What Is Social Anxiety?

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.

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz, coming to you from the center for Social Confidence here in Portland, Oregon. And I'm particularly excited. Today is a monumental day because this is our first podcast. So whether you're catching this and you're with us here with number one, or you found a much later episode and have worked your way back through the archives to this initial episode, this is where it all begins. So this is a particularly important show. I'm gonna lay some of the foundation, some of the groundwork for what I hope to cover in this show and shows to shows to come. And also just what this show is about, what the purpose of it is, a little bit about who I am, which you'll hear a lot more about as the weeks go by. But let's just start for a moment with looking at what is this show about? It's called Shrink for the Shy Guy. So as you might guess, this show is for people who are shy. If you're shy, if you're struggling with shyness or social anxiety, then this is gonna be a resource for you. This is gonna be a place you can come to listen regularly to get very practical information that's gonna help you overcome your shyness. Now, as I'm gonna get into in a minute, I am a shrink, but I don't have the information in a very hard to follow or arcane way. I want it to be really accessible, something you can listen to, get inspired by, get impacted by, whether it's by something I say or an interview I have with someone who's an expert in this area or has something of value to offer you so you can take away what you're learning and go apply it in your life starting today, starting tomorrow, whenever you're listening to this podcast. And so that's the main purpose of this show, is to provide a massive value to you so you can leave here feeling more confident in yourself, believing in yourself, and having a courage to put yourself out there at a greater level than you are right now. Because if you're stuck with a sense of shyness or social anxiety, then there's one thing I guarantee that you're doing, and that is holding yourself back from the world, inhibiting yourself, keeping yourself small so that you don't get criticized, you don't get ridiculed. And there's a cost associated to that. And I'm sure you know what that is. Whether it's missing out on relationships or friendships or opportunities at work or any level that you want to or area you want to expand to the next level, it can be difficult if you're stuck with that shyness. So I'm here to help you break free of that. Which leads to the first question, which might be in the forefront of your mind, or it might just be somewhere in the background. You haven't thought of it yet, but eventually you'll ask it, and that is, who are you and what are you doing here? So I got to share a little bit about who I am so you know where this information is coming from. So My name is Dr. Aziz and I'm a clinical psychologist. I did some of my training down in Stanford and Palo Alto Universities in the Bay Area, my graduate school down there, and I did my internship and postdoc work up here in Portland, in Portland State University, actually. And as I my cousin who's a psychiatrist tends to remind me frequently, you know, even though we're both adults, we can be a little immature sometimes more him than me. I'm all growns up, but it's actually he reminds me that in fact, I'm not a, quote, real doctor in the sense that he's an MD and so he can prescribe medications. And so that's the marker of a real doctor. And to him I'm just a love doctor. But hey, I'll take that. I spent a lot of time studying this stuff and, and that is actually secondary because I spent a lot of time learning how to help people shift through talk therapy and coaching and that sort of thing. But what really taught me about shyness and why I really get where you're at if you're struggling with shyness or even if you're not really inhibited, you just want to feel more empowered in your life, more free, more bold to take on more. The reason I know that so well is because I myself have struggled with shyness for my much of my life. And I'm going to get more into my story in future episodes and tell some humorous and shameful anecdotes to just let you know where I'm coming from. But the first thing you need to know is that I really get this stuff because I was incredibly shy when I was a small kid. I used to be afraid of family friends coming over. My mom said I used to run and hide behind her legs. So even from a very young age, I was nervous. I was shy around people. And that continued on into my grade school years. Middle school is when I particularly started to notice it. And as I'll get into a little bit later in this episode, when I talk about social anxiety is that's often when it starts for people is around the age of middle school. And then I noticed it incredibly when I came to high school and was just paralyzed when it came to fear of talking to women and initiating relationships. And I really missed out on a major stage of development because of my shyness. And then, of course, into college, it continued. I had the fantasy that, oh, when I get to college, there'll be beautiful women everywhere. I've seen the movies, I've seen Animal House, but it wasn't like that. And so I spent much of college being really limited, really restricted in my ability to create relationships, particularly with women. And so I know what it's like, and I also know how to get out of it. And I have, and I'll share again, so many ideas and tips and tricks and tools and techniques that will help you follow in my footsteps. And that's what I do for a living now, is I help guys who are struggling with shyness to overcome that. To pursue the relationships they want. Dating a girlfriend, a wife, whatever it is that they want, or in their work, in their career, being able to put themselves out there at a higher level, to take on responsibilities at work, be assertive, challenge their bosses and supervisors, be able to do public presentations. All that stuff is related to shyness and our ability to put ourselves out there. So that's my intention for you, is that by sharing what I've learned and what I continue to learn from people that I work with every day, you too can benefit from this. And that's the beauty of the interwebs, is we can share information like never before. And you can take this in and really hopefully have a positive shift in your life. So what I'd like to get into now is actually start talking about the meat of things, starting with what is shyness and what is social anxiety and how are they different? And how are people in the country and the world affected by these things, and give you some interesting and fascinating statistics about social anxiety. What the differences are between social anxiety and shyness. We're going to get into all of that, including some of the most common questions that people have about shyness and social anxiety. Some of the things that are the first things I answer when I start working with someone one on one. So you're going to get that information now for free. Coming up in this episode right after this brief break. So stay tuned. We'll be back in just a few seconds.

