31 Mar 2021 · 28 min
Dr. Aziz (Shrink for the Shy Guy) explains how excessive identification with thought drives social anxiety and undermines confidence. He frames multiple levels of awareness (senses, emotions, mind, and a higher consciousness), argues that many thoughts are interpretive hypotheses rather than facts, and recommends two practical shifts: (1) check and regulate your energy state before evaluating thoughts, and (2) use a simple mindfulness/action exercise called "noting" (labeling experiences as thinking, feeling, sensation, sound, etc.) to broaden awareness and avoid "buying" unhelpful thoughts. The episode closes with an invitation to practice presence and links to related resources.
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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 today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about your thinking, thinking your mind, and how to take your thoughts less seriously. And this might make a lot of sense to you immediately as I say it, and it also might raise an eyebrow. Like, what is he talking about? Well, you're gonna discover that over the course of this episode, and it's going to help you feel a lot more relaxed, centered and confident. Because we might think that the lack of confidence is coming from a certain circumstance in your life. You know, I don't have this amount of money or I'm not in this relations, I don't look like that. Or maybe it's some aspect that you think is about you, right? You know, I'm not something or other enough, smart enough, witty enough, bold enough, something enough. And so then we can look to either lament our life circumstances or the hand we were dealt, sort of perceive it as unfair and feel helpless or hopeless. Or maybe we get more active and try to change things and fix things and not that that in itself is a problem. Trying to change your circumstances and improve your life or improve yourself, that's not inherently unhelpful, but it's got a lot of potential pitfalls to it because oftentimes the problem is not what we think it is. The problem is not me. I'm not enough. I gotta fix myself. The problem is often my perception of myself. Your thinking about yourself is often the problem. And so I want to illustrate that today we're going to talk about it more. And then you can hopefully, as you leave this episode, feel more free to not necessarily react to all of the thoughts that go through your mind. So let's break it down. There are different levels of being in this world, perceiving reality, right? So on one level, there's your senses. Your body is a highly refined instrument that is picking up all kinds of things, right? Touch, sensations, light, sound, Vibrations, other vibrations, other frequencies that we don't necessarily see or hear here, but we're receiving them in our body. And all the different senses, all the different ways our body's interacting with the world around us, right? So that's one level of processing the world. And that's why you might get a gut feeling about something or you might be drawn to something and not necessarily know why. Another way to say this is there's a lot going on beneath the level of your mind, your thinking. Now, that might sound kind of obvious when I say that, but we don't operate that way. We sort of behave as if our mind is the king or the queen. That's what everything is going on. Everything else is just in service of that. The mind is what I listen to, and the mind is right. And actually the mind is just one level of perceiving reality. There's also an emotional level of perceiving reality. And that's kind of like another sense. Like, you know, your senses, your hearing can pick up the sounds of the environment. Your emotions are also interacting with the environment and the world around you and giving you information. So if you feel angry, maybe that's showing you there's something that you want to say no to in your life. If you're feeling scared, maybe there's something that you're perceiving as threatening. So there's our emotional level. Then there's a level of our thinking and of our mind and analyzing, perceiving, discerning, deciding good or bad, right or wrong. More, less. How do I look? How do other people think of me? The future? How am I going to plan and make sure things go the way that I want? The past. What was wrong with the past? What can I fix? What's not going the right way? All of that is happening at the level of mind. And then there's actually a level above the mind as well. And this might be called super consciousness or infinite intelligence or intuition. These are different terms. If you're spiritual or religious, you might perceive it as God or divine. But there's something that our mind doesn't perceive that is also influencing us. And that might be invisible to you, but there is a lot there, too. So there's more. We could come up with all kinds of different strata, but those are the biggies. And what does this have to do with your thinking and with how you feel and confidence? Well, if we perceive everything is from the mind and my thinking is real and everything I experience I have