How To Release Fear And Live In The Moment

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 you're going to learn something extremely valuable, truly life changing, because it's going to help you with fear. And fear is a pervasive, sometimes all consuming part of life, especially modern life and all of its cousins, right? And anxiety, worry, stress, these are all different names, different flavors, different types. But it's all fear. At the end of the day, in all those states, your nervous system is in a threatened state experience and it's unpleasant and it makes it harder to be present, harder to feel other emotions like love or connection or joy or peace or ease or fascination or interest. Like, you know, it's hard to be fascinated, but at the same time you're like, you know, wow, look at this flower. Oh, wow, look at those stars. You ever think about the galaxies out there? And then you get this other part of you is like, galaxies, flowers, love, we don't got time for that. We're gonna die or we gotta solve this or we're gonna die or this has got to change or we're gonna die or this is gonna run out and we're gonna die or this person's gonna be upset with you and then you're die. It's all leading to some sort of death and ruin, right? Well, even if you don't actively think, oh, I'm gonna die, that's not your conscious thought. There is a threat system going on in your. It's through your whole nervous system. It's in your brain, it's in your. All throughout your spine and nerve system going through your body, there's chemical signals, there's energetic messages going around your body. The whole thing is, hey, we're primed for some sort of danger and you might just live in that, especially if you have social anxiety. Now, it's. Everything is dangerous. Every social interaction is dangerous. Every time someone might be upset with me, you have a lot of niceness, right? Every time Someone's upset with me, that's dangerous. And today you're going to learn a new way to think about fear, a new way to be with fear. That can ease that and really help you access a sense of deeper, more continuous safety in your life. Does that sound good? Does that seem like that would be useful or valuable for you? I'm imagining you are nodding right now. I can't see you, but I'm going to go out on a limb and imagine that's happening. Because who couldn't benefit from experiencing less fear and more peace and, and more ease and more safety? So how do we do that? Especially because the fears can be so varied. Maybe you're afraid of money or finances or a relationship or what? I mean, could be anything. It could be 10,000 flying elevators, spiders, injury, physical pain, sickness, family members, health. I mean, the list is endless, right? It's like the 10,000 things. But if we were to start to distill it down and say, okay, what's the theme underneath all of that? It is not wanting something to occur. And I don't mean the specific thing like I don't want loss of money or loss of a friendship or loss of this opportunity or whatever. It's not those specific things. It's the one underlying thing. And that is you don't want to experience pain, right? Isn't that the underlying thing of all of it? Well, if I lose money, what am I going to experience? Some sort of pain, Right? If someone's upset with me, I'm going to experience some sort of pain. Now, you can get more nuanced, and there's different names we give that pain. Maybe it's sadness or hurt or loss, but underneath it's just pain, right? So what we're afraid of is pain. It's a circumstance or an event or something that happens in our life. And then there's pain that can occur. And the pain can be physical or emotional. And we're afraid. When we feel afraid, we're in a sense bracing against or trying to run from that pain. And if we can, we'll run from it. If we can't run from it, we brace as if ready for impact. And what I'm going to invite here right now, today is for you to examine that, that running from the pain. What if there's a secret in there? What if there's an opportunity in here for you to free yourself from the impact of the fear? What if the fear is arising from an unwillingness to experience something? And if you become willing to experience this something, then the fear will define, dissolve, and you will feel more peace, more ease, more flow, more presence, more joy, more really living your life right now. So take a full breath in right now because you might be listening with your mind and trying to follow the logic and. Okay, all right, I'm with you. I'm with you. But we're starting to bump up against the limits of logic right now because we. As soon as I start talking about going into the pain and embracing pain, and maybe pain is not bad. Maybe it's okay. Maybe it's good. The mind's like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no, no, no. Pain is bad. I mean, come on. Everyone knows that this is a weird. This is a weird, unusual, wrong way to think about it. So let's ease up on just being in the mind and start to open to other ways of learning. Maybe there's a subconscious part of you. There's an emotional part of you. There's a spiritual part of you. There's something that can see bigger perspectives, multiple perspectives, with more wisdom. And we access that by, well, by breathing. So take a full breath in again and let it out with a sigh. As you do that, see if you can soften anything in your body that can soften your belly, your jaw. As you do that. Do you sense that there might be pain right now? That's often the case. We are chronically experiencing some sort of discomfort. Maybe pain is a strong word. You're like, I don't know. What's pain? I, you know, reserve that word for physical pain. Okay, all right. Was it emotional? Is it discomfort? Are you agitated? Anyway, is there pressure in your chest or heat or restlessness or boredom or craving or wanting to check something or do something or get something, needing something from somebody? I need this thing to go this way or that. If you just watch the worry patterns of our mind, it's always about, I need this to go like that and this to go like this, and this needs to be like that, and