The Secret Reasons You Resist Being Social

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, 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 we're going to be talking about a subtle or not so subtle resistance that, that you feel to socializing. And this might be in one area or a lot of areas. And it's something I've heard from clients often where there's maybe a phase where you just try to avoid a lot of socializing. You resist it really heavily. You're avoidant of it. Usually that's when someone's in a high level of social anxiety, they tend to just minimize or avoid. They don't really go on that many dates, or they don't go talk in groups, or they avoid those things. And so what often happens is they start to work with clients and they break out of that pattern and they start to go practice more and they do develop a newfound sense of confidence or ability to connect with others, but then they find that they still resist being social, they still resist connecting with others. And then they're like, what's going on here? Like, why shouldn't I like this more? Or why do I have to push through this resistance every time? So I really want to speak to that. I'm sure you're going to relate to that resistance. And let's talk about what are some of the potential underlying reasons for the resistance, what messages that resistance might be providing for you, showing you, and then how to find your way to more freedom and ease when it comes to being social and connecting with others. So thanks for being with me in today's episode. If you're not always already watching these episodes, go check out Shrinkforthy Guy, go to YouTube and type in Shrink for the shy guy. And you'll be able to see these episodes on YouTube and you can subscribe there as well. And. And please share whether it's on YouTube or the audio version of this. Please share this podcast with someone that you know of in your life who you might think could Benefit from it. You know, sometimes with this topic, it's a little different than other stuff, you know, someone might share, hey, check out this sports podcast. Pretty cool, huh? When it comes to this, they might not want to be like, hey, check out the social anxiety podcast, huh? I'm a loser. No. And you might be afraid of that, but man, share it with someone who you think it would really benefit them and just think about how much they'll actually appreciate it. Think about how much you would appreciate it if someone shared this with you before you discovered me. So if you put yourself outside of your own self consciousness, you might discover that you could really provide a profound gift for somebody. Okay, let's talk more about resistance. So resistance will manifest as maybe a feeling of aversion. Like, you know, at the basic level humans feel attraction and aversion. Right? Attraction is, ooh, I want that. Whether it's a person or a cookie or a TV show or some activity. That sounds great to you. Ooh, right? And then there's the opposite, which is, I don't want that. I don't like that. And you know, I don't like that person, or, I don't want that food, or I don't want to go do that thing. And obviously it's a spectrum. So you could feel a lot of attraction. Like, I really want it kind of more neutral, like, meh. Or a lot of aversion, like, ah, I hate that. Despicable, disgusting, awful. Right? That's kind of the spectrum. And everyone's got that with their foods. You probably feel a lot of aversion towards certain foods, especially perhaps an alcohol product that one time made you throw up when you were younger and then you've never touched it since. Right. For example, it's a common one. Okay? That's attraction and aversion. Aversion is what the resistance is going to be. There's going to be some aversion, some resistance to socializing, to connecting, and it could be everywhere. But maybe it's just in your dating life, or maybe it's just at work, or maybe it's. Maybe it is with friends or everywhere you go. And let's start to understand what's happening here so that you can be more free to go interact in the way that you want. And there's no one answer. I'm going to share a number of answers, and my goal here is to illuminate things for you that you might not have discovered. These are things that I've learned from working with people for this for like 20 years, so. And myself too and studying it in myself. So just see which ones land for you and maybe make a study it over the next week or two and see if you discover more after having gotten these these insights. So here's a few reasons or sources for that resistance or aversion. The first is social anxiety. So if you are imagining others are judging you, you feel a strong performance pressure. Got to do it right. So others don't judge me. That's going to make being social sucky, right? You're going to be in this for me. If I think about going to a party when I was younger and a lot of social anxiety, it's going to be awkward and uncomfort. I'm not free to be myself. I'm not free to share or connect or express or do what I want. It's kind of more like don't make a fool of yourself and get through it. How's that