Ironically, the way we’re taught to break the habit of over-giving is to give more, in this case, more to ourselves, with better “self-care.” While this sounds like a wise solution, adding this new item to our to-do list (self-care) essentially means that we should continue doing everything asked of us, fulfilling all responsibilities and demands (over-giving), but on top of it, should also squeeze in a spa treatment—for ourselves. And furthermore, if we don’t or won’t, then we’re responsible for our own exhaustion.

The reality is that far too many people “self-care” by anesthetizing and medicating themselves. Alcohol, food, shopping, Xanax, the smartphone—there are infinite options for dysfunctional “self-care,” ways to dull and avoid feeling what they feel, and experiencing the consequences of over-giving exhaustion and emotional burnout. Unfortunately, while squeezing in pampering sessions and checking out of reality may temporarily and superficially ease our exhaustion, in the long run, they don’t work, not with any sustainable results.

Noticing Your Choices

The first step in breaking the over-giving habit is awareness, that is, to start noticing the choices you’re making and how they’re impacting you. This requires that you get honest with yourself about how you’re choosing to give your time, attention, and energy. Ask yourself what it’s actually like to be you and live the way you’re living; how does so much giving affect your mental state, mood, vitality, and ultimately, happiness?

Simultaneously, it’s important to ask yourself what you really need, apart from what you’ve been taught you should need, to shake off the cultural narrative and conditioning about what should take care of you. The shift is to start noticing what really does take care of you, what nourishes and replenishes you. Notice when you feel fed, taken care of—for real, not just on a temporary or surface level, but deep down inside you.

Once you’re more aware of (and honest about) your own experience, a next and critical question emerges, or rather, shifts. When taking on caregiving responsibilities, the question that matters is not “Can I do this?” but “Can I do this… and be well?” It’s not enough to ask the question, however, you must also be willing to heed its answer. That is, if the truth is no, you can’t be well, your answer to whether you can help or give more, may also have to be “no.”

Understanding Yourself

The next step in this un-doing/unlearning process is investigating the roots of your over-giving. Specifically, getting curious about why you take on so much. What’s in the way of considering your own well-being, making yourself (also) important? What are your underlying beliefs about taking care of others and what you deserve? Are you afraid to stop giving so much, wary of the judgments (internal and external) if you didn’t give so much? Is there a belief that nothing gets done or done right if you don’t do it? What’s in your wheelhouse of beliefs about giving?

Whatever you find when you investigate your own mind, the most important thing is that you welcome it with an attitude of kindness and curiosity. This newfound awareness is not to be used as a weapon against yourself, to give you more artillery with which to shame and blame yourself. It is meant as a tool to help you recover from over-giving and, thereby, to help you. With that said, if you’re not willing to offer yourself a friendly attitude, to be genuinely curious (not judgmental) about your own conditioning, then it’s best not to investigate at all. (You can, however, be friendly toward your unwillingness to be friendly…but more on that later.)

Saying No

Still, you cannot change your behavior or break a habit just by asking new questions, you have to do things differently; you have to change your behavior. Step three is to start practicing saying “no.” Put “no” into your vocabulary in small (and big) ways, say it without apologizing, making fun of yourself, throwing yourself under the bus, or trying to convince the other person that you deserve to say “no.” The practice, at a deeper level, is about learning to tolerate the experience of not being who the other person wants you to be, and being able to bear their disappointment.

I can remember the first time I said “no” without an apology, story, or justification attached. The class mom at my daughter’s school had asked me to head the committee for the school carnival, and I responded with a simple, “No, I’m not going to be able to do that.” Looking confused, she asked me why, to which I kindly responded, “Because I don’t want to.”

And that was it. I didn’t offer a heartfelt apology, complicated explanation, justification, or anything else. I didn’t start offering her other options for fixing her problem. “I don’t want to” was the full sentence. I stood still and said nothing after those four words.

In that somewhat awkward and uncharted silence, it is not an exaggeration to say that a new me was born. And with her, a new life. Willing to respectfully present my truth, let it stand on its own, and let my experience be enough, was the direct embodiment of knowing that my experience matters, that I matter. It was a deeply empowering moment, and a life-changing paradigm shift.

