The Secret To Self-Acceptance

Coming to you from the center for social confidence in Portland, Oregon, welcome to Shrink for the shy guy helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination with your host, Dr. Aziz.

Hey, welcome to today's show. I'm Dr. Aziz, and I am incredibly excited to be with you today because in today's show, we're going to be going into something that I know from personal experience deep down to my core. It's something that I keep coming back to as a lesson that I keep learning in my life. It's, I think, the core of confidence. It really is the most important thing I believe in life. Even more important than your achievements or how social you are or if you have a hot girlfriend or if you earn a lot of money or whatever thing out there that you're striving for, it truly is, I believe, the most important thing because it affects how you feel from day to day. And if you feel like crap, it doesn't matter what you have, does it? Like, if you have a nice car. Have you ever been in a situation like that? I've had this where I've been on vacation somewhere really nice and I'm looking at a beautiful landscape or something, and I'm depressed. I'm just kind of like, meh, whatever. Or if I'm in a bad mood and I'm with my son and he's like the most cute, adorable thing in the world. If I'm closed off, if I'm not feeling good, then I can't appreciate it. And I know you know that feeling where you're doing good things or you're seeing good things or you're somewhere amazing, but you just don't feel good. And so that's why I'm excited about today because we're gonna learn what's going on that produces this continual sense of dissatisfaction with yourself. And that's why today's show is the secret to self acceptance. It truly is, I believe, an incredibly powerful secret. And I know that might sound like, well, Jesus, e's, how many secrets are there? Because you. You share a lot of things about self compassion and self acceptance, but this one truly is extraordinary. And it's something that I am continually learning in my own life. I'm going to share some very personal stories today about how this comes up for me in my life and how I can keep using it in the hopes that it helps you do the same. And so our outcome today in these next 30 minutes is to help you leave today with a deeper felt sense of acceptance for yourself, like truly relaxing into who you are right now without needing to be any different or better or I'll accept myself win. And so we're gonna look at all that. I'm gonna teach you something really powerful that I learned from this old psychoanalytic dude. I'm trying to get him on the show in an interview. He's like 90 plus years old. And I keep getting his voicemail. I don't know if anyone checks it. I mean, for all I know, he's dead. I hope not. Cause he's an amazing teacher to me and I've read a lot of his books. But I'm gonna share one key powerful insight that really transformed my life when I read it. And so this can help you in this process. So let's jump into it right now. Let's look at self acceptance. What's the opposite of self acceptance? Well, the opposite of self acceptance is self criticism, right? You judge yourself. You examine yourself or your situation in your own mind and you think, no, that's not good. I don't like that. What's wrong with me? I should be this way. I should be able to do that. I shouldn't have this problem. And just there's a tone to it, right? There's kind of like when I do it, I'm like, kind of like I bit into a lemon. I'm a little disgusted with myself. I'm curling my lips in contempt and I have a little bit of a frown and my eyebrows go down in the middle. I'm angry at myself. And we call it self attack. We call it self criticism. Theodore Rubin, who's the amazing guy that I mentioned I wanted to do the interview with, he calls it self hate. And it's a powerful word. I remember I taught a workshop one time. I was at this hippie festival thing in Oregon, and I was gonna do this workshop there, and I called it self hate and self compassion, you know? Cause that's really what we were gonna be looking at. And it freaked a lot of people out. Like, a lot of people didn't come to the workshop. They ran into me later on. They're like, yeah, I saw you do that thing. I don't know, man. Self hate. I didn't want to get near that with a ten foot pole. It's an intense word and I think Theodore Rubin uses that on purpose to cut through any euphemism you might use. Oh yeah, I'm a little hard on myself. No, when you get down to it, you're hating yourself. I mean, you're like against yourself. A teacher of mine, Elliot Geller, who I really respect and admire, I was in a men's group of his for three years. He said, you're not right in yourself, so let's help you get right in yourself. But what's going on is we're attacking ourselves in our minds. We're hating ourselves. We're demanding. And here's the key piece. You're demanding that you be different in some way. So where is that happening for you right now in your life? Maybe you were somewhere in a social interaction. You didn't go interact with people. You held back, you hesitated. You were frightened. And then this voice is like, what's wrong with you? Gritting its teeth in anger at you. You should have said this, you should have done that. Why are you always so this way? And you needed to do this more, and you suck, and you're never gonna get any better, and there's something terribly wrong with you. Am I ringing any bells here? That was a really common form of self hate that I had for years. Or you did go talk to someone, right? You had a social interaction, but it didn't go well enough. You should have said that. And they didn't really like you, or they were bored, or they talked with you for 10 minutes and then they went to go talk to someone else and they think that other person's better than you are. Or you went for it and you asked for a number or tried to get a date and they said no. Oh, I'm a loser. I'm a failure. I shouldn't have tried. Oh, I should have been better. If I'd been better, then maybe she would have said yes, so on and so forth. This could be happening at work. I shouldn't be nervous in those meetings. I should be more assertive. I should be more relaxed with people. I should be able to speak up more confidently and assertively. On and on, right? I'm just listing the tip of the iceberg here. So hopefully this is just getting you thinking about, where is it that I attack myself? Where is it that I criticize myself? Where is it that I hate myself? I know it's a strong word. It makes us a little squeamish. We kind of like, no, I don't want to. No, I don't want to go there. But trust me, if you go there, you get tremendous power. Because if you call a spade a spade and you're like, whoa, I'm hating myself right now. You have power. You have power to shift things now. Whereas if you're trying to pretend like it's not so bad or that's not happening. Then you're just going to kind of try to deal with it or ignore it or manage it by eating or getting some fast food or having some beers or smoking some pot or doing something to try to numb it out, watching a bunch of TV or Netflix shows or something. And what we want to do is look at it honestly directly in the face, say, this is where I'm hating myself. So as I'm talking right now, perhaps you can be thinking of at least just one area. Pick just one area in your life right now where you're hard on yourself or you're hating yourself, or you criticize yourself and just draw that into your mind right now. Really think and then think, what is it that I say to myself? What is it that this critic in me says that really laces into me? What is it that I quote should be? Because what we're going to do, we're going to take a little break and then we're going to get back in and we're going to help you uncover something. That when I discovered this, it was so powerful. And trust me, I mean, I tried, like I say, that I should be that woman should have wanted me or something like that, is what I noticed the criticism was. And then I would try saying, no, she shouldn't want me, or it's okay that she doesn't want me. I wouldn't feel any different. I'd still hate myself. Yeah, it's like the part of me would be like, yeah, right, you suck. And so we're going to learn something way, way more powerful than that when we come back from the break. That's going to help you really, truly, deeply let go of something, to be more relaxed in who you are. So take a quick break, think about that one thing, that one area where you criticize yourself. And we'll be right back after this to help you shift it.