for an enjoyable evening? Who wants to do that? Rather just stay home, right? So that's the basic resistance. It might be a signal that you're experiencing social anxiety and it might be time to work on that and to liberate yourself from that social anxiety, which is obviously what this show and all of my work in the world is about. So you're in the right place. But let's say you've addressed some of that and you're like, okay, it's beyond that. It's probably a more subtle form of social anxiety, which we'll get into in just a moment here. But let's say you've it's not this intense social anxiety about this situation, then it's going to be a more subtle form and that takes a few different patterns. One is you will imagine that you need to do the socializing in a certain way. You need to play a certain role as you do it. And that role is not very enjoyable. So it's not the activity. You might say, oh, I don't want to spend time with that friend. Or I don't want to go on that date or I don't want to go do that, go to that gathering or party. And what I see with clients is they get all hung up on that. Like should I go or not? Or why don't I want to go? What's wrong with me? Am I just like fundamentally not a social person? Am I just, I knew I was messing messed up or oh, shouldn't I want to spend more time with that friend? Maybe I'm a bad friend and they go down all these Rabbit holes. Instead of saying, huh? Instead of it being the. It might be the activity, but it also might be how you imagine you are supposed to be while you go do that. And that's the role that you think you're supposed to play. So if you think you're supposed to be polished and proper and serious, maybe that sounds really boring and unappealing. So, well, I have to be that way at work. I can't be silly there. I don't know, can you. Can you be more playful at work? And so what I'll often ask clients to say, well, what if you could imagine doing it in a certain way that wasn't playing that role? What would you want to do? What. What sounds energizing to you? If you could imagine hanging out with that person or going on that date and doing it any way that you want? What. What feels more energizing? I'm gonna take a sip of water as you ponder that question. Right? So what comes to you? What way of being is much more enjoyable? And I was talking about this recently with someone and he was having a. He was feeling aversion, resistance to going on dates. And he ultimately did want a partner and ultimately family, actually. But, ah, dating. And so we started to explore this like, well, how do you imagine you got a date? And it's. When he was describing it just sounds so like routine and almost like getting through certain stages, like, we're gonna go do this, and you always talk about that. And then this is what happens. And then if you get to the third date, then this and then this, and it's all mapped out and it's all from the past and it's all predictable and it's all blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I'm feeling resistance just even hearing about this. I don't even want to do it, and I'm not even dating just sounds terrible. So what about a different way? What about a way in which you're a lot more open and honest right from the beginning? How do you make that first conversation? Unknown, Spontaneous, edgy, Juicy? Exciting? Unpredictable? Oh, I don't know. That sounds scary. Oh, okay, maybe. Maybe it also sounds exciting. I mean, why do people watch horror films? They get excited, right? So maybe a little bit of scary is exciting. You don't know what's gonna happen next, but all of a sudden it might be more energizing and less. The resistance might be telling you something. There's not enough energy, there's not enough draw there. Sometimes the resistance is not just telling you how you want to be. It is giving you information about what you want to do there or not. I might have told this story on this podcast, but I remember I had a friend recently who invited me to a concert, and it was a. It was an offshoot of Fish. I forget the name of the guy. It was one of the. One of the band members from Fish had his own show. And I'm not. I don't like jam bands, so I would not really enjoy the music. And so I messaged him. I was like, maybe I'd come with you. But it. Mainly I'd wanna. I'd be hanging out with you. So, like, are you open to being at the concert and then being away from the stage for a good amount of the time and talking and just hanging out? And he was like, well, actually I really want to listen to the music when I'm there most of the time. I was like, okay, cool, well, let's hang out and do something else. So I was. I felt aversion. Imagine being like front and center listening to this jam band for nine hours, however long their concert goes. And so I clarify with him. And that's. I didn't really want to do that. And that. That's also another important thing about being less nice and more you and more direct and more real is listening to what do want, what do I not want, what sounds good to me, what doesn't sound good to me. And it doesn't mean it's all or nothing. I'm either going or I'm not