So many people, intelligent, articulate people, struggle with the language around “no,” as in, how to actually say “no.” As one client expressed with genuine confusion, “What words would I actually use to say ‘no’?’” Well, the answer is simpler than you might make it. “No” is the word for no. And furthermore, “no” is a complete sentence, even though we’re taught it’s not enough and must come with an apology or explanation. If you’re trying to find the words for a “no,” the rule of thumb is to say less rather than more, say what you need to say and then close your mouth. Your job is simply to convey the necessary information, not to make the other person happy or solve their situation. Think “just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”

Asking for Help

Next comes the all-important step of asking for help and delegating responsibility, building the courage to rely on and receive from others. Many people are too afraid or ashamed to ask for help. They don’t believe they deserve it, or that anyone would want to help them. So too, they think they should be able to do everything by themselves, without help. Asking for help is seen as a failure. Recovering from the habit of over-giving requires a willingness to challenge the belief that you don’t deserve to be helped, and that saying “no” is a failure. It requires getting honest with yourself, and accepting that maybe you cannot do it all, not without sacrificing your own well-being.

Get curious about when you’re choosing not to ask for help. When do you reject or ignore opportunities to delegate and take some of the burden off of you? Kindly ask yourself, “What are you afraid of? What do you believe about asking for help?” The willingness to face this fear and challenge these beliefs is a key factor in this habit-breaking process.

To change any habit, we have to change—how we act, think, and relate to ourselves and others. It’s no different with the habit of over-giving. In part 4 of this series, I’ll dive into the acceptance piece of change—allowing ourselves to be who we are, and accept our own truth. Learning to grant ourselves the grace that we so willingly (and unquestionably) extend to others, and how to start acknowledging (and living from) who we are, rather than who we should be.

The post Why It’s So Exhausting to Be the One Everyone Counts On appeared first on Nancy Colier.

In addition, many of us live without close family nearby, without people we can rely on to help and relieve some of the burden (other than the people we pay). It can feel like we’re trapped inside a tsunami of needs, all coming at us with no end in sight. Spending time with friends, downtime, relaxation, rest, and dare I say it, time to just be…all feel like luxuries. The result is emotional burnout, chronic stress, physical conditions, depression, fatigue, hopelessness, resentment, anger, frustration, depression, and apathy, to name a few.

Unless you want to drop out of society and live off the grid, the reality is that there are too many demands, needs, and responsibilities to take care of in a full, modern life. Still, there may be ways that you are adding to your own burden and stress—overgiving when it’s not necessary, giving without discernment, and depleting yourself without questioning it.

It’s important to remember that we give so much largely because we care about and love the people we’re giving to, and we want them to be well. We give because what we’re taking care of matters to us. And yet, the problem is that we give past the point that we are OK; we give at our own expense, and often until we have no resources left at all, and are completely burnt out.

We also don’t acknowledge how much we’re doing and how hard the demands of life can be. There exists a belief that we should be able to navigate all this, should be able to live in this crazy way, and should be able to do more than we can do. The fact that it’s too much, unmanageable, and hard is not allowed into the picture. We don’t give ourselves that grace.

If you feel like you overgive, it’s important to ask yourself what’s driving you to give more than you can or want to. What beliefs and fears prevent you from being more discerning about how much you give?

While the overwhelming demands of modern life and caregiving fall on everyone, they are frequently experienced differently by men and women. Women, in particular, are often conditioned to be caregivers. From the time we are little girls, our value and likability are linked to how well we take care of others, and how willing we are to put other people’s needs above our own. The more selfless, the more worthy, respected, loved, and admired. For women, it can be a badge of honor to be able to meet everyone’s needs and never say no.

Simultaneously, our society judges women who cannot be superhuman caregivers. The “selfish” label is quickly launched at women who are unable to jump through the hoops, or even more boldly, who choose not to. There is a myth that, as women, we should get our needs met and feel nourished by meeting other people’s needs. Giving to others should be enough for us to feel good. And yet, this myth is just that: a myth.

Regardless of gender, however, if you identify with being an overgiver, and feel consistently stretched beyond your limits, you might ask yourself (with curiosity, not judgment): What (really) keeps me on this treadmill of giving to the point where I end up feeling depleted and frazzled? Is all of this giving genuinely necessary or do I have options that I’m not seeing or allowing myself to see?

