The Secret To Eliminate Embarrassment Instantly

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. Welcome to today's episode of Shrink for the Shy Guy. I'm your host, Dr. Azeez. And today we're talking about everyone's favorite topic, which is you getting embarrassed. Yay. But actually we do like embarrassment, don't we? I mean that's like a fundamental staple of comedy. People getting embarrassed and even watching people do it and then laughing because it's outrageous. Maybe they say something that embarrasses someone else or they embarrass themselves and we all laugh and it's great. And then there's that gray area comedy where it's funny and you like watching it, but it's also cringy because you can put yourself into their shoes empathically and feel how awkward or uncomfortable it is. I just watched a movie rewatched, a fantastic movie called School of Rock. Not sure if you've seen that one. It's Jack Black, directed by Richard Linklater and one of Jack Black's classics for sure. I'm a huge fan of that man's facial expressions and, and, and whole demeanor. But there's a scene where if you haven't seen the movie, he's kind of a washed up musician who ends up taking this substitute teaching gig at this very expensive fancy prep school and somehow starts roping the, the children there into being in, in a band for him for some competition. And there's a scene where at some point it all falls apart. He was impersonating his friend to be able to teach there. And there's a teacher's teacher parent night where he has to give a presentation to all these kind of type A demanding parents about what he's been doing for their kids. And so it cuts to the scene where he's standing in front of all these stern looking parents just giving the most half assed, like we're studying math and science, you know, when it's already so embarrassing and so awkward and it's so cringey and it's so hard to watch. And inside you're like, oh, God, this is. But you want to watch it, right? And then to make matters worse, his friend's girlfriend calls the police when she finds out and says, hey, he's been impersonating his friend. And the police come the very night of the parent teacher meeting. And so they're like standing outside the door and then they come into the room and then the parents are like, what's happening? And it turns out this man is a fraud. So it just goes from bad to even worse, right? And they're playing that up in the movie, right? Because they know it's dramatic, it's funny, it's. It's engaging, it's gripping. Now, what does this silly movie have to do with you? Why are we even talking about this in today's episode? Because that is part of the secret to freeing yourself from embarrassment. And this is going to be a profoundly life changing ability for you to not have to be trapped in this cage of embarrassment. I'm so excited to share this with you. I'm going to teach you exactly how to do it, and I'm going to encourage and invite you to take it one step further and join me for my upcoming virtual event, which is very soon, about a month, a month and a half away. And we have super early bird tickets on sale now for just the next few days until June 18th is when they conclude. And that's a big part of what we're doing at the Ultimate Confidence Breakthrough. That's the name of the event is we're helping you burn out your embarrassment circuit. And so you're going to hear me talk about it. I'm not going to hold anything back. I'll share exactly how to do it in today's episode. And I cannot tell you how many people I've talked to who said, yeah, I listened to your podcast, I read your books, I didn't do this stuff until I came to an event, whether that's virtual or in person. And then, okay, finally, I get it, I get it, I get it. I'm gonna go do it. So my invitation for you is to not just listen to this and think about it, is to do this stuff, to practice it. And that's why I create these virtual events, these in person events, to create environments where it makes it inevitable that you're gonna make these changes. Because when you do take these actions, I'm gonna share in this episode, you will experience a shift. It's formulaic, it's part it's a like, the confidence you'll gain is a byproduct of the actions I'm going to suggest. And not only am I going to suggest the actions in today's episode, I'm also going to describe the mindset going into it, because that's very important. All right, so if you want to take it further, definitely check out that online event. You can go to drazzizz.com that's D R A Z I Z dot com and click the Events tab. And it should be right there. It should actually also be on the homepage at this point of the. Of the main Dr. Aziz page. So what are we going to do with this event? Well, on day two is we're going to be really going at this embarrassment circuit and I'm going to share how we're going to help you diffuse that thing. So first of all, you have to understand embarrassment and what it even is. Right? It's this dreaded feeling that we're trying to make sure we don't experience, but we don't ever really understand what exactly it is, where it's coming from. Embarrassment is the result of you breaking some rule. The cultural field. So the cultural field, if you haven't heard me talk about it, is an invisible force field, like visible field of influence, like gravity. And just like you don't see gravity, but it's pulling on you, you don't necessarily see the cultural field. It's not like there's a sign on the street that says don't dance here or you will be arrested, you know, but you start dancing on a street corner in a busy middle of the day city and you're gonna feel something. What are you feeling? You're feeling the invisible field, like gravity, and you're breaking some rule in it. Now, depending on who you are and where you come from, that rule may or may not be that stern or that big of a