Little You

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 second, and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about little you. Little. Oh, yes, little you. What do I mean by that? Well, what I've discovered is that me, my clients, everyone really has a young version inside of themselves. And some people are more or less aware of this, more or less willing to acknowledge this or to go there, as it were. But it doesn't matter. Even if you're not willing to go there, it's still there. In fact, the less willing you are to acknowledge and work with this part of you, the more it's going to take over in really interesting ways. And just a quick primer, when I say parts of you, you probably know this by now if you listen to this show at all or read any of my materials or anything. But you are not just a singular entity, like your name's Bob or Bobette, if your name's Bobette. Sorry, sorry. It's probably been hard for you, but in any case, you might just think, oh, that's me. But no, you're a collection of parts. One part of you wants to do one thing and another part of you wants to do another thing. One part of you wants to be healthy, another part wants to eat the whatever ice cream and sit on the couch, be lazy. One part of you wants to go to that social event and interact with people. Another part of you wants to hide and not engage and whatever. So we're kind of constantly working with these different parts inside of us and try to make the best choices that service in our lives. When we're making changes, oftentimes we have to choose from and live from a different part. That's why it's uncomfortable. So if we tend to avoid something, we need to access the part that's courageous and can go do the thing, confront the thing. You've probably been doing that more and more in your life as you've been listening to Me and working on this. But in this case, there's a very specific part that I want to talk about in this episode. And the more you understand how to work with this part, make contact with, connect with, and work with this part consciously, the more confident you're going to become and the more powerful in your life you're going to be. The more self expressed you're going to be, the more love you're going to feel for yourself and therefore for others. This really is an extremely valuable skill that unfortunately most people don't know about. So I'm very excited that you're here and you're going to learn something that could really change your life today. So you ready? Okay. Little you inside, there's a young version of you. And this young version of you tends to have just straight up feelings about things. Like little kids don't have all the filters and so they like something or they don't like something. They want to go talk to someone or they really don't want to go talk to someone. They feel strongly about things. And being more aware of this young version of you means being more aware of those internal reactions to things and actually really slowing down to pay attention to them and to not immediately judge them. So let me give you an example. Let's say shyness, right? Shyness or social anxiety. There's a situation that you feel shy or scared about. Maybe it's speaking up in a certain way at work or dealing with a certain powerful seeming colleague or client or customer. Maybe it's a dating scenario, someone that intimidates you. Maybe it's social. Whatever it is we feel, some part of us is like we don't feel powerful and strong and free and expressed. Some part we feel differently. We feel tight or scared or, or hesitant or unsure of ourselves or wanting approval. And that part is the young you. The young version of us wants everyone to like us, wants everything to be smooth, wants no conflict. Conflict is scary. Just think about a little kid, like a three, four year old kid. Conflict is scary. Loud voices are scary. Big people are scary big in terms of intimidating. Loud, strong presence might be scary. Big groups might be scary. These are a variety of things. And a lot of the time when we have this part, this real reaction side of us, most of us try to overcome that by ignoring that part. Like, you know what? Just pull up your big boy pants, big girl pants and go do the thing. Because that's the coaching that we got from our parents. And sometimes it works. But what if it doesn't? It works except for when it doesn't, basically. And a common, extremely common pattern that I've seen, I used to do this all the time, and I see this a lot with clients is a pattern, is, okay, there's that scared part of me. Fuck that part. I hate this fear. I hate this anxiety. I hate this shyness. It's so annoying. I just want to get rid of it. I. I wish I could just go do the thing. And then they try to go force themselves to do the thing. But maybe the fear gets so strong that they don't, or they do, but with intense willpower and endurance. And then they don't like how it went, or they don't like that they felt tense as they're scared as they did it, or they couldn't, they couldn't overcome the fear. And then they get so angry, so angry. And they start to berate themselves. They don't realize is they're berating that part specifically, like, what's wrong with you? Why do I have this fear? I hate myself. I hate you. I'm such of this, I'm such of that. Name calling, criticism, harsh judgment, rejection. Can you relate to this? Is this ringing a bell? Maybe, unfortunately too much. You resonate with it too much. And just take a step back and think about how damaging this is, how problematic this is, that this is the way that you relate to yourself, but specifically to a very young, tender, vulnerable part of you that just wants people to like him or her, that just wants to have things go well, that just wants love. And here we are meeting it with harshness, with demands. And then when it isn't able to do it, we yell at it, we criticize it. And just think about that as if it were a father and his son or a mother and her daughter. And there's the kid who's like scared of something. Could be anything, right? I'm scared to go to that room. I'm scared to go to the class. I'm scared to go to so and so's house. Just imagine that you're driving somewhere and the kid's like, I'm scared. And imagine a parent who treats the kid the way that you treat the young version of you often. Ah, what are you afraid? Oh, come on. You're scared again. Why? Why? What are you scared of? Listen, sometimes you just have to do things in life. Okay, come on, let's go, let's get in the house. Come on, we don't have time for this. