Why Are You So Quiet?

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. Azeez.

Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of this show. I'm your host, Dr. Azeez. And I'm excited to be with you here today because I want to ask you a question. Why are you so quiet? That's we're gonna be diving into today. It's a question that I used to get a lot and used to bother the hell out of me and be difficult and challenging and just bring up a lot of discomfort, self criticism, fear about people asking me that, fear about being too quiet, tons of self judgment. We're gonna dive into all of that and help you be free. That fear. Free of that. Fear of not having anything to say. Fear of that, fear of that, fear of being too quiet or someone judging you for that or asking you about that. So we're gonna dive into that today. If you'd like to go deeper into the show, go to shrinkforthyguy.com we got show notes there, transcripts. You can also sign up to get my ebook there as well. Five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence. There's a lot of powerful ways to go deeper with this. And speaking of going deeper, I'm super excited because in about a week is when the early bird for the Ultimate Confidence Breakthrough Weekend starts. And that's gonna be an amazing weekend. It's in June and I know a lot of you asked questions about the last weekend, which we did about a month ago, about conversation mastery, which was amazing. My voice is actually still recovering. You might be able to tell I blew it out there, which I tend to do. So I'm gonna work on that so it won't happen again for the next one. But Ultimate Confidence Breakthrough is all about power. Social power. The ability to say what you want, do what you want, stop being so nice, stop being so afraid and just being fucking bold, fearless, powerful and ultimately free to say what you want, go for what you want, do what you want. So super excited about that. Stay tuned. If you want to know about the early bird, go sign up for the ebook@shrinkforthshyguy.com or go to my main site, SocialConfidenceCenter.com SocialConfidenceCenter.com and if you sign up for the ebook, then you'll be able to get updates as well about the weekend and how to get to it for the early Bird ticket price. So that's gonna be super fun, and I hope to see you there. So why are you so quiet? Has anyone ever asked you this question? I know in my experience, it happened more than I'd like to admit, more than I wanted it to, that's for sure. And I'd be, you know, sometimes it would be with family or with a group of people or some situation or somebody like, why are you so quiet? And it's. Does that feel like a benign, harmless question when someone asks us that? No. Right. It feels terrible. It feels like they're saying there's a part that they're leaving off, but it's like parentheses. What the hell is wrong with you? Close parentheses. Why are you so quiet? Right. So we insert that. It feels like they're criticizing or implying that we should say more, be doing more, be more expressive, be more outgoing. And most people that I talk to who have struggled with confidence or social anxiety have a fear of being that quiet person and have people that have asked them about that and maybe even had people that judged them for it. Sometimes it's not judgment. People are just curious or they're just asking, but we take it as judgment. And there's a ton of self judgment there, isn't there? So let's dive into that more today. Why are you so quiet? By the end of this show, here's what I want for you. I want you to feel completely comfortable and relaxed with yourself, whether you're talking or being quiet, whether you have a ton to contribute in a conversation or when you feel like you don't. And to be fully comfortable and relaxed in yourself, that sounds like a good plan. So I feel like that would be valuable for you. Awesome. Let's dive into it. So here's the thing. We learned somewhere along the way that being quiet is bad. Not having something to say is wrong, and therefore something bad's gonna happen. People aren't gonna like us. We're not gonna be popular, we're gonna be kicked out of the group. People aren't going to want to be our friend. People aren't going to want to date us. So where did you learn that being quiet is bad? Did you have someone that would. I mean, sometimes we have, you know, people grew up with parents that would explicitly criticize them for that. Speak up. What's wrong with you? Why are you so quiet? Say something, do more, express more. And sometimes it's not that direct and obvious. Sometimes it's more subtle. Maybe you learned it in school. Maybe it was more implied rather than directly spoken to. Maybe Your parents praised someone else for being that way. Where do you think that you learned that it's bad to be quiet? Think about that for a second. It's important, because when we find out where we learn something, we realize, oh, I learned this. And anything that I learned is not fact. It's not a, you know, elemental truth about life. This is just some belief system, some bs, some story that I picked up that said, hey, this is bad and this is better. You know, it's black T shirts are bad, brown T shirts are better. You know, some random thing that we could have picked up. Your shoes and your pants or your shoes and your belt must always match. We have all these rules, these things that we learn about what's good and what's bad. And here's one that we learned, which is being quiet is bad. So where did you learn that? And maybe you'll come up with it right now. Maybe it'll hit you three days later when you're driving somewhere right before you fall asleep. And that's okay. You don't have to know exactly right now. I just wanted to get you thinking and seeing that you did in fact learn this from somewhere. Then the next question is, well, how do we unlearn something that we learned and why are we so scared of it in the first place? Why do we have this tremendous fear about being quiet? So we're going to share all of that. We're going to reveal that right after this break. Stay tuned.

