Tanisha Honrao

emotional communication becomes important. We often hear that “healthy communication is important,” but our idea of it is sometimes incomplete. We think it simply means saying what we want. But that is only the second step. The first step is helping the other person understand our inner experience what we feel, why we feel it, and how strongly it affects us. When we do that, we are not forcing action. We are giving the other person the information they need to respond with understanding.

Stubbornness is a label we throw around daily. It’s the toddler throwing a fit over shoes, the relative refusing to back down in a political argument, or a commuter aggressively defending their exact spot on a crowded bus. We usually chalk it up to ego, pride, or just a difficult personality. But from a clinical perspective, we look at it through a entirely different lens. In mental health, severe stubbornness and rigidity are almost always screaming red flags for anxiety.

Most of us have grown up hearing this at home, in school, and eventually, in our own heads. It becomes an inner voice that shows up the moment we try to slow down. If you’ve ever felt guilty for resting, or questioned your worth when you weren’t being “productive enough,” you’re not alone. This is not just a personal belief it’s something we have collectively inherited. I often call it a kind of “hard work infection” a psychological wiring shaped by the culture we grow up in.