How to say NO. Hint: You don’t have to explain yourself

Aaaaa, do you see the light when answering NO?

“Watch for any kind of defensiveness within yourself. What are you defending? An illusory identity, an image in your mind, a fictitious entity.”

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Many years ago, I saw someone with the habit of needing to explain himself on the game show You Bet Your Life. Long before his scandalous lifestyle was revealed, host Bill Cosby asked a contestant if his mother ever made a certain recipe indigenous to his home country. The guy went into a long harangue ending with his mother didn’t.

Mr. Cosby replied that a simple no would’ve sufficed.

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I had a lesson in discernment. I gave fuel for discussion when a simple no would have sufficed.

A friend stumbled with words while asking me for a favor. Actually, I had to state the question because, after telling me a long, explanatory backstory, the favor was implied but never asked.

I immediately knew my answer. However, opting to practice diplomacy and restraint instead of blurting out a flabbergasting, “Are you nuts? That doesn’t work on so many levels,” I said I would get back with my decision.

Later that day, life provided an incident illustrating that to fulfill the request wasn’t a good idea. The next day, while sharing what happened, I segued into declining the request siting my recent experience as an illustration of why I didn’t want to do what was asked.

My answer was challenged. Although I didn’t defend myself, I listened to how a simple “no” would have been okay, but my reason wasn’t acceptable because it wasn’t believed.

It made no sense to elaborate my why because the question wouldn’t have been posed if it were looked at more deeply by her in the first place. A favor was requested, not a dissertation.

Furthermore, experience has taught me that introducing logic when someone is emotional rarely promotes clear communication.

Upon reflection, I learned several lessons.

1. Keep it simple. If I said, “No, it doesn’t work for me,” I could’ve avoided her rant. There wouldn’t have been fuel for rebuttal.
   
2. Use discernment. Historically, my observation of this person’s emotional state in the past was a clue that my decision to explain even a little wasn’t a good call. Additionally, the favor wouldn’t have been asked if this person knew better. To someone closer to me, I might have shared more of my thoughts. Even though life provided me with my validation, I didn’t have to share it.

“Expecting healthy behavior from unhealthy people is futile; expecting different results from the same behaviors, according to Earnie Larsen, is insane.”

 Melodie Beatty, Codependent No More

(Yikes. I would add, we have to admit to ourselves that they have unhealthy behavior. In the past, I often, way too often, choosing to see the best in people, wouldn’t allow myself to see that.)

3. Don’t tiptoe around people’s emotions. I was tired of dealing with anger and sensitivity, so I listened to but didn’t stop the rant. By not drawing the line, I gave away my power to her. Why should I tiptoe around others because they might get upset?  It’s not my responsibility to take care of others’ emotions as long as I’m not dumping mine on them. I didn’t exercise my option to stop the rant and say, “My answer is no, and it’s not up for discussion.”

4. There’s no need to defend my choices and beliefs. On the bright side, I didn’t inwardly react or feel the need to elaborate on my reasoning upon demand. By not reacting, I observed more dynamics of the interaction.

“Even if you don’t hold your ground, moving differently in a relationship is the best way to learn about your own self and the relationship. Only after you begin to change a relationship can you really see it.”

 Harriet Goldhor Lerner, The Dance of Anger

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Tired of giving away your power, even though you might
not realze that’s what you’re doing? Contact me at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share
their gifts or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck or could 
use new tools or support.

I help them ignite their Soul’s goals
and be richly compensated doing what
they love.

Originally posted as an excerpt from my Soulgoal Missive a long time ago.

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Can You Be Grateful About What Bugs You?

Once I asked someone who’s wise why things in my life weren’t working. I said that I practiced gratitude every morning and night. The reply I received was what was I doing the rest of the day?

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Gratitude, continuous gratitude, will change your life!

That can seem easier said than done at times, until we realize…

we’re rarely angry for the reason we think we’re angry. How dare they!

That feeling is not necessarily about the other person or situation being wrong. The emotion triggered may be from a similar, emotional memory or our perception that may or may not be accurate.

The reason we have charged emotions is because those challenging feelings surface (and then we get bugged about things) when it’s time for them to be released.

Have you noticed how sometimes people can jump to the wrong conclusion and then become upset by their interpretation, even if it’s false?

Regardless if the other was right or actually the wrongdoer, holding on to a lack of forgiveness or a one-sided, limiting perspective might feel empowering. It might feel validating, proof that you’re right and the other is wrong.

However, there might be another side of the story that’s not being considered because of being locked into a particular viewpoint.

The ego loves feeling right.

But your Essence knows the trap of self-righteousness and sees things differently.

A mother copped an attitude about perceived activity regarding her senior-aged daughter. Things she never did. Not even close. In fact, her accusations were ludicrous.

The whole issue could have been easily dismissed, but not even going to mediation altered her mother’s foolish perspective.

