Free Yourself From Excessive Guilt Part 2

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking more about how to free yourself from excessive guilt, specifically, specifically destructive or unhealthy guilt, which I go in more depth into in the previous week's episode, which is called how to Free Yourself from Excessive Guilt, Part one. This is part two. So make sure you listen to part one, because that's where we get into the different kinds of guilt and really set the stage for how to free yourself from this guilt. So listen to that. Make sure you've done a little bit of the action step, which is to become more aware of when the guilt arises for you and you start to ask yourself, what rules did I break? So I'm gonna give you the 60 second recap to get you up to speed in case it's been a little while since you listened to that last episode and if you just listened to it recently, this will be a good recap for you. And then we're gonna dive in on how to deconstruct the guilt as it's occurring. So to sum, guilt can be put into two categories. Healthy or constructive or unhealthy or deconstructive. Good and bad as you can call it, since guilt's all about good and bad anyway, Right? But in that when there's a place where guilt can be guiding and supporting and helping you, I might have a valuable message for you. If I'm short with one of my kids and I feel bad, my heart hurts, the next day, I feel a little guilty, that might be directing me towards my values, which might be to be more, you know, warm and patient with my kids. Because those are values that I have as far as parenting, right? So when I fall short of that or I veer off of that, the guilt is there to support me. And what makes it healthy is that it's guiding me. It gives me a clear path to freedom. You know, the guilt is There as a little message. It's a little booster rocket that says, no, you're going a little right, go a little left, Boom, and it's resolved. You have an opportunity to, quote, fix it or address it, or make amends right then or later that day, or the simple conversation, or with an action or with a decision even without talking about it. You just decide or resolve, I want to be more like this in the future. Boom, you're back on track, Right? So that's healthy guilt. As I said in the last episode, healthy guilt is probably about 2% or less of your guilt. And 98% of it is destructive. Even if it comes about from maybe you did veer a little short of one of your values. The level at which you come at yourself is not constructive. It's usually very destructive. It's very self judgmental, self hating, honestly. And it's like, you're so bad, you're a bad dad. And it might be these actual phrases going through your mind. It also can just be a visceral feeling of heaviness, of badness that could be experienced as anxiety, unsettled, unworthy shame, hard to make eye contact, hard to feel inspired or energized by different things in your life because you're weighted down by this burden of guilt. So if you want to deconstruct it even, or understand it even more, check out the last episode. Because this episode is all about, well, what do we do now? How do we not live under this cloud of what I call the background radiation? Well, first things first is become aware of it, which is why that was the action step in the last episode. You gotta know what's going on. You gotta become curious about these patterns. Otherwise you are feeling guilty. You don't even know you're feeling guilty. And then you make a decision from that place of guilt, like, okay, I'll give you all my time, or yes, I'll sign up for that thing, or okay, I'm free all weekend, whatever you need. You ever done that? It's like this excessive overcompensation to make everything all right. You know, you give and give and give because you're bad. And you got to make up for something which you don't. You got to slow down and you got to become more aware when you're feeling guilty. And then we go into the first step of deconstructing it. It's actually to welcome in the guilt. And this is so counterintuitive and so radically different than probably what most of us do with most of our Unpleasant feelings, right? It's like, oh, guilt, get it away. Ah. And either, you know, there's so many sort of default reactions to guilt. One might be like, guilt. Oh, no. It's like a wave coming at you like, oh, God, I'm gonna get wet. Here we go. Hunker down. Boom. And then it hits you and you get tumbled around under the wave and you just feel awful about yourself. Another reaction sometimes is as people start to study my work more read. Not nice. They're kind of like, guilt's coming. Alright, damn it. No, guilt's gonna get me. And then they stand up to the wave and they're like, boom. The wave hits them and maybe they keep their footing, but they're like totally absorbed and stressed and angry. Maybe sometimes the guilt can flip into anger at the person. So let's say someone is upset with you and then you feel guilty because it's some default rule that you have if someone is guilty. If someone is upset with me, then I must feel guilty. And then you're like, wait a minute, I don't want to feel guilty. You know, what's wrong with them? They're so sensitive. Why do they need more from me? What? They're stupid. And when you start getting angry at them, right? So what I'm suggesting is you maybe notice that default reaction to guilt and start to practice a new response to guilt, which is this. Oh, guilt. All