Dr. Aziz argues that cultural messages often suppress confidence by shaming us into accepting others' judgments without question. He uses examples from dating across age gaps to childhood nudity to show how context matters more than blanket cultural rules.
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Are you afraid or uncomfortable of dating someone or being with someone who your culture and family tells you is wrong? Maybe there's an age difference and that's not okay. Maybe they're of a different religion or a different culture. That's not okay. I mean, if so, watch this episode. You're going to learn how to find that confidence inside of you, to go after what you want and create the relationships that you value and be able to have that inner strength, that inner confidence to not take in that negativity, that fear and that restriction that can come from the culture that you're in. Welcome to another episode of the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz, best selling author of Not Nice and other numerous books which you can find on Audible and Amazon. And of course all that material and tons of ideas and everything that I got, the best stuff that I got is on this channel. So subscribe, hit the like for this video, hit the subscribe button, that little bell next to it so you'll find out when these videos come out. Because the more of these that you watch, the more your confidence is going to grow. I can't tell you how many messages and emails and other things I get. People say like, my life has changed just from watching this channel and doing what you say in these videos. So I want that for you. And in this video, let's get controversial because we're going to push some buttons. We're going to push some cultural beliefs that people have that we all have, that we don't even know we have them until someone breaks the rule. Here's a basic one. Nudity. I get to see this one all the time with my little kids. They just want to be naked. They're three and five years old. They've been wanting me naked their whole lives. And my wife and I were like burning man hippies. So we're like, yeah, be naked around the house all the time, whatever. Be naked in the yard, I don't care. You want to pee out front, whatever, I don't care. You know, and so we had a couple instances where we were like camping somewhere and like, people are like, why is your child naked at the beach? Like, whatever. So I've had a lot of experience with rejecting cultural norms. A book that I read many years ago, Compassion and Self Hate. Oof. It's a fantastic one. Highly recommend it. It's dense. It's kind of like peeling the layer back on your conscious mind and looking at your unconscious. Because he's an analyst, he's a Brilliant psychoanalyst, but it shows all the ways that we can hate ourselves. And one of the biggest contributors to that is what he calls our toxic core culture. And when I was reading that book, I could see all the negative messages we get from our culture. And it varies from, from society to society and culture to culture. But what I learned when I was reading that book was like, every culture has some maybe good messages and a lot of toxic messages. And it's my responsibility, if I want to be the most confident person I can be, to reject the toxic messages of culture. And I think nudity is one of the ones that we get a lot of toxic messages. Shame around our bodies, shame around having to go to the bathroom. It's fucking crazy. People get shamed for having to poop. It's like, what? You're gonna do it, you have to do it. I don't know of another way. In any case, here's one that came up recently on my Mastermind calls. There's a guy in the group who is in his 40s, recently divorced, had been in this marriage for way longer than he wanted to, was staying in it for the kids. And because of the support of me and the group, he was able to make a very significant, healthy life choice for him and end the relationship, work through the guilt, the fear, the self loathing and get to the other side. And now he's creating not only a better relationship for himself, but his relationship with his kids has drastically improved, which was ironic because he was staying in it for his kids. But he became so much more alive and vibrant and there wasn't so much fighting around them. And the kids are doing way better, he's doing way better. So he's feeling good about himself and he's dating again and he's dating multiple women. He's using Bumble. And so there's all these opportunities coming into his life and he's dating women of all ages. He dated a 50, he's 40, in his 40s. He dated a 50 year old, he dated a 42 year old woman anyway. Currently he's dating three women. He's never done that before in his life. But he's just having, you know, more of an open connection, letting them know, like, hey, I'm not interested in anything serious, I just want to connect. I've just recently divorced. So he's dating a 42 year old woman, a 32 year old woman and a 22 year old woman. And he's in his 40s and he had some, a little bit of reservation about the 22 year old woman, like, ooh, is this wrong? I could be her dad. But she pursued him on bumble. She was eager. She likes to talk to him, likes to be with him, initiates a lot with him. And he's like, well, why not? He likes her. He says, like she's mature. They have great conversations. In any case, he's talking about it at some situation where he's talking to one of his friends and someone else that he knows in his work context overhears it's a woman overhears it. And she's a woman in her 40s and she like shames the hell out of him. She's like, oh my God. And he's like, he leaves that conversation. He's like, oh, yes, I am a dirty old man. I'm terrible. And I'm so glad he brought it up in the call because it led to a fascinating discussion in the group. And here's the thing. Imagine this right now, no context whatsoever. 