Talking Yourself Out Of Authenticity

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. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today I have a question for you and actually some answers as well that I'm going to suggest. But I want to see your answer to this first question, which is, do you talk yourself out of being authentic? And in this episode, I'm going to share some of the most common ways that you might be doing that. From what I've seen with myself and with clients that I've worked with. So your answer, I'm going to guess if you listen to this show, that your answer is probably yes. And you know what I'd say? For every human out there, the answer is going to be yes. So. So that's why this question is a layup. It's kind of a rhetorical question. We all talk ourselves out of being authentic sometimes. It might be more or less, depending upon how you're living right now. And it's not a matter of if you do it or not. It's a matter of how do you do it and how can you become better at seeing where you're talking yourself out of being authentic? And so you can shift that so you can be more full yourself. Now, I know that term being authentic, authenticity, it has a really nice ring to it, right? Like, at least for me. And maybe that's someone who values freedom because I spent so many years in a cage. And so the idea of, like, being authentic has this allure to it. Like, ah, I can just be myself. I can. It's almost like a relief in my body and my nervous system. Like, ah, I just get to be me. Cool. All right. There's a freedomist. There's a. There's a ease there, and it's appealing. And at the same time, sometimes it can be a little vague, right? Like, what does that mean to be authentic? It's one of those things where you know it when you feel it, when you're doing it, when you see it. But Hard to quite put words to. In fact, in my. One of my newer books, Less Nice, More you, which a lot of people don't know about, by the way. So if you like my book, Not Nice, I think you would love Less Nice, More you. It's very short and designed to add things that were not in the Not Nice book as well as galvanize you to really be applying and changing things in your life. In any case, the whole fourth section of that book is authenticity, being authentic in your life in all areas and what that really means. And so I really go on a deep dive in that topic. And if you're curious, check out the book on Amazon or Audible. But essentially, authentic would mean that you are able to be fully yourself. And what does that mean? Well, it's on all levels of life, right? That's down to the small minutia of how you dress and carry yourself. Like, small details. I know for some people those aren't small details, but it's relatively small details to how do you speak, what do you let yourself share in a certain situation? So in any given, you know, environment, workplace, social setting, dating setting, you might be more or less authentic. In other words, how much are you holding back what you really think, really feel, really perceive? And then there's maybe a whole nother layer of authenticity that's, that's bigger than just the small details, bigger than the interpersonal. And that's living kind of walking your life path that you're meant to live. That's maybe authenticity on a larger scale, on a soul level, like, what are you here to do? And so if you're not pursuing certain opportunities or you get this calling to go make a shift in your career or end a relationship or make a big change, move somewhere, just embody a whole different way of living. Like, oh, my whole life I've prioritized doing this and following this path. And now I wanna make this radical change. And if we ignore those that call, then we can start to suffer because we're not living the life we're meant to live, right? So that's on the biggest, most macro level, the opposite of the minutia. And I think authenticity is all those things. And as I talk about in the book, a less nice, More you, authenticity is a moving target. So the authentic version of you at 20 is very different than the authentic version of you at 30 and at 40 and at 50. And I get it, there's some through line there. Maybe there's certain things that remain your whole life, but other things change. Based upon what stage of life you're in, do you have a family or, you know, what age are you, your health, like all kinds of where you live, who you surround yourself with. So it's not like you set your authentic self at age 20, and then you're just like, that's it until I'm 99. Right? It's changing, it's moving, it's evolving. And to pursue that authentic path is regularly going to require stepping into the unknown, change, risk, temporary instability at different times. And then you enjoy periods of stability and things are easy or calm. And then there's the challenge again, right? So we have to be nimble. We have to be willing to, you know, take life on. As Les Brown would say, step into your life. And if we don't, then we are prioritizing only comfort and avoidance of anything that's hard. Or I just want to stimulate myself and find comfort and avoid all the things and just look at screens all day and not talk to people and hide and all that stuff, which, trust me, I've lived that life. I know that one. It's probably not your most authentic life, right? So that's a crash course in authenticity. You want the full deep dive, go check out that book. But this gives us enough to work with in this episode. So the question now is, how do you talk yourself out of that? How do you. And I don't mean literally talk. You might just say things in your mind, right? The way you think yourself out of being authentic. And look, there's a thousand different ways, you know, depending on what kind of authenticity we're talking about. But let's cover some of the big ones, right? So the biggest way that we talk ourselves out of it is we have the. And I talk about this in my new