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

by Aziz Gazipura

“be nice.” So, you talk to that person. Or, better yet, you actively engage them and pretend to be really excited to see them. “Hey Arthur! How’s it going?!” 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. I’ve talked with clients who have been wanting to end their relationships for a long time, and the only thing that’s keeping them there is guilt. “But my partner will be crushed!” Guilt, and maybe a dash of fear. “If I leave, I’ll never find anyone else. I’m scared of being alone.” Furthermore, what about annoyance, irritation, and anger? Those aren’t nice, are they? Stuff those down in your belly too. And smile. Don’t forget to smile. Ugh. What makes us do this? Why are we so disconnected from ourselves? Why are we so afraid to be ourselves? The answer, my friend, is 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.”

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.

A common theme that makes them all the same? Take a moment to review them now, what exactly makes this destructive? Some of the examples involve saying “no” to someone. 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. Then there’s poor Vihaan. I relate to his struggle, as it’s something that caused me great pain in many of my relationships. I used to feel so guilty for noticing, talking to, or feeling attracted to other women. What is going on here? Each of these scenarios involves breaking a rule. If we break certain rules, we feel guilt.

This is an extremely valuable and life-changing skill to develop. If you can uncover the hidden rule behind your bad guilt, you can break free from it. Often, you’ll see just how extreme and unrealistic these rules really are. You’ll say to yourself, “I’ve been trying to live by that?”

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. Lessons that your parents consciously taught you, and lessons that you learned just by being an observant, intelligent child. Mom gets mad when I resist her and say no; therefore, saying no is bad. Dad gets upset when I disagree with him; therefore, disagreeing with others is bad. Many of these rules are not even things you would agree with if you slowed down and examined them consciously. They’re just old programs you picked up long ago that continue to guide your feelings and behavior, regardless of whether you believe them.

No, 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 ones are best kept hidden.

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 anger, sometimes to despair, but at the end of the day, it’s just pain. The pain of not living the life we want, of missing what matters most, and not truly enjoying this magical experience of being alive.

Changing one rule can transform relationships from confined obligation-fests into joyous experiences of sharing more love than you ever thought possible.

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. That, as you’ll see in Part III, is not sufficient reason to keep a rule. 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.

For now, you’re just going to do one more thing with this list. 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 back to them soon.

So now, you have the core distinction between healthy guilt and destructive guilt. Healthy guilt comes from your true values and keeps you on track. Destructive guilt comes from faulty rules that you don’t really agree with, but accepted when you were...

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.

Over-Responsibility is another pattern we learned in childhood. As young children, we would see Mom or Dad get angry, anxious, or sad, and instantly assume it was our fault. When we are very young, we are unable to understand that others are separate people, with their own experiences, feelings, and desires. 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, hug, act out, try to be funny, or become completely quiet and still.

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 be safe, to be at peace.

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 all scenarios. This might sound impossible and problematic. It is. It becomes even more so as you interact with more and more people, whether it be in business, your love life, or socially. This tendency to take too much responsibility for others’ feelings creates large amounts of anxiety and guilt (as well as hidden resentment).

However, 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 want to, and say “no” much less than you need to.

“I just can’t break up with her. It’s going to break her heart, and I can’t do that to her. She can’t handle it.” 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.”

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 from feeling all discomfort, or all pain. It is an impossible task, a fool’s errand.

For now, 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).

I used to be so uncomfortable with anger that not only would I stuff it down, I would secretly judge others for not doing the same. If my friend was driving us somewhere, and he was pissed off at another driver, I’d think: Man, he really needs to calm down. He gets way too worked up. If I heard someone sound irritable or raise their voice in a conversation, I’d judge them as not patient enough, or otherwise emotionally weak and out of control.

My discomfort and judgment came from a deep fear of anger–in myself and in others. This came from being a sensitive kid who felt things deeply, both my own emotions and those of people around me. Growing up, I had two models of anger, as did most of us. Mom and Dad.

My dad’s loud, booming voice scared me as a kid. Whether he was yelling at me or my mom or brother, I felt a terrible, scared, sick feeling in my stomach. This taught me that anger is no good. It hurts people, it’s out of control, it’s unproductive, it’s bad.

My mom tended to be more passive. She absorbed anger and didn’t fight back. She was very patient with us and only occasionally lost it and chased us, threatening us with some nearby item, be it a hairbrush, belt, or shoe. I smile as I write this though, because I don’t ever remember being scared of her anger.

What did your parents teach you about anger? What did they model for you? What conclusions did you come to? Pause for a moment and reflect. Let yourself think about this over the next day or two as you go about your life. These insight...

In some households, parents directly tell their children not to be angry, or to “be nice.” They may criticize them for feeling angry or punish them for acting angry.

One fear is that because anger is “bad,” it only hurts people and makes things worse. Anger is harsh, mean, critical, and hateful. It is the opposite of love, acceptance, patience and kindness. Hence, if I’m angry with someone, especially if I express that anger, I’m going to do nothing but hurt their feelings. They are going to feel sad, guilty, uncomfortable, crushed, or hurt. This makes me a bad person and I will then feel guilty.

