June 24, 2024 • 42 mins
Most of us at some point in our lives have struggled with this WORD. It is a WORD we all need to get comfortable saying and accepting. It's empowering to our identity and serves to protect our mental and physical health. We all have a relationship with this WORD although sometimes dysfunctional rather than liberating! What is this WORD? How can we learn to dance with it, within ourselves and our relationships, in a healthy manner? Tune in as Anita Astley helps you to UNBLEEP this WORD in order to live a healthy life from the inside out.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Relationships, whether romantic, platonic,familial, are complicated and can be downright
messy, bringing out the best andworst in all of us. Here's an
opportunity for you to learn effective,concrete strategies to help you build healthy relationships
from the inside out. It's onBleep Your Life and Relationships with host Anita
(00:22):
Ashlad, psychotherapist of over twenty fiveyears. Good Evening, Milwaukee. Welcome
to Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.I'm your host, Anita Astley. It
is a show in which we talkall about relationships and mental health. Recently,
I published a book called Unbleep YourLife and Relationships. It's available on
Simon and Schuster and Amazon. Todaywe are going to be talking about a
(00:46):
very tiny word, but this wordhas a lot of power, and he
guesses Greg is in the studio withme my show, Sir, that's a
powerful word too, but not thatone. It is the word no oh
okay, such a tiny word,but it's very powerful and also very frightening
to many people. We don't liketo say it, some of us,
(01:08):
and of course it depends on thesituation who we're talking to, what they're
asking for or what they want usto do, and we don't also like
to hear it, especially in today'sworld. We're going to talk more in
detail about the parenting side of that. You know what I'm talking about today.
We don't know how to say noto our kids, but we need
to both. So we need tobe able to say the words and we
(01:33):
need to be able to accept itwhen we hear it. And we all
have a relationship, by the way, with the word no. Some of
it's not such a good relationship,and some of us we have a healthy
relationship. But that takes time.And of course it all depends on where
you came from, your family oforigin issues. We've talked about that.
(01:53):
People ask me often, what isa fan? What is this family of
origin phrase that you use? Andyou know, what does it mean?
It's all about the group of people. Generally, it's our parents that we
grew up with with regards to theword no. Did they say no to
us most of the time? Someof the time. That we're going to
carry into the relationships we have todaywith our family members, our friends,
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a romantic relationship, and also ourchildren. Now, why do you think
greg people have trouble saying no?It's a negative connotation maybe yeah, yeah.
People are afraid to say it becausethey don't want to disappoint. But
our mental health and our self confidencedepends on our ability to say this tiny
(02:37):
word. So if you guys listeningtonight can relate to this that you often
say no when you when you oftensay yes when you mean no, and
yes, some people are very goodat saying no when they don't have a
lot of friends, so they havethe other problem. But if you look
at your relationships overall and there's apattern of you saying yes when you actually
(02:59):
mean no, it is problematic.Because of course, we all, you
know, sometimes agree to do thingsthat we don't really want to do,
but we do it for the sakeof our friendships, our family, of
course our relationships. So that's okay. But when you think about your relationships
and if you're doing it most ofthe time and it's leaving you kind of
feeling like yucky, like why didI not say no? I've been roped
(03:20):
into this many times, and thatoften comes back in a very passive aggressive
form like I might you might askme can you do this for me?
Anita, and I'll say, oh, yeah, okay, sure, But
really inside, I don't want todo it. I'm gonna find a way
to get out of that. Wegalyou know, it's passive aggress I'll couch
it. In something passive aggressive.I might not show up. That's a
(03:42):
very passive aggressive behavior, or Imight just make an excuse. But I
know I've committed and now I'm tryingto get out of it. I'm couching
the negative part. That's what passiveaggressive behavior and passive aggressive comments are.
I can't directly say it because inmy family of origin, somehow, somewhere
i've well in the family of origin, I've learned that it's not safe for
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me to share my negative feelings.Is No is generally perceived as something that's
negative. So I use passive aggressivebehaviors in passive aggressive ways. That's one
of them. So let's get toit. Why do we have trouble saying
no, you know you hit?You mentioned one of them. We don't
want to hurt anyone's feelings because butin the end we end up hurting our
own feelings. We don't want toconfront. You know, avoidance is something
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that people use often, but itis so unhealthy. We've talked about that
in other shows, we are avoidingconflict, but actually we are creating more
conflict when we actually want to sayno and we say yes. That saying
no, they see it as invitingconflict. They want to be agreeable,
but inside that's not what's going on. Another reason is we've been raised to
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say yes, to be polite andrespectful. I was raised that way and
my father, you know, Iwas not never allowed to kind of say
no, although he's know to meto most things, so I just kept
my mouth shut. Not very healthyeither, So it took me, you
know, a lot of therapy anda lot of lessons in life to learn
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that, you know, I cansay no and it's not being disrespectful,
it's not being rude. Of course, it depends on how you're going to
say it. But you know,so there's all that family of origin stuff
that comes up to hurt us inour future relationships are current relationships if we
don't learn to deal with it andif we don't identify with it. If
you guys are listening to this rightnow, and you're one of these people
(05:33):
and you want to say no,but you often say yes. Okay,
keep listening, because I got sometips for you today that will help you
work on that. And we alsohave a caller who's going to share a
story and that's going to be interesting. I always love it when you guys
call in or send me your questionsin comments via Instagram. My handle is
ask Anita Astley on Instagram. Okay, another reason people don't want to say
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no is we have the desire toconform. We have we want to we
want to fit in, and wedon't want to be the one that is
on the outside. If we actuallydon't want to do something, so we
kind of go along with it,which is not good. And this generally
coinccience and happens, you know,when we're going through adolescents. Adolescence is
a phase of identity formation. We'rekind of figuring it out. You know,
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who are we We're very easily.We say no to our parents,
but we don't say no to ourpeer group, which is our socializing agent
at that age, and that's whenwe most you know, if you think
about adolescents, when we get intotrouble, we make decisions that are not
necessarily good for us. And ifwe don't work on that through proper role
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model, through our parents, orjust having some self awareness or some intervention,
we become young adults who also don'tdon't know how to say no.
Does this make any sense? Isure? Well, like smoking or something
like that, that peer pressure,Yeah, we might. I never acquiestd
that, but I do remember sayinga lot of a lot of you did.
Oh, absolutely everybody else will smoke. Yeah, so you didn't want
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to say no. You didn't wantto, but I said yes to a
lot of other things that I didn'twant to say just to fit in.
Now, it's a universal trait towant to fit in, but that over
time, hopefully, as we becomemore confident in who we are, we're
able to assert ourselves. And remember, guys, saying no to something and
some want is asserting your independence.It is not being selfish. It is
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a form of practicing and rehearsing andof course validating what you believe in.
You know, we need to dothat in many different ways. So our
need to belong is a universal trait. As we become more solid in our
identity, this becomes less important andour sense of self takes precedent. Now,
research says people who are higher inneed, they have a higher need
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to belong. And fit in whichwe do. At certain ages, have
much more difficult time saying no becausethey fear rejection, they fear judgment from
other people, and they're also afraidof the inconvenience it'll cause the other person,
of course, putting their needs overtheir own needs, which doesn't work.
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Because I've talked about this before.If we don't have our own needs
and expectations met and we are goingto be passive aggressive, we're going to
use things like projection. What isprojection is when we're unable to again own
our negative thoughts and feelings and thenwe ascribe them to someone else. I
might be saying, you know,you look a little angry today, Greg,
what's going on with you? That'sokay, that makes sense, Yeah,
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you look a little bit angry.I'm not really able to own my
own anger, but I can throwit onto you. And a lot of
this happens on a very unconscious level. Again, this word no, the
relationship with we have with it ona conscious and unconscious level, it rereaks
havoc. It wreaks havoc in ourminds, a lesson until we become aware
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of it and we own it again. It's a very powerful word, and
we have to learn to use itappropriately. Of course, we don't want
to say not everything and come acrossas you know what, but we want
it to remain true to what weactually want to say yes too. Does
that make any sense? Well,you know you're making a good point here
is I remember saying I would neversay no in a work situation. I'll
(09:13):
do it. Sure, I'm gettingto the point now. Maybe I'm old
enough to realize that I don't reallyhave to I can say no, I
don't have to do that. Andthat's actually a really good example in which
situations can you Are you comfortable sayingno? And work is one of the
challenging ones because we don't want toget fire number one sure, right,
especially if our boss asks us forsomething. How do we stand up for
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ourselves? How do we use ourvoice to advocate for ourselves without saying no?
And also to our peers, likeyou want to go out for a
beer? You might be like,no, I don't do that with my
colleagues. But if I'm saying noall the time, how are they going
to perceive that? So it canbecome kind of keaped up. The other
reason is sometimes people are overly sympatheticto the other person that they have to
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say no to. They take ontheir emotions rather than be true to themselves,
and that's overidentification. If you guyscan relate to that out there listening,
I'll tell you something that's very burdensome. You're taking on so many emotions
of other people that you're really justdisregarding yours. The other reason, one
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of the most important ones that peoplesay are incapable at some point of saying
no is they don't have any emotionalor physical boundaries. Now again, what
are emotional and physical boundaries? Emotionalboundaries are basically rules of engagement for ourselves
with other people. They serve asforce fields to protect ourselves. You know,
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I'm gonna say no because this goesagainst my emotional boundaries with regards to
ABCD. Physical boundaries, of course, are pretty obvious. It's my physical
space and I have to and thatshould be clear for everyone. No one
should be invading your physical boundaries,and if you feel that they are,
that's a solid no. But peopleoften have trouble with that too. They
some people will touch you inappropriately,and you don't know how to say no.