book, lots of book conversation today. It's called Doubtless. It's coming out in early 2025. So we're getting real close here. But I talk about the operatives of doubt that kind of keep doubt in place. And one of the operatives is, is what would they think? Right? And this is one of the biggest ways we talk ourselves. Not just out of confidence and living in doubt and self doubt, but also how we talk ourselves out of being authentically ourselves is what would they think? This is probably the biggest way that you might be talking yourself out of being authentic. So that could operate on any of those levels of authenticity I just talked about, right? The minutiae through the interpersonal, through the big macro in your life. So the minutiae you want to Wear a certain kind of jacket, you want to wear a certain type of clothes, you want to put your hair in a certain way. You want anything, jewelry, all kinds of stuff. Small, big, whatever. And there's some part that maybe wants the thing and shies, ooh, I don't know. What would they think? What would they think? And that might be a very conscious thought of, oh, what would so and so think? Or what my family think? Or what would those friends think? And do you know what's crazy is it doesn't have to be people from your life currently, right? It could be, what would my friends from high school think about that thing that I'd wear? And you're not, you know, you're 35 years old. You might not even be hanging out with those guys anymore. And yet they can still be in there influencing you. So it might be very specific people. I remember there's a client I worked with who had a roommate who was very critical friend and roommate who used a lot of kind of power dynamics of picking on people and sort of immature masculine stuff. And he would often question himself based on, what would that guy think? Right? And. But it could also be a vague feeling of like, that's not acceptable to someone somewhere. So I can't. Whether it's wearing a tank top or something that shows off your muscles or, you know, oh, mom, too fat. So I can't wear this because that looks bad. And you people, fat people, shouldn't wear this kind of clothes. And all these judgments and labels and. And trying to be okay, trying to be good, trying to fit in, and so you don't just let yourself wear what you want to wear. So, I mean, here's an example of the opposite of that, because I've done a lot of work on this, so forget that. You know, I'm going to wear what I want to wear. And I remember I was talking to a guy, and he was saying, oh, if you're getting out of this vehicle, do you wear jeans a lot? Because it's got a light coloring on the. On the car seats. And so if you get in and out a lot in jeans, you're going to mess it up. And I was like, well, you know, fortunate for you, I only wear sweatpants. And he kind of gave me a strange look like, is that guy bragging about that? Yes, sir, I am bragging about that, because I do. I'm wearing sweatpants right now. Now, they're nice sweatpants. Okay, all right. In my defense, I'm gonna defend myself here. You say why do you need to defend yourself to be fully authentic? Because I will. Because I look good in my sweatpants right now. That's authenticity and confidence. But, you know, they're not like dumpy saggy baggies. But hey, if you want to wear dumpy saggy baggies, it's good. More power to you. It's great for you. I don't care. You know, they're like, they're nice, they're cozy, they're form fitting. But you know what, man, they're so soft. And now when I wear jeans, I'll occasionally wear jeans. I remember I was teaching an in person workshop, and the first day of the workshop for the sisters of the Mastermind members was a retreat we did in last October. And I. The first day I got dressed up, man, I wore jeans and a shirt with a collar on it. Oh, yeah. Mm, I know. Is your mind blown? And then the second day I wore sweatpants, I was like, forget this. We're here to be authentic. Be in my authentic sweatpants. So anyway, so you can. The story here, you can tell that it's not just about doing the thing and doing it apologetically. I own it, man, and I enjoy it. And there's a million things in my life that I used to be apologetic about or scared of, you know? Another one was Magic the Gathering. And you probably heard some of my stories if you've ever listened to this show or. I think I even list it in the book. Not nice. Maybe somewhere I've talked about this, but I remember when I had a friend come over my house in middle school, which is when my social anxiety began and spiked from 0 to 90. I. When I moved to this new school. I remember I had this kid come over. His name was Tim. And I would just run around my house before Tim was gonna come over to play. And I'm like an 11 year old kid. My son just turned 11, so it blows my mind to think of him doing this and having that much fear. But I run around my house and I would hide anything that he could judge. Like. What did you hide, Aziz? Well, I'll tell you. I hid. I hid that I didn't wear. So what was cool at this school was boxers. And I wore like briefs. Whitey tighties is what the kids called them, which is. I mean, you're not cool with a name like that. So I hid. This is crazy. I had my mom buy me boxers when I first got to this school. I was like, mom, all the kids wear boxers. I have to have boxers. And if you're not familiar what these are, you know, maybe you're. You don't wear them or you're a lady. And I don't know if ladies wear boxers. But anyway, they're like shorts, like these big shorts you can wear. And I tried them on and I was like, this is terrible. This is like wearing big swimming shorts under my pants. Who wants to do this? There's no support and. But I was like, oh, but I gotta be cool. So I would wear whitey tighties underneath and then boxers on top. So if someone saw me jump up for a basketball, they would see that there was boxers there. Isn't that crazy? But