to think about, we actually start to disconnect from reality, we start to live in our own heads. And if you can relate to this, give me a little nod here, even though I don't see it. Do you live in your head, do you spend more time in your head than maybe in your life around you? And you might notice this, you're out walking and you're thinking about something in the future, the past, or this person or that person, or does this person like me? Or is that going to go the way that I want? And you don't even feel the breeze on your skin. You don't even hear the crows, or you don't even feel if you're driving, you don't even feel the steering wheel on your hands. You don't even eat the. You don't even taste the food that you're maybe eating. Because we're so in our mind, we're so absorbed and so we're actually disconnected from reality. Now that in itself might be problematic and cause more anxiety, but it gets worse. We actually can be so absorbed in this echo chamber of our mind that we fail to realize that a lot of the stuff that's going on in there is not accurate. It's a lot of meaning, it's a lot of interpretation, it's a lot of if this happens, then that, and then this happens, then that. So a lot of catastrophizing, a lot of kind of trying to preserve and protect and move the chessboard pieces around so we get everything that we want, make sure we don't have anything that we don't want. And a lot of that, a lot of those assumptions, a lot of those meanings are not true. They're just guesses. There are a lot of hypotheses and a lot of them, it's like a computer program, it's got a lot of bugs, a lot of errors in it. And I'm not saying we're stupid or unintelligent or that we don't see what's going on around us. But I'm just saying that our mind is lightning fast and operates on assumptions, past assumptions, they call them heuristics in psychology, just like quick shortcuts to really minimize the processing time so that we can be highly responsive to the world around us. So let me give you like a really silly basic example that just shows how much our mind is a meaning making machine and how these meanings might not have anything to do with reality. So this morning I was walking and I love to walk or run in the morning, and it's dark right now at this time of year. So I'm walking, it's dark, and I don't see too many people. I kind of walk in these empty streets around my house. But this morning I happened to see a woman coming the other way and I could tell, I assumed it was a woman, first of all. That's an interesting assumption, right. Just because of the size of the person. And anyway, as I got closer to her, she stopped and moved like way to the other side of the street. Not just a little bit, like way far away. Now sometimes with COVID and everything, people kind of give each other extra space. But this was like way other side of the street. What does that mean? Does that mean she doesn't like me? Does that mean she thinks I'm potentially threatening? Does that mean she's really scared of COVID Maybe thinks I have. I'm walking around with COVID What does it mean? I don't know. I don't know what it means. But our mind will come up with meanings. There was a time in my life where if that happened, I would have on some level felt hurt. It's funny to me now, but that's true, you know, like, oh, she rejected me. She thinks I'm. Either she thinks I'm a bad guy or I want to be seen. Like, no, I'm not threatening, I'm not going to hurt you. Like, maybe someone else would. Dark in the middle of the. You know, I don't know, it's like 5:30am or something. But I'm not. I'm a good guy or whatever. I don't even know exactly what my thoughts would be, but it would be some form of micro rejection and I would react to that. It would mean something bad about me. Now, that example you might roll your eyes at and say, oh my gosh, how sensitive you were back then. Well, how about this? Have you ever walked down the street and said hi to someone and made eye contact with them? Have you ever done the friendly greetings I talk about a lot on this show, Friendly Greetings, where you walk down a city street. Yes. You can still do this with COVID with a mask on and just say hi to people and do they look away? What does that feel like? Do you feel rejected? And the reason I love this exercise and I have people do it all the time, is because it shows you the meanings that your mind comes up with with the most minute rejection. And the default story is, there's something wrong with me. There's something not good about me. I'm less than. They don't like me, and that means something bad about me. And we're off to the races. And that echo chamber just goes and goes and goes, but none of it is even based in reality. Does this make sense to you? And we could take this into more personal or tender arenas like relationships, dating, the workplace, not just a stranger on the street. What does it mean that so and so got this position? What does it mean that someone interrupted me when I was talking? What does it mean that person didn't text me back or message me back within a day? And the simple answer is, hmm, I