How To Eliminate Social Anxiety In Conversations

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 talk about social anxiety in conversations and how to have less of it, be free of it, which means more relaxed confidence, more you, more ease in being in your own skin. And it's something I've been thinking a lot about recently because we're sending out some emails in just a couple days about the next online live event, which is called Supremely Confident Conversation Master. And there's a super early bird that we're running for that starting in two days. But for you guys, we'll have the link down below@shrinkforthshyguy.com starting today, so you guys can get access to that even a couple days earlier than the main email list. And it's a fantastic event. I'll tell you more about it a bit later in this episode. And if it's something that you want to go further with to boost that ability, I mean, I'm going to teach you what I can here. And of course we're going to spend three days doing that. It's in March of this year, in 2021, it's online virtual. The super early bird is we made it extremely accessible so anyone from over the world can do it online. You'll learn a lot, but you'll also practice a lot. So I highly recommend it. And we focus on both sides, like the conversation skill, but also the social anxiety side to free yourself to feel more confident. Because no matter how many skills you got, you could look up a thousand articles like wikiHow, wikiHow to have a conversation. But it's the confidence piece that's the real determining factor, whether we can apply what we learn or. Or just be ourselves in conversations. So I would love to share that with you. And Again, go to shrinkforthshyguy.com and go below this episode to get your ticket for that. And let's talk about now how to relieve Some of that social anxiety in conversations. So that's the name, social anxiety implies your anxiety is going to be socially. Of course, we all know we can experience social anxiety not in conversations. You can feel anxious before a conversation leading up to a conversation. You could be experiencing social anxiety when no one's around you, just by thinking about other people and their perceptions of you and what they feel and think about you or upcoming events. Right. I'm gonna go have this conversation, I'm gonna have this meeting. And we feel that anticipatory anxiety. That's a social anxiety. It's just we're not in the social experience. So, you know, we want to broaden this to in conversations. But you know, it's also before and after those conversations as well. And you'll see why in just a minute here. So there's gonna be some key concepts about social anxiety that I think will be useful for you. That applies to all different scenarios like dating and other things too. But so here are some key things about social anxiety. What is social anxiety? So it's being afraid of others. Anxiety means fear, kind of mind guided fear. And social means interconnection with others. So social anxiety is I'm afraid of others. And why am I afraid of others? Well, I'm afraid of others because I am afraid of their judgment. I mean, you're probably not socially anxious, like afraid people are going to physically attack you. That might be a different kind of anxiety. And if that's warranted, maybe you should get out of that situation. Right. But social anxiety is not. We're not afraid of our physical safety. We're afraid of the judgment of others. And it's not just the judgment, like a judgmental thought. It's a negative appraisal of ourselves by the other person. The other person's gonna judge negatively about us. Right? Cause judgment can be positive or negative. I judge this person as brilliant. I think when you look at someone, you're like, whoa, that person's so beautiful. You know, it's like a woman you think is amazingly beautiful or a man that's really handsome. You look at someone, you're like, whoa, that's a judgment. You're judging that person as attractive. And it's a positive judgment. So most people are not like, hey, get out of here with your positive judgments and shut up. Right. So we think when you hear judgment, you think, oh, then it's all the negative stuff. But judgment is just the, is just assessing something's quality. Is it good or bad, better or worse on any different measure. Right. You know, is it. They're beautiful or not, or ugly in this case. Right. Or smart or stupid. These are kind of the extremes of the spectrum. And there's, you know, obviously someone could fall in between beautiful and ugly. They'd be bugly. See, that's how you eliminate your social anxieties. You get an awesome sense of humor like that, and then, hey, everyone wants to hang out with you. So you follow me there. Judgments are just the mind coming up with something. It's quality of something if it's good or not, or the range in between. So what are we really afraid of? Well, we're afraid of not the positive judgments, although that's another wormhole we could go down when we have social anxiety. Positive judgments can also make us uncomfortable. Damn, man. There's no way out, Right? So we're being a little squeamish, a little squirmy, but, you know, come on, at the end of the