What Does NO Mean?

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. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today I have a question that we're going to start with and a question we're going to keep asking in different forms. You ready? What does no mean? What does no mean? Just even thinking about the word no, what's your emotional reaction to that? Because a lot of your experience of no, whether it's good, a good experience, a bad experience, it's easy to say no. It's hard to say no. You're scared of no. You're looking for no. No is fine. No is neutral. No is terrifying. No is guilty. No is bad. Whatever your experience is, that's because of your association, your meaning, your relationship with the word no, not know itself. But that's what we're going to dive into in today's episode. Thank you for being with me today. I appreciate you and I appreciate your time. I know your time is valuable. So as always in these episodes, I try to stack them with as much valuable content as I can and as little filler as possible. And what I'm sharing with you is direct insights and learnings that I've got from my years in clinical psychology and then all these years in coaching and working with that thousands of people in all different online formats. And also a lot of the stuff I get, real time insights, working with people day in and day out in my in depth group programs, particularly my Mastermind program, which is where I do a lot of my coaching now. And so any insight, as soon as I leave those calls, I'm taking notes on ideas, breakthroughs, things that we do that I do with them so I can share the insights with you. In fact, some of the things I'm gonna share in this episode and especially the next episode, which is gonna be friendships that came directly from recent work in the Mastermind program. And if that's something that you're interested in, I think now might be the time we're getting Close to a new year. And if you really want to transform your really your entire life, because it's about transforming your confidence, your ability to be more bold, more you, more expressive, less afraid of what other people think, less overthinking, less overanalyzing, less nervousness and just more raw power, confidence, freedom, and expressiveness. That is what the program is all about. That's what you get surrounded by. That's what you're practicing week in and week out. And the results are transformative. We've had people go from being unable to speak up in any sort of situation to leading meetings, leading the room. We've had people who were already in leadership positions who are secretly terrified and feel like an imposter to feel bold, free, and expressive. We've had people who've been afraid to date, get into relationships and get married. I mean, the world opens up when you become more boldly you. And that's my goal for you with this podcast and of course, with that program. So if you're drawn to that, then go to my website, draziz.com,-a z I z.com and there's a coaching tab on that page, and you click on that and you just follow the steps there. You enter your information, your name, and your email, and we could explore it more and you can learn more about the program. See if that's a good fit. And if it's not, because it's not for everybody, then I. There could be something else that you could explore as well. But that is the fast track to really taking everything you're learning here and applying it. So what I'm gonna be sharing today directly comes out of those Mastermind calls, as well as some upcoming episodes as well. And today we're looking at no. So gave you a little bit of time there to think about your relationship with no. How good is it? Like, on a scale of 1 to 10, how healthy is your relationship to no where 10 is like, it's awesome. I feel really good with no. And maybe you're like, well, hold on a second, Aziz. It depends. Am I saying no, or am I being said no to? And I guess those are two different sides of the same coin, right? But they're often related. Let me share what I mean. When we are uncomfortable with saying no, we're usually uncomfortable with hearing no, too. Not always. But you can check this out in your own experience, because why is that? Well, often when we're afraid of saying no, we have a lot of meaning about what it means about us, about the relationship, about what's going to happen, about the future. We have a lot that we load into that word no. And then we say, well, how do I know, for example, that the person's going to be upset with me? How do I know they're going to be devastated? How do I know all these bad things are going to happen? It's because when we hear no, we feel devastated. We feel. We feel angry inside, although we might not show it, and we might not even tell ourselves. We might just stuff it down. But inside we're enraged, we're hurt, we're upset, we're deflated, we're depressed. And we're like, well, I don't want to do that to someone else. That would make me a mean, bad person. So let me just say yes. Now. There's so many things wrong with that situation. I don't know where to begin. But you know what I'm talking about. You feel it. And here's the essence of it. Just whether you want to do this out loud, because maybe you're alone in your car, or maybe you're alone in your house Covid times. But if there's someone around you, then maybe you don't want to do it, although maybe you do for boldness and embarrassment, inoculation. But you want to make that sound of the cage of, I don't want to say no, and I don't want to hear no. Isn't that a cage in your life right now? And what does it feel like to live in that, to be in that? For me, it would be something like. And as people know, I'm a fan of those sound effects, but they're important because that sound communicates something. I mean, is that the sound you'd want someone to make? Like, hey, try my. Try my homemade dessert. And someone tastes it and they go, you know, what about, hey, you want to watch my. You know, watch this movie. It's my favorite. And then they watch it and they're like, what did you think of the movie? You know, you don't want that in any scenario in life. So why do you