The Courage To Be Vulnerable

Coming to you from the center for Social Confidence in Portland, Oregon. Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy, Helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination with your host, Dr. Aziz. Hey, welcome to today's episode of Shrink for the Shy Guy. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz. And today's episode is going to be covering the two most powerful forces that influence you on a daily basis. They absolutely affect your sense of shyness or fear or self doubt or social anxiety. And on the flip side, they strongly affect your sense of confidence, belief in yourself, liking and loving who you are. And these things are so powerful that I think if you can get a handle on both of these two areas, you can radically transform from shyness to confidence. In fact, that is the path from shyness to confidence. And these two forces, although they're incredibly powerful, are rarely talked about. They're things that we don't really want to talk about, we don't really want to think about it, and the last thing we want to do is share one of these things with someone else. I don't know if you have a guess at this point what these two forces are, but I'll share them with you now. It's shame and vulnerability. Shame is that sense of I'm not good enough. And if you listen to one of the earlier podcast episodes, when I talk about the cause of shyness, I believe shame is the cause of shyness or is at the root of shyness. And shame is an experience of feeling in your body, a squeezing, dropping, heavy, tight feeling, usually in your throat, chest, solar plexus, or stomach, and a mental thought stream about why you're not good enough. Perhaps you replay an incident in your mind where you fell short and you have this cringy sensation. And combined with that, it's just this overwhelming sensation, this feeling, this knowing of, I'm not good enough, I'm wrong, I'm bad, I'm unlovable, people won't like me, what's wrong with me? And that shame. And shame occurs when we fall short of some way that we believe we're supposed to be. And we'll get into what triggers shame in a little bit here, but first we have to identify it and define it. And the interesting thing about shame is the Latin word from which it's derived means to cover. And that's exactly what we want to do when we feel shame. We want to cover it up. We want to. You know, I had one friend who described it. She was a guitarist, and she said, you know, sometimes I go out there and it's amazing. And I love what I do. And sometimes I feel like I just want to crawl into a deep, dark hole where no one will ever find me. And I deserve to be in that hole. And that was her description of shame. And maybe you felt that. Maybe you felt that after you try to talk to a woman and she's not interested, and you feel like, I just want to crawl into a deep, dark hole. I belong there. No one loves me. No one could love me. I'm a wretch. Maybe it's been another incident, but I know you know what I'm talking about. And it's also a little uncomfortable. It's like, ugh, I don't want to feel that. In fact, most of the time, we spend most of our day trying to get away from that feeling, don't we? Like, oh, God, I don't feel good enough. I better work harder. If someone doesn't like me, I feel a sense of shame, so I better make sure everyone likes me. So we have all these strategies, all these ways that we try to overcome shame and not touch it, not feel it, not talk about it. But that's what I want to do today, is talk about it. Because it's only through talking about it that you can identify it and then become free of it. And I want to attribute a lot of this. This podcast was influenced by a researcher named Brene Brown. And if you haven't heard of her, I strongly suggest going to Google and just typing in her name, Brene B R E N E Brown, as in the color, and watch one of her TED Talks, or better yet, get one of her books. Daring Greatly is a great one, just came out not too long ago. She really goes in depth into shame and vulnerability, and it's very influential, very powerful, very inspiring. Especially if this is something that you struggle with, feeling low about yourself and at the same time, not wanting to share that, wanting to keep that hidden. So let's actually get into the second piece, which is vulnerability. So vulnerability, what is that? Shame is that sense that I'm not good enough. Vulnerability is a willingness to share. In fact, the actual definition of vulnerability in a dictionary is something along the lines of being open to attack or having an opening or vulnerability exposed to attack. And that's really what we feel like, right, if we're going to be vulnerable is that we could be hurt, we could be attacked. So what is being vulnerable? Well, being vulnerable is really putting yourself out there, knowing that someone could reject you, knowing that you could experience some sort of pain. That's really what I distill vulnerability down to, is doing something even though, you know you could feel pain. And that means many things can cause a feeling of vulnerability. Just sharing what you're really thinking in a conversation can be vulnerable because you could be judged, sharing who you are, perhaps a sexual preference if you're gay or something