day, we'll take them, or maybe we're a little bit. If they're expressed, we might get a little squirmy or squeamish. Like someone's like, wow, you're really beautiful. You're really smart. Or I can't believe you did that thing. We might be like, huh, Stop looking at me. But, you know, if they just thought it, we'd like that. If they just thought, man, that person's so smart and attractive, we'd be like, yeah. So we're not afraid of the positive judgments. We're afraid of the negative judgments. That means someone is viewing us as on the bottom half of the spectrum. You know, there's the spectrum between good and bad. You know, awesome or undesirable. We don't want to be in the bottom half. And that's not the only thing we're afraid of. What we're actually more afraid of is emotion. The rejecting emotion that we are afraid is going to accompany the negative judgment. That makes sense. So someone's gonna look at us and think, that person's ugly. And I don't like them. I don't like ugly people. Which, by the way, is just a fantastic way to start conversations. That's one of the things we teach at the Conversation Master event. You know, if you ever want to know. One of the things we teach at the event is how to join into group conversations. And I'm going to give away. This is some of the secret sauce. I'm giving it away for free though, here, which is you want to know how to start a conversation with the group Just walk in and just join right into the group. There's three or four people talking. Just talk right over somebody, doesn't matter what they're saying, and just say, hey, guys, am I the only one? Or do you just hate ugly people? And then just stand there and make solid eye contact with each person one by one? The beauty of this technique is it works in person. It also works in a zoom room. You enter a meeting, you know, there's five, six people there. It's just a small talk before the meeting. It's a real awkward city. You don't like that stuff? Just lead with that line. You know, dudes, I saw this real ugly person earlier today. It's disgusting. So what am I doing here? I am highlighting some of the absurdity of these judgments that we fear. Like, someone's gonna like me because I don't look good enough. Like, wow, that person sounds like. Does that person that I'm describing sound like a great person that you want to hang out with? Right. No. It sounds. No, thank you. I don't want friends like that. I don't want to be around people like that. But now we're getting ahead of ourselves. We're getting ahead of ourselves in that, you know, why does that person's judgment bother you so much? But in any case, so we're afraid of the rejecting energy or emotion. Whether it's, you know, not beautiful or attractive enough, not smart enough, or, you know, if they see that I have emotion, they see that I'm anxious, or they see that I'm angry, or they see that something, they're gonna judge that, ooh, anger is bad. Anxiety is weak, or some mental judgment. And then an emotion of like, I don't like this person anymore, you know? And then if they don't like us, then what are we afraid of? Well, we're afraid of what? What do you think? Like, sometimes our mind is just like, oh, yeah, that's terrible. Yeah, that's terrible. It's awful. Why is it awful? What are you really afraid of here? Okay, they're going to judge me in some way is bad. They're going to not like me. And then what does that mean? Well, one of our fears is they're going to withdraw themselves from our lives to a greater or lesser degree. Right. You know, they're not going to want to spend time with me. They're not going to want to be my friend. They're not going to want to date me. They're not going to be kind or loving with me. They're Going to, they're going to pull back. Either literally, physically, I might never see them again, or if it's an ongoing relationship, I'm afraid that they're going to pull back, you know, and I'm not going to hang out with them as much or they're going to be less available. And in an emotional, maybe it's a marriage or a long term partnership, they're gonna kind of withdraw and that's gonna be painful for me. Or if it's a business colleague or personal relationship, then it's like, oh, I'm not gonna, they're not gonna respond to my messages and it's gonna be hard to get our projects done, you know, or maybe I'm afraid that they're going to get me later, you know, attack me in some way or not physically, but, you know, like criticize me or be harsh or something, you know, resistant to me in some way. So mentally judge me emotionally, not like me, and then act it out in some way. Those are our fears and that's what creates that anxiety inside. Now, is it possible to be talking to someone or in an interaction with somebody and they judge you mentally, they don't like you emotionally, and they kind of want to get away from you or don't want to talk to you again after that? Is it possible to have that experience and not feel social anxiety? Eh, what do you think? That sound effect I got from my kids, it's great. Maybe they got it from me. I don't know who got it from where, but when they're proposing something, they'd be like, maybe we could do that and then afterwards we could