Are you tired of worrying about other people's judgments? Tired of being held back by fear and self doubt? Do you want to make rapid shifts in your level of confidence? The truth is, challenges with confidence were created with others. You learned them from parents, teachers, peers. You learn them in groups. And the fastest way to unlearn them, to completely transform them, is through groups as well. That is why Dr. Aziz has created the Core Confidence Group program. It allows you to work directly with Dr. Aziz and five others who are overcoming the same challenges you are. Together, you set goals, break through old patterns of shyness, and support each Other to creating outstanding lives. To find out more about upcoming group opportunities, go to SocialConfidenceCenter.com and click on Confidence Coaching.

Welcome back. So, self criticism, self hatred. We got an area now where you're doing it. Now I'm going to teach you something that's going to help you truly relieve this burden, this pressure, this constant striving to be better, to be more. And I know that. I mean, trust me, I know that deeply in my core, that pain of not feeling like I'm enough and thinking I need to do more. And so what's happening here? This is what I learned from Theodore Rubin. Incredibly powerful is what he calls a pride position. Now he's an analyst. And if you're not familiar with that, back in the days, Freud created a field called psychoanalysis, where you sat on the couch, which you might have seen in movies. You sit on the couch and you look away from the person, and they sit with a notepad, and you just free associate and talk about stuff. And they write things down and then meet with them every day. It was crazy. And then two years in, they say, yes, well, clearly that dream was of a train. That train represents a penis, and that the moon represents your mother, and you want to sleep with your mother. Something like that. That's kind of a caricature of analysis. But the tradition has evolved greatly. I mean, these analysts are brilliant. The short version of it is they're really good at seeing what's underneath the surface. But they speak in jargon. It's really dense. I mean, I've picked up. I got a doctorate in this stuff, and I picked up books written by analysts, and I'm like, I don't know what the hell this guy's talking about. So what I'm going to do, though, is I'm going to break this concept down in something that's so simple that you can understand it immediately, because that's really where power comes from, right? Is really being able to get something. So it's called a pride position. What's a pride position? Well, a pride position is a way of seeing yourself that gives you a sense of pride. Simple enough. So if I see myself as I am the best with women, I'm a Don Juan, you know, Like, I can get any woman into bed in 30 seconds flat. Bam. You know? And I see myself as that. That's a pride position. I feel proud of that. Right. Like I'm a badass. Yeah. And so we feel proud. So far, so good. But here's the thing. The pride Position is based on something that's not really true. I'm not a Don Juan. I can't get any woman into bed in 30 seconds. Right? I mean, that seems pretty extreme. But what happens? Well, my mind says that I should be able to be like that. It wants to be like that. Do you have something like this where you want to be the best at it? Oh, you want it so bad. You want it in your core. That's the pride position. And here's what happens. Your mind's like, I gotta be this way. I gotta be this way in order to be enough. I gotta be this good. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta. No question. I just gotta. And then what happens is, sure, sooner or later, reality shows up and says, hey, Aziz, you're not a Don Juan. You know? So I go talk to a woman, and I start flirting with her, and she's like, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I gotta go somewhere else now. Get away from me. Bam. Right there in that moment, reality slaps me in the face. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I thinking I'm supposed to be, or I should be, this Don Juan guy. I get a sense of pride from thinking that I'm. That I'm that. And here, reality showing me that I'm not. And then what happens? Massive self attack, self hatred. What's wrong with you? You're a loser. You're pathetic. And what is that self attack doing? It's trying to drive you, to motivate you to get back on the horse, work harder to get back to that pride position, to get to be that Don Juan. And I've seen this again and again. I'm working with a guy right now. He was an awesome guy, a big heart. He's a doctor. He loves. He wants to help people. He's currently getting ground down by the hospital system that he's working in, but that's a whole different tangent. But he wants to help people. He's got a big