NoLast week I signed off with a challenge – to think about freedom, how much you are getting or not, and how it’s working. So how did you do? How much freedom are you giving yourself, and if you aren’t giving yourself enough, what’s in the way? I can already imagine the answers to this question – work’s in the way, children, responsibilities, aging parents and so on.

All of these are legitimate aspects of life we have to deal with, but the real key is connected to what you are not doing. One of the biggest ways we give away freedom is failing (or refusing) to say, “No.” Do you have difficulty saying “No”? Or when you do say “no,” do you feel guilty?

I’ve often dealt with this in workshops I’ve taught. People want to say no, but end up saying yes because they think people will be upset with them, or the job won’t get done properly. So the real question is, “what you are getting from saying yes, or doing the job yourself?”

If we examine this closely, the pattern of saying yes is to meet either your need for belonging (people being happy with you), or your need for power (the job done properly), and is at the expense of freedom. This isn’t a good solution, and usually results in resentment. The resentment will inevitably come out and “bite you in the butt.”

So what’s the alternative? If you focus on the external, what others think, or even the job in question it’s going to be very hard to say no. Instead, what I encourage you to do is focus on yourself. Do you want to be a person who can say “no” happily, clearly and with no guilt? If your answer is yes, then read on.

What I’ve discovered is needed is to dramatically alter your thinking patterns. If you’ve been a long time “yes” person, you’ll have deeply grooved those “yes” neural pathways. Your brain will almost say yes automatically. To shift this takes a little focus and commitment, but is well worth it.

The starting point is to establish what you want to be thinking, instead entertaining the old patterns of worry, etc. What new thoughts would you like to be using? Or, to put it another way, what would you need to be thinking in order to say yes easily?

The most common answer is, “I have a right to say no.” This is a great answer, and here’s the problem – that’s often the only alternative that seems to exist. Repeating, over and over in your head, “I have a right to say no”, isn’t going do the trick. You need a whole collection of great thoughts to support you in re-training your brain. So what other thoughts could you think? Here are a few of my favourites:

  • Smart people say no!
  • Saying no means I have good boundaries
  • Saying no is good for my health
  • Good parents model “saying no”
  • I am respecting myself when I say no
  • Saying no is a sign of maturity

And finally I love the concept of saying an “Enlightened No.”

Once you have at least six great statements, say them internally one at a time. As you say them, step into the feeling. It’s the feeling that really locks them into your system. Feel the power or freedom, or maybe even the love you have for yourself, as you say, “no.” Do this daily and enjoy the great feeling of saying no internally. It takes only a few minutes and you can even do it in the bathroom. The key is to say them slowly and feel how good it is to say no. By doing this you are building a whole new set of neural pathways that will serve you well for the rest of your life.

Brene Brown, in Daring Greatly, writes about shame based communication – communication where we are made to feel bad about what we think, feel or want to do. We have all been on the receiving end of that kind of communication and it’s very toxic. So let’s put a stop to that, and not shame ourselves either.

For the next week track how often you want to say no but don’t, practice saying no internally using all the thoughts that support your “no,” and then try them out. Let me know what happens when you say “no” to someone, or explain that you are saying an “enlightened no.” That may get them thinking too!

Virgina Satir, a very famous therapist identified what she called the Five Freedoms—linked to our five senses—freedom to see, freedom to hear, freedom the speak, freedom to feel and freedom to touch. In a humorous way she portrayed what happens when we restrict these freedoms by blindfolding a person, putting cotton in their ears, stuffing their mouth with a cloth and tying their hands behind their back.

Is “Freedom Just another Word for Nothing Left to Lose?”