It’s OK to say NO

Growing up, my parents insisted I eat everything on my plate—including turnip and a big blob of mustard I once squirted on a hamburger as a joke. They dressed me and fed me, and kept a roof over my head. But they never said, “I love you”, or hugged me just for the sake of hugging.

Now clearly, they were doing the best they could. But you can see that some of their boundaries were too tight—like cleaning up everything on your plate, and others were too loose—the lack of affection.

As kids, we go through the “no” phase. Our parents call that “the terrible two’s”. It’s hard on them, or on us, as parents. But what happens is, we’re either taught no emotional boundaries, or we’re tied up in knots by boundaries, or both at the same time.

The real problem is that, in either case, we grow up not being our authentic selves. Many of us have anger and rage for either always been told what to do and disciplined when we fail, or being emotionally abandoned all the time. Some of us end up not being our authentic selves. If some one says to us, “Hey, it’s cold out today”, we rush to agree. If some one says, 5 minutes later, “it’s too hot out today”, we agree with them.

One of the ways we can become our authentic selves, and not have to either hold our anger in, or let it explode, is to allow ourselves to say No sometimes. So you’re too tired to go to the baseball game on Friday night; say no (kindly) and take a rain check. Some one says,” Don’t you love this color I’m wearing?” If you don’t think it suits them, don’t hurt their feelings, but also don’t gush about how it looks on them, when you think it’s awful on them.

Some one once said, to practice being emotionally healthy, it takes 10 No’s to 1 Yes.

Lynn Hostein MA is a anger management instructor at Daybreak Counseling Service. She teaches in Van Nuys and Pasadena, California. For more information regarding anger management classes in the Los Angeles area. Please call 855-662-6437 or visit www.daybreakservices.com