Emotional Mastery - An Interview with Dr. Aziz

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 everyone. I am here with Dr. Aziz. He interviews lot of people on this show, as you know. And recently we were talking and thought it would be interesting to interview the most interesting person that Dr. Z's knows, that is Dr. Z's himself.

That's what I often say. I just tell people, you know, what you're saying is pretty interesting. But what I have to say is more interesting. I'd like to let especially my wife, she loves it when I tell her that. And all of you who are here.

Know that this is the truth. Yes. Which is why you're here.

The most interesting man in the world. Self proclaimed. Now that's confidence right there, right?

Wouldn't you say? So we've got a few things to dive into. For those of you who don't know, my name is Ben Gibson. I am a coach on Dr. Aziz's team and we had a couple of questions that we thought would be interesting and we will see where this interview goes. So, Dr. Aziz, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Ben.

It's great to have you.

Good to be here.

So if you're ready, which it looked like from the pump up just a little bit ago, you're ready. Let's dive into some really juicy questions right away. Would you like to do that?

Yes. I'm intrigued. All right.

All right. What do you like best about being the most interesting person in the world?

Well, it got, it's got its pros and its cons.

I can imagine. But I can only imagine because I don't know what it's like to be as interesting as you.

That's true. Definitely correct.

So being such an interesting person, full of confidence, exuding it every moment of the day, do you ever experience any form of anxiety anymore?

No. Next question. No, I mean, I think that's a, that's a. I think that people have an idea of what confidence is or the end results of their growth is going to be A state where I don't think, feel anxious anymore. And they might even say, I want to be rid of this anxiety, I want to be free of this. Which I get and I talk about, hey, you can free yourself from social anxiety. So it might sound like I'm saying the same thing. And being completely rid of certain emotional states or experiences of being a human, I think is unrealistic and is coming from a place of suffering and thinking. Basically, people think the only way I can feel happy is if I'm completely free of social anxiety and never experience it ever again. And you know, the truth is somewhere not on the extremes, right? So yeah, if you're living with a ton of social anxiety and self criticism and self doubt, it's pretty hard to feel good, feel happy for very long. You can feel distracted, you can feel pleasure or absorbed for a little while, but you're not going to feel joy, relaxed, contentment, fulfillment, happiness. But you don't need to have a complete absence of that. In fact, the desire to experience no pain, grasping at trying to feel no pain creates more pain for you and for others. And so I'd say what happens, I've seen is one, you can get better and better at letting uncomfortable emotional states move through you without latching on to them, without making them mean so much, without putting a huge story of this is who I am and this is what's going to happen in the, you know, tomorrow or even an hour from now. And I'll notice that like I think we humans, we have fluctuating emotional states. We're organic, complex, insanely complex mixture of what I mean, you know, a bio level and chemicals and hormones and then an energetic level of light transmission and quantum and then a very like sort of physical, molecular, solid protein structures. What you ate yesterday, you know, your sleep rhythms, your, you know, emotional factors of work and pressures and how you're being with all that. So you're going to feel differently throughout the different times, throughout the day. What I noticed, interestingly, is sometimes all early in the morning or something, if I feel like stressed or tense in the past, it would have been like, this is going to be a hard day, it's going to be a bad day. And I'm very conscious now to be like, I've had so many days where I tell myself I would think that. And then like later in the day I'm like, I feel great. And so I. And it can shift even faster, you know, minutes now, sometimes. And sometimes I'm working with something for hours or a day or Two, so there is no complete cessation of these experiences. And it's possible, I mean, I don't feel the self loathing and the social anxiety and I'm not inferiority and all these things. It's like a very intermittent thing I can go to rather than what I live in. And so that is possible to have it be a very infrequent place that you visit. Wow.

So many things there. I think that you could probably pull out seven or eight episodes just following the trails of what you described there.

But.

I love what you said right there. It's not a complete cessation of these experiences and something you said earlier.

You.

Get better and better at letting these uncomfortable emotional states move through you. I think that a lot of people, when they experience these emotional states, it feels like life is horrible. It feels like this isn't what I want to do, this isn't how I want to live. I don't like this pain. Is it possible to live a fulfilling life knowing that you can't get rid of the pain.

