The Key To Deep Inner Worthiness And Lasting Happiness with Noah Elkrief

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 am excited to share a really fascinating and engaging interview I did with a man named Noah Elcrief, who I have learned from for a while myself and was very excited to have him on the show and just learned even more in my conversation with him. So I'm very excited to share that with you because what we really dive into and spend a lot of time focusing on is this way that we can struggle with feeling like we're inadequate, not good enough, not worthy, not. Not quite there yet too small, haven't arrived. Whatever the language you use for it, it's this sense of that we're not okay or complete and how much we can be trying to run from that feeling, how much we can be striving to overcome that feeling, how much we can not do what we want to do or put ourselves out there because we think, hey, I'm not worthy anyway. It can just really affect us in every area of life. And when it comes to confidence, I mean, oftentimes we're dealing with a lot of that feeling. And then even sometimes our pursuit to become more confident is about proving something and getting there. And I'm going to fix something inside of me. And what I love about what Noah teaches and what you'll hear in this interview is there's just not this inherent brokenness. In fact, that's what we start with in the interview. You're not inherently broken, you're not inherently inadequate, and that these are things just to realize and to let go of. So. So let's save the time for this episode to go right into that interview. I can't wait to share that with you. And let's begin. My guest expert today is Noah Elcrief, and he's a man who's dedicated his life to living from his authentic self. This has taken him on a journey to heal and let go of an extraordinary amount of painful beliefs and emotions. Noah supports others to live more freely, peacefully and happily through offering one on one counseling sessions, group workshops, as well as by sharing his insights on his YouTube channel and in his book, A Guide to the Present Moment. Noah, welcome to the show and thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me.

So I have a lot of questions for you. I came across your work maybe two or three years ago and I'm sure you've heard this from people before. They who knows how a video pops up in YouTube, right? But a video pops up and it was about social anxiety, which is what I teach and help people with. So I was like, oh, what are his thoughts? And I loved your approach. And then I started to kind of tumbled into more videos. And what I love about what you teach is it's not just how to solve problem A or B. It's a whole way of being in the world that allows you to resolve all that different suffering about all these different issues. And so I became very intrigued and started to study and apply. And so I'm very excited for people listening who are not familiar with you, who will get to know you and what you teach and how it can serve them. So maybe as a starting point, you know, you teach people how to be more present and maybe, actually I'll let you say it in your words, People that you work with, you teach through your videos. What do you help them to be able to do or experience?

You know, you can frame it in basically two different ways. So one is the positive. Like I help people to live more freely, peacefully, joyously, lovingly, open hearted in the flow, that kind of thing. Or in the reverse angle, I help people to let go of their unworthiness and inadequacy, anxiety, loneliness and those types of things.

And would you say that the second thing kind of leads to the first thing, like letting go of all of those things?

That's the way that I deal with it. You know, everybody has their own way, but the way that it's worked in my life is the way that I share it with others. And the way that I deal with things is it's kind of like I'm naturally peaceful, joyous or free or open hearted. And in any moment that I notice I'm not, I look to see what's going on, I undo it and. And then I am naturally going to be more peaceful or free in that situation in the future because I've undone the wound or the belief that was creating pain in the moment. It's sort of this fundamental Idea that we are naturally free and happy and we just have to undo the wounds that cause contraction in our system.

I like a couple things in there. One is that the perspective that the natural state is this wholeness and peace, which is a much. It's a better frame to come from than like, there's something wrong with me that I have to fill up or fix. And then I love that your use of the word undone. It's again, it kind of doesn't have that maybe arduous climb sound that I gotta, you know, work this through or even heal can sometimes sound good, but it can have a connotation around, like there's something really messy messed up that we have to overcome. And there's a lightness to the way that you describe it. So let's really get in there for people listening. So there you are in the moment and you notice, like, I feel something. Let's say you feel anxiety. And you said, then I want to see how to undo it. And there's a belief or a wound that I can undo. What's your process? How would you start to look for what to undo?

