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

by Aziz Gazipura

It has to fit with who you are and come from your values, not some old programming unconsciously passed down from your parents, who got it from their parents, and so on.

Go through and mark the rules that really reflect your core values. Ones that affirm who you are and how you want to be. Mark those with a star or a smiley face.

Then, go through and look for the rules that are crushing you. The ones that keep you feeling confined, inadequate, guilty, and stuck. The ones that are life restricting and preventing you from being your full, free, alive self.

Mark those suckers with an unhappy face. We’ll get b...

Destructive guilt comes from faulty rules that you don’t really agree with, but accepted when you were young. Making this list helps you determine which rules are which.

Destructive guilt can also occur when you break one of your values. Instead of healthy guilt kicking in to steer you in the right direction, destructive guilt swoops down and smashes you, telling you what a rotten person you are.

the reason the guilt turned sour is because of its intensity, duration, and global assessment of you as a terrible father, or mother, or friend, or boss. This intense self-attack doesn’t help you reaffirm your values and course-correct, it diminishes your se...

strengthen your own viewpoints, beliefs, and self-esteem. This will allow you to combat this guilt and no...

This is a pattern that causes endless guilt, makes it insanely difficult to say no, ask for what you want, speak up for yourself, or do much of anything without feeling like a bad person. It’s the pattern of taking too much responsibility for other people’s feelings.

“I feel so guilty,” I replied. “Like everyone wants something from me and I’m letting everyone down.”

I knew what I was saying was distorted and inaccurate, but I was completely lost in the story.

Now that I’d gotten the stories out, I was able to feel my feelings more.

I realized how much of my stress and guilt was coming from taking too much responsibility for everyone in my life. It was my job to make sure everyone felt completely comfortable at all times.

No missing, no wanting, no frustration. In fact, I needed to anticipate their desires and preemptively satisfy them before they became upset. Because if someone was upset with me for any reason, it was my fault and I was a bad guy who needed to fix it instantly.

This is Over-Responsibility, one of the many curses o...

Especially when I take on more, step outside of my comfort zone, and reach a new level of impact and influence.

The more people I interact with, the more opportunities there are for that nice guy programming to pop up and start running amok.

Over-Responsibility is another pattern we learned in childhood. As young children, we would see Mom or Dad get angry, anxious, or sad, ...

When we are very young, we are unable to understand that others are separate people, with their own exper...

This capacity doesn’t come online until we’re older, but by then we may have already made some strong decisions. We figure out the best way to respond when we “make Dad angry” or “make Mom anxious.” We might decide to hide, approach, console, hu...

when you walk through those doors and the first employee you interact with seems tense, irritable, and short, your mind starts to spin. What’s going on with him? Is he pissed at me because I was out of the office on Thursday and Friday last week? Was it too much work and he didn’t like it?

Beneath these worried thoughts is anxiety. There’s fear, tension, and discomfort in your body.

A sense of threat. All is not well. I must figure this out and solve it in order to...

That’s exactly what Over-Responsibility does to us. It makes us feel completely responsible for everyone else’s feelings, with a strong compulsion to make sure everyone feels happy, relaxed, content, and generally good in...

This tendency to take too much responsibility for others’ feelings creates large amounts of anxiety and guilt (as well as hidden resentment). In fact, the rules from your list that are causing you the most guilt are likely ones that demand you don’t “cause” any negative feelings in others. The nicer someone is, the more guilt they feel about this.

sometimes a single word change can make the difference between strong fear, and mild anxiety. Or a “big fight” and a “simple discussion.”

the Semantic Technique I learned while training with Dr. David Burns at Stanford University, is simple yet powerful, and only changes one word. With all those toxic rules, you simply replace the word “should” with “prefer.”

“I should get 100% of the questions right” becomes, “I’d prefer to get 100% of the questions right.” “I should have said something different” becomes, “I’...

This one is powerful. Feel free to begin using it now with the rules you uncovered that don’t serve you. We will do much more in Part II to dismantle those; this is ju...

Another simple word shift is between “taking care” of others versus “care-taking” othe...

Taking care of others means being aware of other people and their needs, and considering these in your decisions. It comes from respecting others,...

good relations. Care-taking is a different story. In Merriam-Webster dictionary, it’s defined as: 1. The act of taking care of land or buildings while the owner is not there. 2. To give physical or emotional care to someo...

