Ep. 31: What's NO got to do with it?

On episode 31, I am going to talk with you about how to say No in a way you have never heard of before. In a way that is in alignment with your highest self and also while staying connected to the other person you are saying No to. 

I get it, it can be hard to say No to someone we love because of our stories, beliefs and the way our body is wired for connection. But it doesn't have to be that way. 

Saying No using the technique I teach in this podcast can actually bring you a closer connection to the person you are saying No to. 

On this episode you will learn:

• Why you have a hard time saying No
• A technique to say No that brings more connection to you and the other person
• New thoughts & beliefs to help you understand why No is just as good (and maybe juicer) than a Yes

Follow me on Instagram @katweissner and check out my website at www.klwcoaching.com

By listening to this podcast you agree to the following Disclaimer: https://klwcoaching.com/disclaimer/

The Wildly Confident Podcast, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of KLW Coaching, LLC, all rights reserved. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:49

Hey, I'm so glad you are back here this week. Today, we are going to be talking about the joy of saying no. How saying no can actually provide more connection, more love in your life. It is a totally different spin on learning how to say no than you've ever heard before. So buckle up. We are going on a no ride.<laugh> oh my goodness. Okay. So I'm gonna go over the main two reasons why people struggle with saying no. Have you ever had a ti her time saying no in your life, do you sometimes feel guilty or bad saying no. In you're like, uh, just it's so uncomfortable in my body, right? You're you're so uncomfortable with your emotions in your body. If you say said no, that you say yes instead. Ah, right.<laugh> it's like a, it's like a scary roller coaster. We've all been on before. I know. I can think of a number of times I have said yes in my life to things that were definitely a no, but I had so much drama going on inside of me that it just felt more comfortable to say yes than Ted deal with my own thoughts and feelings inside. If I said no. So the top two reasons why people have a hard time saying no, are they don't want to disappoint others or hurt others feelings. This is a big one. We think that by our saying no, that we are some are hurting somebody else. And that is simply not true. We don't know what's going on inside of their brains and their thoughts. And I can tell you my thoughts now are when somebody says, no, there's sometimes a sadness around it, but I'm happy for them for having a boundary on what feels good for them. And it gives me the opportunity to go find somebody else who will say yes, that someone who is probably gonna be a better fit to help me with that. Anyway, if you have the belief you're hurting somebody I can do just go ahead and tell you right now, you wouldn't hurt me.<laugh> I might be sad, right? If I wanted to do something with you, there might be a moment of some grieving there and some sadness, but I know there'll be someone else who wants to do something with me because I have faith. And I believe that all my needs matter and all my needs are gonna get met. So if you're worried to about disappointing or hurting other people, it's probably because you have a belief inside of you that your own needs don't matter. Or maybe just some of your needs don't matter. And you have a fear that they might not get met. And so from that place of fear, from that place of city, we have a story that if we say no to somebody else, and this is often like very unconscious, it's somehow reconfirming that your own needs won't get met. Does this resonate at all?<laugh> and then the other thing around this is just, again, this just has to do, if you have this idea that, that you can somehow affect other people's feelings and disappoint other people that just has to do with, uh, enmesh and poor boundaries, we cannot get inside somebody's brain and affect it. Whatever thoughts you think they're having, you are just projecting your own thoughts around the experience on that person. So again, it comes back to your own sense, your own lack of scarcity, your own fear, and there's an antidote to this. And it's partially has to do with the belief I have, but I'll share it towards the end of the podcast on how to start moving towards this idea that your needs matter no matter what your needs matter and trusting that your needs will get met no matter what, no matter what. And just because somebody says no doesn't mean that someone else is gonna say know, right? It's just, that's not the right person to meet that need. You will eventually find the way to meet that need because it matters. And so often I think we don't actually, uh, have a, we have in the past, people have told us our needs don't matter. Our adults in our life when we are children, teachers, other people in our life is that you don't matter. And we've internalized that. And then it's become like this cycle of fear of saying no and doing things that don't really feel good because we're afraid. We're trying to confirm and reaffirm that our needs matter. Other people's needs matter. And we're kind of stuck in this cycle loop, instead of just saying pause like our needs matter, your needs matter, no matter what, and your needs will get met, maybe not by the first person you ask. And thank goodness if they say no, because they're not the right person to meet that need. So that's just a new way you can think about that. And the second reason people struggle with saying no is cuz they don't wanna threaten the relationship or a feeling of connectedness that they have with the other person. This is human nature. This is in our biology. We want to feel connected. It feels so good. Doesn't it? There's nothing better than to be in synchronicity to really be with someone who gets you on a heart level, on a soul level. So absolutely this is a real I to I, this is a real thing that I struggled with myself in learning how to say no is I didn't wanna lose this connection. And I'm going to tell you the process. I now do to say no to help you with it where you don't lose the connection. Right. I had a false story that somehow saying no is gonna lose a action with somebody. And that is absolutely not the case. So let me give you an example from my own life, dealing with someone in my family, of course, someone I really wanna stay connected