How to say no

The next question is how to say No in a way that reasonable people will accept. Here’s a third irony: If you do it properly, you never actually use the word “NO”.

1.      Express your wish to help:  “I’d like to do that for you” or “I wish I could be helpful.”

2.      Give an explanation: “I’m working on a tight deadline” or “I have to get to a dental appointment.” You don’t have to get highly personal.

3.      Offer an alternative: “Barb’s really good at this, and she loves to do it” or “I won’t be able to do it, but I can show you how to do it.”

4.      Offer to do it later: “I can’t help you now, but I can do it next Tuesday.”

5.      Offer to do part of the task: “I won’t be able to do all of it, but I’d be happy to do this part for you.”

6.      Ask her to help you prioritize: “Which of these projects would you like me to set aside in order to do this one?”

She’ll likely say one of two things:

·         “I didn’t realize you had that much on the go. I’ll deal with it another way.”

·         “Set that one aside and do this instead.”

Either way, she accepts ownership of the decision. She can’t come back to you next week and say “where’s the such and such report?’ when she’s the one who told you to put it away,

7.      Ask for time to think about it: “Can I get back to you in an hour? I’ll try to rearrange my schedule.” Then, if you can’t fit it in, call back and say, “I’m sorry, its not going to work perhaps another time.”

8.      Ask what it’s for: Help her clarify her situation and real needs.

Saying no is an important life skill in this fast-paced world. It’s a way to protect yourself from stress and overload, Along with permission and enough, NO is a third word to add to you work – life balance vocabulary.

When to say NO

No does not have to become your favourite word or the first thing you say after “Hello”, nor do you have to say it often. Even use 5% of the time, it will serve you well.

When it is okay, appropriate – even necessary – to say NO? This is a permission giving exercise. Most of us have no difficulty saying no if we have to leave work early to catch a plane.

Here are some other situations when it’s okay to say NO:

1.      When you’re exhausted or stressed out.

2.      When you’re overload and out of time.

3.      When you have higher, more pressing priorities.

4.      When it’s not your job or responsibility.

5.      When it’s not your area of expertise and someone else could do it better.

Grief

1.      What emotional, financial, social, or personal losses have you experienced in your life? Can you identify at least five?

2.      For each loss, do you feel that you acknowledged this loss sufficiently? Do you feel you fully grieved this loss?

3.      Do you see any relationship between any of these losses and feeling smothered when something or someone reminds you of this loss?

Basic Meditation on the Breath

1.      Sit in a comfortable yet upright position. Forcus on  your breathing as you breathe slowly from your abdomen for ten minutes. Let the sensations of inhaling and exhaling be the object of your forcus.

2.      If yout mind wanders from the forcus on your breath, let it do so without judging it. Then gently bring your attention back to your breath. Do thid as many times as you need too during the course of your meditation. Attempt to concentrate on your breathing in a relaxed way without forcing it.

3.      If you find yourself getting frequently distraced, use the breath counting technique (counting on each exhale) when you feel you’ve relaxed to stay relatively well-forcused on yout breath, without forcing it.

4.      Begin practicing this exercise for ten minutes and gradually work up to thirty minutes. You may find it useful to set a timer or play a thirty minute tape of meditation music so that you’ll know when you’re done.

The calm anchor

Before you do this technique for yourself, read through each step so that you know exactly what to do.

1.      Remember a time when you felt really, really calm – at peace and in control. Fully return to it now, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard and feeling how good you felt. (If you can’t remember a time, imagine how wonderful it would feel to be totally at peace – if you had all the ease, comfort and self-comfort and self control you could ever need!).

2.      As you keep running through this experience in your mind, make the colours brighter and richer, the sounds crisper, and the feelings stronger. When you are feelings, squeeze the thumb and middle finger of your right hand together. You are associating this particular pressure in this memory several times until you feel a lovely sense of inner peace and calm.

3.      Now go through this relaxing memory at least five more times while continuing to squeeze your thumb and middle finger together to really lock in these good feelings. You will know you have done it enough when all you need to do is squeeze your fingers together and you can easily remember the feelings of calm and relaxation spreading through your body.

4.      Next, think about a situation that in the past you would have found mildly stressful. (We will deal with any ‘high stress’ situations in the next exercise.) Once again, squeeze your thumb and middle finger together. Feel that calm feeling spreading through your body and imagine taking it with you into that stressful situation. Imagine everything going perfectly, exactly the way that you want. See what you’ll see, hear what you hear and feel how good it feels to be so much calmer and in control in this situation.

5.      Now, still squeezing your thumb and finger together, remember that calm feeling of being in control and once again imagine being in that situation that used to seem stressful. This time, imagine a few challenges occurring and notice yourself handling all the challenges perfectly. See what you’ll see, hear what you hear and feel how good it feels to be so much calmer and in control in this situation.

6.      Stop and think about that situation now. Notice the difference from only a few minutes ago. Do you feel less stressed and more in control? If not, just repeat the exercise until you do!

Each time you do this exercise, it will become easier and easier to experience feelings of relaxation and calm ‘at your fingertips’…

When you feel comfortable with this exercise, you are ready to reprogram yourself to be generally more relaxed – to trigger your natural relaxation response at will and experience a greater sense of ease and wellbeing in any area of your life.

Remember, your nervous system cannot tell the difference between a real and vividly imagined experience, so each time in the past that you imagined a stressful situation, you experienced that stress almost as much as if it were really happening now.

By imagining those same situations but this time responding with inner calm instead of stress, you are reprogramming yourself to feel calmer and more in control in every area of your life. As you begin to feel better and better, you will be able to handle all those situations more effectively in the future.