Lean Into Conflict

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. Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today, let's fight. That's right, we're going to be talking about conflict, everyone's favorite subject. But actually, conflict is not what you think. Conflict doesn't have to be how you think it is. Your whole relationship and experience of conflict can upgrade and change, and that's what we're here to do. So you feel more empowered, more permission, more freedom, and ultimately better relationships, a better life, better experience of living where you're not so afraid and you're living more from a place of creation and what you want to do, what you want to move towards, rather than all the dangers that might befall you. And that is one of the huge benefits of learning to become better with conflict in your life. Because conflict or disagreement or whatever word you want to use for it is going to be embedded into your experience with other humans. And so the best way to minimize and not have that is going to be to either avoid other humans or, Or. Which is pretty hard to do, right? I mean, unless you. You might radically reduce the amount of people you interact with, though, in any sort of significant way. So maybe you see people at work, but you don't really talk to them that much. You have some friends, but you're pretty distant, or maybe you don't have that many friends at all. You're pretty distant from your family and you live kind of a more isolated life. Or another option that people take is, okay, I do interact with those colleagues and I do have some friends and I do have some family, and I'm not totally isolated and. But I'm not gonna be really fully me with them. Maybe one person, my spouse, or maybe my one friend or maybe that sibling or whatever, but not at work. No way. Not with those friends I have. You know, and it may be a super conscious decision, or maybe it's just kind of a, you know, this is where the culmination of your Decisions up until this point has led to you, to where it feels really strange and weird to be more real with a co worker or more direct with somebody in your life. It's like, oh, God, that sounds terrible and strange and awful and weir and unusual. I can't do it. And that's, you know, that's the culmination or the result of these experiences leading up to this, these choices that you made leading up to this. So what do we do here? How do we change this? And the answer is in the title of this episode, which is Lean into Conflict. Let me describe what that means, how you can use it in your life to become more confident and free. Now, first of all, conflict. When you hear that word, what happens inside of you? What happens inside of your guts? Is there like a squeezing in your chest and your stomach? Like, that's like me saying, like, toxic spill. What do you think of. You're like, problems, death, you know, poisonous air. What do you think of? There's sort of this like visceral danger, bad damage response that can happen inside of us when we hear the word conflict. So just notice that. And what I want you to do is we're going to start leaning into conflict even in this episode, just by talking about it. We're not even going to have you go do it right away, at least not yet. So start with being with even the word conflict and just breathing. See if you feel that tightness in your chest, your stomach. Just see if you can open up your body, open up your shoulder, your chest. By bringing your shoulder blades together, you can bring your arms out a little bit. Almost as if you're going to like, hug somebody or something like that. Okay, fuller, deeper breaths. Here we go. Conflict. What do you associate to conflict? Fighting, yelling, unhappiness, end of things, death and ruin. Badness. You're a bad person if you do it. Just notice what some of those unconscious or conscious associations are. What we're doing right now is we're just becoming very curious about your current experience with conflict, because how are we going to change it if we don't know what it currently is? And it's really about you becoming as curious as possible right now. And there's nothing wrong here. There's no, you're not doing it wrong or it's foolish or it's irrational or whatever. We're just looking at what is. So what happens in my nervous system, what happens in my heart, what happens in my mind? Okay, great. Now, what if we were to expand your perception of conflict? What if we were to call it something else. Because if it has such a negative connotation, maybe there's something else that's maybe even more accurate that still allows you to move forward and lean into it. So what is conflict? Conflict is usually that there's two differing opinions or perspectives and people might feel charged about those. I want A and you want B. You know, if it's a mild disagreement, then it's like I want A and you want B. But you know what? Live and let live, whatever. And if it's a more heated thing, like you want baby. Oh my God, you're terrible, human. I hate you. Then I guess I can go even more extreme, right? Like you want B, I'm going to kill you. Now that happens in human history as well. And not just human history, human currently. Right. And that's humans. We