don't know yet. Especially in those ambiguous things. I don't know yet. It could mean a lot of things, but our mind goes straight to what it means and what it concludes about us. And so what we need to do is we need to change the way that we relate to our thinking. And I love, in a practice called acceptance and commitment therapy, which I learned a lot about in my clinical training, they call it having a thought versus buying a thought. So the idea is that your mind is going to generate all kinds of thoughts. That's what it does. Just like your heart pumps blood, your mind thinks about stuff. And so instead of trying to stop that, like, don't think, don't think. How well does that work? Right? Instead, okay, just because I have thoughts doesn't mean they're true. And this might seem like a simple distinction or something, but just really sit with that for a minute because I heard this a long time ago and I didn't. You know, it just kind of in one ear and out the other kind of bounces off, right? But if you really slow down, what does that open up? Now, first it can be a little disorienting because you're like, but wait a minute, my thoughts? That's all I am. That's all I am, man. That's all I got. And the reason I started this episode with these levels of reality, your physical body, your senses, your emotion, your mind, soul or spirit, is to remind you that you are so much more than your mind. You're so much more. And you know, I've done a lot in the number of years to increase my capacities in these other areas. Because I was very mind driven, still can be super heady, get into my head to get out of feeling. And so I've intentionally sought out practices that help me connect more with my body, feel more, and then also practices that help me connect more with spirit, Something bigger than me, right? So kind of expanding both of those other areas so that I'm not just in my head all the time. And at first it can be a little disorienting because then it's like, wait a minute. If not all the thoughts are true, which ones are and which ones aren't? Interesting one, huh? And, you know, there can be this. If you ever studied meditation, you know, there can be this, I think, sort of simplistic approach from some meditation teachers, which is kind of like, well, all thoughts is just kind of a noise, a bunch of noise. I'm like, well, you know, we do need to use our thinking and discern. And so I don't want to throw out everything. And at the same time, it's very, very, very easy to get hooked into just a stream of nonsense and reactivity. So here's what I do. I pay a lot more attention now to my energy state. Let me explain what that means. And this does relate to the thinking here. So in order to. Instead of, like, going into my mind and being like, was that thought true? And was that thought true? And I don't know about that one. That's what cognitive therapy loves to do, is, like, analyze the thoughts and challenge them and change them and all that stuff. And to me, it's like, dude, that's like trying to. Thoughts are like a waterfall, you know, especially when they're negative or intense or anxious or something. And you're trying to, like, set up these little, you know, change one segment of the river, going one way to another way. And I'm like, that's hard to do. It's just a lot. So what can we do with that? And one thing I do is I pay a lot of attention to my energy state. Let me share what that means. So I notice in this moment how energized am I. And energy can mean a couple of things. You could be in an energized state. Like, you feel physically energized, resourced. Can you move? Are you up and active feeling? Or are you lethargic, tired? Because if I'm lower in energy in that way, how do you feel when you're tired or hungry? You have lower resources. Another way I might look at energy is my emotional state. We can be in an energized state that might be optimistic, grateful, connected, or we might be anxious or negative or critical. And so I tune in and I ask myself, how energized am I right now? And if I'm in a lower energy state, I tend to assume that the vast majority of the thoughts I'm having are bullshit at that stage. And this has been a very helpful guide for me because sometimes you're feeling real low and you're like, okay, oh, man. And this is gonna go wrong and that's not gonna work. And this person's frustrating, and that's a problem. And here's why I've always had this problem. It's never gonna get better, and you can get really hooked. And it's so damn convincing. And I find if I go in there, be like, no, no, no, no, hold on, hold on. Now. Some of these thoughts are true and some of them are not. So I'm gonna simply go into this river and determine which. I'm thrown over the waterfall, churning around. It's a wreck. So what I find is to just name it, say, okay, I'm in a low energy state right now. I'm having low thoughts, anxious thoughts. Now is not the time to figure anything out with my mind. Because your mind is a tool. Your mind is a tool. It's an extremely powerful tool. I mean, I love my intellect and my mind, but the question is, are you using it