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You kind of wiggle out of it. We find try to find some
social cues to kind of respond tothat, and some people are socially inept
they don't pick up on the socialcues and that has to be a hard
no. However, if you've experiencedand have trauma, particularly physical sexual trauma,
that becomes very difficult for you tonavigate. And of course we have
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to learn to be able to sayno. We are going to continue this
discussion of saying no, and I'mactually pretty good at saying no now.
It took me a while to getthere. After these messages, everyone strives
for healthier relationships. Here's more ofUnleep Your Life and Relationships on News Talk
eleven thirty wis welcome back to onBleep Your Life and Relationships. I'm your
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host Anita Asley. Today we aretalking about your ability and willingnessness to say
the word no. It's very difficult. People often say yes when they meet
no because they're so uncomfortable with it. And we were just talking about setting
physical and emotional boundaries. Emotional boundariesagain are rules of engagement. We need
to know what's comfortable for us andthen off that other people will know how
(12:13):
to engage with us. Physical boundariesvery obvious, and let's move on to
the next one. People pleasers havea very difficult time to say no to
other people. Again, they don'twant to disappoint, but I'll tell you
I work with a lot of peoplepleasers in my practice, and they it
causes anxiety, causes depression, itcauses stress because they're constantly saying yes when
they actually mean no. Think aboutthat. If you have to fill up
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everybody's cup by saying yes, yes, yes, over committing yourself physically,
over committing yourself emotionally, and thenyou end up feeling drained, but also
all very resentful because I end upthinking, well, I do I do
all these things for other people andnobody's doing anything for me. And I'm
thinking, wait a minute, let'snot use these extreme words. Number one,
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you know everybody's doing using everything,but no one's doing anything for you.
That's on you. You. It'snot their fault that you're constantly saying
yes when you actually mean no.You need to own that stuff rather than
again projecting it onto other people.You got to examine. I know it's
not as easy just to say Anita, I don't have a button that's going
to make me say no. It'sall related again. You know, how
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did I deal with this in mychildhood? How come I'm a people pleaser?
So there's all that stuff I workwith on a deeper level with somebody,
And I would ask you to exploreyourself if you can relate to this,
but on a very cognitive behavioral level, meaning tell me what to do
first. It's owning it that it'snot other people's fault that you do that.
You got to own your own sahit. And it's just simply say
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no. But if you're a peoplepleaser, I get it. It's hard.
It's even hard to listen to thisadvice because you'd want to please please.
Okay, wait a minute, soare you still are you able to
say no to your wife? Iactually no to my wife. Now we've
come to that common ground on thingslike outdoor stuff like I need a new
lawmower. No, we don't needthat. Yeah, and then I can
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say the same thing for her ifshe needs this. No, you have
a conversation. We have a conversation. Not early though, it was like
you know, happy wife, happylife, Yeah, that kind of thing.
Yeah, that doesn't work because thenyou're what about all your needs and
expectations? Right, So within reason, of course, And as I was
saying earlier, yeah, we weagree to do some some things and say
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yes to some things. But ifwe're doing over all in our relationships that's
what we're doing and we don't feelcomfortable with it, and we recognize that
it's a dysfunctional pattern, then itneeds a change. And it's very interesting.
We have people like this, andI watch and I listen to people.
They develop a really interesting dance aroundthis word no. They do all
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kinds of things, let me ofwords come out except for the word no.
And some people are able to pickup on that social cue, just
like, hey, do you wantto go out tonight? If I ask
you that, and you might belike, there's a bit of a gap,
then you think, I'm not sureyou're unable to say no to me.
You don't say it to me,but I'm savvy enough to pick up
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on it, and I will say, Okay, it sounds like you're busy,
No big deal, and then wemove on. You actually haven't said
no to me, but I cantell from your hesitation and the other words
and social cues that you're giving methat it's a no, so instead of
just saying no because that's uncomfortable,we often develop a dance around And if
you guys are relating to this incertain situations, that's of course acceptable socially,
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but if it's within your close friendshipsand relationships, then it's problematic because
that means I have to go intooverdrive to really know what you're thinking and
feeling. Does it mean yes,does it mean no? What's he really
saying? And then it's a wholemind bleep because I have to work so
hard, I have to do somuch mental gymnastics to actually know what you
mean. Is it a yes?Is it a no? And I want
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to point out, guys, thereis a gender difference in this. What
do you think it is. It'stough for a guy to say no to
no, no, no. Womenstruggle with saying no more often than men
do, because I will say,we are more agreeable. We are the
more agreeable gender. But being agreeableall the time is not a good thing,
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because I have listened to women overthe years agreeing to lots of things
in relationships and also from I don'tjust romantic ones, guys, I'm talking
about family, with their kids,with their friends, agreeing to do things
to avoid the conflict and with justthat way. And I'm like, Okay,
that's changing slowly over time. Andyou know, like if women are
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more assertive and more aggressive and theysay no, sometimes we are perceived as
being can I say I probably yeah, the b I T you know that?
But which it's okay, Like inthe workforce, I think when mone
can say no, women might havea harder time in relationship. But that's
slowly changing. But research is confirmingthat, you know, we are the
gender that says yes. Sometimes it'shard. Age is also a factor again
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I talked about, you know,when we're going through adolescents and our identity
is being formed, we are moresusceptible to saying sure, let's do this
when we actually mean no. Andhopefully as we age and we become more
solid in our identity, we're ableto say no because we are able to
share what we really think and feel. I want you guys to listen to
this is really important part of it. The stronger our identity, the stronger
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we have our physical and emotional boundariesin place, the more we will be
able to say no. To somethingor someone. When we feel that way,
does that resonate? And if itdoesn't, you guys got to think
about what are my physical boundaries?What are my emotional boundaries? Am I
identifying with what Anita is saying today? And listen, I am not saying
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to be And no is not aselfish thing because people often say, well,
I don't want to come across asa selfish person. It is not
being selfish. It is really preservingsense of self. It is preserving your
ego confidence. Is that Is thata big part of it, having confidence
in yourself? Yes? Yes,absolutely. You have to have some level
of confidence in saying no to somebody. And it's a feedback loop. You
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know, the more you say no, the more you will feel confident in
asserting yourself. And the more yousay yes when you actually mean no,
the less confidence you're going to become. So it's a negative feedback. Look,
we want to create what is apositive feedback loop? Anyway, getting
back to age. Age is afactor. At this stage, I have
no trouble saying no, but againI need to balance that out. If
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I said no to everybody, Imight not have any friends, my relationships
might not work out again. Guys, it's we're looking for patterns, we're
not looking for. Yeah, occasionallyI agree to do stuff that I don't
want to do, but I doit as a way of being you know,
kind, nice, or supporting,whatever it is. But overall,
I try to be true to whoI am. Now, how does this
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impact our relationships? How does itimpact our relationships? Overall? If we're
that person who says yes when wemean no. And I was just you
know, thinking about a patient Ihad last week, we were talking about
this, it has a very negativeimpact because then our partner again is left
guessing what does this actually mean?Because you're putting and you're also putting me
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in a double bind. I'm confused, what is it that you really want?
And then over time, if you'resaying yes when you actually mean no,
I'm not going to know what yourneeds and expectations are, I'm not
going to know them. All I'mgoing to know is that you keep saying
this, but your behavior is notcongruent with that. Now, Father's Day
just passed. Happy Father's Day,I know your father. Happy Happy Father's
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Day to all you guys out therewho are great fathers and those who are
not well. You better do betterfor next year. You got to look
at that stuff a good example.And you know, I was working with
this family, this couple, andthis man always says, I don't need
anything for Father's Day. I don'twant anything. No, no, don't
get me anything to the kids,to the wife and his adult children.
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And then of course Father's Day comes. Guess what happens, right, He's
sulking, looks very sad, looksvery depressed, and the wife says,
hey, what's going on? Doyou want to You know, she's just
abiding by what he had said.No presence, no activity, is nothing
special. No. Then he says, well, I'm kind of sad and
I'm kind of hurt, like nobodydid anything. And she's like, listen,
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you said to me no, Sowhen you actually mean yes, why
don't you just share that? Whydon't you tell me that? They're afraid
to say it. He was afraidto share it with her, making he
didn't want to have all this attention, but in actuality he did, but
he was afraid to say the wordyep, that happened to my house because
I say that all the dame,what do you have for Father's day.
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I don't really need anything. It'snot a matter of me. I don't
really want anything. That's fine,you know, you know, just come
over. It fine is terrible words. It doesn't mean anything else. So
come out over. We'll just I'llcook some burghers and some brats and come
out over. And I got somebeer for you. What kind of beer
do you want? I have adifficult dad, aren't I? No,
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but you just said something. Youoriginally said you didn't want anything, and
then you proceeded to tell me abouthow you did ABCD. Okay, I'm
like, okay, dude, seriously, is it a or is it a
B? Tell me right? SoI so next year, I'm going to
say I want this. I wantthat. It's simple. Do you want
to celebrate Father's Day? Yes?Or no? There you go, right.
