Dear Josh:

“I’ve began looking into assertiveness training videos and lectures… It’s beginning to feel like I’m being punished for things I’ve never done- when I try being as good a person to others as I can be every day of my life”-

The reason you haven’t been an assertive person is not only a lack of knowledge and training (some simple acts of assertion, such as suggesting a woman online to meet in person, or stating: “I want this!”, do not require knowledge or training), but that you believed at an early age that an assertive person is a bad person, and you wanted to be good.

This is why your  assertive training will be difficult- sometimes you will feel like a bad person when you aim at behaving assertively, and that will feel distressing and cause you to want to give up on changing your behavior from passive to assertive.

I think you mentioned that you feel punished because you felt bad behaving assertively, and we do tend to imagine that some power  out there will punish us for having been bad.

If you somehow change that core belief that being assertive means being a bad person, that will make your learning how to be assertive so much easier.

How are you feeling today, regarding the woman this thread is about?

anita