1 Dec 2021 · 29 min
Dr. Aziz explores how cultural conditioning keeps you conforming at the cost of your real self. He shares his shift from scripted teaching to improvisation, uses his son's willingness to experiment as a model, and suggests a concrete move: do one thing your way in the next day.
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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, my goal for you is, is to have more permission to be you. And that's not necessarily unique to this episode. I mean, that's kind of a theme of this show, right? Is to discover who you are, to own who you are, to be able to express who you are and to do so unapologetically. So that's the general theme of this show. However, today I really want to specifically zero in on that, on you being you. And I want to shine some light on this in a few different directions to help speed that up, to help magnify that, and really to highlight some of the ways in which you might be inhibiting, suppressing, judging, or pushing yourself down. And you might be aware of it, and you might not be aware of it. And so you're going to discover any of those processes that are happening and then how to turn those off or free yourself of that so you can be more you and live life more as you are who you are, on your terms. And it's also relevant in that I was discovering something about myself in this regard that I think I'll share that story, and I think it'll be really useful for you to see how it maps on into your own life. So basically, you, me, all of us, we learned as we were growing up what the right way to be is. You know, right is in quotations, air quotes, right there for you, right? So what's the right way to be? And there's a thousand and one right ways to be, right? There's 1001 rules about how you should be, and those are unique to your culture that you grew up in, your family culture, your religious community culture, your school culture, your country culture, your ethnic group's culture, your political upbringing, the political persuasions of the people that raised you, the philosophies of the people that raised you, right? That all comes together. That and a million other Things comes together to create this cultural conditioning. And the language that I like for it is actually I get from Donny Epstein, where he calls it the cultural field. And I like that because it actually captures something which is. It is not just this conditioning that existed back then, you know, behaviorism. It's just stuff that happened to you. It's actually something that exists now, and it is invisible, like a field like gravity or electromagnetism. And like those forces, it influences you, and it has its own sort of pull to it. And there's a pull to stay within the cultural feel that you grew up in, because that's what's right. That's what the rules are. That's what's normal, that's what's good. And so if you were to defy that or break that, then you might have the sense that it's something you're doing, something bad or wrong or dangerous or foolish or mistaken or stupid or whatever the judgment you want to put on it. It's just some sense of like, oh, this ain't right. And that's what you grew up with. Then there is you expressing yourself authentically, truthfully being who you're meant to be, doing what you're meant to do here. And in some ways, who you're meant to be might differ from the cultural field that you grew up in and maybe even currently reside in. And therein lies the conflict, right? Because what do you do? Well, what many people do is they suppress their authenticity to fit into the cultural field. This is conformity. This is the easiest approach. This is what feels like the safest approach. It's certainly the most comfortable approach, at least in the short term. It has some pretty uncomfortable consequences, but they're kind of drawn out. You know, it's like the. It's. Instead of getting the big, you know, big fall where you break your leg or something like that, it's more like the thousand paper cuts kind of thing. So, you know, you don't have anyone condemning you or judging you or family saying something, you're bad or whatever. You don't get all that, any confrontation. But then you also start to lose yourself over time, and that can be very, very painful. But that's what most people do. And it's not all or nothing. You don't just completely surrender to the cultural field and have no individuality or no authenticity. Right. It's like. It's a matter of degrees and you kind of pick your battles, but in general, you'll kind of steer or default towards the cultural field. And if you have a lot of social anxiety, a lot of niceness, then you're really bound up and trapped in the cultural field. And you perceive the values or the rules of the cultural field as more powerful than you. But the cultural field is only as powerful as you are weak in your reality. So if your reality is weak, then the cultural field will appear very strong. But if your reality is strong, if you've owned your you and you're showing up in your life and you're developing your boldness and your strength and your confidence, then the cultural field actually loses a lot of its power. Not all of it, but a lot of it. Simple example of this is there's some cultural norms of how you're supposed