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.

And, indeed, speaking your truth is a life-changing skill that can liberate you from the likability cage—the deep conditioning that taught you to take care of other people’s needs at the expense of your own, so as to be worthy, good, and safe. But speaking your truth, which sometimes gets collapsed into speaking up for yourself, can also become a big “should.” Sharing your experience, the whole of it, regardless of the circumstances or other person’s ability to hear or make use of it, can become something it feels like you have to do—to prove that you’re strong and not a doormat.

Dina is an executive, one of several in charge of communication protocol in her company. Recently, a communication strategy within the corporate structure was altered. Just as Dina was about to walk into an important presentation she’d spent months preparing, James (who is junior to her in the corporate hierarchy) showed up in Dina’s office in a rage, attacking and blaming her for the change, without checking to see why it had happened or who approved it.

In that moment in her office, blindsided and barraged by her colleague’s aggression, Dina calmly (externally if not internally), directly, and firmly explained that she had not initiated the protocol change, and that she, too, was learning of it for the first time. She suggested that James investigate who had actually initiated it, and also explained that she needed to attend to her imminent presentation. Essentially, their conversation was finished.

A week later, Dina told me that she knew she needed to “speak her truth” and “stand up for herself.” She should tell him how inappropriate and aggressive his behavior had been and, furthermore, that she was senior to him in the company and he could not speak to her like that and expect to keep his job. Dina felt that if she didn’t speak her truth, she was disrespecting herself, failing all women, and falling short of some modern empowered-woman ideal. She was choosing to be a victim, allowing other people to trample on her whenever they saw fit, and thereby serving the patriarchy. Clearly, there were powerful shoulds attached to telling James what she thought of his behavior.

At the same time, the very idea of being in communication with James on the issue made her feel nauseous. After years of periodically having to push back on him and explain how his behavior affected her and others, she felt like she knew how the story went. There was a futility in trying to use these situations as an opportunity for growth in the relationship or an attempt to repair his brokenness. The act of “sharing her truth,” in fact, became kindling for more of his fire; it cleared the space for a new cycle to begin. Until he started to wake up to his own behavior and how menacing and aggressive it was, any pushback would just leave him feeling and acting misunderstood or sliding into a depressed funk that would impact everyone on the team. The fact was, so many other interesting and happy things called to her more strongly than going down that rabbit hole with someone who had never shown signs of wanting to or being willing to change.

Speaking your truth no matter what, regardless of another person’s ability to hear it, isn’t the same thing as standing up for yourself. Self-care/respect doesn’t always require sharing exactly how you feel with someone who can’t make use of the information, and will only become defensive, disruptive, emotionally abusive, or difficult as a result of your voicing your experience. When the incident happened, Dina told James that his behavior was out of line and baseless and that he should find out who handled the protocol change and bring his complaints to that person—not her. She had addressed the situation at hand and kept the interaction professional, but stayed away from James’s behavior, thereby preventing him from pulling her into what she knew was his muck.

The problem is, we’re always looking for a path, a way of handling a tricky situation or tricky person, that has no downside and comes without any sacrifice. But there is no path, not here and not anywhere—not really. If we speak our truth in full, we will face certain consequences; if we don’t, we will also face consequences. They’re different consequences, but both choices (and indeed all choices) come with challenge and loss. If we’re discerning, however, about which losses we’re willing to endure, and which benefit best takes care of what we really want, then we can determine the next right step.

What Dina wanted more than anything else was peace, and the internal space to focus on the positive, joyful, and growing aspects of life. As much as she would have liked for James to understand that he shouldn’t and couldn’t talk to her disrespectfully and aggressively, she also recognized that such awareness wasn’t possible. In the reality that existed, with James as he actually was (not an imaginary, open-minded, emotionally healthy James), self-respect meant not wasting her energy on his emotional chaos, and not disrupting her own well-being and happiness for the sake of a relationship that wasn’t important to her. True self-care, in fact, was quite different than the packaged social-media sort that tells you being on your own side means speaking your truth no matter what or with whom.

Sometimes speaking your truth is valuable and self-affirming regardless of whether that truth can be truly heard or absorbed. Sometimes it’s empowering to speak up for yourself even if it involves disrupting your emotional peace. But what’s most important when it comes to self-care is discernment. What does it mean for you, in any particular situation, to take care of yourself? It may not be the obvious or popular choice. What do you really want in your life, which is not the same thing as what anyone else thinks you should want? And furthermore, what allows you to achieve that want? Know this: You’re allowed to save your truth for those who matter to you and whose understanding and empathy are worth the effort it takes to get there.

The post “Being Authentic” Is Not Always Telling Your Whole 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.

The post A User’s Guide for Adding ‘No’ to Your Vocabulary appeared first on Nancy Colier.