Free Yourself From Toxic Shame

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, everybody. Welcome to today's show. Today we're going to be getting into the big questions. Good versus evil. That's actually what I want to start with is a question. How do you see yourself? Do you perceive yourself as good or as bad? As admirable, worthy of love, a good person, or do you see yourself as a bad person? Defective, unworthy of love, less than inadequate somehow? There's something wrong with you. And I'm asking this question because I know the answer from my own perspective. For many, many, many years, when I was stuck in that place of shyness was I was bad, I was defective. There was something wrong with me. And now that I work with people, that is one of the first questions that I start to uncover with them. And invariably, if they're stuck with shyness or social anxiety, the answer is, I'm bad. There's something wrong with me. And that's going to get us into the topic of today's show, which is called toxic shame. So I'm going to introduce this idea of toxic shame to you. You're going to learn exactly what it is so you can uncover what's holding you back and ultimately how to be free from that sense of there's something wrong with me, there's some badness in me. And as part of the show, I'm really excited because we're having another segment from my interview with Shawn Cooper where we're going to get directly into this topic of toxic shame. And more importantly, how do we relieve ourselves of this feeling? How do we become free of it? So let's jump into that right now. First of all, what is toxic shame? Toxic shame is a consistent or persistent sense of badness, of there's something wrong with me, I'm not good in some way, and therefore, people are going to not love me. They're going to judge me, they're going to reject me, they're going to cast me out or ostracize me. And there's a sense of being isolated or alone in that sense, and that's toxic shame. So the difference between toxic shame and regular shame or guilt, for example, is that it's persistent. It happens no matter what your behavior is. You know, the average person might feel guilty if they. I don't know, they say they're going to hang out with a friend and then they don't show up. They Just kind of disregard it or forget about it. Maybe they'll feel a little guilty. They'll say, oh, man, I disappointed my friend there. That sucks. We turn it into shame when we say, oh, man, I'm a bad person for standing up my friend. But toxic shame goes even beyond that. Toxic shame is, I am a bad person all the time. I'm a bad person when I'm hanging out with my friend, when I do show up to my appointments, when I am doing good work in my job, when I am there for my friends, when I do go talk to that person. It doesn't matter. There's a persistent feeling of there's just something not quite right with me. Can you relate to this? Is this something that seems to ring true for you? It absolutely did for me. And I just didn't understand where it was coming from or what it was. In fact, I was kind of like the fish in the fish tank where I just didn't know there was water around me because that's all I'd ever seen and all I'd ever known. I didn't know that there was any other way to be in the world. I thought, this is just how I am. I am bad. So of course I feel bad. I didn't realize that it was toxic shame. So I'm hoping, as you listen to this, that you are starting to question, is this evaluation of myself really true? And it can be helpful to know where it comes from. Because if you know where it comes from, you can start to challenge it a little more strongly. So what are the origins of toxic shame? Well, I hate to say it, but it's gonna go back to your childhood. Oh, no. I know we all don't want to go back there. Geez, do I have to think about that? Isn't that the past? And I understand that, that reluctance to go back there. We're not going to spend forever, we're not going to spend five years psychoanalyzing your relationship with your mother. We're just going to look at the general trend that you noticed growing up. And what that is is an environment where we are scared of being punished. We're scared of doing the wrong thing because something bad happens to us. Parents yell at us. Parents withdraw love. Parents tell us that we're no good. Parents send us to our room. And on the flip side of that, there's a lot of reinforcement to be a good boy or good girl, right? So if you clean up your room, your parents say, wow, what a good boy you are. Or you are Respectful with an adult. And they say, wow, you're being such a good boy. And what's amazing is how young this starts. I have a four month old son. He's four months old yesterday, actually. Hooray. His name is Zaim. So he has just as strange of a name as his dad, Aziz. I was strongly pushing for Aziz Jr. So that I could live on indefinitely because then there would be hopefully an Aziz III, Aziz the fourth, all the way down to Aziz the 15th, which is a goal of mine to have an Aziz the 15th. But my wife said, no, I'm not going to call our son the same thing as you. That's ridiculous. I'm actually playing. I don't really want him to be named me. But I said, well, how about we just take the letters of my name and rearrange them and change one. So now we have Zaim instead of Aziz. Anyway, he's an amazing little guy. What an incredible experience to be a dad. And none of this would have been possible for me when I was stuck in shyness. So I'm just grateful every day that I can be blessed to be free in some ways. And that's what I want for you and it is possible for you. And that's what you're going to get listening to me and the show and really trying this stuff out. Anyway, the other day I was at work and my wife went to breakfast with some friends and she told me this story and it was fascinating. So they're sitting around the breakfast table and I don't know if you've ever been around a baby, a four month