In today's episode, titled "Social Anxiety Equals Obsessive Control," we dive into a surprising aspect of social anxiety: the obsessive need for control.
Have you ever thought of yourself as a control freak? Probably not if you’re shy or socially anxious. But what if social anxiety is a different type of controlling behavior? What if the constant worry about how others perceive you, the fear of saying the wrong thing, or the hesitation to approach new people is actually an attempt to control others' thoughts and feelings about you?
In this episode, we’ll explore how this obsessive need for control manifests in social anxiety and why it’s so exhausting and counterproductive. We’ll also discuss the deeper fears driving this need for control and how to begin letting go, allowing yourself to feel more relaxed and confident in social interactions.
Join me as we uncover the root causes of this obsessive control, and learn practical steps to release it, freeing yourself from the chains of social anxiety. By the end of this episode, you'll have new insights and tools to start living more freely and boldly.
Ready to transform your social anxiety? Let’s get started!
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Are You a Control Freak? How Obsessive Control Fuels Social Anxiety
Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you if you're sick and tired of being held back by fear, self-doubt, social anxiety, or anything that stops you from being your authentic self. I'm Dr. Aziz, and today we're diving into a topic that might surprise you: control. Are you a control freak?
Unmasking the Quiet Control Freak
When you think of a control freak, you might picture someone loud, bossy, and domineering. But what if control manifests differently in those of us with social anxiety? What if it's a quiet, obsessive need for control that fuels our anxiety?
Imagine this scenario: You're in a social interaction, feeling tight and restricted. You're worried about what to say, how others perceive you, and whether you're doing it all wrong. This isn't just fear—it's an obsessive need to control the outcome. You want to control how others see you, how they feel about you, and ensure you don't make any mistakes.
The Exhausting Reality of Social Anxiety
Consider how exhausting it is to try to control every social interaction. If you're speaking in front of a group, you might feel the need to manage the thoughts and feelings of every person in the room. This obsessive thinking leads to withdrawal, avoidance, and increased anxiety.
"We obsessively try to control everything because we're terrified of feeling unworthy or unlovable."
The need for control stems from a deeper fear of rejection and a desperate need for approval. We fear that if someone doesn't like us, we'll feel unworthy and unlovable. This fear drives the obsessive thinking and behavior that characterizes social anxiety.
Breaking Free: Embrace Uncertainty
The key to overcoming this obsessive need for control is to embrace uncertainty and the possibility of rejection. It's about realizing that you can't control everything and that's okay. This shift requires both internal work—feeling and processing your emotions—and external action—exposing yourself to situations that challenge your fears.
"The real danger is the feelings we are terrified to face. But feeling those emotions is the path to freedom."
Action Steps to Let Go of Control
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Acknowledge Your Patterns: Recognize when you're trying to control others' perceptions of you. Notice the obsessive thoughts and behaviors that arise in social situations.
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Feel Your Feelings: Allow yourself to feel the emotions you're avoiding. This might include fear, shame, or unworthiness. Practice staying with these feelings instead of running from them.
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Take Bold Action: Challenge yourself to step into situations that scare you. This could be speaking up in a meeting, starting a conversation, or sharing your opinion. Observe what happens without trying to control the outcome.
By practicing these steps, you can begin to dismantle the cage of social anxiety and live more freely and authentically.
A Message of Hope
Breaking free from social anxiety is a journey that starts with recognizing the need for control and challenging it. You have the power to change your story and embrace uncertainty. Remember, you don't have to do this alone. There are resources and support available to help you on your path to liberation.
Until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know, on a deep level, that you are 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 shrinkfortheshyguy.com. For free blogs, e-books, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, visit socialconfidencecenter.com.