other than what the sort of straight and narrow norm of heterosexuality is. People, I feel a lot of fear around being judged around that. And unfortunately with good cause, because there's a lot of people that will really harshly criticize someone for being gay. Falling in love is vulnerable, isn't it? Because you put yourself out there and hey, what if this person doesn't like me back? That's pain. Or what if they like me back? But then, geez, now we're together, but geez, what if they break up with me? Or you're married, you love each other, you're in it for the long haul. But what if they die? How do I love this person knowing that they could die at any moment? That's just incredible vulnerability. That's actually my vulnerability edge right now is with my wife. And I'm going to be having a new son and just loving these people so much, but knowing on some level that, you know, I can't control what happens and that she could die, my wife could die, my son could die, and yet how to love fully, wholeheartedly, opening my heart fully and giving myself to them, knowing that that could happen. Tremendous vulnerability. Just in living is tremendous vulnerability. So to really live is to be vulnerable. And that's how I mean. And I can go on with lists. I'm hoping you're thinking of what causes vulnerability for you. Asking someone out for a date, trying to initiate sex with your partner, giving a talk, giving a presentation, sharing your ideas at work, taking on a new business, taking on a new position. Anything in that realm that you put yourself out there requires vulnerability. So we have shame and we have vulnerability. And they're so related, aren't they? Because what stops us from being vulnerable? What would stop you from asking that woman out or from stepping up and giving that presentation? It's shame, right? Fear of doing it wrong. Fear of that feeling that you'd have afterwards of being terrible and unlovable and not good enough and bad and wrong. So our fear of that feeling causes us to not be vulnerable, causes us to hold back, restrict ourselves, tighten ourselves, not share ourselves. And my question for you is, is that bad? Is there anything wrong with that? Is there anything lost when we don't share ourselves. How does it affect your life to be holding back and inhibiting yourself? And if you're listening to this and you identify with, you know what, I want to have more confidence. I hold myself back, I'm shy, or I have self doubt, or I'm not taking on that next big project, or really doing what I really want to do and following that with a passion, then my guess is we have a vulnerability problem on our hands. Actually, it's probably a vulnerability willingness problem, a willingness to be vulnerable problem. And so the first thing we need to address is, well, why on earth would someone want to be vulnerable? In fact, when I've talked about this with a few clients, they kind of get this grimace look on their face. I remember one guy, I was sharing something with him, and I'll get into this in the next section here about a way to be more vulnerable with his wife. And as I was sharing this, he just started to shake his head like he wasn't saying anything. And he was kind of doing it unconsciously, like his mouth was slightly open and he was just shaking his head like, oh no. Oh no. So that's our reaction to vulnerability. So we gotta look at that. Because if we're that scared of vulnerability, it means we're that scared of shame, it means we're buying into shame. So the next section here I'm going to talk about the thoughts around vulnerability, its value, what gets in the way of us being vulnerable and really how to deal with shame. Because if you can't deal with shame, then you're not going to let yourself be vulnerable. So you have to learn how to manage that feeling, overcome that feeling, free yourself from the grips of fear, of shame. So stay with me. We're going to have one little break right now. We're going to get back into all those things right right after this. Are you tired of feeling stuck and helpless when it comes to meeting women? Well, I'm going to show you one powerful technique that will make her absolutely go crazy for you. I mean, she'll become so addicted to you that she won't be able to help herself. I started using this technique and I was sleeping with over 45 women a month. Does that sound too good to be true? Well, it probably is. I'm Dr. Aziz from the center for Social Confidence. And there is so much stuff on the Internet that is frankly garbage and really doesn't teach men how to create awesome relationships from a place of knowing that they're valuable. And that's my intention for you is to learn how to increase your self esteem, how to improve your social confidence to the point where, where sure, you can get into relationships, you can meet women, you can go on fun dates. But it's all coming from a place where you are fully confident in yourself and who you are. And you don't need to use any strange scripts or techniques or any other pickup artist stuff. So check out SocialConfidenceCenter.com to start your journey into greater social confidence all by being yourself. Welcome back. Let's start with a question. Why is it better to not be vulnerable? Right? Because that's how we operate. We don't, we