The Secret To Caring Less What They Will Think

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 have something very exciting to share with you that's going to be so liberating because one of the biggest fears that we have is what, what are they going to think of me? Right? Isn't that the fear that holds us back? It's, it will create social anxiety. I don't want to approach those people. What are they going to think of me? I don't want to put myself out there. It's also one of the biggest fears behind niceness. And people pleasing is like, oh, if I say this or don't do this, what are they going to think of me? Are they going to think I'm selfish? Are they going to think I'm bad? I don't want to speak up at work. What are they going to think of me? Right? So it's such a pervasive limiter, restrictor, jailer in our lives. That's why I'm so excited to share with you. And I was actually just recently teaching a workshop to my 12 month mastermind program focused on this. It was called how to Care. Much, much less what they will think. And what I want to share in this podcast episode is an excerpt. Excerpt, excerpt. I don't even know how to say that word. But you know the word. I'm talking about a piece of this training that I did and it's about 20 minutes and it's going to give you a profound new perspective on the thoughts of others and actually the thoughts of yourself, your own thoughts. And just a way to take the whole, just lower the stakes on everything, how to make it all, I don't know, just so much more free. And I think you'll get a chuckle out of some of the stuff that I'm going to share here. And just the, when you start to really smile at and study and observe the absurdity of thinking and how much we're all trying to Run from other people's thoughts. And the whole thing is just kind of makes you smile. And as you're smiling and as you're chuckling, maybe you'll get a little bit more freedom from what they might think of you. So what I'm going to do is, is I'm going to transfer us over to that segment and then we'll come back and talk about how to turn it into action. Here we go. But let's slow this whole thing down here. You remember that phrase. Maybe you heard it when you were a kid. Maybe this was out of our. Not in vogue anymore. But when I was a kid, it was. It was a pretty solid comeback. Someone was teasing you. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Did you raise your hand if you. If you heard that one when you were a kid or maybe even said, okay, so this lives on. This lives on. Pretty good. Pretty good. What, what's the message behind that? Well, it's like, hey, words are not going to hurt me, right? Like, I. I'm more than what you say. So if words are weaker than. Than actions, what's weaker than words? Thoughts. So people's thoughts we're living in fear of. What if the problem is not what they will think of you? What if the problem is what you will think of you? And that you're giving way too much validity to those thoughts that you think about you and the. And the thoughts that you think that others are thinking about you. In other words, the what if the threat is not in the thought, theirs are yours. Let's say you lived in a house growing up, and every day people looked out the window in the morning, and they seem kind of nervous. And, and, you know, you grew up in this household, you're a baby. Every day you see dad looks out the window, mom looks out the window. And then, you know, eventually you. You're like two and a half years old or something. Two years old. And he said, what are you looking at? They say, we're looking to see if it's going to rain today. Okay. And then you wait, you know, a couple months goes by. You're two and a half now. And they say, what are they looking at? Oh, looking at. To see if it's raining. Why does it matter if it's. Why are you looking at the rain? Well, if it's raining, we can't go out. It's very dangerous. Very, very dangerous. Okay, so now you're three years old, and what do you do? You get into the kitchen, look out of the window. What's. It's. What if it's raining? I don't know, but it's bad. Real dangerous if it's raining. I don't know what's happening. I don't know. I think the raindrops. Maybe the raindrops melt you or something and you wouldn't even question. That's just how it is. And you're hearing the story. You say these. Come on, this is stupid. What are these fools, they just wear, use an umbrella? This is, this is what. What we're conditioned in is no less arbitrary. Instead of looking out the window, they're listening to the tv, they're listening radio. What did so and so say? Oh, yeah, well, I heard he's a Catholic. She married a. Who she married. Oh, she married a black man. Oh, you know. Oh, well, they're one of those people. One of who? Oh, one of those religious people, you know, fools. They need God. It's their opiate, not us. We're intellectuals. Yeah, and we get this, we absorb it. What is it? What's out the window? What's right, what's wrong, what's good, what's bad? Tell me mom, tell me dad, tell me family. And we, and we take it in and we give it this reality and this validity. And I'm not saying when you're two and a half year years old, you're supposed to see through the matrix and be like, no way, man. I choose