(upbeat music) Welcome to Shrink for the Shagai. 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 gonna 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 gonna 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. (upbeat music) Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. I have a question as we begin this episode. Are you a control freak? Now, you might hear that and have an immediate reaction. No, Aziz, I am not. And then a second reaction of indignation, how dare you? How dare, I know what those control freaks are like. They're loud, they're bossy, they're telling everyone what to do, they're dominant, they're oppressive, they're jerks, they're mean, they're bad, they're wrong, they're scary, they're narcissists, I'm not one of those people. I'm quiet, I'm shy, no one even knows I'm there. Well, then I clearly am not that controlling. Well, maybe. But what if it's a different type of control or controlling? And what if it's an obsessive need for control that is part of social anxiety and what if part of liberating yourself from social anxiety is actually letting go of that obsessive need for control? But let's examine this further together here. So is there a need for control there? Well, if you look at an interaction when you're feeling social anxiety, what's happening? What's going on? Usually, when I talk to people, they're not feeling joyful, connected at ease, fully and easily able to express themselves without self-consciousness. These are what we feel when we're feeling social confidence. But when we're feeling social anxiety, it's the opposite, right? I'm tight, I'm restricted, I don't know what to say, I'm worried about not knowing what to say, I'm worried about how they're gonna think of me, I'm not sure how I should be, I'm probably doing it wrong, they probably don't wanna talk to me, I'm probably gonna mess it up. I'm hesitant, I don't wanna go approach new people, I don't wanna take risks, I don't wanna put myself out there, I don't wanna reveal anything, and so on and so forth, right? So if you look at the experience, it's a very active mind, attention in the body, an emotional constriction or negative experience, and then that's why eventually we tend to wanna avoid social interactions because they feel bad, and then we say maybe it's about the social interaction, but actually what if it's not the social interaction, what if it's the way you're doing the social interaction with social anxiety, and what if that's this obsessive need for control, just look at it, look at what's happening during that moment, right? It might appear as fear, but if you just scratch the surface a little bit, you'll see very quickly what the fear is of, right, it's a well, what are they gonna, they're gonna think negative of me, what if I don't know what to say? Okay, let's say you don't know what to say, well then I'm gonna be awkward, okay, so you're awkward, well then they're gonna judge me, they're not gonna like me, so now I need to control what you think of me, and if I don't do it right, if I don't perform properly in the conversation, I don't say the right thing or do the right thing, then not only are you gonna think negatively, so I gotta control your mind, you also might feel aversion towards me, like I don't like this guy, I don't wanna keep talking to him, I'd rather talk to somebody else. So now I also have to control how you feel towards me, and if there's more than one person, oh my God, there's a group of people, there's like four of us standing around, six of us, I gotta control what all five of them think of me. That's extremely exhausting, and then God forbid it's a public talk, or I gotta share it with a group of 20 or 30 or 50 people, that's 50 eyeballs, set pairs of eyeballs on me, then I have to control what every single one of them thinks, and what every single one of them feels, which is why most people, they experience social anxiety, will not touch that with a 10 foot pull, they're like, no, no, no, I'm not gonna speak up, I'm not gonna share, it's too much, it's too much to control, it's overwhelming, it is overwhelming, it is too much to control. And yeah, that's how we learned, that's what we've practiced when it comes to social interaction. So are you with me so far? Do you see that there's a quality of needing to control? Is it obsessive? Well, I don't know, I'm not gonna say what it is for you, I know for me, when I experienced a lot of social anxiety, it was obsessive, as in I could not stop the thinking, the worrying, the planning, what am I gonna say, how am I gonna say, plan my next conversation? It draws you, when people are obsessing, we're having obsessive thoughts, we're not present, right, we're in our heads, we're thinking about the next moment, thinking about what we're gonna do. So is it obsessive for you? And then we wanna go a little further and say, what's going on, why are we doing this? Why am I obsessively trying to control everything? And of course, you probably pretty quickly realize that you can't, like you can't control what someone thinks and feels, that doesn't stop us from trying, well, if I tell my best story, and if I look my best, then I only show this angle and so they don't see my weird ear, I put my hair over my ears, so they don't see it. And no one, I got enough sleep, so I don't look tired and I'm muscular enough, 'cause I worked out enough, so no one's gonna think I'm fat or weak, and ah, and then I'm gonna make sure I come up with some funny stories ahead of time, so I know what to share, so people will be impressed by me and I'm gonna ask the right questions and I'm gonna make sure I show that I'm smart, and then if I don't know something, I won't ask a question to reveal that I didn't know the thing, 'cause not knowing, it makes me look stupid and unsophisticated, and I'm gonna make sure, I think of some funny things to say and have some talking points, and ah, ah, sounds a little obsessive, doesn't it? And then despite all of that, can you control what