right. Hello. Right? It's like, oh, here comes a wave. That was cold. All right. Whoo. That's real cold. When it gets up to the private area there. Oof. Right? You know, have you ever been in the ocean where it starts to get past up into the area, you know, the jewels region, it's cold, it's uncomfortable. But you can also just like let the water hit you. You don't have to freak out, okay? And just breathe. And one of the best ways to prevent a freakout about any emotion is to become curious. Curious is the antidote to freaking out. It's like, whoa, Kay. What is this sensation? There's so much to notice there, right? It's a full body experience. Maybe you notice your chest, your breathing. Maybe you're tight in your ribs, maybe your throat's squeezing. Maybe you feel like you want to cry. Maybe you feel like you want to run away. Maybe you feel awful, like you want to crawl into a hole and die. It doesn't matter. It's all worth noticing. And it's all just emotion and it's all just energy and it all can't hurt. You. And when it comes to any emotion, the way we get hurt is, A, we act it out against ourselves, against others. B, we thrash around like a animal caught in a trap and we rip off our own limb, right? That's where a lot of the pain comes from. The suffering comes from is the thrashing. So stop the thrashing and just be with it. And that, you know, how is that different than the first, where we just let the wave tumble us? Well, you're not letting the wave tumble you. When you're letting the wave tumble with you, you're in fear of the emotion. You believe every thought you have under the emotion. So what you want to do is name it, oh, here comes guilt. Guilt's coming. Guilt's rising up. There it is. And know that when you're in the guilt storm, don't take any of your thoughts as true. That's true for any strong emotion, by the way, or even any mild emotion. Like when you're in a certain emotional state, nothing you think is true. When you're in a very guilty state, nothing you think is true. When you are in a very angry state, nothing you think is true. When you're in a very scared or anxious state, nothing you think is true. It's all distorted, it's exaggerating. There might be a kernel of truth in there somewhere, but it's exaggerated, it's blown out of proportion, it's distorted, it's limited. It's A or B, as opposed to life is never a or B. Life is A through Z times a million. There's thousands of options and shifts and gradients and turns and in betweens and, and, and ands, not ors in life. So if you're thinking it's got to be this or that or they think this or this is how it is. It's distorted. So just know when you're in a heightened state, a painful emotional state, you're not going to be seeing clearly. And that's okay. So when you're observing, you're observing the feelings, you're also observing your mind, and it's saying all kinds of things. And the best thing you can do in those moments is say, okay, all right, I'm not going to take anything too seriously here in this moment, but I do know one thing. This gets us into the second step. I do know that if guilt is here, that means I've broken a rule. I wonder what that rule is. And you might get curious about that, too. What is the rule? It's going to be in the form of Should I should not this, they should not that. This shouldn't happen. You know, I shouldn't make a mistake. I shouldn't be irritated, I should be funnier. I should be happy all the time. I shouldn't dislike somebody, especially if they like me. I shouldn't not want to date somebody if they're, you know, sweet or nice or friendly. I mean, the list can go on. There's millions of potential rules. And you will discover which rule or rules you've broken when you're guilty. And this is where a 180 degree shift can occur. And your life can start to change in a profound way when you actually experience guilt and your reaction isn't like, oh, no, oh God, like, here comes my guilt fever. It's gonna last three days. Or angry, I don't wanna feel guilty, damn it, I shouldn't have to. It's not their fault, it's not my fault, it's their fault. And instead you say, oh, here comes guilt. And then there's a realization in there that says, I'm about to discover something that's gonna make me even more free. Every time you discover guilt, every time you see guilt, that is a sign that you're going to become another level higher of liberation, of freedom. Every time you discover the guilt, it's an opportunity to peel something away. And when you peel more and more and more of this away, it's like taking out one extra. You know, it's like this backpack of guilt that you got on. It's taking out one rock from that backpack. How many have you got in there? I don't know, maybe like 100. But it doesn't matter. Each rock matters. Between the difference between 100 rocks and 50 rocks, or 50 rocks and 20 rocks is pretty big. It's a lot lighter. So you want to get curious, say, maybe that positive sense of anticipation, like, ooh, what rule am I breaking? This is interesting because, look, they're not yours. You didn't make them up. You didn't sit down when you were an infant and come up with all your list of rules. You just absorbed this stuff. Some of them you might agree with, some of you might not agree with. And even the ones you agree with may or may not be actually useful in your life. They might just be things that you especially got conditioned in. But let's say you got a rule that says, I should never hurt somebody. This