want that for a primary experience of how to interact with other humans? Because here's the thing. That is an essential capacity in any sort of relationship, whether it's work, your social life, your love life, with family, with anyone, with a stranger, with a salesperson on the phone, with anyone, to be able to communicate what it is that you want and what you don't want. And the primary way we do that is with yes and with no with asking. Which is. Which is a whole other fun story. We'll talk about that in a future episode. And saying, no, No, I don't want that. No, thank you. No. And here's the thing that I. In my work and exploration with no. And with myself and with clients, I don't know if there's an end to the journey. I don't know if you get to a place where you're like, I'm totally fine saying no to anyone, anywhere, anytime, no biggie. I mean, maybe. Maybe if you started that way, but if you started like most of us. And I'm sure if you're listening, you can relate to this. This is where I started. And the journey that I've been on is starting as a, you know, a very nice guy. Some might say excessively nice. And those people are selfish jerks. No. But I was certainly very high up on the nice spectrum. And people pleasing, avoidant, not assertive. Give everyone what they want, say yes instead of no. You know, standard nice person stuff. And for me, it's been a continual progression in reclaiming my rights, my capacity to say no where I need to. And, you know, sometimes it's easy and it just comes out and I feel no big deal, no big whatever. And sometimes it's freaking uncomfortable, but I do it anyway. Because I learned that saying yes when I want to say no is worse. Do you know what I'm talking about? Can you relate to that in your own life? That even though it feels really bad to say no, saying yes when you know you need to say no is worse. And until you get that, you will just go around that merry, go round again and again, getting yourself into bad situations, bad relationships, bad dynamics, bad jobs, bad experiences, until eventually you say, you know what? I gotta do something different. I have to start saying no. I have to take care of myself. And that's the first reframe that I want to share. Today's gonna be courage to say no and permission to say no. But really, it's gonna come to changing the way you see no. That's what we started with in today's episode, right? Because if you see no as a bad thing, as a mean thing, as an aggressive thing, then you're not gonna wanna do it. Cause none of us wanna consciously be bad, mean and aggressive. So we gotta change the way that you see no. So one initial perception change I'm going to offer in today's episode is what if no is taking care of yourself? Can you see how that might be true? Someone says, hey, do you want to eat this? I don't know. Let's say there's some food you're allergic to. Maybe you, you know, a good friend of mine, his wife, if she eats cashews, I think she dies. It's pretty intense. They carry like the EpiPen and stuff. It's like, you know, hey, do you want this cashew cream I made? She's like, no, no thank you. That's her taking care of herself. That's an extreme example. What if she didn't die from eating the cashews? What if she just got diarrhea? Okay, stick with me on this thought experiment here. So person says, hey, do you want to try my cashew cream? And she's at a friend's house. It's a nice dinner gathering or whatever, maybe. Let's load it, let's stack it. It's her husband's mom who she wants to impress and get her to like her. And so mom says, I made this delicious cashew cream. This is a family special, family dessert. It's so precious to me and I'm so excited to share it with you, my daughter in law. And so what does his wife do? What does she do? Well, like, I don't want to be mean. I don't want to, you know, it's going to hurt her feelings. So you know what, I'll just eat a little bit. It's probably going to be fine. Flash forward eight hours later, sitting on the toilet. Diarrhea. I told you, I'm telling you. So where are you giving yourself diarrhea now? It might not be literal diarrhea, but it might be. It's emotional, it's pain, it's suffering. Why? Because we don't want to upset people. We don't want them to dislike us. We don't want them to get angry at us. We don't want them to hate us. We don't want them to. We want everyone to feel good at our expense. How long have you done that? How long are you going to do that? What's the game plan here? What's your exit strategy? What's the end game here? Well, I'll probably do it till I'm about 60 and by then I'll, you know, I've gotten through the most of it. I can kind of coast. It's like, is that the plan? Because here's the thing, it's gonna get worse. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. The more responsibilities you have, the more people that are in your life and combine that with an inability to say no and take care of yourself by saying no, the more you are going to suffer. You're gonna do things that are not right for you. And I really want to highlight this. This is so important, because we have a lens that we see the world through. If you're a nice person, that's kind of like, yeah, but it's not so bad. I mean, isn't that kind of a give and take? Isn't that part of relationships? Isn't that the right thing to do is to say yes when you don't want the dessert, but you know, the person made it for you? So, yeah, you take a little hit, you just do it. Because it doesn't matter if you want to or not. You just do it. You just be a good person. That's sort of like the wheeler and dealer inside. That's propaganda, campaigning you into saying yes. And I'm gonna say that is a major problem. That's what I noticed for me, and I see that with clients. So if I'm working with a client on this, we're gonna address that. Now, if we're not working together, then you can see how you want to play this on your own. You get to decide. But ultimately, what do you think is gonna serve you? So what if saying no is taking care of yourself? Hey, you want to come do this thing? No, I don't really want to. Because you need a different. You need a new experience. You need