Stop Fearing Others Feelings

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. The show to help you break free from social anxiety, people pleasing and self doubt so you can speak up, connect and be 100% you. I'm Dr. Aziz, sharing tools that have transformed my life and thousands of others. Let's all liberate ourselves together.

Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. It's good to be with you. Did you enjoy last week's episode? There was no episode last week. Oh, shame on me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you're in the United States, there was a holiday, Thanksgiving. Did you have a good Thanksgiving? Maybe you don't celebrate or have Thanksgiving in whatever country you're in.

Maybe you didn't. Maybe hanging out with family was really difficult. I know there was a time in my life where I would get, I would have a lot of feelings and it'll be very hard to hang out with family. I have a lot of body pain and stuff and fortunately I'm a lot more, I guess resilient or capable now to navigate that and feel feelings and be a lot less internally reactive. And it might be related to today's episode of the podcast which is about not fearing others feelings. And this can show up with family big time, but it can also show up with colleagues, coworkers, friends, strangers, dates, partner, whatever. And you might not even be aware that you're afraid of other people's feelings, but this episode will help you see exactly where that shows up. You just might be aware of guilt or just afraid to speak up, conflict, not wanting to say no, you want to please people shows up in those ways. But underneath that, we're afraid of people's feelings. And you're going to learn why in this episode. And always just more importantly than knowing why something's going on. That's part of the process. But it's to liberate yourself, to become a lot less afraid of people having feelings. So let's, let's dive into it. Are you afraid of people's feelings? Which feelings specifically? Now there's a lot we might say, well, the bad ones, right. If someone is upset with me, someone is critical, dislikes me. Most people start to nod their heads with that one, like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm afraid of. I don't like people disliking me. Maybe if you're a tough guy, you don't say you're afraid of it, you just say you don't like it. But underneath we're uncomfortable with it. Right. Maybe we're afraid of it. And if you're uncomfortable it's because you're afraid of it. But anyway, we don't like it. That one's obvious. Dislike, rejection, disapproval, judgment, hostility. Right, but there's other feelings that you might be afraid of. If you're a nice person, then you also get very uncomfortable or are afraid of people feeling disappointed, sad, let down.

Stuck, discouraged, frustrated, hopeless. Any of that. I mean, it's worse still if they're sad, discouraged, or disappointed because you didn't give them what they wanted, you. You jerk, said no to them. Ugh. How could you? You crushed. You crushed them. So that's very uncomfortable. Maybe you're afraid of that class of feelings, the deflated kind. And this one. This one might be shocking, but you can actually also be afraid of positive feelings.

Someone admires you, compliments you, praises you. Instead of feeling great, feeling 10ft tall, you feel freaked out.

It triggers some weird bizarro shame, like, oh, don't look at me. You don't know me. If you knew me, you'd know I was worthless. Right? Some confusing. In some confusing way, it makes you feel uncomfortable. Or love. It can be very uncomfortable to receive someone's love, even if we crave it and want it and hope for it, and then we start to receive it, and then we have all kinds of fears and other feelings that can come up. Oh, maybe I'm gonna lose myself. Maybe I'm gonna get smothered. Ah, run away. Run away.

Never did that one myself. That's just. That's just theoretical. Of course. Right? So there could be a lot of different feelings that we're afraid of. And you could also be afraid of your own feelings, by the way, but that's probably a topic for a different show. In fact, I have many shows about that, about how to feel your feelings and stuff, but this one's about other people's feelings. So what of that do you relate to? Are you afraid of some of those types of feelings? And others, all of them. And again, if you don't like afraid, just say you're uncomfortable with or avoid. That allows us to preserve our ego and pride. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of nothing. Except. Except for everything. But other than that, nothing. Okay, so you got some clarity there. You can pinpoint a few feelings. Okay, great.

So why are you afraid of them? Why are they? Why does it make us uncomfortable?

Well, usually there is a tether there.

Sometimes people say, no, no, no. That's just how it is, okay? Someone's mad at you, you feel anxious. And if someone's sad because you Said no to them. You got to feel guilty, you got to feel bad. That's just being human, that's having a heart, that's caring. Whatever. The story goes there. But actually, no, no. It's possible for someone to be upset with you and for you to not feel afraid.

And that doesn't mean that you're totally oblivious or you don't care or you're something other than aware. Maybe you could even be loving. Maybe you could be curious with them. What are they upset about? What are they hoping for? What are they not liking or whatever's going on. Same thing. Someone else could be sad or disappointed. You said no to me, and now I'm all lonely or I feel whatever's going on in their life because of you.

