The Nice Trap

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. Today we're gonna be talking about the nice trap. This is the trap that many people have found themselves in, and I lived in it for many years. And it's a sticky one, it's invisible. And even as you're starting to try to get out of the trap, there's. It's like hard to escape and there's little tripwires that get you, that have you fall back and get sucked back into it. So I'm gonna highlight what the trap is and what some of the tripwires are so you, you can really find your way out, untangle yourself and set yourself free. That sound good? Well, I'm excited to share this stuff with you. And if you're benefiting from this, what we talk about, and you want to go further, you definitely want to check out my upcoming virtual event, three days from March 6th through 8th. It's called Not Nice Live. And if you benefit from this show or my book, Not Nice, that's where we take it and really put it in practice. I can't tell you how many people come to that and say, okay, I've read the book, I get it a lot, but I haven't. It's like my life's not radically different. And that's because we can't just get it in our head. We have to have an environment that really helps us have new experiences, that shows, you know, your body, your heart, and ultimately your whole operating system of your nervous system, of your body, that it's okay, that you can express yourself, you can speak up. So that's what we do. We do a lot of practice, a lot of interactive work, a lot of me teaching and sharing in ways that really shift the way that you think, perceive and feel. And then we put into practice. So there are deep experiences. There's something about immersing day after day where you come back and reflect on it and come back and reflect on it, and all of a sudden things just start to click. So I would love to share that experience with you. I think it really set you up for a whole new experience here in 2026. So if you're drawn to that, go to my website, drazziz.com D R A Z And just click on the banner there. Or we should have a link in the description below this episode as well. And right now we're doing the Early Bird for another couple weeks or so and that's where you can get the ticket for 75% off. And again, this is a virtual event. So if you're hearing my voice, then you should be able to attend the event as well. Right? Because you have the Internet. Okay, so let's talk about this nice trap and I'll lay it out plainly and maybe I'll describe a little bit about how you know the trap is in effect. Okay, so you know the trap is in effect if you have a difficult time saying no. If someone asks for something, you feel compelled to say yes. You have a difficult time asking for what you want. You have a difficult time if someone seems to dislike you or disapprove of you. So you might alter what you say, hide things, be how you think you're supposed to be to get approval. Let a moment happen that you don't really like or want to occur, but you're just like, okay, let's let this happen because I don't want to make a scene. You get very uncomfortable if you're direct or maybe there's a hint of annoyance or you indicate you don't like something and that feels like you are just this awful monster. Getting angry is completely unacceptable. These are all signs that you're, you're in the trap. And you might say, wait, aren't these just signs of niceness? Yes, but there's an underlying tight, confining story that a belief that you have. And it goes like this. This is what creates all those symptoms I was describing, which is that, that being agreeable, self sacrificing and undemanding. Right? That's what all those things is. You never say no. You always do what people want. Look, whatever you want, man. Agreeable. I don't, I don't want, I don't need anything. I'm super easy going and self sacrificing, right? Oh, you need that? Sure, you need that. Okay, whatever you need. So if you do those things, then there will be a payoff. Oh, yes, There's a light at the end of the tunnel. There's Valhalla. If I can just do this long enough, then you'll get something. And what you'll get, you'll eventually earn some safety, love and all the good things. People giving you all the stuff, right. They'll give you and more. It'll all come back to you tenfold. Right. But essentially we'll feel accepted, we'll feel safe, we'll feel loved. Life will go well, it'll be smooth. And that's the story. But that's also the core of the trap. Because what happens is the more that you do this, you're overly agreeable, self sacrificing and undemanding. Pretend like you don't have needs, suppress your needs, just put other people first again and again and again and again and again. It always, there's always a reason and a story. I'm illuminating the underlying pattern. Of course, in our thinking conscious mind, we might say, well, I gotta, of course I gotta say yes to this. I mean, that's not that big of a request. Oh, I mean, that is my friend. I gotta say, that's my partner. I can't say no, my partner here, right? So there's always. It's reasonable. It's like death by a thousand paper cuts. It's always just so reasonable. But the more you abandon yourself to keep everyone happy, to keep the peace, the more resentment and ache and hunger and ultimately a desperation starts to build up inside of you. And so another way to think of it is your, I use the word abandoning yourself. Another way to think of it might be kind of erasing yourself or contorting yourself in exchange for belonging. And here's the worst part about this trap is you don't really get the belonging either. You kind of do. You get like a form of it. You get a photocopy of it or something, a digital NFT version of it, right? You're like, yeah, look, it's right there. It's totally legit. Can you touch it? No, no, no. Yeah, but it's there, trust me. It's on the blockchain, right? But you, you feel like you should right there. I, I'm there, someone's with me, I have a partner, I have a friend, or people accept me and. But you can't really settle into it because you aren't there. It's a performance, it's a role that you're playing, the