Rather than talking about it or seeing proof to the contrary, she set a court date!

She had her daughter evicted from her house through a court order the day before Thanksgiving. Her daughter had nowhere to go.

By the way, she had invited her daughter, who was down on her luck, to live with her. To do that, she had to sell her car and belongings and move over a thousand miles away.

Replacing her anger, frustration, hurt and fear of what her own mother was doing to her, the daughter began to send her mother love, disregarding any of her mother’s unforgiving attitudes.

The mother began to soften and question her hardline approach.

Empowerment through shifting your perspective to love and gratitude are more truly empowering than feeling justification through a lack of forgiveness or holding onto the feeling of what bugs you. Maybe there’s another angle you’re overlooking.

Perhaps, given an opportunity, you can clear the energy on whatever might be bugging you through discussion or seeing things from a different viewpoint. It doesn’t matter if that does or doesn’t work, love is the greatest healer.

Even if others are convinced you’re wrong, you can be emotionally free.

So if you get annoyed at your world and whatever bugs you about it, consider that there might be another perspective so that you can send love and give thanks, instead.

With gratitude,

Virginia

Edited from an excerpt of a November 19, 2018 Soulgoals’ Blog Post

Contact me to learn how a shift in perspective can dramatically improve your life:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share
their gifts or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck or could 
use new tools or support.

I help them ignite their Soul’s goals
and be richly compensated doing what
they love.

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Short Read: Overwhelmed?

Short because I know you’re too overwhelmed to read anything long

“Focus brings power with it. If you clear away the thing that’s keeping you from your goal, you can then move directly toward the goal. If your mind is concerned with only one thing instead of two – especially if the two conflict! – you’ll get a lot more mileage out of its use.”

Sterling W. Sill, The International Journal of Success

How can you get control of your life? While you’re thinking, let me share a client’s story.

“The thought What am I going to do today? made me dizzy while I was flat in my bed. At that point I knew I had to stay home and not do anything except take care of myself, prioritize, and discover what makes me happy. I realized I wasn’t helping anybody because I needed to help myself. One by one I backed off from activities where I could be replaced and started to focus on what is important to me.”

There are so many demands on our time – family, work, responsibilities, friends, personal care, problem solving and more – that we can get overwhelmed.

Who’s got time to focus on what’s most important to us and our dreams? But then, if we don’t tend to these, we’ll stay where we are. So much to deal with. It can be confusing and exhausting.

Have you seen the apparatus on some sci-fi shows that scatters someone’s image into a dozen different places so the real person can’t be found? That’s what our lives are like when we allow ourselves to overextend into too many activities. We lose ourselves.

Of course, this offers us a great excuse, too, as it’s much easier to jump from one activity to another, adopt a non-productive feeling of being overwhelmed so we can’t think straight, or change from one goal or project to another, than to see them to completion without feeling frazzled. 

“In soloing, as in other activities, it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.”

Amelia Earhart 

How can you get control of your life?

• Get clear on what you want 
• Focus on this as a priority 
• Decide you’re going to skip feeling overwhelmed
• Enjoy the process
• Take action.

Oh, you may as well have fun while doing this! It makes life so much easier

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Does the thought of not being overwhelmed feel overwhelming?

Contact me to learn how to get more control of your life:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share
their gifts or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck or could 
use new tools or support.

I help them ignite their Soul’s goals
and be richly compensated doing what
they love.

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Stop Feeling There’s Something Wrong With You

Stop scaring yourself with the stories you tell about yourself.

“Regardless of how he presents himself he is your gremlin and his view of “what is so” is grounded in make-believe. Be aware of him. It is unnecessary to try to ignore him or to fight. Simply notice him.”

Richard D. Carson, Taming Your Gremlin, A Guide to Enjoying Yourself

I had mononucleosis in college and was out of school for a month. It took me a while to return to the rhythm of taking classes again. At the same time, my boyfriend came home from his college, and we enjoyed ourselves visiting with his family.
 
For me to make my 2 P.M. class, I had to leave his house at 1 P.M. At 1:15 I could have gone, but I would have been late. At 1:30 it was a lost cause and water over the dam… but not for me.
 
They listened to me try to decide “should I or shouldn’t I go” for a while. Then when it was too late to leave, they listened to me whine that I should have gone. Finally, his older brother said, “You made your decision. Stop beating yourself up over what you chose to do. There is nothing you can do about it now. Let it go.”

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I didn’t realize I had a choice in my thinking. I thought the responsible thing to do was agonize over my decision so it would be known that I knew I should have gone but somehow couldn’t rise to the occasion… and there’s something wrong with me.

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So much unnecessary confusion follows this type of thinking, because the “problem” isn’t happening outside of us.

The problem is caused from our perception and reaction to what occurs.

The downside is that a great deal of energy is spent spinning around something that doesn’t matter, and then comes another problem – frustration. It’s very difficult to get off a merry-go-round when it’s moving in circles.