Yeah, so it's very intuitive. It's like this beautiful combination of being intuitive, compassion combined with experience combined with wisdom, combined with some skill, let's say. And so when I notice the contraction, like you said, maybe anxiety, the first thing I do is stop. I stop what I'm doing when I get the chance. Maybe I can't in the moment because I'm involved in an interaction of some kind. So the first chance I get, I stop and I sit with it. Normally, the response when we have anxiety is to either escape, you know, whether it's computer or food or whatever, or to change the situation to try to not feel the anxiety. So try to get out of the situation we're in. Whereas my at this point, immediate, natural response is to look to see what's going on. Like, my body's in fear. What is it? What does it think that I'm in? Like, what situation does my body believe that I'm in right now? So I will stop, be with it, and first I meet it, right? Like, what's happening here? What's going on in my head? What's going on in my body? And from there it can go in many different directions. I might see that what I intuitively feel like doing is finding the root of it. So I might just look back and see when is the first time I ever felt this. And then undo something in that first moment. I might intuitively Feel that I just need to express the fear. And I might kind of like start breathing really fast, like, really letting out the fear. I might need to scream. I might need to punch something. I might recognize that it's not mine, that it came from my parents, and I will just really quickly and easily give it back to them. I might notice that I'm attached to it, that it's something that I used at one point to get attention and love, and I no longer need to. So I just undo the attachment. I might notice there's a belief in my head and I could just see what it is and recognize that it's not valid, logically true. Undo it. And then the fear dissolves. So there's many different ways. That's just a few that could happen when anxiety arises within me.

I love that. And those options, the kind of which you go with is guided by intuition, experience and wisdom. And sort of having practiced this for a long time.

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, this is my life. Like, I don't do it as a. You know, it's a hobby. It's a passion. It's like what I stand for. It's really. It's every moment of every day. Right. Like, I'm. I love to live freely, and I also love to undo wounds. I love to undo pain. For me, it's like. I don't know, it's just, like. It's just fun. It's interesting. It's fascinating. So. So I've become quite good at it.

Yeah. And I imagine that the experience of the release, of the freedom that can come as you undo it is very reinforcing. That feels naturally, very good.

Yeah. Yeah. With me, everything is instant. Like, it's not. It's instant or it's nothing at all. Like, it's never gradual, really. Like, if all. If something comes up, I can either find it within a few minutes and it's undone. And so I have the immediate. The proof is in the pudding. Right. So if I'm in a situation and I feel anxiety and then I stop, maybe I go to the bathroom or go outside, I deal with it, then I go back inside and I feel no anxiety. It's done. Right. Like, you know, it's done because your experience is very different. And so I just love to then feel more free to open my heart, to be myself, to be able to listen to others and really beautiful. And the other way is sometimes I can't find the cause. Right. So sometimes anxiety or insecurity will come up and I look to see what's happening and I can't find the cause or I'm too scared to go there or whatever. And I make no progress at all in the moment. And that's really a big part of the process is being really humble and gentle with yourself when you can't do it, which happens.

And then in that case, do you just sort of allow it and try to keep going about your day? What is your approach then?

Yeah, so let's say anxiety or insecurity arises and I look to see what's going on and maybe I can't identify the cause, maybe I can't unhook it, undo it, maybe I'm too scared to feel it in that moment. And it took me a really long time to get this. I just, I don't know. You could say unconsciously I ask myself, is this okay? Like, can I be okay with this right now? You know, I have fear. Okay, does that mean like I'm inadequate or unworthy because I fail? Does it mean I'm bad if I, if I have it? Like, okay, it's preventing me in some way from having happiness and love in this moment. And that's okay. So it's, it's really, you know, a lot of us get into self help or dealing with our emotions from a place of non acceptance, either non acceptance of ourselves or non acceptance of our emotions. And I have really deep programming that emotions are not good. Like the only thing that's lovable is happiness. And so it's about recognizing I'm still worthy and lovable and okay. Even if I have anger or sadness or anxiety or whatever else in the moment.

Yeah, I love that because there's the discomfort of whatever the anxiety sensations are, the fear, and then there's the pain of the judgment about it. Like, oh, this means, this means I'm not worthy or I'm not good enough yet. And my wife is really good at helping me see when I'm doing that. In fact, just this morning I was talking with her. I have a live event workshop coming up relatively soon. And my experience with those habitually, even though I've done a lot of them now, maybe 15 or something, usually two to three weeks ahead of time, I'll start to feel energy in my body that sometimes is fear. Sometimes it just feels like buzzy, agitated, like my body doesn't want to be still inside. It's sort of, I want to look for distractions. There's something going on there. And I had this and the sensation is actually not that bad. It's not that Intense. But what made the suffering was the story that, oh, eventually I do enough of these events and then this will go away. This means that I'm not good enough in some way. If I was super confident and super good enough, then I wouldn't have any of these sensations. And what was amazing is like the, as soon as I saw that, she helped me see that and I let that go. I mean that reduced the discomfort. About 90 to 95% just became, oh, this is a mild sensation to work with. And so I'm amazed at how much the pain can come from the shame or the other meanings that we're loading on top of our sensations.

