The Antidote To Anxiety

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. The show to help you break free from social anxiety, people pleasing and self doubt so you can speak up, connect and be 100% you. I'm Dr. Aziz, sharing tools that have transformed my life and thousands of others. Let's all liberate ourselves together.

Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. I'm excited to be here with you today. I'm going to share something that I think could be really powerful for reducing your social anxiety. Any type of anxiety really. Performance anxiety, stress about upcoming work, personal, social, any type of upcoming event that you can feel anxiety about because you're going to discover not just one kind of calming trick or hack or nervous system judo, but really seeing what's creating the anxiety in the first place and then therefore being able to choose something different. That's why I call this episode the antidote to anxiety. And of course this applies to social anxiety. So we're gonna focus in on that. But know that this applies to all different types as well. So I'm excited to share this with you. And this is kind of a last opportunity if you missed it. Signing up for the early bird. We still do have a few spots left for the the main full price for the upcoming virtual event. It's coming up in just a couple of days, so if you're feeling bold, courageous, wild, ready, reckless, like, let's go. I'm ready to make some medical changes. I'm tired of sitting and waiting. Consider leaping in. You can still get a ticket if you go to draziz.com and join us for three days. It's the last event I'm gonna do in this year. It's gonna be a really powerful experience and you're not gonna wanna miss it. And if you are attending the event, I can't wait to be with you there. And this theme that we're gonna be covering in today's episode is gonna be a theme throughout the event. And you'll really see that when you're. You're spending that time together this coming weekend. Okay, what is the antidote to anxiety? Let's get to the point. Get to the. Give me the answer, man. Well, I will, I will. And first though, I have to tell you something. So you see why this is the answer, why this is the antidote. Because there is something that must be happening in order for you to feel anxious. So the first thing that we have to dispel is the myth that the anxiety is in the circumstance. Right. Talking to people is scary. Speaking up in a Group is scary.

Approaching someone that's attractive, that's real scary. Public speaking, oh my God, that's terrifying. And a lot of people will agree with you. Be like, yeah, public speaking, it's awful, terrifying. And so because multiple people might confirm that story, we conclude that the anxiety is in the event or the circumstance. But it's not. And I can prove it to you, because pick any event, any circumstance, any activity, and there's someone who isn't anxious doing it, and there's someone who is. There's someone who might even enjoy it. There's someone excited about it. And let's take this out of the realm of, you know, social confidence and social anxiety. Let's just look at something like bungee jumping, for example. Have you ever been bungee jumping? I have once. Once was enough. Scariest thing by far I've ever done in my life. I did do do the skydiving a couple times. But, you know, if you're a newbie skydiver, you're attached to some dude or lady. I don't know, maybe they have ladies doing it. It was pretty much dudes when I was there. And so you're strapped onto together and they're controlling everything. You're just flopping around like a fish, taking a selfie, being awesome, I guess. But for the most part, I mean, it's. Sure there's a lot of. There can be a lot of fear with that. 2. But there's someone to hold on to. There's something to hold on to, but not in bungee jumping, man. There's nothing to hold on to. And you're, you're not. The ground's not some abstract thing really far away. It is right there and you're plummeting towards it. And it seemed to really convince my brain that I was going to die. So the most physically out of control sensation I've had in my life is and freaked me out. It's very scary, but very, very exhilarating and exciting. 2. I told my kids if they want to do it when they get older, I will do it with them, but I'm not gonna go seek it out myself. And the reason I say I'll do it with them, you know, I got some pride, man. Some macho old man dad pride. My kids are 18. Like, you're not gonna show me up. I still got it. Still courageous. But in any case, there's some freakazoid out there. Maybe you are that person who feels excited about bungee jumping instead of just utterly terrified. Like a sane person. Right. They could truly feel excited and exhilarated. Maybe they're nervous, but it's kind of the good kind of nervous. And we could go item by item. There is someone out there who, when it comes to tax season and getting all their records together, likes it.

