Let Your ‘Yes’ Be ‘Yes’ and Your ‘No’ Be No

By: Annie Kaszina
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:41:52
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Do you ever feel that people are not listening to you? You tell them what you expect and they totally disregard you? You repeatedly point out to them something that is really, really important to you and they go straight on, blithely doing exactly what they were doing before?

Maybe you feel ready to throw your hands up in despair. In the end, do you often find the easiest thing to do is to just get on and do whatever it is that you asked them to do? Again and again.

If that is you, then you are suffering with boundary problems. You can call them communication problems if you prefer, and you wouldn’t be altogether wrong. You would just be talking about the symptom rather than the root cause.

Certainly, there is a communication problem.

You make a request and you expect and assume that the other person will pay attention to it, acknowledge that the request is important to you, and respond accordingly, by doing what you ask.

They hear that you are asking them if they would mind doing something for you. They do mind. Maybe it’s too much trouble to do it at all. Maybe what you want is at the very bottom of their priorities. For them, it’s probably optional. If they do it at all, it is because they are doing you a favour. What’s more, they know that if they only wait a while, you’ll do it yourself. Problem solved. At least from their point of view.

From their point of view, your language doesn’t convey the urgency you feel. Nor does it convey your will that they actually do something for once. That happens because past experience has taught them that you are a push over. They can always wheedle, negotiate, bully, or bluster their way past your ‘no’ – if you ever truly say it in so many words – and your determination.

You see it’s all about boundaries. Having a boundary means that you are clear about where one person ends and another begins.

You lack clear boundaries. So you feel obliged to assume responsibility for the people around you, for your entire world in fact. That means you feel you have to do things, most things, for everyone you know. Any request, reasonable or unreasonable, you will try your hardest to fulfil. In fact, you often have difficulty distinguishing between a reasonable request and an utterly unreasonable request, like “I know it’s 3am, but I am too drunk to drive, so can you get out of bed, pick me and three of my friends up and drive us all home?”

The boundary infringers see you coming a mile off. You are their ideal foil. You don’t know where you end and they begin. They work on the principle that you begin where you draw a boundary. For as long as you don’t, they will cheerfully colonize your time, your energy and your headspace. Your resources are their resources. Does that sound familiar?

Creating boundaries when you have never done it before is simple, but it’s not easy. Saying a firm, decided “No” when you have never had the conviction to do so before, can seem pretty challenging. Anticipating saying your first resolute “No” may feel pretty frightening.

You only have to say “No” a couple of times and you’ll start to feel curiously relieved and liberated. Take the risk and start to focus on that sense of relief and liberation. Notice how good it feels.

Notice also how much better you start to feel about yourself.

Every “Yes” you say when you really want to say “No”, every time you cave in when you would like to stand firm, every infringement of the regard due to you that you tolerate when you would love to denounce it, drains and depletes you.

Boundaries invigorate you. They enable you to grow to your full human stature. Because you are you for the first time, instead of being everybody else’s dogsbody.

Sceptical? Are you wondering whether it is possible to teach an old People Pleaser new tricks? Don’t be. It’s not a complex procedure at all. It’s a bit like learning to drive. The first, crucial step was turning on the engine. Not that your instructor would let you do that without a fair amount of mental preparation. But once you’d done that, you were soon in a position to get the vehicle moving. Ok, so maybe not very fast or very smoothly at first, but the car did move forward and backwards.

The same goes for boundary setting. Once you say the first crisp, determined “No”, you start setting boundaries in place. It may be a jerky process at first. You may stall more than you would like, even have problems with steering a steady course. But you will soon get over that.

Before long you’ll find yourself cruising down life’s Feel Good About Yourself Highway just like everybody else. You see, the thing that boundary infringers never told you, because they really never wanted you to know, is that you can say “No” and still feel good about yourself.

What’s more, you might not be the boundary infringers’ favourite person, but there will be a lot of other people who will really enjoy spending time with the new, improved, turbo-charged you.

(C) 2006 Annie Kaszina

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