Learn to say no

I feel so much freer now… :-)

I haven’t had the urge to write any entries for this goal for awhile so I suspect I’ve overcome my difficulty in saying no. Or is it because the people I said no to have disappeared from my life and I no longer have to deal with people that won’t take no for an answer…Nawww it’s because I’ve straightened out my priorities! Let’s consider this goal done. Yay!!

but these past few months have proven to me that I was hiding behind my guilt and fear of letting others down, of being a bad girl, a bad friend, a bad person. I know now that I have every right to say no even if it’s just because “I feel like it”. I don’t need to give an explanation or come up with a logical reason. It’s about accepting myself, respecting myself and taking a chance with people. My real friends won’t reject me if I say no to something. They won’t try to control me like C does or Ld used to. They may not like me saying no but they won’t reject me completely because of it. I can’t believe it took me so long to realise this. It’s the last few dependent friends I’ve had that have dumped me when I didn’t bend to their demands that helped me come to this realization. I’m a free woman and I have lots of friends that allow me to say no and never attempt to take me emotionally hostage. That’s how it should be. I should be able to set my own limits. I’m so proud of me. ;-)

I’ve been reading about self-esteem alot lately and just got the idea to make a scrapbook with the little snippets of wisdom that I’ve been writing on pieces of paper all over the place whenever I came across something interesting or that applied to my particular self-esteem problems: learning to say no, stop thinking what others may think of me, feeling my feelings, accepting myself, being my own personal best friend, forgiving myself, being self-confident, recognizing my accomplishments, searching for positive interpretations, handling rejection, etc. As you can see, I have a lot to work with. ;-)

K told me about her problem saying NO to C also and I was able to support her. We both became more and more angry at C while discussing how she’s crossing the line with K. It was so cute, the two of shouting on the phone for the gall of C to ask K to keep her cat a little longer after it peed in her bedroom this morning!!! K didn’t want to keep the cat any longer and had initially said NO, but when C asked her to keep it for a few more days, K relented. When she called me upset about it, I advised her to tell C in no uncertain terms to come and pick up her cat once and for all. It’s funny now. Practicing saying NO is building momentum.

I have to say NO graciously so that my friends don’t get offended. An explanation helps too. I have to not feel guilty about saying NO and I can do this by listening to my feelings. My feelings and instincts give me insight into why I want to say NO. It may take a while to understand why I feel like saying NO…and that’s ok. Sometimes, I’ll just put off saying Yes. It’s often about feelings and control.