Surrender Is The Ultimate Life Skill (Principle 2)

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, I am excited to share with you the second principle of sanity and victory that can really set you up to feel so much more free in your life. This one, especially, is going to set you up to feel way more free of anxiety, of stress, of worry about what other people think of you, of so many negative patterns that can really detract either from your enjoyment in life and also your ability to create victory. That's why this list is sanity and victory. It's sanity I think of as a sense of peace or flowing with life or living in a way that doesn't feel sabotaging backwards, destined to cause endless suffering. That's insane, right? And then victory is being able to create the life that you want, to break through the challenges, to become ultimately who you were meant to be. I think that's the ultimate victory. And that's not just some pithy magnet on your fridge kind of phrase. I think that's a. That's a very meaningful pursuit in life to become who you're ultimately meant to be. And your goals might be part of that. Your goals also might show you, you know, who you're not meant to be because you'll achieve something and be like, huh, okay, I did that. But I don't think I'm any closer to who I'm really meant to be. So it's all part of that process. Let's get into number two. And if you didn't listen to number one in the last episode, listen to that. Because I also set up this whole series and why I'm sharing these and where it's coming from. So if you haven't listened to that, maybe check out the previous episode in this and then check out this one. Number two, okay, so the second principle of sanity and victory is number two. So I'm gonna read the principle and I'm gonna share the little description that I have written for Myself to read through each day to remind me of this. So, number two, Surrender is the ultimate life skill. Surrender to the divine flow is the ultimate life skill. Not my will, but thy will. I remember the fundamental error that I need something out there to be exactly a certain way in order to feel okay in here. Peace is available right now. I'm okay either way. All I need is within me. Now, I accept the current painting as it is and calmly walk into an entirely different room. What does that mean? There's a lot of stuff in there. Now, remember, I wrote this list for myself. And so these are references that all make sense to me, but they might not make sense to you. That's why I'm here to explain all of them. So by the end of this episode, you understand what that exact paragraph means and how to really surrender more in your life. Let me pause for a second this recording so I can take off my sweatshirt. I'm dying. Ah, much better. All right, game on. Here we go. So surrender to the divine flow is the ultimate life skill, Right? Let's unpack that for a second. Surrender. Sometimes people hear the word surrender and they think that means, like, giving up, right? An army surrenders when they're going to lose, and that's one definition of surrender. But if you. If you break down the actual definition, it's submitting to a stronger force. All right, so yes, an army could say, hey, you're stronger than us. We surrender. We submit to you. In this case, I'm not talking about an army. I'm talking about surrendering, submitting to the will of a stronger or greater force. What is that greater force? Well, I call that the divine flow. There is so much to unpack here. I'm not going to get to it all in this episode, but this is really coming out a lot for me of what's going to be in my next book. Just called how to Believe in Yourself and Trust in Life. And that's where I really get into how do you live in a guided state of flow, and how do you access trust in life or faith, even if that's been something you haven't had in your life, or you're not really religious, or maybe you were raised religious, but it doesn't. You don't find a sense of spiritual flow or connection through it. So there's so much more coming your way in that book, which will be coming out in early 2025, but for now, that's what I'm inviting you to surrender to. At least that's what I choose to surrender to is the divine flow. And for you, that might be God, it might be the universe, it might be the way it is, but it's just how life is unfolding. The dao. This, this is what's happening now. Undeniably, you can say, well, I don't like what's happening and it's wrong, and we'll get to that in a minute. But that's the opposite of surrender. That would be resistance. I said, not my will, but thy will. Right? And that's another way of thinking about. And that might be a bit more Christian terminology, although I'm not a Christian, but I. I love all different ways to all pathways, the divine. I'm a. I'm a fan of. But that helps me remember to submit, right? It's like, hey, yes, Aziz wants this and he wants it now. But what a like, petulant child way of approaching. Like, you give me what I want, you give it to me now. God, life, you owe it to me, right? And this is a way of helping me, like, playfully snap out of that. Look, it's not my will, but thy will. Of course, I am the captain of my ship. I have goals, I'm going to create, I'm going to pursue things. You're going to see that throughout this list of sanity and victory. But still, that doesn't. Just