Here? The getting their pain is an inevitable part of being an organism on this planet. There is no animal with, I mean, I don't even. Trees without a central nervous system, it's, you know, it's questionable if they feel pain in the same way as us, but they do react to painful stimulus. Right? So something's going on in there and it's not, it's probably not like the tree's version of happiness. It's like. Right. So I think pain is inevitable. As a Buddha said, you know, old age, sickness and death, impermanence. Right. These things are inevitable. And the default natural response of your mind, the brain, the nervous system, is to recoil or retreat or end pain. Those two things are, I think, givens. So. And you know, should it be that way or can it be different? Like, well, that's just like, you know, why do we have to breathe oxygen? Why is there gravity on our planet? Like, I don't know, this is just the setup. So yeah, you will feel pain. Now there's a, there's a, you know, a common phrase that I think is just a lot of truth to it, which is why it's so widely taught, which is that pain is inevitable, but suffering is something you have more control over. It's optional. And what's the difference? Pain is raw sensation, could be a physical sensation. You hit your hammer, your hand with a hammer, that's going to hurt. Someone gets upset with you, you might feel fear or hurt inside. These are the in you know, sort of cause and effect things. Then there is the suffering, which is the mind getting involved. And first and foremost saying it's resistance of any sort. I don't want to feel this. That's the. That's the just, you know, frontal assault resistance. Turn that. No, no, no. And that's what we're saying. I'm saying no to this anxiety. And so natural, right? Because it's uncomfortable. It's pain. When I say pain here, I mean any uncomfortable emotion. Grief, anxiety, anger, inferiority. Those are the ones that we tend to resist. And what we resist persists. So I'm going to fight it by internally saying no. And when you do this, it's a mental no. And then your body tenses, it almost braces for battle against this thing which, you know, kind of ironically locks it more into place. The emotion, the energy of the emotion can't move through you. And so now you're. The anxiety can become entrenched and then it becomes even further entrenched. Because we don't just resist it physically and with the frontal no, we also start to resist it in four other ways. It can bloom out into this, like, flower of suffering and despair of like, self pity. Why do I have to feel this? Other people have it easier than I do. This. I. This shouldn't be this way. We sort of have some arbitrary conclusions about life for us and how they're supposed to be. And. And so then we, you know, further, further. And then we can even lock it into, like, this is my identity. Of course I'm feeling anxious. I'm an anxious person. I've been this way. It's because of my genes and it's because of my upbringing is because of something in the past. And now we've resisted it and locked it in. And so that's suffering. That is completely malleable and changeable and dissolvable. And that's the growth, that's liberation. And so it is possible to experience pain without suffering. And then it becomes a very different experience. And it's rare for people to. To sort of stumble upon that. Sometimes people do, you know, when they reach a certain level of intense suffering. But through, you know, study and learning from other people, in practice, it's possible to experience pain without suffering. And then it's a very fascinating and actually quite liberating and quite even possibly joyful experience, which is really weird to hear. I would have been like, what? But I've had that experience before. It is possible to feel very differently, even in the face of pain.

Again, so many things in this. Aziz, thank you for peeling back and dissecting this so beautifully. And one thing that jumped out for me is pain is raw sensation and suffering is the mind getting involved with the resistance. Have you, when you think about pain being just a raw sensation, have you ever experienced yourself or observe this even in someone you know, where they or you were resisting something that actually ended up being a feeling that they actually enjoyed and desired? Is it. Is it possible if. If to. To observe or to interpret with the mind a physical sensation as bad or dangerous or painful, but then later discover that it's. It's just a sensation and I can take a different view of it.