When we go in circles we watch life pass us by and think about so many things we would like to do and have to do that we’re not doing…

Then we jump off one ride, not to land on solid ground of “what is,” but to go on another ride. We start beating ourselves up over what we didn’t do or perhaps what we feel we should’ve done.

There are additional carnival adventures such as getting angry, which is a variation of the frustration ride. Other forms of entertainment include blame, worry, fear, anxiety, and playing victim. Another favorite is inaction – spending a lot of time on the merry-go-round of the mind creates such dizziness that it’s impossible to think straight and be clear enough to do anything.

If you insist on thinking there’s something wrong with you, you’re off on a roller coaster ride.

You may choose to change some of your actions and the consequences they create, but there’s nothing wrong with you.

Does any of this sound familiar?

The effort used focusing on these rides instead could be redirected to what’s important to you.

The first step is to put an adult in your control booth, thank your inner kids for picking up the slack during your time out, and communicate confidence that qualified supervision is taking over.

If this sounds like schizophrenic behavior, that’s what happens when we allow child parts of ourselves to take over and rule our lives as if they are us. Our perceptions and reactions become those of a child in an adult body.

How can you make the shift?

You know. Inside of you, you know.

Think about how a mature adult talks and acts, and start talking to yourself that way.

The adult you is only found in the now, not the past or the future.

You can show yourself self-respect and appreciation. Speak to yourself the way you would like others to talk with you.

Few will treat you any better than you treat yourself.

A child part will not be shushed or ignored, or like a child, it simply will act out in another way. What it wants is what any child wants, even though it may be rebellious. It wants to know it is safe and loved.

You provide the internal terrain that is a safe haven by acting like an adult who is in control, and the child part can relax and leave you at peace.
 
One tool to accomplish this is to simply notice it, without reacting or judging or making yourself wrong.

Be the watcher, the observer. 

As your gain greater perspective, you may see that perhaps you could make different choices, but there’s nothing wrong with you.

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Tired of that sickening feeling of feeling wrong?
Contact me to learn how at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share
their gifts or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck or could 
use new tools or support.

I help them ignite their Soul’s goals
and be richly compensated doing what
they love.

Original Soulgoal Missive written in 2002 

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

What Do You Do? Follow or Be Courageous?

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

“I’m the man of the house (although he didn’t act like a responsible one, financially or otherwise), and you need to follow me and support me in everything I do.”

However, she wasn’t considered by him to be a good wife because she started to say no.

In the end, she lost her house that she bought before she married, lost her car, lost her savings, nearly lost her mind, plus the police showed up so often that they knew her by name – because when she disagreed, the beatings would begin.

For him, it was a personal affront that she wouldn’t agree with him.
 
She told me, “I was brought up to be compliant with my husband. But he was an idiot, and the results proved it. He was misogynistic and would never take any advice – but instead would do the opposite.

“I was going in two different directions. How can you follow someone if they’re taking you to a dead end, and all the time you know that direction is wrong?

“Even a rat has enough sense to jump off a sinking ship. I had to leave the relationship. I had to save my life.”

Just because people you “should” believe say something, demand your obedience to follow, repeatedly lie to fit their own purpose but call it the truth, doesn’t make it true.

The good news. If it weren’t for him, she never would have the clarity she has now to speak her truth, especially in a male-dominated industry where she works.

Her ex trained her to no longer be a wimp and not value others’ reactions more than trusting herself.

She knew better. But she allowed herself to be bullied by someone who was metaphorically blind and demanded unreasonable loyalty.

Eventually, she allowed herself to act on what she knew, what she had the courage to honestly see, and leave him.

Sounds crazy? You think you wouldn’t do something like that?

This is what belief systems can do. If a person believes something, even though the belief is false or doesn’t make sense or can be harmful, people often stick with it.

Her belief was she was taught to be compliant to her husband. See where that belief brought her?

While in my twenties and in a horrific marriage, I had a dream. For months later, although I couldn’t understand its significance at the time, I put its quote on my dresser.

FIND THE HEART AND RESCUE IT. 

Friend, what do you see? Is there something in your life where you know better, you’re ignoring it, but you’re following obediently or blindly anyway?
 
Courage. You can allow yourself to know what you know. Call it for what it is, even if only to yourself.

DON’T GIVE AWAY YOUR POWER.

• Think for yourself, not what others tell you or what you read on the internet.  If what you firmly believe in is showing cracks and not working like you thought it should, reconsider.
• See, and then take action according to what your gut and heart tell you, along with your logic, instead of what others say you should feel or do or be.

You may discover your personal honesty is the inevitable route to freedom.

“Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Time to reclaim your power?
Contact me to learn how at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share
their gifts or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck or could 
use new tools or support.

I help them ignite their Soul’s goals
and be richly compensated doing what
they love.

Original Soulgoal Missive written in 2002   

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.