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.

We often hear the idea that forgiveness is a gift, an act of kindness for ourselves, as the forgiver, that forgiveness is not for or even about the one we are forgiving.  It’s said that if forgiveness benefits the one we are forgiving, then that’s an added benefit, a gift, but not really the point. And yet, one of the obstacles we face in forgiving someone we perceive as having done us harm is not wishing them well, not seeing their benefitting from our forgiveness as a gift, and in fact, wanting them to suffer because of what they did.  The idea that the other person would somehow feel better as a result of our forgiveness is challenging and precisely what we want to prevent.  We imagine that not forgiving then is a form of punishment, a way of forcing the other to continue suffering, a way of being in control of a situation we didn’t feel we had control over.  At a primal level, we imagine that not forgiving is a way of taking care of our wound, proclaiming that our suffering exists, and still and forever matters.  Not forgiving, paradoxically, is a way of validating and honoring our own hurt.

So too, when the one we believe caused us harm is unwilling to take responsibility for their actions or insists that they did nothing wrong, we conclude that it’s even more necessary to withhold forgiveness.  Not forgiving then becomes a way of holding on to our rightness—remaining justified in our version of the truth, and the sense of having been treated unjustly.  Our non-forgiveness, as we imagine it, continues to prove the other wrong, which legitimizes our pain.  And indeed, it is the validity of our suffering which above all else we’re trying (often desperately) to confirm and have confirmed.

Furthermore, we think that forgiving the other somehow implies that we are now okay with what the other person did, and maybe even one step further—that what they did is okay on a grander scale. Our perception is that forgiveness announces that what happened is no longer relevant, significant, or alive.  It’s as if we’re allowing the past to be done, and thus to move out of mind and heart, which can feel intolerable.

Perhaps most troublesomely however, forgiveness, as we relate to it, is letting the other person “off the hook.”  We equate it with absolution—excusing the other from blame, guilt or responsibility for what they did.  We imagine it as symbolically setting them free from having to carry the burden of suffering that we believe they caused.

And so the question follows, What actually is forgiveness?  And its partner inquiry, What is forgiveness—not?

Forgiveness is Not Saying… 

-You were not hurt by what the other person did.

-Your pain is gone.

-You are back to being the person you were before it happened.

-Life can now pick up where you left off, you feel the way you did before, as if what happened never happened.

-You no longer believe the other person was responsible for causing harm.

-You excuse the other person’s behavior.

-You no longer view what happened as important.

-You share the blame for what happened.

-You can ever forget what happened.

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The way we view forgiveness, in many ways, is flawed.  We say “forgive and forget,” but when we forgive we don’t forget.  Forgetting is by no means an inherent part of forgiving, nor should it be. So too, we refer to forgiveness as “burying the hatchet.” But when we bury the hatchet, the hatchet is still there, just under a bunch of dirt, or we could say, a bunch of denial.  Buried or not, we still need to find peace with what’s happened.  So too, we’re flippant about forgiveness, encouraging ourselves and others to “just let it go!”  But again, forgiveness is no small affair and we cannot rationalize, intellectualize, manipulate or bully ourselves into feeling it.

Forgiveness is different for every human being that lives it.  For some, it comes on suddenly, blessedly, without having to think about or try and create it.  For others, it’s a more deliberate process that requires effort and practice.  And for others, it’s a permanent destination and once discovered, never slips away.  But it can also be a feeling that comes and goes and ebbs and flows.  There’s no right way to find or live forgiveness; any path to and version of it will do.  And yet, despite the fact that there are infinite paths to and colors of forgiveness, certain key components exist in its sentiment, aspects of forgiveness that essential to its basic nature.

The post What is Forgiveness, Really? When “Letting it Go” and “Burying the Hatchet” Fail…What Works? appeared first on Nancy Colier.