heart. He's just like a big smile, kind of boyish, really loving guy, very emotionally centered guy, Big heart and has always had a hard time with. Luin was the shy, nerdy doctor kid growing up who was the brainiac in the family and just never, you know, his brother was the outgoing guy and got the women, and he didn't. That was his role. And so somewhere along the way, long before he met me, he discovered pickup artist teachings online. And this guy, you know, he's a brainiac, so he just studies the shit out of it. And he knows everything. He knows this opener and that opener and that close. And how to deal with lmr, which stands for last minute resistance. If you studied that stuff, which, it sounds like a car salesman or something, but lmr, and overcome this and do that and do the freeze out. And he's got all the terms down, but he's not satisfied and it wasn't really working that well for him. So he came to see me and I'm like, okay, well, I appreciate that you're really throwing yourself in and learning this stuff. And I try to learn some of that stuff too. And so I respect you for really taking action in this realm. And what is it that you ultimately want? And he wants to be that Don Juan. You know, he's tired of feeling powerless. He wants to just walk into a room and know what to say. Bam, bam, bam. 1, 2, 3, step system to just there, you know, her pants come off right there. And he's the man. That's what he wants. And anytime he's not that, which he hasn't really become yet, he's suffering and he's beating himself up. He's trying to get to this position. And right now, as we speak, he's doing some pick up artist immersion somewhere in Las Vegas to try to get to the next level with getting this thing. And I'm like, all right, give it a shot, man, let me know how it goes. And there's a pain there, there's a suffering there. And I'm guilty of this too. When I was studying, trying to meet women, I was absolutely just like him. I want to be the best. I want to get to this level where I'm so awesome with women that I'm amazing. Another old analyst named Karen Horner, I called it the quest for Glory. Glory. I gotta get to this thing. And why? Because then it'll be enough. And that's ultimately what he wants. He wants to feel acceptable and lovable and good as he is. And he thinks if I can be this amazing, get this much approval and acceptance from women, then I'm worthwhile. And I'm guilty of this too. I just realized this not too long ago, but I started out doing therapy with people. Then I progressed into doing coaching, and I was learning from a bunch of people about how to grow coaching practice. And all of a sudden there's a new standard in the coaching world of like, you know, how many people come to your events and how many people are checking out your website and how much your fee is and how much people pay you per hour, per month or whatever. To work with you. And I noticed that I got into this state of more self criticism, more self attack, more driving, and I was suffering. I was really. So I was helping people and reaching out to more people, but I was not feeling good as I did it. And I'm like, what is going on here? And I just thought, I need to try harder. I need to get more clients, I need to charge more. I need to have more of an impact. And then just the other day, I was talking with my wife, and it was like, you know, our kids went to bed. It was like 11pm which is crazy past our bedtime. And we were just talking back and forth, and I was sharing about how I was struggling, and I was like, wait a minute. I think this is a pride position. And it just like, duh, hit me in the head. I was like, wait a minute. Okay, okay, I see this thing I'm striving for, this quest for glory. Now what is it? And that. That is how you're going to break free. It's incredible. So once you've identified that it's a pride position, and again, a pride position is some kind of extreme standard or goal or thing that you think you should be. And you have this driving part of you that's like making you get there because you gotta get there in order to be good enough and lovable and worthwhile and that it makes you feel good to imagine that you're there or that you're almost there. That's the pride position. And just identifying it helps. But there's one last step we have to do in order to become free of it. Because just seeing it is like, yep, that's what I want to be. And I'm going to keep beating myself to get there. That's not ultimately going to get you free of it. There's one more step to help you really get free of it. I'm going to share how it worked in the dating and pickup artist world, how it worked in my life now around building my business. And you're going to learn exactly how to do that in just one minute, right after this break. So stay tuned, and I'm looking forward to sharing that with you.