Yeah, I mean, I think the. So pain is really interesting too because we're saying pain is inevitable and suffering is when the mind gets involved, to be even more specific or granular pain. The mind is already. The brain is already involved in order to interpret and experience pain. So there's an even more raw sensation from the nerves and other. However, emotion is experienced too. Right. And the brain creates a sensation of pain. And one of the most in the per. One of the purposes of pain is danger is to alert. So if you roll your ankle or break your ankle, there's a lot of pain. And the pain is severe enough that you don't go running around on it because your body's like, rest this thing until it's better. That's a legit firing of the whole system to protect you. However, what about the emotion of desire? If you have some fear of. My desire is not going to be returned. My desire is repulsive because I'm not enough and I'm a creepy person and sexual desire is wrong because I learned that growing up or whatever. Thousand and one conditionings that could happen. Now all of a sudden, desire comes up and you might feel some emotional pain of anxiety and you don't even know that there's desire underneath there. It's just like, I'm so anxious, I don't know what's going on and. Or I'm so depressed, I'm just like. And there's all these feelings underneath. And. Yeah, so it's possible to feel the sensation of desire and it can feel good and it can feel, you know, there's a, there's a, like a hunger there. And hunger can feel exciting or empowering. Right. If you think about hunger, when you know you're going to get the meal or the thing that you want, it's sort of. There's like a positive anticipation. Right. That's the classic example, the friend who's like, we're going to get burgers. It's going to be great. You know, it's like tonight, oh, you got to try these fries. You know, and they're like building it up. Whereas if you have a hunger and you think that you're never going to experience it, you know, someone who's decided to become vegan, I'm never going to eat a burger again. It hurts. Right? Or, you know, more maybe significant example would be someone who has a hunger for close intimacy in a relationship and they have a story that says, I'm never going to have that because I'm not good enough. And no one that I really want to be with is ever going to want to be with me. Then that's suffering because there's the pain. So you're. Yeah, absolutely. It can definitely change. And the more we become willing to free ourselves and take bold action, the more we can actually experience a bigger range of feelings without fear of them. And therefore the pain, the actual experience of pain goes down significantly too.

Wow, this is so fascinating. What I'm hearing you say, Dr. Z's is the more that we allow these feelings, sensations, emotions, just allow them to move through us, we might discover that some of our. We might discover there are layers to these things. I might think I'm just anxious when it's. Actually there's a whole host of other things that have given rise to my overall sense of anxiety. And not all those things that give rise to that anxiety are necessarily unpleasant things actually in the end. So if I allow these things to move through me, then I might uncover and peel back and unravel and discover that, oh, like a lot of these triggers that have resulted in a sensation of anxiety, maybe some of them are actually could. Could lead to a feeling of fulfillment or just a whole different experience because I'm unraveling them from these things that my mind has wrapped them up into one big thing.

Absolutely. And I think that, that wrapping up versus being able to have more nuance, that's a sign of intelligence. You have me open up the hood of my car and I'll say, there's an engine. Maybe I'll point out where I put fluid in there, windshield wiper fluid or oil or something, and that's it. Like, I don't know, it's just a big thing. Right. A mechanic looks at that and that person knows they see a thousand different things. That's intelligence. They have the ability to see nuance. And when it comes to emotional intelligence, when we have low emotional intelligence, it's just like, how you feeling bad? Make stop now. Right? More. More nuance is to be able to be with the mixture of emotion that is always present. Emotion is like a color palette, right? It's never just like, how is it green? It's always like, nothing in life is just green, right? It's like it's this. Even a green. Bright green leaf has got nuance and change shading and all this stuff.

So.

And when I say intel, emotional intelligence, I don't think that means you have to sit there and say it's 7% shame, 3, 33% fear. Like, you don't have to get to know it all with the mind. It's really about letting your awareness go to the emotion and start to notice that what is the quality? So it's almost like an emotional intelligence is almost like a mindful sensation and energetic awareness intelligence. And then you can also name some of the feelings, too, as they arise, but that's not the. The starting or the most important thing to do.

So getting Back to you, Dr. Aziz.

The most interesting, emotionally intelligent human ever to have lived.

In all the history of the Earth.

I should update my bio. So when people be on shows, they're like, I wonder if someone would read it. They'd be like, oh, okay.

I can just imagine somebody dropping into the episode right here like, whoa, this guy's really gone.

Got too much confidence. But.

But getting back to you, what is your experience? I mean, do you still experience this. Do you experience this palette? Do you sometimes discover that you wrapped it all up and sort of reduced everything into one thing? Or what. What do you experience in your life? I mean, you. You're going through a life change right now. That's fairly significant. What's your experience of life? Do.

Do.

Do you. How do you observe these nuances? Or do you still. Yeah. Apply this reductionistic way of thinking?

