The Rejection Fantasy: How Your Mind Destroys Confidence

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. The show to help you break free from social anxiety, people pleasing and self doubt so you can speak up, connect and be 100% you. I'm Dr. Aziz, sharing tools that have transformed my life and thousands of others. Let's all liberate ourselves together. Welcome to today's episode of the show. I'm looking forward to being with you here right now. And if I was doing a certain pattern which I'm going to highlight in this episode, I would not enjoy being here with you right now. In fact, I would feel anxious recording this and that would be the same thing. If you and I were having a conversation in person, I would feel anxious about that. And if you feel anxious around other people, sharing, being seen, whatever the context, work, social life, dating or being recorded and putting yourself out there in some other format, or writing something, or sharing something, or posting something, I'm talking about any form of communication or interaction. If you feel anxious doing it, you are. I want to say 100%. Is it 100%? I don't know. You know what's 100%? Let's say 99% likely that you're running this pattern. This pattern being what I'm gonna reveal in today's episode. Ooh, you like that? You like that? Little teaser. Alright, well, thanks for being with me today and investing your time and your focus and most importantly your. Your trust in me. And I really appreciate that. And I think it's an honor to be able to be here with you and to have this, this conversation that's about you becoming more. More free and more yourself. So this pattern will help you do that. And let's dive right into it right now so you can make this shift. The pattern is imagining. It's like a feeling inside, but then there's also a whole mental story that goes with it that's usually a little subconscious. We're gonna make it conscious today that you don't like me. It's a feeling like people are upset with you, impatient with you, bothered by you wanting something of you, and either disappointed or angry or disgusted, maybe even with you for not giving it to them, for not being what they want, for being some form of bad, wrong or not enough. Now that's incredibly painful, isn't it? So if I was gonna record this episode and I'm imagining you, them, whoever the they is, right out there being like, this guy's a loser. This thing sucks. And again, I want to really bring your focus to this because I'm. I might not be Having the thought you might not be having an actual thought of, oh, everyone's gonna think I'm a loser, they're not going to like me. But your body, your emotion, your whole nervous system is already responding to that. And here's the kicker, it's responding to it as if it's real. So it's responding to that reality. And when we're being disliked and hated, it's very uncomfortable. And yes, you can build your resilience to rejection, which is another thing that I teach in this show and in the clients that I work with. In fact, it's a necessary step to building a life of confidence and authenticity is that sometimes someone's going to dislike you and if you're totally not okay with that, that's unacceptable to you, then your life's going to be really downsized and limited. Right? You can't put yourself out there in any way because what if I get a no? What if I get a rejection? What if someone doesn't like me? Now most people are actually living in that very downsized life and just do that their whole experience. Obviously, if you're listening to this show that's no longer working for you and you're looking for solutions, which is awesome. I encourage you to keep studying this and other resources until you can really make a profound shift. And of course, if you're not aware of the other resources I have, go to draziz.com,-a z I z.com all kinds of programs you can get, including Confidence University, which is an in depth home study course. And of course my favorite way would be to work together personally in my year long Mastermind program. That's where the biggest transformations occur. And you can find out about all that on my website. But you really want to study this stuff and know that confidence is a skill that you can learn. And it comes from becoming aware of these patterns and changing them. And when you change the pattern, you have a whole different experience socially and of your whole inner confidence. But if you don't change the pattern, then you just always feel bad in a particular situation. So if you are imagining that he's not gonna like me, that they don't like me, you're always gonna feel uncomfortable or anxious. And yes, even if you get to that place of, you know what, sometimes people aren't gonna like me and I'm okay with that. Great, very useful, very liberating mindset. But that's meant to be used on occasion to help you take a risk, right? Like, hey, I'm Gonna talk to those people. They may not like me. I'll be okay either way. That's very adaptive, very healthy. But going in and having people dislike you all day, every day, every person you interact with is brutal. That's impossible. Who can sustain that? Right? You know, even the most dogged salesperson probably has got to get a yes here and there somewhere. But I'm not just talking about getting no's and yeses. I'm talking about this deep sense of hatred, dislike, and revulsion. And that's what it can feel like. And it's in the background. It's a chronic feeling for most people that I work with. And this could be with their colleagues, this could be with their employees. This could be with their family or their friends or their partner, their lover. And it might not be all the time, but it might be. And so it creates this background anxiety and this bracing, like, oh, I'm going into it. And maybe an apologetic tone. Hey, I. Sorry to bother you. Ugh, yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't get that. And. And even if you don't lead with that, you know, you're like, hey, listen, I'm not that much of a people pleaser. As ease. You go in and you say, hey, how's it going? Right? Sounds pretty neutral, but underneath you're wondering, how's it going? Are you upset with me? I'm not going to ask that directly, but I'm going to wonder and I'm going to feel like I'm going to conclude like you are. And so if you experience chronic guilt, social anxiety, chronic anxiety of any sort, one