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Just be honest and it's okay ifyou don't, it's okay if you
do. But just say what youthink and feel. Stop putting your partner
or the other person in what Icall a double bind. It's like they
don't know which way to go becausethe messages are so confusing, and you're
using one word but you actually meananother word, and you keep everybody guessing.
It's not fun to keep guessing.Just say what you think, say
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what you feel, and if it'sno, say no. We will continue
to talk about this, but weare going to welcome a call into the
show. Stay tuned, we'll beright back after these messages. Anita Ashley
has more advice on how to onBleep Your Life and Relationships on News Talk
eleven thirty wys Hey, guys,welcome back to n Bleep Your Life and
(22:17):
Relationships. I'm your host, AnitaAshley. Today we are talking about a
tiny word, but a powerful word, the word no. So many people
have so many challenges saying no.They say yes when they actually mean no.
Yes, it's confusing. We havea caller on the line today,
Thank you so much for joining theshow. We are going to help you.
We're gonna have you on bleep somestuff. So is this something that
(22:37):
you can relate to saying yes whenyou actually mean no. It's I don't
even know that I know how tosay no. I'm terrible, adam like
I will. I will only sayno when it's just simply not possible,
Okay, Like I feel I feelalmost like obligated, like the ask something
(23:00):
of me like, if I canmake it work, I'll do it.
And it's just in so many areas. It's in so many areas of my
life. Well, at least youhave the self awareness that you do this.
So how does this leave you feeling? Well? The like one of
the biggest things that happens is thatI'll get super burnt out and then I
(23:22):
like, I can't be like Ican't show up in all the areas.
But then I'm like if I justdig deeper, Like I try to do
that, like dig deep all thetime, and it just burns out of
the course time. I was likesaved by I was saved by the pandemic.
And I don't know. But here'sthe thing, Like I don't know
how to balance like wanting to doeverything that I can for people and the
(23:45):
concern of like I don't want peopleto stop asking ye like I have that
fear. But like before the pandemic, I was working full time, so
that's like forty five or so hoursa week. I was in school in
like business school in a degree programpart time, and then took on directing
a show and at the time wassingle mom of a five year old.
(24:07):
And I don't know what I wasthinking, but the pandemic happened and like
a lot of it stopped. Yeah, I don't know how I would have
done it. So you were relieved. Yeah, you're relieved because something you
didn't have to say no, somethingthat just happened, and then it lent
itself to that situation so that yousound like a people pleaser. And I'll
tell you that's exhausting. As youknow yourself, it's there has to be
(24:30):
an entered. You end up overtime building resentment and you can't do it
all. So it's setting some physicaland emotional boundaries, and physical in terms
of your physical health, but alsoyour mental health. So you don't want
to say no to people. Whatdo you think is at the root of
all this stuff? That's a bigquestion, and maybe you can just start
to explore it here and then ofcourse continue the work. I think like
(24:56):
I handle it like if I feelsomeone's disappointed in me for any reason,
it just like weighs on my brainso heavily. Yes, I don't know
how to like I can. It'seven one of those like you know,
I can see what I'm doing,but I don't do it anyway. Yeah,
(25:17):
you're get well we were talking.Well, well, you're making a
really good point. We talked aboutthe unconscious mind and have sometimes we just
end up in places doing and sayingthings and we look at ourselves like,
what the bleep is going on here? But I'll tell you the first place
to start, and this is relatedto one of the tips I'm going to
give at the end of the show, but I'll give it to you now,
(25:40):
is you need to sit down andwrite some of this stuff. When
am I and you sound like yousaid most of the time, When am
I saying yes when I actually meanno? And what are the feelings that
are triggered when I'm in that situation. The power of writing words down is
very different to actually saying them ortalking they come. They impact us in
(26:00):
a very different way. And thenof course reading all of that back to
yourself is very powerful. But I'lltell you probably goes back to someone in
your family of origin where you feltyou were made to feel like you're not
allowed to say send any limits foryourself emotionally. Oh sure, And I
(26:22):
think like my mom. You knowmy mom is that way too, So
I think a lot of this willlead by example. Yes, my mom
my mom will do whatever she canto make Oh it's been comfortable for everyone
around okay, and no conflict.Yeah. And you know, so you
(26:44):
learned from your mother how to behavein this manner. It's not that you
know you were put in that positionyourself, but you learned through observation and
imitation. And that's how that's verypowerful. What we do is so much
stronger and what we observe is somuch stronger than what our parents actually tell
us. So, and what you'retalking about is intergenerational transmission of norms,
(27:07):
meaning unhealthy patterns passed down from onegeneration to the next. But I'll tell
you something. Guess what you havethe power in this general, in your
time, your generation, your spotto learn to say no. And this
is the first step. Like youknow that you do this and you know
you have to stop it because itsounds physically and mentally draining, and this
is the first step to doing it. Congratulations. It extends to other people
(27:33):
too, you know, I'm sureit does. And like where it kind
of hits is like people will askthings that they want take my husband to
do or help out with and they'relike, oh, like, oh,
I can't just like offer, youknow, and then it dips into other
areas. Wait, you're offering hisservices also, Well that's oh I have
it. Oh well I have atleast, like I can think of two
(27:55):
times where I'm like, oh,it'll be fine, yeah, like that
favor. But you know that's notfair, it's not okay, it's just
I'm like, well, it'll beeasy for us to do. It's easy
for us to do. Yes,let's just do it. Well, you're
finding you're finding a way around it. This is a litany of things I
need to go on because it's difficultto say no. And then of course,
(28:18):
you know, it impacts your relationshipwith him, I'm sure, because
if you're agreeing to things that he'snot really agreeing to, and you kind
of think like, well, wecan bend over backwards to kind of do
gymnastics to do this, instead ofjust saying no, we are busy,
we can't do it. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, I think slowing
(28:40):
down before answering is really helpful forme. Yeah, you know, being
like I need to think about itand have a conversation first. Yeah,
and you can, you can.That's all the time. The baby steps
to do it. I would say, well, of course, the linear
path would be great if you couldjust say no. The baby steps is
I'll have to look into that,I'm not sure yet, and I'll get
back to you. So that's Thoseare the litany of words, but eventually
(29:03):
practicing more of that will eventually getyou to say make it very simple and
say, oh, I'm so sorry, I can't know. Yeah, and
I know it's difficult. What aboutlike the guilt of saying no when it's
like, well, like if Ihad tried a little harder or inconvenience myself
a little bit, I could havesaid yes, yeah, just like when
(29:26):
I do that, I feel bad. Yeah, and I know, like
I can tell myself that I shouldn't, but I still do yeah. And
I'll tell you you shouldn't, butthat's not going to change how you feel.
I wish it would so quickly pressthat button. And guilt is a
huge thing. It's neat, huh. Guilt is huge. It helps us
to do many good things, butalso sometimes it keeps us stuck in places
we don't want to be stuck.But again, I would say to you,
(29:48):
you need to think more about whatyou need for your own mental health
and for your physical health. Andit sounds like you need to start with
the word no and rehearsing it.Also, Oh, by the way,
think of something that's coming up thatyou want to say no to, but
you kind of feel like I'm goingto end up saying yes. Plan for
that scenario. That's what I wouldtell you to do. Take out your
(30:11):
diary. If you don't have one, buy one plan for that scenario.
And generally in our relationships, wedance this way with the same people,
and the same people kind of knowI'm gonna ask I'm gonna ask her because
she usually says yes, And you'reprobably thinking, oh God, here it
comes. She's gonna ask me.I'm probably gonna say yes, but I
want to say no. So ifsomething like that is coming up for you,
(30:33):
I want you to take a moreproactive role in it rather than the
reactive role of just saying yes.It seems like it's an automatic response for
you. You just kind of sayyes, yes, those are good thought,
thank you. Yeah, proactive,imagine it in your head, rehearse
it, and write it down.Sounds like you're having fun. You're out
there somewhere. We are it's thesummer day, summer day. That's of
(30:57):
fun. It just got loud fora minute. Yeah, well, thank
you for calling into the show.We appreciate it. But to everybody else
who can relate to this story,if you're one of these people, I'll
tell you people pleasing you please otherpeople at the expense of yourself, you
got to think about your own physicaland mental health and that is not being
(31:17):
selfish. We need to set someboundaries with people, and we know those
people who We all have people inour lives who try to violate those boundaries
by kind of pushing us into asituation. And sometimes we're more easily put
and some people are more easily pushedand others are not. And if our
boundaries are kind of confusing and blurryand we haven't set them ourselves, it's
time to do them. Thank youso much for calling into this show.
(31:41):
We appreciate your time and sharing ofyour story, and good luck setting those
boundaries and saying no. Thank youso much to the caller. We will
be back in a couple of minutesto continue this conversation. Welcome back to
Unbleed Your life and Relationships. I'myour host. I need an Astley psychotherapist
of twenty five years and plus anauthor of Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.
(32:06):
It's available on Simon and Schuster websiteand Amazon. Today we are talking about
the ability to say no, thetiny little word that has so much power,
but a lot of people are afraidof it. It creates double binds
for people. It creates confusion whenwe actually say the opposite of what we
want to say, how we feeland what we think and again and intimate
relationships, Sir, what it does. It wrote up the emotional intimacy.