going. It's like, well, how would I want to be when I'm there? Another client I worked with had these. She struggled to spend time with these certain friends. And she's like, but they're. They're good friends of mine. We've been friends for many years. And one of the ways she struggled is that I think it was about once a year they all spent time in a house together. Like, someone would rent a house and they'd all go there and they'd spend like four days together. And she felt she enjoyed it, but she also felt kind of claustrophobic and overwhelmed and needing space during that time. And so I asked her, like, well, if you could do it any way, how would you want to do it? And she thought about it. She's like, well, I guess I would actually. We'd rent a house somewhere near where I lived, or I'd have my own place or something that I was renting. And I would spend time with him. Then at night I would Go sleep in my own space. And I'd wake up the next morning, and I'd come back. I don't mind being with him during the day. It's just, I want some space every night, day. And it's different than just the space of, you know, being away for a few minutes, but I really want to go do my own thing for a little while. I said, oh, it sounds like you have a lot of clarity there. And she said, yeah, but I can't, because. Right. And it was all this fear of making them think that she didn't really like them or why would she need time away? And these were all these stories from this role that she was supposed to play of what a friend is supposed to be like versus saying, hey, guys, I'm really excited to spend these three, four days with you. I've noticed that it really helps me reset to have a night alone at the end of the night each night. So here's what I'd like to do. I'm gonna go rent my own place, but be there for the whole day. It's not that big of a deal. You can just advocate for what you want. What makes it a big deal is the stories you have about how you're supposed to be and how everyone's gonna feel and what's gonna mean. And then you live in those stories as opposed to really just testing it out and realizing people are like, okay, maybe someone's like, oh, we'll miss you, and say, oh, yeah, I'm sorry. And I'm very excited to spend the rest of the time with you. Let them have their feelings. You're not responsible for that. You're responsible for you and clarifying what you want and being real and being direct and not being some false role so you please everybody. And then you feel aversion, and then she doesn't want to go at all. Is that better for the friendship to say, I don't want to do it? And we don't even know why we don't want to do it. We just feel this, like, aversion. Get rid of it. Ah. And then we end up cutting things off entirely. So here's what we covered so far. Sometimes the source of aversion is just pure social anxiety. Sometimes it's a more subtle pressure of how you're supposed to be, and you're supposed to do it in this unfun way, and you need to change that and imagine how you'd like to be. What's energizing? Sometimes it's about literally making Tweaks to the plan or the structure of the activity. So it's something that sounds more appealing to you. Another one is a really fascinating one and it's. I would call it a transition, almost like a temperature change. And this is a really fascinating one. And I noticed this with myself a lot. There's something about transitions that some people might have resistance to. I mean, maybe humans generally do. We don't like change. But I'll notice this in myself sometimes I'll, you know, need to take a shower. It's been a day or two and I'm like, okay, time to take my shower. And I'm like, I just don't feel like it. And if I imagine why, it's like, I don't know, I'm like, I'm in all my clothes, I have to take my clothes off and get wet and I just don't feel like it. And it's kind of a strange aversion, right? I'm just like, okay, well, let's go take a shower. And. But there's a. And then when I get in the shower, I'm like, oh, this is great. I don't know what I was. It was some imagining of being cold or wet or something that I just don't want to do. And I'm not talking about it's an ice cold shower. I'm talking about it's going to be a warm shower, maybe with a little bit of cold at the end or something like that. So it's a pleasurable experience. And yet there's just some aversion to the change. You know, sometimes you're. You're watching something and you got to end, you don't want to do it, or you're working on a work task and you got to switch to something else and you don't want to change, right? It's that resistance to transition. And I've seen this with socializing too. So maybe you, you're spending some time at home and you're going to go drive over to meet a friend in like an hour. And as it's getting closer, you're like, I got to leave in 20 minutes. Like, I don't feel like it's. I just want to keep doing what I'm doing here. And maybe you start to make a big drama about it, like, oh, I don't really want to go. Should I? Is this a sign that I don't really want to spend time with them? And then it turns out if you just get in