Yeah, I'd say it's both. Right. So it depends upon what pattern I'm running in the moment. I can run a pattern of. I mean, I would kind of put that into the category for me of emotional avoidance. Right. It's like, ugh, I don't want to go there. I'm. I'm going to, you know, operate on top of the emotion I'm just going to do and not even be that aware. I don't really want to go there. I don't have time for this or whatever story. I can definitely do that. And then I'll become aware of the suffering, and it could be. It could come out in the form of like a restlessness or an agitation or dissatisfaction or grasping. It could come out in the form of being more short with. So being surrounded by having a lot of people close to me in my life makes me more aware more quickly. It's like a barometer for my emotional state. You know, if you're not alone, I'm single, I'm distracting myself all the time, a lot more time can go by. But now it's kind of like, you know, hey, I'm with my kids or I'm with my dogs, or I'm with Candace or I'm with clients. And you know, it's pretty like, hey, what, what's going on here? I gotta, I'm feeling, even before a snap or something comes out of me, I can just be aware like, I want to get away right now. Why do I want to get away from this moment? So to me that's like a little warning light on the dashboard, like, hey, pay attention. And. And then that is the, that is the challenge, that is the game, that is the calling is to move into more presence now. And that's why. And that's been like the progressive calling over the years to, you know, to be more and more and more of that and that. And I used to think that meant I had to like stop everything I was doing and just like sit with my eyes closed. And I realized that actually sometimes that could like absorb me into it in a way that would be not as useful as still engaging in my life. And I mean, it sounds kind of simple, but it's just like, let me get out of my mind and feel more. And I even have a little sign over there you probably can't out of this frame, but it says feel more, think less. And so I practice that. And then I look at all of the thousand and one ways that I've used to avoid feeling more. And you know, it started as a kid and progressed and got more and more intense my teenage years. And I was suffering a lot. And that could be video games, porn, pot, alcohol. And then as the rise of the cell phone, you know, in the last decade or so, that could be a billion and one things. And so it's been this like shedding, you know, year after year after year of like all these patterns that I accumulated. So it was, you know, first I. And it wasn't some like, here's my nine point strategy. Over the next seven years I'm going to implement it. It just became what the next thing was to Work on. And so, you know, became like, really cleaning up my eating. That was one of the first things, you know, I did when I was younger. And not having, you know, use of junk food and other stuff to turn off feelings and fast food, I used to do. I used to be like, I'm gonna get some burger and fries. It's gonna be so great. You know, I mean, I used to stack it all. Fast food, pot, porn movie. Like, just like, boom. You know, not all at once. Literally at the exact same time. That would be kind of hard to manage, but, you know, all in the same evening, let's say. And so. So then, yeah, unwinding that. Unwinding. Looking at my relationship with alcohol. I don't drink at all anymore. It's been, I don't even know how many years. I don't wanna say. Maybe once a year I'll have, like, a glass of whiskey with a friend of mine who's really into whiskey or something like that. And even that, like, the next day I'm like, oof. Okay. Just from, like, one glass, I just noticed it affecting me. So basically, don't drink alcohol, Use cannabis very intentionally and pretty infrequently. And then, yeah, don't use porn at this point. That was an interesting thing. Of the number of years of, like, really unraveling, that was like a real, like, ingrained pattern that I could go to to manage emotion. Because I started that when I was 11 years old. So that one was. Those neurons were wired together for sure. And then most recently, as of especially, I'd say I started with it last year, but was, like, pretty ineffective and only really effectively in the last two to three months, I'd say, of completely reworking my relationship with my phone and also computers to become more and more intentional. And the goal behind that is not just to be more productive. That's one of them. But it's also. It's for joy. I realized that if I'm using my cell phone in any way that is, you know, you might describe as compulsive or addictive, even though people don't use those words that often. Because cell phones are like the cigarettes of our era, you know, like back in the 50s 40s, you know, they were giving cigarettes out to soldiers. Like, cigarettes or doctors are smoking cigarettes. They're great. Everything's great. And, you know, it's kind of the same thing now. Like, cell phones are great. Oh, my God. You got the plug, the 5G to hook it to your veins. Yeah. And it's like, how Far can we go? And it's leaving this, like, residue, this wake of sort of destruction to our mental and emotional capacities. And very few people are talking about it. And I started having conversations with people recently about it, like friends and other stuff. And I was talking to a friend and she's like, yeah, you know, she's in chiropractic school and she's studying and she's like, yeah, I had this like, like 45 minute, kind of like super graspy binge on Facebook where I was checking things and stuff and we talked about a little bit. She's like, you know, I don't think I would have shared that we were all hanging out at some dinner thing. And she's like, I don't think I would have shared that if you didn't ask. And I was like, yeah, because we all feel this shame on some level about our lack of control with this stuff. So I could go on and on about that, particularly because it's very fascinating to me right now. But behind all that is so I can feel more. And if I can be less in my mind, less graspy for something out there, then I can feel more. And when I feel more, I might feel discomfort and anxiety or grasping or fear or anything that might arise and then it will move through and I'll also feel more and more presence and joy and the kind of like delicious, amazing feelings that you can't get from like, I achieved the goal, I'm the greatest. It's just like the feeling of like smelling the air outside and looking at the sun hitting the grass and you're like, life is good and I'm okay and I belong and all as well. That's what's accessible. So that's what I'm opening my life to feel more and more and more of.

