Simply by saying No to someone else is a complete sentence, but many people want us to justify our No and explain to them why we can’t do something they want us to do. Saying no is a form of respect and love for ourselves as we are honoring how we are feeling inside. Most of us were taught to respect others first, and maybe ourselves second. Some people did not learn to respect themselves at all - and when we respect others more than ourselves, this is codependency. Because of our codependency, many of us did not learn how to express an opinion that was authentic to us as we were fearful that someone else would not like to hear our thoughts or feelings. Because of this fear, we learned to be quiet and to not speak our truth.
The fear of not wanting to say No and upsetting others often keeps us from being authentic to ourselves and to others. Most often people will say that they don’t want someone to not like them if they tell them No. They are more afraid of not being liked for saying No, than they are concerned about honoring themselves. The author Angeles Arrien writes that this is unique in Western culture as we associate saying No to someone else as if we are saying ; “I don’t like you, therefore I’m saying No to you.”
Of course for most of us if we don’t want to do something, or if we don’t like something, it has nothing to do with liking or not liking the other person. But as Arrien states this is how it is interpreted in the West. For the rest of the world the stating of a No, or the boundary, is looked at more matter of factly. When the other person hears you say No, he or she regards your No as just that, a No. She see’s that they don’t take the NO as a personal attach per se. The rest of the world does not personalize the boundary, but see’s it for what it is. Arrien is speaking in generalities, but I do find that many people will comment to me that they don’t want to offend or make someone else mad if they say no. So our culture is conditioned not wanting to offend someone else by saying No.
But, what happens is that when we do not state our boundary we are pushing down our feelings and eventually those feelings come out. Generally those feelings come out in a passive aggressive or backhanded way. I believe that if we are not getting our needs met directly, we will go around a person or situation and find a way to get what we want. For example, we may end up doing what the other person wants, but we will not enjoy ourselves or we will gripe about it – that sort of thing. So holding our tongue doesn’t help us in the long run. What I say is that either you are going to risk seeing someone’s disappointment when you tell them No upfront, or you will be resentful and disagreeable if you go ahead and do something that you don’t want to – you will be mad at yourself then. We have to deal with the reality of not wanting to do something either at the beginning or at the end.
Ask yourself, the next time you are not wanting to do something but hold yourself back from saying No, am I not saying No because I don’t want to offend someone else?, Or am I afraid of the consequences of saying No?