someone thinks of you? I mean, you could do your best. It might be lead to them thinking more highly of you, right? It might work, but it also might not, at all. In fact, it might even be worse than not trying, because there's a funny thing when we're trying to control, people feel it, even if it's unconsciously, they feel you're exerting some pressure on them, pressure to like you, and people can either directly, I can consciously perceive it, like it's like a glaring obvious thing, having run that pattern myself for so many years and then helping people address this and heal it for so many years, that if someone is talking to me and they want me to like them, or they're running a social anxiety pattern, it's so obvious to me. And I don't judge it as like, you're bad, I just notice it, and I'm like, oh, and I also notice that it's less effective, it backfires. Like they're nervous and they're wanting me to like them, so they're doing or saying or being in a certain way that there's a tension in it. And I know that if they didn't have that tension and need to control me, or control themselves to try to control me, that we would all be having a better time. It's just mechanics. It's like if someone was making an abrasive sound, like, (imitates sound) you kind of get like, "Lith." But you know, we would all enjoy this conversation more if you didn't keep making that weird groaning sound, right? (laughs) That's the sound of obsessive thinking. (imitates sound) So it doesn't really work. It can backfire, often does, because we can't control people, and yet we keep doing it. Like hearing that doesn't make you say, "Well, okay, great, I'll just won't do that ever again." Why? 'Cause it's obsessive. So then you got to dig a little deeper. Why do we obsess? Why do we have obsessive thoughts? Well, usually we're obsessing because it's like, think of the mind as a little machine, like a hand crank machine, a little windy, got some gears, (imitates sound) goes around, goes around. And when we're afraid, when we're threatened, when we're in danger, that energy in our nervous system of threat that is on a very physiological level, happening with cortisol and adrenaline and other chemicals rushing through our blood and body that the brain goes from this pace (imitates sound) to (imitates sound) Today's an episode for sound effects, by the way. But welcome to my life. I just sound effects all day long. That's like communicating about 40% in sound effects. But it speeds everything up. And so the mind just goes faster and faster and faster. And it's trying to what? It's trying to resolve the threat, right? That one of the main functions of your mind is to anticipate and react to the environment around you to keep you safe. And it can go into the future and it can draw from the past. So it's got this repertoire of information and it tries to study patterns. It tries to predict things. And in general, your mind will over-predict threat because its motto is better safe than sorry. So I'll miss out on something, sure, but at least I'll live. And that's pretty hardwired into us. If you wanna check out an interesting book, it's called Buddha's Brain by, is it Rick? Hanson Rick, somebody other. Just take a look at Buddha's brain on Audible or Amazon. If you wanna check it out. But he gets into the neurobiology of some of these patterns of suffering. And it's not like, hey, you're a weak or you're messed up. It's like, oh no, this is almost kind of our default way of being until we learn and train and practice something new. So we're having obsessive thoughts because our mind is trying to solve the problem of the danger. And if it thinks if it can just control you or control the other person, then you'll be safe. Now, what's the danger? Right. (laughs) When I say that, it makes me think of the line from Breaking Bad, which I never really actually got that far. I think I watched maybe some of the first season and then didn't get super into it. But I know this sound clip from a drop in a side-trans song where his wife is telling him, you know, honey, you're in danger. And she doesn't know, if you don't know the show, it's like this chemistry, high school chemistry teacher who ends up out of desperation to pay medical bills, I believe, for his wife, for her survival, maybe cancer treatment or something like that. He ends up getting kind of the twists and turns, ends up creating a meth and then gets involved in drug trade and all this stuff. And becomes more and more of like a drug kingpin, right? Anyway, she doesn't know all this, but he's kind of become this harder, battle-hardened criminal basically. And so she says, "And you're in danger?" And he looks at her and he's like, "I'm not in danger. "I am the danger." And my kids love that line, by the way, I told them that. And we were listening to the song and they are, what did he say? In any case, what if you're not in danger, you are the danger, go on offense, attack, no. But what if you're not in danger? That is the life-changing question to free yourself from social anxiety. Because as long as we're not questioning it, it's like the whole process. I mean, we're three, four layers away from the real source of all this. And really, it's, okay, I gotta get so-and-so to like me and all they don't like me and I'm gonna ruminate about it. They don't like me and what do I gotta do to get them to respond to me and what's the best message to send to them? Oh, did I say the wrong thing there? And we're so lost in that. And we don't even realize we're in obsessive thinking, trying to control everybody. So we take a step back, like, oh, I'm obsessively trying to control everybody, okay? What's going on there? Oh, oh, I'm afraid. Okay, we take a step back. What am I afraid of? There's danger. What's the danger? Well, the danger is they're not gonna like me. Isn't it? Some version of that and then they're not gonna want to be my friend or they're not gonna want to date me and they're not gonna promote me or they're not gonna think highly of me. And then what's the danger in that? Well, something bad's gonna happen. I'm gonna be excluded. I'm gonna miss out on what, on connection, on love, on belonging. So your sense of, and, and actually the underneath that, one layer deeper, since might as well go all the way if we're doing this, underneath that is if they don't love me, that can be okay. In fact, that's part of liberation, right? 