Dr. Aziz (speaker) explains the risks of not speaking up for yourself, contrasting the perceived risks of asserting oneself (conflict, relationship loss) with the often-overlooked costs of avoidance. He links avoidance to emotional outcomes (resentment, feeling dead inside), physical symptoms (back/neck/jaw pain, digestive issues, anxiety, depression), and gradual erosion of relationships, and closes with encouragement to choose courageous self-expression.
So what's the risk of not speaking up for yourself, of not being assertive, of not having that conversation that you've been avoiding? You know, if you are a recovering nice person, as I myself am, and you've read my book, Not Nice, then you know that it's valuable to speak up for yourself. That if you are too nice, too pleasing, too accommodating, that you can experience problems in your life. But then we have the main challenge, which is what happens if I do speak up? I mean, it's gonna go so badly, they're gonna become upset with me. It's gonna be messy. Usually there's some prediction of collapse, calamity, the end of the relationship, ill will, grudges, forever, death and ruin. And so we think of that and we're like, whoa, I don't know if I wanna take that risk. I mean, it's bad or it's frustrating or I'm irritated or I don't like that person. But you know what? I'll just. I'll just buy my time. I'll just be easy. I'll just be flexible, AKA I'll stuff it down and get resentful and create a separation and distance from me and that person, and then probably end the friendship or end the relationship over time. Or if you can't, like it's, you know, someone that you're stuck with or your boss or something, then you're just going to simmer on some resentment and probably start having some physical back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, jaw pain, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, other kinds of symptoms that can arise when we're not being real, we're not being expressive. You're not allowing yourself to be you. So let me give you this to think about here. You're very aware of the risk of speaking up, right? Death and ruin. Are you aware of the risk of not speaking up? Damn it. There's risk either way. Is there no safe, certain path in this life? Well, maybe not. At least not in that kind of safety where you never have any discomfort, no challenge, no pain, no potential loss. That's just not how life is, right? We gain, we lose, we have pleasure, we get pain. That's just how it works. So the question is, what kind of pain do you want to choose? You're very aware of the risks around speaking up, but the risks of not speaking up. What happens if you don't speak up for yourself? What happens to your physical health? What happens to your emotional health? Are you tormented inside? Are you resentful inside? Are you burning up? Inside you got stomach problems, do you got digestive problems, do you got physical problems, pain, what else is the effect? Do you feel dead inside? Do you feel frustrated? Do you feel like you're just holding on to all this tension inside? Do you blow up with someone else in your life where it's safe like your kids or your spouse, but you're too afraid to go have that conversation with that person that you need to? You want to start thinking about the costs and the risks of not speaking up. What ends up happening is we burn up inside and we also erode the quality of that relationship. If you do not speak up, that relationship will start to wither and die. Now it might not be dramatic, but it's going to start its decline. Because now you're removed, now you're distant. Now you're probably going to start going in stories. Oh, this person's so like that. Oh, they're closed minded. Oh, they're too judgmental. Even though you're judging them about being judgmental, huh? Oh, they're so petty. Oh, they're just too rigid. Oh, they're a jerk. Oh, they're insensitive. Oh, they're an asshole. Oh, they're too superficial. Oh, they're whatever. Insert your projections and judgments here and then here's the death knell in the relationship or the job or whatever. You know what? It's not even worth having a conversation. I just don't even want to have a conversation. I just don't even care anymore. I never even liked them anyway. And you know what, that's usually coming from a place of fear. Now as adults, grown ups with our big pants on, we don't like to say we're scared. So we call it different things, we call it stress. You know, we don't like to say, you know, I've been too scared to have that conversation with that person for nine months and now I'm just, I've lost all memory of why I want to stay in connection and so I'm just gonna retreat. And that's your choice. You can do that. And what about the next time? What about the next time? And what about the next time? So you know, life as this, you know, life in the avoidance pattern, you know, life in the nice person cage. It's kind of safe in that cage, isn't it? Question is, if you swing that door open, are you ready to step forward? Are you ready to walk out? The choice is yours, my friend. Until we speak again, you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
