Two Steps To Total Self-Love with Dr. Susan Campbell

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 today's episode of the show. Today you earn for a treat. We have one of the biggest, best interviews that I've had the privilege of being a part of and learning from this person that I just cannot wait to share with you. What we're really going to get into in this episode is about the two steps, the two pieces of the puzzle to truly access and reside in self love. Which is a topic, as you know, that I'm a huge fan of. I just released on my own side about a month and a half ago. And it's funny, in the beginning of the interview she's like, well, you wrote a book on it, so we'll see if there's anything new that comes out. I just laugh because I know with the years of experience she has that I knew I was going to learn something and I sure did. We both share authentically and vulnerably. That's one of her strengths and mine as well. So it's a very real and touching interview and I hope you'll learn a lot more about how to really master this process of self love. And I absolutely love her capacity to articulate my, you know, why we turn on ourselves, where it came from, why we're doing it. It's just so concise, so good. I'm just like, that's a master at work. So let me introduce her and then we're going to dive into the interview. But her name is Dr. Susan Campbell. She's a psychologist and worked as a corporate trainer and relationship coach for 55 years. She's been doing this a long time and it shows when she shares just brilliant set of insights and not only just what she's learned through her academics and years of work with clients, but her own self growth is really unparalleled. It's beautiful to listen to. She's a former professor at the University of Massachusetts. She's the author of 11 books on the topic of relationships and human communication. Her most recent work centers on how to use honest, present centered communication as a vehicle for personal healing and expanded self awareness. And she has books ranging from Getting Real, which is one I've often recommended on the show. I was a big fan of that book when I first discovered I found it just totally just relationship transforming for me. It's like, oh my God, I could actually speak what's going on. Here's how to do it. Brilliant book. Truth in Dating. I absolutely love that one as well. Saying what's Real and the five Minute Relationship Repair. Her work has been shared all over the place in media and magazines including Psychology Today, New Woman Self, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Yoga Journal. She's been on cnn, Good Morning America and the Dean Adele Show. She's been on so many different media outlets because her advice is really brilliant. So I feel fortunate and grateful to have Susan Campbell with us here on the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. Dr. Susan Campbell I'm glad to be here.

I always love Talking to you, Dr. Aziz.

Yes, and I know that I and everyone listening, we're going to learn a lot because you have a lot of experience, a lot of wisdom and a lot of years working with people in the trenches and seeing what actually works, what helps people shift, change and grow and what you do with people you might not necessarily categorize as confidence work, but it is directly related to confidence. Being able to speak more authentically, share more openly and honestly and know how to do that skillfully is just one of the tools that you help people develop. But you know, one thing I thought would be really interesting to talk with you today about is this whole idea of being on our own sides, self acceptance versus not liking ourselves, feeling embarrassed or ashamed. Because many years ago when I read your book about how to express yourself fully and authentically and Getting Real was the name of the book. And if anyone who has not read that book, I would highly recommend that it really opened up the door for me to be able to start to communicate more authentically. You know what I realized is what stopped me from doing it was one not having the words, not knowing what to say. But another thing was just a lot of shame. Saying what I wanted, saying what I didn't want, asking for something. And what I realized looking back at it now is like, wow, I was really not on my own side. I was really had so much judgment of myself and so I thought that would be a great place to start. You know, when you're helping people get more real and communicate more fully and expressively. How do you see that turning on themselves or not being on their own sides? How does that play a part in us being more authentic communicators?