And instead of feeling guilty and anxious and unsettled and I've done something wrong and pressure to go fix it and apologize and give them whatever they want or whatever's going on inside of you, it's possible to feel spac. Curious, to feel maybe like, ah, I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe you feel some empathy or some sympathy, but you also feel okay inside. You can feel spacious in your heart. You don't have to feel all constricted and tight and terrible. You could even feel relaxed. You could feel love and fine. While someone else is also sad.

You might also feel a little bit of that heaviness. Like, ugh, yeah, I feel that. But it's not bad. It's not overwhelming. It's just kind of like another note in the. In the current song, right? You ever listen to a song that you like and there might be a verse or some lyrics or something, it has a little bit of melancholy to it, but that's what makes a song beautiful. And you. And you love listening to. You listen to it again and again, right? So the feeling. I'm not saying you don't feel anything and you're impervious, but the feelings are not bad. They don't overwhelm you. And so it's possible. And if we're not experiencing that, it's not because, oh, they felt this, so I had to feel this. That's where you think of yourself as like a billiard ball in life. A victim of circumstance. A equals B. And that's how many of us live until we grow, until we mature and learn and really take over ownership for our lives. And when you do, you see, oh, the reason A equals B, the reason when this billiard ball hits me, I instantly go this certain direction is because there's an invisible tether. There. There's an unspoken agreement that I am involved in. The other person might not even have made that agreement. They might not have the same expectations, but you made the agreement. Do you want to know what the agreement is? What the contract is? The contract is, I will manage your emotional state.

There you have it. I called this in the book. Not nice over responsibility, Right? But I am responsible for managing your emotional state.

And basically making sure that you always feel good, Right? If I'm managing it well, if I'm successful at my job, my responsibility, my role, my duty, what I have to do, then I'll make you make sure you feel good. So if you're sad, I'll make you not feel sad, maybe happy. I'll cheer you up. If you're upset, I'll calm you down. If you're angry at me, I'll make sure I say whatever or do whatever to smooth things over and make sure we're all good. If you're disappointed you wanted something, then I'll make sure I give it to you or I over give or I'll give something else. I'll do whatever to make it right. Doesn't even matter if what you wanted was reasonable or what we actually agreed on. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Any actual agreements in life? Like I'll give you X and you do Y. Whatever. That's all on the surface. Underneath, there's this unspoken agreement that overrides everything, which is, I'll take care of your emotional state. I'm responsible for your emotional state. I'll manage your emotional state, which means I'll get you out of all the bad feelings.

Yeah, how's that? How's that working? It's pretty terrible, right? But we do it and we do it compulsively because. And here's why.

What if you don't? Well, if you don't, then get ready for doom, my friend, because you become officially a bad person. Yeah, that's right, a bad person. I mean, case closed. What do you. What do you say to that? Who wants to be a bad person? And now you have to feel awful. You have to feel anxious. Oh, by the way, if you're a bad person, then you're not lovable, you're not worthy. You can't be in relationships. You're probably going to be abandoned. People aren't going to really love you like you want to spend time with you, want to be around you. They're just going to tolerate you at best and excommunicate you. And Kick you out of the tribe at worst. So get back out there and make sure everyone feels okay today. All right? It's a pretty terrible setup, but this is how most nice people, which is like, I don't know, 2 billion people on the planet, maybe more, maybe half, are doing every day. It's like the prime directive. It's what you're going for. Amongst all the things you're going for in your life, this one will supersede it. So you might say, yeah, I want to do well at work, or I want to achieve this thing, or I want to get this outcome, or I want to have this relationship, or I want to get healthy. All these things you're running around doing, I want to take my kids to their basketball game. That's all. You're all doing the things. But then as soon as there's another parent that's upset with you at the basketball game or someone at work said, oh, I'm disappointed because you said you were going to do blah, blah, blah, and you didn't get it back to me. I thought you were going to do it and you didn't. And now I'm like, hurt and angry or whatever.

Like, screeching halt to everything else. This is the thing. Like your nervous system freaks out your mind, ruminants on it, right? That's how you know it's the prime directive. It supersedes everything else, right? When it's not occurring, then it's in the background, and as soon as something triggers it, boom, off to the races.

Do you relate to this? Do you see this in your own experience? And it might be all encompassing, like I'm describing, very, very intense and absorbing. And it might just be something you kind of operate on, on top of in the background, but it makes you uneasy, uncomfortable. It removes your joy, your presence, your freedom, your ability to actually la and find humor and love and happiness in this moment.