to recharge that night. You need to take care of yourself. You need to do something else instead. No, I don't want to eat that kind of food. No, I don't want to go do this activity. No, I don't want to have this conversation. Whatever it is. Small or big? No is you taking care of yourself. Here's number two. No is about you discovering yourself. One of the biggest questions that comes up often. My mastermind program is like, yeah, but you're saying no. Well, you know, what if you're saying no to avoid something? Right? We've all been there. You know, if you have a history of social anxiety, it's like someone's like, hey, you want to come do this thing? And you're like, no, no way. I have no problem saying no to, you know, interacting with people. Thank you very much. So, you know, I learned that I need to overcome that. I need to get outside my comfort zone and put myself in new situations. Same thing with, like, speaking up. I instantly would say no to that. But now I'm practicing that. So I Have that impulse inside that says, I don't want to do those things, so I need to override that. So inside of me says, no, I have to override that. I have to not listen to that. Do you relate to this? It's a little tricky, isn't it? It's one of those. This kind of work is not all or nothing, A or B. It's not a dichotomy. There's a gray area in between, and we got to explore, we got to navigate it. So we get to discover what's right for us by saying no. So someone's like, hey, you want to do that thing? You say, no, I don't want to. And then a little bit of time goes by and you say, you know what? I think that was avoidance. Hmm. Okay. Well, that's good to know new data, good information, right? So you get to learn what's right for you by being able to say yes or no. Because if you can't say yes or no, you don't know what's right for you, and you might not know what's right for you. And this is another reason why we're afraid of no. Why we avoid no. And we have all these problems with no is because when we were young, our no is typically not respected. You know, the powerful people in charge, usually the parents were like, I don't care what you want right now. Just do the thing that I want. Why? Because it's easier. Why? Because I'm overwhelmed. Why? Because I'm stressed. Just do the thing. And I fall into this, you know, as loving and attentive and conscious as I try to be as a parent, I'll fall into these little snags where I just. I want it. You know, there's like. We're having my younger son. He's four. He's almost five. He's gonna turn five in a couple months. And, you know, we're, like, getting these little control battles where he just, like, doesn't want to do the little things. Like, no, I don't want to take the bath right now. No, I don't want to pick up that mess I made. No, I don't want to do that thing. And some part of me is like, you know, after a couple times of being flexible and problem solving and creative and playful, you know, the seventh time, I'm like, you will clean that up. You will do that. I'm going to bring that. I'm going to bring down the law. And then the second I come with that energy, he gets this look in his eyes, like, I will fucking. You wanna go? And we're just looking at each other like, you wanna go? I wanna go. And then we get into this, like, standoff, and then nothing successful happens. So he's got no. He doesn't wanna do these things. I'm trying to help him. And some of the things that he doesn't, like the no around is like, you know, don't. It's safety stuff. I'm trying to keep the kids safe. Like, you gotta put a helmet on before you go. Right on your scooter. It's like, no, I don't want that. Right? So it's an interesting thing for me and my wife to navigate. Like, how do we navigate this? And I know what I don't want to do is just be like, you know, Darth Vader using the Force, kind of. You know, he does that death grip where he just grabs the person's neck from afar using the Force. I think a lot of parents do this with their kids. They're just kind of like, you will obey me. Don't underestimate the power of the dark side. The parents go to the dark side because, shit, it's tiring and overwhelming and exhausting. And then what happens is we just basically get into this default. And I've seen this. I've seen this with family members who have small kids. I've seen this with. I worked with a lot of different families. It's a pattern to fall into, which is kind of like the default response to the kids saying yes or no, or what they want or what they don't want is kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Just do the thing I told you to do. Okay? And as a result, if a kid starts to, you know, maybe they have a little more subtle distinctions and they say, no, I don't want to do that thing. And the parent's like, just do it. Okay? But there's no pause there to look at what really is going on. Maybe there's a real reason the kid doesn't want to do it. Maybe the kid's scared. Maybe it hurts. Maybe his stomach doesn't feel good. Maybe he doesn't like that thing. Maybe. Whatever. And so you can reflect on your own upbringing to see where you might have got this message. But the key thing right now is that no one is doing that to you now unless you've gone so far as to create a circumstance or environment in your life where you're in a romantic relationship or a employer relationship where you're recreating that and someone is just kind of overriding and doesn't give a shit about what your needs are. And if that's the case, it's especially important for you to start waking up and taking charge of taking care of yourself and saying no. But for the most part, it's an internal thing. It's an internal propaganda campaign that most of my clients are doing with themselves, where it's like, inside dismissing of yourself. So you want to become curious about yourself. What do I want and what do I not want? What do I like? What do I not like? What do I need here? Is this a yes or a no for me right now? And I think I describe this in my book. Not nice. You know, to help people. Cause sometimes they're like, ah, I don't know. I don't even know what's okay for me and what I want. And