(32:30):
And emotional intimacy, as I've discussedbefore, is a cornerstone of all healthy
relationships. We need to know whatour partner is thinking and feeling honestly,
and we need to be able toexpress that ourselves. And we are actually
wanting to say no, but wesay yes. That's creating a very confusing
situation. I need to talk aboutparent parents and their children before we end
(32:53):
the show today because I got totell you something. We live in a
world where parents don't know how tosay no to their children. They want
to, but they say yes.And they're sitting in my office saying,
Anita, my little you know,Johnny is out of control. And then
I listen to the story, I'mlike Johnny freaking never hears the word no.
(33:14):
All you keep saying is yes,yes, yes, yes. You're
not only doing a disservice to him, You're doing a disservice to society.
Because guess what, Johnny's going togrow up. He's going to become an
adult, a young adult who's neverheard the word no, and he's going
to be an entitled young adult andhe's going to go out into the world
(33:35):
and his boss is going to sayno, raise for you this year,
know this for you next year,and then he's gonna have an anxiety attack.
He's going to be anxious, depressed, maybe go into credit card debt.
Now you guys might be thinking I'mexaggerating, I'm actually not. When
we are saying no to our children, we are teaching them that some things
(33:57):
they can't have right away, andwe are also teaching them emotionally, how
to take that word in, howto process that emotion, how to process
those feelings, those thoughts, andto recover. We're building a sense of
resiliency. And I have to tellyou, I don't see that much with
all the soft parenting around me.Well, I do like it. Go
(34:19):
to any restaurant and you see allthese like toddlers up to five, six,
seven years old, and they've gottablets in front of them with headphones
on at the dinner table out fordinner. You see that everywhere. That
should not happen. That's a no. I've seen that too. Parents.
You have to take control. Youare the boss of your family. You
(34:39):
are the boss of your household.And children need to hear the word no,
even teenage absolutely especially teenagers need tohear the word no. We need
to have structure for kids. Weneed to have some boundaries that are very
clear you are not doing them afavor. And again, less is more.
(35:00):
And I listened to this all thetime in my suit. It drives
me crazy because I think that peoplehave forgotten that they are parents. And
I will tell you something. Somethings in a parent child relationship, Yeah,
you can negotiate. I mean,I have two kids. I did
some negotiating with them because I wantthem to learn the art of discourse,
the art of communicating working things out. But at the same time, some
(35:21):
things were a hard no, andthey were non negotiable. I was talking
to a parent last week about this, and they were in this dynamic with
their child where they just kept talkingand they kept up presenting their case,
and the child kept on escalating thecase, you know, because kids kids
don't stop. They started going,well why not? Why not? This?
Why? And she just kept goingand going and going. The mom
(35:43):
did, and then the kid keptgoing and going and going. I'm like,
wait, stop, you need tostop engaging with this kind of dialogue
and you need to be the parentand you need to say no, this
is not up for negotiation. Thisis what's happening. But people are afraid
to do that because they want tobe friendly. You're not your child's friend,
you are your child's parent. Childrenneed to hear no. What do
(36:07):
you think I heard? They wereno all the time, all the time.
And I really at the beginning Istruggled with that with my own children
because I wanted to give them allthe things that I didn't have. But
I learned very quickly that wait aminute, I'm over compensating. I'm not
doing them a favor. This isall about me. These are my issues,
but I'm now handing them down tomy kids. And I did see,
(36:30):
like, okay, becoming a littleBRODDI here, I need to rein
this in. I remember my momsaying something to me about it, and
I thought, Mom, please letme parent. You know you did whatever.
But she had a great point.And when I thought about it more
and I thought, okay, waita minute, I can't so just say
yes to them because I was toldno most of my childhood. These are
(36:50):
my issues. I need to workthem out. And yes, my kids
need to hear no, and theydon't need to have everything less is more.
We need to create a generation wherethey can accept that. I don't
know about you, but I seethat. I see that in the workforce.
I see that when I'm going outto a restaurant, the behaviors that
I'm surrounded with, and this isthe next generation of adults. That's so
scary. Well it's life lessons,you know. And I'm you know,
(37:15):
I've been in this business for fortyyears and I'm seeing these up and coming
kids who really don't know and theyget stressed out when they hear no or
or you know, they they don'twant to do anything anymore. Well because
they haven't been forced to do anyyou want to cut This is the kind
of example do you want to gocut the grass for me? No,
(37:35):
okay, then the parent goes offand does it. It shouldn't be do
you want to go cut the glass? It's like, go and cut the
grass, okay. And if theysay no, well then you should have
consequences if that's one of the responsibilitiesthat they have. So no is a
really important term, not in justadult relationships adults adults, but especially in
the parent child relationship. You knowyou are you're by spoiling your kids and
(38:00):
always saying yes, you are doingthem a massive disservice because they're going to
turn into the adults that we don'twant to have to work with. And
I don't want to appear like thatsomebody who doesn't know how to deal with
that at all. I don't knowwhat about you. I often then started
to say no to my kids.I still say no to my kids and
they know not to ask me,and well, I try to balance it
(38:20):
with yes. But there are liketwenty three and twenty I'm still the parent,
even though they're over eighteen. Itdoesn't change any of that. I'm
still the parent and I still sayno. So guys, if you are
practicing whatever is called soft parenting,and I'm even confused about what that means.
Even as a clinician. I dobelieve hard parenting, and that doesn't
mean you got to hit your kidsand do all that kind of stuff.
(38:43):
But words are powerful, and howwe raise them is very powerful. With
this word yes and with this wordno, and also negotiating saying no,
this is not negotiable, and that'sit, and you will see a turnaround
in the kids. I was workingwith this family and I gave them you
It's this very basic things that youknow, my parents were good at just
saying no, and they're afraid.I'm like, how is it that you're
(39:04):
afraid of your own child. Well, she's not gonna be happy. She
it doesn't matter. Your job asa parent is not to make your child
happy. It's actually the opposite.Sometimes it snakes some toay. You know,
they're gonna be quite pissed you.They're gonna be miserable. Guess what
you are doing them a favor.You are helping them to become more resilient.
You are preparing them for the forthe real world. Because guess what,
I don't know about you, butin the real world, there was
(39:25):
some rejection that I've faced. Therewas some disappointment that I faced, But
guess what, I was prepared forit because my parents prepared me for it.
And I tell my kids all thetime, Listen, dude, life
is unfair and you're often gonna hearthe word no, And if you start
off on that premise, your lifewill be a lot easier. Mom,
(39:45):
Lisa got the brand new iPhone.I want the new iPhone. Can I
have the new iPhone? No,that's not gonna happen, and why but
it's oh, then we get intothe why this is not up for negotiation.
I don't have to answer that question. It's just no. And if
you keep badgering me, it's goingto be no for a couple of years.
So if you want to get thatone, you're not getting that.
(40:07):
And it's not even on the Christmaslist because that's out of the budget.
But that kind of stuff. Parentstoday have an enormous amount of guilt if
they can't give their child whatever itis that they want, but they go
out of you know, they gointo debt to give it to them because
they don't want to say the wordno. You're not helping them. Just
(40:29):
learn to say no. And theywill appreciate it in the long run,
and they will be a better partof society and they will not be some
entitled young adults that we don't wantthat because I've worked with them and it's
not a lot of fun. Again, guys, here are some tips too
learning to say no. First ofall, let's do some self exploration,
(40:50):
introspection with intention, meaning that yeah, we don't want to live in the
past, but it's okay to exploreit. Think about how your parents raised
you and how is how is thisword no or yes used in that relationship?
And are you repeating some of thatin your relationships today in a negative
way? Is this a pattern thatyou're engaged in? And clearly you might
(41:14):
have some self awareness that is notworking for you. But if you can
relate to some of the stuff thatI've shared with you today, you don't
have to continue on this path ofbeing the people pleaser. You don't have
to continue on this path of sayingyes when you actually mean no. First
place, of course is self awareness. One concrete thing that you can actually
do, like I shared with thecaller, write these things down. Think
(41:37):
about the last time you wanted tosay uh no, but you actually said
yes. What were the feelings thatwere being triggered in you? When did
you feel that last time? Andif you could replay that, how would
you do it differently? And theother thing you need to do is rehearse
it. Go in front of themirror and say no. Go into a
(41:59):
dance around it. Just say noand keep saying no, and think of
something that's coming up that you knowyou're going to be asked to do,
and rehearse it because when you getthere you can. You can. I'll
let you know, dance around,just say I'll have to think about it,
and then come back with the no. Because over time, the more
you rehears it, the better youwill be at doing it. It's okay
(42:19):
to say no and not say yesof course to everything, and it's not
selfish. Set some physical boundaries,set some emotional boundaries. It is not
a negative thing to have physical andemotional boundaries. People think it is sometimes
they think they're being selfish. That'sall the time we have today, But
check me out on Instagram, guys. Askanita Ashley is my handle if you
want to learn more about boundaries,setting and some of the stuff we talked
(42:42):
about today. Check out my bookUnbleep Your Life and Relationships ask Anita Askley,
Amazon, and Simon and Schuster.I will join you guys next week,
same time, eight pm on Sundays. Bye guys,
Relationships, whether romantic, platonic,familial, are complicated and can be downright
messy, bringing out the best andworst in all of us. Here's an
opportunity for you to learn effective,concrete strategies to help you build healthy relationships
from the inside out. It's onBleep Your Life and Relationships with host Anita
(00:22):
Ashlad, psychotherapist of over twenty fiveyears. Good Evening, Milwaukee. Welcome
to Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.I'm your host, Anita Astley. It
is a show in which we talkall about relationships and mental health. Recently,
I published a book called Unbleep YourLife and Relationships. It's available on
Simon and Schuster and Amazon. Todaywe are going to be talking about a
(00:46):
very tiny word, but this wordhas a lot of power, and he
guesses Greg is in the studio withme my show, Sir, that's a
powerful word too, but not thatone. It is the word no oh
okay, such a tiny word,but it's very powerful and also very frightening
to many people. We don't liketo say it, some of us,
(01:08):
and of course it depends on thesituation who we're talking to, what they're
asking for or what they want usto do, and we don't also like
to hear it, especially in today'sworld. We're going to talk more in
detail about the parenting side of that. You know what I'm talking about today.