Are you tired of feeling stuck in shyness? Do fear and self doubt stop you from being social or outgoing? Overcoming social anxiety is possible, but it Requires action. Join Dr. Aziz in an eight week video training program that will teach you exactly how to unleash your confidence. Go to confidenceunleashednow.com hey, welcome back.

Now we're going to get into what is shyness? This is an important question because, you know, maybe we want to say, well, how do I overcome shyness or how do I become more confident? But we have to know what's going on. We have to be able to define the problem and the challenges that we're facing, which then gives us the ability to identify it and correct it, overcome it. So let's get started by saying what is shyness? What do I say when I mean shyness? Well, I wanted to distinguish between what fancy pants psychologist would say as state versus trait. So a state is something that's just passing by. You're an emotional state. You know, you're happy one moment and then you're sad another moment and then you're irritated and then you're relaxed. Those are emotional states that we pass through many times throughout the day. Well, there's an emotional state of shyness, right? That means in the moment you feel inhibited, you feel like self conscious. You don't want to put yourself out there, you're a little nervous, you're anticipating that someone's going to think poorly of you or think negatively of you. So you don't want to show yourself to them in that way. So that's a state of shyness. The trait of shyness basically means you have that state all the time or most of the time. So we're just talking about a frequency and intensity sort of thing. So if you say like, well, I'm generally a shy person, that means you have the state of shyness very often in a lot of different situations. And so what is this state of shyness? I just alluded to it a second ago. But it's important to really understand it on a deeper level. The state of shyness is basically made up of two things. First, you predict that you're going to get a negative response from someone else. That's the first part of shyness you are anticipating. And a negative response that either means they're not going to want to talk to you or if you're going to sing a song or play an Instrument that even if they're not going to interact with you, they're going to notice you from afar and judge you negatively. So you're predicting some sort of negative social outcome which really comes down to disapproval. Social disapproval, which, as I'm going to get into in future episodes, is sort of the crux of social anxiety and shyness and is the main thing that we need to start learning how to manage, tolerate and overcome. In order to be bigger in the world, be bolder and take on more. We have to learn how to manage that fear of disapproval. But that's the first part of shyness, right? Is that sense of it's gonna go bad, people aren't gonna like me. And then what's the second part? Well, it naturally follows from the first part is we don't put ourselves out there. And why would you if you thought you were gonna get rejected? So that's where the inhibition comes in. We inhibit ourselves. We do that by not speaking up, not singing, not playing the instrument, not dancing if you're in a group, not speaking up, not going over and talking to the person to start a conversation, not asking the woman out on a date, not seeing if that person wants to hang out and be your friend, just not taking an action, inhibiting yourself. Or sometimes we inhibit ourselves by talking more quietly or kind of trailing off at the end of a sentence and knowing to mumble, mumble, mumble. That's another way of inhibiting ourselves, right? Is to not be fully heard by kind of making ourselves smaller in our body and in our voice. So those are all ways that we inhibit ourselves. And that is a big part of the state of shyness. So if you think about that, if you're at a party, for example, and you might not go to parties because if you're shy, you might think, ugh, why would I want to go to a party where there's so many opportunities to feel awkward? But just go with me for a minute. Let's say you're at a party and you're sitting on the couch there, and there's people that are laughing and seem to be interacting around you. In that instance, what you would probably be doing is you'd be seeing some people over there that you might want to talk to. But what do you say to yourself? You say, they wouldn't want to talk to me anyway. I would be annoying them. I would be a third wheel. I'd be awkward. So you predict a negative outcome, and then what do you do? Well, you stay on the couch or you get Another beer and try to build up your courage and confidence. I'm going to get into that in a bit when I talk about the statistics. But that's one of the most common ways that we deal with shyness is through alcohol or a way of altering our state, which pros and cons to that. It might work in the short term but can prevent you from really learning how to overcome this on a deep internal level. That's the experience of shyness, the state of shyness. A question you might have is, well, what's the difference between shyness and social anxiety? Well, social anxiety is a term that's used in clinical psychology and psychiatry and it's a way of describing people who have a very intense form of shyness. It's basically shyness that is strongly interfering with your life. That's more intense than just a passing status. Everyone feels shy now and then, right. And no one wants to go up in front of a group of people and give a spontaneous impromptu speech. That's sort of the normal natural range. But when we get into the range where it's like it's hard to leave my house or I can't apply for a job because I couldn't stand doing an interview, or