Well, let me say something about things like shame and fear of rejection, because most of us have some. Some of that inside of ourselves. Here's the basic, natural, healthy way an organism organizes their reality. You want something and you take action on that want. And when you take action on that want, whoever you wanted it from, they either say yes or no, to put it simply. So this is like a universal human dilemma is first of all, when you're very, very young, you're open about your wants. You just reach out and scream and holler, and the environment either says yes or no. And the more times your real needs get frustrated, it builds tenderness in your system because there's pain there that you very often were not nurtured to fully process. When you're like a little baby, we have a lot of unprocessed pain. And I'm going to say baby feelings that need somebody to go, oh, honey, let me hug you, let me hold you, let me give you the space to have that hurt feeling that later on becomes associated with rejection. And you get enough no's and you start to think you're trying to make sense out of your world. I'm trying to show how developmentally we come to turn against ourselves. The basic idea is early relationships fed us and we need them for our very survival. And yet those same early relationships often caused us pain that we don't even remember now, but our biology remembers it. And certain neural pathways inside of the emotional centers of the brain, they remember. So you talk about the fear of going after your wants. In a very healthy or organism, it should be very easy. I feel a want, I take action on my want, and I get a yes or a no. And then whatever I feel, I feel. But the part about getting a no and getting a lot of no's for your very basic childhood core needs, like the need to be held, the need to be told that you're wanted, you're valuable, you're such a great kid, I want to hang out with you. These are really basic needs that a lot of parents are too busy or too distracted or too emotionally damaged themselves to be present for those needs. And then certainly they're not going to be present for the child who's crying after getting a no or getting some kind of frustration. The child cries and cries, and often the parent when the child is in pain like that, and showing it actually makes the parent uncomfortable. So then you start to feel shame. You start to feel there's something wrong with me if I'm in pain. Then you start to develop all these defenses against taking risks. So we're talking about social confidence here. But what I want to do is start to develop some empathy for the really little person that's inside of you that did not get all their developmental needs met. And so for all of us, we can help each other heal in our adult relationships. That is where I want to get to in this interview with you, Aziz. The first step. And that's hard for a lot of us because we don't have memories of any of this. Maybe my parents are pretty great, but my mother wasn't able to nurse me, and there was some rejection at an age that was very hard for me to remember. So that's my story. You can read about it in the book Getting Real. But I grew up deathly afraid of asking for what I want or having wants. So you and I probably have a lot in common here. But I went over the top. I learned to go over the top of my fears. So my story is a little different, and I'm not going to touch on that right this minute. But the main point is that it's hard for us to realize that our basic developmental needs were not met. And there's some healing that needs to be done in almost all of us. And admitting that can cause a kind of shame. But I want us to get sober around the fact that we all need some healing. And there's two places we can get healing, from ourselves and from other people. And that's what you and I are going to be talking more about today, is how to get that healing.

I love that. And I think that was an extremely articulate and concise narrative of the origins of our pain. As you were sharing, I have a chapter in the book on my own side called Origins. And I was like, dang, we could sum up that whole chapter and what you just said in about three minutes there. And that's so spot on. And I think what you're describing is totally true. I've seen this. This was definitely my path. And I see this with a lot of clients. There is a kind of default resistance to that. My childhood affected me that it still does, that I have this inside of me. And that resistance can show up in all kinds of ways, especially in men. It can show up as kind of a dis. Dismissive, like, oh, is this that inner child stuff? Is this is this, you know, I don't have time for that. That sounds so weak. You know, there's that kind of dismissal response. And other times it's more of like a I don't know what you're talking about. My childhood was fine story, and I really fell into that second camp that everything was fine. And what we find is when we start to probe, you know, as you said, it's not necessarily these, like, overt aggressions and these horrible experiences. It's a lot of micro moments that we don't consciously remember. And for me, what was a real turning point was when I got to observe my parents with my children and their grandchildren and really see some patterns. And they love. They love me and my brother, they love their grandkids.

And you have lovely parents, like I did.

Yes, right. And so it's not a lack of love. It's a lack of emotional awareness and sensitivity to these little things and maybe curiosity or receptivity to become more aware of these things. And sort of like, this is how I do it, and this is why I do it my way. And watching it, it's like, oh, that must be what happened to me. No wonder I felt this ache for something. No wonder I have these needs. And so I love what you're saying. Totally relate. I'm sure everyone listening relates to if they're not aware of those experiences, they're feeling the results right now, which is that discomfort with going after what we want, shame about having wants, and bunch of strategies to protect ourselves from taking risks. So we're 100% with you. Let's look at how does this turning against ourselves, like, what have you seen it manifest as?

Yeah, so I mentioned a minute ago. I'll start with me. I mentioned a minute ago that because it was hard for me to. Well, it was impossible for me to deal with the level of frustration that I experienced as a tiny person. And my mother probably didn't even know that I was experiencing that. It was just like she couldn't nurse me and I'm sucking, trying to get milk and her milk's not coming down. It was that sort of a thing. So that's very early and, you know, extremely scary for a little one. But what my defense mechanism, it was like the men that you were mentioning, you know, oh, I'm tough. So I grew up to be a tough little kid. And basically, even in my adult relationships, at least during my 20s, my husband's joke was, susan has no needs. You know, because I have no needs. What can I do? For you kind of thing. And I became a people helper and so forth. And of course later on I realized that try this one on helpfulness. That is my MO in life is to be helpful. Helpfulness is projected helplessness. In other words, I was completely denying the part of myself that needed help and just putting it on other people.