because I'm pursuing something doesn't mean I'm entitled to get it right now because I want it. That's a very immature way state that we can all, I think, fall into, especially if we don't like facing the discomfort that's along the way. Then I say, I remember the fundamental error that I need something out there to be exactly a certain way now in order to feel okay in here. So I break this down in doubtless where I talk about, you know, attachment and how I need something and to be a certain way. And that is the formula of all suffering with attachment is I need it to be a certain way. And we believe when we're in that state, we believe, we buy into. We get deceived by the fundamental error. And the fundamental error is the story that I need something out there, as in, outside of yourself, in the world around you, some circumstance, some person, some situation, some object, some event, whatever, to be an exact way, a certain exact way in order to feel okay. Right? Classic example. I'm single. I need to be in a relationship in order to feel okay. I need to have a different job to feel okay. I need this person to like me. I mean, it doesn't have to be a big thing like a relationship. It could be the smallest thing in the world. Like, you shared something with a group of people during a break at work or at a party or something, and someone seemed to dislike you. Maybe they misunderstood you. Maybe they just seem to be cold or indifferent and you don't know why. And you walk and you go home on your walk or your drive home, and you're just so torn up about it, right in that moment you're attached to. I need them to like me. And it's fine to want someone to like you, but the idea that I need them to like me, and the idea is that I can't feel okay. I can't just be like, yeah, they don't like me. Cool. All right. I'm gonna go make a sandwich, right? It's like, no, I can't rest. I can't. I'm not comfortable. I can't. Oh, God. Yeah, right. I need something out there to be a certain way, and this is perpetual suffering and insanity because maybe you can't control whether that person likes you or not. Maybe you can't control that outcome. Maybe even if you work towards that outcome, it's going to be months or longer before you achieve it. So just notice if you're following into that pattern, that's what surrender. That's like an alarm bell, like, hey, time to surrender. And then to remember that peace is available right now. And the way that we access that peace is remembering two things that are both in that little paragraph that I read. It's a. It's a dense action paragraph, isn't it? So I'm okay either way. And that's the essence of when you've let go is that phrase, I'm okay either way. It's okay if it happens. It's okay if it doesn't happen. I'm okay if it happens, and I'm okay if it doesn't happen. Obviously, I'd prefer one over the other, you know? You want that person to like you or dislike you? Well, depends on the circumstance. But most of the time we'd probably say, I'd prefer they like me. And then maybe you're obligated and you got to do stuff for them because now they like you and you got to do Mary, watch out. If you're a nice person, maybe it's. Maybe you don't want them to like you. I want them to feel neutral and not need anything from me because I have a hard time saying no. And I need boundaries. But that's a topic for a different show around niceness. We're going to stick with this one, which is surrender as the ultimate life skill. It's okay either way. It's okay if I get the job or if I don't get the job. It's okay if this person says, yes or if this person says doesn't say yes, they say, no, I'm okay either way. And then when you say that phrase, if you're like, yeah, no, no, I'm not okay. I feel tight, I feel stressed, I feel upset. I'm freaking out. Okay, That's a sign that you're very attached. You are not surrendering. You're holding on, you're clinging. Think about, you know, over the summer, we went to Michigan and visited a friend out there. She's been inviting us for years. I gotta come up to Michigan. So we finally did, and we had that consideration, actually. Are we gonna go out in winter or summer? And I instantly put the kibosh on winter. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. How is it? Coca Cola negative. What? No, no, we're not. I'm not doing that. I grew up in California. I live in Oregon. I mean, it's the most temperate places in the world. We get snow like a week a year here. And I don't even go to the mountain in the winter because it's snowy. And to drive on the snow, it's hard. I'm definitely. I'll do rain all day long and I'll even hike in, like the, you know, 30s. And raining. It's just. As soon as it starts to snowman, you need different gear. And anyway, there's my. There's my lack of surrender to snow. I need to work on that one. In any case, we went out in the summer like sane people, and it was so sweet, man. They took us all around all these different lakes. Apparently there's a lot of lakes in Michigan. Did you know that? Well, I think most people do. In any case, one of the activities was water skiing, because why not? And they, of course, having grown up in Michigan, were like, so good at it. This guy's like, water skiing and he loses a ski and he keeps skiing on one ski. And then our. Our friend takes her turn and she's like, snow, not snowboarding, but it's like