Dr. Aziz offers brief, practical guidance for reducing anxiety about others being upset with you. He argues that people are upset with you far less often than you think (e.g., brief moments versus hours of worry) and recommends a mental rule: assume others are not upset until shown otherwise. He also reframes occasional upset as an acceptable side-effect of being bold, authentic, and setting boundaries.
Here's the big secret on how to stop being afraid about other people being upset with you. The percentage of the time that people are actually upset with you is radically lower than the mind share and obsessive thinking and worrying that you are engaging in another way to say that is in the course of a week someone might be upset with you for like five minutes or an hour, but you're thinking about it and you're worrying about it and you're feeling all those emotions about it, the G guilt, the torment, the anxiety for dozens of hours over the course of the week. So here's what you do. Instead of constantly assuming that someone's upset with you and feeling all that right now, say okay, once in a while someone's gonna get upset with me. Especially if I'm being more bold, authentic, having boundaries, saying no and being fully myself in the world. Yes, that's a good thing. Number two, I am going to assume that's not happening until proven otherwise.
