Self care: the power of saying No
Self-care is a strong theme for a lot of us right now. Learning to say no to people is one way that you can start saying yes to yourself more often.
It can be hard to say no in any situation for a bunch of reasons. A friend may ask a favour, family need you, you get invited somewhere, your work wants you to do overtime for no extra pay or perhaps paid very well. But something inside you is saying: "I can't do this."
You then look for an excuse to justify your no. You scroll through your diary and hope there's a good reason you can give for saying no. Your inner "I just can't" IS your good reason.
Sometimes we can't logically work out our inner no, we just need to trust our body. Maybe we're tired. Maybe our body knows something we don't know about what awaits us if we say yes to something that didn't feel right from the start, or some potential other opening that will become available to us if we do follow our gut, say no, and leave space for something that does feel right.
If you are prone to feeling guilty for saying no I can definitely relate. But if you look at it from another angle, constantly acting from a place of not wanting to let down others means that you regularly let down yourself. And a drained, depleted, exhausted self is no good to anyone.
Feed yourself. Fill your cup.
(c) Dana Mrkich 2016
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