of the most common things to look for is this pattern because it makes life very scary and very uncomfortable. So step one is to become aware of this pattern, right? So check. And then step two is to take a little audit. Scan through your own life. Where are you doing this? Are you doing this anywhere? Here's a few examples that I noticed in my life. So this was a number of years ago. I remember I asked myself this question, which you might want to ask yourself as well. If I were fearless, what would I do? What a great question. Isn't it a great question? There's a great Tony Robbins quote about that. Something like, the quality of the questions you ask yourself determines the quality of your life. Something like that. Paraphrasing there, but, you know, great question. And one, I made this list. This was, man, I don't know how many years ago, eight years ago. And one of the things I wrote on my list was, I'd Email my list more My email list. So I was growing it. I'm still having email list, but I was growing it at the time and having more people sign up. And I found that I was, like, terrified to email my list. It's like I could. I built my social confidence to talk to people, to speak in groups, to lead in person stuff or virtual stuff and feel fine doing it, feel very confident doing often. And yet, when it came to emailing people and inviting them to things like, hey, I'm doing this workshop. Do you want to attend it? I just felt so much fear and anxiety about it, and I was avoiding it. And then hence that. That question. If I was fearless, what would I do? And one of the first things I wrote down is I'd email my list a lot more. I just kind of had, like a regular relationship with them. Like, what's up, everybody? Here's what I'm doing. You know, what's going on with you? What are your challenges? Like a conversation with humans, you know, being. Being a human, talking to people and stuff. What a concept. I have to. If you feel like you had to learn how to be a human to talk to people, don't worry, you're not alone. Me too. Me too. I missed the memo on how to be a normal human who talks to people and instead got the anxiety card. Got the weirdo loser anxiety card, man. No, I'm just. I'm just playing. There's no. There's no loser weirdos here. We are all awesome. And those are just stories. Just stories that we can tell ourselves and we can believe for years and they're true until they're not. Until you really see your own value. Beauty, gifts. And then all of a sudden, everything turns around when you really change your relationship with yourself. But that's a different topic for a different episode. For now, I started to examine, well, what am I afraid of? Why do I not want to email my list? And I realized that every time I sat down to write an email, I imagined people. And it was kind of everybody, Everybody on the list was gonna look at it and either be like, ugh, I don't even wanna open that. Why is that guy bothering me? Or I don't know which one's worse. Or they open it and they're like, ugh, what a terrible guy. I don't even like. I don't even hate this guy. You know, unsubscribe, spam, get me off of this garbage right now. Is that super rational? Well, someone might have that reaction, of course. And Then they'll unsubscribe, or they'll send me an email that says, like, you suck and unsubscribe. Right. That. That's happened before. That might be someone's experience. So this goes back into the realm of, like, yes, someone might dislike me. Okay. But that someone might dislike me. We'll see. Small percentage maybe doesn't create that kind of anxiety. Right. You can hear what a rounded, balanced, grounded perspective that is. Like, hey, it's okay. I'm solid in myself. But when I imagine every single person having that revulsion, it's going to create a lot of pain, suffering, and anxiety because I'm going to feel it all. It's like this big ball of negative energy coming at me. And is it really coming at me? No, I'm really feeling it, of course, but I'm generating it. It's like a weird hallucination. It's like a bad trip, man. Seeing all kinds of stuff that's not there and having some terrible conclusions about your life. This is why I'm gonna die young, and I know it. Or maybe that's just me on a bad trip. Anyway, it's not real. And that's fantastic news. You are making it up. You might say, oh, but I know, I know, but how do I stop so hard? And maybe someone does think that. So here's step three. How to break free of this. Let's go. First, you gotta, you know, catch this whole pattern happening and then realize, oh, okay. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm generating this. I'm creating this. And of course, it. That sounds like, wait, wait. That's just what we were talking about, Aziz. Right? Yeah, but you have to see that in the moment for the liberation to start to occur. Not just hear me say that and go, like, maybe for you, buddy, but for me, it's real. Right? That's. The first part is you have to break the hypnosis that it's. You're like, watching footage of people everywhere throughout all time and space hating you, that you have to just, like, snap through that vision and say, wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm creating that now. It feels very real, but I'm creating that. Okay, then the next part is, instead of just trying to change it right away, you got to see, what the heck am I doing, man? Why would you do that? Why would you play a horror show that makes you feel awful about yourself before you go talk to people so you feel anxious? Oh, well, if you listen to other Episodes. And you're familiar with the concept of the Safety police, which I talk about in my book, the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. Great read. Should check it out, by the way. But there is an uncertainty. Every time you interact with other humans, there is an uncertainty. It's what makes life fun. Variety is the spice of life. Right? But it also means that out of that uncertainty, there could be someone being like, I don't like you, I unsubscribe, or I hate you, or I don't. You know, I'm gonna hate your face. Right. So that could happen. Now, the odds of that are very low. I don't know how many I hate your faces you've gotten, but I could probably count mine, you know, only maybe 80 or 90amonth. No, but. Right. It's super rare. So what's happening there? Well, there's a part of you called your safety