Can we unpack that one just for a second? Because I think it's a really powerful concept. So helpfulness is projected helplessness. And is there a bounds in which helpfulness is not that where helpfulness might be coming from some other desire? Or would you say it's universally that or only when it gets extreme, Only.

When it's completely one sided. It's like one sided, out of balance helpfulness. So I wouldn't say certainly when you have an abundance of love in your life, you want to give to others, you want to share it. And you know, I think both you and I have gotten more to that place in our lives now. And I just feel like I don't even worry about whether it's giving or receiving. I just love connecting, just exchanging with people. But when I say projected helplessness, a lot of us don't want to feel the helpless little baby inside who totally needs other people, who's dependent. Dependency is a truly universal thing. We do need other people to a degree. And when I say dependency, I don't mean, you know, we need somebody to be our mommy, but we need other people to feel, to feel ourselves. Part of the self is a reflection of what's going on in your relationships. So if you're totally isolated from people, you're going to be really living with a deficit of your whole human potential. So that's pretty obvious that we need others. But I want to get back to some of the ways that we turn against ourselves because one is denying that we even have needs. So that's one being, that tough, strong, silent type, whatever it is, and I used to be that. But there's a lot of ways in which people cover over or criticize themselves for being needy. The inner critic who says there's something wrong if you're needy. And there's an awful lot of social pressure to not be too needy in the dating world. For women especially, but it's even more true for men. Don't be needy, heaven forbid. And that little rule that we put on ourselves, I don't want to criticize that little rule in my work. I call these things control patterns. An inner rule that protects you. Or maybe an inner rule that says, oh, I Couldn't just go up and talk to a woman if I didn't have a good script and know exactly what I was going to say. I couldn't just say, hey, I noticed you and I wanted to have a conversation. And now I don't even know what I want to talk about, but I just know I want to have a conversation. I mean, I try to help people have those kind of interchanges.

Yeah. Which end up being way more interesting and enlivening than any scripted conversation ever would be.

Yeah, yeah. But some people will have a rule, you know, don't start a conversation or don't speak up in a group unless you have a pretty significant important thing to say. So all these little rules protect us from rejection, protect us from other people criticizing or judging us and maybe judging ourselves. But my little introduction there about the wounds of childhood is meant to give us a context. So here's what I want to say to our audience is those little rules are there for good reason to protect you from actual pain that you felt at some point in your past. And so if you just say, okay, get rid of that rule, or go over the top of that rule and say, oh, no, just take risks and go up to somebody and go ahead and be tongue tied, well, if you give up your rules without attending to the reason you have them, the protection of your tenderness, you could re traumatize yourself. You could stand there and stammer on a date. I mean, I want people to take risks, but I want to also have people be more sensitive to their actual feelings about what's this risk you're about to take and how does it feel. And if you have a chronic fear of something, then that should be an area of self curiosity, like what is going on there? Gee, I always start to freeze at X episode X type of situation. What I want you to take a guess about is that there's some tender feelings that just need to be attended to a tiny bit. Aziz, we don't need to do a whole big oh my wounded child and oh, I'm here for you and a big speech or anything. What I've found I try to help people just pause when you start to feel frozen in a situation. Or I even work with trial lawyers who will get frozen in front of the judge and jury. You know, that's a real no no in their profession. But they're human, so they can learn. Just one little pause that's hardly noticeable to your audience, where you just take a breath and you either silently, metaphorically, or actually physically Maybe touch your heart or touch your belly. It's a way of going, oh, I know that there's some frozen feelings down there. There's some feelings that never got attended to by self by a reassurement. You couldn't self reassure when you're tiny. You needed what we call co regulation. You needed someone to love you and reassure you that you're safe. If you're crying and you're afraid of some need not being met, or you're afraid you did something wrong because somebody yelled at you, we need tender loving care around having pain around that. Because what we got the idea back then was wrong idea was if I'm in pain, there's something bad or wrong about me. And that's a very early origin of a kind of shame. And there's absolutely nothing wrong when you're in pain. It's just that no one was fully present or maybe they were uncomfortable with your crying or something. Adults. So you didn't have anyone hold space for you. So what I guide people is just hold a little space for yourself in the moments that you feel fear or if you are in a court of law and you have to kind of act over the top of it sometimes pretend it's not happening. That's what I mean there. After you can breathe, after you can go to the bathroom and take a few breaths and the cases is either won or lost in the courtroom. And you can go, okay, now I can attend to that little 7 year old who used to stutter in school and the teacher was relentless with that little kid and all the feelings and fears. So you just give it a little tender loving care to yourself. So to me that needs to be. Unfortunately it's kind of socially awkward to figure out well how do I do that in a normal conversation? But the ability to admit these things to yourself, that you do need some healing is that's the most self loving and self supporting thing I think anyone can do for themselves. And the reason, my evolutionary reason that I make up to help. I think humans are here to evolve and grow and heal. Okay? So the reason we have so much pain and stress in our adult human relationships, especially love relationships, is so that a light can be shined on where you need to heal. Because then once you do that healing, you understand the process of healing. You have way more love and compassion in your heart for the world, for others. And maybe there's hope for us to become a truly healing community. The world as healing community. Because that's my vision.