deal. But for some people, that's horrendous. And it's interesting because if you go to different cultures, dancing or singing out loud might not even be breaking a rule. But I'm talking about United States. That's where I'm from. But many, many places around the world, if you were to start spontaneously singing or dancing, you. You'd get some looks and there'd be some people that would be questioning what you're doing and you want to take it more absurd. I'm not talking about like a nice dance song performance where you're busking or something. No, I'm talking about just like flopping around and using your body and just being silly. Some people will love it and other people are gonna judge it because you're breaking a rule of the cultural field. The cultural field is that invisible force field that's a collection of like, hey, this is what we do here in the culture you have, you know, the collective cultural field of the city, the state, the country that you live in, the ethnic groups you're a part of and reside in, but then also whatever you picked up from your family as well. So this all comes together to create a set of rules. And that field, depending upon your history and your upbringing, can be quite oppressive. And it can go way beyond even what's actually allowed or what actually is going to get you into trouble or something. I'm not talking about breaking any laws here. And embarrassment is usually not for breaking a law. It's for doing something you think is weird or strange and somehow that's bad or wrong. So that's where embarrassment comes from. Now where you know, to make matters worse is that if you have a history of social anxiety, a fear of disapproval, of being nice or people pleasing or any of those things, then you are especially sensitive to the cultural field because you don't want to upset anybody by breaking any rules. And then when you do get some attention for doing something unusual, you are mortified. It is so unacceptable. It is so, according to your nervous system, dangerous that you better stop at all costs and you might feel a flood of shame, alarm bells going off in your nervous system, a voice in your head saying, how could you have done that? Don't ever do that again. And look, I'm not talking about crazy stuff like streaking through the center of a city or something like that. You could feel embarrassment. The longer this goes on and the tighter your cage is and the stronger you've bought into the cultural field. You can feel embarrassment for smiling. You can feel embarrassment for laughing, for showing your teeth when you laugh. Oh gosh, is my third tooth from the left too yellow? You know, have you seen that? Someone laughs and then they kind of close down their mouth. Maybe they're self conscious about their smile, they think they laugh too loud. Maybe even, even just an explosion of energy and emotion moving through them like an uncontrolled laugh is unacceptable. We don't even know all the rules we're following. All we know is stay tight, stay small, keep it inside, don't upset people, be as invisible as possible. That's life inside of the cage, inside of the center of the cultural field. And that's how, honestly, most people that I work with are living. That's why they're seeking me out, is because they want to be free from that cage. And I'm saying, hey, not only is this possible, that you can be free from the cage, because I've done it, and now I've helped thousands of people do it at this point in my life, but I want to help you do it, too. Let's go do it now. So if that resonates with you and you want to go further, then you know how to do it. We talked about the beginning of this episode. So that's the understanding of embarrassment. You might say, yeah, I get all that. It feels very uncomfortable. I don't want to do it. I understand. And like anything, if you continually avoid, your capacity shrinks, right? If you avoid using your muscles, your strength, your capacity to do things shrinks. That's why you've been someone around, someone who's really out of shape. And, you know, if you're in this place, maybe this will be a. It's an alarm bell going off. Like, you walk up some stairs and you're puffing and puffing. You're winded. And I'm not talking about, like, you know, if you sprint up a good flight of stairs. We got three flights of stairs in my house here. If you go from the bottom to the top real fast, you know, you'll be breathing. I'm talking the person who's like, why do you sit down? Right? And that could be happening from smoking. That could be happening from not using your body. And so if you. If you avoid the discomfort of using your body, then your capacity will shrink. If you avoid the discomfort of embarrassment, then your capacity will shrink. I'm not talking about walking upstairs here. I'm talking about being able to smile, speak up, say what you think, introduce yourself to someone, make a joke. People that are way too uptight and don't make jokes around others, they're not playful at all. Maybe they're playful when they're private or they got one friend with them or their partner or something, and then they're super serious around other people. Why they're afraid of embarrassment. The person who doesn't want to go talk to that someone they find attractive want to ask them out why they're afraid of embarrassment. You might think they're afraid of rejection. Sure, sure. Partly they're afraid of the no. But they're also afraid of, oh, my gosh, people are going to see how you know, even Even people that aren't around are going to somehow know about it. It's like a thinking error, a fallacy. It's called the brush fire fallacy. And it's like, wow, you know, if that woman thinks I'm unattractive or doesn't want to date me, then everyone will know, right? And it's irrational, but it affects us. So it's embarrassment that stops you. It's embarrassment that stops