Ann Marie here. One word: No. What might that remind you of? A toddler? You likely had no issues saying NO as a toddler. How can it be then that as adults, so many of us just can’t manage that little word?
We say yes to favours we don’t want to do, yes to outings with people we don’t even really want to spend time with, yet to babysitting the neighbour’s children when we truly don’t even have the energy for it, yes to work we don’t have time for, and the list goes on and on.
Just what the heck is going on here when you cannot say no to anyone even?
The inability to say no is directly linked to the need to seek approval from others. Sometimes it’s called people-pleasing but it’s the same phenomenon. Their opinion of us must be in good standing and the cost to ourselves doesn’t seem to matter.
Often times, this begins in childhood where we didn’t feel we could get love and approval simply by being ourselves. In some way, despite them having good intentions, our caretakers left us with the feeling that we had to perform in a certain way in order to earn their love and affection.
One example could be having a strict parent where you were only rewarded for meeting high expectations and frowned at for not. Another would be a distracted caregiver who, for a multitude of reasons was consistently stressed – even depressed or anxious and you came to believe that you had to place their needs above yours so as not to stress them even more. Yet another might be that your parent is non-securely attached and so they played out their dysfunctional family dynamics onto you. It’s not always from your family; there are also cultural influences where women are taught it is their duty to please men. There are just so many reasons this occurs.
Being a people pleaser and not being able to say no comes at a very high cost – yourself.
You may find yourself in strained relationships. What might be the consequences of not being honest with your partner about your real feelings? Are you even aware of your real feelings or just on auto-pilot with the word yes? In the long term, you are likely to feel manipulated and depleted of energy as you are giving all of yours away freely. Is your partner healthy? What type of person always wants to hear the word yes? Are they even aware that you have needs? This scenario sees two people with neither in a healthy mind space. Having one person sacrifice their own wellbeing to manipulate attention from the other is never a good thing.
A big problem for people-pleasers is that this form of self-sacrifice will inevitably take you further and further away from what you value – what you want and need in this life. Anxiety may rise as your energy is flowing into other people’s expectations. Stress levels will rise as you never have time to care for yourself and continue to try to fit everyone else into your schedule. When you are constantly tired, feeling burnt out, and perhaps even bad about yourself for not being able to keep up this unrealistic behaviour, depression may also come to visit. If you also suffer from CP, consider that on the rise as your mind and body suffer from depletion and stress. Where is your sense of self in all of this? Likely lost.
Realize, people-pleasing is a very big deal and often a pattern that can be traced back to childhood. But wait – if I say no won’t I be hurting their feelings? I don’t want to do that.
When we begin to take back our power and our life and we begin to say no, some people may be temporarily disgruntled and that’s okay. We all need to understand that we are not responsible for how anyone else feels when we are protecting and preserving ourselves in a healthy and assertive way. We are not asserting that our needs are MORE important than yours, but rather that our needs are JUST AS important as yours.
Saying no when deep down you don’t want to means you are, essentially, lying to that person. Does any healthy person want to be lied to? Not that I am aware of. We all want to be trustworthy and to trust others in our lives to tell the truth.
If you need help to say no, you might consider a therapist to explore the roots of this in your life and help to build strategies to get you back on track with what you value. What is it that you want and you need in this life? I doubt very much it is to live in a self-sacrificing wheel. When you start saying no, you are saying yes to taking back your life’s energy and desires.
See you next time 😊