How to Do Gratitude

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.

Yo. Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today is about gratitude. Now, if you live in the United States, tomorrow, as you know, is Thanksgiving. And the tradition that we have here in the States about Thanksgiving is you get together and you eat a shit ton of food. That's. That's kind of the tradition. The more the better. Get to the place where you can barely move and there's absolutely no room left. And then someone's like, you want to eat some pie? And then you try to eat more. That's what most people do. So I have a good friend actually who they go have an early dinner with his wife's family and then they go to his parents house and they have a later dinner, they eat again with his family. And it's like this marathon where he kind of paces himself so we can make it through both dinners. So, you know, that's an interesting way of celebrating, I suppose, our gratitude and our blessings around food abundance. But that's kind of the limit of the tradition. I guess maybe there's some time with family that people experience. But that's the core. I think the idea of Thanksgiving giving thanks is extremely valuable. And that's what I want to talk about today. And you don't have to be based in the United States. I mean, we all can benefit from more gratitude in our lives. So let's talk about gratitude. And if you want to go deeper in the show, go to shrinkforthshyguy.com you can ask me questions there. I'll answer them. In bonus Ask the Shrink segments, you can give feedback. And also you can get a copy of my book the Five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence, which is gonna help you learn the key five steps that I use in myself and with all my clients to help them rapidly build their confidence. And you can get that sucker for free. So go to shrinkforthshyguy.com let's talk about gratitude. The more grateful that you can feel, the better your life is. Now, that might not be new to you. You might have heard that before. You might already know that intellectually we all do, right? That when we're in a state of feeling thankful, like I feel blessed, I feel grateful, then we feel appreciative of what we have. And when we feel appreciative of what we have, we don't feel a sense of lack and inadequacy and scarcity and I'm not enough and I don't have enough and life's not fair and it's not giving me enough and I'm lonely and right. And we're feeling all the lack that is a. When we a lack of gratitude. It's the opposite of feeling fulfilled, appreciative and grateful. So we all know that life is better when we feel grateful. And we all focus a lot on getting external things, thinking that we're then going to feel fulfilled and grateful when we have them. So we strive to get more blank, more money, more love, different or better relationship, more dates, more friends, more time out, more people liking us on Facebook or other social media, more. I gotta get more and then I'll feel fulfilled. This starts young. My son Zaim, we give him some raisins to put in his little oat cereal and he wants more. I want more raisins, right? It's a human thing. So we all want more and we think that getting more, we're gonna feel grateful. But we've all also experienced this where we get everything that we want or we achieve a goal or we get a date or whatever our goal, you know, whatever it is that we want. And maybe we feel grateful, but maybe not even at all. Or maybe it's super short lived. And then it's like, what's on to the next thing? What's on to the next thing? What's on to the next thing? And I've experienced this, I'm sure you have too. So that's why today is going to be not just about the idea of gratitude. Like, oh yeah, gratitude's a good thing. Yeah, that's right. Eating vegetables. Yeah, that's in theory, that's great, right? This is about feeling gratitude. And that's why I want to start with the idea of the discipline of gratitude. I believe that gratitude is a discipline like eating healthy, like working out, like do like confidence in a lot of ways. I talk about this a lot. Like we have to have a discipline of confidence. We have to have at least one habit a day. One thing that we do every day that helps build our confidence. And if we don't, it doesn't matter what you want or wish for, it's only what you create. And if you're wondering about those, we'll have another show all about the discipline of confidence. Teach you some of the habits and disciplines that I use and clients use on a daily basis to maximize their confidence. But today is about the discipline of gratitude. And it's the same thing. We have to have something that we put into place that we do. We do gratitude just like we do all of our feelings. It doesn't just happen to us. We have to create it. And the reason I call it a discipline is because setting up habits, doing daily rituals at first requires some commitment, some willpower, some choice, some discipline. And then it becomes part of who you are. But we have to create that. And I want you to create that in your life if you're not already doing it. And if you are already doing it, I want to intensify it. I want to give you some fuel so you're inspired to get out there and keep doing it more and more so you can feel better and better in your life, more and more fulfilled. And guess how gratitude affects our confidence. That's right. When we feel fulfilled, when we feel appreciative, when we're not in a state of lack and craving and inadequacy and not enough, we are so much more confident and our energy is so different. So let's just take one example of, say, dating and relationships. If you are single and you are in a state of lack and no appreciation and no gratitude, I need something from you. I need your love. That's your energy. And you go talk to someone, how's that gonna go? You're gonna be nervous, you're not gonna want to mess it up, and you're gonna subtly push them away with your energy. And instead, to be attractive, we want to be filled up. We want to be filled up. Like, I have so much going on, I have so much love in my heart, I have so many good things. I want to share these with you. And I can come get into my world and hang out with me. And when you come from that place, good things happen, become a lot more attractive. So let's talk about how the discipline of gratitude, habits and patterns that you can do, rituals that you can do starting right now, that are simple and easy. I don't, I'm not a big fan of like a, you know, 35 minute exercise you got to do every morning and night. We want to do something super fast, super easy. I have some great ideas I want to share with you. I want you to be thinking about your own ideas, what's worked for you in the past. And then we're going to do something together that will help you actually tap into that feeling in your heart and feel a sense of gratitude, which feels amazing. So. So this is gonna be a fun episode. Stay tuned. We're Gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back right after this. I wanna take one moment to acknowledge a listener who left me a message through the website shrinkforthshy Guy. It was really touching, really compelling. And he just shared how much he's grown. And it's awesome to hear about his progress. So let's jump into that right now.

