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

by Aziz Gazipura

If I said or did anything that could offend, bother, hurt, or annoy someone, my anxiety would skyrocket (and guilt wo...

Anxiety takes a toll on your mind and body. It keeps you in a fight, flight, or freeze state with your nervous system all wound up, shooting cortisol, adrenal...

We also have a fight response somewhere down in there because we humans are strong, proud, spirited animals. We’re not easily broken. Even when oppressed for a long time, we have a way of eventually fighting back and breaking free. This is true inside of you as well.

While you may only be aware of the fear, inferiority, desire to please, pressure to perform, and other anxiety, that doesn’t mean that’s all that’s happening inside of you. There is also an inner response of anger occurring as well.

What else is Jim feeling? Pissed. He’s angry because there is a part of him that does not like to be treated that way. That part hates all the demands and the stress. That part certainly does not like the berating and threats from his boss. That part is mad as hell and wants to tell his boss to shove it (and maybe much more).

Now Jim might be aware of this, or he may not. It really depends on how fused he is with his nice-guy mask. If he’s aware of it, he may talk himself down and say, “I know, it’s terrible. But hey, we gotta pay the bills. Just stick with it for one more year, then you can move to a different company that’s better.” This allows him to push the anger down just a little, so he doesn’t spew it out in his next business meeting. This is called suppression,

If Jim is not that aware of his anger, he may just feel stressed. He may be irritable with his wife and kids because it’s safer to be angry at home than with hi...

A lot of his anger might be repressed, which means it’s pushed down and hidden. His nice guy persona is so effective; it heads all this anger stuff off at the pas...

resentment is a subtler form of anger that is happening all the time in all of us. Moreover, the nicer you are, the more resentment you have.

Because we hate to be mistreated. We get secretly angry and enraged when someone threatens us or berates us, like Jim’s boss. And when we’re walking around the world as ultra-nice people, we are treating everyone around us as if they’re Jim’s boss.

If you’re anxious about pleasing others, and you’re worried about what others think, and you’re afraid they will reject you for your looks, for the way you talk, for how smart you are, for being not good enough… what are you imagining others are like? Harsh, judgmental, critical, quick to reject, intolerant, and dismissive. This makes you super anxious because their opinion means a lot, often more than yours does. That means not only are they jerks, they also h...

This same part is resentful about needing to be so kind and caring all the time. It resents taking care of others, listening to them so much, putting them first. All the self-sacrifice and prioritizing others makes this part resentful, then angry, then pissed, then enrage...

“What happens to all that anger if I’m not aware of it? Does it just go away?” I’m afraid not…

In the years that followed, I experienced one painful malady after another. I had chronic stomachaches, and periods of irritable bowel syndrome. I had chronic pain in my neck and upper back.

Not only was I constantly experiencing one disorder or another, I also developed terrible fears about using my body. My experience so far in life had taught me that if I used my body, it would be injured and not recover.

With each injury, once it occurred, I ceased that activity forever. My life became more and more restricted. My perception of myself as having a weak body that was defective and destined for injury became more and more entrenched.

Little did I know that it was all due to being too damn nice. What? How on earth could being too nice cause stomach pain, irritable bowel, TMJ, back pain, wrist pain, or plantar fasciitis? Those are physical conditions, aren’t they? Well, yes, and no.

They are definitely physical conditions, and are extremely painful. Th...

However, the part that is misunderstood by many people is that they are not caused by a structural problem in you...

We all have what are called “defense mechanisms.” These are ways that our mind attempts to minimize our emotional pain and discomfort.

one classic defense mechanism is denial. If something painful is happening, you simply declare it is not happening.

If someone smokes cigarettes, they are generally in a state of denial about what impact this is having on their body and what the consequences will be down the line.

These defenses exist to minimize the experience of uncomfortable or painful feelings, such as anger, hurt, fear, terror, sadness, and grief.

They often operate below our conscious awareness. Hence, we rarely think: Hmm, I’m starting to feel some terror about knowing life is impermanent and I’m going to die. I’m also feeling deep grief about my brother being ill. Now, to defend myself against these feelings, I’m going to maximize my stress about work and focus on my upcoming project as if it’s life or death. Instead, we just feel stressed about this damn project at wor...

When we were trained to be nice growing up, we learned that certain feelings are acceptable, such as happiness, gladness, gratitude and excitement. Other feelings, like sadness and fear are less acceptable and should be kept to a minimum. Other feelings, like anger and aggression are in their own category and never OK. ...

