“I live by the truth that ‘No’ is a complete sentence.” –Anne Lamott, O Magazine.
Here’s another excerpt from Your Spacious Self with a simple practice that will help you learn to say no gracefully and set clear boundaries with others. Enjoy!
[p.s. If you find this message helpful, please forward it to someone else (or share, like, tweet, pin… ) and let’s build the clearing energy together that will help to lighten all of our loads!]
In my chapter “Accept,” [which I excerpted in my previous post here] I shared the story of life throwing me a curve ball and me being royally inconvenienced. What I didn’t report was how I felt about knowing that this would royally inconvenience someone else: in this case, a health-care provider who was making an extra effort to be on time. For me.
Worse than my car breaking down and me missing an opportunity to receive the care I needed, what I felt worse than anything about was that I might have disappointed my physical therapist. I could hear it in her voice when we spoke on the phone, and I watched myself going into my old familiar crawl-into-the-deepest-hole-you-can-find cringing weather pattern.
Then I remembered an instruction I read in Cheryl Richardson’s book The Art of Extreme Self Care that I thought was spot on, and radical. She says that if you want to live a more authentic life, you need to (actively) learn to disappoint people.
Yes, actively.
Ouch. That one can be challenging for those of us who don’t like to rock the boat.
If the idea of disappointing others gives you dry heaves, consider these ways to develop the muscle that will help you set clear boundaries:
- BREATHE.
- DECLINE gracefully. You can use my favorite line for saying no: “Thanks for asking; sorry it’s not going to work for me.”
- ALLOW that you may have hurt someone’s feelings or done something “bad.”
- NAME AND FEEL your discomfort – of guilt, self-criticism, judgment. Allow all weather to arise without taking it personally.
- BREATHE some more.
Honestly, if you really think about it, disappointing someone is not the hard part. We unintentionally do it all the time. The harder part is doing it full on – with awareness.
Clearing Practice
This practice is two-fold: The first is to do something that might disappoint somebody or be hard for someone to hear, like saying no, or speaking your truth. The second is to reflect in your journal what it feels like. Remember that naming and feeling the discomfort is a form of clearing too.
Clearing Journal
Use this space to name and feel any weather that comes up around disappointing others:
- Someone [something] I would like to say no to is…
- The idea of saying no [speaking my truth] makes me feel…
- Some of the emotional weather and resistance that arises when I consider how I may have disappointed [friend, family member] from my past is…
- Saying no supports my highest and best self because…
–Excerpted from Chapter 32, “Disappoint” – Your Spacious Self: Clear the Clutter and Discover Who You Are by Stephanie Bennett Vogt
Hierophant Publishing © 2012 – All Rights Reserved
Art Credit: Cartoon, source unknown
