No that needs your attention

Having discussed with you about setting boundaries, missing out on a no will be a big blunder. No is in fact the master game changer that sets boundaries.

Though I am not a people pleaser, I still remember days when I feared saying no. I have had two incidents that have highly impacted my life.

Let me name this incident as incident 1. It was my first profession, where I was asked to do something that was against my values. I feared saying no because I had just joined my job, and in that environment, saying no was considered rebellious. I did not say no and did what was commanded. Later I showed those loopholes to a higher official. This move adversely impacted my life. I fought the tough fight, and later on I got acceptance for this no.

This is incident 2. It was in my mid-career life when my most senior official asked me to give her home services. In that institution, no one said no to her. I said to her that I don't give home services. I was called to have a face-to-face conversation. She said, "She is asking for help." I replied, "I will not be able to help you in this way." She openly said, "So, you mean to say that if I ask you to do anything here on the premise, you will do it, otherwise not?" I said, 'Very true.' From then on she started troubling me. I patiently endured until one day she started hurting others in my name. This was painful.

As I started reflecting on my experiences with the books on saying no, I found all 5 styles of people pleasing in my incident 2. I found them gooding, efforting, avoiding, saving, and suffering. We all do this at one point in time. In my incident 1, I was gooding and then my inner conscience didn't allow it, so I breached the channel of communication. In this book, Joy of Saying No, I found the 5 steps for finding joy in no, i.e., “the joy that can and will follow when you become a more honest version of yourself by choosing preference over outdated programming.”

a) Get to know your pleasers: I was shocked to read that we all have pleasers within us. The example the author mentioned opened my eyes to the pleasers that are within me. We need to know these pleasers so that we can understand why I say a yes even though I don't want to say so.

b) Recognize your baggage : Our subconscious mind is always working. Our life is full of good and bad experiences. If we are not careful enough about how these experiences house in our conscience and affect our behavior, we might be a puppet in the hands of these baggages. I still remember the days that the impact of incident 1 had on my conscience, and because of this, I wanted to show everyone that every situation was in my control. The moment it seems that the situation is going out of control, I would lose my temper to show that I still know how to keep control. People used to fear me because of this. I have to recognize all this baggage of mine to be able to say no.

c) Reparent yourself: If we reflect on ourselves, our childhoods are not so good, and much of our present is affected because of all these childhood hurts. Famous psychologist Alfred Adler discovered individual psychology because he explored his childhood condition. What you need now is what your younger self needed at that time. Renowned psychologist Sigmund Freud talked about such fixations. What you need to do is reparent yourself. Author Lue says that “Reparenting is about connecting with the younger aspects of yourself that drive your pleaser so that you can finally give yourself what you need, fill the void, and stop trying to right the wrongs of the past. It’s about regaining the ability to speak your feelings to yourself by entering into a more compassionate, honest, and present relationship with yourself.”

d) Make it a desire, or say no: In my incident 1, I know how I was feeling when I was made to do what I did not want to do. This gap between what I wanted to do and obligations or people's expectations was filled with tension, friction, and resentment. This brought guilt in me, and I did what I did, bearing the worst consequences. This could have been saved if I had said no. How could I have differentiated between what I wanted and what I was compelled to do? I should have explored my feelings and thoughts and the shoulds about incident 1 and then analyzed where my concern was all about. If my concern was all about how I would look to others, then I don't want to do this. The more time, energy, effort, and emotional drill you do in justifying the yes you say, the more you protect your well-being because now you know the link between yes and no.

e) Cut back on hinting: One of my neighbors was very angry at me. During the course of time, she got a chance to take revenge, and so she spoke all the ill she could. I was totally unaware of this. I left the neighborhood, but I was still connected through the common community we visited. I always used to give her a lift to her home back. She would readily take. One fine day, she hesitantly took a lift from me, and as we approached the dropping point, one of her present neighbors was roaming around with his dog. She asked me to drop her off one stop after. From next time, she started avoiding me so that she did not have to take my lift. We hint like this to show the hurt, frustration, and resentment.

f) Learn from eruptions and challenges: Even if you have learned to say no, there would be moments in life when you witness eruptions (like something from the past suddenly showing up) or challenges (like expecting to have to say no to something only once, not expecting people to say no, thinking we have everything under control, and then feeling wounded when something happens despite our better boundaries).

We often see saying yes as powerful and saying no as weakness. This was totally changed as I started reading The Power of Saying No.

A) Looking inwards to develop self-awareness : Empowered refusal begins by looking within. The above discussion is all about looking within and getting aware of self. This happens with a reflective midset. What I was doing as I was writing the above segment was a careful and deep thought and analysis about ourselves—our emotions, our thoughts and beliefs, and our actions. This gave me insight of how I operate and how I would like to operate in similar situations.

B) Make rules, not decisions: We all know who Stuart Scott is. He is an ESPN sportscaster and show anchor. He said, "Life consists of two dates with a dash in between. Make the dash count". It took me a little while to understand (D.O.B.-D.O.D.). We write it something like this. As we gain self-knowledge and become more self-aware and define our purpose and meaning of life, we need to make some rules or personal policies, as Vanessa says, that can make my life look exactly as I have gained the understanding. In incident 2, I said no to my senior official because I have not seen myself visiting houses and giving service. It was never in my picture. I have to leave my city because of the sequel of incidents that followed it. After six years or so, they again inquired about me and requested me to come back, but I have already moved on. I cannot turn back.

C) Bringing your whole self to empowered refusal: I am fond of nonverbal communication, and I am also well aware of the impact it has on others. Vanessa has shown explicitly how people dress and what it communicates. In order to have an effective, empowered refusal, we need to master our nonverbal communications so that we can bring our whole self to our refusal. Nonverbals boost empowerment.

My post is already lengthy. This much is more than enough to begin with. Those who want to explore more on saying no can read The Art of Saying No. This journey of writing was profound and enlightening. My next post would be on prioritizing yourself.

A- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/acceptance-of-self.html?zx=af3c2e13bf8aa3d6

B- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/boundaries-to-set.html

C- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/compassion-on-yourself.html

D- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/discovering-oneself.html

F- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/forgiving-yourself.html

G- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/grains-of-gratitude.html

H- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/human-experiences-common-to-all.html

K- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/kindness-to-self.html

L- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/l-factor.html

M- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/mindfulness-for-self-compassion.html

N- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/no-that-needs-your-attention.html

O- https://water-1droplet.blogspot.com/2025/04/organize-importants-over-urgent.html