to act out in public. And it changes based on the country or the region and in general kind of certain things, like dancing on a street corner or walking over and asking someone an unusual question, like, can I have a bite of your chips? Or whatever. Saying certain things, doing certain things, is kind of outside of the bounds of the cultural field. And so one of the things that I do with people to help them break free. And I've encouraged and heard feedback from thousands of people all over the world who've been doing this on their own through my guidance or confidence university or other things or this show. And then also when I'm in person with people, I will take them out and do this stuff with them is you go out into the world and you say, okay. The cultural field, at least how I interpret it, says, I'm not supposed to say hi to people. It says, I'm not supposed to move my body in certain ways out here. It says, I'm not supposed to make noise. And so we systematically challenge each of those things. And at first, for somebody, this feels like terrifying. You know, the cultural field is invisible, but it's definitely has an influence over you. And so then they're like, oh, my gosh, I can't say hi to that person, or I can't do this or I can't do that. And then, you know, within relatively short period of time, I can get pretty much anyone to be doing whatever they want. And then they break, assuming they're willing and they want to grow in this way. Then boom, within 30 minutes, they're dancing on a street corner and giving people high fives and whatever else. So as they've grown in their strength, all of a sudden that cultural field, like, boom, snaps. And then they're free. Now, that's a small challenge to the They're Challenging a small subset of rules there. It's not a super intense, deeply ingrained stuff. It gets more interesting when you have perspectives about how you're supposed to live and, you know, who you're supposed to choose as a partner and what you're supposed to do for work. And, you know, this is where I see kind of a deeper life example, you know, the person who is in a certain career field. Like, I remember I worked with this guy who was in finance, and that's not what he felt like he was here to do. But he'd pursued that because his dad, his family was in finance, and particularly his dad really encouraged that. And he's like, well, this is the. And it wasn't just like, I'm supposed to do this because my dad said so. It was kind of like, this is the most smart thing to do. This is the reasonable thing to do. This is what. Not just my dad, but me as a man is what I'm supposed to do. And so he'd been in this field for, I don't know, maybe 15 years by the time we met. And for him to challenge that norm, that cultural field was way more intense than someone jiggling their. Their booty on a street corner, right? That's like a very mild rule to break. And this one was pretty strong for him. And that's how the cultural field maintains control, is it positions itself as, like, the right way to be, the smart way to be, the good way to be, the righteous way to be, the kind way to be. This is what you should do to be a good person. And as long as you're buying into that, it becomes very hard to challenge it, because to do so makes you feel like you're a bad person. And so then people are left with this choice. If I either do this thing that I'm supposed to do and be good, or pursue something that feels more authentic to me, but that's very bad or stupid or wrong, and that's a very hard choice to make. And what often happens is people just don't make that choice. They stay within the cultural field until you start to discover that your way, your path, your authentic signature in the way in which life moves through you is actually not wrong, but better than not wrong, it's okay. And better than okay, it is optimal. And what that means is it's what is meant to come through you is of the greatest benefit to the world, to you, to those around you, to the broader world. And that's very important to see, especially because, let's Say you have other people in your world who are really plugged into the cultural field, and then you want to go pursue this thing, you know, whatever it is, small or big in your life. They might not say, oh, good for you. Yeah, you be your authentic you, and that's gonna benefit everyone. They might say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And they could use a whole bunch of different tactics, right? It might be like, are you sure about that? Is that a good idea? I don't know about that. Right. Or they might more directly challenge you, say, that's stupid, or how could you? It depends on how much authority they think they have over you. Or, you know, sometimes a parent might be more intense in enforcing the cultural field than with a friend or something like that, because the parent has a presumed or perceived authority and maybe a presumed or perceived responsibility in their eyes. Like, hey, listen, I just gotta make sure my kid doesn't make a stupid mistake, okay? My job is to get them to follow the cultural field. Because following the culture field is what's gonna keep you safe. It's what's gonna keep you alive. But there's some problems with that because staying safe and staying alive, while