Yeah, I completely get that. And usually what happens. So like you said, so first we have this original emotion, the sensation of anxiety, and then we have this layer on top of it, the shame about our anxiety, the non acceptance of it. And I find that once we accept the emotion, it makes it much easier to undo it. You understand? So when you have the layer of non acceptance and shame on top of it, you're not looking at the deeper emotion clearly because you're seeing it through the filter of rejection. So I can undo things much quicker and easier these days because I'm seeing the emotion from objectivity instead of from how do I get rid of you? Like, you're bad, I don't want you here. Like, whatever. If you're seeing it through that filter, you're not coming from your full clarity and spaciousness.

Absolutely. And there's going to be a limit to being able to see clearly. Right. Because it's like, well, you're kind of positioning. At least I've seen the find this for me. It's like whatever I'm looking to discover is, is like, well, I don't want to see that about myself or I don't can't kind of guard it and defend it. And it really doesn't work nearly as well or at all really. And so what about for someone listening who is like, okay, that makes sense. How do I make that shift towards more acceptance of the emotion? Because, you know, let's say someone listening, it's like my anxiety doesn't feel like mild, it feels very, I am very frustrated that I get so nervous before talking to somebody or that I, that I failed at that, you know, goal that I was going for and didn't get the, whatever the sale or the outcome, I feel very upset about that. How would you start to help them open to more surrender and acceptance of those feelings?

Yeah, I, the first question is like what problem do I have with the anxiety? Like, what's my issue with it? Like, if anxiety was like a person, right? Like, what's my issue with it? What do I have against it? Is it that it ruins my ability to perform well at work? Is it that it makes it harder for me to enjoy interactions? Or is it that it's physically uncomfortable? Or is it that I feel stupid and weak when I have anxiety, like I'm a failure for having it? Or is it that I think others will judge me and, and reject me if they see I have it? So it's the first major thing is what do I have against it? And maybe all of those. And then once you've identified what specific problem you have with the anxiety, then that would determine how you would pursue it from there. So, for example, if the problem was you're afraid of being rejected when you have anxiety, like so many people have anxiety about their social anxiety, right? Because when you have the social anxiety, you feel like you're weak and awkward and stupid and whatever, and that everyone will see that and judge you. So I would look to see why do I think anxiety is stupid? Like, why do I think that makes me bad? And usually that traces back to something in our childhood when, you know, let's say every time we're afraid, when we're a child, afraid of anything around the house or whatever, did our parents like, just give us love and say it's okay to be afraid? Or they say stop being afraid, they get uncomfortable, they feel like a failure, they reject us because they're like, it's illogical what this guy is afraid of right now, right? Or they try to make us feel better so they can feel better. Whatever the case may be, we implicitly were rejected when we had fear, when we had anxiety. And so there are different ways that we can then undo that. So one would be one very like. One of the easiest ways to let go of emotions is to see that the belief, the energy of non acceptance didn't come from you, for example, it came from your mother. And you could just imagine that belief. Imagine that energy of non acceptance flowing out of you and back to your mother. And it might sound a little woo woo, airy fairy, but like the results speak for themselves. If you can really tap into that and feel it, or to tell the child, like the child unconsciously makes a conclusion, even if he didn't hear it explicitly, that my mother doesn't love me if I have fear, she gets mad at me, she rejects me, she tries to get rid of it. And so we tell the child, we clear up the confusion within the child that your fear is not unlovable. Your fear is, okay, I love you, even if you have fear and let them really get that energetic reference point for what is the truth. That fear doesn't make you unlovable.

Yeah, that is powerful. Giving back what's not yours and then re parenting yourself inside that part of you with the words and encouragement and love and support that maybe you didn't receive when you were young. And I see that often in clients and people there's a realization of that and then like sometimes even an attempt to have their parents become and be able to do that later on in life. And they often don't get it, you know, and they don't see that the, the source doesn't have to be the literal parent. Now in this moment, you can provide that and it can be profoundly relieving to really create more permission for those emotions.

Yeah, more acceptance and permission. And it's about being the mother and father to ourselves. If we're looking for it from our parents, we're looking for it from every man and woman in our life. And it's about shifting our way of dealing with our emotions and issues so that we're looking for everything from ourselves. We can self source all the stuff that we think we need to get outside of ourselves. And anything we think we need to change outside of ourselves, we can work within ourselves to find the peace we're looking for.