or is it using you another way? I like to say that question, which is really illuminating is you can ask yourself this question, am I using my mind in the service of something meaningful? And you can define how meaningful is what's meaningful to you? I don't know, meaningful work contribution, doing your job, providing for your family. Or meaningful might be building relationships, creating connections. Or meaningful could be what you enjoy, what you love. Am I focused on a hobby or a passion or an interest? Am I using my mind in the service of something meaningful? Or is my mind using me in a way that doesn't serve me or others? Or is my mind using me in a way that doesn't serve me or others? And this is a great question to ask yourself. Now, I find that the mind for me and you might relate to this can be, you know, tricky in that it might start that I'm using my mind in the service of something meaningful and it can get a momentum to it. I see this in myself with, I have a passion for learning and I love that about me. And you probably have that in yourself too, right? Otherwise you won't be listening to this podcast. You probably listen to other podcasts, you probably read books, you love to learn. I think that's beautiful. Being a lifelong learner is one of the most valuable skills, I believe. If you apply what you learn, if it's very passive, then it's more like smart person's entertainment. But if you act on what you learn, then it's truly transformative. So I can get interested in something and start to learn it and it's great. And then my learning can turn into growing strength, passion, interest, fascination, still good. And then it can become kind of obsessive where I'm listening to something all the time or reading all these books about it. And I know for me that the tipping point is when I stop having space in my life. So I'm doing something right. I'm working, I'm exercising, I'm being with family, I'm whatever. And then in the, in between, in the little gaps, boom, got headphones in, listening something. Boom. Got headphones listening, like non stop. Now, I'm a fan of listening to something for a bit of time each day or something like that. But I mean, every moment filled with input. And for me, that's one of the guardrails I have to set up with myself. And if I veer off of those and I go extend that, then usually I'll get some sort of feedback. I'll start to feel more stressed, more tense in my body. I might get physical pain. That's one that comes up for me when I'm overextending. And so I'm like, ah, okay, let's get this back into balance. And that's relevant because if you're constantly feeding your mind and there's no space and you take all of these thoughts seriously and you don't check your energy state and you're just like, yeah, I'm thinking, this person's a jerk, they're a jerk. Or I'm thinking, terrible things are going to happen. Terrible things are probably going to happen. You know, we're just in it and we are buffeted around and it is overwhelming, it is demoralizing and it destroys our confidence. Because you could have a thought one day that says you're a loser and you're ugly and you're like, damn, all right, well, shit, I guess my day's going to suck. And then thoughts like, yeah, your day's going to suck. Well, okay, I guess it is. Dang, you can't speak about a meeting. You have nothing to say. Well, I guess I have nothing to say. You know, we just buy them. And then we're led around by the nose by these, by this thinker inside of us that is not really a rational, like the person that you'd want to kind of hitch your boat to. Like, you know, yes, fearless leader, I'll follow you everywhere. You know, we're going left. Okay, we're going left, we're going right. Okay, we're going right now we're going backwards. Whatever you say. You know, it's like sort of all over the place. In Buddhism, they call it monkey mind for a good reason. So what can we do with this? Well, I think just this awareness can be very helpful for you. I'm also going to share a practical meditation, I would call it, but it's something you can do very. I do it actively. I don't necessarily have to sit and meditate to do this. I'll do this while I'm walking. I'll do this while I'm bringing something else. You can call it maybe sort of an informal practice of mindfulness, but because it's an action and we want to take actions from these episodes. Let me share about how to do that in our action step. Time for action. Action, Action. Your action step today is going to be to use this little mindfulness exercise and it's called noting. Noting, Noting. Where you simply have maybe a handful of categories, three to five is great. And then you just note whatever your awareness goes to. So the categories typically are think or thinking, feel or feeling, sensation or body, something like that, as well as some of your senses. I really like sound, but you might use site or something like that. So what you do. And you could do it right now as you're listening, you see where your awareness naturally goes. And for a lot of us it might be thinking. So you notice just in this moment now, right