Dr. Aziz Gazipura

You're in the middle of a sentence and your mind goes blank.

Here's why.

You weren't actually listening. Underneath, you were tracking: How's my eye contact? Was that too much? Am I blushing? Did that come out weird? What do I say next?

Your processing power is being eaten by a self-monitoring loop. The conversation is happening in one window, and a hyper-vigilant background process is consuming all the RAM.

That's not a memory problem. That's an attention problem. You can't pull a smart, spontaneous response out of presence you're not in.

Discover your approval type at www.draziz.com


"

To have a boundary, you have to first know what you actually want.

That sounds obvious. It isn't. For super-nice people who have suppressed their preferences for decades, the signal goes quiet. You stop knowing.

What do you want for dinner? — I don't care, whatever you want.

Where should we go on the trip? — You pick.

What movie should we watch? — I'm good with anything.

These might sound easygoing. They're often something else: a signal that you've practiced not having preferences for so long that they no longer register clearly.

Your body and mind are giving you constant signals about what you actually want. Every minute of every day. If you can't hear them, it's because you've been overriding them, not because they're not there.

The first step before any boundary work is recovering the signal. Asking yourself, throughout the day: what would I prefer here? Just notice. The boundary comes later. The recognition has to come first.

Discover your approval type at www.draziz.com


"

Here's the equation that's running underneath:

Approval equals worth.

Many of us bought into this without realizing. Their approval of me = my worth as a person.

So when someone disapproves of you, your sense of being okay about who you are doesn't just dip. It plummets. You're not just slightly bothered, you're devastated. Because your worth went with the disapproval.

This is why when someone asks you to do something and you finally say no, you don't feel free. You feel awful.

I should have said yes. What's wrong with me. I'm so selfish.

That's the word that comes up. Selfish.



So you can't win. You either say yes and do the thing you don't want to do, or say no and feel terrible about yourself. That's the trap. That's the approval trap. The one we get caught in when we've made our worth dependent on being something for other people.

The way out is breaking the equation, not finding cleverer ways to navigate it.

Discover your approval type at www.draziz.com


"

I ask clients all the time: how long has this been going on? This pattern where you want to say no but something overrides inside and you end up saying yes.

20 years. 30 years. 40 years.

They've read the books. Done the therapy. Studied boundaries. Why is the pattern still running?

Because it's not intellectual. Underneath the conscious mind there's a survival system that's wired up a specific equation:

Disapproval equals danger.

If you don't approve of me, if you're upset with me, if you're sad around me — that's not just uncomfortable. That's dangerous. Because if I lose your approval, I lose connection with you. And I lose my sense of being okay about myself.

That wiring isn't going to be changed by reading another book. It updates through specific experiences that disconfirm the equation. Carefully, consistently, over time.

The pattern isn't a character flaw. It's a survival adaptation. And it has to be addressed at the right level.

Discover your approval type at www.draziz.com


"

People have told you your whole life to just be yourself.

Before the date. Before the interview. Before the family gathering. You're nervous, and someone says: just be yourself.

Does that ever actually help?

You hear it and your internal response is: which self? Should the nervous one show up? The one trying to hide? The one performing? The one I'm afraid of being? Which self are we talking about?

The advice is everywhere. It's also the worst advice. Not because being yourself is the wrong direction — because the advice gives no guidance whatsoever on how to get there.

There's something way more practical and powerful for helping you access the most authentic, confident version of yourself before high-stakes moments, and in daily decisions about who you want to be. But it's not ""be yourself."" It's a specific practice. The whole approval framework is built around it.

Discover your approval type at www.draziz.com

Someone else is sad. Or angry. Or upset about something.

Something in your body activates immediately. Not concern. Not empathy. Something more compulsive.

"It's my responsibility to fix this. I should reach out. I should connect. I should make them feel better. I should make sure they're okay.""

You might not even know why they're upset. It doesn't matter. The compulsion fires anyway. Your body insists this is your responsibility.

This is what the fixer pattern feels like at the somatic level. Other people's negative emotions activate a protective response in you — protective of them, but actually protective of yourself. Because some part of you learned: I'm only okay if you're okay.

So their emotional state isn't something you observe. It's something you have to manage. Constantly. With everyone.

That's exhausting. It's also impossible. And it's not your job.

Discover your approval type at www.draziz.com

"When you have a preference, do you give yourself the legitimacy to have it?


Do you give yourself permission to want it, ask for it, hold it?


For most people I work with, the honest answer is no.


Take the shoes example. Maybe I prefer guests take their shoes off in my house. I'm clear on that internally. But then:

"Am I allowed to ask that?""


"Is that being too demanding?""


"Am I being extreme?""


"What if they don't want to?""


"Will it bother people?""


Notice what just happened. You went from having a clear preference to interrogating whether you're allowed to have it. The preference was real. The questioning is what dissolves it before it can even become a boundary.


The missing piece isn't communication skill. It's permission. Until you give yourself permission to have preferences, no script will get them out of your mouth.


Discover your approval type at www.draziz.com