That's actually a great segue to the next question and topic I wanted to talk with you about, which is so there's the emotions that we're talking about how to work with emotions inside of us. And then oftentimes we attribute the emotion to the events that happen in our lives. I'm angry because this person said that to me, because my kid did this, because this outcome happened in my business that I didn't like. And what you teach is that, well, there's a way that we're relating to that situation and that we're often kind of labeling it as good or bad. And then when we label it bad, there's a lot more struggle and suffering inside. And so I'd love to explore that with you a little bit about, you know, when things that are occurring in our life and let's say they're not what we want. You know, I don't want that person to be mad at me. I don't want that to fail at that outcome that I set or go on in the Business life or my career, how do I start to see that differently or maybe become a little more flexible with my perception of good and bad so that I don't get so hooked in that?

Yeah, well, there's many different approaches. The two levels that I normally work with, that I'm most comfortable with is the level of the mind, like the belief, and the level more of, like the emotional body around the solar plexus. And so one of the simplest ways to let go of the strength of your belief is to ask yourself if you're sure. So this is bad for me that I didn't get the client. This is bad for me. That girl doesn't like me. This is bad. How do you know? Are you 100% sure? Is it possible the opposite could be true? Simply by asking ourselves a question like, could the opposite be true? Can just break the strength of our belief, and the stronger we believe it is bad, it's no good for me, it shouldn't have happened. The stronger we believe it, the stronger the emotion it creates. So there are many different types of questions one could ask themselves in order to discover that maybe their belief isn't as solid as they think it is. And it takes a bit of humility because there's a part of us that attaches to it. Like there's a part of us that feels good in our victim ness. There's a certain comfort level in feeling like I'm a victim, like it's bad, it shouldn't have happened to me. There's a familiarity with it. Maybe when we were a victim, we got attention from our parents when we were feeling sad and everything was bad, who knows? But it takes this willingness to step out a victim that I don't need to hold on to this feeling of being a victim, and I'm willing, and maybe even I desire to live from a more empowered place. And if you believe that your emotions are created by something outside of you which is outside of your control, you are automatically saying, I'm a victim of external circumstances out of my control. And so as soon as you recognize that the emotions are within your power, then all of a sudden you are empowered to live life from a different place, not in the victim, and you can do something about it. So that's the sort of more belief level, the mind level, and the other level is more going into the emotional body. And that is recognizing that basically nothing is new, your emotion isn't new right now that there's a very large chance that whatever emotion you're experiencing in response to something that's happening in front of you is probably a trigger. It's triggering something that's already inside of you. And so instead of blaming your emotion on what's happening, and one of the easiest ways to see this is when you recognize mentally that your response is blown out of proportion. You know that how you're responding is way out of balance with the simplicity or smallness of what's happening. And so when you recognize that no emotions are new or practically none, or maybe just the invitation that maybe this isn't new, then you can explore, where did this come from? Do I want to hold on to it? Because if I don't deal with this, if I blame it on something outside, it's going to just keep getting triggered inside of me. And I don't really want that to happen. So I'd rather let go of it. So there's nothing to get triggered in the future.

I love that it's just such a level of ownership with our. With our feelings. And the interesting thing about the good bad is that the things that go the way that we are expecting or hoping we would label good. And what you're kind of highlighting it sounds like is that we don't actually know that. So we get the thing that we think that we want. We imagine it's going to bring us whatever pleasure or some positive feelings. We don't actually know that it will.

Yeah, I'd say there's a couple of different ways I can sort of approach this. So one is, let's say you want something good, like you want to get the job. Right. So you think that's good. So if you failed, you would say it's bad. Or you might have anxiety going into the interview because you believe if it works out, then I'll be happy and if it doesn't, I'll be less happy or unhappy. And so you fear the seemingly worse outcome. So we could approach it from two ways, that example. So one is, do you know that that job is best for you? So you've never been in that job? Do you know that your boss will like you? Do you know that you'll be a fit for that type of work? Do you know the company won't get out of business? Do you know that you won't get hit by a car on the way to work? You literally know nothing about the future. So to believe that that is best for me is just a fallacy. There's no way you could know it. To just drop into the truth of the unknowing is very, very relaxing. The other way we could approach it is to help you recognize that even if it's the best job for you, which you can't know, it can't make you happy. No matter what it is, it can't make you happy. Even if your boss likes you, even if you do well at the job. None of it has the power to undo the inadequacy, the anxiety, the anger, the guilt, every emotion that's in inside of you. No matter how perfect fit the job is for you, even if it's your purpose and every other buzzword, there is no chance for it to undo your suffering. So if it can't get rid of your suffering, then all of a sudden the emphasis and importance we place on it reduces. Now we can still give it 100% because that's what I feel I want to do, but not because we will get something out of it, but just for the doing itself, because that's where we're pulled to go.

