Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. 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 going to 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 going to 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. Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about your fear of hurting other people and how that just might be hurting you.
I think this is going to be extremely liberating for you, especially if you have a history of being too nice, overly concerned with other people's feelings. a little bit of what i might call the mother hen syndrome which i'll talk about here in today's episode and and ultimately how to to free yourself from this so you can be more
you in the world. I think that's a great starting place. And I often do this with any topic related to being less nice and more you, which is that this isn't sometimes people hear this and they say, Oh, you're supposed to not care about people at all. And we kind of put it into this all or nothing category. Either you're super over-concerned and overly cautious about hurting other people to the detriment of yourself, or you're this...
mean, awful, uncaring person who's just sociopathic and doesn't have any feelings for people at all. And in fact, that dichotomy, that way of holding it is part of the problem, as you'll see. in today's episode. So let's look at this. Do you have a fear of hurting other people? I mean, if so, there's probably a human quality to that, right? We don't want to cause harm to others.
We want to make sure that other people feel good. We don't want to purposely hurt other people. That generally, for most people, feels bad. It triggers guilt. Maybe appropriately so, right? If you did something really harsh or mean or out of your values.
and you really hurt someone, maybe you feel bad about that. Maybe that's a corrective force that guides you to apologize or act differently in the future. And that's kind of the best case scenario. That's when the system and the guardrails are working properly. What about the rest of the time? What about most of the time? Well, people can be overly concerned with hurting other people. And there's a couple of distinctions that you might not.
know, which are really important. One is this difference between hurting people and harming people. And I talk about this in my book, Not Nice. So what is that difference? It's not the same word hurting versus harming. Well, People can feel hurt in life and in relationships. What causes someone to feel hurt? It could be a lot of things, but there's some emotional pain and there could be a trigger.
So someone says no to them. Someone rejects them. Someone says something harsh or critical and someone could feel hurt. Someone doesn't get back to this person and they feel hurt. They feel ignored. Someone doesn't smile at them in the right way and they feel hurt. So there is some emotional pain that gets stirred up and we call that hurt. Pretty basic so far, right?
But it really starts to get more nuanced when you look at people and relationships and how things work in our lives. So obviously pushing someone over and saying, you're fat and stupid, like a bully. Then they're gonna maybe feel hurt. And you could say, yeah, for the most part, you've acted out of line. Pretty obvious, right? But that's not, most people that I'm talking to aren't doing that, right? And there's a...
certain percentage of the time that if you're too nice and you hold back and you hold back and you stuff it and you stuff it and then eventually you explode and maybe you do act out in a way. But way more often what I see is As someone, you don't want anyone to feel hurt feelings. And you go on this quest to protect everybody from those hurt feelings.
Not from because you are acting really inappropriately, but just because you're taking on way too much of their side of the street, their stuff. So let's say you need to have a direct conversation with someone at work. and they were supposed to get something done and they didn't. Hey, you were supposed to get X to me by Thursday. It's Friday. I don't see it. What if that person reports to you? What if you have to give that person feedback? What if they get you the thing?
on friday it's supposed to be thursday and what they give you is not very good what do you do then do you say hey this was supposed to come to me on thursday and it's friday also A, B, and C are supposed to be in there and they're not, or they're not done properly, or they need to be done differently. Now, what if you were to say those things and the person felt hurt? Should you not say those things?
Should you overthink how you're going to say those things for, well, I don't know, an hour or a day? Should you ruminate and stress about it until you're sick the night before?
And probably when you hear that, you're like, no, that's a bad idea, but that's what we do, right? And we're overly worried. We're overly cautious when we communicate. You might even avoid the conversation because you don't want to hurt their feelings. And in this case, I would say that you're not doing anything inappropriate or the bully example of pushing someone over and calling them names.
Right? But when we're nice and we have this nice program and we don't even make those distinctions, it's just all bad because they could feel hurt. And so that's why I want to have this distinction between hurting and harming. Harming is when we do something with the intent to cause pain. Right? And why do we do that? Well, we're acting out of our own pain when we do that. But we have this intent. Now I'm going to get you. But so much of the time, just being honest.