But a freak. No. No offense. Maybe you're one of those people. Right, but. So every circumstance we have someone who's gonna like it, someone who's not gonna like it, someone who's scared, someone who's not scared. Right. Can we agree on that? I'm sure there's things that you can do that I'd be nervous doing or anxious doing and vice versa. So it's not in the circumstance, it's in something. Right. You could say, well, it's in me. That's how I'm approaching it, how I'm doing it. Okay, great. Now we're one step closer to freedom because we can see. Oh, well, if it's not in the circumstance and there's a new way, there's something else that's possible here. Okay, great. Now let's go further with that, though. What do I change? How do I be the guy who enjoys it versus the guy who is scared of it? So there's probably many different. I think of these as recipes or formulas. So someone has a recipe for enjoyment when they're going to go bungee jumping or putting together their taxes. And someone else has a recipe for awfulness or anxiety. And there are a few key ingredients, and we could break all those down. And I do that with people in more depth in other places. But today I want to zoom in on one key ingredient, which is.

Attachment or clinging or grasping. Those are all words pointing to the same thing.

In essence.

Intense need for it to go a certain way.

That is what I would call attachment, clinging or grasping. And that is a key ingredient. Forget about all the other ingredients. I know if that's in your cookies, well, they're going to taste like poop. They're going to be awful. They're going to be awful cookies. Your recipe is going to be bad. In other words, you're going to feel anxious. So let's just run this through a test. If I am going to go talk to somebody and I'm feeling anxious, I might say, well, what is it that I'm attached to? What is it that I need to happen? And we might not even know. When I was struggling with a lot of social anxiety, I didn't know any of this stuff. I was like, want to go talk to her? No way. Dude, freaky. You want to go speak in front of a group? No, I'm going to leave the building, flee. Right.

I haven't even gone further than that. But if we do go further than that and we challenge the idea that it's in the circumstance, as in speaking in front of that group is not inherently terrifying, that there's something about the way I'm doing it, and I'm saying, hey, the thing you're doing is you're probably attached to it. It has to be one outcome or a certain set of outcomes. And other outcomes are not okay. Now, their other experiences are not okay. So you probably, as you probe into that, can see which ones might be not okay. Well, if I try to go talk to that person and I run out of things to say, and then there's this quiet moment where I'm just looking at them and they're looking at me, that's unacceptable. Or they're judging me in their head thinking, what a weirdo, what a loser. This guy's so awkward. Well, that's unacceptable. Or I ask them a question and they don't want to talk to me, that's also unacceptable. You know, for me, this could put this all under the category of, quote, rejection. Right? Although there's a whole range there of what the person actually says. But, you know, that's. That's all unacceptable.

And it ha. Therefore it has to go the other way. They have to like me. We have to have a great conversation, we have to hit it off. They have to want to see me again, whatever the expectation is. And as long. And I'm not saying you shouldn't have a preference. Of course you have a preference, right? Everybody would prefer someone says yes to them and wants to be their friend, wants to date them and wants to hire them, and we all want things to go our way. So that's not the problem. The problem is the. I need it to go that way or else I'm not okay. Because that. That is the key ingredient to anxiety. In other words, if you are doing that attachment, grasping, clinging, I need it to go a certain way. I guarantee you, you will feel anxious. It's a formula in the human psyche and nervous system. That's the setup. One of the outputs is anxiety or tension or fear or worry, right? These are all different manifestations of the same sense of threat in your nervous system. They just show up in different ways. So tension might be a squeezing or a bracing inside of your physical body and muscles and core and guts against. We can literally be holding tension in our. In our intestines, in our back, in our jaw. And that can manifest as all kinds of other physical symptoms as well. Headaches, backaches, stomach problems. I know because I've had all of those things. And that can come from that physical tension. And what I'm doing is I'm bracing.

Against the unwanted outcomes. It can show up in other ways. If it shows up in a lot of worry for you. Oh, I should have said that. Rumination, right? Oh, I should have said this, should have done that. That is all.

