For as long as I can remember I have always felt extremely guilty about saying ‘no’ to others. I did not have external pressures to be this way, nor did I fear confrontation, I just have always wanted to help people. For a long time I never considered this a bad thing, what was wrong with wanting to be helpful? Sure, I was tired all the time, but I got to help others and make them happy which gave me a sense of fulfillment. Moreover, it was a confidence boost to constantly have people reassure me of how nice I was. Being ‘nice’ became such a key identifier in my personality overtime I began to feel this pressure to be nice all the time. As I got older and began to have more responsibilities the role of being the “nice and helpful” person became increasingly more stressful. It felt like people had these high expectations of me and if I did not live up to them it would conflict with the type of person I identified as.
Living with the constant worry of meeting other’s expectations and feeling unable to say no created consistent internal anxiety and often resulted in me feeling mentally and physically exhausted. I no longer enjoyed being helpful, it triggered more anxiety and stress than anything, and I found it caused me to internalize a lot of anger and resentment towards others.
It took a long time for me to realize this is not the type of person I wanted to be anymore. I still wanted to be able to help others, but I could not do that unless I helped myself first. Helping myself began with exploring my own limitations, not just how much I could take on, but also how much time I needed off. How much time I needed to invest in myself throughout the week, whether that be watching tv, working out, doing a hobby I enjoy, or even just sitting outside in the sun.
Once I recognized my limits, I had to start putting them into practice – this meant beginning to say ‘no.’ At first it was not easy, I was giving long, elaborate justifications for why I could not help that person. In my free time I would often think if my justifications were enough or if that person was upset or disappointed in me. The guilt was still there, and I could not understand why as I was no longer stressed and had more time to do what I enjoyed.
When COVID began and the world shut down for most people (me being one of them) I began to engage in activities simply because I enjoyed them. This was the first time in my adult life I truly felt stress free as I no longer had the weight of other’s expectations. I felt this inner peace that became so important to me I knew I could not go back to the way things were before. When things started to go back to normal, I learned that I had to fight for that inner peace. This time around saying ‘no’ was different. I did not feel the need to verbally justify my actions as the internal justification of wanting inner peace was enough and all it took was a simple, one word answer – ‘no.’
If learning to say no is something you’d like some extra support with, reach out! Let’s work on it together.