The core belief may be that you simply don’t deserve to not give, you’re not worthy, and don’t have the right to say “no.” As long as you’re still breathing, it’s your job to be there for everyone who needs help. Other people’s needs matter more than yours do. If you grew up in a dysfunctional family in which you had to earn your love or value by doing for others, giving may be how you earn your worthiness and feel like enough. Or, perhaps you envision taking care of your own needs something that happens at the expense of others, as if you’re choosing your needs “over” or “instead” of other people’s needs (which would be unthinkable)? Are you not worthy of that privilege?

Perhaps you give so much because it feels like just what you should do, as a good and caring person, and that you owe the people in your life for everything they do and have done for you. Or, you just owe them for some unknowable reason like putting up with you.

In addition, you may overgive because you can’t bear the idea of disappointing others or letting them down—not being who they want (and count on you) to be. You need to be that person—the one who is always there for them. The compulsion to give comes from the discomfort you feel at the mere idea of not being what other people need you to be. Maybe it was a chaotic home environment, and in order to feel or stay safe, you had to meet the needs of caregivers instead of the adults meeting your needs. There also may exist a fear of being judged as selfish and uncaring, if you were to start giving less.

You probably also enjoy the perception others have of you’re a super-giver. You’re seen as strong, reliable, generous, invincible, and many other good things. People say, “I don’t know how she does it,” for which you’re admired, respected, and loved, and even more so if you can do it all without needing anything for yourself. Consequently, you build a sense of self, and an identity as someone who can do it all, which feels good. There are real cash and prizes that come with being an overgiver, which understandably you don’t want to give up.

At the same time, you may also harbor a belief that if you don’t take care of it, it won’t get done or done right. Saying no or not now feels too risky and scary as far as the mess or chaos it will leave in its wake. It is the belief that you cannot rely on anyone else to take care of things properly.

There are many reasons to give past our limits. But when we stretch ourselves too thin, and deplete ourselves at the deepest level, there are profound consequences to our own well-being.

In Part 2 of this series, I’ll address the costs of being an overgiver. And most importantly, I’ll offer ways to break free from this habit of giving too much and create new ways of being in the world that take care of you in addition to everyone else.

The post Are You an Overgiver? When Life’s Demands Feel Overwhelming appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Sharing a truth we think will be displeasing, inconvenient, or disappointing brings anxiety, guilt, and even fear. If it’s not absolutely necessary, we often don’t share it at all. But sometimes, we have to say something someone doesn’t want to hear.

To manage this conflict, we develop all sorts of strategies, the most common of which is to apologize for who we are and how we feel. We apologize in a thousand different ways… for having an experience that’s not OK for someone else. While apologizing, we often throw ourselves under the bus and criticize ourselves as a gift to the disappointed listener. We blame ourselves and feel guilty—for not being able to offer a more likable truth and likable us.

So, too, we justify our experience and explain, usually in multiple ways, why it makes sense for us to feel the way we do. We twist ourselves into all sorts of distorted shapes and perform high-level mental gymnastics to convince the other person that our truth is valid, understandable, and shouldn’t make us unlikable. And therefore, why they should give us permission to own it.

If apologizing and justifying don’t assure/save our likability, we move on to other strategies, attempting to explain why our truth should be OK for the other person. Not just why we’re justified in feeling the way we do, but why wanting what we want is actually a good thing and will work for the other—not just us (which would be unacceptable).

If plans A, B, and C don’t succeed at making everyone OK, we start rolling back our truth. We agree to a more likable version of what we need, or we abandon our truth altogether and agree to whatever is better for the other person to keep the peace and retain our likability.

In learning to communicate more authentically, many women struggle with the actual language to use.

Women ask me all the time: “What do I actually say when they ask me why I can’t or don’t want to do it?” “How do I explain my truth when it’s not OK with someone else?” “What do I say that’s not nasty but also doesn’t apologize for or cancel what I want?” It’s strange, but we don’t learn the language of sharing and standing in our truth.

To start with, something women are never taught is this: “No” is a complete sentence. Even though we think “No” needs to be followed up with a thousand other words, justifications, apologies, and sweeteners, it doesn’t. It’s a stand-alone word.

