"No" is a word with a lot of power that helps you set limits, rules and follow your own desires and needs.
Do you feel like you are drowning? That you are being pushed from everywhere? Do you have a job that you can no longer manage and that weighs a lot on a professional and personal level? Maybe the time has come to include "No" in your repertoire.
"No" is a word with a lot of power that helps you set limits, rules and follow your own desires and needs. "No" is one of the first words we learn and learning it is considered a milestone in a child's development. Saying no to the child and later an adult learns to claim his independence and individuality.
So after we learn it and conquer it, we spend the rest of our childhood years learning to hold it. We learn to dominate within ourselves, not to share, to cooperate, to obey rules if we want to get along well with teachers, classmates and friends. And while this management of our instincts is necessary, sometimes the way we are raised, and more often we women, leads us to suppress our "noes" and thus lose an important tool in our emotional toolbox.
Although it is difficult for both sexes, it is often a challenge for women. Let's go back a little bit and remember our childhood years. Little girls are praised when they are wise, obedient, when they play calmly and get along well with others, boys on the other hand when they dare and when they win. Girls, when expressing their opinions, their stubbornness, their no, are criticized as awkward or authoritarian, descriptions that are rarely used in similar cases for boys.
We think "no" is not polite, it sounds bad and it makes us look negative, which is not the case. "No" and negativity are very different concepts. "No" is not a constant state or characteristic, it is a choice, it is a decision at a particular moment.
As we begin to be trained in the use of the "no", we will discover its power, we will realize that the world does not stop turning when we say it and others will not stop accepting us and loving us. If we overcome the taboo that accompanies the word, we may finally be able to live a more positive and successful life.
By saying no, where and when, to others we say yes to us!