I love that you're highlighting this often unconscious belief that when I get this thing, you know, boom, all my emotional discomfort is going to be over. I'm going to get the girl, I'm going to get the job, I'm going to get the relationship, I'm going to have the kids, I'm going to whatever. And it's absolutely. And the strange thing about that belief is we can have a track record of having gotten all kinds of things and realize that they didn't produce the. The total fulfillment relief that we're looking for. And then it doesn't matter on to the next thing, but this next thing. And I think that's because it's operating beneath the conscious awareness until you bring attention to it. So if you really go into this and sort of let it permeate your way of being, it can be a little bit interesting, right? Because then it's like, well, wait a minute. Why do you. If anything that we're doing out there is not going to produce the relief of suffering and that the way to feel lighter and freer and better now is to really just kind of do some of these practices you've been talking about earlier around emotions. What does that look like for you? I'd imagine because you kind of live this way more in terms of goal setting or knowing what to pursue. It sort of seems like, well, everything is good no matter what occurs. Does that affect drive or decisions for you?

Yeah, so it affects everything. And basically going back to your point about how we often keep getting what we want and Never seem to learn or fully recognize that it doesn't give us the feelings we want. And I would say it's because unconsciously we're afraid of acknowledging the truth. Because for most people, when they get to a point like, I see so many people who come to me who have gotten so much of what they want, and it didn't make them happy. And in the moment that you acknowledge to yourself, it hasn't made me happy. The moment you acknowledge you work 10 years, 20 years, 30 years to get success and you got it, and you're not even an ounce happier, even more unhappy, or you work so hard to get the girl and provide for the children, whatever, thinking it would make you happy, and it didn't. In the moment you acknowledge that, it can feel like a depression. It can feel like shit. I wasted my time. I did it for nothing. Nothing will make me happy. And so it's this idea that if the normal things that I'm taught to pursue can't make me happy, then nothing will. And that's just an error. And so rather than spend all of your time trying to get something to make you happy, then realize it doesn't, and then start doing the work on yourself, there's just another invitation. Now, if you go to play basketball, you can play, and you go to play in a game and you tell me that the way that to be happy, the reason why you're doing it and giving it your all is because you want to win the championship. And when you win the championship, you'll finally be happy. Now, as soon as you're pursuing it to get the result, in the end, to get happiness, you now are looking at this moment purely as a means to get to a future moment. So this moment is not the important moment. This moment is a means. You have to do your best now to try to get something later. And all of a sudden there's this pressure, there's this anxiety, there's this insecurity, if I can do it versus the next guy who loves playing basketball and he's giving it his all. Because it's more fun when you give it your all, when you're fully, fully present with what's here now. So now with those two people, one has a goal of a future championship and the other has the intention now to give it everything he's got and be fully here, to fully enjoy here and now. Now, who's more likely to be better? Who's more likely to be more efficient? Who's more likely to even like playing? Who maybe will Play more. I don't know. Right. But to say, like, there's this common assumption that if you believe it will make you happy, you're more likely to be motivated. But one thing I see all the time with people, let's say with students or people working where they have to prepare, they have to study, they have to do work to prepare for a project or whatever, if you don't like doing the work, you're more likely to procrastinate doing it now. If you fear not getting a good outcome, you're more likely to have anxiety, which means you're not going to want to do the work, you understand? But if you like doing the work, you don't have to procrastinate it, you don't have to avoid it. You can give it. You're in the flow, you're fully present, you have your full capacity at hand. So instead of doing something now to get some future accomplishment that, that won't get rid of your suffering, but you hope it will, the invitation is to do what you enjoy now. And that obviously has a huge ramification on your life, depending on what you're doing and all of that sort of thing. But it's a fundamental shift and it's a process. It's not something that happens in one moment. I can help people, anyone can undo an emotion in one moment. But there's different depth, different layers, different facets or things happening that cause us to seek happiness in the future. But as the balance of power shifts from seeking happiness in the future to being present now. Yeah, you just choose where you feel pulled to go now or what you want to do in the future, but just with a more realistic feeling sense as opposed to beliefs of what it will get you.