my own rules. No, at that age you're just freaking. You're just taking it all in. You're just getting programmed and you're surviving. But the key is at some point in your life, and maybe tonight is the night you take it to the next level. At some point you decide that you're going to question those assumptions that you learned about what is right and what is wrong and what is good and what is bad, in fact, not just the content of what is right and what I should be. I should be confident and I shouldn't be anxious. I should be irresistibly attractive and sexy and I shouldn't ever be ugly. I should be creative and motivated. I shouldn't ever be boring. And these are things that are just so ingrained. And this is the short list. There's a thousand little sub specific situations. In this situation, I'm supposed to be like this. And in that situation I'm supposed to be like that. And the content is not even the problem. The problem is the machinery of the checking and the constantly assessing. If you are this or Are that if this is good, if this is right, if this is bad, if this is better, if this is worse, if they would like this, I'm going to take off the words and just do the pattern. And that machine is running maybe not 24 7, because thank God it turns off when you're asleep. But however many hours you're awake, the thing is running in the background. And if we're not aware of that, then we're constantly in fear on some level. And it might be great and it might be little, it might punctuate and get really loud and it might calm down and just be a background anxiety, but it's the opposite of security because I have to fit in, I have to be this way, I have to be this, I have to be that. I better not get out in the rain. I better not be one of those people. I better not, I better not, I better not. And, and we're treating it as if it's the same level of survival as when you were three and you had to fit into the family system and the cultural field that you grew up within. And now, and now, and I get it, you might have grown up in a place where you, if you were to speak, I mean now in many places in the world, if someone were to speak up or defy some cultural norm, they could be killed. So let's see where you're at now though, and observe. Are you going to be killed? Are you going to be stoned? Are you going to be exiled? And in this modern world, if you're exiled from one community, could you just move on over to another one? Find a group of people that fits you way better. Maybe it's a good group to be, to be kicked out of next. Maybe it's a good relationship to end next. And so the, the problem is not what they will think. The problem is the attempt to control what they think. Now why do we try to control what they think? Well, because we have just like that little three year old looks out the window and thinks rain is dangerous. We have learned that the thoughts of others and what they will think is dangerous because that's what we grew up in and that was a big deal. What would the neighbors think? What would the community think? And your parents might have said this directly or they might have just, oh, don't do that, you're embarrassing me. Kind of indirectly tried to make sure that you didn't rock the boat. And so once we've deemed it a threat, then we go into damage control mode. So what are some of your protection strategies, how do you try to control the damage? One is you attempt to control the situation. I got to control how they think of me. Maybe I should send them a text so that they think this. Well, and then you overstart, overthinking things. Right, Right. I got to. Should I send it? Well, what should I say in it? No, I should. Because the. If you ever overthought something, whether it's an email, a message, a text, a voice thing, a phone call, what you're going to say, what am I going to say? What am I going to say? What am I going to say? And you're overthinking it and you're thinking it. You are focused on control of the other person and their. Their thinking, basically their state. Now, I'm not talking about a pause to say, okay, what's my outcome here? What's my message? What do I want to communicate? No, this. You know, you know the difference, right? Just maybe it also. It's not just beforehand. It's also. You do the mental review. So you. You conclude an interaction, maybe it went well, maybe you felt connected, you know, maybe you felt great during it. And then you leave and you're driving home, and then it's, what about this? What about that? What about this? What about that? What do you. Why are you replaying the interaction? What are you looking for? You're looking to see if there was any rain that day. Was there any rain in that room? Was there any. Is there any indication from someone's eyes, the way that they move, their. Their facial expressions, their voice tone, anything that could indicate that there was some threat? And we're doing this unconsciously, thinking that we're supposed to get through our life, eradicating all negative or judgmental thoughts in those around us so we don't show up in the way that we think is bad, because that's what we learned was bad. Maybe you even have urges to take action from this place. I got to go apologize. I got to explain. I got to. Otherwise, fix