Deep Confidence And Inner Peace With Sarah Amna Part 1

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.

Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. And how you doing today? Hopefully good. And you are going to love what we're going to cover today. I am super excited because we have a guest who is someone that I personally have learned a ton from over the last almost two years now. She's someone that I've had the privilege of being able to work with. She's been my coach and trained me in a lot of ways. And one of the core things that I've learned is from her is actually about confidence. And it is a different path than I'd learned, which was about doing what scares you and taking action and facing your fears. And I'd done that for years and developed a high level of confidence as a result. But there was always this kind of tension in it, this like driving forward force, which can be powerful, but it can also be draining and kind of depleting. And you can have this experience, which maybe you've had before, where you succeed or you break through or you get the relationship that you want or the success that you want, but it doesn't produce a sense of peace and ease. Then it's just the next thing, the next goal, the next outcome, the next level. And there's this kind of continual stress or striving underneath that can diminish the enjoyment of actually taking in and feeling satisfied and happy and grateful with what you've achieved, what you've earned with your confidence. And this is something that Sarah, who's our guest today, has profoundly helped me with. I think this could be extremely valuable for you. I'd encourage you to really pay attention to what she's saying in this interview. Take notes, apply what you learn. Because if you do in the ways that I have, your entire life, your entire world will transform and it will help you develop rock solid confidence. And that's what we're going to be talking about in this interview is how to deepen and strengthen your sense of confidence in a very counterintuitive way, in a way that almost feels like you're not doing something, you're supposed to go out and do something, right? This method is totally different and it's about how to heal all the fears and the self doubts by going inward. So without further ado, let's dive into my interview with guest expert Sarah now. Expert interview. My guest expert today is Sarah Anand, anma and she's the author of the book Make Way for New Love. And she's a transformational leader in the coaching industry and she works to radically transform and elevate the consciousness and income of heart centered entrepreneurs from all over the world. She helps coaches, speakers, authors to overcome their fears of going big and putting themselves out there and to do so by getting into a state of grace, of ease of flow and joyful expression. And it's actually something that she has helped me to do quite a bit. I am in a mastermind program with which she is one of the co leaders of the program and it's helped me not only grow my business and go bigger in the world, but transformed how I approach the world. And my knowledge and level of confidence and how to be in the world has greatly improved from what I've learned from Sarah. And I'm excited to share what I've learned from her. And we're going to dive into this interview and you're going to learn amazing things from her as well. Some fascinating things about her is she ran a film festival herself with no prior experience, got sponsors and took it to three cities. She backpacked six months in Asia and she says Europe is for wimps. And recently she's on a new adventure where she's gotten rid of all of her stuff. She calls it home free, not homeless, home free and has been nomadic for six months. So always a surprise and always something new with you, Sarah. And thank you so much for joining us today on the interview.

Thanks so much for having me. Sorry I started chuckling while you were talking and it's really funny to hear what other people say about you because so much of what you were saying is other people's words about me. So yeah, thank you. Great to be here.

Yes. Well, we will have some of my own words about you too. Look out. Well, in fact, let's start with that. So you have helped me quite a bit with my own confidence. And while I'd done a lot of work to get to the place where I could talk to people and have social confidence and dating confidence and stuff, where I found a tremendous amount of fear was around putting myself out there in the world as a coach and a teacher, as an author, and there was this fear of judgment, fear of people not liking me, all the same fears that would happen one on one in a conversation for me. But now it was magnified to tons and tons of people. And I'm sure you know, in the mastermind, which is called the Biggs program, that's a common challenge that you help a lot of people with. And I'm curious to hear a little bit more about how you see that. That fear of being seen or being big, how you approach that. What are some of your thoughts on how you help people with that challenge?

That's such a good question. And you're right. It happens so much with our group, but also with out there in the world. I think one of the main things is just really not buying into people's fears and limiting beliefs and stories and seeing them for their vastness. And really, I am very confident in your capabilities and how competent you are and other people in our group. And it's so easy for me to see. And I love you more than I love your feelings. So what I mean by that is I care more about your life than about the story or the fear or that kind of thing. And that's not mercenary. It's just I want to be able to see you as you and not as the fiction that runs between your ears or somebody else's ears. And so the power of the group is really fantastic for that, because I need it, too. You know, just yesterday, somebody that I work very closely with and who's been mentoring me also on a very deep and close level, these two people were saying, you have no idea what you're capable of, and you downplay it a lot. So we all need somebody else to reflect that back to us.