you from speaking up in a room, from leading something, from there's 101 things. It's a fear of embarrassment that stops you from making a public toast at your friend's wedding. I've met people, I've talked to people. And one of their regrets in life is they had a big occasion like that and they were too scared of embarrassment to speak up. And I tell them, well, there's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is that moment is gone forever and you can never make it up. I let that sink in because we need pain to motivate us, not just, it's all right, it's all right. The good news is you can use that pain as fuel to have more courage than ever before so you never miss an opportunity like that again in your life. And then some fire starts burning in their eye and they're like, yeah, yeah, I hear you. I'm gonna do that. And that's what we're talking about here, is you have to start to defy that fear of embarrassment that's been caging you for however many decades. And in fact, people will even say, oh, I don't want to do that. I'd embarrass myself. I don't want to go out there and dance on the dance floor. I'd embarrass myself, right? So if you start to listen for this, not just in you, but. But in so many people around you, oh, I don't like my picture taken in that way that embarrasses. I feel embarrassed. I feel self conscious. That's another word for embarrassment. It's everywhere. And so if you're looking to other people to see, what should we do here? Should we challenge this in any way you're gonna see? No, you shouldn't. And of course, there's people doing it all the time, liberated souls who are stepping outside of that cultural field. But you either don't notice them or honestly, you judge them. Cause you're like the crab in the bucket. You heard that one. I think it's. Is that one of the. Australia's got the Tall poppy thing. It's a similar thing, but basically, I don't know if this is true because I actually don't hunt crabs. I don't even. I hate. I hate food from the ocean. I don't like any food from the ocean. Never did. Even as a kid. Maybe. Maybe you can get me to eat a piece of fish. Never. But in any case, certainly not shellfish. Ugh, this disgusting. My mom loves that stuff, though. She'll just like, get a plate full of crab legs and just be in heaven. Like, it's not even. Are you even full afterwards? Anyway, so apparently, if you get a bucket of crab, if you're hunting for crabs and you collect crabs and you put them into a bucket, you don't have to put a lid on the bucket because they're all snapping and thrashing and anyone that tries to grab out will be pulled down by the other crabs. And you maybe are like, well, that. You see someone who's more free and inside, you know, you feel a mixture of envy. Like, I want to be that free. And also, like, who the f are they? I don't like them. You can't even explain why. So what do we do with all this? How do we liberate ourselves? Well, the first thing first is to see it like I'm describing it, because otherwise you just bought into the cultural field. And then therefore, there is no thing to do other than to follow what everyone else is doing. And then there's the alternative. Are you ready for the alternative? The alternative is that you see it completely differently. It's almost like Neo when he can see the Matrix, right? You see what's going on, and all of a sudden. Or a dream. Have you ever. Have you ever had a dream where you became aware that it was a dream? It's called lucid dreaming. And so if you're in a dream, let's say you're. And if you never even had this. Just follow me on this thought experiment. Let's say you're in a dream and it's kind of a stressful situation. Like you're going to go to the exam and you haven't studied, or you're going to show up to the thing and you don't have pants or something nervous is going to happen, right? And then you have a moment where you're walking there, you don't have pants on. You're like, oh, my God. Oh, my God, oh, my God. I'm gonna have to go into the room and take the test. And I don't have any pants on and my teeth are falling out or whatever, whatever your nightmares are. And then wait a minute. You just, you don't even know why. You know, you just know this is a dream. This is a. This isn't real. This is a dream. And you look around at all the people and if you ever waken up in a dream like that, it's really one of the most fascinating things I do when I become lucid in a dream and is I just pause and look around at the dreamscape and am utterly amazed at the capacity of my consciousness and my mind to create this scene in such exquisite detail. I've even slowed down to study something like thousands of tree leaves shimmering in the wind during the, you know, looking at a blue sky behind that. And I'm like, how this is extraordinary. My main. Can create this. And so. But if you did wake up in that dream and you're going to go have to go give a talk, but you know, it's all a dream. Are you. And you really know it's a dream, does that change things for you? Does it really matter what a dream character thinks of you? Are you terrified of what they are going to judge? It's actually really fun. Side note, in a lucid dream, if you try to talk to other dream characters about it being a lucid dream, it's been very interesting. And Candice, my wife, who's really good at this stuff, she can lucid dream pretty much at will. She's had similar experiences where if you try to talk to a dream character. I've done this before, like been in a dream, I'm with my brother and then I wake up in the dream like, hey, this is a dream. And he looks at me and the characters get sort of disturbed. It's like, you're like, wait, no, no, don't. It's like people in the Matrix, right? They're like, don't tell me that. It's confusing me. Really weird. In any case, what if you took a little bit of that energy to going out