A short presenter-led YouTube talk by Dr. Carol Darza (trauma psychologist) about why people find it hard to say no. She outlines cultural, psychological, and childhood-trauma-related reasons (fear of anger, guilt, having to say yes to be loved), describes negative outcomes of chronic yes-taking (overwhelm, burnout, relationship cost), and offers practical scripts and exercises (e.g., "I'm sorry, I can't do that", "let me think about it", compromise scripts, and an empty-chair practice).
Chapters
Hi, I'm Dr. Carol Darza, author, trauma psychologist and founder of Reconnect Trauma Treatment center in Los Angeles. Lately, I've had a lot of clients who have been talking about the difficulty to say no. So I decided to make a video about this today. Do you know how to say no? Let's talk about that first. Do you find yourself over scheduled, overbooked and overdoing for others? You might be really challenged with difficulty to say no and often finding yourself to say yes. So why is that so difficult? Why we can't say no to people? Let's talk about some, some of the reasons of why that happens first. Okay, so here's a client. I'm going to actually quote her. She said, my mom wasn't there for me when I was a child. She's talking about emotionally, and that made me want to be there for others. However, as I am doing more and more for other people, I'm now feeling burnout. So that's a very good example. So why do you have a hard time to say no? Here are some possibilities. Maybe you're afraid of people being upset with you when you say no, or you had an experience of you said no to someone and they were very upset with you and you didn't know how to handle that feeling. You might be feeling guilty because you really want to help others and you don't know how to find the balance between wanting to help others and really taking care of yourself. Another reason actually could be very cultural. So some cultures are much more giving oriented and saying no is really highly considered rude, especially in the Middle east and some Asian cultures that way as well. So you might think if you say no, that will be very rude and inconsiderate and you'll be labeled as selfish. Here are some psychological and trauma oriented reasons of why you might have a hard time to say no. That maybe you had to say yes in your family to be loved. And so of course now you may not be thinking of that consciously, but unconsciously you might find yourself afraid to say no to someone because then you might feel like, I'm not going to be loved anymore if I do that. Well, there's a sort of a harder part on the same spectrum of the trauma is that you might have a difficulty to say no because you're afraid of being abused. So if as a child, for instance, you were hit or yelled at or deprived of certain things when you inserted yourself and said no, you might find yourself having a very difficult time in adult relationships. This especially shows up in romantic Partnerships as well. So watch there. And just in general, the feeling, the fear of the reaction. A lot of people do not do well with anger and, or disappointment. Again, that's very much a childhood related topic. So if you're afraid that someone's going to get very angry at you and you don't know what you, what you can do with that, you might find yourself say no. So what happens when you chronically say yes to everything? Here are some possible outcomes. You could get overwhelmed, you could get overbooked, right? So you tend to do things for others and all of a sudden you have literally no time for yourself. You can get burned out. If this is an office environment, for instance, and maybe you're such a nice person and they keep giving you their own, their jobs. Next thing you know you are doing your work and somebody else's work and you might really get burned out. Now here's a very important disadvantage of saying yes to people that you shouldn't be saying yes to constantly is that when you say yes to someone, you might be saying no to someone else more important. So what happens often in especially again in romantic relationships that a partner might be saying no to their own partner, right? But saying yes to, to the neighbors and to the friends, because that's rude, but then really taking that time away from their marriage or from their partner and that could really cause a lot of problems. Or you might be saying yes to substances that are not good for you. So you wanted to maybe quit drinking or you didn't want to smoke anymore. You can't say no to people who offer you the substances and then you end up really hurting your body. So here are some examples of how to say no. So I know it's not easy. And if you're really struggling, especially where you find like this abuse, childhood abuse oriented, you might need a professional help. But otherwise I still wanted to give you guys a few step by step things of how to manage to say no. Actually a simple I'm sorry, I can't do this right now without any reason or excuse or any feeling sort of bad about it could be sometimes just a plain and simple thing to do. So sometimes you might have to actually memorize the sentence. When you memorize it, then it might be easier just to say it other than oh my God, what am I going to say? You know that fear, just be direct and honest about it, but say it without apologizing too much apology indicate that you're actually doing something bad. So just to say I'm sorry, I can't do it. So you see, of course I'm saying sorry, but not like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I know I'm supposed to help you, but I can't do it attitude would really put you in a position of like, that's your job, your duty is to help me and you're not helping, so you're bad. So just to say like, no, I'm sorry, I can't do that would be sufficient. Here's another easy way to get out of situations where you have a hard time to say no is to say, let me think about it, let me sit on it, and I'll get back to you tomorrow. Often people have an easier time if they give themselves some time and then maybe instead of face to face saying no, then the, you know, 24 hours later you text the person or you make a quick phone call and say, I know you need help in that way, but I'm sorry, I won't be able to help you. But having a bit of a space would really give you to check in with yourself and say, is this really right for me? And that's the question a lot of people forget. When someone asks something and you're saying yes, there's no really time in between to say, is this okay for me? Right? Here's maybe an easier way to also say no is that I can't do this, but I can't do that. So if you really feel like you still want to help the person, and although it's so hard, you could say, well, I can't do that, but how about I help you out with this? So definitely get clear about what your boundaries are. So you might want to actually spend a little bit time just on your own to see what are the things that you are okay with doing, you know, something for other people and what are the things that you are not. It's important to know who you are and it's important to to know in what areas you're capable and you're not capable. Don't make yourself responsible for other people's feelings. Yes. Be prepared. They might be disappointed if you say no, especially if you've been saying yes for a long time. People do not like change. So. But know that you are not responsible of someone else's feelings as long as you stay in a, say in a polite and considerate way. And of course, I'm not asking you to be rude. However they feel it's their responsibility, they're adults and you have to be able to let go of that. But Just in case, also be ready to let go of a person. So some relationships are not the healthy relationship. So if you find yourself after you said in a very positive way, you still try to sort of offer some help and the person is insisting about, no, I want you to do this for me, and otherwise, you know, some sort of a threat, then you might be ready to let go of that person. And last but not least, don't forget the price of saying yes. So consider this example. I had a client who is a single mom, has two children, and the neighbor often had sort of emergency work and would drop her own kids to my client. And while of course, she wanted to help once, twice, but what ended up happening, it became really quite of a habit. And then next thing you know, she's taking care of more than two kids, three kids who are not getting along as much. And she was really getting overwhelmed. And one night, finally, after all the kids were left, she found herself beyond exhausted and really behind of her own work of what she had to do. So that would be a price of saying yes to someone. And also, if you're saying yes and you're doing some favor to someone else, don't forget to ask the favor back. So it becomes much more balanced. So if you're helping someone else, then maybe ask something back. Don't just find yourself only giving, giving and not receiving. I have a suggestion for you to actually practice saying no. I know this is going to sound kind of funny, but if you've read my book, the Trauma Map, you'll. You'll read there the empty chair technique that I mentioned. So it's literally, you take an empty chair and put it in front of you. And let's say you're supposed to say no to your boss and you want to practice that. So you sit in this chair and you pretend that your boss is sitting in there. And you practice out loud the art of saying no. And you say to your boss, sorry, I can't do that. And then you get up and sit in the other chair and imagine the boss responding back to you. You can have back and forth conversation like this until you start feeling sort of desensitized and stronger about being able to say no. If you practice this tool, please write below your comments about it. I would love to hear how it went for you. I hope that my video was helpful. And thank you again for watching. And remember, trauma equals disconnect and healing equals reconnect. Stay connected, Sam.