have that capacity in us to go very polarized, very aggressive, to attack what is different, attack a different viewpoint than our own. And so conflict is when there's two differing opinions and you know, there might be some charge around it or a lot of charge. I was saying. So you might say, well, geez, yeah, I don't want that disease. That sounds about right. None of that, please. Okay, all right, well, first of all, we're gonna see it in a different way, but we're also going to look at what happens if you don't. Because I think sometimes you might say, well, that's uncomfortable. Well, what's the alternative? It's usually a road of massive pain. And you might not need me to share that much about it. You might just know from your own experience what happens when you stuff. Suppress avo, be a nice person. That's not really you, but you're playing a role so everyone likes you or at least doesn't get upset with you. You know the effect of that on your mind and your body, on your heart, on your spirit. So maybe I don't need to spend too much time there. But what if we call conflict something different? And this idea came to me, actually. I was doing this advanced assertiveness training and it was for a limited number of people. And actually we've taken that and turned that into a bonus for one of my group programs, which is called Total Social Freedom. And if you haven't heard about Total Social Freedom, I'm excited to share more about it with you. But it's a 90 day immersion program that's designed to help you become no longer afraid of what other people think of you and more fully, boldly, authentically, unapologetically you. So it's a powerhouse of a program. 90 days of immersion. You are going to leave those 90 days just bolder and freer and more expressive and more assertive and more powerful than ever before. But one of the bonuses in that program is this advanced assertiveness training. And in this advanced assertiveness training, I said, what if we call it something different? And in that moment, what came to me was, okay, here's what conflict really is. What if conflict is nothing more than direct contact, direct contact with another human? You want A, I want B. Or I'm not so sure about A, whatever your stance is on that, but you're able to have direct contact. Because if someone says, I want A, and you say, I mean inside, you know, you don't want that. You want B. You might say, well, A sounds pretty good. I could do it. Sure. I'm going to brace myself because I feel terrible inside saying that, but I'm going to do it right. So direct contact means I'm able to touch here, touch you. We're going to be able to connect contact here. I'm going to say, you know, I want to hear more about why you want B. I notice I'm drawn to A, and I want to talk more about it. Now, that's a whole level of skill to be able to express it in that way, Right? Because now we're not necessarily at odds with each other. Maybe we don't have to be at odds with each other. Maybe if we're skillful in our communication, direct contact doesn't have to devolve into yelling or name calling or distancing or withdrawing. And at the same time, you don't have total control over another person. And so they might. Sometimes when I work with clients, they're like, yeah, but I gotta know the exact right way to say it. It's like, okay, well, we're gonna work on that. We can help you up, level your skill of assertiveness. Because assertiveness comes down to two things, really. It comes down to permission and skill. Most people lack the permission. They don't feel like they have the permission to be assertive. In fact, that's why in the Total Social Freedom course, we're like, guiding people week by week through exercises and activities to radically increase that sense of permission. So you feel like, hey, yeah, I do have a right to speak up for myself. And it feels true. It feels like a natural thing. But then we need skill too, right? We gotta practice that and get better at it. And if we get Skillful at being assertive. We don't necessarily have to devolve into all these horrible things that we associate with conflict. And even still, though, no matter how good you are at it, someone might be immature, someone might not be capable of handling something. Someone might not be able to hold another perspective. They just freak out if someone disagrees with them, so you don't have control over that. And part of being more assertive and part of being able to lean into conflict is to be able to say, you know what? That might happen. That person might leave this meeting upset. My spouse might leave this conversation upset with me. And that's okay. I'm willing to go there if that does happen, and we'll talk about it. You know, the conversation isn't over. I think that's a very important thing to remember when it comes to conflict, is it's not just one incident, it's an ongoing conversation. So someone could leave a conversation upset. And maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. When we leave a conversation upset, maybe we're learning something, maybe we're thinking about something, maybe we're reflecting on something, maybe we're feeling something, maybe we're moved by something. And so what's going on? What's