it's about survival. When you're a little kid. It's like, I gotta fit in. I gotta survive. So anyway, before Tim came over, I would put boxers on top of the whitey tighties. So if you opened up a drawer in my room, he would see boxers, not whitey tighties. I would hide Magic the Gathering cards. I would hide music CDs that were not what he thought was cool. Because before I went to that middle school, I listened to a lot of varied music. I went to listen to Metallica and a lot of alternative music, you know, like grunge and Marcy Playground and stuff like that. But then when he got there, he and his friend Mark were both into rap. And so I was like, oh, cool, I'm into rap too. And then I had to hide all my CDs that weren't. And I could go on. But I hope you're getting the picture. This is crazy. This is crazy. And you know what? It might sound, oh, what a sad little 11 year old. But you know what? Adults are doing this all the time. They're just more sophisticated or more subtle or they don't even allow themselves to have those things in their house. So you got to own it now. I own all that stuff. Although I don't wear whitey tidies anymore. I wear the boxer briefs. Someone came up with like the best combo. So you get the support, but you also look great. Of course. That's what I'm all about. It's looking great in my underwear. And also Magic the Gathering. I'm a huge fan, been playing for years. I taught my son how to play when he was like 5. And now he's 11. And he just had his birthday party. And we had a magic gathering tournament at our house and I hosted it. And there was like, you know, eight other kids. We're all playing. I played with the kids in the Tournament totally dominated, by the way. Just show them who's boss. I still got my chops at the 42 year old man, but my clock's ticking on that. My son Zaim is 11 and he beats me a lot. Beats me a lot. I still, I still can dominate sometimes, but my time, my time is coming. I'm in my twilight years in any case. Do you see how when I talk about these things, it's unapologetic? There's a humor and if you're like, oh my God, you're a nerd, like, okay, and we can extend this, this is, I'm talking about the small stuff first. But this goes further into interpersonal relationships. So someone has a different opinion, different perspective. This isn't, this is another way we talk ourselves out of being authentic, by the way, is when you're in the interpersonal. You know, in a conversation with somebody, you have something that you would say but you hold back, right? You talk yourself out of being authentic. So you would ask a certain question that you're actually curious about. You would say something, maybe you disagree with what the person says, maybe have a different perspective and you'd share that. Maybe there's just something vulnerable you'd want to share or real or, or anything that comes to your mind and you don't say it. Why not? Well, we're talking ourselves out of it. And how, how are you doing that? And instead of me just telling you I want you to look for yourself right now, what do you tell yourself to talk yourself out of being authentic. And for me it's different things. One, it's, maybe I don't want to upset that person, right? Oh, this is going to upset them. And it might be you're afraid of their disapproval or upset. So that's one way you can talk yourself out of. It's almost like an insecure attachment thing there, right? It's like, oh my gosh, if I, if I have different opinion, this friend's gonna be upset with me, this family member's not gonna like me anymore. And I, I'm. It's destabilizing. I can't have anyone, I can't lose any relationships. There's like a fear of abandonment underneath. There's maybe talk yourself out of it that way, which might seem true in the moment, but is that really true? This friend is gonna no longer wanna be friends with you. Or are they just gonna have some feelings? Or maybe not. Maybe they don't even have feelings. Maybe they do though. Maybe they are upset temporarily and you Guys, talk it through, right? So we. But we talk ourselves out of it, saying, it's gonna make it worse. It's gonna be the end of everything. And again, the reason, hopefully this episode is really illuminating something to you. A lot of this stuff is subconscious, unconscious. We're not aware of these perspectives, but they're underneath, and they're influencing you, and they're preventing you from being fully, authentically yourself. You know, another one that I noticed just the other day in myself, which was really interesting, is basically saying, oh, there's no point in sharing that. Which maybe that's true sometimes, right? You know, maybe you have a thought like, this person's an idiot, and I hate them, and you're like, whoa. Maybe calling them an idiot and being all condescending and character, attacking them. Maybe there is no point in saying that. Maybe there's a better way to do it. Maybe you got to cool down and come back and solve the problem in a more effective way. So I'm not saying there's never a time to bite your tongue or hold back, but, man, nice people. People pleasing people. When you're in that cage of niceness, you're always erroring on the side of not speaking up, right? So when I work with clients, I have to encourage them to just, like, be messy for a little while. You'll calibrate, you'll calibrate. But if you've always leaned towards holding back, then maybe sometimes take the risk and lean in a little bit and be a little messy, and then, you know, sort it out afterwards. It's the only way to really find our confidence in this arena. But I noticed that. So my dad was visiting. My parents were up here just this last weekend, and it was very sweet there around with my son's birthday party, and we took him out to get ice cream and stuff like that. Just a very sweet visit, short couple of days. But I noticed there are some times where I was with my dad, and I just was feeling a