Is Your Need for Approval Causing Anxiety? A Talk with Dr. Aziz

A lot of anxiety hides behind being nice. Dr. Aziz Gazipura has a PhD in clinical psychology and spends his time helping people build social confidence, and his work named something I had felt for years but never had words for.We walk through four ways of explaining where anxiety comes from: avoidance, distorted thinking, biology, and the one that hit hardest for me, the hidden emotion model, where the feelings you swallow to keep everyone happy come back as anxiety. From there we get into trauma healing versus endless self-optimization, shadow work and how to actually practise it, holding assertiveness and compassion at the same time, and Aziz's own path out of crippling shyness. This one rang very true to my own story.Dr. Aziz Gazipura: socialconfidencecenter.comDr. Aziz's books: socialconfidencecenter.com/booksFree 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.coThe Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com