16 Sept 2025 · 19 min
Dr. Aziz explains how to overcome social anxiety by tackling root causes instead of just managing symptoms. He shares psychological insights and practical advice, and promotes an upcoming workshop for achieving social freedom and 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. Today we're going to be talking about how to solve social anxiety at its root, at the core. And this is going to be one of the most valuable podcasts you've ever heard from me. Because so much of what we're doing when it comes to social anxiety is trying to manage our symptoms. And as you'll see in this episode, it's never going to really work. And that's why most people will manage the social anxiety and then never really experience what I have experienced in my life. And the game I'm playing with clients is liberation, social freedom. We don't want to just manage our social anxiety. We want to become really free so that you don't even see yourself as a person with social anxiety anymore. Maybe I experience social anxiety sometimes just like every human does, but it's really not the norm. It's not what I would expect going into situations. And if it does, it's really no big deal. And it evaporates very quickly. That's what we want and that's what's the power of this episode. So I'm super excited to share this with you and let's, let's dive right into it. And if you like what you hear in this episode and you want to take this further, really fitting for this topic. But I'm doing a workshop coming up in about three weeks, virtual workshops you can attend from anywhere in the world called Supremely Confident Conversation Master. And it's three days and you're gonna really get a deep dive on how to shift this, particularly this social anxiety to social freedom. And yes, it manifests as greater conversation ease, but not just, oh, I can have a smooth conversation, but I'm performing and I'm trying to be somebody, right? It's like really you being 100% you. That's the goal of the workshop. So I would love to share that with you. If you want to go further, you can check it out below this episode in the description. We'll have a link as well as just go to drzdraziz.com and right there on my homepage you'll see a link to the imminent page. You can find out about it. It's coming up in October, so Let's talk about the two paths. I was just using this metaphor last night with someone in my Mastermind program who wants to overcome social anxiety. And think about this. You're at a fork and a trail. You're hiking around in the mountains somewhere, and you see a fork, do I go left or do I go right? And social anxiety, basically, if you choose left or right, whichever one direction, it's gonna take you to a place where you'll never get what you want. So in this metaphor, to the left, let's say, is a scraggly trail, lots of ravines, just exposed, no shelter, goes on and on and on forever. You kind of wind around these, and then the trail dies, right? Runs out, and then to the right, if you take that path, you go through some, you know, trail, rocks, forest. And then eventually you end up in this lovely town and you can get some food and, you know, get a little hostel for the night or something. That town will be connection with others, right? That's really what we want when we're experiencing social anxieties. I want to be able to connect with others more freely. That could be conversations, that could be friendships, whatever. And once we choose the left path, like in this mountain hiking metaphor, if you go to the left, you're not going to get to the town ever. And it doesn't matter how much you scramble around or how long you hike, you are just in the wrong direction. And the way this maps onto social anxiety is there is a fundamental choice that's occurring unconsciously. You're not consciously choosing it, but in your body. And once you make that choice, you're going to the left, and you're going to experience all these symptoms of social anxiety. And so often people are trying to solve the symptoms, so they've already gone to the left. They're already way out there in the Ravini area. And then they're scrambling around trying to get connection, and so they start to worry, oh, did I say the right thing? Was, am I okay? Ooh, did they like me? I don't know. Oh, my gosh, I should have said this. They're replaying conversations or they're performing, or they're. Maybe you're pulling the performance off, okay, but then you feel really anxious and tense inside, so you're not really enjoying yourself. You can't really connect. Or maybe you're able to keep the conversation going, but then it doesn't feel like there's much substance or juice there. And either you're not interested for another one, or they're not interested for another one. And on and on. Right. These are all symptoms and results of social anxiety. Once that process has been kicked off, once the path has been taken. And what I'm saying is trying to manage that and solve that and say, okay, I'm over playing the conversation. Let me challenge those thoughts. Okay, I'm feeling like I don't know what to say. Let me try to figure out what to say. Like all those solutions don't really get you where you want to go, which is connection easily being yourself. Now there are some strategies that are important. That's why I teach those at the workshop of like how to keep conversations going, how to always know what to say next. These are tools that we want to have and those are important and useful. But if you don't make this fundamental shift inside, all the tools aren't going to get you there. So what is this fundamental shift? Like what is the fork in the road here? When it comes to social anxiety, it comes down to one thing, which is social anxiety. Back in ye olden times in clinical psychology was called social phobia. Right? And I think that term is actually very accurate. Phobia