cooking inside there? I don't know, but maybe it's good. Maybe that person needs to get agitated inside so that they see something new. Maybe. I mean, have you ever had that? Have you ever left in a huff and then a little bit later you come back humbled and you're like, I get it. I'm sorry. I sure have. So maybe leaving upset is not the worst thing in the world. So how do you go in to this direct contact? Well, first things first. Call it direct contact. Why do you want to go into direct contact? Well, you tell me that. What's the consequence of avoiding direct contact with people, of not being real with people, of stuffing, of hiding and suppressing? Is it a loss of vitality? Is it more anxiety? Is it simmering resentment? Is it all kinds of physical symptoms like fatigue and body pain that you don't even associate to it, but on some level, it's actually the source of all these physical problems. And if you want to go more in depth than this, I recommend in my book Not Nice, there's a chapter called the High Cost of Nice. I think it's chapter five off the top of my head, but I may be wrong there. But you just look at the table of contents, it's called the High Cost of Being Nice, and you'll get a much deeper sense. So assuming you're on board with me here and you're like, no, I don't want that life. I want more direct contact. I mean, part of me doesn't, but I know that it's the way to be and that's how I'm going to lead a better life. Okay, then how do we go into that conflict in the most successful way possible? And I'm going to share some tips with you that are going to be really valuable, that are going to be able to get you doing it right away. And then I'll share more in the end of the episode. If you want to go further with this, how to do that. Here's a couple of mindsets going in. First things first, seek it out. That's the major shift that we want to take is like, seek it out, like, what's going where in my life. Can I apply this? Because as long as we're on kind of a high alert avoidance stance to direct contact, then we don't develop our skill, we live in fear of it, and we don't benefit from being able to do it. And so we want to look at is like, where, where could I benefit from this? So instead of like, okay, I'm only gonna speak up for myself when it's really terrible and it's intolerable anymore, what if we change that to like, you know, that thing's kind of bothering me. I think I'm gonna talk about it. That's reason enough. I was like, hey, you know, this thing's been kind of picking at me, and I'm not quite sure, but I think I gotta go talk about this. So you just go do it. Brad Blanton, the author of Radical Honesty, who I interviewed on the show way back when, years ago now, I think like five years ago. But he had a great metaphor in his book Radical Honesty about it. He said, instead of it being this, like, nuclear reaction where you stuff and you stuff and you stuff and you stuff and then you blow up, usually ineffectively, maybe overly dramatically instead, what if it's like a combustion engine, it just fires off repeatedly throughout the day? So you can just say those little things and then remember, direct conflict doesn't have to be. Or direct contact doesn't have to be this huge conflict. It is if you suppress and you suppress and you suppress and you approach your spouse and you say, you know what? For the last six months you've been doing this thing and you don't care about me. And you're right. What about rewind six months, day one, or maybe day two, you didn't get to it instantly, right? But day one, your spouse does whatever. The thing was, they left the mess there, they said they were gonna do the thing, and they didn't do it. And in that moment, you're like, ugh, I don't like that. And so that day, or maybe the next day, you know, if you didn't get it right away, but close enough, right? The next day you say, hey, you know yesterday when you said that you were gonna mow the lawn? I don't know. You said you were gonna mow the lawn, and then you didn't. I noticed. I felt frustrated, and I imagine something came up and you chose something else maybe that was more urgent or more pressing. But I just wanted to name that because I feel like that was something that I was counting on. Because if you were going to mow the lawn, then I was going to be able to do blah, blah, blah, or whatever. And so I wanted to check in and see what happened and just talk more. That was a little bit clunky, but it works. Gets the ball rolling. And then you notice what they say. So what if we don't just keep pushing it back and we just start to lean into it? So that's the first shift, is just lean into direct contact regularly. That's gonna radically improve your life. Just that one in itself. And we got more. But wait, there's more. Here's a huge one. This isn't about me. Now, this one is really tough to. I mean, there's a lot of nuance to it, so it's tough to really believe it. And then also, some part of us is like, don't I need to take responsibility? But it's just as a. I don't know if you need to take it as a total, literal, always absolute truth, but just as a mindset, as a stance, as an attitude, it gives you so much more flexibility and skill in conversations. So if