came up recently in one of my mastermind programs. There was a man who experiences this in his love life, but also in his any interactions really work business. This particular example was something in business where he had a conflict with another company that was providing his company with some elements of their product. And they misquoted him. And it was a. You know, it led to some unexpected costs. And he was upset about that. And he was talking to them and saying, hey, this is not acceptable. And they were, like, not really taking responsibility for it. And he said, okay, I'll pay it this time, but in the future, I don't necessarily want to do business if someone's going to do this kind of thing. And, you know, there's a. Someone else higher up on the team got in touch with him and talked to him, and then he found out. I don't know if he heard it or he heard about it, but that the person, one of the people he'd been talking to earlier on, she was very distraught and upset and was crying. And he said, just in that moment, I felt this, like, crushing, overwhelming sense of guilt. I thought, that's really interesting there. And he's like, that feels very terrible. And I'm like, yes, it does, right? Because I model that, like, ooh, we're going to discover something here. And we said, well, what is the rule? And he's like, you should never cause someone pain. And I said, and I'd known him for a while. My group has got. It's a core year, and if people want to continue to a second year, it's invitation only. They got to be engaged and really growing. And he is. He's an amazing man. Grown a ton in this first year and the second year, he really wanted to, like, resolve this stuff, especially when it came to romantic relationships. That was like. He'd made tons of progress socially and in business, but it was around his romantic life that he still felt this, like, burden of guilt a lot. And because I'd known him and worked with him for a long time, I knew this came up a lot heavy in his romantic relationships. And I said, you said, I can't cause anyone else pain. I said, let me ask you a question. If it was a man that you heard was upset or crying, based upon the conversation you had about the parts in your production, do you think you'd feel the same? And he paused, and he kind of had this realization look on his face, and he's like, no, I think it's something about being a woman. I was like, yeah, that was the sense I was getting, too. So your rule, maybe it's everybody, but it's almost like I should never do anything that causes A woman pain. And his eyes lit up and he's like, yes, that's it. So you gotta kinda dig around for these rules a little bit. And it might very clearly come to you and it might more slowly emerge. You might jot some ideas down. And it's not so much of an intellectual, rational process. It's more of an emotional discovery. It's kind of like, you know when someone says the thing and they get it right, you just know it. Even if you didn't know it ahead of time or you couldn't verbalize it as well yourself, it just comes to you. So that's how you want to be with this process. Just write some ideas out or reflect on it. Just get curious and just ask the question and trust your subconscious to give it to you. Later that day when you're taking a walk or you're in the shower and you're just like, oh, I think it's that. And don't get crazy perfectionistic on it. Anything that's just close enough is going to make a lot of progress. So there's the rule. I should never do anything that causes a woman pain. Whatever your rule might come out from this process, what do you do with that? Well, you continue to be curious and you say, wow, that's an interesting rule. Do I believe that rule? And this is where step three is going to be to examine examine the rule. You want to look at it like a scientist, you want to look at it like an observer, like a very curious inquiry, like, huh, Do I believe that? Do I agree with that? How much do I agree with that? And look, this isn't like a. You don't have to ask every single one of these questions. I'm just reflecting curiosity. These are the kinds of questions I ask this client that I might ask you. If we were working together, I'd say, well, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you agree with it? Where do you think you learned it? Do you think it's a healthy rule? Do you think it's a rule that makes the world a better place or makes you better? Does it serve others? Does it serve you? Is it restrictive? Is it extreme? Is it rigid? These are all things I'd be curious about when I look at that rule. And if you'd like, what you can do is you can maybe from last week in the action step, you came up with a, you've discovered a rule, and if you haven't yet, you might go do that process. And next time you feel guilty or you can even Think of a situation where you did feel guilty in the past and get curious about it, and then come back and listen to this and go through that process, ask yourself some of those questions and start to get, you know, curious about this rule, because even that curiosity will start to shift its hold. It's like the rule is kind of lodged in there and it's stuck. It's almost like a fossil or a dinosaur fossil or something deep underneath the earth. And what you're doing, you ask these questions is you're kind of like removing the dirt layer and starting to chip away with those little brushes and other tools. They have to start to excavate