Hi, Dr. Aziz, my name is Will and I, I am enrolled in both your programs, confidence unleashed and 30 days to dating Mastery. And I just want to thank you for offering these two programs online. I've been really sticking to them a lot and I found that I'm able to do a lot more. I'm not as shy as I used to. I am definitely a lot more confident. And the most important thing I think is that I feel that I love myself. I love myself a lot more. I'm not beating myself up as much as I'm used to. So I thank you for your time listening to this and thank you for the amazing. I have pod the streams that you do on shrink for the shy guy. And I hope you have a great weekend.

Thank you. Welcome back. So what can we do to feel more grateful? Now, one of the most common practices that you might have heard of, it's very common, is like a gratitude journal where you write things down that you're grateful for. And there's a bunch of ideas like that. But before we get into the specifics, I think it's important to realize this. Gratitude does not come. It's not something we feel in our heads, it's not a thought. So in order to experience gratitude, we have to feel it in our body, which means we have to slow down. We have to slow way down. So if you're going from thing to thing in your day, I got to take care of this. And you're stressed out and then you're bothered by this and you're irritated by that, and it gets to the evening and you're getting into bed. Ah, shit. I gotta do my gratitude journal. Alright, what am I grateful for? You know, and you're just trying to go through it. It's not gonna do anything. We need to slow way down to feel grateful. Because you could list right, right now. We could all intellectually list. I mean, we have thousands of things that we could be grateful for in our lives. The fact that you're even hearing me right now, that you have ears that can, and your brain works in the effective way, and everything's working in that machinery and that circuitry that you can hear and understand what I'm saying is a fucking amazing miracle. And not everyone enjoys that in their life. Not everyone can do that. And so we could intellectually be grateful for thousands of things, but we don't need to be grateful for thousands of things. We just need to be grateful for one thing. And in order to do that, we need to slow way down and breathe and feel. And guess what? When you slow down and you breathe and you feel, you're gonna feel other shit before you feel gratitude. Maybe you're gonna feel stressed out if you're kind of in motion next thing, next thing, next thing. Or if you're anxious or if you're self critical or anything else that's going on, you might have to kind of settle into that soup for a few minutes and breathe and just feel. And then do a practice, do a discipline. Do something that's going to help you bring your focus to what you have and what you could be grateful for. And this could be done with a journal. That's a great way where you write it, or you can just do it in your mind, but it's not coming from your mind in the sense that you're listing them really quick, like you're really in your body, you're really slowed down. And then you ask yourself a question like this. What could I be grateful for if I wanted to be? What could I be grateful for? What could I. And if the word gratitude or grateful, sometimes people have like a, you know, I know sometimes I've had a little bit of like a. With that because there's like this should story, especially in personal growth. Like you should feel grateful. You should have a gratitude journal. And anytime anyone tells us that we should do something, part of us, you know, buys into it and feels guilty and another part of us like resists, it rebels. So if that's poking any buttons, you know, you could also just look at, say the word appreciate. What could I appreciate right now if I really wanted to, you know, I wanted to work on this a little while back and I made a practice of when I woke up every morning, when I. Before it did anything, I just keep my eyes closed, feel and ask myself that question. What are three things that I could be grateful for right now? And then really slow down and feel them. So I would just be like, tick, tick, tick, done. Ding, I'm up. Be like, okay, you know, and. And I wouldn't judge what it was. Sometimes we're like, let's say you're like, I feel grateful for my mom. You're like, what about my dad? I should feel grateful for my dad too. Oh, he'd be offended or hurt if it wasn't him. You know, it's like, this is not the time to take care of others feelings. No one knows. This is just for you. This is for you to tap in. And whatever pathway gets you into that feeling is good. So for me, it's almost always one of the first ones. Right there is my core family, my wife Candace, my son Zaim, or my other son, Arman. But it's not all three of them always. Maybe it's just one of them comes to my mind first and I don't judge it, I just let it be. So let's say it's Zaim. It's often him because he's just such a delight. So fun, so sweet, so humor, so, so much joy just being in his presence. I feel most of the time, sometimes it takes a shit ton of patience. But so I wake up and I just focus on that and I think about him, I imagine him. I imagine a moment from the day before or something he does that's cute or sweet or funny. And I feel it in my heart, in my body, and I slow way down just to really experience that. Thank you. And I say in my mind, thank you, thank you for that. My life is so blessed. Thank you. And if you