lot. You know, he's got a health condition in his lungs that is progressing, and it limits his abilities. And he's getting on some supplemental oxygen for exercise, and eventually it will happen. You know, he has to have oxygen all the time. And I feel a lot about that. You know, I feel just pain about my dad aging and getting closer to death, and I kind of like, what's the point? What are you gonna say about that stuff? You know? And my dad likes to talk about the details about, you know, if he talks about it at all, it's gonna be about, you know, so this is the oxygen and this is how I'm using it. You know, kind of the more the details which I'm interested in. And I'm, you know, authentic feelings guy. So it's kind of like, what do you. How do you feel about it? And how do I feel about it? Let's talk about how we feel. And, you know, it's not my dad's jam, and so it's kind of like me talking about how I'm feeling. What's the point of that? And so I didn't say much about that. And then I noticed that there was a lot of pain after the visit, like a little bit of disconnection there or something. And so I sat with that and I caught that story. Oh, what's the point? There's no point in sharing it. I was like, what? What does that mean? There's no point? As in, what is the point of sharing anything? I guess if you're doing some sort of information transaction and someone's like, hey, what's your address so I can get to your house, then there is a point in sharing your address. But in human conversation outside of data transfer, what. What is the point of anything? I don't know. It's just. We're, like, saying things at each other, and it's to connect. It's to just express in the moment what is what you see and feel and to be known, right? And to know others. And so I was like, oh, I'm not letting myself be known. So I sent my dad the next best thing after he left, you know, I. I sent him an audio message. And I've often found with him, sometimes in text and audios, there's a way that we can share more and there's, like, more intimacy available, which I've really embraced over the last handful of years. It's very sweet. It's a great way to stay connected with him. And so I just shared this audio with him about, hey, dad, you know, so great to see you. I love you. I miss you. And I noticed that when you were sharing some about your health, I didn't say it in the moment, but I just. I feel so much, and I feel sad. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I feel sad that you have this cough and that you're, you know, needing more oxygen. And I don't. There's a part of me that resists it and says, no, no. It's like I'm fighting life and the universe, and I. And I don't want you to have more limitation. I don't want you to die. I don't want you to not be here. You know, I shared that in an audio, which is something that I would have shared with, I mean, people close to me, Candace, friends, my brother, I would just share that just like that. But with my dad, I noticed I was holding back, right? Because there's a vulnerability there. There's a way that if I shared it, I don't know if he would receive it fully in the moment and maybe he would kind of be like, well, that's okay, put that away, stop that, stop that disease. You know, so maybe in sharing it in audio I was like, ha, he can't do that. He has to listen, right? So you know, there's many paths to authenticity. And I want to share that personal example, it's very recent, just so you can get a sense of this, how this applies in all areas and which leads to the main takeaway in terms of action. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for this week is to do exactly what I was describing in this episode, right? Is to counter it. So when you catch first, step one is catch. You know, how do I talk myself out of it and try to become good, become a scientist, Almost like a. Aha haha, you got me on that one, right? So you know, be amused by it. You don't have to be upset with yourself, just be amused, be curious, be fascinated. And then though the action step is to do the opposite, to defy it, right? And I gave plenty of examples. It could be something really small, like your clothes, or on the minutiae level, it could be interpersonally, like you're making a bigger choice in your life, of course as well, hey, I'm going to prioritize what I want. I'm going to do these things that I'm passionate about in my life, right? So the step number one is identifying. And then step number two, the liberation part, is to defy that story, to challenge the way you're talking yourself out of it. Usually if it's fear or this is gonna happen, or a prediction, it's like, let's find out and then go take the action and do the thing. And I'll tell you this from my experience and just watching a lot of clients over the years, I don't know the exact outcome of the interpersonal interaction. Maybe the person does get upset, maybe there's some challenge, maybe there's something to work through, you know, I don't know, maybe people do judge you. If you tell them something about yourself. I'm not saying that none of that happens and maybe it's uncomfortable for you. All of that could happen. And I know this for sure, though it's worth it. And the more that you claim that authenticity and start living it and take that bold action to be fully yourself, you will feel better. Even if someone's upset with you, even if whatever outcome, you don't totally get what you want. You're gonna feel more alive, you're gonna feel more powerful, you're gonna feel more empowered, and you're gonna feel just like you've returned home. You're yourself and you're living your life. You're grounded in your life, your body, your reality. And that feels better than anything else in my experience. I hope this serves you 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. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who 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.