someone is like, you know, I don't think that you did a good job on this project. Or someone says to Aziz, I don't like your podcast, or I don't like your book, instead of being like, what? You. You stab me through the heart with this. How couldth you? I turn very Shakespearean when I've been attacked, right? Instead it's like, oh, this person doesn't like this thing that's not about me. That's about that person not liking the thing. And so if it's not about me, then maybe I don't need to defend me. I don't need to get my ego involved in there. I can just be curious about what is their experience. Huh? I wonder what they didn't like about that thing. And we just get so fused in our identity to all the things. That's my book, my ideas, my podcast, my political perspective, my beliefs. We fuse with our intellect as if that's you. And then our stuff, our shit. That's my laptop, my car. Someone says, hey, I don't like Macs, and you're like, fuck you. I don't know if you're that extreme. Right? But. Right. There's some like, but I. But I me. I am that computer. It's like, no, no, no. So if we can unhook our identity from these things that are not us, then we're more able to just be like, I wonder what's going on with that person. So if someone says, aziz, I don't like your live event. I don't like your book. I don't like. I mean, that happens. We get those emails. I get negative reviews on my books. As shockingly unbelievable as it might be, there's even negative reviews of this podcast. How is that possible when it is clearly, objectively amazing? Speaking of which, if you've not reviewed this podcast and you've listened to one or more of these episodes and you're benefiting from them, I would really appreciate you taking the time to go to itunes finding this podcast. The shrink for the shy guy. Or maybe just. I don't think there's a the. Is there a the. I don't know. You tell me. Shrink for the shy guy. And then just giving it a review. Thank you. Appreciate that. And when that happens, what if it's not about me? I say, oh, I wonder what that person didn't like about it. Maybe they'll tell me, maybe they won't. Maybe if I'm gonna dialogue with the person, I can find out more. Someone says, I didn't like the event. Oh, yeah? What was missing for you? What didn't you like? Then I can find out, and then I can discover. Maybe there's something in there I wanna change. Maybe it's just their worldview. You know, I've had people say I didn't like the shirt you were wearing at the event. Okay. I've had people say, I didn't like the. I don't like that you had a beard in your videos. Okay. Those are things where I'm like, all right, I'm not gonna do a whole lot to either of those things, because I'm okay with the shirt I wear and I'm okay with the beard. But let's say someone said, you know, I just feel like all you did was talk and there was no workbook. I need a workbook to write things down on. I might say, hmm, maybe we can get a couple sheets that they could print out, or we can get a small little workbook going. You know, I'm not sure if I would implement that or not, but it's like, that's useful information. Maybe I do want to apply. So it depends upon. But what am I curious about? I'm curious about their experience. So that's a huge upgrade to your ability to have direct contact. When you can do that. And that's not only in your work life, but in your personal life and your relationships. And that's a whole practice, that's a whole evolution of yourself, of your spirituality. I mean, there's a lot there. So that's just a brief. That's a 30,000 foot view of that one. Here's another huge one. Massive upgrade for direct contact. This person is no threat to me. That one's really big. When you can really get that, this person is no threat to me, you're gonna communicate more clearly, you're gonna become more skillful, you're gonna become more creative, you're gonna have better solutions. And ultimately, at the end of the day, you know what direct contact is really about? Collaborative problem solving. Let's find out what the problem is and let's solve it. And we're doing that together. So upset customer. Yeah, there's something. Let's find out what you're upset about. Let's solve that problem. Spouse is mad at you because you didn't mow the lawn when you said you would. Instead of being like, get off my back, I got enough shit going on. Say, okay, tell me more. What's going on there? Well, you know, you said you were going to do it and you didn't. And now I couldn't do this other thing. Okay, what was the other thing you were going to do? And this is going to get real weird. I don't know why I picked the lawn analogy. But your spouse is like, I was going to aerate the yard, whatever. I was going to plant the flowers. And I couldn't plant the flowers until you mowed the lawn. This is a weird suburban domestic nightmare anyway. So in that case I might say, okay, so you're upset. You wanted to be able to plant the flowers and you couldn't Because I didn't mow the lawn. I get it. Okay? And then I want to find out more what the problem is. Is the problem just the flowers or if this is a romantic relationship? The problem might be a story that says, you don't care about me. So if I go to her and I