the shower, you just get in your Car. You just go visit with them. All of a sudden you're like, oh, this is great. What was I thinking? This is awesome. And I'll feel that with going for a run, switching from being inside or working to going for a run, I'll feel that from switching from work mode to family mode or family mode back to work mode. I'll feel that with, you know, stopping what I'm doing to go meet up with a friend. I'll feel that if I'm working on something, whether it's in my, you know, in the business or even just doing projects outside on the land. And then I got a call with a group that I'm running or a client or something. As it gets closer, I'm like, ah, man, I don't want to stop what I'm doing. No, I don't want to do it. But I'm just. I become aware of that pattern enough that I know it's just part of that transition. And sometimes I'll ask myself, oh, is there a way that I'm imagining I need to do it that doesn't feel, you know, good or that feels confining, but once I've reflected on that and it's none of those, I often just say, oh, maybe it's just the transition. So that's a really important one. And what the solution for that one is is just to kind of do it. Like, okay, all right, all right. I know you don't want to. You don't want to get out there for the run and to focus on how it's going to feel as you're doing it. And. And that's one of the main ways I get myself to run when I don't feel like it is. Just think about how you're going to feel. And you know, the crazy thing when it comes to running is it's not like it's going to suck. And then at the very end of it, you feel good. It's like within two to three minutes, no matter what the weather, even if it's wet and cold or a little bit of snow or it's just as soon as I get out there, I'm like, oh, oh. I feel more alive and happy and vital, like, okay, all right. And sometimes the more intense weather or unpleasant weather is actually viscerally more awakening than being inside. Right so. Or very much so than being inside. And there's an intensity and absorbing quality to the weather that feels really good. So just focusing on how it's going to feel when you get into it, what Are you reflecting on as you hear this, are you noticing these types of resistances in you and what might you when the next time you're feeling resistance, what might you reflect on or ask yourself to investigate what's happening? Now? There's one thing I would encourage is that's the most important thing. I'm sharing just a few and there's even more potentials, but I'm sharing some of the big ones I've seen. And the most important thing is just to be curious about it because a lot of what happens is people go into some self judgment about it, like, oh, what's wrong with me? And I'm such a weird, awkward, antisocial loser or I'm gonna upset people or why am I not why I should be better at friendship? Or whew, so heavy and harsh and not curious and lecturing and judging. It's like a parent that's got an agenda for their kid, you know, and instead just be truly curious. It doesn't mean that you have to do what the resistance says. You know, the resistance in me might be like, I don't want to go spend time with that friend. I just want to keep working in my garage. And then I'm like, let's think about what it's going to be like to spend time with them. I'm like, oh, okay, so I can hear that resistance part. I don't have to do what it says. I can still override and choose because I'm the captain of my ship and so are you. So what I'm going to invite you to do, in fact, that's going to be a great transition into your action step for today. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is going to be to the next time you feel resistance, pay attention. Get really curious, not impatient curious where you're like, what, what, what? What do you want? It's more like, huh, what's going on? What is that? What do you want? What sounds good to you? What doesn't sound good to you? Okay, and just tune in and get really curious because the more you can pay attention to it, the more it might be giving you a very clear signal that's actually going to improve your experience radically. I just talked about this with a client and she was having a aversion to dating. And similarly it was like a pattern of how she needed to be, which was more serious. Especially if it got more, you know, there's more connection there, more potential there. It's like, oh, is this going to work? And how's this going to work and are we going to be together? And what if he's, you know, wants to take things further? Am I ready for that? And it's like, whoa, whoa. That's a lot of pressure. So what's a more energizing and easeful way to imagine doing it? And it's like, well, it's just more open and curious and spontaneous and fun. And then she got to practice letting go of that, needing to know and just being there in the moment. So a lot of benefit comes from exploring the resistance, and that's what I invite you to do. 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. 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 shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.