Dr. Aziz explains that a major source of anger is suppressing one’s own feelings, particularly an inability or perceived inability to say "no." He argues that people become resentful when they feel they cannot refuse requests and suggests experimenting with saying "no," "no thank you," or "not right now" to observe emotional shifts.
I've worked with thousands of nice people over the years, and niceness makes you angry. Whether you know it or not, there's anger inside one of the biggest sources that anger is suppressing yourself and suppressing your feelings. And the other one is you can't say no. I mean, maybe you literally can say the words no out of your mouth, but you're not allowed to. It feels like you're not allowed to. And so then when someone wants to ask something of you, you get upset because if it was no charge, you could just say, oh, no thanks, or not right now, but now you can't say that. So now you're mad at them for asking, you're mad at them them for pressuring. You're mad and you don't even know why. And deep down it's because you don't have permission to say no. So what if to anything in your life you could say no or no thank you, or not right now, and notice what that shifts and how you feel.