get ice cream. It's effective. It's a good technique. So did you get that? Because that is pretty fascinating. I'm challenging some of our assumptions here about why we're anxious and how it has to be. And if we don't break this down, we're just kind of beholden to it. It's like our programming, I'm exposing the programming to. And then we get to start to have more choice of whether we want to let those programs run us or not. So what do you think? Is it possible to have someone judge you? I mean, have you ever had that experience in your life where someone judged you negatively? And look, we don't know what's going on in people's minds, but maybe it was clear, right? People can say things that indicate that they're judging you. It's clear that they don't like you or something that you did or something that you Offered or whatever, spent time with you and then they withdrew or wanted to withdraw in some way and you didn't feel anxious, you felt okay about it, huh? Why would that be? And if you've had that experience, you can ask yourself, I wonder why it was. What happened, what happened that that was the case. And if you've never had that experience, it's always bothered you or made you very uncomfortable or anxious, then you might say, I wonder what if someone else has had a situation where it didn't bother them? I wonder what would happen for that person, what's going on for them, that it doesn't bother them? How are they seeing it? How are they perceiving it? What's happening? Well, one case I often hear is sometimes it doesn't bother people if they're like, well, I don't really like that person anyway, so it didn't bother me. And that's possible. Sometimes you can hear it did bother them. And there's more of like a little bit of a hurt, angry, like I don't give a shit what they think. Didn't bother me at all. I never want to talk to them again. I unfriended them first before they unfriended me. I would have done it. You can't fire me because I quit. You know, a little bit of that, a little bit of that armoring or puffing up our sense of self, ego, but it truly, that's one way it can go down, but it actually can really go down that the person's upset or judging me emotionally, doesn't like me and withdraws. And I feel okay, that's okay, that's okay. So what's going on there? Because that's what you want in conversations, right? Because remember, this is how to be really free yourself with social anxiety in conversations. And what's happening in a conversation is you're interacting with a person and you're like afraid that they're going to judge you, they're going to emotionally reject you, and then they're going to withdraw or want to at least. And that's scary. And you could be in that situation where it's not scary. And there's a way to do that. That's what we're going to talk about right now. But notice how if that were the case, Then the conversation's no longer threatening and so I wouldn't feel anxious and so I can just be myself. Does that make sense? So part of the problem is I'm afraid of those scenarios, you judging emotional disliking and Then withdrawal. I'm afraid I don't want any of those. Those are all perceived as bad. And so now I'm worried about that outcome occurring, and I'm going to try to control that outcome. One of the best ways to control it with social anxiety is just to not have the interaction at all. But, you know, that doesn't work well for your life. So the next option is to go into the action with a lot of discomfort and then try to get through it and try to make sure you have positive, judg. Positive feelings. They want to hang out with you. Again, the opposite of withdrawal. Move towards. In whatever way that is. And that could be a business thing. You know, I want them to partner with me or hire me or like, you know, like me, so that maybe they'll connect me to their network or whatever it is. So we're having this. I need this to go a certain way so I'm safe. And that energy tense. That energy emanates off of you and people feel it. And it's. You know, you can think about. There's different ways that people feel it. But I like to think of it as like a. Have you ever seen a sine wave, A graph of a sine wave from way back when in school? Or if you're, like, into audio stuff, you can see that the sine wave just kind of goes up and then down and up and down. It's very smooth. And then if you look at other types of waves, they can be really jagged. And it feels to me like jagged energy coming off you. And even if you're trying to hide it, it's there. And that is less attractive. That jagged energy is like, disturbing in some way to people's nervous systems, whether they know or not. Just like an abrasive sound is disturbing to people's nervous systems. I was visiting New York, this was a couple years ago, and I was visiting with two friends in New York. It's part of my. We have this small group I love. We call it our executive committee. And we meet once a month on the phone for three hours. And pre Covid. We met in person once a year. We haven't done it. We didn't do it in 2020 because, you know, but we. So I was visiting him in New York and, you know, we like, have time to retalk and connect and talk about business and