it just feels so bad. And I've had to do so many iterations of this in my own life. And Candace, I'll still notice little things where, you know, we'll have. I mean, when I was first in dating and relationships, I couldn't even say no to, like, do you want to go to this restaurant or do you want to hang out on a Friday night? Sure, yeah, whatever. Great. Cool. That sounds fun. So it was pretty bad. And as a result, I couldn't really date for very long without having to leave because there was no me there. So over time, though, I've gotten much better with this. But there's still little subtle things I'll notice in, like, say, for example, we have a plan that me and my wife set up. You know, a plan, we're gonna go do X on Saturday or whatever. And then as the week progresses and I start to notice inside, you know, maybe I've had a change or something else on Saturday would feel better for me. And then she'll ask like, hey, do you still want to go do that thing? And I'll instantly say, yes. I've seen this pattern happen multiple times. And then later on we'll reflect on it. And I was like, you know, that didn't feel the best for me. I think I would have preferred to do something else. And she says, why didn't you say that? And I was like, well, I would have had to have said no. Okay, we already agreed upon that. So for me, there's something about saying no once I've already said yes, that's, like, not allowed in my book. And this is really subtle stuff. You got to start to learn yourself. So what I share in not nice is, and that's the book, by the way, is if it's not a hell yes, then it's a no. That's a very helpful guideline when you're first starting out because you might not even know. You might be kind of disconnected from yourself and not aware. So just if it's not a hell yes, it's a no. It gives you like a guideline to really start to pursue what feels right for you and what doesn't feel right for you and make the distinction to be able to tell the difference. So where in your life are you doing things that are not a hell yes? Are there certain things in your life that you know are a no or even a hell no, but you're still in them, you're still doing it. What's going on there? What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of change? Are you afraid of someone being upset with you? Are you afraid of not being able to handle something that might happen? What is it? Maybe it's all three, maybe it's more. But we want to just start to investigate. We just want to poke our head around the corner and look at what's going on. You don't have to charge around the corner saying no, no, no to everything. Just become really curious. Because remember, no is about discovering yourself and about taking care of yourself. Ultimately, that means greater authenticity, greater expressiveness, greater confidence, greater health, greater aliveness, greater vitality. Because every time you say no, when it's not in alignment for you, that's going to reduce your vitality. And every time you say no, when your message, your internal message is no and you honor that, that's going to increase your vitality, your sense of energy, your sense of aliveness. And so, you know, I think a common challenge in this day and age, especially in developed countries that tend to be more wealthy and people have their basic needs met, is not, you know, am I going to find food today? It's not, am I going to be able to stay safe today in terms of, you know, shelter and physical violence and these things, like we're protected from that. You know, most places, in a lot of places in the world, people are protected from that on a day to day basis. But there is a major problem, a major experience that people have which is waking up feeling. There's another sound effect for you. It's like lower energy, dissatisfied, grasping for something, wanting something a little bit purposeless, a little bit meaningless. What's the point of these things? What am I doing? And a lower vitality. It's extremely common. If it gets too intense, people say, I'm depressed. And then they go try to get medication for it or something. But it's just a major symptom. And what people don't start to think about or realize is there's a lot of subtle things that can contribute to that. One of which can be that your energy is being depleted because you're hemorrhaging it. In all these places where you're saying yes, where you need to say no, there are many other reasons why you might wake up feeling that way. It could be a lack of boldness in your life. It could be a lack of meaningful activity. It could be living roles that are not your own. I mean, that's a whole other exploration, but this is one to look at. So what might happen if you were to say no more in your life? Where do you need to say no more in your life? And when are you going to start saying no more in your life? In fact, let's look at that with an action step. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is to ask yourself the question, where am I just kind of tolerating something, and where have I been doing it? It could be in any area of your life. It could be a certain dynamic at work. It could be a relationship thing. Where is something you need to say no to in your life? And just small is good here. Small is your friend. You know, if you're on the fence in a major relationship, should I break up with this person or not? You're like, oh, my God, I don't know if I can say no to that. That's so intense. Just scale it back a little bit. Where's something small you can say no to? And then just start to lean into? Just imagine that and then lean into. What is the discomfort? What are the fears? What is the meaning that I am associating to that? No. See if you can remind yourself that this is about taking care of myself, and this is about discovering what's really right for me and who I really am and what really makes me tick, which is a beautiful gift to yourself. It's one of the most powerful gifts of being on your own side. Fantastic. Thanks for being with me today. And until we speak again, may you 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, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.