'Cause I'm not for everybody. It's okay if someone doesn't like me or something that I did. In fact, even those people that love me, like my wife, doesn't like everything I do. Shocking, I know, right? She'll tell you. Doesn't like everything I say and do. What? I thought you loved me, right? But, you know, it's not even that we're, if someone doesn't, let's say someone doesn't like you at all, like I don't want to be your friend, I don't want to date you, that's still okay. But it doesn't feel okay. And that's the danger. So the real danger is that when someone doesn't like me or love me, I feel what? I feel unworthy, I feel unlovable. I feel desperate, uneasy, unsafe. It's like the bottom drops out. And there's nothing there, right? There's like a desperate, almost drowning quality if I need this like oxygen when I'm underwater. And that's the part that we really want to examine is what is the threat there. The threat there, my friend, is feelings. There's some set of feelings that just feels awful. And we're terrified of that. We're running from that. Which is, oh, pretty much one of the primary roots of any sort of obsessive thinking or OCD is there's feelings at the root that we are, that feel absolutely, we cannot go there. Terrifying, obliteration, if I were to go into those feelings. But ultimately that is the way, and that is the way out. And that's when I work with people, that's one of the primary things I'm guiding them to do is to be able to feel the feelings. And that's a skill, in fact, there's a whole episode. I have this show, if you want to search for it, go to shrink for the shyguy.com, shrink for the shyguy.com, or just go to my website, doctors, ease.com and click on resources, I believe. And then there's a link to the podcast. And you can do search there and do a search for feelings. I believe the official title is like the life-changing skill of feeling your feelings. But if you search and you don't get it exactly right, maybe you won't find it. So just type in feeling feelings or even just feelings. And you'll find that episode and you can listen to that. But that's really the skill set that's needed to do this. And if you want more support in that, definitely through my website, you can also reach out, you can apply for my mastermind program. That's where I'm helping people do this every week, you get together, practice. And then of course the other part is taking bold action, which you probably know by now. And so we've got to feel the feelings and take the action. So it's kind of like an exposure and learning how to build our capacity of resilience, not by controlling everything, but by realizing we don't need to control everything. 'Cause as soon as you're willing to feel what you feel if somebody doesn't like you, then all of that threat starts to dissolve like it's okay. It's really okay if someone doesn't dislike me and you might tell yourself that now, like it's okay if someone doesn't dislike me, but your nervous system and your emotions are like, what? What? It's not okay. It's very not okay. So let's make it okay. Shall we? Let's talk about how to do that through action. (upbeat music) Time for action. Action. Action. (upbeat music) Your action step is going to be to think of somebody in your life where if they were to temporarily not like you or think negatively of you or judge you, that it would feel awful. And you're very, you're like, I can't handle that. I gotta do whatever they say. I gotta avoid them. And it could be a certain person. It could be just like in general, speaking up in a group, group of friends or group of colleagues at work. So you imagine the scenario and you go with the what if, what if someone did judge me? I'm so scared of giving this presentation at work. (screaming) Okay, what if someone did judge me there? And I know the mind is going to go a mile a minute. Well, this is going to happen. That's going to happen. Obsessive control, obsessive control. But instead just slow down, stay out of the mind, go into your body and find the part that's just like freaking out. Really scared. (sighing) And just be with that. And again, listen to that episode for more guidance, the art of feeling your feelings. You can also go to my not nice book page. So go to notnicebook.com and enter your email there and you get access to all the resources from the book and there's a guided peace process, which many of my clients love. They tell me they listen to it maybe every day or as needed and you can get access to that as well for free. Just go to notnicebook.com and enter your email and you'll get access to that. It's called a peace process but that'll guide you through this as well. So there's, you know, it's, it works. It can be uncomfortable, but you know, is it worse than just, at least when you're uncomfortable doing the peace process, you're like engaging in the process of liberating yourself. Whereas when you're just uncomfortable 'cause you're obsessively trying to control everything, you're not, it's not getting anywhere, right? You could just do that indefinitely and for the rest of your life. So let's not do that. Let's do something better, right? All right, well, thanks for being with me today. I love and appreciate you. I love being here with you. You are awesome. So until we meet again, we have the courage to be who you fully are and to know on a deep level, you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon. (upbeat music) - 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 shrinkfortheshyguy.com. For free vlogs, e-books and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
