Saying No

For many of us, the most difficult word to say is one of the shortest and easiest in the vocabulary: No. Go ahead, say it aloud: No.

No - simple to pronounce, hard to say. Were afraid people wont like us, or we feel guilty. We may believe that a good employee, child, parent, spouse, or Christian never says no.

The problem is, if we dont learn to say no, we stop liking ourselves and the people we always try to please. We may even punish others out of resentment.

When do we say no? When no is what we really mean.

When we learn to say no, we stop lying. People can trust us, and we can trust ourselves. All sorts of good things happen when we start saying what we mean.

If were scared to say no, we can buy some time. We can take a break, rehearse the word, and go back and say no. We dont have to offer long explanations for our decisions.

When we can say no, we can say yes to the good. Our nos and our yess begin to be taken seriously. We gain control of ourselves. And we learn a secret: No isnt really that hard to say.

Today, I will say no if that is what I mean.

You are reading from the book:

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

The Language of Letting Go © 1990 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the permission of Hazelden.