there's a major block that's inhibiting you from moving forward in your life that can be called social anxiety. So here's a handful of symptoms or experiences that are common for social anxiety. I'm just going to read a few off here. You feel extremely uncomfortable in social situations and you often avoid them. You're frequently worried that other people are judging you negatively. You are hyper self conscious and always watching what you say or do so you don't say the wrong thing. You find rejection or disapproval intolerable and you do whatever you can to avoid these. You often feel like others are watching you and you constantly avoid doing anything that could lead to embarrassment. There's a hyper self consciousness going on. You can feel worried or anxious for days or even weeks leading up to a challenging situation like a presentation at work, for example. You regularly criticize and judge yourself for feeling anxious. That's a big part of social anxiety, is a lot of self criticism. Your anxiety, worry and avoidance are significantly interfering with your life as, as I described before. And you may feel hopeless about your situation, angry at yourself or angry and resentful of others. So these are some of the symptoms of social anxiety and it's a very uplifting list, isn't it? Well, I'm hoping as you listen to this, that there's Things that you might resonate with even if you never thought about, oh, I have social anxiety. And the term is not really what's most important. I mean, it doesn't mean that you have a disease or a defect. It's just a way of describing an intensely uncomfortable emotional experience. So if you can identify, oh, that's what I'm feeling, I'm feeling social anxiety, then you're one step closer to learning how to break free of it. And that's what this whole podcast and this series you're listening to is all about. It's not just about being able to label yourself with something and then stopping there saying, well, I guess I'm broke and I have social anxiety. No, that's absolutely not true. There's so many things that you can do. There are hundreds of things that you can do, and I'm going to share them with you over these weeks to come about how to break free from shyness and social anxiety. It's absolutely possible. I've done it in myself and I've witnessed and helped hundreds of men do this over the last six, seven years that I've been working on this and really seeing profound transformations. And I'm going to have interviews in upcoming episodes with people I've worked with, with other experts, so you can really get a sense that it is possible. What I'd like to get into in the next segment is going to be about some of the fascinating statistics that are out there about social anxiety. Because some of this stuff is just really interesting. They're fun party tricks. You can share little information, tidbits to share with your friends and neighbors. And I'm also going to get into some of the most common questions that people have about shyness and social anxiety. Some of the things that the first things we'd get into if I was working with you one on one, like, where does it come from? Am I born with it? Stuff like that that can help you get a better sense of what it is and what some of your options are for dealing with it. So we're going to get into that in just one moment. Hang on tight and I'll be back with you in just a second. Hey, what's up? Whatever. Hey, you hear about Ted? Nah, man. What? Yeah, Ted's gone, man. He's gone. Gone where? No one knows. Some people say Ted's left the country. Some people say he left with a girl. What? With a girl? Ted Macy. Fucking Ted Macy. Ted left with a girl, but Ted don't talk to girls, man. Ted just stayed in his room, he just played Xbox all the time. I know, man, but check it. He went to this place called the center of Confidence or something. He saw some confidence doctor or some shit, man. A what? A confidence doctor, man. I don't know. But anyway, he got real deep into it, and like three months later, he was out talking to all kinds of people. No way, man. Yeah. And then he starts dating this girl, she's visiting from Iceland and they hit it off, and next thing I heard is they went back to her homeland, visit her, her family or some shit. Wow. Ted Macy, man. Fucking Ted Macy. If Ted Macy can do it, anyone can. Go to SocialConfidenceCenter.com to discover how to overcome your shyness and maximize your confidence and start living your life fully. Welcome back. In this segment, we're going to get into some interesting statistics about social anxiety and some of the most common frequently asked questions about shyness and social anxiety that I get on a daily basis. These statistics are sometimes a little bit alarming, but can really highlight what a challenge this is for people. Because sometimes when we're struggling, especially with shyness, or we're feeling really nervous about meeting someone or just feeling in that really stuck place, and I know that place. I've been there where you're in your room and maybe you hear. I had this experience where I heard my roommate in the room. We shared a house and we shared a wall between our rooms. And I could hear his girlfriend laughing. I could hear the murmur of his voice and then the punctuated by bright laughter coming from the other room. I remember just being in my room, sitting on my computer chair and just feeling a sense of like, ugh, you know, I'm never gonna. I'm never gonna have that. And what I didn't realize is that there's so many people that are also struggling with the same challenges that I was that feeling shy, feeling down on themselves, feeling stuck. And that there are so many ways that you can shift things, but a lot of people are stuck in shyness. And I don't want that to be you, but here's some interesting