We don't know how to say noto our kids, but we need
to both. So we need tobe able to say the words and we
(01:33):
need to be able to accept itwhen we hear it. And we all
have a relationship, by the way, with the word no. Some of
it's not such a good relationship,and some of us we have a healthy
relationship. But that takes time.And of course it all depends on where
you came from, your family oforigin issues. We've talked about that.
(01:53):
People ask me often, what isa fan? What is this family of
origin phrase that you use? Andyou know, what does it mean?
It's all about the group of people. Generally, it's our parents that we
grew up with with regards to theword no. Did they say no to
us most of the time? Someof the time. That we're going to
carry into the relationships we have todaywith our family members, our friends,
(02:15):
a romantic relationship, and also ourchildren. Now, why do you think
greg people have trouble saying no?It's a negative connotation maybe yeah, yeah.
People are afraid to say it becausethey don't want to disappoint. But
our mental health and our self confidencedepends on our ability to say this tiny
(02:37):
word. So if you guys listeningtonight can relate to this that you often
say no when you when you oftensay yes when you mean no, and
yes, some people are very goodat saying no when they don't have a
lot of friends, so they havethe other problem. But if you look
at your relationships overall and there's apattern of you saying yes when you actually
(02:59):
mean no, it is problematic.Because of course, we all, you
know, sometimes agree to do thingsthat we don't really want to do,
but we do it for the sakeof our friendships, our family, of
course our relationships. So that's okay. But when you think about your relationships
and if you're doing it most ofthe time and it's leaving you kind of
feeling like yucky, like why didI not say no? I've been roped
(03:20):
into this many times, and thatoften comes back in a very passive aggressive
form like I might you might askme can you do this for me?
Anita, and I'll say, oh, yeah, okay, sure, But
really inside, I don't want todo it. I'm gonna find a way
to get out of that. Wegalyou know, it's passive aggress I'll couch
it. In something passive aggressive.I might not show up. That's a
(03:42):
very passive aggressive behavior, or Imight just make an excuse. But I
know I've committed and now I'm tryingto get out of it. I'm couching
the negative part. That's what passiveaggressive behavior and passive aggressive comments are.
I can't directly say it because inmy family of origin, somehow, somewhere
i've well in the family of origin, I've learned that it's not safe for
(04:02):
me to share my negative feelings.Is No is generally perceived as something that's
negative. So I use passive aggressivebehaviors in passive aggressive ways. That's one
of them. So let's get toit. Why do we have trouble saying
no, you know you hit?You mentioned one of them. We don't
want to hurt anyone's feelings because butin the end we end up hurting our
own feelings. We don't want toconfront. You know, avoidance is something
(04:27):
that people use often, but itis so unhealthy. We've talked about that
in other shows, we are avoidingconflict, but actually we are creating more
conflict when we actually want to sayno and we say yes. That saying
no, they see it as invitingconflict. They want to be agreeable,
but inside that's not what's going on. Another reason is we've been raised to
(04:51):
say yes, to be polite andrespectful. I was raised that way and
my father, you know, Iwas not never allowed to kind of say
no, although he's know to meto most things, so I just kept
my mouth shut. Not very healthyeither, So it took me, you
know, a lot of therapy anda lot of lessons in life to learn
(05:11):
that, you know, I cansay no and it's not being disrespectful,
it's not being rude. Of course, it depends on how you're going to
say it. But you know,so there's all that family of origin stuff
that comes up to hurt us inour future relationships are current relationships if we
don't learn to deal with it andif we don't identify with it. If
you guys are listening to this rightnow, and you're one of these people
(05:33):
and you want to say no,but you often say yes. Okay,
keep listening, because I got sometips for you today that will help you
work on that. And we alsohave a caller who's going to share a
story and that's going to be interesting. I always love it when you guys
call in or send me your questionsin comments via Instagram. My handle is
ask Anita Astley on Instagram. Okay, another reason people don't want to say
(05:57):
no is we have the desire toconform. We have we want to we
want to fit in, and wedon't want to be the one that is
on the outside. If we actuallydon't want to do something, so we
kind of go along with it,which is not good. And this generally
coinccience and happens, you know,when we're going through adolescents. Adolescence is
a phase of identity formation. We'rekind of figuring it out. You know,
(06:19):
who are we We're very easily.We say no to our parents,
but we don't say no to ourpeer group, which is our socializing agent
at that age, and that's whenwe most you know, if you think
about adolescents, when we get intotrouble, we make decisions that are not
necessarily good for us. And ifwe don't work on that through proper role
(06:41):
model, through our parents, orjust having some self awareness or some intervention,
we become young adults who also don'tdon't know how to say no.
Does this make any sense? Isure? Well, like smoking or something
like that, that peer pressure,Yeah, we might. I never acquiestd
that, but I do remember sayinga lot of a lot of you did.
Oh, absolutely everybody else will smoke. Yeah, so you didn't want
(07:02):
to say no. You didn't wantto, but I said yes to a
lot of other things that I didn'twant to say just to fit in.
Now, it's a universal trait towant to fit in, but that over
time, hopefully, as we becomemore confident in who we are, we're
able to assert ourselves. And remember, guys, saying no to something and
some want is asserting your independence.It is not being selfish. It is
(07:26):
a form of practicing and rehearsing andof course validating what you believe in.
You know, we need to dothat in many different ways. So our
need to belong is a universal trait. As we become more solid in our
identity, this becomes less important andour sense of self takes precedent. Now,
research says people who are higher inneed, they have a higher need
(07:48):
to belong. And fit in whichwe do. At certain ages, have
much more difficult time saying no becausethey fear rejection, they fear judgment from
other people, and they're also afraidof the inconvenience it'll cause the other person,
of course, putting their needs overtheir own needs, which doesn't work.
(08:09):
Because I've talked about this before.If we don't have our own needs
and expectations met and we are goingto be passive aggressive, we're going to
use things like projection. What isprojection is when we're unable to again own
our negative thoughts and feelings and thenwe ascribe them to someone else. I
might be saying, you know,you look a little angry today, Greg,
what's going on with you? That'sokay, that makes sense, Yeah,
(08:31):
you look a little bit angry.I'm not really able to own my
own anger, but I can throwit onto you. And a lot of
this happens on a very unconscious level. Again, this word no, the
relationship with we have with it ona conscious and unconscious level, it rereaks
havoc. It wreaks havoc in ourminds, a lesson until we become aware
(08:52):
of it and we own it again. It's a very powerful word, and
we have to learn to use itappropriately. Of course, we don't want
to say not everything and come acrossas you know what, but we want
it to remain true to what weactually want to say yes too. Does
that make any sense? Well,you know you're making a good point here
is I remember saying I would neversay no in a work situation. I'll
(09:13):
do it. Sure, I'm gettingto the point now. Maybe I'm old
enough to realize that I don't reallyhave to I can say no, I
don't have to do that. Andthat's actually a really good example in which
situations can you Are you comfortable sayingno? And work is one of the
challenging ones because we don't want toget fire number one sure, right,
especially if our boss asks us forsomething. How do we stand up for
(09:35):
ourselves? How do we use ourvoice to advocate for ourselves without saying no?
And also to our peers, likeyou want to go out for a
beer? You might be like,no, I don't do that with my
colleagues. But if I'm saying noall the time, how are they going
to perceive that? So it canbecome kind of keaped up. The other
reason is sometimes people are overly sympatheticto the other person that they have to
(09:58):
say no to. They take ontheir emotions rather than be true to themselves,
and that's overidentification. If you guyscan relate to that out there listening,
I'll tell you something that's very burdensome. You're taking on so many emotions
of other people that you're really justdisregarding yours. The other reason, one
(10:18):
of the most important ones that peoplesay are incapable at some point of saying
no is they don't have any emotionalor physical boundaries. Now again, what
are emotional and physical boundaries? Emotionalboundaries are basically rules of engagement for ourselves
with other people. They serve asforce fields to protect ourselves. You know,
(10:41):
I'm gonna say no because this goesagainst my emotional boundaries with regards to
ABCD. Physical boundaries, of course, are pretty obvious. It's my physical
space and I have to and thatshould be clear for everyone. No one
should be invading your physical boundaries,and if you feel that they are,
that's a solid no. But peopleoften have trouble with that too. They
some people will touch you inappropriately,and you don't know how to say no.