The gears in your brain are spinning double speed and starting to steam and shoot out smoke because you're trying to control the outcome to the good side by figuring it out. If I could just brain my way through this, then I'll know the exact right thing to say and how to go through the maze to get the cheese and not the whatever thing that kills you in the maze. If you're a rat, you know, the cyanide pill. In any case, I want the good thing, not the bad thing. And if I think my hard enough, I'm gonna get it. Then you're the more worry ruminator type. There could also just be like raw kind of fear, panic, get out, flee avoidance. That's usually when we're doing that, we're saying, hey, the outcomes.

It'S unlikely anyway that I'll get what I want. And if I don't get what I want, it's going to be so bad that I'd rather just not even try. That's the avoidance move. So we have different things, whether it's behavioral, mental, physical, emotional. But these are all coming from the same core pattern, which is I need it to go this way but not that way. A, but not B. Or maybe, you know, it needs to go A but not B, C, D, E, F, G or H. Oh God. There are a lot of ways it could go wrong. Right? So you with me so far? Can you see this in your own experience? Maybe just look around at the last time you felt anxious. Maybe you're feeling anxious right now. Okay, let's look at it through this frame. Or I'm nervous about this upcoming talk, this upcoming meeting.

I'm nervous about this larger thing in my life, this health, you know, scare. Oh, I gotta get a diagnosis. I'm getting some imaging done. Is this person gonna want to date me or be with me? Any situation could be long term, short term, today, this moment, next week, and you feel anxiety about it. Just find one thing in your life right now and run it through this Little test. Is there an outcome that I want and an outcome that I don't want? And the answer to that is probably gonna be yes. The question, though, is if you're anxious, how not okay is the outcome that you don't want? How essential is it? Teeth gritting, freak out, gotta will the universe to bend to my desires kind of way is the outcome. It has to go this way or else.

And as long as that's the setup. We're scared. We're so scared. We're so anxious. And there's no end to it because you might say, well, yeah, there is disease. If she says yes, if he says yes, if we get married, if we have a Whatever the next thing is, we buy a house together, live the American Dream, have 2.5 children.

Get X in my job, have this health thing go away and get to this goal, whatever the thing is, then I won't feel. And if that were true, then wouldn't you have reached some state of non. Anxiety and perma. Confidence and peace at this point? No, because then there's the next thing to worry about. Right. The next set of outcomes that could suck. Cool. We're together now. It's so great. And maybe we want to have kids. Oh, my God. Are our kids gonna be healthy? Are we gonna be able to have children? Ah. And we just go on to the next thing. Okay, I got this new promotion. Amazing. Yes. Victory. Okay, now I gotta show up to work on Monday morning with this new job. Oh, can I keep up? Oh, it's gonna be harder. Oh, I gotta deal with this person. Oh, no. Right. And so it just goes to the next thing. So that brings us to the antidote to anxiety. And you might have a guess already as to what it might be. What do you think? If attachment and needing it to go a certain way and all other outcomes being unacceptable is the source of the anxiety, then what is the antidote? What is the freedom? How do we liberate ourselves?

Yeah. Let all outcomes be okay.

That's it. Let all outcomes be okay.

Open to the possibility that all things can happen.

First. Okay, we'll get into some of the pitfalls and how to do this in a second. But just first things first. Can you agree with me that that is.

An accurate description of how reality is going to unfold? That there are all kinds of different outcomes and experiences in life, some of which you'll like and some of which you won't like, and that.

All of them could occur.

Some are more likely and some are less likely. Right. So you Getting struck by lightning could happen. Probably pretty low likelihood, but it could. And then of course, that's an extreme example, right? But this person could like me and they could not like me. They could want another time to hang out with me socially or a date or whatever, or they could not.

I could get this work thing done and, you know, get a kudos from my boss, or they could dislike it.