that person needs to be different so they don't do that, and this person needs to do that. What's underneath all of that? Your mind is like this preference machine, and it's spitting out all the preferences. And if everything was just exactly perfect according to some, I guess, arbitrary image or idea, then what? Let's say. Let's just imagine that for a second. How if you could snap your fingers and everything just becomes perfect, think about all the problems going on for you right now, big or small, let's say you want to be more social. You want different friends. You want more friends. You want to feel more popular and have more people reach out to you and more things to do. And then you maybe want to date more if you're in a relationship, have more connection or more sex or more intimacy or more fun or more whatever. And then you want. You know, if you have kids, you want things to be smoother there, and you want them to listen to you more. Of course, because they should, right? Because you're obviously the most smart authority in the house. They should listen to you. They should be more obedient, but they should also be courageous and outgoing and try things in life. And then if there's this fighting going on with certain family members or certain things, you want that to be smooth, and you want the person to just get along with other people, and you want other people to see it the way that you do it, because the way you see it is probably right. And, of course, you want more success in your work or your career. So if you're starting something new, you want it to come easily. You want the ideas to flow. You want to have plenty of time to work on everything. You got to have more time, right? You got to have more sleep, too. Make sure you're getting more sleep. And, of course, did I mention sex? You're gonna need more sex, right? Okay, so then you also are gonna have all your work projects are gonna flow smoothly and easily, and everything's just gonna come, and people are gonna agree with you, and then you're gonna get those clients, you're get those contracts, you're gonna get the money, you're gonna deliver. Of course, you're gonna deliver perfectly. And. Yeah. Are we getting somewhere now? Is this sounding good? It's sounding. And what happens? Let's say you got everything just how you want it. What would you feel if you say, well, I feel happy, Aziz. Okay. Like a tyrant who's like, I'm pleased. I'm pleased that everything has gone my way. Right? What would you really feel? Just really try this on for a minute. Everything, all the problems have exact. Everything has shifted. The people have changed in just the ways that you want. You've perfected yourself, and you're just the way you are supposed to be. You're just as outgoing as supposed. You're supposed to be just as funny. You get all. You're just as productive as you're supposed to be. What do you now experience? No pain, right? Maybe you call it peace. Maybe you call it ease. Maybe you call it Happiness, maybe you call it relief. I feel good. What does that mean? I feel no pain. Everything goes my way now. I'm going to feel great now as a result. Then we spend most of our focus and energy trying to make that all so right. I'm going to do this, I get that outcome, and do this, you get that outcome. And that's not necessarily problematic in itself. Let's say you do want an outcome. Let's say you do want to connect. So yeah, you want to put yourself out there on dating sites or you do want a certain result, a project at work. So you are going to put effort into it or run meetings about it, or delegate things or whatever level of involvement you have. So this isn't about not doing anything or not steering things towards the outcomes that you would prefer. It's about really seeing that that's what is. So these are all preferences. These are things that I want. And I imagine that if I had this result, that would feel good. I'd feel pleased, I'd feel happy, I'd feel a removal of suffering or pain. And I'm also aware at the same time that not everything is going to go my way. It is physically, from a physics perspective, impossible. I mean, how could that possibly be the case, that everything goes exactly as your preference? I mean, you'd be existing in some level of extreme lucid dream world level or virtual reality, video game level of control that your instant whim becomes exactly what you want. And yet we spend so much time fearing. But if I don't get what I want, if things don't go exactly my way, that's awful, that's bad, that's dangerous. Why is it dangerous? You might have a story about what's going to happen. Well, if this person says no, then it means I'm never going to be in a relationship. But if you were to strip it away from its stories and just be with what is. So what happens is there's a set of feelings that you experience when things don't go your way and you don't like those feelings. And I would suggest that you're actually. What you're afraid of is your feelings. Not these things going different ways or not going different ways. It is the feelings. Let's take some examples. So I'm starting this initiative or project at work or this business or whatever it is. What if it doesn't work out? What if I fail at the project? What if I can't get things done in time? What if this, what if that. Okay, now I'm Afraid. Well, if it doesn't work out, if you don't get it done in time, if whatever. What are you going to experience, do you imagine? Well, maybe I'd feel shame. Maybe I'd feel embarrassment. Maybe I would feel loss. I would lose opportunities in the future. Okay, how would you feel if you lost opportunities in the future? I'd feel grief. I'd feel like I was missing out. Okay. All right, so what if none of those feelings were dangerous and they were just uncomfortable and you just said, I'm willing. I'm willing to feel anything. Sometimes people hear this and they say, yeah, but I don't want to experience those things. Aziz, remember my list of preferences. Like, great, I don't necessarily want you to experience that either, but I'm also okay if you do, because if that is what happens, that is what's needed. Right, right. If it happens, that's