YOU MUST ALLOW OTHERS TO BE DISAPPOINTED IN YOU
As promised, here is an update about my Year of No, which I am still in, just 3/4 of the way through, and which I intend to continue into a chapter of my life called My Life of No!
There really is SO much I could say about my Year of No. In fact, at this point I think I could probably write a book about it! You can expect me to speak about this as part of my work going forwards.
Today, I’m just writing about one big aspect of my Year of No.
For many years, I’ve advocated for having your own philosophy for life, and my Year of No isn’t just an experiment. It is my lived experience, which has now become part of my philosophy of life.
And I would encourage you to really think about your identity and your philosophy attached to that – whether it’s something that you have consciously created, or whether as is so easily done, you’ve picked up things from other people and their philosophies and just accepted them as your own, without question or without fine-tuning.
I started this year by asking myself many questions about what this Year of No actually is and what it means.
Questions around:
What happens if I stop saying yes? 🛑
What happens if I stop managing other people’s feelings?
What happens if I say no because I’m making room for the work that God has called me to do? 🙏
But the question I want to focus on today is:
What happens when I stop allowing other people’s expectations to dictate my decisions and where my time, energy and focus goes?
I’m going to start with a bit of a deep and heavy philosophical truth first of all…
YOUR MERE EXISTENCE CREATES CONFLICT 💥
You can try to go through your life – and you should – with kindness and thoughtfulness.
You can be mindful about your thoughts and actions towards people. You can honour your code of ethics. And you can do all of those things and yet you will STILL disappoint people.
You will still be inconvenient to people and inconvenience them.
You will still hurt people, even without meaning to.
So even if you are the most Christ-like figure, your mere existence will upset someone and create conflict.
You could live happily as a hermit, and that would still break somebody’s heart and disappoint someone.
I hasten to add that it doesn’t mean that you are living wrongly!
No, not at all.
It just means that you are alive. You are living.
You are doing your best, and that is part of life.
YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO BE YOU ✨
I remember many years ago, in my 20s, reading a book by Nancy Paul called The Right To Be You. At the time, I was working in the corporate world, being bullied at work, suffering (unsurprisingly) with depression and an eating disorder. The counsellor I was seeing at the time recommended this book. 📚
And I recommended it to you, actually!
It did have an impact on my ability to say no and set boundaries at the time, and this is what I want to remind you of:
* You have a right to be you. 🌟
* You have a right to be a person, with all your good intentions and with all your flaws.
* You are allowed to have your own needs.
* You are entitled to take up space. 💃
* You should make choices based on your own self-interest without making sacrifices that deplete you.
* You have a right to choose the direction of your life.
And as I have just mentioned, doing any and all of these things will create an impact on the people and environment around you.
That’s you just being a human being.
But oftentimes, and I would suggest even moreso as women, and through our upbringing and our childhood, we can be taught that it’s wrong to disappoint people, that it’s wrong to speak up and you shouldn’t inconvenience anybody.
And bit by bit, what happens is that we start to NOT speak up as much and live more quietly.
We shrink ourselves.
We try to take up less space.
And I am very aware of times that I have done that myself.
I can see where I have been so agreeable to the point where I have had to impose this Year of No to bring my life back to myself and my purpose.
Your time is valuable.
Your life energy is valuable.
Your thoughts are valuable.
Your emotions are valuable.
But we can forget that, and so we become more agreeable, more easy-going, more convenient, and our needs, wants and desires become invisible.
And that isn’t life.
That’s not what you are put here on this earth for.
YOUR FEELINGS ARE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY 😌
We live in interesting times, and it appears to me more and more that there are certain groups or types of people that want you to be responsible for their feelings and emotions.
That is another way that you can get pulled away from yourself, especially if you have people-pleasing tendencies.
But ultimately, we are all adults.
And adults have to do the growing up part of life. 🎓
That means taking responsibility for themselves, their feelings and their emotions.
You are responsible for your feelings, but equally, other people’s feelings are their responsibility.
Of course, if you have acted badly towards somebody and been deliberately hurtful or intentionally harmful, then that’s another matter.
But this is also where you can disappoint people by making the best and most truthful choices for your life.