Right? Yeah. It starts to pull the meaning or the importance out of the future and into now. And so it's like if you're, I don't know, miserable now, doing whatever, but one day when I get to X, then all the misery will go away. Then that's a red flag. And it's like, well, wait a minute. First of all, that's not true. So let's bring it back into now and see how I can be operating with this now in a way that actually can bring more enjoyment, more fulfillment.

Yeah. And I never tell people, like, so let's say somebody's in finance and they're miserable in their job, but they hope when they reach partner or make a million dollars a year that they'll finally be happy. I don't tell them to quit their job because they're miserable in it. My job is to help people to find peace and contentment or enoughness where they are right now with what they're doing. And if they reach a place where they feel so they've lost enough of their anxiety and inadequacy, then maybe they have the clarity that this is what I like doing or this isn't what I like doing. But it's not the job itself that would cause the misery. It's our relationship to it.

Yeah, that reminds me. I mean, in a recent video, you talked about how pursuing external things like success or that relationship is often pursuing the I'm good enough belief. And that made me think of that because you were just talking about helping the person find that worthiness. And so how can you share more about that, about, okay, we're pursuing these things to feel worthy, but really what we want to do is find and feel that worthiness now, and then we can make much better choices about what we pursue. So how do you help people feel that worthiness or let go of the unworthiness?

Yeah, let's see. Well, the thing is that unworthiness, first of all, takes many different forms, and different people resonate with different words. So for some, it feels like inadequacy, a sense of something missing, insufficient. And for some it's more like a smallness, like I feel small or weak or fragile. In others, it's more like perpetrator, Like, I'm terrible, I'm horrible, I'm a piece of crap. Everything I do is wrong. I'm to blame for everything. And so it depends on what version of it it is will determine, like, how it's approached. But generally it's just this, the first step and the hardest step in some sense is to go towards it instead of away from it. Right. Like, we spend our whole life trying to never feel inadequate, like by any means necessary, and not even not to feel it, but also just not even to acknowledge it exists. It's socially acceptable to say I have anxiety or I'm stressed out. It's even cool sometimes for people to say, yeah, I'm so stressed out. But nobody says, yeah, I feel so unworthy in a group context. It has a lot of stigma attached to it, like, it's the worst thing ever. And so it's very hard for us to admit it because also we spend our life with this kind of fundamental intention to be happy and confident. And to admit I feel unworthy and inadequate is sort of to admit I failed miserably. Right. So this Movement towards being honest with ourselves is the fundamental first step and often the hardest one. Like how honest can I be with myself about how I feel about myself, like what is really going on inside of me, of how I feel like, and it might be really like shocking of like I'm just like a worthless piece of crap. Like that's how I feel, you know. And once they can acknowledge it and get closer to it instead of running away from it through escapes and success, then we start to see what's the next step. Might be feeling it, it might be breaking open to it in like a deep, deep cry that helps to lose the fear of it, which loses the power of it. It might be sourcing it back to when you failed your exam in 10th grade or when your daddy said implicitly when you did Legos good, he was like, oh you're so wonderful. And when you didn't do Legos good, he didn't give you any love. So you learn I have to do good in order to get love. Just undoing the beliefs that were formed that I have to succeed in order to be worthy of love. It might just be like letting go of your parents unworthiness because being around our parents like this is not something that's like common knowledge. But if you're around your mother all the time, when she's feeling depressed and inadequate all the time, you pick that up energetically, it impacts you whether it's in the womb or it's when you're a baby and you might have to just give some of that back and it could be like the easiest, quickest impact you could ever imagine. And so it really depends. There's a lot of different ways to approach it, but you have to be willing to be honest with yourself. And it can be confronting.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I remember I had done a lot of work around this, a lot of self worth work. Thought I'd made a lot of progress on it. But I had this issue of reoccurring chronic pain and I discovered, discovered somewhere along the journey with it, that the pain was actually not physical or structural as it had been diagnosed, but was actually emotionally sourced. And so I started to follow that path and study and ended up working with a coach around that. And one of the main sources of, I mean in the quickest summary, the pain is a result of chronic tension. But what creates the tension is couple of things, you know, pretending to be nice, trying to be nice, trying to be the good guy, but inside fighting, feeling angry and suppressing all that. And then the second Thing was perfectionism. You know, this. I got to strive, I got to achieve. I got to, you know, hustle for that worthiness. And so I said, okay, to really resolve this pain at its root, I need to look at these things, you know, because I might think consciously I'm doing okay, but my body is telling me otherwise. And so I really looked at that second one, that perfectionism, because the first one I felt like I had made a lot of progress on and seemed like the biggest contributor. So I started to look at perfectionism. And then I remember having these insights where I thought, is everything that I'm doing around trying to strive to establish my worth, to prove myself to be good enough to get my dad's love, I could see how it had, like, you know, kind of, like, liquid gone into every aspect of my personality and way of being. And even stuff that maybe I prided myself on or thought was good. Like, oh, I'm driven, ambitious. And I would just see, like, how much of this is coming from this deep inadequacy that I'm running from. And it was very kind of confusing, disorienting, ultimately so liberating. But I can see what you mean. Like, turning and looking honestly, can be very uncomfortable. And honestly, if I didn't have that intense chronic pain, I might not have done that for many more years because the suffering sometimes takes enough suffering for us to really want to look honestly inward.

