How to Say No Without Feeling Bad

Why do so many people have difficulty saying no?  Sometimes it goes back to our original programming from early development.  Where did you learn that saying no would cause someone to feel bad and react negatively?  So many people are programmed to associate setting boundaries with negative consequences.  Do you ever get that sinking feeling when you have to tell someone the word ‘no’ that you’re going to end up feeling worse?  Maybe you try to candy coat it ahead of time, or come up with excuses rather than just saying, ‘No thank you’, or ‘I’m not interested’.  Saying the word ‘No’ often involves letting others down, causing disappointment and ultimately feeling bad about yourself for having ‘caused their negative reaction’.  This is in quotes because that is the fallacy of it. You having boundaries is not the cause of their negative reaction.  Their negative reaction is because they don’t like boundaries.

Saying no can be difficult and uncomfortable. We often feel guilty or obligated to say yes, even when we don’t want to. This is due to years of conditioning and brainwashing that have been ingrained in the neuro pathways and nervous system. We've been taught that saying no is wrong or selfish, so we feel bad when we do it.
However, it's important to learn how to say no without feeling bad. Learning how to set boundaries and stand up for ourselves can help us avoid manipulation and guilt-tripping from others. Let’s look at the importance of saying no without feeling bad and explore ways to do it effectively.
Our brains map out the world around us at warp speed in the developmental years. It identifies pros and cons of each action, and each sensory input.  It lets us know which way to go, move toward something or away from something.  This training is what our brains automatically do so that we don’t have to relearn everything every day.

Humans are prewired to attach to their parents. The attachment helps with survival. Parents are tasked with the responsibility of providing a safe environment for their children, guiding them to safety, keeping them healthy and helping them develop into independently functioning human beings.  But along with the responsibility of raising kids there needs to be a certain amount of trust, training and attachment in order for the child to be guided.  Parents need to have influence over their children because without it children would do whatever they wanted to.

Parents’ reactions to childrens’ behavior play a massive role in the mapping of the brain’s understanding of the world. For example, when a parent shows disappointment to a child, or when the child perceives the parent as being disappointed in them, the child’s brain maps this as devastational because it feels like rejection.  Rejection could mean life or death to a young mammal of any species. This is why our brains are wired for attachment.  It is fundamental survival.  The protective brain then associates all sensory inputs at that moment with something powerfully negative and marks them with alarms to indicate danger in future similar situations.  If the event involves the child saying ‘no’ or resisting, then that action is marked with emotional coding to alarm the nervous system and map out directions to avoid that in the future. This is just one example.  There are many ways that positive and negative consequences can influence the notion that saying ‘no’ causes discomfort.  

That mapping or ‘programming’ served a purpose, especially in childhood, to help keep children from hurting themselves or others.  But as children grow into adults, the programming might become outdated.  These adults might find themselves agreeing to things that they later feel resentful about.  Our needs shift and change throughout our lives.  As this happens, the programming needs to be updated. When the programming is at an unconscious level, how can we consciously update it?  We must bring it into the consciousness to make this happen.

Understanding that the uncomfortable feeling you have when saying no is possibly just old programming trying to protect you can help. Except that the feelings are so negative and it is difficult to work through them.  This is where retraining comes in.  Think of some types of therapy as retraining those old, outdated neural networks that are contained not only in the brain, but throughout the nervous system. Like any other training, it doesn’t happen overnight and it takes practice. The program needs to be updated.  You will feel discomfort in the process because anything that goes against the programming will cause discomfort.  It was designed to cause discomfort to keep you operating in a way that returned the least amount of negativity.  Things like EMDR or other trauma-focused modalities can facilitate this process by conditioning the protective part of the brain to relax while accessing the and processing the old programming or underlying negative messages.  

There are ways to begin doing this on your own, too.  You can practice saying no in less threatening situations and sit with that discomfort. Go into the discomfort, locate it in your nervous system and observe the cognition that is associated with it.  Recognize that it may be relaying outdated and false information.  Give consideration to your heart and why you wanted to say no in the first place.  Ask yourself if you were trying to cause harm or if you were simply protecting yourself in some way such as your time, or your energy. Over time, that part of you realizes that there is no longer such a strong need to protect the feelings of others.  That part of you begins to learn the essential need to protect yourself instead and allow others to do the same.  Essentially you are managing your health. 

By Deborah Ashway, LCMHC, LCAS
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