have any sort of religious or spiritual bent, you can say, thank you God, thank you Allah, thank you Creator, thank you, great mystery, thank you spirit, thank you, whatever your word is for that thing. That's way beyond what we can all understand and make sense of, which may or may not be involved actively in the creation of fucking galaxies. I mean, we don't even really spend much time thinking about that. But that'll fry your noodle if you think about the immense vastness of space. And then within that space, a planet, and then without beyond that, stars, multiple stars, multiple galaxies, hundreds of billions of trillions of gajillions. I mean, it gets pretty crazy. So whatever helps you tap into a sense of awe at that, thank that force, that thing. You know another way to access gratitude? Because I'm all about accessing gratitude. I don't want to just do an exercise and have a big long list but feel nothing. One thing I realized really helped me access gratitude is have you ever hung out with someone who, you know, maybe you spend some time with someone, or you travel to a country or something and you see people who have way less than you do. Remember I traveled to China, my brother, and we traveled to Western China to the Xinjiang province, which is not what you think of as typical China. Most of the people there are brown. They look more like Middle Eastern or not even that, more like Mongolian or Afghani, because it borders those countries, Mongolia and Afghanistan. And I mean, man, we traveled for weeks and it was like that. They don't. This is by choice. They don't have toilets that go up off the ground. There's like. It's kind of like a squatting toilet. We stayed in a friend of his house where there was like 10 people living in a small house with dirt roads all around. And the mom had like a cancer on her face, and that was just how she was going to die. There was no hospital that she was gonna go to. You're like, whoa. And I'm worried about my cell phone upgrade, right? Or, you know, or anything like that. Or maybe you're hanging out with someone who is in a wheelchair and they've been that way for years or for their whole life or whatever, and you hang out with them for a couple hours and then you get up and you're like, whoa, I just walked up those stairs. I can go run and dance and do whatever I want. I don't have to even think about it. And this guy's got to think about, you know, how he's going to get into the room and which hotel room he's going to stay in and all that stuff. So being around people or someone who have less than we do brings that feeling to the forefront, doesn't it? And then it fades, right? You know, you get home. I remember I got home back to United States for toilets, and I was like, ah, this is great. It felt like a throne. You know, when I first got back, I was like, this is awesome. And then like, you know, two weeks later, probably even less, 10 days later, I don't even think about it anymore. So I thought, how do we access that? And so I decided to pick something and just focus on it and think about it. So last week I was really thinking about being able bodied, having functioning limbs, arms, legs, fingers, toes, everything. All my senses are working. And I started thinking about what would it be like to be blind? And I would pick a particular thing, like blindness or loss of my legs or not having an arm or whatever. And I would just think about one of those for the day. Not on and off, not all day long, but just like, what would it be like to be blind? And I kind of pondered that a few times during the day. And that comparison, that contrast gave me tremendous perspective to feel a sense of gratitude for, wow, look at what I can see with my eyes. I can take in color. Life is so much easier because I can see. Thank you. My life is so blessed and I felt, I feel it right now as we're talking. And maybe you do too. So these are some of the ways and you want to find what's going to work for you. And you're going to know because you're going to feel it. In fact, we're going to take a quick break right now and when we get back, we're gonna do an exercise together that's gonna help you tap into this feeling even more and leave this episode with a sense of deep gratitude and appreciation for life, for where you are, for everything that's happening, even some of those challenges, and just feeling that sense of enough, having enough, being enough being fulfilled. So stay tuned. We'll do that right after this.

Dr. Aziz's book, the Solution to Social Anxiety continues to get great reviews from readers from all over the world. Here is a Recent review from Amazon.com the title is true. This book contains the solution. Thank you Dr. Aziz. This is an amazing book. The first part explains in great detail about the causes of social anxiety. Then the second half explains how to shift your story and make a shift. It offers great advice. I am truly thankful I bought this book. I've been stuck in anxious, thinking, feeling and behaving for most of my life and I didn't think I could ever get better. I've read so many books on this subject. I've tried and failed so many times. Dr. Aziz is so cool and easy going and has a great teaching style. I'm just starting the journey out of this with the advice in this book I can overcome my past patterns. I'm going to live a loving and self compassionate life and give to the world and my family the real me. Thanks again DoctorAziz. Buy this book. You won't be disappointed. To get your copy today go to socialanxietysolution.com.