I love that we can talk more about that vision a little bit later, I would love to hear more about that. And something you said in there, though, I think is so important, is giving space to that part of us. And yet you also said earlier that we often don't consciously remember the specific events. So maybe we don't remember that. The reason I'm scared now is because something happened when I was seven.

So.

But what people are aware of if they slow down and pause is that there's that pain in their heart or their. For me, it can be very somatic. You know, it's like, oh, there's an ache in my chest or a squeezing or something like that. How do you suggest that when they're holding the space for it, is it just being with the physical sensations? Is it being open and curious about any past memories that might arise? What do you suggest, if we're willing to turn towards ourselves, that we do?

Well, if you're in a safe place and you're either alone or with a trusted partner or friend, then I would ask you to create a safe place for yourself to be. And actually the friend is just a witness, just a. A co. Space holder for you. Because what you're really doing is holding space for yourself. But you start with whatever you are able to feel. And sometimes it's a body sensation, like you mentioned. Sometimes it's one of the most common body sensations is some kind of freeze, deer in the headlights, not knowing what to do, just kind of going a little bit blank. So, you know, you start back with what that was and just allow your heart to soften your breathing to become a little more conscious and full, because that actually creates an internal sense of safety. Okay, I am safe here. So doing some conscious breathing, sometimes you even count the breaths. Four in, four out, whatever it takes to become more present to yourself. And then it's kind of like a suggestion, a self suggestion. I am safe here and I am holding space for whatever arises in me. And so you start with maybe it's a sensation or maybe it's a picture of the other person giving you an ugly look, even though they didn't give you an ugly look. Maybe it's some imaginary thing, in other words. And so whatever could be an emotion, it could be a familiar emotion. Like it can still be. It could come out as anger, even though it's fear underneath, like fear of rejection. You know, people will have anger. Like, I'm angry at women, I'm angry at men for hurting me. I'm angry at people. So it has layers to it. Is What I'm trying to suggest. So I could start with anything. Once you pause, you're just like watching a movie and you're curious about, well, what's going to happen next in this movie. But the movie is your internal responses as they come and flow. So feelings, sensations, thoughts can take you there. And sometimes you'll have a thought like, like, she doesn't like me, they don't like me. Some thought like that. And it might bring up a memory. So sometimes if you sit with your feelings, they will bring up old memories that are kind of similar to what you're feeling now. But don't try for anything, just kind of open because what's ready to come up will come up. And you need to do these little sessions with yourself many, many times if you really want to heal.