wakeboarding is what it is. It looks like a snowboard, but she's getting pulled by the boat and she's, like, jumping over the waves and stuff. And they were both, like, downplaying it before, like, oh, we're not that good. And you're watching them, you're like, what are you guys talking about? So our, my young youngest son wanted to try it and so they're giving us some tips and they're so sweet. They're helping them out there. And it was basically like, look, if you, you know, you're gonna get, we're gonna start the boat up and you're gonna do this to try to get pulled up onto your feet. And then you'll know if you're gonna get on your feet in about three or four seconds if you are, if you fall, and this is true, if you are already up on your feet for a while and if you fall, what's the first thing you do when you fall? Even if you've never water skied? What is your guess? That's right, you let go of the rope, man. Right? Because if you're holding onto the handle and you're, and you're no longer on your skis, you're like on your belly, you're just getting like pulled along and all this water, you're giving yourself like a crazy water enema through your sinuses just like. And it's terrible, right? So you need to just let go instantly surrender. And so we can do that in life when something's not the way that we want, we can. We're thrashing and we're thrashing and it's basically like we're being dragged by a water skiing boat. And we're holding onto the handle. Maybe you're trying to get back up. Maybe you're just like, this sucks, this isn't fair, it sucks. And you're just getting dragged and dragged and dragged and dragged. You need to let go. That's what this is. And so the way that we do this is you find the place inside of you that is thrashing, that is tight, that is upset. And you go right to it with your awareness and you put your hand right on that part inside of your body and you just meet it with love. And you say, I know, I know, it's terrible. It's not fair, it's not right. I know, I know, I'm sorry. That's so painful. You're the most empathic, loving, spacious, nurturing, maternal, feminine energy of infinite open hearted patience and acceptance. And if you never got that from a mother or a parent or a father, then, then you get to practice that. Think of it as divine, feminine, divine love. That's just blanketing that part and empathizing with it. I know. It's so painful and then you feel it more and it hurts more and you feel it right. This isn't just a heady process, it's a very somatic heart based process. You can follow along with that. By the way, check out a previous episode of the show called the I think it's called the art of feeling your feelings or life changing skill of feeling your feelings. Just go to feel your feelings and search that@shrinkforthshyguy.com and there'll be an episode where I guide you through something very much like that. You can also go to not nice book.com that's not nice book.com Enter your name and email there and you get access to all the resources from the book not nice. One of which is a guided 22 minute audio called the peace process. You can bookmark that page and go back there as much as you'd like to follow along. So those are practices that help you access Surrender All I need is within me now is a reminding phrase that you don't need something outside of you to be different. Another way to think of this is all I need is available is available. Whether it's within me or it's the right person at the right time, it's all available. And that last sentence might have made sense to you, or probably didn't though. I accept the current painting as it is and calmly walk into an entirely different room. What is that all about? Well, it's a really cool metaphor I heard a while back about that. You can think of your life as like your current life circumstances. You're in a room in a gallery. Imagine like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York or something and there's a bunch of paintings on the wall. I don't know if you've ever been to the Met. I went there when I was young, maybe like 17 years old. And I am not a big art guy. And so we looked at all these paintings and I'm just like pretty swiftly walking through the rooms being like, yep, that's a big painting all right. That's pretty, you know. But other, you know, someone who's into art history be like, oh my God, this painting was painted by so and Joe in 1833. And I'm like whatever. But I'm not, you know, I listen to like edm. I'm just not your most sophisticated connoisseur of the arts. It's got a thumping 4x4. I'm into it. Especially with a grindy bass and a build up. I mean, what more do you need anyway. But imagine you're in a gallery at an art museum and your current life circumstances are the room that you're in right now. And there's different paintings on the wall and the different paintings are of this, the different things in your life. So there's a painting of that's represents your love life. There's a painting that represents your current business or finance or career situation. There's a painting that's like your physical health and how's your body doing and all that stuff. And some of the paintings you like right now you're like, yeah, that painting's awesome. You know, my physical side is going really good or man, I'm having a good social connections. And then other paintings you look at