Yeah, yeah, I relate to all that. I had both of those full on, just like you and many, many more. You know, and for sure, physical pain is one of the ways that life supports us, to invite us into seeing what's really going on. You know, and every time I think I have none left, or every time I think that it's all gone, you know, weeks or months later, I discover a deeper level. Like, you're on this journey. From my experience, I keep getting more sensitive every time. Like, I undo a layer of pain, emotion, belief, I get more sensitive to something subtler. And so when I let go of something, I've let go of everything I'm aware of. So it no longer that emotion or belief no longer ever comes up in the situation where it used to get triggered. And I think it's gone. But then I'll find a deeper level, a more subtle level that's there that I wasn't aware of before. And you keep having to get confronted with inadequacy and unworthiness or fear in deeper ways or in different ways that you didn't realize were there. And so it's usually safe to assume that you're not at the end and that there's always more and that that unworthiness is not a sign of unworthiness. You know, it's not a sign of anything. But for sure, I resonate with that. It's disorienting too. Like when you think you're pursuing something out of a genuine, authentic pull and then you realize, oh, shit, like I was doing that from trying to get my father's love or, you know, whatever. Yeah. It's a confronting journey, but worth it. Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. I wouldn't take that back for anything. Even the pain. I am extremely grateful for it, for the way that it has motivated me and continues to motivate me. Because if I don't keep growing and I kind of go fall back into old habits, there it is like, hello, get back on track. So I'm very grateful for it. So just a few other questions before we conclude today. How do we. You know, because we're so. We're trying to protect our worth. We're trying to hustle. And oftentimes there's like an element of we're doing it to prove that worthiness, but to ourselves, but really to others. Right. You know, if others see that I'm this way, then that must mean that I'm really this way. And we put a lot of energy. We were just talking about me kind of hustling for Dad's approval. And we could be doing that for anyone. I want either specific people in our lives or just a vague. They. If people saw this and then leads to a lot of that hustling. What do you think can help people? And this is really common with social anxiety. Right. So much fear what people are going to think, what can people do to start to let go and not care as much about what other people think or maybe even be totally free of that. What have you found is useful for that?

Yeah, for me, I call this the journey of growing up. And it's from boy to man, from little girl to woman. And most of us stay a child for our whole life, energetically, emotionally. And what I mean by that, it's something very, very simple. And that is a child finds safety through others. The child needs his parents or caretakers or other people in order to be safe, for food, for protection, for shelter, for whatever it is. They need that in order to be safe. And as an adult, we don't need that. So the journey of growing up is about, for me, is about energetically, emotionally, fully embodying that I don't need anyone else for safety. Now, to go more close to what people experience within social anxiety as a child, if we. So the fundamental thing is we want safety, right? Obviously, we want to survive. Now, if our parents aren't paying attention to us, if they're not giving us love, they're much more likely to leave us, not give us food, whatever. And so love is basically the proxy or the closest thing to safety. If they love us, we're safe. If they don't love us, we're not. So we're looking for their love so that we can be safe. And so the journey to stop looking for love as a proxy for safety, as an equivalent to safety as an adult, is by one recognizing you're an adult, which is a long process. And that is to help the child feel safe. So in these moments where he didn't get it. So every time the little boy or little girl wanted love and didn't get it and felt unsafe, it had the potential to create a trauma. It had the potential to create some imprint in that moment that's still with you. So when you're walking around, you may mentally, intellectually know, I'm an adult, and I don't need anyone for safety. I don't need anyone's love to be safe or anything like that. Energetically, there's these imprints in you from times when you did need that, when you actually needed love in order to feel safe. And so every time we undo one of those imprints, either by clearing some confusion with the child, letting out emotionally a trauma, giving the child love, taking care of them, giving them what they need to be seen, to be heard, to be held. Every time we undo one of those pieces, we're more and more energetically standing as a man, as a woman, which means standing solid. I am safe within myself, and I don't need anyone's love in order to be okay. And that is a big journey. And it's a really. For me, that's one of the primary journeys I'm on. I still energetically have elements of the boy within myself. And it's one piece after another. And it's just really, really amazing to feel more safe within yourself, because you don't need to look to others as much. And there's so many mechanisms. Like, it's just endless, the amount of mechanisms we have to try to get love around people, how much we are unconsciously manipulating and altering ourselves in order to get the approval of others. And it just comes back to safety.