Wow. So we've talked about, you've experienced all kinds of things, including these raspy, anxiety, compulsive, addictive, painful experiences and sensations now and again. But what you said there at the end is very striking. When you allow those painful, uncomfortable feelings to move through you without locking them in, like you described earlier, without fearing the pain, but releasing the pain almost by allowing it to just move through you, it sounds like you're saying that it comes, you experience that it comes to an end. That feeling does in fact move through you. And when that occurs, you are left in a place of joy, presence, that is smelling the air outside and just feeling, okay, life is life. Is this that feeling that is or that experience? It's maybe even more than a feeling. Or it may even be sometimes described as almost non feeling or I don't know how you might articulate this. Is this the experience of life that perhaps you wanted to experience when you were binging on fast food and movies.

And pot and porn? I mean, that's a really great question. I think that, I mean, you know, from a Buddhist perspective, like just everyone is. Despite all the distinctions and diversity on the surface, at the core, all humans share certain experiences of existence. One of which is that all humans want to feel happy and be free of suffering. It's a pretty universal thing. And so yeah, like what am I doing when I'm jamming all these stimuluses into me at the same time I'm trying to turn off pain and turn on pleasure. And if I think if I get enough pleasure and a small enough amount of pain, then I will be happy. And there is an illusion of that temporarily. I feel good right now, I feel high right now. And it's short lived. There's more suffering waiting afterwards. And ultimately they are different things. There's a great book called the Hacking of the American Mind. I'm blanking on his name right now as a neuroscientist that wrote it. And he makes the distinction between pleasure and happiness, pleasure and contentment. And they're different things. And so I think that that was an influential book for me as well, for me to look at that. And here's another thing too. Sometimes we're like, but it's so hard to stop these habits. It's so hard to stop these things. And I think that's one thing I want to acknowledge too is like, it is a, I believe, a process. And I remember I learned this many years ago from Deepak Chopra was talking about when he was like helping people quit smoking. They were trying willpower and gum and just all the methods you could think of. And so he said what he had them do was actually like, no, keep smoking, but do it as mindfully as possible. Pay attention to everything. Pay attention to what it feels like to pull the thing out and then what is it like? What do you feel before you light it? And what he found is oftentimes people feel all this anticipatory sensation and after the first few drags they're kind of actually like done. And if you notice, and I did, I was never a heavy smoker, but I did smoke when I was in my 20s for a couple year period, maybe even throughout all my 20s. But it was like, oh, I'm a social smoker. I Only smoke around other people. I never buy my own. Like, okay, what an arbitrary distinction there. You're still addicted. But. And I noticed this. And I noticed that. Why? Because it's dopamine, right? There's a seeking quality to addiction, and there's usually a brief moment of euphoria upon the receiving of it. But unlike other drugs, nicotine usually doesn't provide, like, a major high that's lasting a long time. And so usually after the first few drags on the thing, you sort of get the nicotine in your blood, and. And then it's like, oh, do I want to keep smoking this thing? And I found that I. And it's really interesting because usually we're using those things to go unconscious. And so he's encouraging you. So that's how I work with all upgrades, I guess you could call them now. It was without this, like, harsh condemnation, and, you better not do this. And what's wrong with you? And guilt and pressure and willpower. It's more just like, what actually brings me joy. This is suffering. And so sometimes if I'm doing it and I grab my phone, I'm flicking through YouTube to just look for something to watch. It's like, I'll name it to myself. I won't stop myself. Sometimes I can. It's just like, I'm gonna watch, how am I suffering right now? Or, oh, I'm excited. I'm seeking for, like, interesting information and things right now. And look, I'm not saying that I don't ever use YouTube, and I never use different things in my phone. It's more like, when am I using it? How am I using it? And is this bringing me happiness or joy? So I don't know if I remember your original question at this point, but period.