what's needed to happen. You might say, no, no, no, it's not what's supposed to happen. And this is where we get into this. Interesting. Because of our preferences, we forget that they're preferences. This isn't like the universe, the Godhead, the infinite intelligence, the whatever level of that you're, you know, the super consciousness that is that the forces of creation that have put into motion. Don't even, don't get me started on galaxies and how many galaxies there are in space and how many stars are in the galaxies. I mean, we're talking immense, immense levels of vast space and size and dimension and then multiple dimensions. Talk to a physicist about that or try to watch some YouTube videos. I watched this YouTube video. It's so good. They do this thing where they have people, experts explain something to people at different ages. So there was someone talking, explaining blockchain technology to a five year old, a nine year old, a high schooler, a college student, a graduate student, right? Same thing for some aspect of physics, but it was dimensions. And it was this physicist trying to explain beyond the three dimensions or fourth dimension of time. Like, what is the fifth dimension? What is the seventh dimension? What are multiple dimensions? And he's explaining it. And as he's explaining it to them, I'm kind of like, all right, I think I get it at like the five year old level. This is my. I can't wrap my brain around this, right. It's complex. And then if you go inward to the, you know, subatomical level, it's just as crazy mysterious. Like, this is what, what, what. This is beyond. Beyond what we're living in, right? Now, what you and I exist in and the idea that I Aziz, have a preference, this shall be. So I do that to bring a little bit of humbleness and humor to it. And yeah, my preferences do matter to me. And I think some of them are very meaningful. And I want to put my energy and my will and my heart and my guts into making things happen, especially things that are meaningful for me in my life or I think that are going to benefit others too and feel important, like this mission. So I'm gonna put my all into this. And does a certain target get hit? I want someone to. I want to sell a certain number of tickets to this thing, or I want this. I want people to buy this. But I want people to like this book. I think this book's really good. I want people to read this book that I wrote, not that, you know, oh, people don't like that book as much. Or I want this person, I want my wife to respond to me this way around this topic. Or I want my kid to stop doing that to the dog because it's annoying. Why does he blow in his face? Do you have a dog? Do you have kids? We got a puppy. And our younger one will blow in the puppy's face and it freaks him out. The puppy freaks out. I don't know. I should look that up in dog training speak. Like what? I guess blowing in the face is a sign of intense aggression. Do dogs ever do that? I don't know. In any case, the dog freaks out and goes into some sort of scared aggro mode. And then Armand laughs because it looks funny. And I'm like, it looks funny, but he's clearly distressed and he might actually bite you. And then he also doesn't trust you as much, and he's like, whatever, it's funny. Obviously, I want him to stop doing that. That's my preference. So whatever your preferences are. Now combine that with what I was just sharing about the vastness of this great mystery that we live in. And do you think that it's one thing to say, this is my preference, and I want it to be that way? It's another thing to say, it should be this way. Life should be this way. It is wrong if it doesn't go the way that I want. And you take a step back and you're like, okay, who's delusional? Are you crazy? Right? But we don't think of it as crazy. We're like, no, it's legit. Because everyone's doing it. And everyone has that attitude towards Life. And it's this demand on life. And then there's this fear. Well, if I don't get it, then I feel all these horrible emotions. And are the emotions really that horrible? Are they horrible because you try to resist them and you try to run from them, you try not to feel them. And what if right now you started to open more to life? And if you can, you can't if you're driving or whatever, but maybe you can, even if you're driving, take one hand off the wheel. I didn't say that. I'm just, you know, keep both hands on the wheel, 10 o' clock and 2 o'. Clock. But if you were, if you already have a hand off the wheel because you're poking around on your phone, shame on you. Then take that, take one hand and hold it up. And if you can actually take both hands and hold them kind of up and out until the sides are facing up and your shoulder blades are coming together so you're opening your chest like a victory pose, or arms out wide to the sides, like making a big Y with your body and breathe in. And what if you were to choose right now to open to all of it, all outcomes, all results, all experiences in this life, the pleasant and the unpleasant, the pleasurable and the painful, and you're just going to say yes and bring in more acceptance and allowing and trusting. Whatever outcome I get is what I'm meant to get. And then I'll work with it and I'll learn from it and I'll grow from it. There's so many pieces on this chessboard you can't control, my friend. And the fear comes from. I have to control them all. They all have to go the way that I want. And if I don't, then that's awful. Well, let's change that. How does that work practically? Well, if things don't go your way, that's an opportunity. Start with small stuff. You lose at something, you get a traffic ticket, you get stopped, you're late. There's something doesn't work. Like the other day I was recording some of these podcasts and I had to record the same episode three times. It was twice. Let me check my computer right now. Alright, it's working. Twice I was recording into it and there's some weird error. It's almost never happened with this setup that I have. But twice I recorded the whole episode and it was like the computer had fallen asleep and was not recording. I was like, waa. So