When an unacceptable feeling starts to form in our mind and body, our defenses kick in to keep it out of awareness. It’s tagged as “not OK,” and labeled as a threat. This can make us feel anxio...

Anger and rage at our boss, spouses, kids, neighbors, friends, or anyone else can be seen as highly threatening to our identity and sense of self. I am a good person. A loving person. A nice person. I don’t feel those terrible things. But what if these feelings start to build up to th...

This is the perfect defense because it’s absorbing and distracting. Have you ever woken up with a neck so painfully sore that you could barely turn your head? How much do you think about that during the ...

The pain is completely absorbing and provides the ultimate distraction from our underlying threatening feelings. Now we’re stressed, afraid, and self-pitying. These feelings are miles away from the threatening rage or sadness underneath.

Even better, the problem is viewed as entirely physical and structural.

You need physical and structural solutions, like a different chair, a chiropractic manipulation, or maybe even surgery. One hundred percent structural and one hundred percent safe from those terrifying emotions.

The pain is created by your subconscious mind, and it can show up in a variety of ways. How it manifests depends on your personal history, and what is most likely to grip your attention and keep it stuck on the physical.

I believe there are more conditions that are psychogenic in nature, that is, their source is repressed emotion.

At this point, any new pain or discomfort I feel, the first question I ask myself is, “what could be upsetting me in my life right now? What feelings might I not want to feel?” Then I start feeling emotions directly, and magically and consistently the pain subsides.

Using this approach, I have eliminated TMJ and other jaw pain, wrist pain, upper back and neck pain, shoulder pain, plantar fasciitis, irritable bow...

I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude for the teachers who have illuminated these sneaky patterns, and helped me create a new level of freedom in my body.

Therefore, if you’d like to go deeper and overcome all this pain, here’s how to do it: 1. Get John E. Sarno’s books: The Mindbody Prescription and Healing Back Pain and read them. They are also available in audio version so you can listen to them instead. 2. Get Steve Ozanich’s book: The Great Pain Deception and read that one as well. 3. Go to the TMS Wiki. It is an amazing resource with endless stories of how people healed and eliminated a wide range of physical problems using the methods from Dr. Sarno’s books: http://www.tmswiki.org/ 4. Watch this short clip on YouTube of a 20/20 segment where they interview Dr. Sarno: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsR4wydiIBI (Clips are sometimes removed from YouTube, so if this one is no longer there, simply go to YouTube and do a search for: “John Sarno 20/20”)

Another specter that haunts you when you’re nice is a feeling of powerlessness. This makes sense, because you are. At least as long as you’re living by the self-imposed rules of the nice person.

Living by these rules, you must put others first, be extremely accommodating, only do what others want, only express the parts of you that others will like, avoid speaking your mind, and be quiet and polite. These rules are robbing you of your power and force.

As a result, you don’t feel like you have much impact or influence in the world. Other people are promoted ahead of you, other people are chosen for opportunities, and other people get dates and find love. You are wait...

As we do this, we have the unspoken expectation that goes something like this. If I’m nice and play by all these rules, then life will bring me good things. People will like me, respect me, hire me, promote me, date me, love me, and be my friend. The problem is th...

The nice stance is inherently a passive one. It’s the path of avoidance of discomfort and hoping that life will magically turn out the way we want it to. It’s a life of fear with a thin rationalization: I’m choos...

To challenge those rules and change how you are in the world can stir up anxiety and guilt. I can’t ...

And so we decide to stick to the same game, but just play it harder. Be nicer, more pleasing, more accommodating, more giving, and more polite. Eventually, this wi...

This disconnection from our power removes our personal agency, our sense of “I can make things happen.” When this is gone, we fal...

the victim stance severely limits our capacity in life and destroys our confidence.

It leads to a phenomenon called learned helplessness, where we train ourselves to see things as out of reach or impossible, so we don’t even try.

I want closer friends, I want a girlfriend, I want a husband, I want a better job, I want to start my own business, I want to feel more comfortable around others, and I want to date more easily. All of these desires are things we wish for and hope for, but don’t actually make a reality. Because we’ve bought into...

We tell ourselves self-defeating stories, such as: I just can’t do that, I’m not good enough at talking with people, or my personal favorite, the...

All of this is nonsense. They are excuses and stories we generate to keep us from having to fac...