How To Feel Like A Kid Again with The Barefoot Doctor

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, welcome to today's episode of the show.

Today we're going to be picking back up with my guest expert, Stephen Russell. And if you listen to the first half of you probably learned some pretty powerful stuff about how to use ancient Taoist wisdom, this whole field of study that's been developing for thousands of years in your life. Now, it doesn't have to be some weird, esoteric, you know, ancient knowledge. You can actually use this stuff to be more confident Right now for your next business meeting, for your next conversation with someone, for just hell, just driving in your car. And if you're feeling tense and stressed out and worried, what are they going to think? Doubting yourself, not sure about your future. This stuff can help and it's powerful and it's profound. If you haven't listened to that first episode of last week in this first part of the interview, go back and check it out now because it'll prep you for the second part. And in this interview, we're going to be diving deeper into how to use Taoist philosophy, this way of being in the world, to relax yourself, to be calm and centered no matter what happens, to be able to take life head on and not get so battered around by the ups and downs, how to really trust and have an eternal sense of optimism about the future and about yourself and to really ultimately be fearless in the way that we approach life. So there's some really great stuff in this interview. I encourage you to give it your full attention, grab some notes to take if you can, to write something down that sticks with you, that strikes you and as always, do the exercises he suggests as we go through it together. And I think you will be amazed.

At the shifts that you feel.

So without further ado, let's jump into that interview right now.

Expert interview.

And a practical guidance on when I really like what you're saying about folks focusing the attention and the energy towards the back half of my body. How do you have any guidance on. Do you just sort of really bring your awareness to a certain point like your low back or your upper back or the back of your head? Any guidance specifically how to mechanically, you know, with our awareness, do that.

Well, you can take each area separately like that and that that does work for sure. And one of the quickest shortcuts that I found for it is this. If you, you visualize that you're inhaling through every pore of the skin in the front of your body and face and that you're drawing the breath like in a big wash back into the back of you, the back of the brain and the back of the body. Then you breathe out from the back of the body through the front again and out through every pore of the skin in the front and the front of the face. And you let that forward thrust of the breath push you backwards inside even more. So you're, you're breathing in through all of your front into your back, which obviously, you know, gets you into your back. And then as you breathe out, you're kind of pushing against that like when you're taking off in a plane down the Runway. So you're thrusting back even further on the out breath and you don't need to do three or four breaths like that and you'll be in your back. Does that resonate?

Yeah, that's really fascinating. It's something I'd never considered. I mean, I studied a lot of meditation. There's a lot of focus on the breath, the chakras, all this stuff. But I'd never heard anything about the back of the body. I think that's fascinating. And one thing I'm curious about and listeners might be noticing is do you think that part of us that wants to be in control and kind of the forward thrusting part of our consciousness will that is part of us resistant to letting go and to really being in the back of our body and being in the flow? Is there a part of us that doesn't want to do that and might throw up roadblocks or resistance to that?

You do ask great questions. Doctor. Yeah, of course. I mean the, the front part of us, if you like the constructed self, it exists because we've constructed it. And it's what Freud called the ego. And it clings to, clings to its existence for dear life. And it won't want to let go because it's habituated to being the guy in the front, if you like. And so yes, definitely there will be resistance. However, just allowing yourself to sink back for just a second. The peace and bliss that comes out of that, subtle as it may be, is notable enough for your soul, if you like to register it and go, that's right, that's better. And then of course the other part will fight and go, no, no, no. And you'll be back in the front again getting busy. I mean it happens to me every day, all day long. You know, that's how it goes you get an oscillation between the two. But if you stay with it and be patient with yourself, as I say, it only takes about three months of about maybe 10 moments in the day of dropping back for a second, no more. That's usually all we can manage, really, unless we're actually actively meditating, for it to become the default position. It's quite remarkable. It happens on its own. So, yes, of course there will be resistance. It's so habitual to want to sort things out by getting busy in the front that you can't expect it just to disappear. And nor should it, because where would the fun be that there wouldn't be a challenge here? But gradually, naturally, it occurs. If you just keep remembering, just for a moment to drop back, it's so powerful that it takes over and then everything shifts. The Taoists call it the backward flowing motion. And if you are into meditation, what is extremely enjoyable, it doesn't happen often, but you can get it to happen, is you sink back like I've just described, but then you keep going back as if you're going out the back of your body, and you let yourself fall backwards and backwards and backwards. And that was true inner space. You'll find yourself going at an incredible speed, accelerating exponentially as you go. And as you accelerate going backwards, you find yourself expanding as well. Your presence gets bigger, bigger and bigger and bigger until you find yourself as big as the entire universe. And then there you are. You become what they call the Dao itself. You are that. You've dropped away all the disguises of the material world and have become the big presence itself. And it's a beautiful place to sit if you can manage it for a moment or two. That's the sort of one of the big ones in the Taoist meditation practice.