the situation. But fixing the situation means fixing, AKA controlling, the thoughts and perceptions of another. Can you relate to this? How effective is this? Is it working? Does it give you relief? Do you, at the end of the night, after running this pattern all day, lie down in your bed and say, all is well? I feel great. Usually not. And you're the. If you're trying to get security by controlling things out there, especially as ephemeral and fleeting as people's thoughts, but they're inherently uncontrollable. But you need to control them because they're threatening. Navy recipe for anxiety. And a recipe for significantly shutting down big parts of you in your life. Because when you put more you out there, whatever way that looks, you don't have control of how it's going to ripple. But if you need that control to be safe, then there's only one solution. Keep everything in the box. What if thoughts can't hurt you? What if thoughts are not dangerous? Okay, thoughts, your thoughts and other people's thoughts. What the hell's going on there? You ever watched your mind? You ever sat down for 15 minutes, tried to meditate? This show, it's just. It's like a. It's like an ADD puppy in there. Hey, I got something to do. We don't even know what time we're in, what time zone. It's like six years ago this thing happened. Hey, you got to send that memo out Tuesday afternoon, by the way. Why did so and so do that from yesterday? Yeah, this thing's, you know, hey, that was a really cool TV show. I wonder why they did that. That's so weird. Yeah. Oh, my God. You know, it's going to be terrible tomorrow, this weekend. It's all over the place. And then it's, like, just kind of complaining a lot, isn't it, right now? I should have got that thing. Why did I get that thing? Why is that thing? When's that package going to arrive? Everything got shut down because of the weather. This is what. What era are we living in? That's annoying. I'm not happy until I get that package. It sucks. You know, why did so and so do this? I should have that. I don't want to have to go to that thing. Why do I have to go to that thing? I don't. Fighting with this. And if you watch yourself, you're not sitting there like, I'm gonna pen this thought down. Let's complain for five minutes in my head. Let's do. It's just like. Like a hoe. You know, you ever turned a hose on high and then not held it, and it's just like flopping all over the place. That. Welcome to your lower mind thought stream. That's just what it's gonna do all day long. And if it's anxious or you feel threatened in some way, then the hose is just, like, hyperdrive and you think you're the only one. That's all of us, right? And so that's the person at the party that you're trying to get control of their Thoughts, you're going to control their fire hose of insanity. And not to mention, it's bouncing off all kinds of other things, their rules. Oh, someone should look at me. And I got to look, look like this and all that. People should respond to other people like this. And. Oh, and I don't like those types of people. And, and you might be one of those types of people because of your skin color or because of your name or because of your education or because of some idea they have. Oh, you're too intellectual, you're too this, you're too dumb, or you're too smart, or you're too. You think you're fancy pants because you went to a better school than me. And then. And that fire hose is going on, and you're like, hold on a second, I'm gonna, I'm going to get my fire hose and get that under control. And then I'm going to get your fire hose under control. And that's why if you never public speak, it's because you realize you have to go into a room full of these fire hoses, and that's utterly overwhelming. And so I'll just avoid all of that. And as long as you are. And the fire hose is a good carry on metaphor because it's the water. Water is going to kill me. The rain is going to kill me. It's like you're the Wicked Witch of the West. Water's going to melt you. The thoughts are going to melt you. The. The what if their thoughts are not threatening to you? And this you can. I'm going to guide you through an exercise in a minute because you can only really get this when you also get something else, which is that it's not about them. It's not about you exclusively. It's about us. Our thoughts are not threatening. So their thoughts are not threatening. But. So so are your thoughts. They're also not threatening. What. What if they weren't? Because as long as you think your thoughts are really the sticks and stones that will break your bones, then their. Your thoughts are going to make their thoughts really threatening. Now their thoughts are threatening and my thoughts are threatening. So, for example, I don't want to be seen as dumb. Okay, so say you share an idea. You say something to a group of people. Work, personal, setting, doesn't matter. And you said, oh, yeah, we should go do that thing. And someone's like, oh, cool. And someone else like, I don't know. And that moment has passed. And then 30 seconds later, thought goes through your mind. Well, that was Dumb. What, what's happening? What's happening right now? Well, I'm hanging out with some friends and I said something and she said yes