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's go. Daw. You're not getting in. You're not doing it. God, you're such a. What is wrong with you? You're so pathetic and weak. God damn it. Berating the kid on the way home, like, can you. Doesn't that isn't that intense? And maybe you were treated that way, maybe not all the time, but it doesn't take too many doses of that to really mess with you. I got a few doses of that when I was young. It's the berating and it's intense. And so are you doing that to yourself? Because ultimately, no matter what happened when we were growing up, at this point in your life, the most damaging thing is not your parents and how they were with you. The most damaging thing is how you are with yourself. Because most people just replicate the same shitty patterns against themselves and then unfortunately, with their own children because we don't unravel the pattern. And so the way that we unravel the pattern, if you want to know, how do I unravel that with my own kids? You. You gotta unravel it with yourself. If you don't have kids, don't worry about it. Focus on yourself. Either way, you need to unravel it in yourself. You need to change the way you relate to yourself. Because if you relate to yourself this way, you're gonna be that way with your kids. Whether you try to contain it or not. It's gonna come out in a variety of ways. And so we need to commit to treating this younger version of ourselves in a whole different way, in a way that is way more open, compassionate, loving, patient, spacious. So you just be with him. And what's amazing is when I introduce this to clients, I point out how harsh they are. And they're pretty aware of that. And they know it's not working and they know it feels like shit. And when we start to get into how to change the relationship with themselves, there's a lot of fear and resistance that comes up. Oh, how could I? Why on earth would I do that? How could I know? I have to, you know? And it's just usually some, like, weak, totally BS straw frail arguments like, if I'm hard on myself, I won't succeed like I have in life. And it's like, okay. But there's like an unwillingness to even test that out. If that's really true. It's like, no, I just have to keep doing this. Why? Oh, because this is what I've done. And it's been really interesting to Me, I've really been curious about it, and I wonder if there's some level of, like, I gotta, you know, if I start changing the way that I treat myself here, I'm somehow, you know, being disloyal to my parents. Like, I need. It's almost like, I think a lot of kids identify with their parents treatment of them. And like, oh, yeah, that was good. That was right. That's how you're supposed to treat me is the way they did that. So I'm going to keep doing that. And to not do that is somehow saying they did it wrong or I'm being disloyal to them or I think there's just so much pain there too. So many years of being mistreated, maybe subtly as kids, but then years or decades of mistreating yourself. And it's kind of intense to look at that. It's kind of intense to slow down and change the pattern. A lot of people, when they start to change the way they relate to the young version of themselves, tell me they feel a lot of sadness at first at how they were with themselves. And it seems like a necessary phase that we have to go through. And it's worth it to go through it. Because whether you call it that or not, most people are abusive with themselves. Like that example I was doing earlier of the father talking to his son or mother talking to her daughter. Like, that would be. You saw that. You'd be like, that seems pretty verbally abusive. Seems kind of fucked up. If you were there and if you've ever been around that, it's very uncomfortable. Like, oh, God, should I do something? Or they don't know me. Am I really gonna make a difference? Ugh, it's uncomfortable. And yet we're doing that to ourselves in our heads all the time. So what do we do instead? You may be wondering. And first things first is just I seeing the insanity of it. And if you think, yeah, I'm just going to berate myself until I just achieve a little more, and then I'm going to automatically feel great. Has that worked so far? You know, you've probably achieved a lot already. Career goals, income goals, relationship goals, health goals, whatever goals. And are you feeling super, like, I'm there, I've arrived, hooray. Usually not. People are just, like, running the same pattern again and again and again. So what do we do instead? Well, it's in its most core. It's just being able to be with this young part, not needing him or her to be any different, and just being Spacious and loving. There you are. And this sounds simple, but it's actually very, very hard. People have a very hard time being with the emotions of anyone, let alone themselves, let alone young children. There's such a subtle or not so subtle desire to control it, to turn the emotion down, to be uncomfortable, to be scared of it. And yet what we need to do is just be with