Hey, it's Dr. Aziz, and I want to take a second to share something with you that is totally unique that I don't think anyone else out there is doing. And that is my live weekend intensives. This is a place that we can come together and make rapid progress and radically break through all this inner stuff that's stopping you. Those fears, those self doubts, and also help you build real skills, whether it's conversation skills, how to deal with rejection and interact with people without being afraid, or how to approach women and interact with them and. And not in some weird pickup artist way, but in a really healthy, confident way and help you boost that sense of trust in yourself that you do know how to interact with people. You do know what to say. And these weekends are my favorite thing to do. They are life transforming. And we're doing three in 2016. We're doing the supremely confident conversation Master in March of 2016. Then in June, we're doing the ultimate confidence breakthrough, and which is all about activating massive power in yourself and eliminating any fears or doubts or shyness that might be stopping you from just fully showing up as a badass in your dating life, your work life, your social life. And then in beginning of October, we're doing the Unlimited Dating Confidence Bootcamp, which is going to be how to take all the confidence stuff I teach and apply it to starting conversations, overcoming that fear of approaching women, being able to flirt and create attraction. And then, of course, getting numbers, getting dates, finding a girlfriend, whatever it is.

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Welcome back. So let's talk about the crocodile pit. Oh, yes, the crocodile pit. So I was having a session recently with a client, and she had this fear of being quiet. She had a fear. Well, it shows up as a tremendous fear of silence. So silence in a conversation was very uncomfortable for her, and so she dreaded it. And so she did everything she could to try to avoid that silence. And any moment of silence felt incredibly awkward for her. And underneath that was this fear of people being upset with her for being, why are you so quiet? So we want to uncover what the fear there actually is. And that's where I came up with this metaphor of the crocodile pit. So what we're afraid of when we're afraid of silence is we're afraid of getting bit by the crocodile. And so here's what it is. It's like you're walking on a tightrope above a crocodile pit. And that tightrope is that conversation or that interaction with someone. And if you make one false move, then you're gonna get bit. And the false move could be you don't have something to say in that moment, or you don't have the right thing to say, or you're just listening and you're not speaking a bunch, and then you're gonna fall off and they're gonna just bite you. And the reason I use the metaphor, the crocodile pit is because we emotionally. We physically, emotionally react as if it's really dangerous and really threatening. Something really bad is going to happen. It is almost like a survival fear that can kick in. It's like, if I don't do this, I'm not going to be accepted, I'm not going to be loved. This person's going to hate me. They're going to bite me. I'm going to get bit by the crocodile. So we want to start to create more space around that. What if it weren't such a big deal? What if it were more okay to be quiet? Because the truth is, the more comfortable you get with being quiet or being silent in a situation, the less of a deal it becomes to others. The less you might even have people ask you that question. And if someone does ask you, why are you so quiet? It might not be that big of a deal. So we need to help you get completely comfortable with silence so it no longer feels like you're getting bit by a crocodile or in danger of being bit by a crocodile, but that it's really not a big deal. So how do we get there? How do we make it not that big of a deal to be quiet or to be silent? Well, if you are totally comfortable with it, then you can handle anything. So it's all about. It's not about getting other people to be comfortable with the silence and not saying something. It's about you. So let's pick something that you are completely comfortable with, perhaps already. So let's say you are going to make a pot roast tonight for dinner. And then your friend comes over and says, what are you doing? You made a pot roast tonight. Why did you make a pot roast tonight? And they're really upset about it. How would you handle that? What would you do? Perhaps you'd say, yeah, I did. It seemed like a good idea, and I thought it would taste good. Is there something wrong with that? Right how would you respond? Perhaps you'd be curious. Perhaps you'd wonder, what is going on with this person? Why are they so upset about a pot roast on, you know, on a Wednesday night? What's the big deal? And the key here is that we. If you're totally relaxed in that situation, it's because you don't have any judgment at all about making a pot roast on a Wednesday night. So then when they come at you with their like, ah, why are you doing this? You're kind of just like, huh, what's going on with you? Interesting. You can be curious, you can be fascinated. Really, like, what is going on with this person? What is going on in their model of the world, their belief system that this is wrong? Now, what's interesting, though, is I have gone. It's been a little while now, but I spent big chunks of my life where I was a vegetarian. And I would kind of be a vegetarian for six months or eight months, and then I'd go back to eating meat for three or four months, and then I go back to being a vegetarian or a vegan, and I kind of bounced back and forth. And during one of those times where I had been a vegetarian and then I was cooking a pot roast, let's say I was off the wagon, and someone said, oh, you're cooking a pot roast. If I had some issue around it and felt guilty about it or bad, like, I know, then I would have to, like, defend myself, be like, oh, well, you know, I was a vegetarian for six months, or I only eat meat once every, you know, third Thursday. And I'd have to explain myself and try to defend myself, and it'll be a problem because I'm not okay with it. I'm not comfortable with it. But if you're okay with it, then it's not an issue. Do you see my point here? So how can you get to pot roast? Level of comfort around being quiet? Is that even possible? Part of you might say, no, I can't get comfortable with it because it's terrible. It's like saying, get comfortable with having no teeth and my eyeballs poked out. It's hideous. It's totally unacceptable. Right? Well, it's not. And we need to learn how to accept it or else we're gonna perpetually live in fear. And here's the thing. If you're living in fear of silence and of, oh, my God, I don't want people to think I'm quiet, and you're trying to pressure yourself to think of the next thing to Say, guess what that does to your interactions? It fucks them up. It makes you worse in conversations, more uncomfortable. And so even if you perform okay, you're still not at ease. You're still not comfortable in yourself. So we need to learn how to get totally comfortable with being quiet. And we're going to talk more about how to do that right after this.

