Stop Pretending! | CONFIDENCE COACH, DR. AZIZ

Are you posturing, pretending, and hiding much of the time? No. Don't worry. You're not alone. We all do it. I do it, you do it. Everybody does it. Even the people that say they don't do it are especially doing it, because that's posturing. So let's talk about how. I mean, this is so important for you to get and how it affects your confidence. Because the more you're posturing, pretending, and hiding, as those go up, your confidence goes down. You might say, wait a minute, wait a minute. Fake it till you make it. Like, isn't kind of that about posturing? I can look like I can do it, and then I'll feel more confident. No, no, no. I'm here to dispel that myth once and for all. So let's talk about what posturing, pretending, and hiding are how you can reduce them so you can skyrocket your confidence. Sound good? And if you want to go further with this and you want to learn exactly the five steps to maximize your confidence, go to draziz.coM-R-A z I z.com you can get my ebook where you'll learn exactly how in five steps, to just continually increase your confidence for life. So, posturing. What's posturing? Well, what is posture? Posture is a certain stance, a certain way you use your body. So posturing is trying to present yourself in a certain light in a certain way. So I'm going to stand a little bit like this, like, in a physical way, right? Think about this. People, like, they want to get a photo of them, and they're like, oh, get this angle. I look best from this angle, right? Or don't get me when my neck looks like that. Like that posture. So it's a physical side of it, but we're posturing all the time in how we're trying to present ourselves. So an example of a posture might be you put on an air or a front or an appearance of having it all together. Like, oh, I'm not bothered about anything, right? Oh, I don't care what other people think. That's a posture. Oh, that doesn't bother me. That's a posture. I'm stronger and smarter than those people. That's a posture. So we put on these different postures. We kind of try out looking in these different ways. Why? Because we're terrified. Because we're terrified of being seen, in truth, for how we feel, how we think, and who we are. Well, another way that we try to hide who we are besides posturing and only looking Only look at me from this angle, right? Is, is we then pretend. So let's say they're seeing us from that angle and we can't posture. We pretend like, you know, we're sad, we pretend we're happy, we're anxious, we pretend we're confident, we're mad, we pretend we're loving, we're disappointed. We pretend we're not. And who do we pretend this to? Everybody. Even ourselves. That's where it gets crazy. Crazy making and definitely anxiety producing. So you wake up, you're feeling anxious, and you know, your sweetheart's like, how you doing? Like, pretty good, pretty good. See you later, right? So when we're posturing and pretending, we can't let people really close to us. We can't let people really see us. And of course we have a story that says, well, if they really saw me how I am, then they wouldn't love me, then they wouldn't respect me, then they wouldn't work for me, then they weren't my friend, then whatever it is. And so I have to keep posturing and pretending. And guess where you learned that? That's right. From your family, from other kids at school growing up, from your upbringing. You learned how to posture and pretend. And if you notice how different people have different ways of posturing and pretending. And some people, they, they only hide. You know, it's okay for them to feel anxious, but they never, ever, ever, ever are angry. A lot of pretending going on. What else do we do to keep all this and keep ourselves hidden? Well, exactly that. Hiding. So we're posturing, we're pretending, and then we're just straight up hiding. Like, think about hiding it as like someone's coming over your house, you know, or one of those drug movies or something like Blow with Johnny Depp. And it's like the feds are coming. Ah. What do we do with all the merchandise? Just hide it. Flush it down the toilet, put it under the beds, put it up in the cupboard up in the highway attic, and we're just hiding everything. And that's what we're doing in our own lives with ourselves. We're hiding. We're hiding our feelings, we're hiding our thoughts, we're hiding what we really are experiencing in the moment. And it's just straight up suppressing it and pushing it down. And guess who we hide it from? Ourselves. So we don't even pause and say, I'm feeling a little irritated right now, I'm feeling anxious right now. We're just like on, on, on, on to the next thing, onto the next thing. I don't have time for that. I go do this thing, I figure this out. I got to solve these problems. Oh, God. We just operate on top of the anxiety and we hide it from ourselves because we feel shame. Oh my gosh. If I'm anxious, it means I'm weak. Oh, my gosh. If I'm sad, it means I'm a loser. Oh, my gosh. What would my. Who would insert there? My family. What would they think? What my friends think, what would my employees think, what my customers think. What would my boss think? What would my wife think? What would my husband think? I don't want to show my kids that I'm anxious. I got to show them that I'm strong. Yeah. You think you're fooling anybody? Well, you might. You might fool some people at work, you might fool some customers. You're not going to fool your loved ones. You know who sees through it the most? Kids. They can just feel it. They can feel your tension, your anxiety. So can your lover. So can your close friends if they're really connected with you and seeing you. Doesn't that just sound exhausting? I'm just exhausted talking about it. So what do we do? What do we do? Well, take a look at how good it feels to posture, pretend and hide. Do you want to keep doing that? You might say, well, Aziz, I have to because terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible things are going to happen if I let people see the real me or I don't even know who the real me is. Man, I don't even know. I'm so confused. I have to keep pretending, posturing and hiding. Okay, okay. You can come up with a million and one reasons why you got to keep it going. About how they're going to react, about how I was brought up, about this and about that and about I don't even know. And so I just have to keep doing the same old patterns. You could sell yourself that and convince yourself of that. It doesn't convince me. And again, it doesn't convince the people closest to you. It's crazy making. It's crazy making. Just look at the cost it has on you and your life and look at the not only the cost in your health, your relationships, your career, your success, all that stuff. How about the cost on your soul, on who you're here to be, on just you being 100%. You imagine that like 5 year old kid who is just fully himself, who is able to share and express and be. And if he or she were to look at you now, he'd be like, oh God, who's that person? Why are they so fake? Be real. Be you start to take those risks and want support in taking those risks. Go to draziz.com I have a coaching program, multiple coaching programs I run people through. We have a shorter one, we have a longer one, we have a year long one. There is support. There's a lot of other people just like you and me who are doing this work, who are practicing this, who are building the muscles of authenticity and expressiveness and realness and the capacity to just show up fully as yourself. And. And here's the thing. If you're afraid of losing friendships, afraid of losing relationships, afraid of loss of some sort by being you, I will say first of all that's usually overblown. But secondly, let's say you do lose a friend or friends or a friend group or a job or something. But being more you, what ever you lose, you will recoup 10x better friends, better relationships, better opportunities, better workplace, better because it's a better fit for you because you are being you. So let's step into that unknown together. Let's stop hiding, pretending and posturing until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're.