this thing and say, what is going on here? And, you know, multiple things might happen. One, you might say, you know what? I agree with that rule. What if the rule we talked about earlier, I don't know, this episode or the one before about, you know, maybe you feel healthy guilt if you break some agreement with your partner around monogamy or something like that. And maybe someone does that and they're like, oh, my gosh, I feel really bad. Like, my partner would never know. But, ugh. Ugh, I feel awful. Right? Maybe that's a rule, like, you know, don't cheat on your partner or break kind of a certain level of agreement with your partner. When you excavate that rule, you're like, yeah, I agree with that. I want to live by that rule. Okay, well, great. Now that means what you're experiencing is, you know, is probably healthy guilt. Unless you're just ripping yourself to shreds. Then it's. Now it's unhealthy again. But if it's healthy guilt, you say, okay, what do I need to do to make it right? What kind of conversations do I need to have? How do I get back into integrity? And, you know, generally it involves an uncomfortable. If it's. Hey, if it's like a infidelity kind of situation, like, yeah, yeah, probably in for a very uncomfortable conversation or series of conversations, and you might risk losing your relationship. That's all true. And it's also how you would heal and upgrade the relationship as well. If that's in the cards, if that's gonna happen now, you know, you might be in that circumstance, but it's often maybe something a little less intense, you know, but maybe you need to make amends. Maybe you need to apologize. I've done this. I do this all the time with my family or kids. Like, you know, if I feel like I'm. So this has been an interesting Gray area, because sometimes they can go into unhealthy and sometimes it's healthy. But, you know, I generally want to be warm, supportive, and loving with my family. Right. It's probably similar for you too. If you have a family or friends, you know, there's a way that you want to be around people. Now, I also don't want to be perfectionistic. Like, I can't ever be in a bad mood or tired or irritable or something like that. So if I notice I'm being that way and then I'm being really harsh with myself or pressuring myself, like, what's wrong with me? Then I'm like, nope, that's not healthy. I don't. It's okay for me to feel different things. Like, I don't. I'm generally a pretty awesome dad and husband and father. I don't need to be all militant with myself. And though, let's say I'm short or I. For me, it'll manifest as, like, getting controlling of something, typically in the kitchen. Candice, why did you not clean the blender right after you used it? You know, it's really a pain in the ass if you leave it for the day, it's all caked. I'm like, dripping with irritability. I've never done that. That's just hypothetical, by the way. Anyway, the other night when I did that. No, but I, you know, then the next day I'm like, hey, I'm sorry about when we talked about the blender. I was like, blamey judging in my voice. And, you know, I obviously have a preference around the blender, and I don't want to talk with you in that tone. Even if there is something that I don't like, I want to talk about it in a more loving way. I'm sorry about that. You know, boom, problem solved. You can have that really quickly. And I think this is another thing, is sometimes people feel their guilt. Even if they broke or veered off of a value, broke one of your own rules, and then you're flooded with so much unhealthy guilt. Though. Here's the thing, here's the crazy thing. Unhealthy guilt doesn't make you atone or apologize or do better in the future. It's destructive. You just go into self hatred. And then you need to defend yourself. You need to protect yourself. And then instead of apologizing now, you gotta be like, well, the only reason I did that is because you had something to defend. Just let it go. It's healthy guilt. Boom. You can solve it relatively quickly, or at least you can start one of the necessary conversations you need to have. But if it's unhealthy, what happens is when you discover one of those rules, you say, you know what? I don't agree with this rule. This is not my. Then the great question is, where did you get that? And you may or may. This isn't like you have to spend five years in Freudian analysis three days a week to uncover. It's because when you are three, your mother told you like, maybe, okay, and I'm nothing against some exploratory depth counseling or something, but okay, it can come to you maybe more swiftly than that, just with curiosity and openness. I wonder where I learned this. This isn't a super precise process. It's just a, it's a form, it's an extension of that curiosity. I wonder where I got that. And people will usually know if I ask them, like, well, yeah, I mean, my mom, you know, was very sensitive and so I never wanted her to feel criticized or, you know, my parent always told me, never make sure you. They really guilted me for hurting someone's feelings or if, you know, if I didn't include all the other kids, they were so mad at me or whatever. And here's the reason I don't get so hung up on the precision of this is because for every one thing you remember that your parents said, did or transmitted to you, there's like 10,000 other things that you didn't remember that were transmitted to you directly. Like literally it directly said to you and