The next fear we have of anger is that people will fight back. If I’m angry with someone and I show it in any direct way, they’re going to come back twice as strong. They’re going to dismiss my grievances or complaints and counter attack. They will criticize or belittle me and become harsh or angry with me.

Alternatively, we fear they will retaliate in a more passive, sneaky way. They may pretend as if everything is fine and even apologize. Then they will go behind my back and do something to thwart me. They’ll criticize me to others, or grow more distant from me, or perform poorly in our work together and cause problems.

One major fear of anger is that it will lead to the loss of a relationship.

One interesting distinction that I see many clients miss, and that I didn’t understand for years, is the difference between feeling and doing. When it comes to anger, for many people the two are fused together. That means feeling angry means you act angry by saying mean things, becoming cold or distant, or yelling at someone. But in reality, there is a big difference between feeling angry and acting angry.

There is a big difference between feeling and doing. We can feel whatever we want. In fact, I believe it’s optimal and extremely healthy to feel everything inside ourselves. This includes all emotions, especially the ones that are uncomfortable that we call “negative,” including anger, sadness, fear, hurt, loneliness, emptiness, rage, and many others. The more we can give ourselves complete permission to feel anything, and know that it doesn’t mean anything about us, the freer we become. In addition, it doesn’t mean we necessarily have to do anything either. We’re just feeling.

When you stop suppressing anger and let yourself feel it, knowing it won’t automatically make you do something, you become much more confident and powerful. My client is not going to go say all these things to her boss. That would be ineffective. But she needs to feel her anger in order to release it. By doing so she not only feels relief, she also reconnects to her power and her sense of agency.

we become masters of conflict avoidance. The nicer we are, the better we become at this. And it’s not just conflict. We become skilled at avoiding all forms of argument, disagreement, tension, differing opinions, or upset. Instead of bending over backwards to accommodate people, we become like ultra-flexible yogis who can contort their bodies into strange shapes.

Are you a master of conflict avoidance and great at smoothing things over? Do you instantly pick up what mood someone is in and start to accommodate it? If they seem tense or upset, do you try to cheer them up? Or do you steer clear, tiptoe around, and walk on eggshells so as to not disturb them?

While conflict and disagreement don’t feel good, they’re part of having direct contact with your fellow humans. Direct contact means you show up fully, are present with others, look them in the eye, listen to them, share what you think and feel, and have a real connection. It’s the opposite of staying small, avoiding eye contact, and displaying just a small fraction of yourself that you hope will receive their approval.

Unfortunately, partial contact creates partial connection and only partial fulfillment. It’s cowardly. It’s being too scared to put myself out there in the world. It’s trying to get the good feelings without any risk. It’s trying to fill my heart up while still keeping it guarded and defended. And it doesn’t work.

If you want to experience a rich, fulfilling, meaningful and significant life, direct contact is required. You must step up and claim your right to be here: Here I am. I am here. I have a right to be here. I belong here. I am me, and I matter. Not because I’m the smartest, or the best, or perfect. Just because. Permission was granted by my birth.

to have the life you want–love, relationships, success, confidence, power, freedom–you must be all in. You must be willing to feel the full spectrum of human emotion, and experience the full spectrum of human contact. This includes laughter, shared joy, and sweet harmony. Those moments where you feel in harmony, madly in love, and like your life is magnified a thousand-fold by having someone so amazing to share it with. But it also involves disagreement, having hard conversation...

Accommodating

Prisitaikyti prisitaimelis pataikauti

accommodating another person may involve doing something that fits their wishes or needs. Sounds pretty good, right? Do things for others. Help them get what they want. Do what they want you to do. Then they’ll be pleased, feel happy, and like being with you.

When our primary objectives are to avoid disapproval, disagreement, friction, or any sort of conflict, we tend to veer too far into what can be called over-accommodating. This means giving too much of yourself, doing too much of what other people want, and not paying attention to what you want and need. Someone asks for something, you say yes. Someone needs help, you’re there. Someone needs a ride? Sure. Someone needs you to stay longer. No problem. And on and on it goes. When you’re over-accommodating, your habitual response to requests is yes, without hesitation, and without negotiation.

You also don’t want to bother people by making requests of them. You know they are busy and have a lot on their plate, so you only ask if it’s extremely important. Otherwise, you just try to figure it out and manage on your own, so as to not be a burden to others.

This combination of saying yes to everything, and not asking directly for what you want, leads to feeling overcommitted and overwhelmed. You feel stressed and anxious much of the time, trying to meet the demands of everyone. But the idea of saying no to someone is even scarier than th...

assertiveness,

Atkaklumas

trying hard to be a nice person means attempting to please others, feeling bad for not living up to your rules or for hurting others’ feelings, and avoiding anger and conflict. This creates anxiety.

I suggested the movie or the restaurant, I had a hard time enjoying myself because I was responsible for everyone’s experience. If I invited several people to do something and they didn’t know each other, I had to make sure everyone liked each other and had a great time.

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, adrenaline, and norepinephrine through your system. It can mess with your sleep, digestion, libido, sexual functioning, and your mood, to name just a few. It’s not pretty, and I’m afraid it gets worse…

resentment

Apmaudas

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