means an excessive or irrational fear of something that exceeds its level of threat or danger or a fear of something that is non threatening or non dangerous. Right. So if I have a phobia of bridges, I don't want to drive over a bridge. The threat of your, the bridge collapsing while you're driving over it, while you could say it's a, it's not a non zero, Aziz. Well it's, you know, I don't know statistically what we're looking at, but we're, you know, in the millionth, millionths of a percent of, you know, 0.01% chance. Right? So it's the level of fear that someone might feel, which is like panic, avoiding the bridge, driving longer to not go around it is excessive and it debilitates or impacts their life in a negative way. So when it comes to social phobia, what are we afraid of? Well, you're not afraid of all humans, right? It's like, oh, you're walking down the street. Ew, human. Like it's a spider or something. No, what are you afraid of? You're afraid of. And this is exactly what I was drilling in with the client in my mastermind program. What specifically are you afraid of? Well, you know, they're gonna not, I'm not gonna fit in. Okay, so let's say you're trying to talk to somebody and you're not fitting in. Who's determining that you're not fitting in? They are. Okay. They're determining. And then what do they feel towards you? What do they think towards you when you don't fit in? Well, they don't like me. They maybe feel disgust. Okay, so we're afraid of that. Aversion or disgust, which is a negative thought, Right? I don't like this person or a feeling of aversion. I want to get away from this person. Right. So. And this isn't just unique to this client, this is why I'm telling this story. This is the pattern of social anxiety. This isn't her, this isn't you, this isn't me. This is the pattern. And social anxiety is a pattern. It's not who you are, it's not an identity. It's not a permanent affliction that you're born with and have for life. It's a pattern that you're running. And you can run a very different pattern and experience a different result and find yourself in that cozy hostel in Connection Ville, crackling fire, people all around. It's awesome. Right? So how do we make that shift? Well, we have to see this initial distinction. What I'm afraid of is the person judging me, rejecting me, disliking me, some version of that. And you can find the exact words or terms that really nail it for you. But are you with me so far? Do you see that in your experience? Look at your own social life, dating life, career, wherever it is you're afraid, feel social anxiety. That's you can uncover in your experience. Right. Okay, so far so good. The issue is not in that person's judgment. And I modeled this for the client. We were on a zoom, right? So she could see me. And I said, you know, it's not in this. And I gave her a look of disgust. It's not in that person looking you up and down and being like, Right. It might seem like the problem is in that. The problem is not in that. The problem is in what you do with that and what you do with that and what any of us do with that when we're running a social anxiety pattern is what. What do you take that information? What do you make it mean? What do you make it mean about you? How do you then feel towards yourself? Right? That is the problem. And so most of the time, the most common, you can see what it is in your case. But I'll just cut to the chase here. The most common is usually a mixture of fear and shame. And the Shame is. Ugh. There's something really bad about me. I am unlikable. That's why those people don't like me. I am fundamentally, in my core, in my DNA, unworthy, unlovable, undesirable, bad. Right? And then the other response can be fear, because, well, that's scary. And that means I'm. I'm never going to have friends, connections, career opportunities, clients, love connection, whatever it is that you want. So that is the two big ones. I'm curious, when you look at yourself, is that what's happening for you? Right. I'm probably getting somewhere in the realm. It's gonna keep rolling as if I am. So then that's unpleasant, of course. But here's where the path we set out on the wrong path is. That is then deemed as very dangerous. Their look of disapproval, they're not wanting to talk to me, and by extension, anything that I could do that might be involved in that. So if I don't know what to say, or I don't say the right thing, or if I don't look the right, if I don't, whatever, my performance isn't enough. And that could bring about this thing. This thing is really dangerous. And that. That right there is where you now have set your foot down the path to the ravine. And you'll never get to Connectionville once you've logged it in your mind that it's dangerous, because once it's dangerous, then it's the most sane thing in the world to avoid it. Right? Like, once you've done a risk assessment and you're like, yeah, I don't think it's safe to go into that dark alley right now at two in the morning because there's some shady dudes over there brandishing knives, right? Yeah. It would be stupid to go into that alley with smart things to avoid it. So once we've deemed something as dangerous and a high likelihood of occurring, then it's smart to avoid it. So everything else plays from there. And once you've deemed it as dangerous, you go into protection mode. And the most effective form of protection is to not go into the alley is to not go talk to the person. Is not put yourself out there. And there's other forms of avoidance as well that might be a little less black and white. So, okay, do go talk to the person. But I hide all these things about myself, or I don't share freely, or I try to perform really well. Right. These are all still forms of trying to essentially hide in plain sight from the other person. So all those symptoms of social anxiety emerge out of the it's