While an unadorned “No” may be the most direct, sometimes it just doesn’t feel right to only say that. And so you can also say things like: “That doesn’t work for me,” “I actually don’t want that,” and “I’m not comfortable with that.” These are just some examples of words we can use when sharing displeasing truths. Adding in “right now” can also soften the blow of delivering a difficult truth, as in “That’s not going to work for me right now.” Play with it; the skill is to keep your words short and simple, say less, not more, and stick to what’s true for you.

At the end of the day, the way to stop taking responsibility for other people’s responses to your truth is to practice not taking responsibility. Even if you still feel to blame, guilty, and desperately uncomfortable on the inside, the idea is to keep your mouth shut and refrain from reacting to that guilt. As you stand there with your mouth shut, not rushing to apologize or make it more comfortable, it can be helpful to repeat a mantra inside your head as a way to distract your mind from instinctively apologizing or justifying and also support yourself in this change process. “I’m not responsible for their feelings,” “It’s not my fault,” “They can figure it out,” “It’s not my job,” and “Say nothing” are mantras that may prove helpful. Use whatever keeps your mind occupied so you don’t react in the old habitual ways. This is a skill that gets easier with time and practice.

The notion that you are responsible for everyone else’s feelings is also a shared belief in our culture. That said, there’s a good chance you will be actively blamed for your unwanted truth and accused of causing the other’s upset. When someone tries to engage you in this way and insists that you’re responsible for their feelings, you can actively choose not to bite the hook, not to engage in this codependent system. You can stay quiet and silently repeat your mantra inside your head as many times as you need, which may be hundreds of times. You can also repeat your initial words out loud, “That doesn’t work for me,” “I’m not comfortable with that,” or just simply “No”—but without the apology that instinctively follows it.

The reality, however, is that we do care about other people’s feelings and don’t want others to be upset. We’re not unrelated, and it often doesn’t feel right not to address another’s experience, particularly when it’s in response to our words. Not all of this is about our conditioning; we are still human beings who care about other people.

And yet, there are ways to empathize without abandoning yourself, rejecting or distorting your truth, and fixing their experience. If it’s true, you can say things like “I’m sorry that this is upsetting or disappointing for you” (which is different than apologizing for your truth). Or perhaps, “I wish this weren’t difficult for you to know,” or some other sentence that attends to their experience, but without taking responsibility for it, making yourself guilty, or trying to make them OK. The point is to be intentional and deliberate about your words—to not engage in the entangled and archaic system that holds you back and disconnects you from your authenticity and power.

Despite what you’ve been taught, you are not responsible for other people’s happiness.

When what you want is unwanted, you’re not to blame and don’t need to apologize. Learning to speak your truth and then to stop speaking—not to sweeten, adjust, or abandon your truth to make it “work”—is one of the greatest skills you can learn. Know this too: When you get the hang of staying silent after sharing an uncomfortable truth, of not fixing what’s unlikable, that gap of unfilled space can shift from feeling scary and awkward to feeling exciting and empowering. You are literally standing on new ground and, most importantly, standing in your own shoes and showing up as your authentic self!

The post Stop Apologizing For Your Truth appeared first on Nancy Colier.

I ended Part 1 of this series on learning to say “no” by asking the question, How do we give ourselves permission to start incorporating ‘no’ into our life, and indeed into our very identity? How do we start living differently—with boundaries? The very uncomplicated answer is that we just do it; we start actually saying “no” out loud in real life. We practice setting boundaries as we would any other skill, one “no” at a time.

Maybe we say “no” when our host offers us more homemade gravy for our already over-gravyed meal. Or “no” to the friend who requests that we be her running companion for the midnight marathon on New Year’s Eve. We start small, when it’s really obvious that we don’t want to do what’s being asked, and gradually work our way up to the bigger challenges, like telling our mother we can’t go on the annual family trip this year—because we can’t. But we practice saying “no” with the awareness that it’s a two-steps-forward, one-step-back process; one day we can effortlessly say “no” to a good friend while the next we’re agreeing to walk a colleague’s dog on the other side of town for the entire week she’s away. It’s all OK; however your change process rolls out, it’s your process and how it needs to happen. And, indeed, this is how change usually happens, in many little increments over time. Stay the course…with practice, awareness, and intention, “no” becomes the more obvious answer and far easier to utter.