stats about that. So among the adults in the United States that have social anxiety disorder, which, according to varying sources, ranges from 9 to 15 million people at any given time. If you were to sample the population, 6.8% of people would meet criteria for social anxiety. That's the list of stuff I read to you earlier. So of those people, only 45.6% of those people receive treatment. That means less than half of the people who are just like me, stuck in their room, feeling lonely, feeling helpless, get help. And that's unfortunate because there's so much you can do. But out of those 45.6 that do receive treatment, only 33% of them get what was dubbed minimally adequate treatment by the National Institute of Health, which means they're not getting something that's very effective, that's very good. And I'm going to get into this in future episodes. What is effective? What is good? And here's a little bonus is much of what I'm going to share with you in these podcasts is directly from the types of therapies that have been shown to be the most effective for social anxiety and shyness. Empirically showed in studies that have been controlled and done with numerous people in subjects, they found that the kind of stuff that I'm going to share with you that comes from cognitive behavioral therapy and other things is powerfully effective. So, you know, of course, this is to be taken with the caveat that this is not a substitute for treatment of any sort of disorder. And if you need treatment for something, you should go seek that out. That's my disclaimer. But I want you to realize that you can get a lot of really good information from this that is drawn from the same sources. Of course, it's not the same as really sitting with someone and sharing. So if you feel like you want to not be this statistic and be one of the people who actually does get help and shifts things in their lives, then you might want to consider getting some treatment. I'll talk more about how to do that in future episodes, but a few more statistics, which I think are just fascinating. So according to the Anxiety and Depression association of America, very impressive body there, 36% of people with social anxiety disorder report they've been suffering with social anxiety symptoms for 10 years or more before seeking treatment. That means people are struggling for a decade, like alone in their rooms. And you might be one of those people. And I'm like, let's make a shift here. And you can make that shift starting today. I'm going to get to this at the end of the segment where I'm going to give you a mission, an action step that you can take to start shifting your life. I'm going to give each one of those to you each week so you can make a shift today. You don't need to be one of those people who's waiting over 10 years to get help. The average age where it starts. This is fascinating. I said earlier that I was in middle school is actually the age of 13. That's where it starts for most people, which means they're waiting many, many, many years. And that's often the case. In my case, it goes unrecognized. It's just like, oh yeah, he's, you know, he's a little nerdy, he's not very good with women. But no one realizes the extent of what it feels like inside, which is a high level of self criticism, self doubt, inferiority, feeling, anger, not being able to do anything, helpless, a perpetual sense of inadequacy. And these are very painful things that actually have a major effect on people's lives as they progress. And there's a lot of research that actually points to people that have social anxiety also will have other challenges. Mainly one is, not surprisingly, with alcohol. A lot of people with social anxiety can develop an alcohol problem because, hey, it works. At first. I remember in my training I worked in a residential rehab center for veterans where people lived there for two to five months. And one of the addiction counselors there, which means he had gone through his own cycle of addiction and had recovered and now helped guys, former military veterans, to overcome their addictions. And he sat me down for lunch one day. His name was Greg Barnes and he was awesome. And he was just like black guy with a big mustache and beard and just a big presence and a loud booming voice. He could totally command a room of these pretty tough vet guys. And I remember I was sat down with lunch with him one day and he was saying, you know, the first time I took a drink, I think he said he was 17. So the first time I took a drink, I felt like I was me. I just felt I used to be so nervous and I just felt so confident and comfortable and I could make people laugh and I could just have a great time. He really was describing how it helped him overcome temporarily his social anxiety. And from that he developed a pattern of going out more and more and then eventually turned into a full fledged addiction when he got out of the service. So this is incredibly common, that alcohol problems result from not treating and tending to social anxiety. One final important thing to realize this comes from the Mayo Clinic is that people who do not seek treatment for social anxiety disorder will find that their anxiety increases over time, even if they do their best to avoid situations which could trigger the anxiety. Now that is a no brainer to me because as I'm going to get into in future podcasts, this is all about exposure therapy, doing what scares you, challenging the edge of your comfort zone. So, of course, if you continually retreat and don't do what scares you and avoid what scares you and limit your life space so you can avoid all things that might scare you eventually. It just gets smaller and smaller over time, and you're gonna get more and more stuck in shyness. So we're gonna help you break free of that.