I love that. And when you're talking about the. The love, the safety and the love being able to be sourced internally and not needing it from the outside. Do you think of it, that love or conceptualize it as coming from you? Or do you. When you tap into that love, is it almost like tapping into what people might call God's love or the universal field of love or something that is outside of you? Or are you kind of holding it as in.

No, for me, I'm the source. I'm the source of the love for the little boy inside me. You know, it's just. It's just me. I'm all I need. It's all good. If somebody else like, this is just the way that I do it. But I know other people, like, in some moments when I couldn't do that, there were moments when I couldn't do that, that I wasn't able to love the child, that I hated, that when I looked at a little photo of me, I hated myself. Or when I went through it inside and I envisioned myself, I didn't want to look at myself, or I couldn't hug him, or I couldn't say I love you, or I couldn't help him to feel safe. So then I called in or imagined some character, you know, whether it's like a stereotypical grandpa character or someone I saw in a movie who made me feel safe, or, you know, some people want to do it with Jesus or some other saint or Mother Teresa or like a Amazonian elderly. Like whatever character you can allow to give the child love is beautiful. I think ultimately it's important that it comes from ourselves, but in the meantime, it can be really helpful to source it from somewhere else, too.

That's really helpful. Really beautiful. So much beneficial, specific guidance in this interview. I really appreciate it. That's how your videos and book and all the ways that I've engage with your teachings are. It's taking these kind of, I don't know, spiritual, psychological, emotional concepts and kind of blending them together and then communicating them in a way that's like, instantly understandable and applicable. So I just appreciate you so much, Noah, and what you're doing and you being here with us today. And for people who want to go further and learn more, we'll have more in the show notes below this episode. But also for those who might not be going to the site and just listening, what's a place they can go you'd recommend to go further with your work?

Yeah, you could just go to my YouTube channel, search my name on YouTube or go to my website, liveinthemoment.org and check it out.

Beautiful. Thank you again so much for being here.

You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

That brings us to the end of the interview, and before we complete this episode, let's turn something into action.

Time for action.

Action, action. Your action step for today is going to be to take a few minutes, ideally 15, 20 minutes within silence where there's nothing around, maybe even more if you'd like. And get settled, get centered, get a journal out, breathe a little bit, kind of get your mind out of the day to day and just start to go inward and look at where might I be driving myself from this unworthiness. Where might this unworthiness be showing up for me in my life? Cause sometimes it can be subtle. Sometimes there's the obvious ones, like, oh, man, I feel so inadequate in my dating life right now. I'm such a loser.

Right?

Okay, well, that's an obvious one. But still, go with that move towards the unworthiness. That's what we were talking about in this interview, right? Just moving towards it. So that could be just in meditation. You're just kind of with your eyes closed, going inward towards it. An inquiry, or maybe that would be called contemplation. You don't necessarily have to be doing a mindfulness meditation, but just kind of becoming very curious and moving towards it. A journal can be very helpful. You can kind of jot notes about what you're seeing or describe what you're seeing. Whatever it is, whatever method you use to just go towards it and really start to investigate. Where does this feeling of unworthiness come up for me? What does it feel like? How might it be driving me? You know, maybe you're hustling really hard in an area of your life and you don't even think it's about unworthiness. But then when you look, look at it a little bit, you're like, yeah, I feel terrified of it not working out. Because if it doesn't work out, then I'm nobody. I'm worth nothing. And then you realize, like, oh, wow, maybe that was driving the whole thing or at least a part of it. So become really curious about this. Look for ways to raise your awareness, because that is going to be one of the keys to becoming more free. 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.

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 shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming Shy Guy and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.