aren't vulnerable. So on some level we think it's better to not be. It's better to keep our front up. It's better to keep looking put together. And the reason that often we think it's better to not be vulnerable is because we think to be vulnerable to share when something tender or that we're not sure about or that we're struggling with equals what? Come on. You know the word starts with a W. Especially for men. We're trained to think that vulnerability equals weakness, right? Weakness. Don't be weak. Suck it up. Be strong. You know, so if a little kid is crying on a soccer field, you know, pull it together, stop being so weak, you know, or if you're talking with your buddies and you're like, you know, you're in high school or something and you're like, I want to talk to her, but I'm so nervous. I just feel so full of self doubt. And what do your buddies say? Oh, come on man, don't be wuss, don't be weak. In other words, just go do it. And over time, we condition we get conditioned by the world around us to think that to not know how to do something, to fear rejection, to get rejected, to fail in any way is weakness. And if we do that, we're mocked by our peers, we're ridiculed. We have the fear that we're going to be fully outcasted, rejected, wholesale. And so we want to avoid that vulnerability at all costs. But my question for you is, what is the cost of avoiding that vulnerability? What is the downside? I was working with a client and he made major strides. I mean, he started out in a place of he could not even make eye contact. One of our earliest sessions, I had us just look at each other in silence for 60 seconds. I timed it because I noticed that before then he could not really sustain any eye contact with me in Sessions, he was wanting to work on being more confident and connecting with people and really stepping into himself. And I was thinking, well, if he can't make eye contact, then he's not going to be able to be confident in the world. So the first place to start was with eye contact and with me. So we did a little experiment where he just looked at me and I looked at him for 60 seconds. And, I mean, it would have looked like this guy was going through some sort of G force experiment in the Air Force or training for NASA or something. Like, he was, like, gripping his seat, his knuckles were turning white, and he was kind of tilting his head a little, and his lip was shaking and starting to sweat. And then afterwards, I asked him. He made it. He made it the 60 seconds. And I asked him how it was, and he said, I felt like I was starting to have a panic attack, and I had to start focusing on my breathing. And he'd actually experienced some panic attacks, and we'd worked on that earlier, so he knew some techniques to help calm his panic. But he was almost gonna have a panic attack doing this eye contact exercise. And actually after that session, I thought I spent the next 10 minutes just basically talking him down and helping him through a panic attack. And I remember thinking after that session, like, oh, geez, I broke him. I pushed him too far. I pushed him too hard. And it actually turned out it was a turning point because he came back the next session and he just had a profound realization, and something snapped in that session that allowed him throughout that week to just look at people a lot more. Something clicked, and it was very powerful for him. So he'd broken through that he was making more eye contact, he was starting to interact with people more. In fact, he really started to develop a deeper, broader friend network. And he actually started to be the hub of his friend group where he would organize things. Before, he was always the guy on the outside who was kind of just waiting. If people really liked me, they would invite me. But then through our conversations, he realized, oh, I can invite people. I can take the initiative. It's vulnerable, though, right? So he was developing some vulnerability, willing to ask for what he wanted. And we were just starting to get into the realm of dating and relationships. But one thing, he came to me and he said, I don't have any deep friends. I got more people I know now, more people I'd call friends, but I don't have anyone I can talk to when stuff's going wrong. I don't really want to have anyone Who I know has got my back. I don't know if I'm doing great and I'm happy and I'm upbeat and I want to go drinking or whatever. I have a dozen people I can call. But if I just want to talk about what's going on in my life, I don't have anyone. And I said, okay, well, that's great. You've overcome the first hurdle of putting yourself out there. Now we got to go to the next level, which is develop those deep connections. And we talked about how that might happen, and the V word came up, the dreaded V word. Vulnerability. How do you develop a connection where, you know, you can talk about what's going on in your life with someone? The only way to do that is to find a person that you imagine is going to be receptive, that has earned that right. You know, someone you've hung out with a number of times, and you like their vibe. They don't seem overly judgmental or harsh, and you take a risk. You take a shot. You say something like, you know, and at this time, the reason you want to develop