to, but you can always just swap this for a friend or anyone else, but we'll just say that my daughter came to me and she really wanted me to color in that moment. And I was wanting to take a bath instead. I didn't wanna color. I had had a long day and I had very low capacity. If you know what I mean by am saying like I had a lot of unprocessed emotions in my body. I had a lot of unprocessed things that I needed to sort and process capacity in my opinion has to do with the space we have inside to hold things. And sometimes when a lot of things happen in a day or in a week or in a month or in years, we, this stuff kind of builds up and we have less space, less capacity to hold things that come up in our life with patience with grace. And that's always like, it's like, oh, time to slow down, take care of yourself, Catherine. So for me, I was at a low capacity point in my day. I felt it. And I knew that I needed to take care of myself and take that bath. And so what I said to my daughter was, Hey, your needs matter here. I'm an adult, I'm your mother, I'm your friend. And I hear that your need for coloring matters. And I see that and my needs matter too. Right? Right now I have a limited capacity. I have a low energy right now and I need to go take care of myself. And I'm, I'm really sad that I can't be with you and meet that need for coloring cuz I know how important it is to you. And I want to do that out with you. I want to be with you, but I also matter here and I need to go take care of myself and maybe someone else in the house will wanna color with you. So there's the, the first thing I do when I'm saying no to someone, as I let them know that what they're asking for matters that matter that their request matters and that I understand their need. And then I explain to them why I can't meet it. And often it is because sometimes it's for like a really basic scheduling reason, but often it's because of my own capacity limits that I also matter too. And I'm gonna take, and I have faith trust that me taking care of myself actually is what's in the greatest good of everybody, right? They often say put your own oxygen mask on first. Well, here's that practice<laugh> before you help anyone else. Here's that practice in action. And then I'm, I'm, there's gonna be a, um, a point where I feel into my sadness here because I do feel sadness saying, no, I do feel I do as a human as a person, like as a mother. Like that connection is so important to me. I feel it in my whole body. And there is a sadness. There's a mourn, there's a grief over saying no. And acknowledging that and feeling that and letting the other person also feel the sadness in that moment too, that they didn't get their need men in that moment is beautiful. And that's where you keep the connection. There was no connection lost here at all. And all that happened was we were both also really honoring ourselves. We kept good up. She didn't walk. I didn't just say no. And she didn't walk away all frustrated. And then I felt guilty about it. None of that stuff happened. There was like a, a moment you can say no and be in connection with somebody. That's the beautiful thing about it. There's a beautiful quote from, um, Mickey. Ashton's the little book of courageous living, which says when we trust that our needs matter, we are much more flexible about how they are going to be men. We are even more flexible about whether they will be met at all. Just gives me goosebumps. This is the place I live from. I trust that my needs matter. And I'm really, really flexible about how they're gonna get met. Someone can say no to me and it's okay because I can see that they are taking care of themselves in that moment because their needs matter. And that makes me really, really happy. In fact, it brings a deeper sense of connection between us cuz I can trust'em to say no, I know they're not just saying yes and then they're doing it against what they really desire in their life. So there's even a deeper juicier connection there. And I know that somebody else will probably be able to meet my needs. And if I can't find anybody, I can always meet my own needs. Now isn't that fun? It's a beautiful thought. And this is really the practice. This is what I want you to be thinking about this week about your own needs, right? How is saying no really about trusting that your own needs matter. It's about trusting the universe. There's billions of people on this planet. Somebody has got to be bound to be able to meet your, and isn't that wonderful that whoever is gonna be able to help you meet your needs is probably the person you need to be connected with. You know, having these deep connections with people, having that, that group of friends that you really trust that really know you, that really get you, that where you feel gotten, you feel felt is so important in life. And bene brown actually talks about this a little bit, but she says that we should look for people who deserve to hear our stories. She suggests that there may be only a few people. We know who we can trust to hold our stories with respect, who honor a vulnerability and could meet us authentically in our sharing. So what would you say no to if you were not in fear of not being lovable of, not

Speaker 2 12:42

In fear of losing connection of disappointing others, not in fear of hurting other people's feelings, what would you say no to in your life? I want you to also play around with that thought this week. Just let it kind of come up and see maybe how you could say no to things in a way that actually strength in the connection in a way that didn't disappoint others or even if it did disappoint them. If they did share with you, that's how they were feeling. You could mourn agree, grieve that disappointment together in a way that brought you more connection and still acknowledged and told them that their needs mattered. So often I think people equate. So someone saying no to them, like what they're asking for isn't important or doesn't matter. And that's not at all. What a no is a no is a heartfelt response that I don't think I can meet that need in you, but it's still really important. And I'm sad. I can't, that's what a no is to me. And that's just such a beautiful way to deepen the human connection and stay aligned with your highest truth. So I hope you enjoyed this little podcast on learning how to say no in your life. More often in a way that's in the highest alignment for you and with the other people in your life. I hope you come back next week. Have a great week. Bye.