important, obviously is not the end game. And there might be certain times, locations and places in history or currently, you know, where. If you were to really stand out from the cultural field, you know, maybe that would be extremely dangerous. And if you live in a place like that right now, then obviously use your discretion. You know, if to be outspoken about your sexual orientation was going to bring violence to you right now based on where you live or something, then obviously don't do that. Find a way to own your reality without announcing it to the world. But a lot of the stuff now it is okay, and you get to decide which ones might not be. And in certain places right now, it depends on where you are in the world and what you're location and political statuses around you. But in the United States, certain circles, you know, if someone does not believe in the same perceptions or choices with someone else around Covid or vaccination or things like that, that can bring on animosity and intense rejection. So again, whether it's extreme or violence or mild, you know, authenticity doesn't mean having to announce everything to the world, but what it does mean is your choice to pursue meaningful things for you and to do them in a way that's your way. That's really what I want to get to, is to do it your way. And one thing for me, that's been hard to Shake from the cultural field is if you do it your way, your way is wrong, to put it simply. And I was just looking at this recently in my life where in a particular facet. Because this can show up in a thousand and one ways, right? Like the clothes you wear or your hairstyle. I mean, it could be a thousand things. But for me, I noticed this idea about how I'm supposed to be, particularly in work career and business. And I have a friend and a colleague who is very like rational in business and has taken tons of business trainings and makes a lot of spreadsheets and really knows his stuff inside and out about how to build and scale business. And he's like, you got to go to this training, you got to go to that training. And I've done some of them and I'm at these trainings and I'm like, oh, shoot me please. This is terrible. But then I'm like, yeah, but you should know this stuff. This is what you gotta do if you wanna be smart in business disease. You gotta know this stuff. And even that tone feels like the cultural field to me. And you know, it kind of rings of school too, right? And there's a certain way to do something, there's a smart way to do it. And it's. And it's very rational and left brain and planned. And then you execute on the plan and it kind of culminated. So one of the manifestations of this was like a perpetual sense of like I should be spending more of my time like mapping things out and planning them and spreadsheeting them and like know all the numbers and just get it inside and out. And I never really did. I mean, I got a general idea of what's going on, but I'm not going to be making all the spreadsheets. And then it also showed up in when it comes to teaching. And I was under the same friend and colleague's suggestion. He's like, you got to take this course on speaking and persuasion and everything. And I was like, okay, sounds like the right reasonable thing to do. And so I take the course and it's great advice. It's really high level training on how to prepare your, whatever it is, a, a webinar, an event, a speaking gig, you know, to be the most persuasive and to sell something and to get people on board with your ideas, right? And so I'm there at the training and everything makes sense on paper. It is the right way to do it, it's the smart way to do it. And something just snapped And I was like, no, no, I don't want to do it that way. And particularly this guy's like, you gotta prepare, you gotta come up with your presentation ahead of time and you gotta practice it a lot and come up with these certain things that you do in every presentation. And I just felt this aversion inside and I was like, nah, I don't wanna do it that way. And then part of my mind was like, what do you mean you wanna do it that way? That's the only way to do it. It's stupid other way. Anything else is bad. And you know, it reminds me of how I would do these events, these three day teaching events, immersions that I would do. And I've been doing them for years. And the last handful we've done virtually remotely because of all that's happening in the world. And before that they were in person. And before every single event, I would spend a huge amount of time creating this really elaborate outline of I'm going to do this, I'm going to teach that, I'm going to do that down to like what I'd be trying to imagine, what I'd be saying. And inevitably, especially in the first couple hours of the first day, all that would just become like a clutter, full, annoying thing. I'd just kind of throw a lot of it away. And I realized, you know, if I were going to not hold anything back and not use the language of the cultural field and just use my own language, that felt most authentic and true for me, it would be this. That the less preparation I do, when I get to the moment of sharing and being with people and coaching and teaching, if I'm just there in the moment and whatever comes through me, comes through me, that's