45 or 42 year old man dating a 22 year old woman. Is that okay? Is that not okay? What's your emotional reaction to it? Most people, at least in America, it depends on what culture you're coming from. But United States, most people have an aversion to that. That's bad, that's wrong. That's wrong. And if you ask them why is it wrong? What is the most common story? Well, he's taking advantage of her. I mean, it's creepy. He's a creepy old man taking advantage of this young, innocent, naive woman. Right? That's the story. You know what's crazy is the fact that that's the default story makes me question it. It's like, wait, we just put that on as a template. Is that always what's happening? Is that what's happening in this situation? So we continue to explore it more. And I wanted him to see, like, what are your actual values? Because whether this woman judges you or not, the level to which you're going to feel bad about you is, is the level to which you agree with her. You don't have a clear sense of your own values. Like if someone tried to shame me for one of my kids being naked, I'd just be like, whatever, right? Cause I am totally clear that I think it's not only okay for them to be naked. I think it's healthy. And I think our culture has a lot of toxic negative beliefs about nudity. Maybe one future videos, I'll start doing them naked. But so I'm totally clear in that. But if you're not totally clear in that and someone tries to shame you, then you're like, oh, you're right, I'm bad and wrong. So it gets in. So we need to help him clarify his values. So we're trying to see like, why is it wrong? Why is it wrong? Why is it wrong? And he kept on saying like, I don't know, it just feels bad, it's creepy, it's wrong. And whenever you're hitting a block like that, and the only reason something's wrong or bad is because it is wrong. And you're in this like circular loop, that's a sign that this is just some cultural message that you got that doesn't actually have substance, it's not one of your values. And it plugs into all kinds of stuff. That's why this video is going to be controversial. But it plugs into like, well, what if the woman is a lot younger? You know, what is the age where she is more perhaps not quite ready for that relationship and she is being taken advantage of? You know, what about at 20, what about at 18? What about at 16? Right? And there's, there's like these places where you could get young enough where it very well could be taking advantage of. And then you have situations where, you know, I think it triggers stuff in our culture because if a man who's in his 40s is dating a woman in her 20s, then a woman in her 40s might feel hurt or slighted or upset because there's that wound of like, oh, you just want the younger woman, you just want the younger thing. And beneath that is a substrate of youth worship and our culture and in porn, the porn industry, which is like this huge elephant in the room that almost no one talks about, but that's like worshiping in a sexual way, you know, 18 to 20, some year old women. So there's all that going on, which is part of why people, I think, react, but they just don't know. It just feels bad and feels wrong. And I was having this conversation later on with my wife. I was talking, I brought up what happened in the call because it's a fascinating topic to me. And I said the level of aversion people feel about it is kind of like in our culture, at least in the United States, if, if you say a cousin is dating and two cousins are dating each other, you get a similar kind of like, ugh, this is wrong, it's bad, it's wrong. Right? Do you have that? If you imagine a cousin dating Someone dating their cousin, is it bad and wrong? And then you say, like, well, why? Why is it bad and wrong? And there's always a storyline. There's always a party line of the dominant culture, right? A man who's 20 years older than a woman. It's bad, it's dirty, it's wrong. Well, why? Well, because he's taking advantage of her. Okay? That's the party line there. What about the party line with cousins? The party line with cousins is. You're probably already saying it. You know it, right? Birth defects. Oh, my God. They're gonna have birth defects. Oh, my God. Does anyone actually know the freaking statistics on that? I remember I looked it up a long time ago, and it was, like, infinitesimally higher. I mean, really small. Like, having kids when you're probably a certain age, like, 40, is higher risk than, you know, being with a cousin. So. And I'm not advocating that. I'm not saying that. I'm just highlighting how this is. We're just emotionally programmed. Here's another one for you. Cultural programming. At least in the United States, if you were in different countries, this wouldn't be an issue for you. But let's say you had a fantastic meal at a friend's house. They cooked you this roast. It was just absolutely tender and delicious. And you said, wow, thank you. Thank you for cooking me this roast and this steamed broccoli. It was delicious. What was it? How did you cook it? And they said, well, I went down to my butcher shop and I got fresh dog meat, and then I came home and I marinated and blah, blah, blah. And you just stopped paying attention because you're like, dog. You fed me dog. That's terrible. That's awful. Right? Emotional. Just aversion to it. Why is that bad? Why is it bad to eat a dog? Well, they're beautiful creatures. I have a dog. My friends have a dog. It's awful. How could I hurt something like that? They're emotional. They're intelligent. They're part of my family. Okay, but why is that different than eating something else, like a pig? Pigs have the same amount of emotional capacity, probably greater than a dog. Pigs are more intelligent than dogs. Right, as in Pulp Fiction. But a dog's got more personality, right? So you find a reason to justify it. But underneath, it's just cultural conditioning, and you got to break free from cultural condition. If you want a high level of confidence, if you want a high level of freedom, you need to discover your values and choose what you believe and say. This is what I believe and I don't care if the dominant culture disagrees with me. This is, I don't care because this, I know this is right for me. So find what your. So this is going to apply for you. If you're dating someone and let's say they're a different skin color than you and your family's like, or they're a different religion than you, your family's like, just find what you value. And maybe you value tolerance or you value open mindedness or you say, you know what, I think that people that have come from two religious or spiritual backgrounds, if they want to have a family together, there's more richness in that because they bring different perspectives. So you find what you believe. And I believe when it comes to someone dating someone younger, that it really depends. It's so context dependent. Maybe one, the younger one is very mature for their age and the older one is immature and they connect, they have a great conversation. Maybe. There's so many reasons why people can find love and connect and it's not on me to judge what's going on there. Of course, if there's a certain situation where it seems like this very young woman and you know, she's like 14 years old and she's dating this guy who's 40 and I find out more about it and she seems very like, you know, taken advantage of and all these things are going on, of course I'd be like, what this is, this doesn't feel right to me. But you got to assess situation by situation so we could keep talking about this for days. I would love to. I think it's fascinating. But share your comments below. Let's see what goes on here. Let's see if we stirred up any controversy about nudity, sex cousins, cousin sex, dog, dog eating. We're hitting all the buttons today, so share your comments below and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are, to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