Yes, yes. I love what you're sharing. And that's really what I discovered on my journey. And now what I teach people to do is it's like two sides of the process and maybe almost like yin and yang or masculine and feminine, it's like one is the courage and the boldness to, to leap, to act, to approach, to not just be stuck underneath the story of I can't and it won't. And yet if we just try to do that, as you said, we could just pummel ourselves or we could be taking action and experiencing results. And that's what I did early on. But we're not at peace inside. There's still so much fear about the next action. And the next time is because there's still so much concern about re experiencing these things. And so I found this beautiful, beautiful dance between action and then inward healing and feeling and loving and acknowledging. And then, okay, now I'm, now I'm solid again. Let's do some more action. And it's this back and forth dance. And sometimes I work with clients that I can just kind of see where they are. It's like, okay, you need more of the action and you, you know, you think you need more action. And what you need is to do this. And what's amazing is I find people, some people just take to it right away. And some people will really fight what you're describing. And it takes this deep commitment, this deep willingness, this hunger to say, I really want to feel better. I really want to have more peace and enjoy myself more. And then there's this tipping point, I think, where people are really ready to go in and not just kind of do it with, okay, okay, I'll pay attention to this. Is it gone yet, but really, really move towards that part of ourselves. And I love what you're saying because I feel like if we wake up in that way, then we can really heal. And I'll share one more thing about this, which is when I first learned this kind of stuff, I think I was coming at it from a very man, fix it action oriented, like, okay, how many minutes do I need to sit here till I solved this problem? And what I would find is time became irrelevant. I could sit with the feeling and try to be with it for 20 minutes, for an hour and it wouldn't really resolve. And when it shifted and I have a chapter in the book called Show Me Everything youg Got is when I was going for this run and I'd been feeling this persistent feeling in my heart of heartache and grasping and grieving and I didn't know it, but it was just my whole years of childhood of this desire for connection with my family, emotional depth, connection with my dad that was being really awoken with my own children. And as they went through those ages, I felt so much my own childhood. And I would spend this time I was like, okay, I'm going to be with this feeling. Is it gone yet? Is it gone yet? And then one day I was going for this long run and the feeling was just, you know, it was there every morning, it was persistent and I was feeling it, waiting for it to go away yet again. And then just something inside of me snapped. And I said, show me, show me everything you got. And then there was this flood of memories of feeling and I just kept like, show me, show me more. And it really was a turning point. And then what amazed me is how quickly things moved then how much I was able to heal, how much more peace I experienced. And then sitting with it for a shorter period of time, you know, five, ten minutes, and I'd feel so much better. Whereas before, no matter how many hours I spent because I was in opposition to it. And when we really open in that way, we are truly soothing ourselves. We're really self assuring, reassuring ourselves as you're describing. And it's a beautiful process.

Yeah. And there's a chapter, actually a couple chapters in my book, Five Minute Relationship Repair where I guide people through the steps, starting with an emotionally triggering incident, one that brings up one of those core fears like fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, not good enough. Those fears start with the incident and then it guides you through all these steps, holding space for yourself. And the reason what you said and this compassionate self inquiry practice that I teach in the book. The reason those things work is because you're becoming more familiar with the territory of emotional pain. You're not running away from it anymore. And then you are just naturally more resilient when emotional pain comes up. And you can take more and bigger risks when you're not living your whole life in fear of emotional pain. It's logical, but it's logical to the reasoning mind as you and I are talking. But as you said, there's also the biological urge to avoid pain, including emotional pain. And so it does. You know, that instruction that we're giving people, either give me all you got or, you know, be with this and then be with that, and then, you know, keep being with things as they come up from your subconscious. We can guide people that way, but there needs to be an intention, like you intentionally said something to yourself. It's almost like there needs to be a conscious part of yourself that is holding space for a less conscious part of yourself. And that's a hard thing for a lot of people to get. It's almost like at times when you're triggered, once you can calm your nervous system down a little bit, then you do need to bring in kind of a dual awareness. There's me nurturing me. There's me big self nurturing my little self, or little isn't necessarily the right word, but that tender part of me that never even was seen or recognized when I was tiny. And I haven't been seeing it myself either. Like, you and I both, we were pretty successful as young adults. You know, I mean, my strategies work pretty well like yours did, but there was a big part of my humanness missing and my heart missing and everything.

Yeah, yeah. There's a limit, and it sort of. It works until it doesn't. And then we need to grow.

And it gives you a challenging relationship that forces you. And in your case, having kids, you know, a relationship that forces you to confront more of life than you've had to confront before.