Does working with Dr. Aziz actually work? Can you really break free from social anxiety and live a life of confidence, success and happiness? Here is what one client had to say about his if someone is thinking.

To come to a Weekend intensive with Dr. Aziz, I would say, go do it. Go do it. I know he's in Portland. You're probably somewhere in the east coast or Hawaii, who knows? But I'm telling you, it is worth it. Personally for myself, I was really skeptical about coming here, you know, flew from Los Angeles, investing all my time, money. I don't know if it's gonna work. There's parties back home waiting for me, you know, friends wanting to hang out with me this weekend. But now that I'm here, now that I'm almost done with this weekend intensive training, I said, wow, you know, I'm not this Sunday now, and I'm not the same person as I was when I was Friday. I have like this whole settlementality. I just feel like I am unstoppable. I can do anything. The world's mine. It's really. It's awesome.

To get started on your journey towards lifelong confidence with Dr. Aziz, simply go to social confidence center.com coaching.

Welcome back. I want to share with you something from my reality. In my reality, it is completely okay to be quiet in a situation, to not have something to say in a situation. If I do have something to say, I can share it. And if I don't have anything to say yet, I can listen, I can be present, I can be quiet until something comes up that's my reality. What if you adopted that as your reality and you became so comfortable in that that it was just like, hey, when I want to cook a pot roast, I cook a pot roast. It's the most random example in the world, but I hope you get my point. So how can you become way more comfortable with silence? What judgments do you need to let go? What stories or things you learned or what someone told you back when you were nine years old? I mean, we can hang onto that shit forever. Now is the time to just let it go. In my reality, it's totally okay. And then, so when you're in that situation let's say you're sitting around, there's four people talking, or it's a group, or maybe even one on one. That's where it can feel even more awkward. Right? You're in that situation. There's a moment where. Where the conversation stops. What do you do? How do you. Well, first of all, you want to start to get clear in yourself. Like, look, in my reality, this is how it is. Then we want to live into that and become more and more, like, feel it more emotionally. So what you might do is you're sitting there and silence starts, and you just breathe and notice. And what if there's no threat? What if there's nothing wrong at all with being quiet? Like, there's nothing wrong with wearing socks and shoes. It's just an ordinary period of the conversation, a moment in life. Sometimes I'm talking, sometimes I'm quiet. And from that place, someone says, oh, why are you so quiet? Oh, I'm. It's an interesting question. I'm actually just listening and paying attention to what people are saying. Or let's say it was just the two of you and it was totally quiet. You might say, oh, I was just breathing and reflecting. And there's no reason to defend, because there's not maybe even a criticism in what they're saying. If you no longer see it as a problem, there's no criticism. Now let's say someone did come at you and say, God, do you ever say anything? Why are you so quiet? If in your reality being quiet was totally okay, how would you respond? What would you say? Oh, yeah, I was just sitting here and reflecting and noticing my breathing and noticing the sound of the birds. Yeah. You seem like you might be a little upset with me for being quiet. Is that. Is that right? Right. You might even go into it. You might be curious, because you realize it doesn't have anything to do with you. It has something to do with them and their