it, because sometimes the feelings are strong. So let me give you some examples. Like if there's a part of you that is scared, you know the example we were talking about earlier, to go interact with that person at work or give that presentation or do that thing, we just slow down, find that fear in us. Is it in your chest? Is it in your stomach? Where are you tensing and feeling like inside? You move towards that with your attention and with your awareness, and you say, yeah, you're scared right now. Yeah, I get it. It's scary. It's scary to go talk to that person. Scary to go be in front of that group. Not whether you think it should be scary or not. It just is, right? It is to that part of you. Like, imagine that again. There's so much invalidation that we have growing up. The little kid is scared to go into that room at night. Maybe there's monsters in there. It is scary. So the parents like, no, don't be scared. There's nothing to be scared of. Well, there is something to be scared of because they're scared. And so the way that you help them through the fear is not to tell them, stop being afraid. Just go do it, you wimp. That's not gonna work. Doesn't work on kids, and it doesn't work on you. And so we have to be. Yeah, you're scared to go in there. Why are you scared? Monster. Oh, you're scared of monsters? Whoa. Yeah, that could be scary. What kind of monsters do you imagine are in there? Hmm. Do you think they could hurt you? Oh, I see. Right. And you're just being with love, openness, and curiosity. So flash forward, you know, you think, oh, kids and monsters. What a. What a cute, silly example. Kids are so silly. And then we're the same way as adults, just different monsters, shadows and fabrications of our mind that scare us. So what are you scared of? I'm scared to go interact with that group of people. I'm scared to go speak in front of that group. Oh, yeah, sure. That could be scary to be in front of a group of people. What are you scared of? I don't know. Just being in front of those people, those eyes on me. What if I mess up? What if I lose my words? What if they think I don't know what I'm talking about? Yeah, that could be scary. To be so exposed and have everyone see you and then feel embarrassed and feel like you're messing up. Or maybe some of them are judging you. Yeah, that can be scary. That's uncomfortable. And then you're just with them. You're just with them. With you little you. With love, with patience. And here's the thing. Here's the thing, man. I've been studying this for a long time, and I'm really, really getting it. And I hope you do, too. If you're doing this with a very subtle energy of like, okay, all right. Wrap it up now. Wrap it up, you little shit. You and your fears. Come on. Come on. Okay. Did I empathize enough with you? You better now you got. Okay, all right. Now get in the room. Go fucking deal with those monsters. Like, if there's any of that energy going on, doesn't work very well. The little kid in you is like, wait a minute, wait a minute. You don't actually. You're not actually being patient. You're just doing this to get rid of me. And something profound shifts when you're just like, yeah. And I'll never forget this. I remember I was going for a run one morning and just feeling in my heart, and it was hurting in my heart and aching in my heart. If you listen to the last episode, I talked more about my journey into my heart recent. And I just. I could feel I was being with it, but I could feel a little bit of that resistance energy of like, okay, how long am I going to deal with this, man? And then all of a sudden, I just got this sense or image of a young version of me, and something just broke in a good way inside of me, like, cracked open. And I was just like, yeah, show me what you got. Show me everything. Show me anything. I'm not going anywhere. I got all the time in the world. What do we got? And it really did feel that way. It's like, I'm going to spend as much time as I need to in this run and the next day and the next day and the next day for as long as you want. Show me anything. What do you got? And it felt like a significant shift. In fact, I mean, I felt more stuff in that moment, and then images and memories and all this stuff. But it felt good. It felt really healing. And I was like, ah, show me anything. Yeah, and it's just really what I'm talking about here in a bigger context is just how to parent yourself. How to navigate this crazy life that we all found ourselves in and to do so with love and compassion and not this insanity of self hatred and berating till we get to the next level. And then you get there and all of a sudden you're supposed to feel great, but you're not gonna. Not if you're treating yourself in that way. And so we gotta fundamentally change and create this space and really seeing it as this young child and making space for irrationality for like so that. Think of it as a little kid. What do they want? They want to have fun. So when that kid in you is like, I don't want to go to this work thing, I don't want to do this thing, you know, if we do what a lot of parents do, which I sometimes have been guilty of, which is like, well, that's just how you do things in life sometimes you just gotta do shit you don't want. You know, I say some version of that and then I'm like, eh, probably could handle that better. But you know, that's how we do it ourselves. All, you don't want to do all that stuff. Well, get to work. Listen, life's not all fun and games. My dad used to say, life's tough and then you die. He had some good phrases that was, I don't know, maybe that was empowering to him, helped him get through hard times. But you know, we want to be compassionate with the young kid in us that doesn't want the responsibility. And it doesn't mean you buck off all