the best stuff. That's like divine conduit stuff. Like I'll say something, I'll be like, where did that come from? That was really good, right? Because what's happening is I'm feeding off of the person I'm interacting with, whether it's coaching or teaching. And some of it I'm feeding off of their direct question, but I'm also just feeding off of their energy and their emotion. And there's so much information that's being transferred back and forth and I realized like, oh, that's what I need to do. So my method actually involves the discipline to prepare less. And that just freaked a part of me out. It's like, what do you mean prepare less? That's terrible. And then I was reminded of this other phrase also from Donny Epstein, which he says is. He calls the edge of chaos. And it's this place to go when you need some instability, when you need some change in your life. You need to break things up or crack things open as you go to the edge of chaos. And I just love that phrase and love that concept. And I realized, like, oh, when it comes to teaching, I need to go to the edge of chaos. Like, this conversation, this thing that I'm sharing with you right now, I had a general idea of what I wanted to talk about, and absolutely no bullet points. It's just me in. You can see my office right now. I have, like, a corner. It's a soundproof building that I'm in, which I love. It's my studio, and I can record video here. And there's a corner that's got all my podcast and audio recording stuff. And so I, like, face into the corner. So I'm, like, talking to a dark corner of the room, and it's just flowing through. And I realized, like, oh, that's when the best stuff comes, whether it's this, whether it's writing, when I'm writing and I kind of get out of my own way, and then, boom, I'll just, like, start typing and stuff will happen. And I realized, like, oh, wait a minute. Oh, wait a minute. Instead of, like, trying to continually make myself more this other way, what I need to do is I need to get better at this way. And the best metaphor I came up with was the other day was when I was younger, I played a lot of guitar, and I first started with electric guitar because I wanted to learn how to play punk and Metallica, because Metallica was the first CD I ever bought, justice for All. And so I wanted to play some heavy, kajunk, kachunk, Metallica stuff. And I learned that. And then I eventually got into classical guitar, because I absolutely loved that and flamenco guitar. And so I played a ton of that. And particularly classical is about learning a piece and playing it a billion times until you can perform it flawlessly. And I don't think I was ever good enough to play, like, the complex classical stuff. I was trying to learn flawlessly. But I could play it. I could play it okay. But I still had hours and hours and hours and hours of trying to get that exact progression, making it sound perfect. And then there's another style of music that's jazz, where you just show up and you riff and you play with what's in front of you. I just realized I was like, oh, my Way right now at this point in my life is more like jazz and less like the pre planned classical stuff. And that's perfect. And I'm going to choose to trust in that way. And so even technically, if I prepared more to do these other things, I would have maybe better sales or better outcomes. It's like, well, maybe, maybe. I don't know though, because I feel like the more congruent and the more authentic you are, the more effective you are on all fronts. And I'm also okay with if I did this other preparation or did these other things, it could technically do better. But you know what? That's okay. I don't know if I need to maximize everything. What if it's about the dance and the play and the doing cool stuff? And so I wonder, as you're listening, where might you be holding yourself back or judging some way that you're being and thinking you're supposed to be another way, and then trying to pressure yourself or judge yourself or imagine what mom or dad would think or society would think or whatever would think. And just what if you just open up to the possibility of like, maybe I can do it more my way. And maybe my way is not the best way, but it's gonna feel the best. And you know, it's a conversation between you and life and the universe around you. So if you want to change or upgrade your way based upon feedback, great. And what about honoring it more and more and more? And what about getting better and better at doing it your way, doing you your way, expressing you your way. And the more you practice that, the better that expression comes. And then what opens up, what becomes possible for you when you are being not just more you, but like the maximum of that, the most fully expressed of that. Right? It's like the jazz, whatever jazz guitarist or jazz drummer or something, who's like not just doing jazz, but has been doing jazz for like 15 years. And like what emerges out of them? What, you know, kind of delightful, surprising magic comes through them because they practice that channeling of the moment of flow, of spontaneity, of the divine. And how could you do that? So that's a couple questions for you actually, as you listen here. One is, in general, it could be something totally different than what