(11:03):
You kind of wiggle out of it. We find try to find some
social cues to kind of respond tothat, and some people are socially inept
they don't pick up on the socialcues and that has to be a hard
no. However, if you've experiencedand have trauma, particularly physical sexual trauma,
that becomes very difficult for you tonavigate. And of course we have
(11:24):
to learn to be able to sayno. We are going to continue this
discussion of saying no, and I'mactually pretty good at saying no now.
It took me a while to getthere. After these messages, everyone strives
for healthier relationships. Here's more ofUnleep Your Life and Relationships on News Talk
eleven thirty wis welcome back to onBleep Your Life and Relationships. I'm your
(11:50):
host Anita Asley. Today we aretalking about your ability and willingnessness to say
the word no. It's very difficult. People often say yes when they meet
no because they're so uncomfortable with it. And we were just talking about setting
physical and emotional boundaries. Emotional boundariesagain are rules of engagement. We need
to know what's comfortable for us andthen off that other people will know how
(12:13):
to engage with us. Physical boundariesvery obvious, and let's move on to
the next one. People pleasers havea very difficult time to say no to
other people. Again, they don'twant to disappoint, but I'll tell you
I work with a lot of peoplepleasers in my practice, and they it
causes anxiety, causes depression, itcauses stress because they're constantly saying yes when
they actually mean no. Think aboutthat. If you have to fill up
(12:37):
everybody's cup by saying yes, yes, yes, over committing yourself physically,
over committing yourself emotionally, and thenyou end up feeling drained, but also
all very resentful because I end upthinking, well, I do I do
all these things for other people andnobody's doing anything for me. And I'm
thinking, wait a minute, let'snot use these extreme words. Number one,
(12:58):
you know everybody's doing using everything,but no one's doing anything for you.
That's on you. You. It'snot their fault that you're constantly saying
yes when you actually mean no.You need to own that stuff rather than
again projecting it onto other people.You got to examine. I know it's
not as easy just to say Anita, I don't have a button that's going
to make me say no. It'sall related again. You know, how
(13:20):
did I deal with this in mychildhood? How come I'm a people pleaser?
So there's all that stuff I workwith on a deeper level with somebody,
And I would ask you to exploreyourself if you can relate to this,
but on a very cognitive behavioral level, meaning tell me what to do
first. It's owning it that it'snot other people's fault that you do that.
You got to own your own sahit. And it's just simply say
(13:43):
no. But if you're a peoplepleaser, I get it. It's hard.
It's even hard to listen to thisadvice because you'd want to please please.
Okay, wait a minute, soare you still are you able to
say no to your wife? Iactually no to my wife. Now we've
come to that common ground on thingslike outdoor stuff like I need a new
lawmower. No, we don't needthat. Yeah, and then I can
(14:05):
say the same thing for her ifshe needs this. No, you have
a conversation. We have a conversation. Not early though, it was like
you know, happy wife, happylife, Yeah, that kind of thing.
Yeah, that doesn't work because thenyou're what about all your needs and
expectations? Right, So within reason, of course, And as I was
saying earlier, yeah, we weagree to do some some things and say
(14:26):
yes to some things. But ifwe're doing over all in our relationships that's
what we're doing and we don't feelcomfortable with it, and we recognize that
it's a dysfunctional pattern, then itneeds a change. And it's very interesting.
We have people like this, andI watch and I listen to people.
They develop a really interesting dance aroundthis word no. They do all
(14:46):
kinds of things, let me ofwords come out except for the word no.
And some people are able to pickup on that social cue, just
like, hey, do you wantto go out tonight? If I ask
you that, and you might belike, there's a bit of a gap,
then you think, I'm not sureyou're unable to say no to me.
You don't say it to me,but I'm savvy enough to pick up
(15:07):
on it, and I will say, Okay, it sounds like you're busy,
No big deal, and then wemove on. You actually haven't said
no to me, but I cantell from your hesitation and the other words
and social cues that you're giving methat it's a no, so instead of
just saying no because that's uncomfortable,we often develop a dance around And if
you guys are relating to this incertain situations, that's of course acceptable socially,
(15:31):
but if it's within your close friendshipsand relationships, then it's problematic because
that means I have to go intooverdrive to really know what you're thinking and
feeling. Does it mean yes,does it mean no? What's he really
saying? And then it's a wholemind bleep because I have to work so
hard, I have to do somuch mental gymnastics to actually know what you
mean. Is it a yes?Is it a no? And I want
(15:54):
to point out, guys, thereis a gender difference in this. What
do you think it is. It'stough for a guy to say no to
no, no, no. Womenstruggle with saying no more often than men
do, because I will say,we are more agreeable. We are the
more agreeable gender. But being agreeableall the time is not a good thing,
(16:18):
because I have listened to women overthe years agreeing to lots of things
in relationships and also from I don'tjust romantic ones, guys, I'm talking
about family, with their kids,with their friends, agreeing to do things
to avoid the conflict and with justthat way. And I'm like, Okay,
that's changing slowly over time. Andyou know, like if women are
(16:40):
more assertive and more aggressive and theysay no, sometimes we are perceived as
being can I say I probably yeah, the b I T you know that?
But which it's okay, Like inthe workforce, I think when mone
can say no, women might havea harder time in relationship. But that's
slowly changing. But research is confirmingthat, you know, we are the
gender that says yes. Sometimes it'shard. Age is also a factor again
(17:04):
I talked about, you know,when we're going through adolescents and our identity
is being formed, we are moresusceptible to saying sure, let's do this
when we actually mean no. Andhopefully as we age and we become more
solid in our identity, we're ableto say no because we are able to
share what we really think and feel. I want you guys to listen to
this is really important part of it. The stronger our identity, the stronger
(17:27):
we have our physical and emotional boundariesin place, the more we will be
able to say no. To somethingor someone. When we feel that way,
does that resonate? And if itdoesn't, you guys got to think
about what are my physical boundaries?What are my emotional boundaries? Am I
identifying with what Anita is saying today? And listen, I am not saying
(17:51):
to be And no is not aselfish thing because people often say, well,
I don't want to come across asa selfish person. It is not
being selfish. It is really preservingsense of self. It is preserving your
ego confidence. Is that Is thata big part of it, having confidence
in yourself? Yes? Yes,absolutely. You have to have some level
of confidence in saying no to somebody. And it's a feedback loop. You
(18:15):
know, the more you say no, the more you will feel confident in
asserting yourself. And the more yousay yes when you actually mean no,
the less confidence you're going to become. So it's a negative feedback. Look,
we want to create what is apositive feedback loop? Anyway, getting
back to age. Age is afactor. At this stage, I have
no trouble saying no, but againI need to balance that out. If
(18:37):
I said no to everybody, Imight not have any friends, my relationships
might not work out again. Guys, it's we're looking for patterns, we're
not looking for. Yeah, occasionallyI agree to do stuff that I don't
want to do, but I doit as a way of being you know,
kind, nice, or supporting,whatever it is. But overall,
I try to be true to whoI am. Now, how does this
(18:57):
impact our relationships? How does itimpact our relationships? Overall? If we're
that person who says yes when wemean no. And I was just you
know, thinking about a patient Ihad last week, we were talking about
this, it has a very negativeimpact because then our partner again is left
guessing what does this actually mean?Because you're putting and you're also putting me
(19:18):
in a double bind. I'm confused, what is it that you really want?
And then over time, if you'resaying yes when you actually mean no,
I'm not going to know what yourneeds and expectations are, I'm not
going to know them. All I'mgoing to know is that you keep saying
this, but your behavior is notcongruent with that. Now, Father's Day
just passed. Happy Father's Day,I know your father. Happy Happy Father's
(19:40):
Day to all you guys out therewho are great fathers and those who are
not well. You better do betterfor next year. You got to look
at that stuff a good example.And you know, I was working with
this family, this couple, andthis man always says, I don't need
anything for Father's Day. I don'twant anything. No, no, don't
get me anything to the kids,to the wife and his adult children.
(20:03):
And then of course Father's Day comes. Guess what happens, right, He's
sulking, looks very sad, looksvery depressed, and the wife says,
hey, what's going on? Doyou want to You know, she's just
abiding by what he had said.No presence, no activity, is nothing
special. No. Then he says, well, I'm kind of sad and
I'm kind of hurt, like nobodydid anything. And she's like, listen,
(20:26):
you said to me no, Sowhen you actually mean yes, why
don't you just share that? Whydon't you tell me that? They're afraid
to say it. He was afraidto share it with her, making he
didn't want to have all this attention, but in actuality he did, but
he was afraid to say the wordyep, that happened to my house because
I say that all the dame,what do you have for Father's day.
(20:48):
I don't really need anything. It'snot a matter of me. I don't
really want anything. That's fine,you know, you know, just come
over. It fine is terrible words. It doesn't mean anything else. So
come out over. We'll just I'llcook some burghers and some brats and come
out over. And I got somebeer for you. What kind of beer
do you want? I have adifficult dad, aren't I? No,
(21:08):
but you just said something. Youoriginally said you didn't want anything, and
then you proceeded to tell me abouthow you did ABCD. Okay, I'm
like, okay, dude, seriously, is it a or is it a
B? Tell me right? SoI so next year, I'm going to
say I want this. I wantthat. It's simple. Do you want
to celebrate Father's Day? Yes?Or no? There you go, right.