And now it's time to ask the shrink.

I'm going to just throw in a few more things here about common questions around shyness. Don't have much time, so let me just throw in some of the most important ones. One is, is it something I'm just born with? You know, is this a genetic condition that I'm just stuck with? And the research is actually much more complex than that. They found that infants can demonstrate what they call behavioral inhibition, which means they're not all about, like, having people up in their face and saying, oh, my God, look at you, you're so cute. They get kind of freaked out by that. And some people could interpret that as a form of shyness. Like, they don't want that level of intense contact, and they're too easily overstimulated. But here's the thing. Kids that are born with behavioral inhibition don't actually necessarily get social anxiety, that they could just be a little bit more sensitive. So social anxiety is actually a very complex result of your upbringing. The messages you got when you were young from your parents and your family and your peers and your siblings and your upbringing, that also is influenced by your early contact in school. So there's a number of factors that really influence it. And so the short answer is, no, it is not something that you were just born with. And it's not just a genetic condition that you're stuck with. It's actually a learned pattern of behavior and emotion that you picked up along the way that can be shifted. Another common question is, what's wrong with me? And this might be a question you don't ask out loud, but it's a question you ask to yourself. And I laugh because it's all too familiar. I asked myself that question for so many years. And the short answer, nothing. Nothing is wrong with you. If there's a wrong with anything, it's your thinking about yourself. That's the only thing that's distorted. Nothing wrong with you. In fact, that is the crux of shyness and social anxiety. And that's what I'm going to get into in the next episode, which is the cause of shyness and social anxiety. And that is the belief that there is something wrong with you. So I'm going to wait to answer that question in more detail next week on our next episode. The last thing I'm going to answer, which is a very common question, is, will I ever be normal? Can I fix this? My response to the first part of that question is, yes, you can be normal, but I think you can strive for something better, and that is to be abnormal, but in a positive direction. So instead of being abnormal and, you know, really limited and more shy and anxious than most people, you might be more able to put yourself out there, and this might seem like such a far stretch. You might be listening to this, and the first time you've heard my voice, and you're like, who is this guy? He doesn't know me. That's impossible. But I'm saying that with confidence because there's so many people that I've worked with where they start from a place of, I'm not normal, I'm a freak. There's nothing I have to offer in relationships. And three months later, six months later, of working one on one, they're doing stuff, and they're all of a sudden realizing, wow, not only am I normal, I'm actually, I can do things that other people can't do in a positive direction. I can go walk over to that group of people and start a conversation, and all my friends are looking at me like, who's this guy and where did he come from? So it's totally possible to shift that to a place of being abnormal in a positive direction. And can you fix it? The answer is absolutely, resoundingly, yes. You can. You can overcome your shyness, you can overcome your social anxiety. You can meet women if that's what you want to do. You can go on dates, you can have relationships, you can go on interviews. You can learn this stuff. Social confidence, which is what I teach at the center for Social confidence, is a learned skill. And you will absolutely learn this skill just by listening to these podcasts each week and doing the mission, which I'm going to get into now. So before I do, let me just say next week, stay tuned for the cause of shyness and social anxiety. You're going to learn what is the root of it, and therefore, what can I do about it. But I want to end with what I'm going to end with in every episode, which is a mission.

Time for action.

This is like a mission. Should you choose to accept it, you can do it. It's an action step. Because as you're going to learn. Nothing breaks you out of the cage of shyness and the fears of your mind like doing something, taking action. And look, I'm going to give you. This is a. This is like a T ball, you know, lob here. This is really easy. Your mission, should you choose to accept it for today, is to go out and get a journal. That's right, something as simple as that. Go out and get a journal. Something that you like, that you could write. It could be a composition book for 69 cents from Drug Store. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be fancy, but you're going to be doing a lot. If you listen to these podcasts or anything that I teach on my website, anything like that, you're going to learn a lot about how to use a journal, how to take notes, how to look at your thinking, how to start making shifts. And this is the stuff that comes straight out of cognitive behavioral therapy that's been shown to be effective for treating shyness and social anxiety. So this is the real deal. This is going to help you change your life. But the first thing you got to do is take action. And I made it real easy for you, just getting a journal. I mean, anyone can do that. It doesn't matter how shy or stuck you are right now. So go ahead and get that journal this week and I'll talk to you next week on our next podcast until we do. Until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are. Thanks for listening. I'm Dr. Azeeb.

Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Azeez. 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.

It's.