you just don't remember it because you don't remember the vast majority of things that happen to you. Or B, you don't remember it and it was transmitted indirectly through their own energy or voice tone or facial gestures or their own complex, their own bound up energy around I better not upset people. And they never even told you anything about it. Or maybe they did, it was indirect, but their own fear. There's this whole like, when people are around other people, their emotions and energy entrains to the stronger force around them. And it's often the case with kids and their parents. So if a parent is nervous about something, even if the parent doesn't say it, the kid will pick up on that nervous energy and start to feel more nervous. So there's so many things that are transmitted that you don't know still, the inquiry is valuable. You might even get an intuitive sense of where it came from and the reason. That's a valuable step. Even Though I'm saying you might not be able to pinpoint it is because you're showing that if I learned this somewhere that I can unlearn it. This isn't who I am, this isn't the way it is. This is a rule, this is made up. And even if it's a rule that you're like, yeah, but my mom believes and my dad believes it, my siblings believe, my community believes that, my religion believes it, everyone in my city believes it, everyone in my country believes it. First of all, it's probably not true because I can't imagine everyone in the country thinks exactly the same way. But still, I get what you're saying. You're saying this is really strongly enforced in the cultural field that I grew up in or that I live in. Great. Doesn't mean it's got to be your rule. And you might find there's other places, other cultures, other people, other upbringings that have a very different perspective. And maybe it's more like the ugly duckling. I'm not calling you ugly, but you know, like you think you're a bad looking duck and it turns out you're a swan. Maybe you got to find your people, maybe you got to find communities that support healthier viewpoints, less rigid rules, less right, wrong, blaming, bad, right, good, righteous, all that stuff. Maybe you need something different than that. It's probably why you listen to this show, right? You're like wanting to think differently and see differently and maybe a lot of people around you don't have that. There's a client that I work with, I don't know if he listens to this show but I'm not gonna name his name cause I didn't get to ask his permission. But he'll know who he is if he listens to this. But amazing man, born and raised in Texas, in certain parts of Texas and you know, pretty strong upbringing around church and family and this is how we do things. And very close minded and sort of afraid and dismissive of a much more open hearted, open minded approach to life. And he's like a lover and probably a secret hippie inside, although he never used that term. But you know, he wants to learn about communication and authenticity and constantly grow and spirituality and psychedelics and whatever. And the people around him would just be like what? This guy is just completely bonkers. So every step he takes towards being more him, which turns out to explore all the facets of life, including the most weird forms of consciousness expansion and treatments and healings and all these things, you Know, his family would be like, that's crazy. And if he just existed in the world of his little community that he grew up in, it would be. And then all that gets closed off. So you got to expand, you got to find something new. Let's talk about action. Time for action. Action, action. I mean, in many ways this whole episode is like one big action step because I'm guiding you through a process. But what you want to do is you want to not just listen to this, be like, that's neat, but actually apply it. So the next time you're feeling guilty, can you listen to this episode and actually go through it? Maybe put it in your favorites or download it or whatever, or you can take some notes on the process and then the next time you are experiencing that, you can go through that and see what uncovers for you if this really resonates for you and you want to go further. We do have something called total social freedom that I offer, which is a group program. It's 90 day immersion that I mean we're just scratching the surface. There's a whole week. There's like each week has its own in depth training and bonus modules and all this stuff, plus monthly group coaching calls with me. But we'll get into all the rules, you'll uncover your rules, we'll guide you through a process to figure out which ones are serving you and which ones aren't. I mean this is just imagine this would be like the intro part to a 12 week immersion. So if you're drawn to that, go to shrinkforthshyguy.com and underneath this episode there'll be a link to go check out that page and apply that is under shrinkforthshyguy.com, this episode how to free yourself from excessive Guilt, part two. And you'll see the link there. So if you need some more support, I think that's a great way to go. Fantastic. I hope this serves you and unburdening you from guilt so you can be more free, be more you, be more light, be more joyful. Because when you do that, not only do you feel better, but the whole world benefits as well. Fantastic. Until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon. 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.