now, it might be listening or hearing or sound because you're hearing me talk. But I'll pause for just a moment and we'll do it together. And you're just going to notice, wherever your focus goes, your awareness goes. You're just going to note that. So if you notice that you're in your thinking and you're aware of thoughts, and this could be verbal thoughts or images in your mind, whatever, you just note it. And in your mind you say thinking or ah, thinking. That's it. And you breathe. And it's helpful to then expand. I'll kind of expand my awareness to see what's that, what else. It's almost like what else is here. Like there's all these other things happening right at the level of body and mind and spirit and everything. So, you know, I don't need to stop thinking, but I don't need to get super tunnel vision on it either. So then I often will note thinking or feelings. Maybe you kind of get pulled to whatever's strongest. So if your mind is really strong. You get pulled to your mind. If you're feeling something intense, usually unpleasant, you'll get pulled into your feelings and you just note that like ah, feeling. And then you can come back to a sensation in your breath or your body. You know, if you're moving, you can feel the movement of your body. If you're sitting, you could just feel your breath and just note that as sensation. Right? Any sort of body sense you can call body or sensation. And then I'm a huge fan of sound, so I'll often use sound as a way to expand my awareness. Maybe I'll note, I was just doing this this morning when I was walking after that woman harshly rejected me on the street. It was terrible. Torn up about it. Anyway, I was walking and I was noticing I wasn't listening to anything because I noticed that I got a little bit overheated on my consumption of information recently. So I was like, I need to just like be in silence for a little while. So, you know, didn't have a phone and no headphones. What do you do? What do you do without that thing? And I'm just walking and I noticed at times I would get kind of really into a thought stream and sometimes they're interesting creative thoughts and sometimes they're kind of just like just all over the place. And I was like, let me do this little meditation. So I start walking and I note, ah, thinking. And then I would breathe and feel my body and then I would turn my awareness or expand my awareness rather to what was going on around me. And this is a really interesting practice. You can do this right now. Like, can you sense the room around you? Or if you're in a vehicle, like the car around you, just sense it like your peripheral vision, you can see more out of the edges of your eyes. You know how you have a body sense, like you kind of know where your hands are and where your feet are. Just tune into that. How even if you were to close your eyes for a second, if you can go ahead and close your eyes, can you sense how you know where your hands are even without like having to rub them together? So what's cool is that's called proprioception. Knowing where your body is in space. But that doesn't stop with your body. This is where it gets really interesting. So you can do this with your eyes closed or your eyes open. You can expand your sense of whatever that is your body out beyond your skin. So just let your awareness expand bigger into the room that you're in. Becoming aware of the empty space around you. And then also, I love hearing for this. So listen to the sounds. Let the sounds come to your ears. Of course, there's a sound of my voice, but in between, there'll be these silences. And what sounds emerge then? Maybe distant sounds, sound of voices or vehicles. There's a hard. I think it's a hard drive running. That's what I'm hearing right now in my office. I have some speakers that are on. There's a little hiss coming from those. And what I love to do is I love to focus on that sound. And then as I breathe in, I really feel the space around me. And it's almost like I'm breathing in that sound with my whole body. Like my whole body is receptive to it. And truly, it is like, you know, what makes sound is vibrations in the molecules of the air. And then, of course, those hit your ears, and your brain translates those into a certain sound. But those vibrations are hitting your whole body. So let your awareness sense that. Pretty cool, huh? This is what it's like to become more aware and to expand your awareness beyond just thinking. So play with that. Experiment with it. That's your action step. You know, maybe find some time to not have a phone, not be listening to something, not be talking to somebody, not be watching something, and just be. And normally just being can be unpleasant because, like, oh, God, that's me in my mind. Don't leave me with him or her. It's brutal. So this is a way to be with other aspects of you which are way bigger and beyond the mind. So thanks for being with me today, for your presence, for your attention. I love and appreciate you. Until we speak again, may I 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 vlogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com.