And obviously there's. There's a bunch of gradation in between. They could kind of like it. They could like it, but then critique this thing and they could want me to do this part again, whatever. But all those outcomes are possible, right? Okay, now here's some pitfalls, though. Some people are like, yeah.

Yeah, but Aziz, if I clench my intestines hard enough and I push myself hard enough and I make it happen, then I can steer it towards A and not B.

Maybe. Maybe. Sure. Right. If you have like a big report due and you don't work on it at all, let's say A is getting the report done and everyone thinks you're a genius at work and B is you don't do it at all and you are shamed publicly in the meeting. Right?

You can steer more towards A, for sure, by like showing up and doing the work, of course. But.

Then beyond that, how it's actually received, we don't have total control, Right. You could think you do the best report possible and maybe one person likes it, another person says this was flawed and your reasoning is bad and someone else critiques it this way or that way. Right. It's out of your control, then. Same thing. And it gets even more apparent when it comes to, like, social interactions.

How do you. How do you. I mean, you can show up, you can steer towards outcome A, which is that using that as the desired outcome. Right? And B is the undesired outcome. So you could steer it towards A by approaching the person saying hi, initiating a conversation, not just, you know, hiding in the corner and hoping they'll come talk to you. Right? That's most likely going to lead to not connecting, but beyond you showing up.

You don't have control.

You could be warm and friendly and funny and charming and good looking and smell good and have your best shirt on. Get your best underwear on too. They don't even know that. But you know it because it gives you confidence. And they could seem disinterested and just kind of be looking around while you're trying to talk to them and then they want to go talk to someone else.

And then we can lament that, oh, why not me?

It's because she's taller, isn't it? It's because he's better looking.

Knife wound in the heart goes deeper.

And we could just torment ourselves about that. But really what we're saying is it had to be outcome A and outcome B is so awful. And now I want to attack myself or blame myself or pity myself or hate other people or hate life and blame God and blame my parents and thrash around and whatever. You know, we could do a thousand things with that or.

We could embrace all outcomes, open to all outcomes.

And know that you don't ultimately have control. You can show up, you can give your all and then it's not in your hands, it's not your business at that point.

And for something for me really getting that, that I don't, that it's not some personal failing, it's just a true limitation of the human in this cosmos is quite relieving.

Oh, I don't have to control all the outcomes. Oh.

But what if they don't like it? What? Well, yeah, they might not.

But some people, I mean, and we don't want to flip to the other side, be like, yeah, they won't like it. Uh huh. Everybody's going to hate it. Everybody's going to say no to you, no one's ever going to date you, your life's going to be over, you're going to fail, you're going to end up in a gutter. Right? That's not opening up all possibilities, that's picking one subset of possibilities that are very unpleasant and then telling yourself with certainty that they're going to happen. That's actually a protective mechanism because you're uncomfortable with the true uncertainty. And so you feel that discomfort with a BS toxic form of certainty towards the negative. It's really weird. It's a really weird pattern. But I've done it a lot of my life. I see my son does it at times. I'll watch it in him. It's never gonna work. It's not gonna work. It's always easier to see it in someone else, isn't it?

But then if you really look at it, it's like, no, actually, I don't know. But that it is possible, right? It's vulnerable. It's vulnerable to put your all into that report or go really talk to that person. Not in a guarded, defended way, like you're gonna reject me anyway. So I don't even try. No, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna put my heart out here. I'm gonna be myself. I'm gonna share. I'm gonna be open. I'm gonna be vulnerable. I'm gonna be real in a social context. I'm gonna put my best work into this thing at work. I'm gonna try this project, and whatever it is, I'm gonna really show up. And in spite of all that, it might not work. It might fall short or someone might not like it, but I'm going to. I'm. I'm willing to fall and skin my knee. I'm going to fully jump and maybe hit my knee, and then it's cut and it's bleeding and it hurts. But that's how I want to live, right? It's a choice to live fully rather than wait life out on the sidelines because you get to avoid some level of discomfort by being guarded, by living in the story that it's not going to work, by saying, well, I don't know the outcome, so I'm not going to try. Like, you can do that and no one's here to chastise you. I'm not your dad or your mom telling you you shouldn't do that. I'm just sharing from my own experience of life and seeing a lot of people and having talked to a lot of people of all different ages that the real cost or consequence is that you miss out on a certain number of years of your life.

