Feeling Stuck when you need to say “no” to someone?

Wow, another meetup! Saturday, November 21st 2-4 pm in Seattle at Goldilocks Cottage.

Good time of year to do The Work even more, right?

Also, last chance to join Eating Peace the powerful online program that begins tomorrow to address inner angst and lack of peace when it comes to consuming. Eating Peace is 12 weeks of Tuesday Presentations and Wednesdays in The Work. We always meet from 9-10:30 am Pacific Time (both days). Everything is recorded if you need to miss.

This is the last time I’ll offer Eating Peace at this fee. When you join, you get access to Eating Peace for life, every time I offer it. Yes, you read that correctly.

*******

Yesterday I was talking with a dear friend.

About his need to say “no” to his parents.

He’s a young adult in his mid-twenties, but as I spoke with him, I thought….

….his age probably doesn’t really matter, not really.

His parents were asking him lots of questions about his life, his career, his goals, his intentions, his direction.

But I’ve talked with plenty of older adults who still thought their parents were nosey, or asked too much, or requested too much information.

If it’s not parents, you might still relate to someone in your life peppering you with questions, or inviting you over, or wanting to spend time, or suggesting you see this movie, or buy that good deal, or get a job at their place of employment.

I once had someone in a class I offered come up at every single break and ask me questions.

I started wanting to duck out the back door.

She should leave me alone!

This is what the young man thought about his parents.

We laugh in the movies about this kind of character who doesn’t get the hint and comes over at awkward hours, or calls at the crack of dawn, or barges into our office when the door was shut with a Do Not Disturb hanging in broad daylight.

What is UP with that person?

Can’t they see I’m trying to have some silence, take a break, get some down time?

What is wrong with them that they would have so many questions?

(I love how the mind will decide something is wrong…with them…because they have questions you don’t want to answer).

What if you could hold on to yourself, as couples therapist David Schnarch so famously puts it….

….no matter WHAT that person is doing, saying, asking, or acting like?

One way to get to your truth, is to see why it is you don’t want to tell it.

So….why don’t you want to tell the truth?

The truth that you don’t feel like talking right now, you don’t want to have a conversation until later, you don’t want to go to that movie, your answer is “no”?

I can’t say “no”! They’ll get hurt, disappointed! They’ll call me two-faced, or someone who isn’t clear. They’ll be upset. They’ll say I led them on. They’ll criticize me for changing my mind. They’ll be so disappointed!

A great way to work with this kind of anxious thinking, about what will happen if you simply tell the truth and tell them your answer, is to imagine it really happens.

Ugh.

They ARE hurt.

They ARE mad.

They HATE you.

Is it true?

Are you sure it’s true?

How do you react when you believe you MUST avoid hurting someone’s feelings in any way possible, or disappointing them, or concerning them?

How do you react when you believe you CAN hurt their feelings?

Careful.

So careful, you might not even know how you feel about something anymore, yourself.

So careful you might feel you have no preferences, you’re completely easy-going, and it’s a terrible risk to reveal you disagree or want to say no to someone you love.

Terrified of the results, the rejection.

I used to be like this.

Honestly, I still get surprised by peoples’ requests sometimes. I don’t have an answer right away all the time.

But it used to take me so long, I would feel stuck in a vice of indecision.

All to avoid that terrible “no” which would then “hurt” this other person.

Who would you be without the belief that the person who has asked you for something will be upset if you say “no”?

Who would you be without the belief that if they DO act upset, you were wrong, bad or a horrible person? Or that you’ll be rejected?

Wow.

You mean….not knowing what the outcome would be, just going with my honest answer?

Holy moly.

It’s so much freedom, and as I said, so different from the way I lived in the past, I still find it odd at times.

Not trying to manipulate any outcome…..including the outcome that seems “kind” which is that they are happy, not disappointed, not hurt, and comfortable?

Wow again.

I turn the thought around: I can’t hurt their feelings with my answer. I can hurt my own feelings, by believing I have the power to hurt theirs. They can hurt my feelings with their responses (when I believe they need to like me, or be happy).

The young man I was speaking with reminded me of a poem.

What if freedom is the greatest movement of all, inside yourself, inside others?

Free to be exactly as you are, without dreading what will happen next.

Give it a try.