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.

At the same time, pay attention to how it feels to be reliant on your relationship and your partner’s state of mind for your own well-being. Notice what it’s like to ride the roller coaster of staking your equanimity on the current relational weather. How does it feel to tuck away or ignore your own needs so as to keep your partner happy and keep the peace?

No matter how familiar, manageable, and even necessary such behavior may feel, living it is never easy or comfortable—not when you start asking yourself what it’s actually like on the inside. In order to change the behavior, you need to get in touch with the suffering that comes with it—what it’s really like to choose a relationship with your partner over a relationship with yourself.

Investigating core beliefs

Once you become aware of your own behavior and the suffering that comes with it, the next step is to investigate the core beliefs that lead to it. Do you, for example, believe that it’s selfish to consider your own needs, or that being a we means there can be no me? Are you perhaps convinced that the relationship would not survive and that your partner would leave you if you stopped taking care of their needs so attentively or were more than just a “giver”? Or maybe the core belief is that no one really cares about what you need, and certainly not if it conflicts with what they need? For many people, what underlies this behavior is the belief that they simply don’t matter, aren’t good enough, and don’t deserve to have their own wants and needs considered, much less taken care of.

The core beliefs that sit below such behavior are often painful and related to early life experiences. Given this, it’s necessary to bring not just curiosity, but profound compassion to these deeply rooted belief systems that bleed out into everything else you think and feel. If you’re trying to change this behavior without investigating the core beliefs that drive and sustain it, and how you came to believe such things, you’re just trimming the weeds without pulling up the unhealthy roots. You may be able to temporarily change the behavior, but eventually, the patterns will return, because the deep-seated storylines beneath them haven’t been healed.

Investigating core beliefs can be a tricky, difficult, and painful process; it’s not something you should or even can do alone. Because you probably still believe the beliefs you’re attempting to unearth, it may not be possible to spot them, as they are baked into the lens through which you’re looking. We can’t see the thoughts/beliefs we’re holding as absolute truths—not if we still think they’re true. It’s helpful and often necessary to work with a professional to help support and guide you through this meaningful process.

Taking action

Breaking free from codependence is about more than just awareness; it’s about action. You need to practice independent behaviors, otherwise known as not being codependent. That is, setting boundaries and actually saying “no”—out loud.

We’ve been taught that unlimited and unconditional giving without any boundaries—pure selflessness—is somehow spiritual, a form of divinity. But unlimited and unconditional giving can be, underneath the spiritual narrative, a recipe for being a doormat. It can mask what’s really a difficulty in setting boundaries and taking care of yourself.

Along with setting boundaries and saying “no” out loud, you need to practice paying attention to your own experience, asking yourself (frequently) what you want and need in any particular situation, how you’re feeling, and what would take care of you in the present moment. The idea is to make yourself a destination, and ultimately, befriend yourself—as counterintuitive as it may feel to treat yourself like someone who matters. You practice telling the truth, your truth, and being more honest about what you think, feel, and need. You try out a new model for love—taking the risk of experiencing what it feels like to show up authentically in your relationship and let your partner meet a (more) real you.

In essence, you practice not controlling the relationship and deliberately not fixing what feels like needs fixing. It may seem like you might literally die if you don’t fix it. Still, don’t fix it; you won’t die, nor will your partner, and they may even fix it for themselves. Your work is to get more comfortable with the uncomfortable, which means closing your mouth, sitting on your hands, or doing whatever it takes to refrain from jumping in to fix and control what feels not okay.

Baby steps and self-compassion

Remember, however, that you didn’t get this way overnight and you won’t not be this way overnight. Like every change process, it starts with baby steps—one small situation, one passing conversation at a time, and little changes one moment at a time. These baby changes add up and lead to big changes in who and how you are. As you embark on this process, one thing is critical: self-compassion. Wherever you are on this journey toward independence, and regardless of whether your baby steps are those of a toddler or a track star, and heading forward or temporarily backward, one thing matters most: that you be kind to yourself and stay on your own side. As it turns out, treating yourself like you matter begins, first, in this change process.

Feeling codependent is not fun; it’s painful and anxious-making—destabilizing. You’re constantly in a state of uncertainty and insecurity, not knowing if the ground is going to disappear beneath you. We don’t choose to be this way, so stop blaming yourself if you are. That said, it’s important to honor your intention to evolve, and the courage it takes to change this ultimately limiting behavior. Shift the unconditional, un-boundaried giving that you offer others, and turn it around: Offer it to yourself in the form of unlimited kindness, forgiveness, and compassion for however you got to where you are and however your path will unfold from here.

The post How to Become Someone Who “Matters” appeared first on Nancy Colier.