these friendships, one of the reasons is, was he was really struggling with dating and relationships, terrified to talk to women. And I always encouraged him, like, you know, if you do this stuff with a buddy, not just talking to women, but just little social experiments that I talk all about. You know, kind of like my action steps, like, go out and ask 10 people what time it is kind of thing. You know, if you do that with a friend, it's a lot more fun. You know, it doesn't feel like work. It's kind of a game. And he's like, well, I don't have a friend that I can go do that stuff with. I said, really? You're a young guy. I know a lot of men at any age, but especially in their early 20s, don't feel like they have a handle on talking to women. I mean, that's the norm, not the exception. So I bet if you talk to one of your acquaintances or friends that they would be happy to. He just kind of stared at me as I said that and blinked a few times. And he's like, wait, you want me to tell one of my friends that I am too anxious to talk to women? And I said, yeah, right. You don't have to end it there. You can say, I'm wanting to work on it, and I'd love to do some experiments or try some things with you. What's your experience with women? Are you satisfied in your confidence and Ability to talk to them. Again, I got a blank stare. And I thought for a moment I was like, am I speaking unclearly or am I not communicating well? And then I realized that he got it. It just produced so much fear in him that he kind of had like a freeze reaction. You know, fight, fight or flight. Fight, flight or freeze. He had a freeze reaction to this. Like, oh, my God, you actually want me to just share that with someone? So tremendous fear about being vulnerable. And this isn't unique to him. This is a problem for many people in our society, including women, but I think especially for men, this tremendous fear around being vulnerable. And you would not believe how many men I talk to who have friends, people they would even consider their best buddies, but they can't talk to them about what's really going on. They can't talk to them if they're having a challenge with their girlfriend or wife or partner. They can't talk to them if they're single and they're feeling lonely and they really want to meet someone, but they can't, or they can't talk to them if they feel like they're falling short at their job and they're worried about getting fired. They can't talk to them if they just connected with a woman and they were going to make love, but then they had a problem with her keeping an erection because they used a condom. I mean, these are really vulnerable things, right? But so it's like, oh, my God, I could never, ever share that. If I share that with my friends, you know what they would do to me. They would never let me live it down. And if that's your setup, which is what my setup was when I was younger, you know, in high school and into college, if I'd shared anything with friends, they would have been ridiculed mercilessly. And I just thought that's how it is. In fact, there's a South park episode where they just say, that's just how guys are. That's just what guys do. And I really challenge that. I disagree. I mean, sure, kind of busting balls and teasing each other is something I do with my friends now. And it's great. But my friends can tell me anything about what's going on with them, and I feel the same way. And when you have that in your life, then you're held, you're supported. That sense of not being good enough, not being lovable, that sense of shame is healed when you can reveal something that you're stuck with, that you're challenging with. And a Person that you. A friend that you know and love can hear you and support you and not criticize or attack you or distance themselves by saying, well, it's never happened to me. I remember when I was, jeez, this must have been early college. And that was. I didn't sleep with a woman until I got to college. I was a late bloomer and a lot of social anxiety. But I. I remember I had an experience with a woman and we got together and it was just that exact experience I described where it seemed like it was going well. And then I reached for a condom and then lost my erection. And that had never happened to me before. Not because I'm such a stud, but because I hadn't slept with that many women because it was my second woman that I slept with. And I remember feeling flooded with shame. Oh, my God. Because how many messages do we get as men about sex? And, you know, there's a powerful book called the New male sexuality by Dr. Barry Zimmerman where he talks about all the myths that we absorb from our culture as men about how we're supposed to be sexually. And one of them is, he calls the chapter, you know, it's two feet long, hard as steel or something like that. And that's this idea that we're supposed to be this virile man who's always ready for sex and always performs and all this stuff. And so I had all those messages in my head and this thing happens to me and she was okay with it. She didn't shame me or mock me. I just felt this like, I gotta get out of here. I'm a failure. So, you know, I think I held it together for a while and then I left. And then a few days later, I was talking to one of my friends, and this was in my