I'm talking about. It could be nothing to do about expressiveness and spontaneity and stuff. It could be about something else. Like you've always wanted to make more art in your life, or you've wanted to be able to choose a different way of doing different spiritual beliefs or something than your family of origin. So then that's a place for you to lean in. Then you can also look at this particular area of expressiveness because I think that's really relevant to almost everybody as well. And, you know, one person I drew on to give me support, to give me encouragement, to give me confidence in this area was not some teacher, was not some author, was not some guru. It was my 5 year old kid and his name is Arman. And he is in our house. First of all, talk about educaos. That kid's like the chaos factor in the house. Me and my wife Candice, and my older son Zaim, we all like order. We want things on shelves, we want things clean, we want things put in the right place. Makes us feel good. Armand, no, he's the chaos factor, right? Like, I'm gonna throw this over here and break this apart and see what happens. And that's really the name of the game. He wants to do stuff and see what happens. It's not about the most practical way, it's not about the best way. It's not about, you know, the most efficient way, certainly not the most logical way. It's what happens when I do blank. And then once he's figured it out and done the weird thing, once he's like, all right, I got it. You know, I've seen what happens when you put an apple in the air fryer. I see what happens when you, you know, we got this juicer and my wife juices, you know, various things, including celery juice and all these kinds of things, whatever. And one day we just got up, we got a pineapple, and he's like, I want to juice a pineapple. And the funny thing about his juicing is, like, every juice he makes, he doesn't drink. Even the stuff you think you would drink. Like, that's sweet. He'll make apple juice and he won't drink it. He'll make orange juice and he won't drink it. And he's like, I'm gonna make pineapple juice. And we're like, okay, we'll just make a little bit. Because you didn't drink the apple juice and you didn't drink the orange juice. And he's like, no, I need to make a lot. It's like, well, you're probably gonna waste the pineapple because. No, I need to make a lot. Like, okay, all right. So he makes a lot of pineapple. And they were doing that this morning when I went to work. And then I got in for lunch in my house. And I open up the fridge to get some food, and sure enough, there's a big glass of undrinken pineapple juice. And I was like, ah, it's the money factor. But instead of, like, judging it as bad, I just get a big smile on my face. Cause his mantra is like, I'm gonna do it myself. I'm gonna test it myself, I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna do it my way. And he just told my wife, literally two days ago, she texted me. Cause she's like, this is hilarious. You know what he said? Out of nowhere, they're driving somewhere, she's not asking him questions or anything. And out of nowhere, he's in the back seat and he says, mom, I just need to. I'm the kind of person that needs to do things to see what happens. I just need to do things to see what happens. She laughs. She's like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. You do do that. And he's like, yeah, so talk about knowing himself. And I heard that. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, me too. I just need to do stuff, see what happens. So hopefully this gives you more space and more permission to be you. And so you want to. Whether it's dating or relationships or finances or creation or writing or music or life path choices or philosophy or spiritual choices or preferences and how you want to be and who you want to be. Like, do it your way. I'm going to be the kind of person who just does things and figures out it's not the best way. It might not be every other person's way. Someone else might be able to have a smarter, more rational reason and have better results. But you know what? That's not for me. I got to do it my way. So before we conclude for today, let's talk about how to put this in action. Time for action. Action. Action. Well, your action step is to find one way to do something your way in the next day or so. It could be something real small, could be something bigger. But the goal is that you intentionally, consciously notice, like, okay, I'm gonna do this my way. And it might feel like a bit of a risk. Like, to me, I went and tested it out with a training where I went into this training I was gonna give. And I went in and I brainstormed for about 10 minutes ahead of time. I took a few notes, but I didn't have a bullet point. I'm going to say this at this moment, and at 12:10, I'm going to say this and that. It was just wide open and man I loved it. I just felt so connected and it was jazz and it was beautiful. But leading up to it I was kind of anxious. I was like oh boy, here we go, I'm doing it wrong. But the more you test it, the more you realize you know what, it's actually maybe right. Certainly right for me. Alright, fantastic. Thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon. 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. Sa.