Sometimes the questions just lead to more unexpected revelations. So I think this is great. This is great. You were touching on this, but I want to hone in on one question here. What is the advantage, then, of choosing to feel more as opposed to going unconscious?

Yeah, More happiness, more fulfillment, less pain and suffering. Because the things that actually bring you lasting, positive feelings, and that's something for each. You know, as you listen, you can kind of reflect on it. Like, when did I really feel, like, good? Almost like, good for no reason. Not just the high of a victory or of a pleasure. Like, you actually really felt good. And you might discover that it's kind of like not at the peak moment that you thought you're supposed to feel, but it's just kind of in the ordinary. And that's what's unlocked. Because much of your life, you know, you might have some use, punctuated by some major victories, but much of your life is the ordinary. It's the day to day. But when you allow yourself to feel, then the ordinary becomes extraordinary. And you can say like, wow, look at this. And it could be just natural beauty around you. And, you know, look at the way the sunlight is hitting against that wall and there. And the dust that's flying through the sunlight. That's beautiful. And it could be, you know, I. When I. The more I let myself feel, the more present I become, less buzzy and graspy I am. The more I can just be with my boys and, like, truly feel joy and happiness rather than, I gotta do something. I like this restlessness that has pervaded me for a lot of my life, right? It's like, I gotta be productive and get stuff done. That's fine to want to do stuff too. And maybe we are doing something. Maybe we're having a fire right now. My kids love to have a fire. They want to do it, like, all the time. Like, I don't think that's good for our lungs. Like, let's, let's. Let's slow down a little bit here. But, you know, they love it. And sometimes I can be like, be doing it. And just like, while we're doing it, I'm just like, you got to get through this fire. Got to be done. And it's like, where are we? What. What to. To do what? Like, you know, and you get through this moment, the next moment, it's like, this is kind of crazy. And so the more I can just like. And what I do is it's like I, like, look at people's faces and see them more. I don't know if I could put it into more. More descriptive words than that. I see and I feel them more, and it can. And I'll feel love more. I'll feel that all is good. It's almost like richness versus poverty, fullness versus emptiness. And it's like the more there's the grasping for something outside of me to fulfill me, the more emptiness I feel. And that's something I'll remind myself when I pick up this thing unintentionally, with not a use in mind, just for it to, you know, entertain me. I'll. I'll remind myself. I say, there is. What I'm seeking is not in this. And for those of you listening audio, I'm holding up my phone right now in the video like, there is no. There's nothing. I'm gonna. I cannot find what I'm seeking in this. And then I can put it down, and then. So then I can be with one of my sons. Like, just this morning, and I was with Armand, my younger son, and I'm just like, he's coming over to me, and I'm just, like, seeing. And I'm seeing the way his eyebrows move as he talks. And I'm feeling like, this is amazing. Like, look at his face. Look at his eyes. Look at the skin. Look at it. There's. And I'm also feeling a lot more of, like, love and appreciation and fullness. And that's available around people that I love. That's available, you know, and it can. It can go from one to the other in an instant. Like, we got this new puppy. She's. She's awesome. She's a German shepherd. Our first big dog that I've ever had. I've always had small dogs in my life. And. And, you know, a puppy is a lot. And we're already doing. We're moving in, like, two and a half weeks, and we got a puppy like, a month ago. It's kind of chaos. There's a method to our madness. I'm not going to explain it all, but. And. And it's like moments of just, like, I don't want to go take a puppy out right now. I don't want to manage a little creature. That's a lot for the first two, three months. And I could be suffering. Like, this is. Sucks. This is awful. I don't want. I'm not getting my own needs, man. I haven't had a shower in two days. Terrible. And then in an instant, right? If I. If I'm not fighting, if I'm not trying to get away, and I just am like, I can all of a sudden, the same circumstances, and I'm looking around and I'm like, look at her. She's so cute. Look at these two dogs sitting on the grass. Like, the green of the grass and their black fur. It's beautiful. And that's a really key takeaway that extends beyond puppies. You don't care about dogs. There's an idea when we're suffering that says I'm suffering because of these circumstances. And. And until these circumstances are changed or what I want, I will continue to feel this suffering. And that's not true. I'm not saying you can't change circumstances that you. That you want to improve and.