A Complete Sentence

It’s also important to remember that the word “no” is a complete sentence—one that doesn’t need a thousand explanations and apologies to accompany it. “No” can be the beginning, middle, and end of a communication, if you will let it be that. When you practice saying “no,” you must also practice what follows the word “no”…namely, nothing. Staying silent and stopping speaking is often the harder part and where we get tripped up.

The trick is to say less, not more, and not manage the other person’s response to your “no.” Let your “no” sit out there without trying to soften or sweeten it or make it OK. It’s OK if the other person is temporarily not OK; a big part of learning to set boundaries is being able to tolerate other people’s disappointment and/or disapproval when you don’t give them what they want—and just letting that be. Remind yourself, disappointment is not terminal; other people can survive it, as can you. And sometimes it’s necessary.

“Both-and” not “Either-or”

As you’re getting the hang of saying “no,” remind yourself, too, that “no” is an experience of both-and not either-or. You probably really want to help your friend, and, also, you don’t want to (or can’t) help your friend in this way at this time. But we are taught to believe that saying “no” is synonymous with rejecting and abandoning the other, and ultimately saying that we don’t care about their needs. This then makes us feel guilty and selfish, like a bad person. To avoid this, we say “yes”—again and again.

In learning to set boundaries, you need to break this either-or thinking, to recognize and acknowledge inside yourself that you care about your friend’s needs and want to help—and—you also care about your own needs, for which you are also responsible. For these reasons, it can be helpful to not just say “no” to your friend but also to share your genuine wish to help, and to be honest about the disappointment of not being able to help and also the need to take care of yourself. In essence, this is sharing the limitations of being human and having to meet life on life’s terms. It might sound something like, “I so want to help; I care about you—and—I can’t make it work this time. I wish I could do both and be OK, but, in this case, I can’t, and that makes me (fill in the blank).”

Learning to set boundaries is about accepting your limitations and the limitations of life—acknowledging (which may feel more like admitting) that there are limits to what you can do and be, and still be OK. When you’re the person who always says, “Yes, I will make it work (somehow)” you’re often denying reality and behaving as if your energy and attention are infinite and infinitely available. And that’s just not true…not if you’re human. And, in fact, when you fight with reality, reality always wins. That said, consistently going past your limits, pretending they don’t exist, and pretending you’re super-human comes with heavy consequences.

You may also believe that people will reject you if you set boundaries. Saying “no” is radical because it challenges what may be a core belief, that your value and likability depend on your willingness to be what everyone wants you to be, no matter what you want. Or perhaps the core belief is that the best way to take care of yourself is to take care of everyone else’s wants and needs. Check it out for yourself: see if other people can respect and like you—even—knowing that there are limits to what you can do. See if taking care of yourself by setting boundaries can take care of you in a deeper and more authentic way.

Fundamentally, learning to say “no” is about self-compassion. If you grew up female, what you may not have been taught is that you’re allowed to care about yourself, not just other people. Here’s the real untold secret: You also matter—what you want and need, what takes care of you—these things matter. When you know this deep in your cells, and really believe it, then you can act on your own behalf and say “no” without guilt or shame. When you put yourself on the list of those who deserve kindness and care, then taking care of your own well-being by setting boundaries becomes natural and unconflicted.

Remember, you didn’t get to be an always–yes person overnight and you won’t stop being her overnight. We’re deeply conditioned to be pleasing and help others, and to give other people what they want regardless of what we want. Giving others what they want may have always felt like a safer bet than going with what you want, as far as its ability to create emotional safety, belonging, and even self-esteem. When you give other people what they want and say “yes” without limits, they like you (more), and so life goes smoother and easier in some ways—until it doesn’t because you’re burnt out, depleted, and resentful—until there’s nothing left of you to give. But there’s a better way of living, a more authentic and sustainable way of being that includes you and your needs in your relationships and your life.

Learning to say “no” is eminently doable. But, at the risk of repeating myself, I will—setting boundaries can only happen with practice, perseverance, and intention. To do something differently, you have to—actually—do it differently (it’s not rocket science). This requires baby steps, one “no” at a time. Keep taking those steps and stay on your own side…you’ll get there.

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