and you're like, bleh, this painting's terrible. Right. You know, maybe it's like my love life don't look at that painting, it's dismal. Right? So you have paintings you like, paintings you don't like. And what we do is we go into the, we stand in the gallery and we often go to the painting that we like the least, Right. Maybe it's your love life one or your social life one or how you feel about yourself or something. And you're looking at that painting and you just go on and on about how much it sucks. You're like, look at this, it's so awful. Why do they even paint it? Why is this even in this museum? I mean, this is garbage. I could make that painting, My three year old kid could make that painting. This is terrible. And it's like other people are like, hey, come over here, check this out. Look at this painting. Isn't this stupid? This painting's awful. And we're just, we're getting all worked up and we're muttering about the painting and we're just staring at the painting and fighting the painting and saying, it's awful and it sucks. The painting doesn't change. Keeps staying there like that. And you're investing it, you're imbuing it with all this energy, which is where that phrase comes from, which you might have heard, which is what we resist. What we resist persists. And so you're fighting this painting all day long. And that, that's that sentence I accept. The current painting as it is is like a, it's a really powerful visual metaphor for me to be like, okay, yep. And then you just look at the painting. What is it like? What is my love life like? What is my social life? I have zero friends right now. I, I Just ended up I was dating someone and she said she didn't want to see me anymore. And now I'm not dating anybody. Now I'm single and I don't have any. I haven't dated in a while. Right. That's just seeing the painting as it is. And then you can calmly walk into an entirely different room. So instead of trying to like rip the painting off the wall, which by the way, if you try to do that at the Met, I think someone will either tackle you or tase you or like stab you or something. They got some protection against that. If you try to mess up those paintings, those things are valuable. So you can't, you can't rip the painting off the wall. You can't change it by yelling at it. You're not going to go spray paint on top of it, try to make it look pretty, make everything worse and weird. So what do you got? You accept it as it is and then you calmly walk into an entirely different room that's got a whole different beautiful painting of your love life or your social life. You create something totally new by investing your energy and your focus in that new thing, not resisting the old thing. That is the power of surrender. Let's talk about how to turn this into action for you. Time for action. Action. Action. Hands down, the most powerful action you could take around surrender is going to be to practice the peace process or go along with the episode called the life changing art of feeling your feelings or the skill of feeling your feelings. Just do a search for it. In fact, we'll have a link down in the description below to make it simpler for you to that episode as well. So look down in the show notes below this episode. If you're not. If you're listening to this on itunes or whatever, go to shrinkforthshy guy.com. look at this episode right underneath. We'll have a link to the other episode about feeling your feelings. Or go to not nice book dot com. Listen to the peace process. You got to enter your name and email to get to it. So sometimes people go there and they're like, I don't see it. We gotta give me your info. And then, and then it's a little trade, little bit of a trade going on there anyway. And, and then I'll just spam you into oblivion. It's going to be great for everybody. No, no, no, no, no. Not going to spam you. But I will tell you about, you know, do I have an event coming up or I also have a just like pummel People with free resources. There's a free course that I send you called 5 Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence. Tons of free trainings. So mostly what you get from me is even more value if you do that. But then you'll get access to the peace process audio I mentioned earlier. So that's your action step, though, is to go find one of these resources and follow along and practice it. Because I could talk about surrender all day long, but once you experience it and that sense of peace, even amidst a circumstance that you don't like, like the circumstance hasn't changed because you just sat down for 20 minutes doing nothing. Well, not doing nothing. But you're being, you know, you're completely changing how you're being with yourself and life, which is definitely something. But I mean, you're not running around trying to go, you know, get a date or something. And all of a sudden 20 minutes later you're like, oh, I'm okay. Okay. Either way. And it's powerful. I want that for you. Check out those resources. The best way to do it more soon. Coming up in other episodes about these eight principles, and I hope these are landing for you and you're finding value in them. Until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are, to know on a deep level that you're off. 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 blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter. Com.