You.

Change your consciousness changes your willingness to feel changes, your perspective changes and you take action to make things different. But it's possible to feel completely different without anything changing in your external circumstances, in this moment.

And as you said, that can be when the ordinary becomes extraordinary. When I'm willing to feel whatever is moving through me, that is the pathway to feel pain is the pathway to joy and peace, is what I hear you saying. Is that accurate to say?

Yeah, willingness to feel whatever is including pain and other things that you might not even call pain. But uncertainty, not knowing, a little bit of free float or free fall like that. Maybe someone will call those pain. They're uncomfortable, they're a little unsettling. You know, they're all of that because. And this is something I've explored a ton because on the unknown and uncertainty, you know, that's like the. One of the core contributors to social anxiety and all anxiety, right? It's like, I don't know what's going to happen if I do blank. I need certainty. So I'm not going to do blank, right? Talk to that person, speak up, share my idea, go for that risk in life, whatever it is. And if you. And so for a while, for me, it was just like, we'll just go do the thing anyway. Bold action, let's go. Right? And there's a value in that, but it's like a little bit of a force energy you're using. You're using energy still to get over the thing. And that's a great. You got to start wherever you're at. And then there's another level that's more graceful, that is grace. That's like, well, what is that, that unknown, that unsettled feeling of uncertainty that I need to buy me. I think of it as binding. That's a term that I got from Donny Epstein, like bound and unbound energy. It's really interesting, but it's like we bind. Like things are bound are. You know, I'm gonna hold up something. This water bottle is bound energy, right? The molecules are all held together. It's going to hold its shape for a good long while. Plastics like this, what, 500 years, I don't know. But our body is bound energy. It's. Well, there's mixtures in there, but it's like your, your cells and molecules are all holding together for 50, 60, 80, 100 years and then they disperse, right? So things are bound. Your house is bound. You can also bind energy in things that are invisible but structures, right? Like a business is bound in energy in some way. Your relationship is Bound to some degree. And then there's the unbound, right? That's this thing's dissolving, that's the new. That's the thing that hasn't come together yet. That the future business that doesn't exist yet, it's not been bound yet, right? It's relationships you have person you haven't met yet, you know, that's the future, that's the unknown. And you know, life isn't just one of those. It's a dance between the two. And you bind something, you try to hold it forever and then eventually, no matter how much you try to hold it, and if you never bind anything, you can't like function, you know, you need to bind to be able to do some basic things in life, let alone achieve things that are long term and meaningful. So it's this dance between the two. And so for me, I'll notice when I'm taking an action towards a desired goal or something that feels meaningful. I'm going to bind energy. We're going to offer this thing in the world, we're going to create this book or I'm going to do whatever. You know, there's a fear of the risk and there's so there's a fear of the unknown, the unbound. And then instead of like just powering through now, I'll kind of like slow down and like just probe that edge with my awareness. Like, what is that?

What?