I love it. It's a really beautiful concept. And it also reminds me of something you said earlier in our conversation about how on some level, through our subconscious mind, through some part of our being, you know, we're connected to everything. And this is something that has been known or theorized for thousands of years. And more recently, physicists and scientists are trying to even further delve how this can be. And I love that, though, this image of us being connected to Saturn in some way. And that fits with what I know about Daoism. And my question for you is how to kind of use this. There's sort of like an idea of being in the flow of life and the universe unfolding. And I know we can get into a lot of suffering with Fear about the future, fear about that's not gonna go well. It's not gonna work out. I'm not gonna get the job, they're gonna fire me, she's not gonna like me, so on and so forth. How can we use, in addition to what we've described about going to the back of our bodies, but just more of the sort of the Taoist approach to that, to life, and how to trust more in that connectivity that we have with the flow?

Yeah, well, the Taoists call that phenomenon wu wei, which means effortlessly manifesting whatever you need as you go along, or allowing whatever is needed to manifest itself more accurately. And the way this is done is through developing intentionality. And as I said before, for me, after many years of practice, rather than focusing on specifics about is she going to like me, isn't she going to like me, Am I going to lose the money or make the money or whatever. My. My intention is being honed down to let this all unfold with supreme elegance. Because for me, that just encapsulates everything. And I don't have to worry about the details at all. They'll take care of themselves. You know, trust that. Elegance is elegance, and there won't be any confusion about that. It becomes a lot easier to trust when we do this from the back of us, because in the back of this, as I said, we're not bothered by if it goes this way or that way, because we can feel that the relationship we have is with that. It's with the dow. The dow translates as the way, the flow of events, if you like, and the. The presence informing the flow of events. In the west, we would call it God, but that has religious connotation, so I tend to avoid using the word just to avoid confusion. But it's the same thing. It's the ineffable, undescribable presence that the primordial consciousness that makes everything be. And the more we sink into the back, the more clear it becomes that that's with whom the relationship exists. And that all the physical relationships we have with those around us are merely an expression of that. And that whatever we need to support us on the journey will be given. So whoever it is, whatever it is, whatever opportunity, whoever it is we need to have in our orbit will be brought to us naturally and of course, by their free will as well. So we don't have to worry anymore about if it goes this way or that way. And then understanding, having seen it operating enough times, the cycle of yin and Yang, you know that if she doesn't like you. It's because somebody else is waiting in the wings who's going to be even more compatible with you. If that job doesn't work out or that deal doesn't pan out, it's because another one will. So when these moments of great apparent defeat occur, and they do occur for all of us, of course the front part of the self will go, oh, it's all going wrong. It's all going to go down. It's all going to go down the toilet. It's all finished. I was all just deluded, even thinking it could work out. Then you actually stay in the back and welcome that slide because you know as you bottom out, you'll come back up the other way and it will be beautiful. And what will be required for you will come your way in a more wonderful way than you'd had than you'd imagine. And interestingly, the more you get to learn to trust the cycle just by observation and experience, the less dramatic those swings tend to become. It stops, try it stops having to give you such strong lessons in yin and yang because you're getting it already. So then when you get a pain in your body, for example, rather than fight it, you go, okay, so this is the dao. This is the big presence saying hello to me in a kind of painful way rather than fight it. Go, I've learned to go, I love you, I love you, I love you. Say it about three, four times. The pain actually goes away. When presented with a horrible situation of like, somebody reneges on a deal or you lose money or whatever, the tendency is obviously to go, no, this is awful. I've got to change it. Instead of I've learned to go, I love you, I love you, I love you. It's the dao saying hello to me. I love you. And the quicker, the more I do that, the quicker the thing turns around and presents me with the. With the antidote. So how we learn to trust, I don't know if there's a quick answer. It takes time. But this being in the back and knowing that the dao is your relationship, trusting rewards that really quite quickly by showing you that you were right to do so. I mean, if we strip away any possible romance out of this, you could just say that the one thing we can say for sure is that the dao reality is whatever you believe it to be, it will mirror that back at you. So if nothing else, rather than take this as an article of faith, if you just check that whatever you believe, the dao will do it will do. It will mirror that back at you. If nothing else, I wouldn't say that you need to have faith. This isn't a religion that's quite important to understand. There's no faith required in this. It's like a pragmatic existential experiment with reality. That's all it is. And if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. You drop it and do something else. And that's also quite important because the spiritual or religious aspects of us, and we all have that, or most of us have, doesn't conflict with this system at all. So you can quite easily, for example, feel the presence of Jesus in your back if that's where you're at that day or in your, for you, for your whole life. And it will have a lot more power and effect doing that than if you're not in your back. But also, conversely, if you were into that, say, or you were into Ganesha or Shiva or whoever, when you really get into praying properly, if you're in that mode, you'll find that you are in your back. And that's the whole point of this. When you're feeling really, really good, just spontaneously or you've really gone into a deep spiritual state, you will be in your back anyway. Your belly will relax anyway. That's why you feel good. So all this is doing is shifting, it's reverse engineering it and going get in your back, relax your belly and you'll have that experience. So I'm not, when I say this, I'm not proselytizing or suggesting people should do any of that stuff. I'm just saying that if you do or into any spiritual path, this in no way conflicts with that at all. It just provides a mechanism to make it more efficient, if you like.