old, but when you go out to breakfast, it's kind of like rolling the dice. Whether you're going to have a meal where you can sit and enjoy it and leisurely talk and have conversations, or it's this kind of, you know, shit storm where everyone's passing the baby back and forth and he's screaming and one person's trying to shovel food in their mouth as quickly as possible. And it's just a total mess, right? So you never know what you're gonna get. Well, anyway, when my wife went out to breakfast with these people, it turns out he was really calm. He was sitting in her lap and smiling. And then she handed her to one of her friends and her friend held him and he was smiling and she said it must have happened at least five to 10 times that someone in the group commented, wow, he's being such a good boy. He's being such a good boy. Which is totally harmless, right? Totally innocuous. Innocuous. No one's meaning anything bad by saying that. But listen to the subtle programming there. Why is he being a good boy? What is he doing that is good? He is not interfering with the adult's desire to do what they want. He is being compliant. He is not interfering with our own desires and wants. And that is is the programming that almost every single one of us got growing up. Hey, if you do what I want you to do, then you're a good boy. If you don't do what I want you to do, you're a bad boy. And that happens again and again and again. And I don't mean your parents are bad people minded the same thing. This is just how they were parented themselves and what common wisdom says you should do with your kid. And this isn't, you know, I'm not gonna go down the rabbit hole of how anyone should parent, but I'm helping you realize that you got a pretty strong dose of conditioning that you got to comply and do what other people want in order to be good. Now, what you can start to see unfold is what happens if you do something bad. Well, you get scared, right? Because that means your parents are going to be upset with you. People are going to withdraw their love, they're going to yell at you. So what do you do? You hide it. You hide this. And the term toxic shame comes from a book called no more Mr. Nice Guy, which you'll hear more about in my interview with Sean. But he describes his example of when he noticed toxic shame in himself as a kid, which is fascinating. He's sitting at a table of some sort in their house and he's hammering. He's doing some crafts projects and he's hammering some little nails into this little, I don't know, piece of wood or something. And all of a sudden he slips and one of the nails goes into the table. Not that far, but it just makes a little hole in the table. And you know what he did? He said he pulled the tablecloth in such a way or he did something to hide it and not tell anyone. And he said that is fascinating because his own son, what would happen is his own son would do something like that and he'd go get his mom or his dad and say, uh, I poked a hole in the table. Now why would his kid be able to do that? Because his kid doesn't associate making a mistake or doing something the parents don't want as being a bad person. Bad boy. And you must hide that. And so that's what we, unfortunately, most of us have been conditioned with that are struggling with a sense of toxic shame, a sense of there's something wrong with me. And if you got that message consistently enough that I'm displeased with you because you're not doing what I want you to do, if your parent was neglectful or not around very much or worse, they were drinking or alcoholic or erratic or abusive or critical. I mean, you would not believe some of the background that I've heard people have when I've talked to them. Then what's the residue is a sense of toxic shame, A continual sense of there's something wrong with me and I'm not good. Now, this is not all doom and gloom. This is actually a tremendously powerful, liberating insight because a you can identify it. That's gonna be the first step, is to label it as this is toxic shame, and then you're gonna learn how to be free of it. And that's what we're gonna get into in the second part of this episode. In fact, we're gonna be jumping into an interview that I did with Sean Cooper and more segments from that where we're going to get right into this topic of toxic shame and how to start to liberate yourself from that. So let's get into that right now. Let's take a quick break, and we'll be back in just a moment with Sean. Are you sure about this, J dawg? This line to get in is so long. I know, man. I already told you, we don't need to get in. All the ladies we could ever want are here, outside side of the club. Check it. Hey, ladies, what's up? Ew. Don't talk to us. See what I'm talking about, man? They're everywhere and looking to hook up. Look over there. You see that girl standing all by herself? Go talk to her, man. Oh, come on, Wizzy. You got this. All right. Hey, what's up? Uh, hey there. You want to come back into the corner and hang out with me and my friend? No. I mean, no, thanks. I'm waiting for a friend. I have to go stand somewhere else now. What happened, man? 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The old confidence or self help materials, they focused a little bit too much on improving people's current state instead of helping people who have shyness and social anxiety resolve their deeper issue. And I think the core issue is in dissolving feelings of shame, which I know you talk a lot about in your book the Solution to Social Anxiety too. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what you think about this idea of shame. There's even a book called no more Mr. Nice Guy. He called it Toxic Shame. So in my new version of my system, I kind of stole or copied that from him. I called it toxic Shame. What I see a lot of people have more extreme social anxiety, have so what do you think about this idea of shame and how guys can get over shame to become more confident?

