Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourself

by Aziz Gazipura

You endure conversations that don’t interest you; you do things you don’t really want to do; and you end up dating someone weeks, months, or years longer than you should. Yes, years.

Even as I write this, my heart hurts a little and I cry. This is healthy guilt. This is the warning light that goes off when I’m out of alignment with my values, with who I want to be as a father. This guilt wakes me up and guides me back on track. This is very different from destructive guilt.

Destructive guilt is the guilt that most people feel most of the time. It is a chronic sense of failing others, falling short, not doing something right, not being good enough, and otherwise being “bad.”

So much guilt, so much of the time. That’s why I refer to it as a Guilt Bubble. It’s like an energy field. It surrounds us everywhere we go. It distorts reality and turns neutral events into terrible, bad things we’ve done to hurt others and destroy the world.

When living in the Guilt Bubble, we’re like the villain of our own movie. Always hurting people, letting them down, doing “bad” things. This is a life swallowed by destructive guilt.

Expressing what you want and don’t want. This can stir up all kinds of guilt, especially if you imagine the other person wants something else.

Each of these scenarios involves breaking a rule. If we break certain rules, we feel guilt. Regardless of whether the rule makes sense, is realistic, or we’re consciously aware of it.

Aziz: I should be there to help Candace whenever she needs it, so she never struggles alone with the kids. Even as I write out my rule and make it more conscious, I start to be free of it. When I see it on paper, it’s crazy. And it’s treating Candace as if she’s a fragile creature that can’t handle demand, challenge, or discomfort.

I know that demand, challenge, and discomfort are the forces that cause us to grow and become our fullest, most powerful selves.

These rules are not coming from our rational, adult minds. They’re coming from deep within our emotional brain that recorded hundreds of lessons from our years of Nice Training.

Your own Bill of Rights that determines who you want to be in this world and how you want to show up. Not because someone else told you that you should, or out of fear of displeasing others, but from deep in your own core. You will decide from a place of power what is right for you.

But before you can do that, you have to flush out all the debris. You can’t install a new program on top of a bunch of old, conflicting ones. You have to uninstall those, then install the one you want, the one that will serve you best, the one that is the real you finally coming out to play and enjoy your only life.

we’re interested in only one set of rules—the ones that tell you how you “should” be. How you should be around others, what you should say and do, and what you should never say and do.

These are the rules about what is acceptable and appropriate. What will make others like you, or reject you.

They’re also rules about how you should feel, and which feelings are OK to express and which...

This is the set of rules you unconsciously use to determine whether you are “good” or “bad.” Whether you are a worthy, lovable human being, or a guilty,...

All of us have an inner critic that acts like a prosecutor and a judge. It’s constantly evaluating...

It’s inside our minds, so it’s aware of our innermost world, including the stuff we pref...

If we have unrealistic rules that are impossible to follow, like “I should never feel sad,” then we suffer. If we have faulty rules that tell us to do two conflicting things at the same time, like “be honest and speak your mind” and...

Life is hard. We don’t reach out to people because we think we’re not good enough for them.

We don’t offer our opinions because we think we’re not smart enough. We don’t hold relaxed eye contact for long because we fear others will see all the badness right beneath the surface.

This causes us to feel held back, stuck, and limited in many areas of life. It creates that frustrating and depressing feeling that we can’t get what we really want, and never will. You know the one I’m talking about, right? It sometimes leads to ange...

The pain of not living the life we want, of missing what matters most, and not truly enjoying this magical experience of being alive. Worst of all, we know on some level that what’s holding us back is ourselves, but trying to ju...

Coming up with this list of rules will change your life. Because when you discover these rules, you are discovering the exact decisions that determine how you think, act, and feel. Uprooting the ones that are toxic and u...

Because if we don’t do the work in life, we never get the results we want.

Think about daily life and how you relate to your

What are some of the areas of conflict, frustration, or challenge that arise?

discussions or fights about these things. Or, perhaps you keep ...

As you reflect on your relationship, ask yourself these questions: How should I be in my relationship? What should I do? What should I never do? What’s OK, and what’s not OK for me to do, think, and feel? Then wr...

How should you be as a son or daughter?

how should you be as a parent?

How should you be around colleagues and co-workers? Ho...

it’s important to uncover the exact rules you have in conversations as well;

Take a moment to think about all the different kinds of conversations you have–with

friends,

acquaint...

strangers. How should you be in conversations with others? What are you supposed to do? What are you supposed to never d...

should you be at work? What activities and tasks should you be doing? How should you be doing things? Are you doing enough? What are things you shouldn’t be doing? Make your list of work rules now.

When people refer to “sexual hang-ups,” they are often referring to places we’re uncomfortable because we have unconscious rules that tell us certain things are bad or unacceptable.

These rules can create shame around our desires, and tension and inhibition during sex.

Think back to some of your sexual experiences, especially moments when you felt tense, uncomfortable, or ashame...

this is powerfully healing because you are uncovering the rules that made you feel that way. What were you ...

How should you be during sex? What should you be able to do? What should happen? What should never happen...

a few moments to think about your relationship with money. How do you feel when you think about the topic? Happy, excited, energized? Tense, anxious, or scared? Sad or down? Frustrated or dissatisfied? Ashamed? Whatever you feel is a clue to what your rules are.

How should you be with money? What should you be doing more of? What should you be doing less of? How much should you be earning? What should you be able to do in this area?

Health, including our food choices, exercise habits, and appearance, is a hot button for rules. We have so many of them, and they are often all-or-nothing, extreme, conflicting, or distorted.

How should you be with your health and self-care? What should your body look like? How much should you weigh? How should you be eating? What should you never do?

So much inner policing and control going on. How exhausting.

No wonder I feel tense and confined in this situation. I am!

Other rules might seem oppressive and extreme. If you ask why you should follow that rule, and your mind says, Because you should. To disobey would be bad and wrong.