I love what you said there. The fiction that goes between our ears or someone else's ears, the stories that we create. And that seems, I almost want to say, universal, but who knows what every single person's experience is? But quite a large percentage of people that I interact with seem to be playing small in that way, seeing themselves as quite limited. Lots of things are impossible, and that's just the way it is. And maybe they have the courage or the desire to challenge it. Like, no, I want to do more. But then they're battling the tons of stories in their heads. And what does that mean to love someone bigger than that? Do you just ignore those stories? Do you say, hey, they're all just made up and what is the way through?

Oh, they're so transparent. I know they're very compelling to the owner of them and have, you know, we gather evidence and the pie charts and all these reasons to have them, but for somebody else, it's just, oh, sweetie, that's. You know, it's not effort. It doesn't. It's not a lot of effort, as long as. I mean, of Course, sometimes I buy into people's stories. I buy into my own. And neutrality isn't always available. But my guide, the star at which I set my sails, is to love people through whatever limitations they've been putting on themselves.

Yeah, I love that. And I know one of the powerful ways that you help people do that, and you've helped me do that, is when those stories are bouncing around and saying, you can't do that. People won't like this. Oh, my gosh. What if that happens? Is to help me get out of those stories and go right into my body with my awareness. And you call it the peace process. And for those people who might not have heard that, can you share a little bit about what that is and how you bring our attention out of our thoughts?

Oh, yeah. The peace process is a lifesaver. And I learned it from Christian Michelson, of course, who came up with it. Just, you know, anytime we're bouncing around, you know, that story is bouncing around between the ears, or we're up against fear, frustration, or anger, whatever it is, if we just take a moment and stop, check out what's happening in the body, like, oh, I'm having stage fright. Okay, well, what does stage fright feel like in the body? Oh, well, first I notice sweaty palms. Then I notice my heart's beating fast. Then I feel pressure in the middle of my chest or my throat aches or there's pressure at my temples or whatever it is. There's any number of ways that it can present itself. But it will present itself. It definitely will in the body. And most of us are trained to ignore these because it's actually very courageous to do so, to pay attention to these sensations. And, you know, we're definitely more of a culture of putting the blame on something or someone else rather than like, okay, what can I learn here? But when we take the time to really dive into the body and feel what those stories, how they're presenting in the body, then we can be free. As long as we feel it, have the courage to feel it, and go all the way to the end. You don't even have to go until the sensation is gone and have relief. But when we're able to really get to a zero scale of 0 to 10, then we can be free and then find something else to work on.

Yeah, and it's pretty fascinating. 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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It's pretty fascinating how our minds perceive you're talking about blame and seeing it as something outside of us. So our mind puts the source of the discomfort externally. Well, it's that. It's because I have to go do this presentation, so I'm fearing stage fright. It's because I have to, because that person said this to me, so now I'm angry. And so then our mind thinks, well, the solution to that must be to not have to go give the presentation or to be someone who's so badass that they don't even feel afraid or to fire that person or quit or whatever our dramatic solutions are. But what's fascinating is when you just slow down like this and really just, I'm going to do nothing other than feel it in my body. It's amazing how it can get solved just through that. And even if the situation is the same, even if that person did fire you or you did have that falling out or whatever, you're now more at peace. You use the word neutrality around that and that really blew my mind that, that actually. And the mind doesn't really get it. It's kind of like, wait, wait, why is this? Where's the feeling going? Something. What's happening?

Yeah, it's like I have to think about this or care about it, otherwise, you know, it's not important and the two things aren't mutually exclusive. You can be neutral about something that's very important.

Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about that. So what neutral is, you know, for all those things that we, that we tend to get wound up around, whether it's things that we really want, whatever that is, for the presentation to go well, to get hired, to make the money, to get the person to date us, all the things that we get wrapped up around. There's the desire for it, and then there's the fear of it going badly or losing something. What does it mean to be neutral around these things that matter to us in life?

Yeah, a great question. There's also the fear of getting it, too. It's really interesting. Wait, I really want this and I'm afraid of it. Yeah. So being neutral for me, what I experience is. Is one of the biggest gifts that I can actually be in the moment. It makes me so much more effective because I don't have an agenda. I can still have desires and want things to work out a certain way. But being neutral for me means that I'm okay regardless. And I know I'm going to be okay regardless. So kind of my catchphrase is neutral compassion. So I'm showing up fully. The mind likes to think that neutrality is apathy, and it's not. Apathy is defeat. It's like eeyore, kind of like, oh, well, resignation. Right. And neutrality to me is more like surrender, which is like, okay, I am here and I don't know what's best for me or the world or this person, but I'm okay no matter what. I'm protected no matter what. Everything's okay no matter what. If I lose the job, if I get the job, if I, you know, if my house burns down, if it doesn't, you know. And of course, we have our humanity, and we aren't ever going to be absolved of that until our last breath. So we don't want to just skip from whatever stimulation, whether it's tragedy or perceived tragedy or conflict or whatever it is, and then jump to, everything happens for a reason, and the reason is good. We've got to trudge through that angst or disappointment or whatever it is, and the best way to do that, through the body. And then we can show up like, okay, the house burned down. That's sad. And it's okay. And here's the next thing to do. How can I go serve others?