And that's a compounding cost that you only realize sometimes too late.

And it's painful. It's like, oh, man, I lost my 20s. I mean, you didn't have amnesia or something. You were there, but it was like you were partially there. You're partially alive.

And when I realized this and I started to break out of the various cages in my life, once I get out of the cage, it's like I want. Want to make up for lost time. I want to live more fully in the time that I have now than someone might live in a full life.

And I've done that, whether it's with my social life, career, other things. It's like niceness. When I break out of one of those cages, I'm just going to go for it. And physical health too. It's like, how much can I do with my body while it can do stuff? Let's go. Let's find out. So let's talk about how you might turn this into action and find out in your own time for action. Action, action. So your action step here is. Is a form of exposure where you face the. Essentially, exposure is a behavioral psychology Word for face, the thing that's uncomfortable or scary, right. That's used in overcoming all kinds of phobias and other fears. In this case, the type of exposure you're going to do is more mental or internal than it is out in the world. But the exposure is when you notice you're anxious, ask yourself, what is it I'm attached to? What is outcome A and what is outcome B? And maybe there's multiple outcomes that are not okay, but how do I want it to go? How is it supposed to go? And flush this out. Because sometimes how it's supposed to go is crazy perfectionistic. I'm supposed to walk into the room, share everything, know every answer, have everyone be totally mind blown by my presentation. Everybody agrees and my boss is like, you're amazing. You're the head of the company now. And applause for you, sir. Right. With some absurd idea of expectation of standard that's totally unreasonable, totally inhuman. So that's good to see because if that's your win condition, then you're best in the lose man. Right? Because you're never going to achieve it. So just look at what's my reasonable outcome? Well, I want it to go well. I want to present well. What does that really mean? Well, I want to deliver my ideas clearly and concisely and have people follow what I'm saying and perhaps persuade people ideally to my perspective or what I think we should do here. Okay, great, you have what you want. Now what is it that I'm anxious, right? So I'm attached. It has to go that way. What is the way that it cannot go? That would be awful if that happened. It'll be awful if I stumbled over my words. I mean, it would be awful if someone raised their hand and asked me a question. I don't know what to say. Okay, so instead of running through those at two in the morning and panicking yourself, take intentional control of what we actually have control over, which one of those things is our focus, and to say, okay, I'm gonna intentionally pick one of these and do an exposure exercise. So the way that works is you get yourself into a more relaxed state. Whether that's sitting there and breathing for a few minutes or going for a little walk outside, or you just did something you enjoyed, you're feeling okay, and you close your eyes for a minute. Sometimes closing your eyes can help you imagine it. Say, okay, what if? But that does happen. I stumble over my words and I don't know what to say for a moment. What will happen is you'll feel some kind of bad feeling inside, right. Like a panic or anxiety or a embarrassment or something.

And you just allow that to move through.

With empathy, with compassion. Like, oh, yeah, that might be uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. And what we're getting to, we're letting go of the need to control everything so that if that happens, I'll be okay. It's not my preference. It's not what I would choose on a list of my ideal outcomes.

But I'll be okay. If someone doesn't want to talk to me, I'll be okay. If someone gives me a weird look, I'll be okay. And when you do that, the anxiety dissolves and then you're able to go give the presentation or go talk to the person and have much better outcomes. Usually because you're not all freaked out in protective mode. You're just showing up fully and you get your best shot to steer it towards the outcome you want. And then we see how it's meant to go and how life is meant to unfold.

Awesome. Thanks for being with me today. Hope this serves you. Until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. We'll 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 Shrink for the for theshyguy.com for free vlogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.