everything. And then we also have time where we just kind of hang out and do fun stuff. So we were. We went to. We were gonna go to some, like, massive spa thing in Manhattan, where it was like, it was really cool. It was like two, two or three stories and these different pools and a sauna and a cold pool and all these different hot tubs and stuff. It was really fun. And on the way there, we stopped at a Whole Foods and we're gonna get a sandwich. And I love Whole Foods. And they were like, hey, let's get some food. And I was kinda like, let's eat something healthier. So they're like, what do you want? I was like, I don't know, I don't wanna figure out a restaurant. Let's just go to Whole Foods. And when I. I'm in Portland, Oregon, Whole Foods is like swanky and nice and you can get your sandwich and you know, out in the burbs. This is like, this is New York. And it was there like my friend Jacob, who like kind of crinkled up his nose and he's like, whole Foods. I was like, yeah. And he's like, all right. And so we get there and it's like, it's a little rougher. You know, there's like crews of homeless folks walking through the store and grabbing stuff. And I'm like, whatever. They still have my, you know, salad I can get. So I got myself a salad. We sit down at this upstairs area. And again, it's a little rough in the upstairs area. It's not all swanky like it is in Portland. And you know, the bathroom's got a lock on it and there's kind of people going in and out of the bathroom a lot. Like kind of shady looking characters. Maybe they're just using the bathroom. I don't know. I don't know what's going on in there. In any case, we're sitting around. And of course you also have your mixture of like, you know, the 60 year old Japanese lady and her husband sitting over there. Because it's New York, right? It's diverse. I love it. So we're there and then all of a sudden I'm eating my salad, I'm halfway through and enjoying it. We're hanging out and all of a sudden someone does something. I don't know if there was an exit door. I think there was an exit door near the bathroom that says like, do not open the exit door or else the shit's gonna go down. That alarm is gonna go off, right? And have you ever seen those? You ever seen that? Like, do not open the exit door. The alarm's gonna go off. And I've never opened one of those. That sign works on me. I'm like, oh shit, I don't know what's gonna happen. It's gonna call the fire department, you know, whatever. Anyway, one of those shady dudes like, opens up the door and then the alarm just goes off. And then he like, closes the door and backs off and kind of scurries away. And it is insane loud. Like, like really intense volume, high pitch. And I'm like, you know, and my two friends just sit there, continue to eat their food. I look around, everyone around just keeps eating their food. And we had to wait a couple minutes to get a table too, because there are people who are hovering. So we didn't want to get up and leave our table. So we just sit there. And it is so freaking loud and intense. And everyone's just like, it's weird. Like, if you were looking at that scene on mute, it would look like nothing was happening. And then you would unmute and be like, oh my God, you know? And my stomach was like, tight. Like I had to stop eating. I was like, I can't eat with that thing punching me in the face. Anyway, it took a while, but eventually it stopped and all was well in New York, Whole Foods. The key takeaway there is that I need you to not judge me and feel emotionally positive towards me and want to hang out with me more in whatever way, shape or form that is. That. Is that a low version of that alarm which is disturbing to the nervous system. And so what we want to do is we want to free ourselves from that. Not only for our own liberation and emotional well being, but also for others and for connecting better. Because you can't connect well when you're doing that, because you're trying to control people and no one likes to be controlled. Even if it's just psychically, even if it's just unconscious, like, you know, they're not aware of it, but you're energetically, emotionally grasping at them. So the way out is to let is to change it so that those things are not threatening to me. And there's one thing that makes those things threatening, which is believing that they're right. That's what makes it most threatening. Because look, at the end of the day, if that one person didn't want to date you, if that one person didn't want to hire you, if that one company didn't want to hire you, if that one person didn't want to be your friend, if that one person didn't enjoy that conversation with you, would it really be that terrible? You might say, yes, this Person is the love of my life. And you know, okay, whatever. We can puff it up and make it seem like it's the end of the world, but really, let me ask you this. The dating example, like, okay, if that person didn't like you, but you knew that next week you'd meet someone who is even better, better fit better, better at loving, better in all ways for you, whatever makes it better for you, and you knew that you were gonna beat that person next week, would you feel anxious? People