Do you like yourself when no one else is around? Are you proud of who you are? If your answer is no, then most likely you don't have the confidence you need and want. If you're tired of being your own worst critic, then it's time to change this. Dr. Aziz has a program that is entirely dedicated to transforming how you feel towards yourself. Discover the skill of self esteem, how to accept yourself, build your strengths and truly love who you are. Go to www.to learn more.

Welcome back. So how do we be free of this pride position? This is one of those instances where this is an Internet radio show and I wish I could. If I was teaching someone, I was working with someone one on one or talking to an audience, I could see if people are getting it. And I hope you're getting it. If you don't understand what I'm saying. If you're like scratching your hand, you're like, what's the pride position thing? Send me an email hostrinkfortheshyguy.com or just go to shrinkforthshyguy.com and send me a voicemail through there. Just let me like I don't get it and I will email you. I'll talk to you more about it. I really want to help you get this. By the way, if you haven't checked out shrinkforthshyguy.com, go there, you can also go to the Facebook page and like that and all that good stuff. So how do we be free of this? Well, what we have to do is we have to identify what is the specifics of the pride position. What is the specific? So in the example of this guy that I was working with around dating relationship, his pride position is like, I can walk up to any woman anywhere, anytime and bam. Know exactly what to say to just totally seduce her, blow her mind, get her number, have her want to come home and sleep with me that day, that moment. Pretty extreme, isn't it? Well, in case you're thinking, well, it's just he's a weirdo. Here's one of mine. When I looked at this thing about why was I suffering around creating this coaching business and. And it was. I gotta be. I gave him a name. I love to give him playful names, by the way. Cause it helps me distance from that part. But that pride position was what I called super coach extraordinaire. Super coach extraordinaire is the guy who just jumps into the field, is immediately successful. He's got throngs of people who want to come to all of his events. All of his groups are instantaneously full. People are like wanting, they're waiting in line to pay him huge amounts of money just to grace him. I can't even say it with a straight face at this point, but honestly, this was driving me totally absurd. I had a pride position when I first started giving talks, public speaking that I Was like the most amazing speaker in the world. Everyone had to be on the edge of their seat, jaw dropped, having life changing experiences like, oh my God, I can barely contain myself because you're so amazing, right? So if I'm giving a talk and there's some dude in the back, which actually happened, I give talks and there's like I was doing them at Portland State University because I worked in their counseling center at the time. And I'd go around to the student body and give talks and there'd be like, you know, the two dudes in the back with the sideways hats, like leaning against the back of the wall with their eyes closed, asleep. That's not the most riveting, amazing speaker in the world. I'm a failure, right? And you have that crippling feeling of being a failure because you didn't meet to those pride positions. So you see how the pride positions are so extreme. And what we have to do in order to be free of it is we have to fight for our right to be a human being. We have to fight to lower those standards from extreme quest for glory, like inhuman standards of perfection and just drop them. Drop it to just being me. I'm just disease. I am someone who wants to help people, who's going to sit with them and try to talk with them, to help them make a shift in their lives. I'm not the best in the world. I'm not. With having throngs of fans or whatever the pride position is demanding, I got more comfortable with women and enough to really connect with them and be myself around them and find the love of my life. But I never was the Don Juan who could walk up to any woman anywhere and push the 10 guys who were waiting around and just be the number one guy. Never got there. Just letting it go, just being who I am. Being who you are, letting those standards drop a little. And it's a bit of a practice because if you the first instance of this, there's that part of you that's like, no, no, I don't want to let it go. And Theodore Rubin calls this part of him the omnipotent screamer. Now omnipotent means all powerful. So he called it the all powerful screamer. Kind of like a 2 year old who's not getting his way. No, I don't want to get this. I want to get that. Bleh. Right, like we have a part of us. It's like, no, I want to be super coach extraordinaire. No, I want all the women to like me, you know, and like yells and like, tries to demand that you get back on the horse and try harder and study more and work more and be more frantic. It's exhausting. What if we just let go? What if you just drop that pride position right now, in this moment, let it go and said, I don't need to be the best. I don't need to be completely unflappable, completely on top. I don't need to win every trial. I don't need to get on top of every business deal. I don't need to make money on every single investment. I can make mistakes. I can learn. I can be a human. I can have moods that shift. I can be in a good mood. I can be in a bad mood. I can be on point and intelligent and sharp and focused and I can be kind of spacey. I can show up and do, okay, what does it feel like to really just focusing on that one pride position that you found and just like, what if you're just to soften a little bit, Let go of some of those extreme standards, bring them back down to a human level. Humans make mistakes. Humans are not machines. Humans get tired. Humans have moods. Humans try something and then fail. Humans put their effort into something and then give up. Sometimes humans feel confused at times. Humans get rejected. They don't have every single person in the world love them and approve of them no matter what. There's a lot of people that just don't want to hang out with them. That's just true for every single human being. Just take a deep breath in now through your nose and let it out. What does it feel like to let go of that pride position? And you might feel a little spasm of that omnipotent screamer that's like, no, don't let it go. Be the best and just smile and say, okay, little guy, I gotcha. Yep, I'm working on. And this doesn't mean that you stop growing and stop trying things. I'm still gonna keep, you know, creating these podcasts and putting cool stuff out in the world and working with people and having them be well paid for my work and grow and expand and create groups and seminars. I'm still going to do all that stuff. So this is by no means. We think that if we lower the extreme standard that we're just going to become this slug in the middle of the room and we need to beat ourselves to motivate. But that's total bullshit. You're still going to do what's your natural True expression, you're still going to be you in the world. And if it's you to create music or art or do well in business or master sales or give talks or whatever it is, if that's you, you're gonna keep doing it. You don't need the omnipotent screamer. You don't need that pride position to drive you. So just let it go. And here's one thing about those pride positions, which is so key, is they're always about significance, aren't they? They're always about me being the best, me being this, me being that. When it comes to women, it's not about her. It's not about connecting and what you can offer her to really make her life better. It's, am I awesome enough to seduce her? She just becomes an object. And when I get really wrapped up in the coaching thing, it's not about, am I touching this person and really helping them change their life and feeling the pride of that contribution and healthy pride, it's like, did I get X number of people to come to this thing? It's about me. And that ultimately doesn't serve anyone, really. So finding a way to let go of that pride position. In fact, that is your action step for today. We're gonna jump into that right now.