And saying what is so and what we think and what we feel or even just what we want or what we don't want might cause uncomfortable feelings in somebody, a.k.a. hurt. And so now I need to make sure that they don't feel hurt. So I'm not going to do those things. And this is where that fear of hurting others ends up hurting you.
So a story I've heard again and again and again comes in intimate relationships, dating, marriage, long-term partnerships. And this could be with a friend as well, but it's big in romantic relationships where... Maybe you want something different than your partner. They want to spend, he wants to spend time with me on the weekends and I'd rather do my own thing on Friday nights.
And this could be an early dating situation. Like, I don't want to spend this much time with them. Or it could be longer term relationships. I remember there was a gentleman I worked with who just basic things of what he might want to do on the weekend. Saying it because it might.
differ from what his spouse wants. Maybe she wants to spend a little more time with me than I want to spend, or I don't want to do certain things that she wants to do. And saying that his fear was, I'm going to hurt her. I'm going to hurt her feelings if I say, I don't want to go do this thing with you or that's not as interesting to me. And then there'd be this avoidance of that. And it was hurting him. And honestly, it was hurting their relationship.
And so now what if she feels disappointed? What if he misses you? Are you hurting that person? And the reason I ask the question is because are now you lumping all these, any feeling of discomfort in them as hurt because hurt is bad, right? And so therefore you shouldn't do it. And we want to make this distinction. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. People can have uncomfortable feelings. People can have painful feelings. People can feel disappointed. People can feel hurt.
And that doesn't mean that something bad or wrong is happening that I shouldn't do. It's just an inevitable part of relationships. I remember a long time ago I was in a men's group and the facilitator told me, that disappointment was a natural part of healthy romantic relationships. And at the time, that was revolutionary to me. Like, really? You shouldn't disappoint your partner.
That's not healthy. That's bad. I mean, at that time, I thought anger was unhealthy in relationships too. And you should never, ever, ever get angry or you should never, ever show anger in a relationship. That means you've lost it. You've lost control and you're bad. all these distorted ideas around anger. So there's a lot of emotional policing going on. But the challenge with the not wanting to hurt your partner or other people is the policing is not just of you, it's of...
of them, right? You're, you're not just saying I shouldn't feel angry or I shouldn't express this thing or that thing. It's, I need to make sure that they don't feel this. And that's a hard thing to do. In fact, that's an impossible thing to do. You cannot make sure that the people around you never feel any hurt or upset or painful feelings.
And I've worked with people where this gets really crazy making because their sphere is bigger and bigger and bigger. It's not just, oh, I can't, my partner can't have any hurt feelings. It's, I don't want this.
my colleagues to have any hurt feelings. I don't want my friends. I don't want my parents to have any hurt feelings or my siblings or my kids. I also don't want my employees or my team members or people that I'm working with to have. And I don't want my clients to have any hurt feelings or upset. You know, how big is this fear? Well, it's like anybody. I don't want a stranger at a party to have any upset feelings or feel hard. And so now it's like this. I got to be friends with everybody.
I've talked about this with my wife. There was a situation, and maybe I mentioned in this podcast, so if I'm repeating myself, hey, that's what happens when you turn 42. Just all downhill. You're just repeating the same old stories like an old grandpa.
There was a guy that came over to our house to do a blood draw for her. I'm not going to get into all the reasons why, but they needed blood. Hey, instead of going to this clinic, we can send someone out to your house. Great, that sounds convenient. And the guy came out, and he was kind of a mess. He was like...
sort of talked for a long time and sort of seemed disorganized. And then when he came to get the blood, he was like not effective at getting the needle in the right spot and drawing the blood. you know, not a, not a top notch phlebotomist. Like if you went into a lab, they would just, they're pulling blood all day long and they just get it on it on anyone, no matter what their veins are like.
So he's jamming around this needle into her arm like many, many, many times. Ends up not getting the blood he needs. She's got this big bruise. And I come down. I wasn't there at the appointment time. And I come down. I'm like, what the hell is this? And she's like, well, he couldn't get the needle in there.
