“Why does being assertive make me anxious?”
Generally, passive people are mostly concerned with following the rules of politeness. They want to keep things even so they don't rock the boat. The default operating position is:
“if I just keep everything everyone happy then everything will be okay.”
The passive persons personal desire is less important than keeping the peace of the tribe, so they push their desire down.
Now if you push those desires down too far you might not have any experience or perhaps conscious awareness of your desire, or your passion, or your greed, or what it is that you want.
Imagine an inflatable ball that is being pushed under water. If you push the ball a long way underwater it's going to come up with far more force than it would, were you to push it only slightly under water.
So when you do try to express yourself you're most likely going to make a mistake. Your desire might come out, but your greed and anger might all come out as well. Why? Because you've never done it before, and they’re coming from the same intelligence.
You’re unable to control the force of the rising ball/desire because it’s pushed a long way down and you have no practice bringing it to the surface calmly.
So the trick is to combine the intelligence of following the tribal rules around self-expression AND getting in touch with what it is that you actually want to say to express.
Most people looking for assertiveness training are very aware of what they don't want. They walk away from interactions feeling like they should have said something, they are a ‘people pleaser’ or they are ‘weak’. But they’re not. They just don’t have the tools to
The safest way to get in touch with your desire without causing damage to your relationships is to first focus on what you DON’T want.
By becoming comfortable in communicating
a deficit in standards, and
communicating what you don't want to do
Are two very low risk ways to assert yourself confidently, maintain relationships, get to know your desires more consciously and finally begin to see yourself as an assertive person.