expectations. And here's the thing. Here's the biggest liberating paradox is that the more comfortable you are with quiet and silence, the more okay with it that you are. That means you stop making yourself wrong. You've stopped beating yourself up for it. The more okay with it you are, the less it happens, right? You just sit in silence for a moment, you breathe, and then, boom, there's something to say or not. And that's okay too, because we're not as bothered by it. But you see, the more we can let go of things, the more we become free of them. It's no Longer an issue. And this is super powerful. In fact, in the last weekend, which I was mentioning at the beginning of the show, the supremely confident conversation master, we had a lot of people there that were uncomfortable with quiet and silence. So we did this extremely powerful exercise. Very simple, but very powerful. We just had them partner up, stand a couple feet apart from each other, and I timed it, and just stand and look at each other in silence for about 40 seconds, sometimes a little longer, sometimes a little shorter, and to breathe and to notice. And it was fascinating to watch because the first partner people are kind of, like, shifty and uncomfortable, and there's nervous laughter. And some people kind of couldn't help themselves from chatting. I just encouraged them by pounding on the table and saying, everyone, shut up.

No.

But I encourage them to resist the urge and just be. So people did that, and then they did it again, and they switched partners and they did it again. And it was fascinating by, like, the fourth or fifth person, just, like three or four minutes of this, five minutes of this. You could see it. People's faces were softer, their bodies were relaxed, their jaws weren't clenched. They were just like, boom, looking at each other. It was really simple, but really powerful. And we got a lot of feedback at the end of the weekend that people found that exercise to be one of the most transformative. And they said it completely changed how I was around other people. So making eye contact with others, just, you know, in the street or at the supermarket or talking to colleagues and friends, just being. And not stressing myself to come up with the next thing to say and just allow myself to breathe and be in the moment. And a lot opens up when we just give ourselves permission. So how can you give yourself that permission right now? In fact, that actually brings us to our action step.

Time for action.

Your action step for today is to seek out silence and sit in it. Great. Oh, that sounds terrible, right? So find a situation where you. Maybe there's some people talking or with your. Where you're with a friend or maybe you're on the phone with someone, find a situation where there's that natural lull or pause or you just don't have anything to say in that moment. And instead of freaking out, hastily trying to grab something. So how about that game, right, where you kind of scramble for something to talk about instead. Breathe three times in a row and don't say anything. Breathe in, breathe out. Notice your body. Notice the environment. Notice the colors around you, hear the sounds around you. If there's music playing, if there's voices, notice the other person. Just relax and be for three breaths and see what emerges. Maybe they say something. Maybe you say something. You know what? Maybe a moment of pause and breath and reflection is what you both need in that moment. There's tremendous power and freedom in that. So experiment with that this week. Let me know how it goes. Send your messages to doctoraziz D R A Z I zhrinkforthshy Guy. We have a couple questions that came in recently. I'm going to be answering some of those over the next few episodes. 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. Talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.