would say, well, no, I guess that's fine, right? So the reason that we're anxious, the reason why we need to try to control people, is because on some level, we believe the judgment about ourselves and we believe the emotional rejection that we are unlovable or unworthy and that we believe we deserve to be withdrawn from, left, discarded, ignored. Do you see that? You following me here? This is profoundly life changing. To really get all this. Because all of a sudden then you can start to. It's like when you see this, you can start to pull apart the web of that ball of social anxiety, which just feels like this thing, it's like part of who I am. It's not part of who you are. It's just a pattern and we're unraveling it right now. So I got this judgment. I don't. You know, you're ugly. I believe that that's why I'm anxious. I'm not. I'm rejectable. I'm kind of, ugh. Ugh. I'm content. I'm worthy of contempt or at the very least, aversion. I believe that that's why I'm anxious. I don't want to be friends with you. Get away from me. I believe I'm not worthy of people being with me. So of course they want to get away from me. Do you see that? Because if you see that, then that gives you a pathway to liberation, which is to transform that perception of yourself, to upgrade your identity, to transform the way that you treat yourself and talk to yourself, which is reinforcing that shitty identity of, I'm not good enough and no one's gonna like me. And you start to build a resilience and a tolerance for disapproval. Because it's okay, some people like me and some people don't. I'm not for everybody, but that doesn't mean I turn on myself. That doesn't mean I consistently think about myself in that way. And for so many people, for social anxiety to be in place that like turning on myself. And we don't even think of it as turning on myself. Cause I'm always not on my own side. I didn't have to turn on myself. I'm always against myself until you change that. So that's what we want to do. And that is the promise of this three day event that I would highly recommend you attend. It's anywhere in the world so virtual you can come as long as you got an Internet connection. And it is powerful because we're going to get in there and we're going to upgrade those beliefs. It's not just mental beliefs, it's feelings about yourself. It's an identity. It's who you see you are in the world and how you see yourself and your worthiness and all of that that has to get awakened and elevated so that you feel good about who you are. I'm going to share and help you start to install and feel the power beliefs of highly confident conversationalists. And it's not that they're like, oh, I know the wittiest story and I know all about the current events. It's not about that, it's about their core and how they see themselves about their identity. Their identity is of course someone want to be my friend. Of course I'm enjoyable to talk to. I don't have to be the smartest person in the room. I can be dumb sometimes. Of course it's fine. There's just that owning of who you are. So if you like that, you want to build that, then obviously come join me at the event. And in the meantime, let's take some action on this. Time for action. Action. Action. Your action step is going to be an awareness building exercise, which is so you learned a lot about the nuts and bolts about how social anxiety works. So I want you to study it in yourself. Before we can change anything, we have to become aware of it. And the awareness, like pull. As I said, pulling apart that web of social anxiety will give you more power to actually change it. Because otherwise you're just going to. It's just gonna be like trying to slap an affirmation on there like I'm beautiful and worthwhile. Like, yes, it doesn't stick. So we have to. I think one of the most powerful ways to liberate ourselves is you gotta cut the ropes that are binding you. And the way that we do that is with our awareness. The more you see it, the more you're like, whoa, whoa. That's what I'm doing. Ooh, no thank you. So pay attention. We have social anxiety before an interaction during you might be able to sort of pay attention, but maybe there's a lot going on. So then afterwards, say, huh? What was I afraid of there? Was it a judgment? What judgments was I most afraid of? What would I not want them to see me as? Hmm? Do I feel. Am I deeming myself as emotionally unworthy? And if so, why? Why am I doing that? What's going on there? Do I think I'm not worthy of people wanting to move closer to me? Hmm? Again, why? What's going on there? What are the stories? What are the beliefs? What is the. You know, to see how you're creating this and when you shift, when your identity shifts, all of a sudden the responses from people to totally transform before you lost another pound, before you gained another pound of muscle, before you got, you know, smarter or richer or whatever else we're trying to do. Confidence is an inside job, so I hope this serves you. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode of this show, as well as perhaps at the Conversation Master online Live event. Until we speak again may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com.