then the next day I'm recording again and I get through about 15 minutes of it and I just have this hunch and I check and I look down and it's. There's something else that's like frozen. I was like, oh my God. Anyway, I rebooted. Problem solved forever. But it was frustrating and I was frustrated. And then there's this whole story machine. I don't have that much time. I'm doing this thing and now I'm wasting all this time. It could have been. That's such a small thing, right? That's a mild nuisance. It's an opportunity. It's an opportunity for what? To practice. Practice surrendering, practice letting go. Practicing bowing to the flow of life and saying yes, okay, that's how it's going now. I get it. And then you can soften and start to flow with life and then whatever comes your way. Alrighty. Alright. And that doesn't mean you don't have feelings. I might feel frustrated. That's part of the alright. Okay. The frustration is rising up. What does that feel like? Where do I feel that in my body? Is it squeezing? What are the stories I tell myself around that? That's bringing more mindfulness, more acceptance, more allowing more space. And this can be a way of being. And then you can start to practice it maybe even ahead of time. So you notice you're worrying. Oh my gosh. I was just talking to someone in my mastermind program in the hot seat Q and A yesterday and she was moving to a new city, moving to a new country, starting a new program and feeling anxious about it. You know, understandably that's a lot of big change. And let's go to right now. Well, I'm anxious, I'm anxious. I'm afraid about the future. Well, guess what? I'm willing to bet there's certain outcomes that she's afraid of. I'm going to go there and it's going to be hard to meet people. I'm not going to succeed. Or what if I don't have what it takes and there's this unwillingness to experience something. But what if we come into right now in this moment and say I'm willing to experience anything and everything that this life has to bring. And if it's unpleasant, then I can be with the feelings, work through the feelings, allow the feelings. There's a previous episode, by the way, a couple handful episodes back called the life changing skill of feeling your feelings. Looks like it's about 10 episodes back. So that one, download that one, have it on insta, play and go through that process again and again and again and again until you can really do that. Soften and allow. Soften everything. Soften your preferences, soften your need to control. Soften, you know, and yeah, there's discomfort. Can you soften into discomfort? Instead of contracting and resisting and fighting it, can you open into that too? And what this does, the more you practice this, the more, you know, you can practice it. The more you know if something unpleasant happens or adverse circumstances, whether it's a small thing like, you know, your project doesn't work out, or it's a big thing, like it's an unknown, like a car accident or some, you know, calamity or natural disaster or injury or loss or something in your family. Like, you know, I've been training for this. I've been practicing for this. Here we go. And again. Acceptance and allowing and surrendering does not mean you don't feel sad or hurt or upset or anything. You'll feel all kinds of things. And the key there is to allow that too. And to see perhaps my upset is coming. Is it coming from the story? What's the story? Is this always going to continue? This is helpless and hopeless? Or this is wrong? This is an error in the universe. This is an error in the Matrix. It's a malfunction. This artificial simulation is terrible. Why did I wake up into this thing? Right? Maybe you can have a little bit of humor, a little bit of playfulness with yourself. Alright, let's turn this into an action step. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is going to be to find some preference of yours that is not met and be with the feelings that arise. So maybe that's already happening in your life. Like maybe is there a certain conflict in your life or your sister should be a certain way, or this thing should work at work, or you shouldn't have so much on your plate or you get too many emails or something. Pick one of those things. It's like, notice if there's like a. This shouldn't be this way. There's this bracing against this fighting of this armoring. And then just pick one thing and start to open more like just literally softening your physical body. Breathing, opening, allowing. And you say, no, I don't want to allow it. I don't like this. Okay, all right. Let there be the dislike of it and the resistance to it and the fighting. You can still let that be there. Just know this, that is like a five year old saying, I don't want it to be raining today. And saying, mommy, stop it. From raining, right? It's like this, like you're fighting something, but you don't have any control over it. So just know that, no, this is a preference. This is something that I would prefer because it's more comfortable or more easy. And maybe that's not what I'm getting right now. And possibly, just possibly, there's this flow to life, whether you think it's divinely guided, benevolently held, a vast, intricate clockwork that was set in motion from the big bang, the 10,000 things of the DAO, or an advanced artificial simulation hypothesis, whatever your frame is and how you perceive this wacky world that we're in, maybe, just maybe, it's bigger than you and it's not all meant to just conform to your preferences. And then when we hold it that way, it starts to open up a bit more, softening and allowing and say, okay, what is needed in this moment? How do I need to show up? What are the needs of this moment? How do I need to be? How can I bring more of myself and a yes to here and now? And the more you practice this, the more your fear will dissolve and the more present and confident and powerful you'll become. Beautiful. Thanks for being with me today. 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. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Azeez. 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 socialconfidencecenter.com. Sam.