Time for action.

Your action step for today is something you've actually been doing as you've been listening to this show. I've embedded little prompts and commands for you to find these things in yourself. But if you have not really solidified that, take a few minutes and just sit down and write out what your pride position is. And if you don't know, then just pay attention through the next day to when you're criticizing yourself, and then follow the chain backwards. Say, I'm saying I suck. Okay, thank you, critic. Why do I suck? Well, and if your critic loves this when you ask, it's like, I'll tell you why. I won't even wait for you to ask. I tell you why you suck. You know what I mean? He's gonna launch into his little diatribe about why you suck and then just listen for it and be like, okay, what is it that he's demanding me to be? What is the pride position that he's demanding me to be at? There's your answer. And then the next step, let go. Lower the standards. Just let go of them. Be human. Fight for that. Right? And you sometimes have to get a little firm with yourself. When I do this, I get into, like, my compassionate self and I'm like hey, hey, hey, you knock that off. As if I'm like protecting my son from like a dog or something. Like hey, hey, you back up, you stay away from him and I'll do that with myself. I know it's crazy, but you probably know by now if you listen to any of these shows that I'm a little crazy. And I think it's a good thing to be a little crazy, be a little out of the box. And so what I'll do is I'll say it out loud sometimes and no one's around. I'll just be like hey, hey, knock that off. Stop it. Stop criticizing him. And it's like I'm protecting myself from this critic, from this self hatred. So that's your action step for today. Thanks for listening. I love sharing this stuff with you. I hope it's helping you and affecting you. Please let me know. I don't want this to be just a one way experience this. I want you to tell me how this is affecting you, how it's helping you, how it's shifting things in your life, or if you don't get something. So email me@hostrinkforthshyguy.com you can also go to shrinkforthshyguy.com and just send a message through the website to me via voice or email. And you can also call the hotline for the show. If you have a question or you want to do something, I can answer your questions. So thank you so much for joining me today and I look forward to speaking with you again in the future. Until we do speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know 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.

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