Have you had such a moment when you might want to say “no”, but you still can't? Have you had such a moment when you end up saying “yes” only because you don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings, and then you feel unhappy and unpleasant? Have you had such a moment when you even try to be nice to others at the expense of yourself? For example, whenever you're asked for help, you always think about it, even if you have important work to do, even if you have to give away 2-3 hours or more for some requests, or give up sleep to catch up on your work. After a while, you may realize that this isn't helping you at all. You spend a lot of time and energy on others, but hardly as much on yourself. The situation is particularly frustrating because it is self-inflicted. So you need to learn to say “no”.
Why do we find it so hard to say “no”? To learn to say no, we must first understand what is holding us back. Here are five common reasons people find it difficult to say “no”: 1. You want to help. You don't want to turn people down. You want to offer help where possible, even if it might cost you time. This is when you need to consider that the other person may rely on you instead of learning to deal with their own problems. The short-term help you give to others actually hinders their long-term self-growth. 2. You are fear of being rude. I was brought up with the idea that it's rude to say no, especially to older people. This perception is common in Asian cultures, where saving face is important. Saving face means not making others look bad (or not making them look bad). 3. You want to appear easygoing and are afraid of conflict. If you turn them down, you worry that they will get angry. This could lead to an ugly confrontation. Even in the absence of conflict, disagreements can have negative consequences later. Thus, you choose to be submissive. 4. You are fear of losing opportunities or paying the price. Sometimes you feel that saying no to someone might annoy them and cost you some day. 5. You want to play it safe by keeping your options open. Some people take "no" as a signal to completely refuse something or somebody, thinking that doing so might lead to a "no way out" or a "break-off." If any of the above applies to you, I would like to tell you that these reasons are totally misunderstood. Saying "no" doesn't mean you're rude or that you're not easygoing. Saying "no" does not mean future conflicts or lost opportunities. Saying "no" doesn't mean you're done. These are all misconceptions in our minds. It's not the fact that you choose to say “no”, but how you say “no”, that affects the outcome. After all, you have your own priorities and needs, just as everyone has their own needs. Saying "no" has to do with respecting and valuing your time and space. The language to say “no”, permission to gracefully disappoint others, strategies for setting firm boundaries that honour one’s time and energy can appear selfish at first, but they are the pivotal tools for better self-care. It's your right to say “no”. Rookie H
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Do you know the feeling of self pressure? How do you define self pressure? I define self pressure as something that you require or expect on yourself. You can pressure yourself in different life situations or example in school, friends or hobby. I think self pressure could be great. I need self pressure so that I can reach goals, get better, work with more concentration and work faster. Without any self pressure I would be lazy. But it isn't healthy when self pressure makes our life worse. So don’t ignore the pressure. Don't ignore symptoms of your body. When you have the feeling you should take a break, have a break. I'm not sure if you know the feeling of self pressure and I don't know how self pressure looks like for your case. But for example when you worked hard the whole week for school and you went late to bed and woke up super early. Take the time and go to bed early or sleep off the next day. It could be healthy and helpful to have a break between your activities and take a rest for a moment. Instead of going forward and ignoring all the signals that your body sending you. If you ignore all signals you will have probably one day a big problem. Where you have to take a break for a longer term. In case of one day. I know a person who worked hard for 3 years .He didn't take any breaks. The result
was that he was burnt out and depressed. He only worked for his goals. His goal was to get a 0.8 average. He got it. Then he started to study psychology and build a business. He Got it. He achieved all his goals but he didn't take any breaks. So the result was that he had to take a huge break. But self pressure doesn't have to look like this. I also can see it by myself in small situations. For example when I felt sick, I had to go to the gym because my goal is it to go 4 times in the week to the gym. But I knew it would be better when I go to the gym when I'm completely healthy again. But I saw that I can achieve my goal and so I went to the Gym. The result was that I was really sick the next day and I couldn’t go to the gym for a longer term. Emily P How to forgive? What does it mean to forgive? Is it easy? What does it do? The power of forgiveness is a healing process, not only let go of hatred and avoiding it to take you over, it’s the trust of its power to heal the pain. Today, at this moment, my family is going through a process of being able to forgive after a dreaded painful 7 years of no communication. Sending birthday cards or Christmas gifts doesn't solve the problem, it doesn't take away the pain of the past. In situations like those saying “I forgive you” isn't the same as doing it. It’s just a word right! You can’t forgive if you don't know what happened to you in the situation. What affected you, and others, for what reason, and why. So why do we need to forgive? There isn't any shortcuts to healing or moving on, neither is it gonna save you or others, it’s not designed to do that. It’s designed to set you free! Free from all the pain that has been in you, the pain that kept piling up full of anger, confusion and hatred, all of those emotions will depend on your decision that will release the resentment towards a person or a group who has harmed you.
Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting, nor does it mean condoning. Though forgiveness can help a damaged relationship, it doesn't obligate you to rebuild the connection. Instead it brings the forgiver a peace of mind and frees their pain and anger. This TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOzJO6HRIuA really opened my eyes and made me realize that I'm lucky for who I have in my life, not only made me feel the pain of the struggles they went through, they made me realize that forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself. In my life I have forgiven before but did I really know why I was forgiving, not quite sure, but I knew my part of the story, and stories, we are the ones who hold the power to change them. Although the details of our lives may be different, but the parts where we are stuck in pain throughout parts of our lives are the same. I encourage you to change the path and rebuild your life, because things that held you down will one day hold you up. Amelie.G |
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