Welcome back. So let's do an exercise together. For this I highly recommend that you are somewhere where you can close your eyes and really go inwards. If you're driving or something else that's okay. Or even at the gym or something that's fine too. You'll get the most out of it though. If you can really kind of focus your attention inwards. But you know now and doing it is better than than not and saying oh yeah, I'll get back to that later. But not really right so just roll with it if you're not in that place. And you can always come back and do it again. I mean, this is something you can listen to again and again and again. This is a gift I want to give you to be able to have this forever. So you can keep accessing this feeling, this state. So let's do that. Now go ahead and close your eyes and slow down and just feel in your body, feel your breath as it goes in and out. Feel the coolness of your breath as you breathe in. Now as you breathe out, feel the warmth of your breath. And heated by your body, put your hand right over the center of your chest with your palms right over your heart, maybe even both hands if you want. And just focus your attention right now on your heart as you breathe, Letting anything else go out of your mind if it comes back. And just bring your attention right down, right to the center of your chest, right to your heart and feeling your heart, this organ, this muscle that started beating long before you were born, when you were inside of your mother's womb. The heart starts beating very early in the development of a fetus. The heart is there and beating before the brain grows. Your heart came first and it began beating then. And it will keep beating and as long as it beats. You live. Feeling the power of your heart and feeling a sense of awe and wonder at this thing, this thing that just keeps going and going and going without us even having to think about it or do anything. It's there reliably, dependably, And, you know, amazingly, it just it what's determining, you know, if it stops, we're gone. Feeling gratitude now for this, this, your heart, maybe even your body. Can you feel grateful for your body, how you can move, think about all the things that you can do. Can you walk? Can you run? Can you jump? Can you walk upstairs without thinking about it? Can you get from your bed to the kitchen to the bathroom without even having to give it a second thought? All the things that your body can do, the way you can use your hands and lift things and open things, and not even to mention the your senses that you can see clearly and take in all of the world around you, that you can hear my voice right now. And the level of connection that gives you to the world. Imagine not being able to see what your life would be like. Not being able to talk, not being able to hear. How easy we have it to be able to connect and feel connected to the world around us with our sight, with our hearing, breathing in now, keeping your hands on your heart, still feeling your heart. What is one thing right now in your life that you could feel grateful for? Maybe it's one of the things I mentioned. Maybe it's something totally different. What is one thing? Maybe it's a person. Maybe it's an opportunity. Maybe it's an experience that you had. What is one thing you could focus on right now that you could feel grateful for that you could be appreciative of? Good. Breathing in, feeling into your heart, and feeling that sense of appreciation, of warmth. You can even say thank you. Thank you to that person. Thank you to that opportunity. Thank you for your body. Thank you. My life is so blessed. Thank you. Good. What's something else that you could feel grateful for if you wanted to? Good. Focusing on that. What do you see when you. Is it a person you think of? Is it something in your life, in your body, an opportunity? Experience whatever it is, holding it in your mind and breathing into your heart and feeling that warmth of your hand on your heart and feeling that sense of appreciation, that gratitude intensifying. Let it be bigger and bigger and stronger and more powerful. Let it get big inside of your body, big inside of your heart.

Good.

And then just say thank you or whatever the sound of gratitude is. Maybe it's silence. I say that one A. My life is so blessed. Thank you. My life is so blessed. And if that feels good to you, say that now. And if you want to thank God or your creator or whatever helps you tap into this feeling even more than do so. Thank you, God. My life is so blessed. Good. Good. Staying in the state as long as you like. Keeping your hand here as long as you'd like. If you'd like to pause this and just hang out here for a while, that's great. And we're going to transition now to your action step. We are not going to insert the action step music right now because that's a little jarring and abrasive. So we're just going to transition smoothly to your action step. Your action step right now is to decide on what one gratitude practice you're going to do starting today or tomorrow. If you. This could be your gratitude practice for today, but maybe even starting today, later today or tomorrow with one little thing that you're going to do. You learn from me in this episode or you learn from somewhere else or wherever that you're gonna start doing each day. And keep it short. It could be a minute, 60 seconds. Let's just start with that. So then there's no part of our mind that says I don't have time for that. 60 seconds. Slow down. Feel. Ask yourself a couple of questions. It's all it takes. It's just about a decision and you can decide that right now. That is my invitation to you. That is your action step. Thank you for being with me today. Have a fantastic Thanksgiving if you're based here in the United States and have a fantastic day and life of feeling grateful for who you are and what you have for the rest of your days until we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. 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 social confidencecenter.com.

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