Obviously, the second definition is more relevant in our discussion, but the first one also reveals something interesting. I’m taking care of someone’s land or buildings, and they’re not even there. Therefore, in that situation, I am entirely responsib...

Similarly, in the second definition, notice the examples of people one might care-take. Children, the elderly, and the infirm. These people need certain kinds o...

My kids need me to help them understand and regulate their emotions because they don’t know how to yet. In these instances, care-taking is great. It’s needed.

when we’re living in a world where we’re entirely responsible for the feelings of everyone around us, we become constant care-takers. We are subconsciously assuming and treating others as if they are young children who cannot manage their own feelings.

This misconception creates stress, burnout and an endless supply of bad guilt. It sets up unrealistic demands of how responsive you should be, and causes you to give more than you ...

it tends to be strongest in our dating and intimate relationships. This is because we like, love, or care about another person deeply, and what we...

This makes it next to impossible to be direct and honest if we have a strong habit of care-taking. We just couldn’t possi...

When clients in my groups say things like this, I often highlight the care-taking by exaggerating it. “You’re right. They probably can’t handle that. How could you do that to them? The only reasonable and honorable thing to do is to stay with her. Eventually you should marry her and have children.” This often makes them laugh and smile, and breaks the care-taker trance. But our work is far from done. Even if they see it’s absurd, and that it’s in their best interest to break up, they feel oppressive amounts of guilt and waves of I’m-a-bad-person-ness.

Once the guilt switch flips, it can feel like no matter what we say to ourselves, nothing can stop the onslaught.

Being the “good boyfriend,” I said I would help her move. When I got there, however, I was overwhelmed with a strong urge to leave. It was too much, too soon. Too much involvement in her relationship with her ex-husband, and I didn’t like it. For the vast majority of my life, I would have felt this discomfort and stuffed it down. I would have followed my inner set of shoulds and been the nice guy. In this case: you should help your girlfriend move. Fortunately, I’d been doing some of the work you’re doing right now. I was in a men’s group that was helping me see that noticing my inner reactions and taking care of myself are good things. They actually allow me to be supportive and loving in the long term.

I’ll never forget what one group member told me. His name was Allen and he was a former divorce attorney in his late sixties. He said, “Aziz, every time I saw a case where the wife had a new boyfriend, and he showed up to all our meetings, and was the real knight-in-shining-armor type, their relationship was over in a few months.” Snap. His words struck me as true and I could see from the outside exactly why this would be the case. Too involved. Too pleasing. Too nice.

I told Candace, “I’m sorry, baby. I don’t think I can help you do this. It feels too involved. I think I’m going to leave and let you and your friends take care of it.” She understood. Two of her friends looked at me as I shared this, and one said, “Oh...” Candace later told me this was because her friends liked me and were disappointed I wouldn’t be hanging out that afternoon. I, of course, didn’t interpret it that way. Here’s what my mind did: “Oh...” = “Wow, what a selfish asshole you are. Your poor girlfriend is going through so muc...

you feel uncomfortable. What a bad, selfish, bad, bad person you are. I lo...

that’s exactly how I felt driving away. Like a bad, bad person. Disrespectful and unworthy of love. At least that’s what my mind was telling me. But, at the same time, I knew something was different. Even though I was feeling badly, part of me knew this was good. I knew I was taking a step towards s...

Here’s the thing. You are not responsible for other people’s feelings. They’re not incompetent children. They’re adults who can handle their own feelings. They can work through disappointment, hurt, anger, sadness, and upset. In fact, doing so will make them stronger and healthier in the long run. You cannot stop others...

watch your tendency and urge to care-give during the next few days and weeks. Pay attention to your discomfort around being honest or direct. Notice when you’re uncomfortable with someone having unpleasant feelings. And notice how much you avoid saying or doing things to make sure no one ever feels upset. Notice how much you manage, control, and construct what you say to preserve everyone’s feelings.

You just might be surprised at how often and intensely this happens. The more you notice, the better, because awareness will set you free (combined with action of course).

what I’ve seen in most. Most people feel bad and guilty for having these flaws, weaknesses and imperfections. They harbor deep self-loathing and feel guilty on a daily basis for continually falling short.