Yeah, I think that's so powerful too, because that's such a common approach to. Is to try to flip to the other side. Everything's better, it's okay. This happened for a reason. I should feel okay now. And. But we're trying to do so without. We're trying to leapfrog over any uncomfortable feeling. We're trying to make the feelings go away with a little mental judo trick. I did that for many years.

Me too. Yeah.

You know, and then I kept on thinking, man, I just need better mental tricks. I need more moves. My moves suck. Or I suck for not being able to apply the move. Right.

Yeah.

This book just says to do it. Ah, it's not working. I suck.

Yeah. And that's great for confidence. Right?

Right. Yeah. And so let's actually. I love that. Thanks for bringing that word back. What does this do to our confidence to be. I love how you describe neutrality. Like, it's okay. It's okay if this happens or it doesn't happen. And I think that really captures the essence of that unattached state that is very engaged in life, but not grasping and frantically trying to move the chess pieces around. What does that do?

What?

Have you seen that in your life and in the people you've worked with? What does that do to confidence?

Oh, my gosh. Well, you know, from experience, and I do too, from experience, and observing that, it just skyrockets your confidence because one becomes un. Upsetable or if you're upset, you have something to get you through to the other side and the world and its people no longer are your problems. So you can, you know, whether somebody approves of you or not. A lot of us are driven by the need for approval. Right. But we release that need for approval and then can skip just straight to love. And that love can be just us giving, broadcasting it rather than seeking approval. Because if we're giving love, we're not worried about how we look or how they think about us or that if it's true love, you know, and not manipulative. Yeah. Just being free of so many of those shackles, those mental, emotional shackles, gives us so much more energy to be ourselves. And when we can be ourselves, then we gain confidence just by being amazing. And we're able to more easily go out and just bring people peace simply with our presence. We can be a blessing to a stranger simply with our presence. You know, one of my teachers, Yogi Bhajan, said, be so happy that others are happy being around you. Well, I couldn't make myself be happy. I had to clean up the stuff that was preventing me from being happy. And then as I'm, you know, as I clean that stuff up, there's so much room for me to be real. Being real gives me confidence and I get feedback. And sometimes it's negative, you know, but most of the feedback I get is positive. And with you know, over time, that feedback doesn't rattle me. Not always. I mean, I had something very recently totally rattle me. But I also talked to Tony Robbins about it last year. I said, you know, what do you do with the haters? And he said, you know, I teach all this stuff, this self empowerment stuff. And I. He got rattled by a bad review of his book and he chewed on it for three days and he couldn't see any of the great reviews that were going on. I don't know if it was three days, but he couldn't let go until he could let go. So even the master Tony Robbins is human still, even though he's one of the most competent people probably on the planet. You know, going back to. We need to do the process, but as we do the process, then the confidence grows.

Yeah, it's surprisingly nice to hear. Good old.

What is that?

Schadenfreuden, you know, taking some, some joy at the suffering of others. It's like, ha, ha, Tony, you're better than me. Because that was going to be my next question because you opened up a really fascinating topic there about liberating ourselves from being trapped by the approval of others. And a goal that I've had for. At first it was like, well, I want to not care so much about what people think of me so I can just be myself around people and. And that's still the goal. But now it's like I want to be. I want to be neutral around people's responses to me, you know, within reason. Assuming I'm just being me and doing what I do in the world, not being a total raging asshole or something, but, you know, like, I write a book or this is what I want to share with the world and there's going to be some good reviews and some negative reviews, you know, to get to the place where those don't stir up a defensiveness, a discouraged feeling, wanting to go have a talk with them and tell them why they're wrong. And it's interesting, that story. That's right. Yeah. You don't even understand. Did you even. Ah. Which is one of my reactions to those now. And so what I'm curious about is, and not in a weird, perfectionistic way where we have to get there, but do you think that's possible? Would the commitment be to just basically go look at the bad review on purpose and just sit there and do the peace process until you're neutral? And then again and again and again, kind of this exposure to it? Or what would you say would be the commitment that you envision to get to a place of much greater neutrality around negative reviews, around negative feedback, that sort of thing. We're going to pause for one more moment and then return back to the rest of the interview with Sara. Amna.