dangerous. And that right there is the root. That's what we need to shift. And the way that we shift it is to get on a deep level that this person's judgment of me is not threatening. Getting a no is not threatening. And listen to that language. It's very specific. It's not that it's I don't care and I don't even. I love it. I like no's more than yeses. What are you, weirdo, right? Come on, get real. It's probably uncomfortable. No one likes to know. Everyone likes to. Yes, we like the pleasure, not the pain. We like the gain, not the loss. This is just human. So I'm not saying you have to have some super zen 25 year meditator perspective that you're totally neutral about everything in life. Of course you want the yes. The issue is not the wanting or the desire for it or the preference of it. The issue is the fear response inside the panicky, frantic, I can't handle it, oh my God, I'm gonna die if they give me this look of disapproval or don't want to talk to me. It's dangerous. So we have to retrain ourselves to feel. Not just know it intellectually, but feel on a deep level that it's not dangerous. Does that, are you with me? Does that make sense? Because when you get this, it changes how you try to solve the social anxiety. Instead of spending a bunch of time, I've literally talked to clients who before they started working with me as like, yeah, I'm like learning about this topic or I want to travel more so then I can have better stories. I could tell better stories. Because if I could tell better stories and I'd be more an interesting person and they're going down this multi year rabbit hole all to try to solve something which isn't the real problem. It's not the telling better stories part. And of course, if you want to tell better stories or be more socially skilled, yes, we can learn some of those things. In fact, I teach those at the workshop too. That's coming up. But that's just the chairs on the deck of the boat, man. We got to steer the whole ship in a different direction or you're never going to get to where you want to go. But the good news is if you get on track, you can absolutely experience a whole new feeling when it comes to connecting, relating and being yourself around others. So how do we do this? How do we start to really make this shift? Well, you have to. I mean, that's a larger answer. And that's what the whole Mastermind program is a year long system to help people retrain their nervous systems to. To get this. So that's the short answer is we have to do a process over time to retrain your nervous system. And I've designed something specifically for that. But that's all well and good. What do I do today, Aziz? Well, get your ticket to the workshop. That'll give you more tools. We'll be practicing it real time, live there. Great. Beyond that, what do I do this moment? Well, let's talk about that. Let's turn that into action. Time for action. Action, Action. So there's two actions I would recommend here that would really help begin this shift. One is inner and one is outer. So the inner is for you to get really clear on. What do I do with a no, what specifically? What do I tell myself? What do I imagine? What is the conclusions I'm coming to? What do I really do with that? And if you really want to shift this, I would say write it out on paper or type it out really like line by line. What exactly am I doing? Because this is what I call your default rejection pattern. And then you can start to challenge that question that. See how I can change that. And the outer action, which could help illuminate this first part for you if you're not totally sure. But it also starts to help retrain your nervous system, is the old classic. Probably heard me talk about it on this show many a time. Friendly greetings. Why? Because it's the fastest way to get tons of exposure to small rejections that don't have to feel so to the core. But you might be surprised that you actually do still feel discomfort with them. So go out, say hi to, you know, walk down a busy area with a lot of people and say hi to 10, 15 people and notice that some of them are going to ignore you, some of them are going to maybe even look at you and then look away like, I don't want to talk to you. You're weirdo, right? They probably don't say that, but that's what we imagine they're thinking, right? So what I want you to do though, is go out, say some highs and get a few being ignored or rejections. All right? And then I want you to work with that pattern and shift so that it's like, how can this be okay? What if this is okay? And there's all kinds of different things that I do with people we're practicing this at the virtual workshop, but being playful with yourself, tapping your body afterwards and saying, here I am, did I die? Having yourself do a little chuckle after you get a non response that scrambles the pattern in your nervous system. But the key here is to get that exposure and show yourself. This is the form of exposure to a phobia. Eventually you're gonna have that person driving across a bridge or being near the spiders or whatever the phobia is of. And this is what we need to do is really confront this fear of the no rejection. Here's the thing. Most people won't do this, and therefore most people won't be free. They'll just be kind of trying to manage the symptom and avoid it most of their lives. But if you're listening to this, you're probably not most people. So I hope this serves you on your path. And again, if you want more support, guidance, community, check out the workshop. We got the early bird going right now and I cannot wait to hear how this goes for you and perhaps work with you in person very soon or virtually, you know, but live together and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon.
Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkfortheshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter. Com.