(21:30):
Just be honest and it's okay ifyou don't, it's okay if you
do. But just say what youthink and feel. Stop putting your partner
or the other person in what Icall a double bind. It's like they
don't know which way to go becausethe messages are so confusing, and you're
using one word but you actually meananother word, and you keep everybody guessing.
It's not fun to keep guessing.Just say what you think, say
(21:52):
what you feel, and if it'sno, say no. We will continue
to talk about this, but weare going to welcome a call into the
show. Stay tuned, we'll beright back after these messages. Anita Ashley
has more advice on how to onBleep Your Life and Relationships on News Talk
eleven thirty wys Hey, guys,welcome back to n Bleep Your Life and
(22:17):
Relationships. I'm your host, AnitaAshley. Today we are talking about a
tiny word, but a powerful word, the word no. So many people
have so many challenges saying no.They say yes when they actually mean no.
Yes, it's confusing. We havea caller on the line today,
Thank you so much for joining theshow. We are going to help you.
We're gonna have you on bleep somestuff. So is this something that
(22:37):
you can relate to saying yes whenyou actually mean no. It's I don't
even know that I know how tosay no. I'm terrible, adam like
I will. I will only sayno when it's just simply not possible,
Okay, Like I feel I feelalmost like obligated, like the ask something
(23:00):
of me like, if I canmake it work, I'll do it.
And it's just in so many areas. It's in so many areas of my
life. Well, at least youhave the self awareness that you do this.
So how does this leave you feeling? Well? The like one of
the biggest things that happens is thatI'll get super burnt out and then I
(23:22):
like, I can't be like Ican't show up in all the areas.
But then I'm like if I justdig deeper, Like I try to do
that, like dig deep all thetime, and it just burns out of
the course time. I was likesaved by I was saved by the pandemic.
And I don't know. But here'sthe thing, Like I don't know
how to balance like wanting to doeverything that I can for people and the
(23:45):
concern of like I don't want peopleto stop asking ye like I have that
fear. But like before the pandemic, I was working full time, so
that's like forty five or so hoursa week. I was in school in
like business school in a degree programpart time, and then took on directing
a show and at the time wassingle mom of a five year old.
(24:07):
And I don't know what I wasthinking, but the pandemic happened and like
a lot of it stopped. Yeah, I don't know how I would have
done it. So you were relieved. Yeah, you're relieved because something you
didn't have to say no, somethingthat just happened, and then it lent
itself to that situation so that yousound like a people pleaser. And I'll
tell you that's exhausting. As youknow yourself, it's there has to be
(24:30):
an entered. You end up overtime building resentment and you can't do it
all. So it's setting some physicaland emotional boundaries, and physical in terms
of your physical health, but alsoyour mental health. So you don't want
to say no to people. Whatdo you think is at the root of
all this stuff? That's a bigquestion, and maybe you can just start
to explore it here and then ofcourse continue the work. I think like
(24:56):
I handle it like if I feelsomeone's disappointed in me for any reason,
it just like weighs on my brainso heavily. Yes, I don't know
how to like I can. It'seven one of those like you know,
I can see what I'm doing,but I don't do it anyway. Yeah,
(25:17):
you're get well we were talking.Well, well, you're making a
really good point. We talked aboutthe unconscious mind and have sometimes we just
end up in places doing and sayingthings and we look at ourselves like,
what the bleep is going on here? But I'll tell you the first place
to start, and this is relatedto one of the tips I'm going to
give at the end of the show, but I'll give it to you now,
(25:40):
is you need to sit down andwrite some of this stuff. When
am I and you sound like yousaid most of the time, When am
I saying yes when I actually meanno? And what are the feelings that
are triggered when I'm in that situation. The power of writing words down is
very different to actually saying them ortalking they come. They impact us in
(26:00):
a very different way. And thenof course reading all of that back to
yourself is very powerful. But I'lltell you probably goes back to someone in
your family of origin where you feltyou were made to feel like you're not
allowed to say send any limits foryourself emotionally. Oh sure, And I
(26:22):
think like my mom. You knowmy mom is that way too, So
I think a lot of this willlead by example. Yes, my mom
my mom will do whatever she canto make Oh it's been comfortable for everyone
around okay, and no conflict.Yeah. And you know, so you
(26:44):
learned from your mother how to behavein this manner. It's not that you
know you were put in that positionyourself, but you learned through observation and
imitation. And that's how that's verypowerful. What we do is so much
stronger and what we observe is somuch stronger than what our parents actually tell
us. So, and what you'retalking about is intergenerational transmission of norms,
(27:07):
meaning unhealthy patterns passed down from onegeneration to the next. But I'll tell
you something. Guess what you havethe power in this general, in your
time, your generation, your spotto learn to say no. And this
is the first step. Like youknow that you do this and you know
you have to stop it because itsounds physically and mentally draining, and this
is the first step to doing it. Congratulations. It extends to other people
(27:33):
too, you know, I'm sureit does. And like where it kind
of hits is like people will askthings that they want take my husband to
do or help out with and they'relike, oh, like, oh,
I can't just like offer, youknow, and then it dips into other
areas. Wait, you're offering hisservices also, Well that's oh I have
it. Oh well I have atleast, like I can think of two
(27:55):
times where I'm like, oh,it'll be fine, yeah, like that
favor. But you know that's notfair, it's not okay, it's just
I'm like, well, it'll beeasy for us to do. It's easy
for us to do. Yes,let's just do it. Well, you're
finding you're finding a way around it. This is a litany of things I
need to go on because it's difficultto say no. And then of course,
(28:18):
you know, it impacts your relationshipwith him, I'm sure, because
if you're agreeing to things that he'snot really agreeing to, and you kind
of think like, well, wecan bend over backwards to kind of do
gymnastics to do this, instead ofjust saying no, we are busy,
we can't do it. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, I think slowing
(28:40):
down before answering is really helpful forme. Yeah, you know, being
like I need to think about itand have a conversation first. Yeah,
and you can, you can.That's all the time. The baby steps
to do it. I would say, well, of course, the linear
path would be great if you couldjust say no. The baby steps is
I'll have to look into that,I'm not sure yet, and I'll get
back to you. So that's Thoseare the litany of words, but eventually
(29:03):
practicing more of that will eventually getyou to say make it very simple and
say, oh, I'm so sorry, I can't know. Yeah, and
I know it's difficult. What aboutlike the guilt of saying no when it's
like, well, like if Ihad tried a little harder or inconvenience myself
a little bit, I could havesaid yes, yeah, just like when
(29:26):
I do that, I feel bad. Yeah, and I know, like
I can tell myself that I shouldn't, but I still do yeah. And
I'll tell you you shouldn't, butthat's not going to change how you feel.
I wish it would so quickly pressthat button. And guilt is a
huge thing. It's neat, huh. Guilt is huge. It helps us
to do many good things, butalso sometimes it keeps us stuck in places
we don't want to be stuck.But again, I would say to you,
(29:48):
you need to think more about whatyou need for your own mental health
and for your physical health. Andit sounds like you need to start with
the word no and rehearsing it.Also, Oh, by the way,
think of something that's coming up thatyou want to say no to, but
you kind of feel like I'm goingto end up saying yes. Plan for
that scenario. That's what I wouldtell you to do. Take out your
(30:11):
diary. If you don't have one, buy one plan for that scenario.
And generally in our relationships, wedance this way with the same people,
and the same people kind of knowI'm gonna ask I'm gonna ask her because
she usually says yes, And you'reprobably thinking, oh God, here it
comes. She's gonna ask me.I'm probably gonna say yes, but I
want to say no. So ifsomething like that is coming up for you,
(30:33):
I want you to take a moreproactive role in it rather than the
reactive role of just saying yes.It seems like it's an automatic response for
you. You just kind of sayyes, yes, those are good thought,
thank you. Yeah, proactive,imagine it in your head, rehearse
it, and write it down.Sounds like you're having fun. You're out
there somewhere. We are it's thesummer day, summer day. That's of
(30:57):
fun. It just got loud fora minute. Yeah, well, thank
you for calling into the show.We appreciate it. But to everybody else
who can relate to this story,if you're one of these people, I'll
tell you people pleasing you please otherpeople at the expense of yourself, you
got to think about your own physicaland mental health and that is not being
(31:17):
selfish. We need to set someboundaries with people, and we know those
people who We all have people inour lives who try to violate those boundaries
by kind of pushing us into asituation. And sometimes we're more easily put
and some people are more easily pushedand others are not. And if our
boundaries are kind of confusing and blurryand we haven't set them ourselves, it's
time to do them. Thank youso much for calling into this show.
(31:41):
We appreciate your time and sharing ofyour story, and good luck setting those
boundaries and saying no. Thank youso much to the caller. We will
be back in a couple of minutesto continue this conversation. Welcome back to
Unbleed Your life and Relationships. I'myour host. I need an Astley psychotherapist
of twenty five years and plus anauthor of Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.
(32:06):
It's available on Simon and Schuster websiteand Amazon. Today we are talking about
the ability to say no, thetiny little word that has so much power,
but a lot of people are afraidof it. It creates double binds
for people. It creates confusion whenwe actually say the opposite of what we
want to say, how we feeland what we think and again and intimate
relationships, Sir, what it does. It wrote up the emotional intimacy.