And it's not a figuring it out with my mind, it's a willingness to. Another term from Donnie that I love is the edge of chaos. So it's like I'm willing to hang out on the edge of chaos. And it's uncomfortable and I want to, I can feel it. The muscles in my body want to bind so bad that they're going to contract and it's like, well, I can't bind what's going to happen in the future with this move or whatever. I'm not there yet, so I can't bind it. And trust me, I try. My mind's like, what is my schedule going to be in the morning at the new house in 15 minute increments? And it's like I even sat down and tried to map it out. And then as I start to do it, I'm like, there's too many unknowns. I don't know, man, I don't know. I can't give you that, buddy. You know? And then it's like, okay, all right, all right. And then like four hours later, my ribs are all tight and it's like, well, if you can't give me the bound that I'm asking for, I'm just gonna bind my spine, right? It's like, okay, all right. And so. And that's a whole nother conversation, but that's something that I've learned. If you can observe that happening and consciously let go, you can prevent all kinds of chronic pain from forming, because that's what a lot of chronic pain is. Emotion and bound energy and tension that's forming. If we're able to go into the uncertainty and just hang out there. What I discovered is in that chaos and discomfort emerges faith, which is probably one of the best feelings in, in terms of. On, you know, just a subjective level of what feels quote, good. Like faith, trust, guidance, held, connection to something bigger feels really good. You know, I don't know what's happening biochemically with that one, but with reward going off, right? And there's, you know, peace. And so. And that comes directly. And the same thing. If someone's willing to go into fear, really go into it, they'll find courage, boldness, peace, and. Yeah, so that. That is on the other side.

There have been so many, so many amazing things that you have shared with us here today, Dr. Aziz, and thank you so much for taking the time to pull back a little bit of. And reveal some of your life and your processes and your experiences and the way that you approach life and showing that. Maybe one of the ways to summarize this wide buffet of amazing ideas is. Well, maybe I'll ask you.

What is.

If people want to experience the extraordinary confidence that you display and become as interesting as you are, what is an action step? Especially maybe for some of those who might be in a lot of suffering or pain right now, or who aren't even sure if this peace and this experience of faith that enjoy that you're touching on and pointing at and describing, maybe they don't even know if that's possible for them. What's an action step that you can recommend when it comes to the feelings of pain or anxiety that they might experience more often right now? What's an action step you could recommend to those people to move more toward this faith and peace and joy?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I would say the action step is to take many action steps, and the best way to do that is going to be to in some way immerse yourself in this. So if you're listening to this podcast or watching this on the YouTube channel, like, are you engaging with that regularly once a week or more, you know, to really. Because what the biggest obstacle is going to be your mind coming in and saying, you can't change this and this is going to last forever and then you're done. And so if you, but if you listen to this kind of stuff regularly, it starts to challenge that status quo, those beliefs in terms of a specific thing beyond that to do. The one thing that can be helpful is when you're suffering a lot is to, is to put your hands on your body, one hand on your stomach, one hand over your belly button, one hand on your chest, close your eyes and just breathe and feel. And the hands on your body really help you stay connected to the sensation of the breathing and the feeling. And this isn't like a fast thing to say, but a gentle reminder as you do this is my suffering is not in the circumstance or the event, but in my perception of the event or the circumstance. And you just gently remind yourself of that as you breathe and feel. And what this does is this creates just a little bit of space between like, it's bad, everything's bad, you know, it's like a little bit of space and then let yourself feel more. And if you want guidance on how to feel more, there are other episodes of this podcast, one of which is called the life changing art of feeling your feelings. You can just go to shrinkforthshyguy.com and type in like feelings or feel or emotion or something like that. And you'll see there's other episodes you can also go to. Not nice book.com and there's a thing on there where I have a recording of the peace process which is an adaptation of something I learned from Christian Michelson. It's a, it's a mindful, somatic tracking. It's another way of tool to learn to feel your feelings more. So these are ways to practice. And if you do that, then you can start to, well, unlock.

A whole.

Lot more than you might even think is possible right now.

And perhaps the ordinary can begin to be experienced as extraordinary.

Yeah, it always is. It's there, right? It's there. It's just a frequent. It's just a channel to turn your awareness to whether it's extraordinary. Grateful, faith, connected, like those are all available and so is everything's terrible and I'm the victim and I'm never going to change. And you know, which one's true, which one's real, which channel you're on. That's all.

Which one do you Recommend?

Yeah, channel 4 is the best don't go to channel 9. That one's scary. There's, like, horror films on there. Watch those.

Well, thank you so much, Dr. Aziz, for not just revealing a little bit of your own ordinary yet extraordinary life, but also sharing a little bit of how the rest of us might experience the extraordinary in our own ordinary lives. Thank you so, so much for joining us today.

Yeah.

For the Shy guy.

Yeah. Thank you.

We look forward to hearing you again next time.

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