non vulnerable friend days. But I was like, so distressed. I had to tell someone and so I just didn't tell him. Actually, I asked him because I didn't want to be that vulnerable. And I said, have you ever been with a woman and tried to use a condom and then lost your erection? And he's like, no. And I was like, oh, cool. You know, I just felt too embarrassed. And who knows, maybe he felt embarrassed, but I don't remember the stats, but I remember looking at them a while back, and it's a very high number. And I've learned so much about how much that that is related. You know, our ability to get an erection is related to. Connected to my heart and my feelings towards the person I'm with. And there's so much there to get into. And that's probably a whole other episode. But this is just an example of that level of vulnerability. And I know that there's some of you out there who are listening right now, and your jaw is slightly open. You're just kind of subtly shaking your head. You're like, no effing way am I going to ever say anything like that to anyone. And that's fine. That is totally your choice. That is totally your right. But here's the thing. If you keep all that stuff inside and you don't share it with anyone, you are continuing to feed the shame monster. And we're gonna get into that in the next segment. We're gonna talk about the shame monster, what triggers shame and how to break free of it, how to be free of that sense that you're not good enough. So stay with it. We'll be right back in one second. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much courage do you have? 10. Being a maximum amount of courage of boldness, of willingness to do something in spite of your fears. How courageous do you feel? What would your life be like if you had more courage? What would you be able to do to try to take on? Who would you be able to meet, become friends with, or even become lovers with? The secret about courage is it's a skill. It's something that you can practice and develop over time. And once you understand this and learn the steps to building your courage, your life will transform dramatically. To learn exactly how to generate this courage, check out Confidence Unleashed. It's an eight week interactive confidence training program that teaches you, step by step how to get the courage you need to create the life that you want. Go to confidenceunleashednow.com to find out more. Hey, welcome back. Now we're going to talk about shame triggers. What causes you to feel shame? Shame is caused by when you do something and it falls short of an expectation that you have for yourself. An expectation that was set by your parents, by society, by your family, by your religious organizations, by your school, by the culture, the general kind of media and culture that you've absorbed around you. These can be things like the example I said before, like a man should always be ready for sex. A man should never have any problems maintaining an erection. Maybe you have the expectation for yourself, I should never desire another woman if I'm in a relationship. Maybe you have the expectation of I should not be afraid to go talk to a woman. Or, or if I do go talk to a woman, she should give Me her number and if I don't get her number, it means I'm a failure. So you really want to look at what are the expectations you have for yourself? And the best way to find out what these are is to notice when you feel shame. If you, you know, if you're all of a sudden you notice and the first thing to do is just be able to identify it. You just, you're having a bad feeling, you feel bad, you feel really, really shitty. That's what shame feels like. You feel rotten, you feel like I'm worthless, I can't do anything, my life's not going anywhere, I'm unlovable. Take a moment and say am I feeling shame? And look for it. Is there a sense of I'm bad, I'm wrong, I'm unlovable? And then look for what expectation am I not meeting? And you'll find it. Maybe you should be making more money. Maybe you should. When you leave work, you should be happy and upbeat. You shouldn't be stressed out. Maybe you should never be upset with anyone. Maybe you should never feel annoyed. Maybe you should have been more assertive and not been passive in the way you were. Maybe you shouldn't have been so assertive and you come across as too forceful and you feel shame around that. I mean it can be endless and you can have multiple triggers. So the key is to start to identify what are those shame triggers? What makes me feel shame? What expectation? Did I just break and then really look at that expectation? Is that really realistic that I should never get upset? Is that realistic that I should never feel stressed out or never feel anxious, you know, looking at and questioning it? But that's only part of it because the true antidote to shame is being able to identify it. And then here's the part that you're not going to like if you don't like the V word is to be vulnerable and share that with someone else. We heal together. You know, I've read Geez over the last 12 years, maybe 150 to 200 books, graduate school and also this voracious habit of self help and listening to audios and everything. Just hundreds of books and they've been really powerful information that I've really shared that used in my