(32:30):
And emotional intimacy, as I've discussedbefore, is a cornerstone of all healthy
relationships. We need to know whatour partner is thinking and feeling honestly,
and we need to be able toexpress that ourselves. And we are actually
wanting to say no, but wesay yes. That's creating a very confusing
situation. I need to talk aboutparent parents and their children before we end
(32:53):
the show today because I got totell you something. We live in a
world where parents don't know how tosay no to their children. They want
to, but they say yes.And they're sitting in my office saying,
Anita, my little you know,Johnny is out of control. And then
I listen to the story, I'mlike Johnny freaking never hears the word no.
(33:14):
All you keep saying is yes,yes, yes, yes. You're
not only doing a disservice to him, You're doing a disservice to society.
Because guess what, Johnny's going togrow up. He's going to become an
adult, a young adult who's neverheard the word no, and he's going
to be an entitled young adult andhe's going to go out into the world
(33:35):
and his boss is going to sayno, raise for you this year,
know this for you next year,and then he's gonna have an anxiety attack.
He's going to be anxious, depressed, maybe go into credit card debt.
Now you guys might be thinking I'mexaggerating, I'm actually not. When
we are saying no to our children, we are teaching them that some things
(33:57):
they can't have right away, andwe are also teaching them emotionally, how
to take that word in, howto process that emotion, how to process
those feelings, those thoughts, andto recover. We're building a sense of
resiliency. And I have to tellyou, I don't see that much with
all the soft parenting around me.Well, I do like it. Go
(34:19):
to any restaurant and you see allthese like toddlers up to five, six,
seven years old, and they've gottablets in front of them with headphones
on at the dinner table out fordinner. You see that everywhere. That
should not happen. That's a no. I've seen that too. Parents.
You have to take control. Youare the boss of your family. You
(34:39):
are the boss of your household.And children need to hear the word no,
even teenage absolutely especially teenagers need tohear the word no. We need
to have structure for kids. Weneed to have some boundaries that are very
clear you are not doing them afavor. And again, less is more.
(35:00):
And I listened to this all thetime in my suit. It drives
me crazy because I think that peoplehave forgotten that they are parents. And
I will tell you something. Somethings in a parent child relationship, Yeah,
you can negotiate. I mean,I have two kids. I did
some negotiating with them because I wantthem to learn the art of discourse,
the art of communicating working things out. But at the same time, some
(35:21):
things were a hard no, andthey were non negotiable. I was talking
to a parent last week about this, and they were in this dynamic with
their child where they just kept talkingand they kept up presenting their case,
and the child kept on escalating thecase, you know, because kids kids
don't stop. They started going,well why not? Why not? This?
Why? And she just kept goingand going and going. The mom
(35:43):
did, and then the kid keptgoing and going and going. I'm like,
wait, stop, you need tostop engaging with this kind of dialogue
and you need to be the parentand you need to say no, this
is not up for negotiation. Thisis what's happening. But people are afraid
to do that because they want tobe friendly. You're not your child's friend,
you are your child's parent. Childrenneed to hear no. What do
(36:07):
you think I heard? They wereno all the time, all the time.
And I really at the beginning Istruggled with that with my own children
because I wanted to give them allthe things that I didn't have. But
I learned very quickly that wait aminute, I'm over compensating. I'm not
doing them a favor. This isall about me. These are my issues,
but I'm now handing them down tomy kids. And I did see,
(36:30):
like, okay, becoming a littleBRODDI here, I need to rein
this in. I remember my momsaying something to me about it, and
I thought, Mom, please letme parent. You know you did whatever.
But she had a great point.And when I thought about it more
and I thought, okay, waita minute, I can't so just say
yes to them because I was toldno most of my childhood. These are
(36:50):
my issues. I need to workthem out. And yes, my kids
need to hear no, and theydon't need to have everything less is more.
We need to create a generation wherethey can accept that. I don't
know about you, but I seethat. I see that in the workforce.
I see that when I'm going outto a restaurant, the behaviors that
I'm surrounded with, and this isthe next generation of adults. That's so
scary. Well it's life lessons,you know. And I'm you know,
(37:15):
I've been in this business for fortyyears and I'm seeing these up and coming
kids who really don't know and theyget stressed out when they hear no or
or you know, they they don'twant to do anything anymore. Well because
they haven't been forced to do anyyou want to cut This is the kind
of example do you want to gocut the grass for me? No,
(37:35):
okay, then the parent goes offand does it. It shouldn't be do
you want to go cut the glass? It's like, go and cut the
grass, okay. And if theysay no, well then you should have
consequences if that's one of the responsibilitiesthat they have. So no is a
really important term, not in justadult relationships adults adults, but especially in
the parent child relationship. You knowyou are you're by spoiling your kids and
(38:00):
always saying yes, you are doingthem a massive disservice because they're going to
turn into the adults that we don'twant to have to work with. And
I don't want to appear like thatsomebody who doesn't know how to deal with
that at all. I don't knowwhat about you. I often then started
to say no to my kids.I still say no to my kids and
they know not to ask me,and well, I try to balance it
(38:20):
with yes. But there are liketwenty three and twenty I'm still the parent,
even though they're over eighteen. Itdoesn't change any of that. I'm
still the parent and I still sayno. So guys, if you are
practicing whatever is called soft parenting,and I'm even confused about what that means.
Even as a clinician. I dobelieve hard parenting, and that doesn't
mean you got to hit your kidsand do all that kind of stuff.
(38:43):
But words are powerful, and howwe raise them is very powerful. With
this word yes and with this wordno, and also negotiating saying no,
this is not negotiable, and that'sit, and you will see a turnaround
in the kids. I was workingwith this family and I gave them you
It's this very basic things that youknow, my parents were good at just
saying no, and they're afraid.I'm like, how is it that you're
(39:04):
afraid of your own child. Well, she's not gonna be happy. She
it doesn't matter. Your job asa parent is not to make your child
happy. It's actually the opposite.Sometimes it snakes some toay. You know,
they're gonna be quite pissed you.They're gonna be miserable. Guess what
you are doing them a favor.You are helping them to become more resilient.
You are preparing them for the forthe real world. Because guess what,
I don't know about you, butin the real world, there was
(39:25):
some rejection that I've faced. Therewas some disappointment that I faced, But
guess what, I was prepared forit because my parents prepared me for it.
And I tell my kids all thetime, Listen, dude, life
is unfair and you're often gonna hearthe word no, And if you start
off on that premise, your lifewill be a lot easier. Mom,
(39:45):
Lisa got the brand new iPhone.I want the new iPhone. Can I
have the new iPhone? No,that's not gonna happen, and why but
it's oh, then we get intothe why this is not up for negotiation.
I don't have to answer that question. It's just no. And if
you keep badgering me, it's goingto be no for a couple of years.
So if you want to get thatone, you're not getting that.
(40:07):
And it's not even on the Christmaslist because that's out of the budget.
But that kind of stuff. Parentstoday have an enormous amount of guilt if
they can't give their child whatever itis that they want, but they go
out of you know, they gointo debt to give it to them because
they don't want to say the wordno. You're not helping them. Just
(40:29):
learn to say no. And theywill appreciate it in the long run,
and they will be a better partof society and they will not be some
entitled young adults that we don't wantthat because I've worked with them and it's
not a lot of fun. Again, guys, here are some tips too
learning to say no. First ofall, let's do some self exploration,
(40:50):
introspection with intention, meaning that yeah, we don't want to live in the
past, but it's okay to exploreit. Think about how your parents raised
you and how is how is thisword no or yes used in that relationship?
And are you repeating some of thatin your relationships today in a negative
way? Is this a pattern thatyou're engaged in? And clearly you might
(41:14):
have some self awareness that is notworking for you. But if you can
relate to some of the stuff thatI've shared with you today, you don't
have to continue on this path ofbeing the people pleaser. You don't have
to continue on this path of sayingyes when you actually mean no. First
place, of course is self awareness. One concrete thing that you can actually
do, like I shared with thecaller, write these things down. Think
(41:37):
about the last time you wanted tosay uh no, but you actually said
yes. What were the feelings thatwere being triggered in you? When did
you feel that last time? Andif you could replay that, how would
you do it differently? And theother thing you need to do is rehearse
it. Go in front of themirror and say no. Go into a
(41:59):
dance around it. Just say noand keep saying no, and think of
something that's coming up that you knowyou're going to be asked to do,
and rehearse it because when you getthere you can. You can. I'll
let you know, dance around,just say I'll have to think about it,
and then come back with the no. Because over time, the more
you rehears it, the better youwill be at doing it. It's okay
(42:19):
to say no and not say yesof course to everything, and it's not
selfish. Set some physical boundaries,set some emotional boundaries. It is not
a negative thing to have physical andemotional boundaries. People think it is sometimes
they think they're being selfish. That'sall the time we have today, But
check me out on Instagram, guys. Askanita Ashley is my handle if you
want to learn more about boundaries,setting and some of the stuff we talked
(42:42):
about today. Check out my bookUnbleep Your Life and Relationships ask Anita Askley,
Amazon, and Simon and Schuster.I will join you guys next week,
same time, eight pm on Sundays. Bye guys,
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