And that is the inevitable result of this unspoken agreement. In other words, you can't have this agreement running and have a good life and feel great and love who you are and create great relationships and achieve and just do whatever you want to do in life. You can't really do it. You're going to be kind of slave to trying to carry out this directive. So what the hell is going on here? Why are we so crazy? Why are we doing this? Well, blame your parents. No, but it does come typically from our upbringing where we get our original operating system, our original os, and in that, we learn to maintain safety. This is kind of the whole Idea behind insecure attachment. But in order to maintain safety connection, I have to. There's conditions on it, and I got to make sure those conditions are met. And it could be a more overt situation, like alcoholic parent or a raging parent or whatever. And it's very clear, like, yes, I had to walk on eggshells to make sure that dad or mom didn't freak out on everybody. Super clear, super obvious kind of situation. But it cost me a little bit more subtle than that. Like, what do you mean? My parents loved me and stuff. We did things right. But somewhere in there, maybe you just had a very sensitive nervous system. Maybe they were loving but not that capable or emotionally aware. Who knows? Somewhere in there there was a learning that I need to manage the emotional states of those around me. I need to be a peacekeeper in the family or use my empathy and heightened capacities of emotional awareness, which all nice people have. That. I'm going to use that to make sure that people are happy, people are feeling okay. And it could just be that when you saw suffering in someone else, you're so empathic, you felt it a lot and it hurt and you wanted to make it go away, right? So I'm not saying it's from a fault of your parents, but if you want to blame your parents, you can, you can do that too. Whatever you want to do. But regardless, there's this learning and installing, as I think of it as an operating system, over a period of years. And the reason I use the metaphor of the operating system is you can update that thing. You know, you're running OS 2.1 and meanwhile 14.7 is out. Yo. There's a lot of upgrades, There's a lot of years. And so we can upgrade that thing. And it starts with, are you ready for this? Are you ready for this? Breaking that core contract. Ooh, ooh, it's terrible. Let's rip that thing up. How awful. What a terrible suggestion. How could I be such a monster? Right? Well, yeah, yeah. You remind yourself, I am not here to manage your feelings. And the best way to do that is to remind yourself that.

You. Right, this is me talking to the other person, not saying it out loud, but in my own head, like you. This is a disease thinking about you. You are an adult.

And you are responsible to manage your own emotional state. That's part of what being an adult is. And I will manage my own emotional state. Now, I could be loving, I could be generous, I could try to help you. I could say no to you, depending upon what I Want or what my resources and availability is at time, all kinds of things could happen. I could give you things. I could give you what you want. I might not. I don't know. It depends on what you want. Depends on what you're asking for. I could do something that upsets you because maybe I am asking for something you don't like, that you think that's rude or pushy. Maybe you have an expectation of me that you didn't tell me, and then you're mad because I didn't deliver it. Or maybe, you know, maybe I am. I don't think of something. I'm not thoughtful in a certain way, and I. And I forget something or I say something that's blunt or whatever, and you don't like it, all those things could happen. And you could have all kinds of different feelings and you could tell me about those feelings. I didn't like when you said that, or I love. Oh, thank you so much for doing that. I love you so much.

Maybe we'd kiss. I don't know. I don't know. It depends on what you look like. Maybe we'd have to see. I've talked to Candace about that, too. Honey, I'm going to smooch this person. No. Anyway.

All kinds of things, all kinds of feelings could occur in me and in you. And that's fine. That's life that's going to happen. And because of this original contract that we're under, that we're bound under, we try to make life not have all these feelings, and we're freaked out and we're scared all the time.

And so the way to stop fearing these feelings is to see that underlying contract, see where it comes from, and claim something different. Claim more. I am here for more than to please everybody and try to manage everyone's emotional state. Because if I'm doing that, I'm not living my purpose. I'm certainly not doing what I'm here to do, whatever that is. Grand purpose, big purpose, dramatic purpose, soulful purpose, pursuing what's meaningful to you, sharing, creating, loving, achieving, breaking through, having fun, joy, games, laughter, love, relationships, working in your garden, growing some cilantro. I don't know, whatever is meaningful, whatever is your purpose, you're not doing it. Or you're doing a very diminished version of it, or as you're going about trying to do your purpose inside, you're torn up inside because you're worried about so and so being upset with you for something, maybe, sometimes.