Yeah, I think you absolutely hit it on the head about too much focus on changing your state and just doing something different. I think that there are specific applications for that. Like any tool or any medicine, there's a time when it's the most effective and then there's times when it's not the right tool for the job. And there is a much deeper issue with social anxiety and shyness and many problems and difficulties that relates to shame and this concept of toxic shame. I'm in that book no more Mr. Nice Guy. If someone's listening and you haven't read that book and you're dealing with shyness and social anxiety, incredibly valuable information because it'll help you once you overcome that initial hump and you can start talking to people more. Then there's navigating real relationships with friendships, dating, romantic relationship, where you really have to find your power and be assertive in a way. And that book is a great resource. But in it he highlights the idea of toxic shame, which I believe honestly is at the root of all social anxiety. And the way I capture it in my book is I describe it as this belief, this deep seated full body experience of I'm not enough. In some way there's something wrong with me and therefore I'm not worthy of love and belonging to. And that's an adaptation of a researcher named Brene Brown. I don't know. Have you heard of Brene Brown, Sean. Yeah, she's gotten kind of viral and big on the Internet, which I'm really happy about because her message is so important right now. And she talks all about shame. And so I think that if someone really, truly wants to overcome shyness and social anxiety, that is where they have to go. They have to start doing some deeper work on shame. And there are some basic ways to start doing that. One is to acknowledge it and to identify and label it as that. Because sometimes we can just feel like it's true, I'm just bad, I'm defective, I'm messed up. But if we can start saying, wait a minute, this is shame. This is not me, this is shame. This is something that I've picked up and learned. And that's the first step. But then the next step is we have to learn how to soothe or help ourselves when we're feeling shame. And several ways. The one is sort of like a self soothing, which is being able to find out what is the voice of shame saying to me and can I develop an alternative voice, a voice of self compassion, which I think is one of the most powerful antidotes to shame. And like a lot of the stuff I teach, it's very effective. But the only reason not to do it is it's a little weird, it's a little unusual. You might feel a little self conscious at first, but my philosophy has always been, I don't care if it's weird, if it helps heal me or helps me gain more success in my life or fulfillment in my life, then I'll try whatever. And so let me give a real practical idea so it's not just theoretical. Like when you're feeling that shame, and you might be feeling it after an interaction, you leave and you're thinking, oh, God, you're replaying it in your mind, like, that was stupid. I sounded nervous, I messed up there, or I didn't even go talk to those people. What's wrong with me? I'm too nervous, I'm too messed up, right? In those moments, the best thing you can do is just, if you can get home or whatever is close your eyes and just put your hand on your heart, right on your chest and just take a moment and just breathe directly into your chest. Close your eyes, feel your hand on your heart. There can be a sense of warmth and then just pay attention. What is this voice of shame saying? And what could I say if I wanted to help myself right now? How could I soothe myself? How could I be kind to myself? And that's a huge leap just to go from self criticism to self compassion and just practicing it. It's a skill. You know, at first it's awkward. I don't even know what I would say. And I always encourage people to say, well, what would you say to a good friend? Or better yet, imagine you're hanging out with a nephew and he's five years old and he does something or he's hurt or he's crying, what would you say to him? And usually people can then access a different way of being. And you say things that may sound strange, like, hey, Aziz, I'm sorry you're hurting, I'm sorry you're suffering, I love you, you're doing okay. And this is a totally, radically different way of talking to ourselves than most of us have learned how to do. And there can be some resistance to that, which I get into in my book, and I don't want to go too far on that subject, but that's a way of self soothing. And I'll say one final thing about chain resilience is the third thing. And what I found to be the most powerfully transformative and healing is. And it's the last thing you want to do when you're feeling shame is to find someone to talk to about it. Because shame, I think the Latin root actually means to cover or to hide. And so there's that impulse when we're feeling shame of like, I don't want anyone to see this, I'm a mutant, you know, don't look at me. But we have to kind of challenge that impulse and say, no, wait, this is healing. And I know I benefited tremendously from being in a men's group for three years where I could talk about some things. And I don't mean like deep, deep, horrible, dark secrets. I mean, that could be something that someone's dealing with. But I mean just the day to day shame of feeling less than that toxic shame. And so being able to share, yeah, I was at this party and I didn't talk to anyone and I just left with a good friend who can support you, who can be like, yeah, that sucks, I've been there too. Or that's tough, you know, not the kind of friend who says, well, just man up. I think so many guys have really poor friendships where they can't get support. So that's an essential thing, is to find that support of friends that you can be real with and get help with. And then if you want to get that support through counseling or something, that's a Very powerful healing option as well.