responsibility, but you just have more empathy. Like, yeah, of course you don't want to do that. Of course you don't want to be working here. Of course you don't want to do this thing that you don't like. I get it. It's boring or strong emotion. So my son Armand, who's two and a half right now, does this thing where he'll get hurt. His brother will hit him or something, will fall or whatever, and he'll just get so angry, he'll just be like, crying. It's usually if his brother did something to him because there's the anger of the pain and the injustice and he's just like, ah. And then he'll start saying something that has nothing to do with the scenario. Like, we're in our house, it's the middle of the week and. And notice he'll say this. I don't ever want to go camping again? Never go camping again. And camping has nothing to do. We're not going camping that day or that week or whatever. There's nothing to do with that scenario. But he just starts saying he never wants to go camping again. And you know, it's humorous. It seems like, oh, how silly, you know, little kids. But again, we do this. There's a part inside of you that's like, I never want to talk to that person again, you know, or I never want to go through that again. It's so angry inside or so upset inside. And observing him and being with him and loving him through stuff like that just helps me be a lot more. Just brings humor to it. I just have a smile more at the part of me and it's humbling to see that I have that part. You know, it's so funny because flash forward like two weeks we were going camping and I remember we had like just kind of a shit show of getting everything together and out of the house on the Friday we took a Friday off, it'd be Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And it was just like, like four hours of getting everything ready. And the kids are as fast as we're trying to get stuff ready. They're like dismantling and slowing everything down. And I'm getting more and more tense. And then we get there and it's kind of a long day and it's just harder and it's bedtime and then the kids go to bed and I'm just, you know, sometimes we can blame, oh, it's because of this and this in the external world, but the truth is just like I was just. My state wasn't very good, right? I was tired. I was more of a victim feeling. And so Candice and I are talking a little bit after the kids go to bed and I'm kind of. I'm listing my reasons like an adult. Like, I didn't like this and then that was hard and I didn't like that and that and I don't know about this and you know, maybe we don't want to camp as much this summer and blah, blah, blah. And I woke up the next morning and I was going for a run and just feeling a lot more rested and resourceful and. And I just started laughing because I was like, you could take me in that conversation and all the adult, intelligent sounding stuff that was happening and controlled expression of emotion and distill it down to this. I don't ever want to go camping again. I was like, that's all that was happening. This young part of me was like, it was hard and there was stuff to do and I didn't like it, and now I'm tired, whatever. And so just having humor, loving that part of you that gets upset, that has feelings, and that's what we want to do, is be with these parts of ourselves. So let's talk about how you're going to do that in a more specific way with your action step. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step today is to decide on being, you know, commit to being with this part. I think you got a pretty good sense of it listening to this episode. How can you do that? For me, I find setting time aside to consciously do it very helpful, because the patterns of invalidating, pushing away, running from, attacking whatever we have with this young part of ourselves are so ingrained that a lot of it's going to happen automatically. Even if you want to do it differently, it's just you have to train ourselves to be different. So for me, having some time every morning without headphones, you can do it sitting. Like a meditation. I like to be in motion. So walking, running, and just tuning in and just listening to that part. What does it have to tell me today? And sometimes I feel like that part will just be like, are you there? You there? I'm like, yeah, yeah. Wanna tell me anything? No, Again, like a little kid, right? It's like, I really do feel like in some ways, I. I was alone a lot as a kid, emotionally, and I carried that on through distracting and running and not being with this young part of me for so many years, that now that I am, it's just like wanting the reassurance that I'm still going to be there. And I came to a realization not too long ago. It's like, oh, I have three kids, not two. I got Zaim, my oldest son, Arman, young little guy. And then young Aziz, little Aziz. He could be different ages in there, but, you know, he needs just as much as them and really committing to that and just being with him. So finding that time, that's probably the biggest recommendation I would have, because otherwise it just becomes another intellectual, like, I should treat myself that way. But then we have a hard time actually doing that, implementing that, executing on that. So find out what it is for you. Maybe there's different ways. Maybe you can do it sprinkled throughout the day. Maybe in certain situations where you tend to be hard on yourself, you can decide to treat the young version of you differently. Whatever it is, you'll find out how to apply this in your life, because that is how things will transform in magical and wonderful ways. So do that, and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. 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 vlogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com it.