Absolutely. And I love it. And there's two things I'm so curious about in what you said there.

We're going to pause for just one minute right here, take a quick break and then jump back into our interview with confidence expert Steven Russell.

Have you been considering reaching out to Dr. Aziz about private one on one coaching? Listen to what one recent client had to say about his experience of before I met Dr. Aziz, I thought there was something wrong with me. I was constantly comparing myself to people who were more confident or successful than I was. I had done that for so long, I didn't even know I could change it. Dr. Aziz helped me see, and very quickly, I might add, that I choose my own value. So many things in my life started changing Then I looked people in the eye. I smiled at women as they walked past me. And at work, I started talking with people in a completely casual way. Those gains themselves are worth more than anything to me. But to put the icing on the cake, just two weeks ago I was offered a promotion at work. This was directly related to my newfound confidence and leadership. Thank you, Dr. Aziz. Go to SocialConfidenceCenter.com coaching to find out more about how confidence coaches can accelerate your progress and help you transform your life.

One is just a quick question about when something goes not the way you want it to, and there's that pain in your body or your mind and you've practiced just saying, I love you, I love you, I love you. Are you saying that focusing on the tension in your body or focusing on the person that rejected you or, or everything, like, where are you focusing?

You're focusing on the sensation you've got inside of you. So like if, say the girl says, no, I don't want to see you anymore. And you, you, you have to access, you have to spot, where's this hurting in my body? What am I actually feeling? Where's the tension? You, you, you focus in on it. And then you know that that tension is actually an expression of the dao and you just say, hey, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. Rather than fighting it and it will disperse.

That's beautiful.

Yeah, it is beautiful. It's amazing.

And one other thing is you said, I love. You're saying this isn't a religious philosophy. You don't have to buy into anything. Just experiment with what this brings you in your life. And I'm going to voice one thing that sort of my western trained, rational, control oriented mind can sort of spasm about. And it might be some other listeners might have this question too, is you said one thing, which is that person says, no, this thing doesn't happen the way you want it to. And that's okay because there's something else that is even more perfect for you. And some part of my mind says, how do you really. Is that true? Is there always something better down the road?

Well, in my experience, yes, I can tell you. I mean, it does work for me. It seems to work for everybody I've ever shared this with. But that doesn't mean it's true. I don't know. You have to find out for yourself by trying it. But then, you know what this brings up is another question. We have this, I think, innate dread of dying, thinking that it's all about what we have in this world and we've got to make it amazing and amazing and amazing. But actually the death part of it is probably the most important and beautiful aspects of the whole ride. Where in the front self drops away and all that's left is the back self, that. That presence inside. So even if it got to the point where, because that's what we're really scared of, it's like, well, yeah, okay, so what if that's not true and it doesn't. There isn't something better, and then I'm going to go into a decline. I'll never meet another girl again, I'll never make any money and I get a die as a destitute bum on the street. That's generally. I mean, you could say that story any way you want, but that's the. The fear. What if it doesn't actually swing back round again? That means it's going to be defeat and that means death eventually. And that's horrible. Say even that the very worst happened. I mean, you know, look at what's going on in the world. There's enough people suffering horrible deaths even now. What this does is it actually makes you realize that that isn't your enemy. You don't have to be afraid of dying either. That's just a passage. It's something everybody's going to go through. And you actually get a sense the more you get in your back that even that is beautiful, that's going home. And so there is no defeat. It's like even if it doesn't swing round in this lifetime, it will swing around after that. That will be the. That's how it feels. I can't say, believe me, because I don't know. I can't prove it, but that's the way it tends to feel. However, the enormity of that aside, I have never known it not swing round into something better. When something has dropped away, when something's fallen away that I really thought was going to happen and should happen and it didn't. It always has swung around, such as something better afterwards. That's all I can tell you. That's my experience. People have to try it on the self. But also that spasm you're talking about, that's beautiful. That's part of the front self resisting. When you go into the back self, you think it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm just so delighted just to be alive for as long as it is. And I'm not going to let anything spoil my delight in being here, no matter what. Even if some fucker in Syria wants to chop my head off. I mean, I wouldn't want that. I wouldn't wish it on anybody. But excuse my language, in that moment, I'm not going to even let that spoil my delight in being alive, even that I'm still going to be present with the big presence even in that moment, because that's what it makes you feel, it does give you that kind of courage.