police that hates pain, discomfort, rejection, and it also hates that it's uncertain. It wants to know, is that going to happen this time or not? I don't want to do it unless I know that it's totally safe. And I'm never going to feel bad things because all I want to do is be totally, totally, totally, totally safe. Right? So then we don't like that uncertainty. So we say, you know what? I'm gonna fill that discomfort, that unknown, that void, with certainty. But what kind of certainty? The certainty that they dislike me, that they hate me. Really? Yeah. Who? All of them. Because you never know which one it's gonna be. So you just call them all bad, get away from all of them. Right. Crazy, crazy. It's like a weird protective strategy. Like you're trying to be prepared for one person once a year, really disliking you. And so you're gonna prepare yourself to be hated by everybody at all times. Now, of course, if you follow this through, what the Safety police is trying to get you to do is not send the email, not reach out, not speak up, not put yourself out there in any way. Right? And that's living a very defended, guarded life, which is the point of social anxieties to try to protect you. But so you have to see through that and see that it's about trying to get this feeling of certainty that's impossible in this regard. I mean, you could find a different feeling of certainty, which is like, I know who I am. I know where I'm coming from. I know that I bring value. I know that I'm awesome. That's a much healthier form of certainty. Does that mean everyone's gonna like me all the time and I'm never gonna get rejected. No, you cannot get that certainty. But you can also have another form of certainty, which is, I'll be okay either way. Right? See now these forms of certainty are coming from within, not based upon what other people are going to do, because good luck controlling that. So how do we put this into practice and into action in your life now? Time for action. Action, action. I mean, the best action step for this episode is going to be to apply the process I just guided you through. But you really have to look on purpose in your life where it's occurring. So this happened to me as well for a long time related to running my mastermind, my group program, which has been going for. In November of this year of 2025, it'll be 10 years that the program has been running. Holy smokes. It's a lot of people. We've had so many people, amazing humans go through the program and experience just beautiful life changing transformations. And it's been going for so many years that I've been able to refine it and see it working again and again and again for people, make it better and better. And we have all these amazing testimonial. If you go to the Dr. Aziz site and just look at testimonials, you should watch some of them. They're super inspiring. It's beautiful, right? And yet for man, for a long time, every time I would go lead a call, we have a number of calls at this point, we have about five to six a month that people can attend. And I work in depth with people. I'm coaching them, I'm teaching, I'm sharing stories. It's like a real intimate, powerful experience. And I would notice it before the calls. There would be this nervousness. And it's like, what's going on with the nervousness? Am I. Do I feel like I don't know what I'm doing or some insecurity about my capacities? And I'm like, no, dude, I've been doing this so long. I know this process inside and out from my own personal experience, from all the clients I've worked with. So what is that fear coming from? It's imagining that everyone on the call and everyone who's in the program who might not even be attending that call is being like, ugh, this is these guy. I just don't like him. I'm irritated by him, I'm bothered by him, disappointed by him. I just, blech. Right. How crazy. Like the people, like they Want to be in the program. They signed up to be a part of the program. They're attending the call, being like, dude, I got some questions. I want to help me with this. And then I help them. And they might feel inspired or grateful or neutral. Maybe sometimes someone's irritated with me. I mean, that's just part of working together, being human, right? Just like in all our relationships. But do you see that tone and how reasonable it is? And the first version that creates all the anxiety is fabricating this story. So you got to catch it in step one, right? So look for an area in your life where you're doing this and now, right now. And just you don't have to look any further than where you feel anxious consistently before doing something. There you go. You're probably doing this 99% chance, then realize it's made up. And then one last thing you can do, which is kind of fun and interesting, is to just flip it on its head and imagine that the people you're going to go talk to, or let's say, you know, that example is sending an email to my list or working with people in my group. It's like, they're so excited to receive an email from me. This person's gonna be so happy that I'm gonna go talk to them. They're hungering for connection with somebody, and then all of a sudden I show up and they're like, yes, this per. Not just anybody. Like, oh, any human but you. Like, yeah. Oh, this person's awesome. Right? And actually imagine that. Of course, your mind's like, that's not real. Oh, okay. Is the other version more real? Yeah, they're both are made up. I mean, we're all making stuff up anyway in our. In our mind about the future and predictions and other people's thoughts and all that stuff. So why not make up something that's gonna fuel you to get out there in your life and actually take the risks and be who you really want to be. You with me. Awesome. All right, well, thanks for listening today. I'm curious to hear how this goes for you. You can always reach out through my website as well. Go to draziz.com-I z.com and go to the under. I think it's contact tab. I should know that I'm gonna look it up right now with you. Go into draz.com/about and then contact me there. Looking at it right now. So you can send me a message through that site and let me know your experience with this show and how it's going and how your journey to greater confidence is working for you. All right, 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 now. You're awesome.

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