Saying "no"

For many of us, saying "no" to someone or something is itself spiritual practice.
Maybe you learned as a child that it was not all right for you to say: "no!" when someone or something violated your limits.

Learning to say "no" is a way to set our boundaries. When we say "no" to someone, we are saying: "this is not for me, now." Boundaries do not isolate us; boundaries make us more loving than we have been before. It is by saying "no" that we begin to learn when we want to say "yes!"

How many times a day/week do you say "yes" to someone else's request, out of obligation, guilt, or just plain inability to say "no"? For a week, keep a stroke list of the times you say "yes" when a nagging feeling inside of you is saying: "listen to me: I don't want to do/say/act/think in this way. I want to say, NO!, not yes!"

When you begin to notice your own feelings and desires, you can also notice the messages you give yourself. For example, maybe you think that you are the only person who can do something right. So you take on more than you can handle because you don't trust someone else to do things their way! Another example, maybe when someone asks you to do one more thing, you think they'll think less of you if you say no. So you say yes, anyway, not really wanting to fulfill the request. Sometimes when you do that, you end up not doing what you said you'd do. Then, you're not being true to your own word!

Experiment with small things. When someone requests something of you, take a moment to think and feel before you respond. Say "yes" if you mean "yes," say "no" if you mean "no." Good friends and good partners might not like it at first - its new behavior after all - but if they are good friends and good partners, they will respect your new-found trust in yourself.

Warmly,
meb