That's brilliant. And that actually we're getting close to the end of our time. And that's one thing I'd love to end with. And it cycles back around to something you said, which is that commitment to just the delighting and being alive. And I'm wondering if you can share just a little more about your ideas on that and how we can really, as much as possible, stay in that place of being, you know, marveled at this existence and how incredible it is. And any thoughts you have on that, I'd love to hear.

Okay, let me give you a practical one, because you're really brilliant with your questions, because it's the one thing I forgot to say, that the final key to the whole thing that engenders or allows that delight to be the constant state is this, that when you're in the back, you've got your breathing regulated, you've got your muscles softened, you've got your energy sunk down so that your mind is relatively calm. The next thing is from the back of you, you visualize that the two halves of your breastplate, your breastbone, slide apart like a pair of sliding doors to reveal what might be seen, if you like, in the core of your chest as a cluster of precious jewels, garnets and rubies and so on, radiating a beautiful crimson rose colored light and a gorgeous fragrance, whatever you imagine it to be, roses or whatever. And just visualizing that keeps the heart center open. Whenever the heart center is open like that, the heart energy, the heart chi is love, that's what it is. And you can't help but feel the courage and elation, the delight, the pure glee of just being. It just is innate. It's not a mind thing at all. It's purely energetic. You just relax the heart like that, and that feeling is there, come what may.

That is great. I love that. And I really appreciate the practical guidance, like that little visualization there and other things that you've described. I think those are going to be a great value of how we can take this and really apply it in our lives. So thank you so much for joining. I feel like we have just scratched the surface of everything that's there and I feel like I could talk to you for six hours about this stuff and if someone wants to learn more from you, I know you teach a lot about how to deal with life, how to deal with fear, physical health. I mean, we didn't even get into that, but that's one of your areas of specialty. How can people learn more from you? Stephen?

Well, there's two things I'd recommend. One is every Sunday, pretty much throughout the year, I do a thing called a satsang, which is a live guided meditation online, which is really beautiful. People come from all over the world and I just talk us through a meditation which has a certain quality to it just because there's so many people joining together doing it that runs through these principles and stuff. But in a guided meditation style I would recommend. It's really beautiful. Then I do a training called the Psychology of Fear, which is a six week online training, easy to do, which shows you exactly how to master your fear and how to actually turn it to your advantage. And then another one which occurs to me is there's quite a few of them, but the one I've just launched is called Super Healing and it provides everything we've just been talking about, but shows you how to heal yourself, as in make yourself whole and therefore how to heal other people. Again, it's a six week online training. All of these you just get from going to the website, they're on their courses or meditation or events. Truly I can't remember what they're under, but they're on there. You just spend a moment looking, you'll find them there. That is what.

Yeah, and I'll put a link below, but in case someone's just listening to the audio in their car or whatever, what is the website to go to?

BarefootDoctorGlobal.com BarefootDoctorGlobal.com well, that's great.

I mean, I personally am going to go check out some of those myself and dive in deeper because this is just a whole other way of approaching it. Very different than sort of the cognitive Western way and much deeper and soothing in many ways. Even just hearing you describe this stuff, I feel shifts in my body. So thank you so much for joining us, Steven. And I look forward to continuing to see what you share in the world.

And I look forward to continuing our dialogue as we go along, sir, because you are a joy to talk to. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

That brings us to the end of the interview and the end of the time that we have together. But before we go, we have to end with what we always end with.

Which is your action step.

Time for action.

Your action step for today is to really try on this philosophy of that that life is unfolding as it should just be talked about in the interview, remember? And how if we don't get what we want, it's because there's something later on that was meant to happen that is more beneficial to us. That is really what we needed ultimately. You know, he said, if that woman rejects you, then down the road there is someone that's even a better fit for you. And that's been absolutely true in my life. I mean, there were several women that I was just pining after and so depressed that it didn't work out and struggling about for so long. And then, I mean, now I look back with the amazing relationship I have with my wife and I'm like, oh, thank God. Thank God I didn't end up with them or it didn't work out. And so what I want you to do is really study your own life and look back at some of the things that were tragedies or shouldn't have happened or bad things and see if you can see what came after, what was the silver lining, what came about as a result, what was the next better thing that came into your life after you didn't get what you want, after the setback, after the failure. That's your homework. That's your action step for today. And that brings us to the end of our time together. Again. Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to speaking with you in the future and joining into the conversation with you at facebook.com shrinkforthshyguy. You can also go to shrinkforthshyguy.com to check out all of the materials about Stephen Russell. And all of the links are going to be there as well to access his programs. And I look forward to speaking with you in the future. And until we do, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll 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.

It.