So here's what we got to do. We got to see this pattern very clearly as I'm describing it. And then we got to put it into action. I'm going to share that action step right now. Time for action, action, action. Your action step is twofold. One, when you notice the pattern occurring, which now that I've highlighted to your attention, you may notice it a lot. That's okay. When it comes up, just name it. Say, ah, this is the old operating system. That in itself is huge. Huge. Because you're no longer under the hypnosis. It's like breaking the spell. And then the second part is to remind yourself of the truth, which is they are an adult. And as an adult, they are responsible to manage their own emotional state. And I am responsible to manage my own emotional state. That's how it works for adults. And again, you don't need to say that.

Right. If your partner comes to you, like, I'm hurting. When you said this, it hurt my feelings. And you, honey, you are an adult, and you're responsible for your own emotional state. I'm gonna go watch the game with the guys. See ya. Right. No, that's probably not gonna go well. There's probably a more skillful way to handle that. But inside you can remind yourself, like, if you collapse into just compulsive apology, like, I'm so sorry, honey. I don't even know what I did, but I'm awful. You think you're being a good person. You're not being a good person. Hastily apologizing actually, is another sneaky manipulation tactic. Sorry. By nice people. To try to make the feeling go away. You're mad. You're mad. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What are you mad for? I don't even know what you're mad about, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is it gone? Did it work? Or are you not mad anymore? Right. It's like, I can't even tolerate you being upset with me, but actually, the way out is through. And a much more loving response is like, oh, you're upset. What? Tell me more. Well, it sounds like you're sad that I'm going to this game with the guys to be. I thought we talked about that last week. Did you? Oh, I know, but I said yes. But now I'm. I'm, you know, my friend. Thing fell through, and I'm gonna be home this evening, and I feel so sad. And Are you sure you have to go? You're gonna leave me all alone.

Right? But if inside I know, oh, I love this person. I love this woman. And I'm not responsible for her emotional state. She is.

So let me lovingly, like, support her and go to this thing. Right? Like. Okay, all right, well, let's. I love you. I'm so sorry. Oh, that sucks. Your friend thing fell through. That's awful. Dang. Well.

I really do want to go to this game. I've been planning this for a while. It's gonna be really important and meaningful. It's a beautiful way to connect with my friends. And I want to. I really want to go.

I have a few. I have some time now, though. You want to brainstorm some things that might help you, things you might be able to do during that time. And look, I'm right here with you in this, you know, hypothetical example. I'm right here with my partner, my friend, my loved one, my family member. I'm brainstorming with them. I'm curious. I'm creat. In fact, forget about this good or bad person artificial rule book you're trying to follow. Like, listen to the reality of this example. Aren't I being a better person there than saying, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Okay, fine. I won't go call the now. I let you know all the guys that were hoping to spend time with me, I said no to them. I've diminished. I've not nourished healthy relationships with other men or other people in my life, with my friends, which is important for a romantic relationship, for people to have friendships outside of the relationship. And now am I. Am I really happy to be there, or am I building some resentment? Okay, honey, I called it off. What do you want to do? Oh, you want to watch that show? Okay, yeah, okay, I can get into that. And then inside, you're a little tight. She snuggles up against you, and you're kind of like, oh, that feels kind of good. I don't know. And then later, she tries to kiss you, and you're like, no, I'm just tired. I just want to go to bed. I love you, honey. And you did the right thing. You can say on your report card that night that you're a good person.

Is that getting you anything? Is that getting you anywhere? No one's looking at that report card. It's not even frickin real. It's for yourself. It's for your ego. There's a much better version of you, A much more alive version of you. A much more alive version of this hypothetical relationship, too, in which people are taking responsibility so let me know how it goes. Let's get out there and if you hear this and you're like, wow, that sounds great, I'm never gonna do that. That's overwhelming. Well, you can work your way there. You can build up to it. When I work with people in the Mastermind program that I run, we do a progressive build. Think of it as leveled or layered exposure to be able to get you to do things like that. Maybe you can't say no to your partner right away, but over time you can. You gotta lift the lighter weights until you can do the heavier stuff. But it's still about breaking this original contract. And if you're curious about the Mastermind and wanna see, I mean, this is a great, awesome time we're getting here. Towards the end of the year, if you want to make 2026 radically different, then definitely go to my website, drazeez.com and click on the Mastermind under coaching to learn all about it and apply. Now. I would love to support you in becoming a more bold, free, authentic version of you who's no longer afraid of other people's feelings. All right, well, it's great to be with you until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know that you're awesome.

Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Azeez. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.