say, listen, baby, I'll mow right now and I'll even help you plant the flowers, that might solve the problem, but it might not. Because the problem might not be the flowers. The problem might be the emotion of how it felt to not have me follow through and the meaning of me not caring about my spouse. So then what I need to do is I need to move towards. I gotta get curious, right? It's not about me. I gotta find out what's going on in their worldview. So I say, tell me more. Oh, you said you were going to move the lawn. You didn't. I couldn't plant the flowers. Okay, so you're upset because you were unable to plant the flowers. Yeah. You know, and just. I felt like I was waiting around. You didn't do it. And I don't know. It's like you'll tell me these things you're going to do, and then you just get absorbed in your own thing. And something in the way that my partner's saying I might be like, oh, does it feel like in that moment I'm not really caring about you? The person says, yeah. And you say, oh, I see. Yeah, I can appreciate that. I can see why it feels that way. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that some of my actions communicate that to you, and that's not my intent. I do care about you, and I do love you. And I think I just get absorbed in what I'm doing, and I just lose track of the time. Are there other things that I do that you feel like, you know, that feels like it means I don't care about you. I want to know. That matters to me. Now that. That is a massive. Now you're solving the right problem. And as you can see, any example I pick, I mean, we could get real granular and real nuanced in this, and you can get higher and higher levels of skill. But these mindsets are gonna be a powerful starting place for you. And this idea of it's not a threat to me. Cause if I'm like, oh, she's attacking me, or this person's gonna take something from me, then I'm, like, guarded up, and I can't say I'M sorry, I can't acknowledge anything. I can't be curious. But if this person's not a threat to me, then I can really be open and find out more. So there's so much nuance here. I'd love to share more. If you're drawn to this, if you're like, hey, I want to master being more bold, more expressive, not caring what others think, being more assertive, then I highly recommend checking out my program. A total social freedom. Now is a great time to get on board with it. We're just rolling it out. There's going to be a lot of momentum to it and it's going to be a powerful way to learn this stuff. And not only is it in depth, specific training, video modules, but you also, there's a live component too, where I'm teaching and answering questions and working with people as well. So you get to, like, really address specific things. We get to practice on those live interactions. So, so much good stuff in that program. If you'd like to check out more about it, then go to my website, drazeez.com and click on the coaching tab of my site and you can get more details about coaching. Fantastic. So let's turn this into action for you now. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step is to find someone that you disagree with and punch them in the throat. No, no. Your action step is going to be to. Okay, there's. There's level one, there's level two. As one of my coaches, Rich Litvin, would say, low flame and high flame. The low flame version is to find one of those mindsets that. That would really serve you in terms of direct contact. And write it down and repeat it to yourself like, this isn't about me, or conflict is about direct contact, or this is not about me, or it's no threat to me. This person's no threat to me. Whatever it is one of those that you think resonated with you and you want to internalize it more. Well, then write that down and repeat it to yourself. That's the low flame version that's sort of prepping you for conflict. High flame version is going to be to lean into some sort of direct contact, preferably right after this episode. Right after this episode. Just do it, do it, do it, you know, oh, yeah, I'll do that. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe never. Right. So just right now, is there a person right now you want to connect with? Maybe just text them, maybe send them a little audio, Maybe you set up a time to talk to them. If you feel that squeezing feeling in your chest. Good. And just remember, open up your arms. You can lift your hands up wide up. Open up your chest. Direct contact. Yes. Yes. This equals a better life. This equals a better relationship. This equals a better friendship. This equals a better lover experience. This equals a better work life. This equals goodness in my life. How many things in life are uncomfortable in the short term but awesome in the long term? A workout following eating healthy, putting effort into learning. You study something to improve your skills and your career. You are building a business like how many things you put into discomfort now and you get a radical improvement in your life. That's what direct contact is. So find those person. Find that person. Lean into that conflict. That's your invitation. That's your action step 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 contact confidencecenter.com.