Yeah, I think you made some really important points for sure. Definitely. And I love the way you talk about in your book how the strategy that most people kind of default to is trying to, Trying to like almost give themselves tough love or they're trying to. They think that the best way to improve is to try to nitpick and try to figure out everything they could have done better in the, in every little social situation they go into. But what they're not realizing is that when they're too, too self critical and too perfectionistic about some past social situation, then it's like they're kind of. Every time they rewind and replay that situation in their head and they feel bad about themselves, they're kind of, they're reinforcing that neural pathway in their brain of shame, of not feeling good enough and feeling bad about themselves. So it's actually hurting them more than helping them.

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, that is one of the worst ways to try to learn is replay mistakes and shame yourself for them. I love the idea of a metaphor of a coach. And you know, that is a style for some coaches. Monday morning quarterbacking, you know, why did you do this? Why did you do that? And sure, being able to analyze a gross error or something is important, but that's really not what we're doing when we're replaying something. We're really just kind of grinding through, putting ourselves through the meat grinder. And you know the difference, you really feel bad when you're doing it. And that's a great sign to just pay attention to what Sean just said. There is say, hey, wait a minute, this is not helping me learn. Let's pause for just one minute here and we're going to get back to our interview with Sean. Let's just take a brief break and we'll be right back after this.

Are you tired of worrying about other people's judgments? Tired of being held back by fear and self doubt? Do you want to make rapid shifts in your level of confidence? The truth is, challenges with confidence were created with others. You learned them from parents, teachers, peers. You learned them in groups. And the fastest way to unlearn them, to completely transform them, is through groups as well. That is why Dr. Aziz has created the Core Confidence Group program. It allows you to work directly with Dr. Aziz and five others who are overcoming the same challenges you are. Together, you set goals, break through old patterns of shyness, and support each other to creating outstanding lives. To find out more about upcoming group opportunities, go to SocialConfidenceCenter.com and click on Confidence Coaching.

I have another question that I wanted to ask you about this because this is one of the most common things that I hear with shyness and social anxiety that people really get hung up on, which is this is, you know, what I'm most afraid of when I go talk to someone or if I want to go approach that woman. What I'm most afraid of is that the other person's going to see that I'm nervous or afraid, because if I'm comfortable with someone, I trust that they'll like me. And they're more. They have some degree of belief in themselves as lovable, but they're like. The worst thing is if I speak up in that meeting and everyone hears that I'm nervous or I talk to that woman and she sees that I'm nervous, that's the thing that I'm most terrified of. So it's like a fear of being seen as afraid. And I'm curious, is that something that you have dealt with on your own or how have you. What would you say in response to that? How would you help someone through that?

I think it kind of goes back to something you briefly mentioned a few minutes ago, about how vulnerability is really the antidote to stuff like shyness and social anxiety and the path to becoming confident, even though it doesn't appear to be. You mentioned Brene Brown, too, and one of the things she talks about is how for guys, I think most of the people you work with are guys. Usually.

That's correct. Yeah.