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That's a great question. And you know, I probably, before hearing Tony Robbins admit that, I probably would have said, oh, yeah, you can totally transcend that. And, you know, I'm pretty sure probably some people have. And for others of us like me, it's in degrees. You know, the commitment is to just keep trying to do better. And by better, I don't mean achieve more and that there's anything wrong with me right now. It's just a desire to grow. And that includes releasing those needs, those greedy needs for approval, which are just based in insecurity and that kind of thing. So, you know, I would say that the commitment is when you feel those feelings, to feel the feelings instead of make the other person wrong. If you're getting criticized, which I do very imperfectly. I recently had a less than graceful, I would say more savage and less graceful response to criticism recently. But the commitment is there that, okay, I'm gonna work on my stuff no matter what. I'm gonna heal my stuff no matter what. And maybe it's so painful that I'm gonna postpone it until tomorrow, but tomorrow I'm gonna Work on it.

And just to really spell it out and clarify it. When you say to work on it, you mean to stop running, stop doing activities, and just be and feel the feelings in your body and give it your full loving attention, Is that right?

Exactly. You nailed it.

Yeah.

And that's one thing sitting with it. Yeah, go ahead.

Well, that's one thing that I really appreciated about what you've taught me and when I've worked with you is it's, you've. There's sort of a consistency or this is gonna make it sound like it's a religion or something, but like orthodoxy to it. It's like, this is what, this is, how to deal with that. And my mind wants to be like, well, what's the. Isn't there like a faster way? Should we like talk about it and do some sort of belief changing magic or something? And it was like, yeah, right, right. Where do you feel that in your body? And so I think there can be a perception that there must be something more or must be real complicated. But I think that commitment to just keep doing it is one of the most powerful things. Because if I really study, what my mind wants to do is it wants to find a faster, easier way that involves feeling less. And when we do this method, we're not feeling less, we're feeling more. And one distinction I wanted to get your thoughts on, because people listening might not be familiar with the peace process, but as they're hearing it, they're like, oh, maybe they've done some sort of meditation. And one of the most common types of meditation that people do is a breath awareness meditation. And in those meditations, you notice if you're in your thoughts, but you also notice if you're really focusing on a feeling. And in either case, at least in a lot of them, you just let it go gently and bring your attention right back to your breath, which is not the same as going right into the feeling with your attention and staying there in your chest or your stomach or your jaw or wherever. What are your thoughts on that? On meditation? Is that just as good? Is it a different kind of thing? Do you do the, the breath meditation yourself? What are your thoughts on that?

Well, first of all, I love meditation and I meditate every day and I love it, I teach it, I encourage it, it's fantastic. And for me, I can incorporate meditation into my peace process and vice versa. But with the part where you said you focus on a feeling and then let it go. So for the peace process, you can focus on the feeling like anger, resentment, whatever it is on the feeling. And then you go to the physical sensation. Because most of these feelings are trapped in our body because we haven't been able to fully express them. And so a lot of the stuff that's bothering us today happened when we were eight and we didn't have the words or the means to express it. And it just got locked in the body or 10 or 20 or whatever it was. So it's not really ever the content of what's making you mad right now. It's whatever it was back then that didn't get fully expressed. So doing the peace process allows that physical trap or the place where it's been trapped, the feeling's been trapped in your physicality to come loose. And like you said, when you're doing the peace process, you can use the emotion to get into it. But we don't dwell there, we don't stay there. Okay, that's great. You feel rejected. Where does rejection show up in your body? Great. It's in your heart. How does it feel? Okay, level of 0 to 10, 10 being most intense. And then just give it your attention. Go right into the center. Don't try to make it go away. Don't try to fix it or solve it. Just be with it and then rinse, repeat.

That brings us to the end of the time that we have today. There is a ton of good stuff that you're going to want to listen to in next week's episodes. We're going to cover the rest of the interview and we're going to get into more specific strategies, different types of meditation, self care, things that Sarah does, and how to continue to take these practices and make them part of your life. So you're definitely going to want to stay tuned and listen to that next week. For now, though, we got to turn some of this into action. Time for action. So your action step for today is you heard us talking about this thing called the peace process, about kind of going inward and just being with the sensations in your body. One of my intentions was for you to be able to listen to this interview and then go practice it, go try it out for yourself. And that is what I would encourage. And this is not just a single single action step. Like do it once. I'd say make a commitment to do it for 10 minutes a day for the next six days until the next episode, and perhaps you would continue it beyond that. I'd highly recommend that. But for at the very least, experiment with doing it within the next six days. Just ten minutes a day. Find the time, make the time to go inwards, and you might be amazed at how much you can relax, how much can dissolve when we get out of our heads and we actually learn to start calming our bodies and our nervous systems. So go ahead and take that action this week, and I'll see you in next week's episode. Until we speak, then, 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 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 socialconfidencecenter.com.

Sam.