It can upset other people, and then you may feel an obligation to take responsibility for their feelings and emotions.
Which is a very dangerous trap. ⚠️
If saying no to somebody causes them pain, then they must process that pain themselves.
It’s incredibly difficult, but as with all things, saying no gets easier with practice, with boundaries, and knowing who is your responsibility and what is your responsibility – and what isn’t.
You can’t go around sacrificing chunks of your life and your purpose so you don’t inconvenience anybody else or cause them any discomfort.
As we’ve established, your existence will bring conflict to others.
One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn this year is that somebody being disappointed with me doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve done something wrong.
I had confused being a good woman with being a convenient woman, a helpful woman, a ‘nice’ woman 🙄
And that struggle became more prominent with Christianity, where we are told to be helpful and kind to our neighbours.
So I have had to weigh up how to have boundaries within the teachings of Christianity, and I’ve had to learn about this and put in some study time (which actually could well be another blog post – and chapter – in my Year of Saying No!)
But to be brief, for now, here are some things that have helped.
SAYING NO DOESN’T HAVE TO MEAN CONFLICT 🕊️
We often associate saying no with conflict and with a potential argument or disagreement or even a falling out coming from it.
But I’ve learnt that I can say no in a gentle but firm way.
And I’ve also learnt that if that person doesn’t accept my first no and they keep pushing, I can just keep calm myself and repeat myself without it building up into something.
And with that being said, I don’t owe anybody long explanations. Neither do you.
I can keep my no short, sweet and respectful to myself and the other person.
I’ve also learned to put in a pause to ask myself:
Is this what God is asking of me right now, or is it pressure/guilt/people-pleasing?
I’ve also had to learn to make the distinction at times between neighbourly love and also being used as a convenience for somebody.
Sometimes, when we have people-pleasing tendencies, we don’t think about that distinction straight away.
And Jesus himself had boundaries! ✝️
He withdrew from people.
He said NO to demands that didn’t align with his divine purpose.
He allowed people to be displeased with him and walk away.
And he let his yes mean yes and his no mean NO.
If someone is hurt because you choose honesty and truth for your life, and you are acting with thought and consideration, then that pain is for them to process in their own time. Not yours.
NO ISN’T A CRUEL WORD 🙅♀️
There is so much stigma and emotion attached to this tiny word.
But for me, at least, part of that was feeling as though saying no to someone or something was an act of cruelty!
But actually, being able to say no in a respectful way is part of being an adult, and it’s a sign of maturity.
You have to be able to draw the line between your desire and right to live your life as you choose and your right to live truthfully and in accordance with that.
Because if you do not claim that freedom for yourself, somebody will claim it for you.
LEARNING TO LIVE WITH MY OWN RULES OF NO 📝
Believe me when I say I have put a great deal of thought into my Year of No since the idea first came to be in December last year.
And it’s been something that I’ve had to create and shape, think about its meaning, its impact, its necessity and, yes, its consequences.
And I’ve learned by living it, refining it, and getting things wrong.
But what’s really helped is putting some rules and boundaries in place for myself, so I am not emotionally pushed and pulled by the demands of others, of society, of ideologies and of philosophies that aren’t in alignment with my life and purpose.
And it’s something I highly recommend you create for yourself too.
I am allowed to say NO. 🚫
I accept that saying NO may upset or disappoint others. 😔
I have a right to live truthfully and in accordance with my purpose. 🌟
I am allowed to have standards for my life. ⚖️
It is OK for me to defend my space: my life, my energy, my time, my emotions. 🛡️
I am not responsible for other people’s feelings, and I am responsible for mine. 🧘♀️
If I choose not to live by these rules, then I must accept the consequences of that, whether that be in the next 10 minutes or the next 10 years. ⏳
And perhaps this is the biggest lesson my Year of No has taught me so far: 💡
I am not here to live a life that nobody is disappointed by.
I am here to live a life that is truthful, purposeful and aligned with God.
And sometimes, that will disappoint people.
I’m finally learning that that’s OK.
Believe more is possible,
Karen ♥️
P.S. If you know someone who finds it hard to say no because they’re afraid of disappointing people, share this with them 🫶