Yeah. So for guys, one of the biggest triggers for shame is being seen as weak. So a lot of guys feel like if they appear to be weak or nervous or anxious, then other people will see them as weak, which is bad. I think this is kind of a catch 22 if I'm trying to figure out the right way to explain this. The way that shyness and social anxiety works, that most people don't realize is that it is based in shame. So when you try to hide something about yourself, like feeling nervous or anxious, then you think you're trying to. You think this is like a good strategy for appearing more confident in the short term, but it's actually messing you up in the long term, because even though you may not be able to in this moment, control and directly alter the way that you feel now, if you were able to be vulnerable in this situation, then it would actually help you in the future. So I'll give a practical example of what I'm talking about. I Remember, I approached a girl, or this probably happened a handful of different times, and I was feeling nervous, but I did it anyway. So I had trouble making eye contact. I think one specific situation, I approached this girl in the mall and I was like, looking away, and she was asking me if somebody dared me to do this. And I actually told her, I'm like, no, I just feel nervous. I'm looking away. So I was just honest about it. And then what I noticed is that I actually talked to her for a few more minutes. I became more relaxed, and then I ended up getting her phone number. So I think the thing with this, it's like most guys would be scared to death if they're nervous to actually admit they're feeling nervous. But by being able to be vulnerable and admit it, then they're taking out that outer layer of shame and around the feeling of anxiety. And by taking out that outer layer of shame in the long term, like in future situations, they're getting proof that they're not unacceptable as they are. So by wiring in this new good belief, it'll actually make them more confident in the long term by admitting a weakness in the short term. It's kind of a paradox, I think.

Absolutely. And it's a hard sell when you're really deep in shame. Because I think the most compelling or sort of convincing thing about the Voice of shame is that it says if you do X, if you are nervous and people see that, then they're not going to love you. They're, of course going to reject you, because that is utterly unlovable. And the most kind of maddening thing about this voice is it can persist even when the evidence you get from the outside world is not fitting with it. So you can say, well, if I reveal that I'm nervous to her, she's going to reject me. And then you have a story here of, hey, I revealed that I was nervous, and actually it led to a better conversation, and I got her number. And still, the next time you go into that situation, there can be that voice that says, this is unlovable. And so really what you're saying is you have to peel that layer and you just have to keep doing that, and eventually it will start to. The shame will start to melt, and you really start to realize, like, hey, the world is not ready to pounce on me for weakness. You know, people aren't out there waiting to jump and attack me if I show any vulnerability. Like, that's what we fear. But the reality is that nine times out of 10, you'll get a good response. And even if you don't, I really believe in living our values. And if you value being authentic and vulnerable and real and doing personal growth and healing yourself, then sure that one time out of 10 or two times out of 10 that someone can't handle you being real, that's their problem. Or that's the environment. If you're in a toxic environment in a company where no one can reveal any vulnerability, and if you, you know, are nervous and people attack you for that, then that's a messed up place to work. And it might be worth considering finding a place that's more supportive of that versus trying to keep digging a deeper pit into shame. That's all the time that we have today for the interview with Sean. And what I want to get to in the last few minutes of the show today is your action step. Time for action. Like anything that you learn, it's most effective when you take it out of the intellectual idea realm and put it into practice, put it into your actual behavior that you're carrying out. So the same applies for the stuff around toxic shame. Even though it might seem abstract or intellectual, it really is practical. So today's action step is how to put something that you've learned from this show in the interview with Shawn into practice. We covered a lot. We covered the practice of shame resilience. Remember some of the basic things about self, compassion, putting your hand on your heart, learning how to speak to yourself with greater compassion. These are basic things that you can do. And the most important thing that you can do as an action step today is to think about this question. Who in my life can I talk to about what's really going on? Who can I share if I have an experience where I go to a party and I freeze up or I give a talk and it feels like it goes badly, who can I really talk to? And you might find, and this is such a common pattern with people with shyness and social anxiety, and for me as well, is I don't need to talk to anyone. I'll manage it myself. I don't want anyone to see my weaknesses. And I know I was working with a guy who had a panic attack. He had several panic attacks before these meetings at work. And he was really worked up about it. And I asked him, he was actually married. And I asked him, so did you talk about this with your wife? He says, no, no, I didn't. I didn't even cross my mind. And so we have these resources. We are social creatures, and reaching out to someone. And getting someone to listen to us and see us and support us and love us is so essential in overcoming this toxic shame stuff. So I encourage you to think about who in your life can you talk to right now? There's probably some friends that you're not as deep or open with as you could be. Maybe it's a girlfriend or a spouse or a significant other, or a husband. If you're a woman listening, who are those people? And if you literally don't have anyone really, then two things I would suggest. One is really focusing on developing those connections. And two, in the short term, find someone that you can talk to, maybe even a counselor. There's many low cost options out there. Or you can find someone through your insurance, something like that. But really, it's so important to find someone to help you through these processes because we can't do it all alone. So that is your action step for today. And that brings us to the end of today's show. So thanks so much for listening and until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are, to see through the ideas and stories that tell you that you're bad or wrong in some way, and to ultimately know 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.