and he said no. And we're going to figure out if we're going to do the thing. That thought I'm dumb is, is, is not real. It's not, it's not reality. That's not what's happening. It's just a sprinkle of water. One of my teachers described it as, I wish I had a carbonated beverage right now. I'd pour it into a cup. You imagine a little glass of 7Up and you pour into a cup. And if you've ever done this, there's like thousands of little bubbles all along the side and the bottom of the cup. And from the bottom they're just coming up to the surface. He's like, those are your thoughts coming up to the surface. Come up to service, Come to surface. You're dumb. I'm dumb. He's dumb. She's dumb. They're dumb. Okay, is there any, anything in there that is real or useful? I said, well, Z, how would I. I mean, yeah, yeah, that was dumb what I said. Okay, okay. So then what happens is you're saying, you know what I'm going to take of all the vastness of experience in life, I'm going to make that fire hose is. That's going through my head. The most real and important thing in this existence. More important than speaking up, sharing, dancing, communicating, creating things in the world, loving looking at a sunset, going for a run, going for a hike, playing baseball with my kid. Whatever it is you want to do in this world, more than important than all of that is this label that went through my head. That's just energy. It's just, it's just conditioning. It's just people looking out the window and saying, well, it's going to rain. It's right. And so when there's an ability in you to create a bit more spaciousness between you and all those thoughts, then all of a sudden you get to care much less what other people think. Because. And here's the big reveal of tonight. You care less about what you think too. So if you want to care much, much, much, much, much less about what other people think, it starts by caring much, much, much less about what you think. Welcome back. That was pretty good, huh? If there's more, that was about a two hour training that I was doing with them. And we'll talk about what you can do now to put it into action. I might Share another little segment of it. At some other point, I was guiding them through a meditation that was really helping you disconnect from being driven by the lower mind thought stream. So I will probably cut that together at some point. At least that's my intention now in this moment. And also, if you're drawn to that, you're like, man, I would like that seems powerful. And you say, I would love to be immersed in an experience where I'm learning this kind of stuff. Every week we meet, we have three to four calls a month. In the Mastermind Zoom calls. They're all led by me. And it's not just me teaching, but it's me working with people and answering questions and going deep and really helping people make these profound shifts that have been these patterns that have been in place for 20, 30, 40 years. You know, shifting them in six months, eight months, it's 12, it's a 12 month program. So over the course of their year. And if you're drawn to that and that speaks to you, I would highly encourage you to check it out. Go to draziz.coM-R-A z I z.com and go to coaching. And in there is something called the Unstoppable Confidence Mastermind. That's where this excerpt was from. Okay, let's talk about how you can put what you're learning into action. Time for action. Action. Action. It's gonna be this. Take four minutes, five minutes, but no more. Maybe, maybe even three minutes. And set a timer on your watch or your phone for that three or four or five minutes. And I want you to observe the thoughts that go through your mind. Now, this might sound like, oh, this is mindfulness or meditation. I know that. I've already done that. And what we do there is we turn it into some experience that you've either done or not. Like, have you been to Hawaii? Oh, yeah, I've been to Hawaii. And this, this is not what we're talking about. It's not like you don't just do it. It's kind of more like walking or eating. It's like, well, yeah, I've already eaten, you know, last week. I know what that's like. I don't need to eat again. Well, no, you kind of do. And you might think eating is obvious, but actually the ability to watch your mind without getting totally demolished by it is an ability that's, I mean, heck, as important as eating really, when it comes to your own freedom and confidence. And so just pick 4 minutes or 5 minutes and watch that fire hose? What does it say? Where does it go? Is it in the past? Is it in the future? Is it defending? Is it attacking? Is it fleeing? Is it making a position? And look, you don't need to make it wrong or turn it off or just watching it, because the more you watch it, the more you can start to see some of its chaotic, irrational, unhelpful nature. And then you stop completely buying every thought that you have. So I'll start with that, and in a future episode I'll be providing a guided process to do this at an even deeper level. This drawn probably from the same training, if not somewhere else, that I've taught. So stay tuned for that and until we speak again, may you 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 shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.