in the world where you just didn't buy into it so much? And the way that you do that is you realize that the cultural field is a force like gravity, but it is not. It doesn't have total domination control over you, like gravity. Gravity. If you jump out of a tree, it's going to pull you down 10 times out of 10. It doesn't matter what your mindset is. But the cultural field doesn't have that kind of power. It's a weak field. So it'll Exert some pull, but with not too much, you can actually just step right through it, step right out of it. And how do you do this? You show yourself that you can do this. You show yourself that when you do the thing that you think is dangerous, you do it and nothing bad happens and you're fine. And then all of a sudden it's liberating, it's amazing. And what's the thing? Well, the thing is whatever embarrasses you. So to put it into a nutshell, to put on a bumper sticker, as Keith Cunningham would say, do to burn out your embarrassment circuit, do the things that embarrass you on purpose until you're free. So what does that look like? Well, what embarrasses you? What would embarrass you? Here's some things that I've done with clients or had them go do during my events. Walk down the street wearing clothes that are just completely outrageous. I've had people wear parkas in the winter, cowboy, you know, Clint Eastwood style outfits. There's a gentleman who wore a cowboy Clint Eastwood outfit and put on some song. It was Cotton Eye Joe on a little speaker and danced the middle of like some town square as people are walking by. We've had people, this is simple ones. You can skip down the street. You can sing as you walk down the street. You can dance your way down the street with or without a little speaker if you want. Try to get someone else to dance with you as you're doing it. Try to give people high fives as you walk down the street. Just anything that's little. And notice these examples I'm giving you are not, you know, push someone and be some weird, aggressive or something. No, I'm talking about you're doing playful, silly, strange things that are going to get attention, but they're not going to be hurting anybody. And if you feel like you're hurting somebody by being weird, then that is you taking way too much responsibility. Too nice. They're going to be fine. They saw something weird. If anything, they're going to forget about it or they're going to go tell a friend later. Hey, I saw this weirdo. It was funny, right? So just, there's no, there's nothing wrong with you doing that. Lying down on a sidewalk in a busy area. So people have to walk over or around you. This one's amazing. This one is really amazing. You realize how much it is very much like the Matrix or a dream or people are just so in their own robotic, autonomous. Solve my problems, get to the next thing. There's like a body there. I'm not talking about. You look like you're passed out and homeless. Because then people do have a sort of level of. Well, seen that before. And they just keep going. I'm talking about, I've done this where I'm wearing like nice ish clothes, you know, and, and laying down in a way that is not like passed out. I'm kind of got one. It's like I'm on my side with one hand underneath my head, almost like a Roman relaxed pose. I've even done this where I'm laying down and as people walk by, I do friendly readings with them. I just say, hey, how's it going? What's up? You know, I'm just chilling, saying hi to people. It's absurd. Now here's the thing. You hear this, you might get the cringy thing. Like when I was talking about watching Jack Black in that movie, you might say, oh, and it's. The cultural field is like, it's like shooting a rocket into space with the gravitational field where if you have a, a certain velocity, you will break the field, right? So we can break. You can't break gravity jumping out of a tree. But you know, humans with ingenuity and machines and giant rockets can shoot something and it pushes, pushes, pushes, pushes, and then pierces through. And then all of a sudden the gravitational pull has no effect on that rocket anymore, right? It's gotten high enough, way far enough away from the, from the Earth where it's not going to pull it straight down. It might pull it into orbit, but it's not going to pull it straight down. And the same thing is true for the cultural field. Fortunately, it's a hell of a lot weaker. You don't need a rocket. But you do need to have something inside you that I'm going to pierce through this. Because if you go out there and be like, oh God, I just, I hope I don't get embarrassed. Ooh, here I go, I'm gonna go dance. And you do this little timid dance and someone looks at you and say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm doing the social experiment. It's Dr. Z's told me to. I gotta go. And you run. You're not gonna, your rocket's gonna crash straight down. Like, what was the most recent attempt to launch the hugest rocket ever from SpaceX? I forgot what they called it. Thor or something. I don't know what they called it, but it crashed. It was too big. That's okay, they're working on it. They're gonna, you know, iterative improvement. So if you crash, that's also okay, but iterative improvement. Are gonna get out there and do it. Because if you do this, this one's amazing. This one I love because yes, over time it will liberate you more and more. But even just one experience like this is truly life changing. I remember I took a client out one time. This is back when I did one on one intensives with people before I ran events and everything. And we went out and we were walking down somewhere in downtown Portland area. And I was having him do little things just like I'm describing to you. But he's with me and he's paying me, I'm his coach. I'm like, okay, do this. And he's like, okay. And he went and did three or four of these things, not