Yeah, yeah. And this is inspiring me because I. So you talk about relationships being one of those big sources, and I find that for me, that the two biggest things that can stir up the need for growth is going to be relationships that could be romantic as well as family or with my children. And then the other thing is work and career, and there's just an endless opportunity, it's an open field to see how much do you want to stretch and test yourself and risk and grow. And I've noticed that in the last year of my life I've been more and more mission driven. Less about, like, okay, how do I secure myself and get my needs met and support my family? That's obviously part of it. But then it's like, okay, what do I want to. And that's why I'm so curious to circle back to your vision. It's like, what do I want to do here? How do I want to make the world better? For me, having been here for my children, for people, for the planet? And with that, as I really listened to that call, it involves doing things that are more outside my comfort zone, including expanding the team of people that I work with so we can reach more people doing, you know, interacting ways that I have, not training myself to learn more about business and marketing and how to spread the word, all that stuff. And with that has come more of a full risk of like, okay, I'm gonna go for it. I'm not gonna just try to play it small and make sure I got my needs met. I'm go for it. And that might mean, you know, if there's loss in the business, finances or that sort of thing, but I'm gonna go for it because I believe in this mission. And so I've been doing that a lot more in the last year. And I noticed my practice has been that there's a part inside of there that is like, anti risk, anti business risk, anti putting myself out there, and especially the financial side of it, it just has a huge tantrum in there that is like, even the smallest decisions around, that is like, I don't like it. I don't like it. And I've been making small wins and big ones. Whether it's hiring somebody or investing in a training or taking on some new marketing initiative, that part will just every step of the way, kicking and screaming. And as we're talking, this is so good for me. I'm realizing. I think I've been doing the same thing with that part this last year that I was doing with the part that was feeling childhood stuff where I'm like, okay, okay, very good, Very good. I'm gonna listen to you for a little bit. Okay? Yes, yes. You don't like these risks. I understand. I'm here, I'm here. I got you. All right, now move out of the way. We're gonna go take some more risk. And I'm really curious about that because it seems like it's a fear about finances. But as we're talking, I'm like, I think it's really a fear of emotional pain, and it Makes me really curious about what I learned, what I experienced around financial risk and loss. So my question in there is, do you think that what we're looking for is really about would it be something around finances and finances, my family, or could it be anything going after what I want, any risk that I have, control, patterns that I'm trying to avoid. And what I'm looking for could be irrelevant to finances in terms of that underlying pain.

Well, I love this conversation because you're kind of at my edge too, here. I don't have a quick answer to what this could be, but I think one, one analogy that you made, one parallel between, like, other relationships and taking big risks in business. You mentioned going after what you want. So a lot of us make up reasons like, oh, well, I don't want to risk the money, when really you don't want to risk failure. That same experience that I was saying is sort of the basic template of what a healthy human organism does. It comes up with a want, it takes action toward the want, and it either gets a yes or a no from the world. So I think we're probably all of, all of us averse to hearing a no. And in this case, it's a no from the world, not from the woman you want a second date with, you know, for a lot of our listeners. So I love that you, you know, that you bring it to this level. I want to add something from my own story which has got some similarities to you, because I have been averse to putting a whole lot of money into my business or anything. Or anything, really. I mean, any other investments, too? It's like my explanation up until this conversation, and I might change my mind about this, my explanation has been, got survival issues. Susan still has the little baby might die issues. You know, she doesn't get food. And I've had patterns where, you know, I've never been fat, but I've had patterns where I always keep food in my car, never want to be without food. I also never want to be without probably $100,000 in a bank account. You know, if I would go below that, I would get anxious. I mean, so all I know about myself is that the way I've explained it prior to this conversation, I think I'm going to try on your interpretation there, it might be just that fear of hearing a no from the world that I'm covering up here. But for me, up till now, as I said, I haven't thought this through at all. But my quick answer about myself was, I associate money with Survival way too much. I do not trust the world. These are core beliefs that have not completely gone away in my whole long lifetime of doing personal growth. I do not trust the world to really take care of me. I've got to. It's like I've got to do it myself. I can depend on. So I still have dependency fears that I've never. Let's say I've never healed. About all I could say. I'll just admit it, I'll probably die. I'll die with this issue. But you've got me thinking now about myself.

Yeah, And I love that. And I love your honesty, always have. And your self reflectiveness. And as you're saying that, I think that's exactly what it is at its core for me as well, is this. Well, first of all, some part of me rationally knows that me or my family starving, barring some sort of total apocalypse or something, but just because of my own lack of ability to make ends meet is very, very, very, very unlikely. I know that even no matter what happens, I'll find a way and, and be able to do that. So really the biggest threat is that failure is that. No, is that. Here's what I went for and I didn't. And it's like this ego bruising, ego loss, ego death if I don't make it. And what I see underneath that though is this core question of am I held? Can I trust in life, in the universe, in God, in whatever force is there that I will be okay? And I feel like that's been the. It looks like it's a business inquiry or a risk or an investment inquiry, but it's really a trust inquiry. And it's something that I was like, man, I want to cultivate that. And maybe that's what I'm doing in some ways by going through this process. And in fact, I often like to write a book as I'm growing and learning a process. And the next book that I want to be writing is one that I call Doubtless where. How do we really live in this state of trust in life? And I've had fits and starts of writing it because I'm like, I don't know yet, I gotta figure that out. And it's a journey. But I feel like, man, what a aspirational way to live. To where there is that deep trust that my needs will be met. I will be okay. I will not only survive, but find a way to thrive no matter what.