And we were looking back on it and she had this impulse like pretty early on to be like, Hey, I don't think this is going to work for me. And as soon as you stuck the needle and it didn't get it the first time, she like part of her wanted to like scream out like, no, I'm done. But she didn't. want to hurt his feelings. And I can relate.
in so many different areas of my life. I might've told this story too. And so maybe this is a walk down memory lane where Aziz repeats himself. But right now I've got my hand on my arm here, my right shoulder down my arm. And there's a big tattoo there. because I'm cool. But anyway, it's a tattoo of a tree. And when I first got this tattoo, I hated it. Crazy, huh? Why would you get a tattoo that you hate? Well, I had this idea of I love trees.
And one of my favorite types of trees are oak trees because I grew up in California and there'd be these beautiful, huge oak trees out kind of where we grew up and all over the state, really. And there's a way that the oak trees... kind of break apart to smaller and smaller, almost like a fractal branches go smaller and smaller and smaller. So you get these really beautiful kind of
I'm not describing it the best, but like sharp angle turns of thinner and thinner branches. So, you know, one big stock becomes two and then that breaks into four and that breaks into eight. And, you know, I love driving down the... you know, central California highway and looking out and seeing these beautiful oak trees and silhouettes at sunset. And I just love that. It's like a deep feeling of home, even though now I live in Oregon and I have that.
I have that feeling for some of the Doug fir trees, but you know, it was beautiful. And so at the time I lived in California and I was like, I want this big Oak tree on my. on my arm and I want these branches to look like this. And so my friend is like, oh yeah, I got this tattoo artist I went to. She's amazing. She does a lot of nature art and stuff. So she'd be perfect. I said, great. So I get on the phone with her, describe what I want. She says, awesome.
Um, I might've even sent her some photos or images and stuff. And then she says, okay, great. I'll draw it up and then we'll, you know, I'll show it to you. So I go into the tattoo parlor and she shows me the tree and my reaction is like, oh it looks more like gnarled and swampy it's not it's not it's not an oak tree it's like a tree that you'd see in a bog or something and i was like oh Okay. Put it on my body. Forever. Because I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Isn't that crazy?
I've told that story to my kids and like, you're crazy, dad. That was the wrong thing to do. I'm like, good, good. You're getting the lessons of confidence right now. The good news is, uh, later on. I ended up getting a lot more added to it. I'm looking at it right now, but just all these beautiful bright green alive leaves and more roots that go down my forearm. And so now I freaking love it. And it's super cool.
So I was able to adapt it because I got more in touch with what do I want and I'm going to ask for what I want. And I bet you have stories in your life where maybe you've stayed in relationships too long. or you held back and didn't say, and then you weren't able to ask, okay, if I don't ask for what I want, then maybe I won't hurt them. But then you end up being in the situation where you're not getting what you want, which is frustrating or painful, or it can be ultimately hurting you.
to stay in a relationship where you can't get your needs met, to be in a situation at work that doesn't serve you, to... bend over backwards or give way more of your time or whatever it is, where in the attempt to not hurt other people by saying no or having a boundary or asking for what you want, you end up giving more and more of yourself or
taking something from yourself or suffocating a part of yourself, ultimately hurting yourself to not hurt others. And this isn't some noble thing, like a noble sacrifice. It's an unnecessary sacrifice because you're not really harming them. You're just potentially causing some temporary uncomfortable feelings.
Because if we could say, you know what, I'm going to fall on the sword here and I'm not going to do this because I don't want to hurt other people. It makes you sound real good. But if you were to say it as it really is, which is. I'm going to really miss out on something in my life or cause a lot of ongoing suffering for myself because I don't want to temporarily cause any emotional discomfort in people. That doesn't sound as good, does it? But that's really what's true.
until it's not. So let's talk about how you can shift this now. Time for action. Action. Action. Your action step is going to go on a hurt fest, go hurt everybody. Kind of maybe let's say it this way. How about what's one thing that you that feels true to you to ask for?
to say, to say no to, to say, I'm not available for that. That might disappoint somebody. You ask for something you want that they might, that might be different than what they want, that you've been holding back because you quote, don't want to hurt them. aka cause any discomfort in them. And then do the thing. Test it out. Work with it.
If guilt arises, now you've had this episode to give you some new perspectives. And ultimately it's a repetition thing. The more you do it, the more you realize, you know, it's okay. I'm allowed to be this way. It's actually healthy for my relationships and for me. And it becomes self-reinforcing. So I hope this serves you in becoming a more liberated, free version of you. And until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're 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, For free blogs, e-books, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.