good one, the nice one, the friendly one, the quiet one, whatever role you want, right? So sort of the shapeshifter in a sense. And so we can't really rest in that belonging, which is what we really want. We don't want just people around us. I mean, some part of us says, sure, I'll just take what I can get. But ultimately your heart, your nervous system, your soul knows that more is possible and wants so much more. And so this, the Reason why this trap can be so sticky is because. A couple of reasons. One, there is a truth to giving and offering things to people and supporting people is part of healthy relationships, right? There is a generosity in healthy relationships. So that can be confusing because where's the line? Where's too much? And a lot of nice people that I work with who've been in the trap for a long time, they don't even know where the line is, right? It's just like, well, the line is just always, yes, I know there's a line somewhere where I can say no. And maybe they will in their life if it's like super severe enough. But otherwise it's like, well, I kind of should just do what they want, right? And so there's not really a line. They always talk themselves out of it. And then another thing that can make it complex is it can work in the short term, right? If you're super accommodating and give people what they want and don't have any needs and you're super easygoing, like, some people might like that, some people might not. They might say, hey, where are you in there? This doesn't feel genuine to me. And that would be maybe someone who has more healthy relational barometer and intimacy and wants true intimacy. Like, I want to see and know the real you. And you might not attract that kind of person when you're doing that. When you're in the nice trap, you might attract someone who's like, oh, you want to give me a lot? Well, I'll take a lot. That's great. This is a great dynamic. We should keep this going. This is sweet, right? And I've seen that where we create these dynamics where it's give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give, like, okay, now I'm gonna ask for something. No, definitely not. Stop asking for so much. Oh, no. Right. So it's part of the trap, though. Now we've got sort of sucked into it. So it. It can look like generosity, it can look like love, it can look like it's moral. It can, you know, it can work to build some connection with people, especially someone who might really like getting a lot of things given to them. But it erodes yourself. That's all. That's. That's one. One small hang up, right? It. It corrodes the soul, but other than that, it works great, right? And also it. It destroys real connection and real intimacy, right? Because real intimacy is, you know, and that doesn't mean, like a sexual thing. Intimacy just is real connection, deep connection. Where you really know someone and they really know you, and people can't know you deeply if you're being nice. And I, you know, I've worked with a lot of people who. Not even their closest friends or family or partner really knows them. I mean, sure, they're around them all the time. They live together. They might be sexual. They might have a family. There might be a whole life. But do they really know each other? Well, no, because so much is hidden. And that's part of the nice trap, is we might even hide it from ourselves. And so one of the pitfalls I see that catches people. I was just talking about this in a mastermind call this week, where I refer to it as a tripwire. So if you're trying to get your way out of this trap, what. What can happen is you. You'll be. Think of it as, like, maybe you find your way. Say, you know what? I'm gonna. I'm gonna start asking for what I want. I read Dr. Aziza's book. I'm fired up. Let's go. And you might start to do it. In fact, there was a situation where a woman I was working with began to assert herself. And someone at work was basically trying to demand, in a sense, that she do these certain things that seemed beyond, above and beyond what was reasonable. And she said no. And afterwards, instead of feeling free or relaxed or happy, and when she did say no, by the way, she wasn't attacked or berated or any or anything. They actually worked with that and said, okay, you know, we're going to find someone else to do A and B. But she said no to those things, right. And gave a very valid reason as to why she couldn't do it. And so they realized that, and they accommodated and they went to someone else. So you might say that went really well. Right. She had a boundary. She said no, they moved on. Problem solved. Well, kind of. But as we're trying to escape this nice trap, there's all these tripwires. And she tripped over one, and she said, I feel really, really guilty. I said, wow, okay. So it went well. And you feel guilty. And when we feel guilty, what we need to do is. The metaphor I was using is like, you hit a tripwire, but you don't really know what it is. But every time we feel guilty, there's a rule that we broke. That's what guilt is. You know, we have an idea of what we're supposed to do or not do. And if you have hit the trip wire, then you did the wrong thing. But you might not even know what the wrong thing is, right? Is it that I'm not supposed to say no to people or what? So that's what we want to do is when we're trying to break out of this nice trap, we need to investigate what are all these little tripwires that are around here? And you know, you hit them because you'll feel it. It's usually guilt or anxiety or oh my God, something terrible is going to happen. Unsafe, unsettled, right? Even on the outside, someone might say, okay, you can't come to my barbecue. Okay. Now it could get more than that. Someone could say, what, you're not coming to my barbecue? Or you can get more pushback. And then that might just intensify it. But I'm giving an example here where the outer is clearly non threatening and yet we have an inner experience. And that shows us that this nice trap is not about ultimately other people, it's about the operating system that we're running. So when you feel that guilt, this is one example of one of the