This is great. I love that you're going to write this book. And you'll be writing it while you're doing self inquiry about it. That's my style too, Aziz.

It works. It's a good formula because you get a lot of good data from going in.

Yeah. And I think my next book is going to be about triggers. You know, I'm triggered. You know, maybe that'll be the title, I'm triggered or something. But it's all the ways that life doesn't give you what you want. And it's going to be this very topic that you and I and how. How to bring a little more tender loving care to the moments when life doesn't give you what you want. Because I think for me in later life, I actually thought that I trusted life and I kind of. I know, like all the things that you just said, I'll be fine as long as I don't live in a war zone. Frankly, I've often thought there's one situation that I probably, given who I am, could not handle, and that's bombs going off and bodies being blown apart. I could not handle being in a war zone. I'm pretty sure of that for whatever reason. So that's like an honest assessment that I've said. Okay, if that ever happens in my town, heaven forbid. It's not likely. I would have to find a way to check out of life. But mostly I've trusted myself. And now as I'm looking down the very last stage of life, because I'm 78 now, that's pretty darn old, I'm realizing how much is still unhealed in me. And so my mission is to teach people all these little ways to integrate it with daily life. Continue to do this self healing until the day you die. And you'll saying this to myself, and when you die, you might still have a whole lot of unfinished business and just come. This is me being me, coming to terms with this and teaching just from my own journey, just like you're teaching from your journey.

And in what a way, it's such an inspiring and relieving realization. It inspires. Yeah, of course I want to keep growing because that's what I'm here to do. And of course it doesn't end until my life's done, because that's what I'm here to do. And what a strange thing, a fantasy we have of like some sort of static point where I get there, there's no more issues, no more triggers, no more growth needed. I'm just done. And I think sometimes people unconsciously link maybe retirement to that or something like sailing off into the good night. And it's like, then people get there and they're like, wait a minute, maybe even more stuff to work through now because I'm not as distracted with my work. So I love that. And I want to circle back. You said about a vision of a world you want to live in. So, you know, you want. This is sort of like a. It's an individual and then teaching, you know, inspiring individuals to do this ongoing work. And what's the vision you have for a world if more and more people do this, Kind of have this commitment to healing and their own growth?

We can be present to each other's emotional pain. We can see when somebody's in pain. We can say, let me listen to you. We can ask for help when we're in pain. Because this conversation has mostly been about self soothing and self compassion. But I think the other half of that is asking for help from others and offering our loving attention to one another. Yeah, slowing down long enough if we can slow down with ourselves a little bit and go, oh, that's one of those tender spots that I usually just run right past in the achievement part of my life. Now that I'm more toward retirement, I'll never retire. But things have slowed down for me, Aziz. And so it has enabled me to feel the subtler aspects of human interaction. And so my vision is a world where we all co regulate each other. Word that marriage therapists use. We need to co regulate our partner and reassure them that they're okay and that we love them and that sort of thing.

I love that. I'm glad that you brought that up.

Because your feelings are okay and your feelings don't scare me. It could be happy feelings too, not just difficult, painful feelings. So your feelings don't scare me. Because my feelings don't scare me. I've gotten closer to my own tender feelings.