own life to help me and shared with others to really positive effects. But none of those books produced transformation. They were just information, they're ideas. Transformation comes between other people. My true transformations came in my life when I was working with a therapist or working with a coach or in a men's group. And I was sharing myself and what my challenges were, and the other person could hear me and respond with empathy rather than judgment. That is what cured and healed so much of my shame. And here's the thing. It's an ongoing process. It's not like, oh, I'm healed and now I'm shame free. No, shame comes back. And in each stage of your life, shame could come back. But now I've learned that the process is, oh, okay, I identified. I'm feeling shame. Oh, okay, let me work with this. What expectation did I fall short of? Well, that seems pretty unrealistic. Okay, let me talk about this with someone. And I have a. A list of people in my life that I've cultivated, starting with my wife. I chose a woman who has an incredible capacity. I mean, she was my teacher, my coach before we got together. So she's at the next level, and I just am always grateful for that. But I can talk about this stuff with her, or I have a number of close male friends that I've cultivated relationships of honesty and vulnerability where we can talk about this stuff and we kind of get in this mode. It's like, oh, he's gonna tell me something. Oh, it's gonna be vulnerable. Okay, let me relate to that. And if you're wanting to know how to be on the other end of this, if someone is sharing something with you that they clearly can feel shame around, or you could guess that they're feeling shame around, here's what not to do. Which is the most common response. Give, like, some really bad advice and kind of as if they're messed up. Oh, well, geez, you should have just done X, Y, and Z, because that just feels terrible. You need to empathize. And the way they say that in men's groups and other things is identify with what they're feeling. Find something in what they're saying that you too can identify with. Like, oh, man, I've been that way before too. Or your friend sharing, like, how he was going to talk to this woman and he did, and then, you know, he asked her on a date and she said, like, no. Instead of saying, oh, well, geez, man, why didn't you do this? Instead you say, oh, God, I've been there. And hopefully you have find that place in your experience where you can identify. And this is a much, much deeper topic. So we'll probably have to get into this in another episode. But these are just some general tips for how to start addressing the shame. Finding your shame triggers, letting go of the expectations and then revealing it. Being vulnerable. I hope that's one thing you're going to take away from this episode, is the power of being vulnerable and what that can do in your life and how it can transform your relationships and also your own relationship with yourself, how you feel about yourself. So as we get to the end of this episode, here, it is time for your action step. Time for action. The most powerful action of all. Be vulnerable. That's actually what today's action step is. I want you to think of someone in your life, your closest friend, your wife, your girlfriend, a sibling that you're close to, someone that you maybe someone you work with, who you have a really good relationship with. And I want you to take a risk and be vulnerable with this person. Look for that opportunity. Look for that thing, you know, like you. You're feeling really down that day, and you go up to meet up with your friend, and he says, how's it going? And instead of saying, you kind of pump yourself up before you hang out with them and say, oh, it's doing pretty good, man. Let's grab a beer. Yeah, you say, oof, man, it's been a rough day. Been down all day. And see how they respond. See how people respond. Really start to put yourself out there. And the biggest fear I hear from people is, well, what if it goes poorly? What if they say something that makes me feel terrible? What if they say, oh, come on, man, suck it up, have a beer. That's good information. That is good information. Because if you are truly being yourself and sharing who you are in the world and you get negative responses that make you feel bad, you're going to start to question, do I want to be vulnerable with this person again? And it doesn't mean you have to cut off friendship. You might just have a more superficial friendship, but you are also getting information about what level you can have that friendship at. And if you're anything like me, I think you know on some deep level that you want those close friends, those chosen family members, people that got your back no matter what, and then you have theirs. And there's this deep bond, and that's only cultivated through vulnerability and through you taking the first risk. So that's your action step for today, is take that first risk and let me know how it goes. Send an email to Dr. Aziz at shrinkfortheshy guy. I'd love to hear how it goes. I always love the vulnerability stories. Good or bad, it's information either way. It's just an experiment. So thanks for listening. And I look forward to speaking with you in the next episode of Shrink for the Shy Guy.