even that many. And this is a guy who is afraid to make eye contact with people, hard to have conversations. Just like classic strong social anxiety that had been happening from for maybe 20 years. I mean, probably six or seven of those years he dealt it with drinking, but that had its own problems, you know, like being drunk, you know, drinking literally before meetings just to be able to be, not have the social anxiety. Right? So not healthy for his family, for his life. But that was his strategy and now he wasn't drinking anymore and he wanted to solve the problem at its root. So serious social anxiety. And we get out there and after three or four of these experiments, he comes back to me, he's like, what else you got? And I start to come up with stuff that's a little more outrageous and eventually comes back to me, what else you got? I said, it's wide open, man, you can do anything. What do you want to do? And so he just started trying things and they weren't even that outlandish anymore. It wasn't like, yeah, I'm gonna go pound my chest like Tarzan. No, he just walk up to groups of people. He realized, I can do whatever I want, that this I'm not. We're not talking about laws that are designed to protect people and enforcing and all that stuff. No, this is the cultural field. This is you just not wanting to get looks or be judged or have anyone ever think negatively about you. And you got to challenge that and you got to show yourself that you're absolutely free. And you do that by going and getting embarrassed on purpose. Which brings me to our action step. Time for action, action, action. Which is to go out and get embarrassed on purpose. You probably saw that one coming, right? So this is called embarrassment, inoculation, and like inoculating yourself to sickness, to a virus, you. You get stronger the more you're exposed to it. So go out there. I gave a dozen examples in this episode. You can come up with your own. Go out there and practice and do them now. Just take a moment to really check with yourself and be brutally honest. Are you going to go do it? And if your answer is no, why not? Is it, I'm too busy. Is it. I don't need that. I'm actually beyond all that stuff that he's talking about. Oh, okay. All right, all right, tough guy. Maybe. Maybe. Or is it that you're scared? I mean, come on. Why not just admit we're scared? Look, before I go do this kind of stuff, too, I'm nervous. I'm scared. I'm like, oh, here we go. But it's a type of training. It's like, get into a cold plunge. Every day before I go into my cold plunge, I'm like, oh, boy, here we go. But you get in, you do it. And now I have no friction. There's. There's no. I know I'm going to do it. And that, to me, is a sign of freedom. Not that you have no emotion about it. What are you, a robot? No, but you're like, okay, here we go. And I also know it's going to be fun and silly and not that scary and actually quite liberating at the end of it, so. Because I've done it so many times. So this is the last call if you want the support to do it. Look, I think we all need support in things. I had a couple years where I was working with a friend of mine who also ran a gym, and it was the strongest I'd ever gotten. I have no problem running regularly, but going to a gym, doing strength training, oof. Just don't. I don't know, don't like it that much or. I need. I need something to get into it, and I don't have the ability. I don't seem to be able to harness that myself. So I worked with them for a couple of years, gotten the, like, strongest shape of my life, and then stopped. And then I was always like, oh, I'm going to do some calisthenics at home, and I'm going to lift these little dumbbells, and slowly degraded in my strength. And then just about three weeks ago, admitted to myself, after about three years of not working with him, like, hey, I Am not gonna actually do this stuff like I say I am. So I hired him again. He works remotely now. It's great. He comes up. My workouts, they come to an app. I do them at home, I report to him. And just in two, three weeks of working with him, there's been, I'd say at least three times that I would not have gone and done it, but I did because I know I'm gonna report to him. And I also pretty much every time I've gone in the gym, I've done more than I would have. I would have thrown around a few weights. Like, man, that's pretty good. I'm going to go here. I have like a set workout to follow. So if you're wanting something like that for this, then definitely check out the ultimate confidence breakthrough. Because we're going to have activities, you're going to do things, you're going to have a group to report to. You have accountability, you're going to have support. It makes it so much more fun, so much more easy than trying to go lone wolf, this stuff. So check it out. The event is July 14th through 16th. You go to drzeze.com and you can find out more. Also check out your tickets now though, because the super early bird goes depending on when you're listening to this, maybe just for another day or two, maybe, you know, a couple days. So check that out and I would love to support you in that way and watch you flourish and grow. It's one of my favorite things is after we come back from people doing this kind of stuff is people sharing about what happened for them, what they learned, what they saw. So check that out and regardless, go out there, do something that embarrasses you. I hope this episode serves you. This kind of stuff has been profoundly life changing for me, really liberating and it's something that I think has really helped me break through the social anxiety, you know, in fast and profound ways. So check it out. Go do it. Let me know how it goes 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. We're related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence. Go to socialconfidencecenter.com.