tripwires. You can ask yourself, what rule have I broken? And rules usually come in the form of a should I shouldn't or I should. I should always say this, I should and what is it? And just start to probe around, ask yourself questions, is it that I shouldn't say no? Yum. Well, I'm kind of putting too. I'm like putting work on my other team members. I'm doing something that's like burdening them. Oh, okay. So it's not necessarily about saying no, it's that I shouldn't make more work or burden other people. Is that what it is? And you see how it has this kind of investigating quality. And when you just say it out loud or jot it down, you say, is it this? Is it that? And eventually you get one. You're like, yeah, I think that's the rule. I think that's the rule. And you know that one is very common with niceness. I shouldn't make work for other people or burden other people or bother other people. That's just basically saying I shouldn't. My presence shouldn't be noticed, essentially. Or if it is noticed, it's like, wow, it's so great you're here because you carry so much of the weight, you know, as opposed to you're not, you know, you made me have to do something. I'm noticing you because I have more work to do, you know, how dare you. Right. So usually that's learned very young in our family environments to be low burden or maybe even carry a lot of the weight. And so you might have a rule that says, don't burden other people. And here, when you said no to this work situation, now you burden them. How could you? That's so bad of you. And once we've uncovered this rule, and that's the tripwire to really continue to free yourself from this trap, you need to say, okay, is that. Is that really how I want to live? Does that seem healthy? Is that a rule that I would imagine and uphold and expect for other people too? Right. Because then you can see if it's some double standard that you have for yourself. Other people don't have to follow the rule, but I should. That's revealing as well. And then you can start to investigate, well, what is healthier. Right. And this is where we tap into, if you read my book, Not Nice, I talk about your Bill of Rights, I have a right to. Or I'm allowed to. So a key one that I think is worth establishing for yourself is I have a right to say no. That's period. Right. And it could be for a variety of reasons, because it's too taxing for me, because it feels overwhelming for me, because I don't want to. These are all potential reasons why you might say no. And I know this is like, sometimes when I do this with people, we're like, bumping up against some programming that is so old, so many years, decades of reinforcement, that when they first hear that, they're like, yeah, yeah, no, you can't. That sounds pretty wrong. It's almost like I'm saying, yeah, you can beat up a child and take their lunch money. It's what? That's. Nothing wrong with that. It's all in the eye of the beholder. Maybe that kid is being a jerk. Maybe you're hungry, right? And it just sounds like, so fundamentally wrong and not allowed. But that's where you. Some of this stuff, you need to really slow down and investigate it and ask these questions that I'm sharing in this episode and really do a study. It's kind of like you can't just rip out the trip wire. You kind of have to dismantle it, learn how to step over it, learn how to really untangle yourself. Because those are the things that snap us right back in. Whether it's guilt or anxiety or a sense of looming threat or unsafety. Then we will go right back into and double down on the nice trap and say, oh, you see, you see, the problem here was that I spoke up for myself. The problem here is that I said no. The problem here was that I asked for my, you know, what I needed. And the lesson here is to go right back into that trap and double down. And obviously that's not the right lesson. And hopefully we're learning a different lesson and you're learning how to apply that in this episode. So I want to give a very specific example around guilt. And again, there's so much here that we can apply if we have more time together. So if you're into this, this feels like it's valuable for you. Like, wow, yes, I need more of this in my life, then definitely come join me. But for the not nice live event with the super with the early bird, it's just $97, I believe, for the ticket. So we make it as accessible as possible. Three days, and it's gonna be really powerful. So I'd love to share that with you and go further. Let's talk about how to turn this into action. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is gonna be a more of a reflective one, which is to ask yourself, have I been believing that core perception of the nice trap, which is that if I'm agreeable, undemanding, easygoing, self sacrificing, then I will get safety and love and things will be smooth and my life will go well. And that can be kind of an unconscious agreement that we have with others and with life. It doesn't actually bind anything. It's not actually true, but that's how we operate. So where do you see that in your life? And maybe it's everywhere. Maybe it's in social relationships, maybe it's at work romantically. And then what are some of the tripwires that you've noticed if you were to try to step outside of that cage? Is it guilt, is it anxiety? And what are some of the stories or rules around that? And again, this isn't about blasting right through it. I found that just brute force exposure doesn't totally work. We can't just pound ourselves with the new way of being. And what happens is it's too destabilizing. So we really need to do this inner investigation and of course, put this into action. We don't just solve this all in our bedroom, in our heads. We do need to test things out in the world. But this gives you the foundation to really have the risks. The saying no, the new ways of being, be sustainable and actually create a new version of you who is much more free, much more authentic, and much more ultimately alive. All right, thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkfortheshyguy. Com. For free vlogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter. Com.