on edge, and I'm curious how you see that. How do we trust in the flow? What's helped you and others do that?

Yeah, oh my God, that is like a year long talk, right?

Sound bite. I need it in a sound bite. What's the quick mental answer?

Christian put it really well the other day. Surrender and be guided, you know, and I mean, that's in a sound bite. And surrender is hard. It's very. It takes a lot of courage to let go of the death grip on stuff that even doesn't serve us, you know, but when we do, oh my gosh, the relief and the freedom are amazing. But you know, crossing that chasm from control, perfectionism, worry, all these distractions that keep us out of the moment, keep us out of being 100% present. You know, getting from there to trust is. It can feel insurmountable, that chasm. But practice helps. Starting with smaller things helps. You know, having slogans helps for me. I'm auditory, so slogans help a lot for me. Like give people the dignity of their experience. That means I've stopped controlling other people or how I want them to act because I don't know what's best for them. My mind tells me I do. But if I can give them the dignity of their experience, it might mean that they mess up and their mess up might be integral to their growth. I can't hinder that. And then I can apply that to myself. Okay, you need to give myself dignity of this experience. That's very uncomfortable and I don't like it and I don't want to be here, but I'm going to peace process it. So surrender. You know, peace processing is an active surrender for me. And just building on that bit by bit. You know, sometimes it's two steps forward, one step back, and sometimes it's two step backwards, one step forward. But just having that commitment of I'm going to do this as best as I can, and some days 50% is 100% is the best we can do. And some days 25, and sometimes 100, you know, we gotta meet ourselves where we are and be okay with that. And that's a surrender.

Sure. Yeah. And part of the compassion that you were talking about earlier as well.

Mm. Yeah.

And one last thought on you said the two parts, surrender and be guided. And maybe they go hand in hand.

And.

And can you say just a few more words about that second part about being guided? How does that show up and work?

Yeah, Well, I think of that as intuitive nudges or thoughts that come when my guard is down. Like when I'm not trying to fix or solve or control anything and I'm just sitting, being present Then inspiration comes, and when I listen to it and act on it, sometimes it's uncomfortable because it often doesn't make sense, but it has a powerful effect. You know, back when I first joined Christian Michelson's coach team, he didn't want to hire me, but he had an inspiration that, oh, I'm supposed to hire her. And then what ended up happening was, you know, I came in full time and helped him triple his business and did all kinds of great stuff that we neither one of us would have ever known. But he listened to his inspiration. That didn't really make sense. Like on the outside, he didn't have a great experience with me coaching, but then he ended up hiring me as his personal coach later when that inspiration hit. And so many things, so many wonderful things came as a result of that. So inspiration often is uncomfortable because it doesn't always make sense. It's not logical. I have a friend who says, you know, it's God if it doesn't make sense. Yeah, it's good, right? You know, another slogan that I live by and just, you know, I think one of the main things is being okay not knowing, being okay in uncertainty and being okay allowing yourself to be okay no matter what.

Yeah, that's beautiful and it's powerful and it's inspiring. And I think there's something there that's pointing to such a deeper level of confidence in terms of how we move through the world, how we. And it's beyond the confidence to storm into the boardroom and be a badass and all the things that we think we want when we imagine confidence, but this and the commitment and the consistency and the self compassion that we combine to make that part of a reality so that we can live this way and feel that way as opposed to just, oh, that sounds right. I guess that's my new concept. No, like actually making it part of our. Our daily life and how we move and the choices we make and how guided we feel. I think that's extremely inspiring. And ultimately what we all want underneath. Underneath the short term success or the significance or other things that we're striving for.

Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Sarah, for joining us today and sharing just a small piece of the wisdom piece that we could dive into. And I want to wish you the best on your trip to India.

Thank you. Yeah, it was great to be with you, Aziz. You know, one last thing if I could share. I was at a yoga class the other day. My mom and sister came with me. That was really super special. And the Teacher talked throughout the class. Very. Just didn't stop talking and talked spiritual platitudes. And afterwards she was busy, so I wasn't able to talk to her. But I wanted to say, you know what? Let your presence be your message. Because her words just made it sound like she was trying too hard. And I think a lot. I know I get into that. You know, it's easy for me to spot it because I've done it and probably still do from time to time. But really, we want to just be confident by being ourselves and let that be our message to the world.

I love it.

Yeah. Thank you.

Yes. Awesome. Thank you, Sarah.

Thanks for the good work you're doing.

That brings us to the end of the interview and almost the end of the episode. But you know what we got to end with, right?

Time for action.

Your action step for today is. Well, let me just put it this way. You've heard a ton of interesting things, things that Sarah does, things that I do. You probably a bunch of ideas were triggered about different practices that you know or knew of and maybe stopped doing. So instead of telling you a specific thing, I'm going to say, you know, what it is that you want to do. But the action step is to turn it into a practice. Last week, the invitation that I had was that you do the peace process once a day for 10 minutes for these six days, and you may have done that. Hopefully did. Now, moving forward, what is one practice? And maybe you have like 10 different things. Like you like to go for runs and then you like to meditate and you like to read from this book and you like to do that. Well, if you're not doing any of them, I would not suggest starting with three to five things all at once because it's like juggling a bunch of balls. We don't sustain it. Pick one thing and make it really small. Make it 5 minutes or 10 minutes tops. Then if you can consistently do that for a week or two weeks, then bump it up to 15 or to 20 minutes or add something, another five, 10 minute thing in there. But you want to just create little habits, little rituals that you can consciously do that you can sustain because that's what shifts over time. So go ahead and pick one. Now, you probably have a couple floating in your head already. Just pick one. Whichever one you decide on is the right one. And nothing beats taking one and just putting it into practice. Having the perfect one or the right one for me and being hesitant and then not doing anything. It doesn't compare to just picking one. Whether it's meditation or the peace process or anything that you want, just say, okay, I'm going to do that once a day. X minutes a day. Here's what I'm going to do it each day and just following through. And you will be amazed at how much that can shift how you feel, your confidence, your mindset, and your general mood, and how you approach life. Thanks for being with me today, and until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.

Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy gods 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.

Sam.