Yeah. The show me everything you got, not just to the parts of yourself, but to all the parts of your friends and family and beloved and maybe even more extended. Right. I mean, because as we grow in these capacities, we can offer that too. And that's what I continue to aspire to do is like, how can I be that way with clients, with people on my team, with people I just met? Like, how do we bring that capacity? And I love that because that is a, you know, bring back to what you said about dependency and this kind of, I don't know, negative connotation we have with dependency in our culture and this myth of total independence. Even Though I like to do this with people when I'm teaching this, I'm like, well we have this myth of independence. But did you eat breakfast this morning? You know, where did that food come from? It came from the restaurant, it came from the supermarkets. Like where did that come from? And when you flushed your toilet, where did that go? And where does your garbage everything. We're such dependent on so many factors to just live every day. And instead of denying that we can. I love Dan Weil's term, which is skillful dependence is really acknowledge this truth and know how to do it well and ask for help well and be vulnerable. And absolutely on this journey I can't stress enough how important it is to take that risk to share with, for example, I'm in bed and I'm feeling these memories from when I'm 6 years old and share that with my wife, say here's what's going on for me or reach out to a friend, hey, I'm feeling overwhelmed or I'm scared about this thing, can we talk about it? And then being able to of course provide that for others as well. And I think that there's so many people and so I'm so glad we're touching on this that might be listening who are like all about the self soothing stuff and will actually do it. But then when it comes to the risk and the vulnerability of the co regulating, the getting support from others, there can be another barrier to that. And I really love how you're saying that the self soothing is only a piece of the puzzle. It's only half and it will only get us halfway there and we got to step into also being in connection with others, real full contact with others.

Yeah. So that's the vision of the world as a healing community.

I love that. I love that. And you know, there's only, well there's many ways that could come about, but one way to do that is to live it as you do and then to teach it. And I am once again just delighted and so grateful and appreciative to have this conversation with you. I've read a number of your books. I highly recommend people find your books read whichever ones seem the most relevant. I mean getting Real was a great starting one for me. But there's so many of truth in dating. I'm really interested in this five minute relationship fix one you have absolutely the I am triggered. When you get that one out, I will be all over. So I love the books but this conversation, I mean just so much wisdom and ideas, condensed in such a beautiful way. So thank you so much for sharing with us today, Dr. Campbell.

So great talking with you as always. So I love being in touch with you.

Yeah. And so if people want to know more, go further, keep learning from you. Where would you like to send them or steer them?

Well, on the homepage of my website they can pick up a free ebook. It's about a 20 page ebook called Getting Real Confidence. So it's right in your domain there. That was a book that I started and I'm not sure when I'm going to finish it, but it's an excerpt from a longer book. But it does talk about getting more comfortable with your own emotional pain and takes you through that guided process that's also in the book five Minute Repair. Five Minute Relationship Repair. So go to my homepage, just under the banner it says something about boosting your self confidence. On the page it says enroll here and it should actually say click here. But then you'll be subscribe to my newsletter and I also which which tells the things that I'm up to webinars, including a free group coaching call that I offer once a month on Tuesday afternoons. So you can stay in touch with me for free. I don't need, you know, I don't need money anymore. I just don't want to lose what I got.

Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I actually went there as we were speaking and subscribed. So I will check that book out.

Cool. Stay with me folks.

That sounds good.

I work with people about their triggers on my free monthly class.

Yes, absolutely. And I'm sure anyone listening could get a sense of the depth of understanding and skill you have with this. I mean you've been doing it a long time. So I encourage people to take advantage of that and continue to receive the benefits of your life's work of not only helping people, but also of growing yourself. Which I think gives you the depth and understanding that you have. I don't think we get that understanding if not through really deep study of ourselves. So once again, thank you so much and I look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Likewise.

That brings us to the end of the interview and right into our action step. Time for action. Action, action. Well, there is quite a bit you could take action on based upon that episode. So I'm curious, from that interview, what are you going to do? What actions are you going to take? I mean, I think just to recap, there's really two key steps to self love and one is that self reassuring, that self soothing, that being able to go in and actually feel the part of you that is scared or hurting and really tenderly turn towards it, you know, show me everything you got. And then there's the sharing with other people. We can't just do this on our own. We're not an island. We're not a lone wolf. We need our pack. We need our people. We need our peers. We need our friends. We need our family. We need people. And it might not be with your literal family that you share this because maybe they're not as open. But who's your chosen family? Is it with a spouse? Is it with a partner, a lover, a friend, someone that you can share? And so that would be the next step. So maybe for you it's the self soothing and maybe it's also the co regulating the sharing with someone else. But at some point you got to take that risk. So when is now going to be a good time? Awesome. Thanks for joining me today. I highly recommend you go pick up Susan's book. And of course if you have not gotten a copy of On My Own side, this is that is what this is going to be. Perfect addition to what you're learning in today's episode. So if this interested you, you will absolutely love On My Own side. Thanks for being with me today. 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 social confidencecenter.com. Sam.