"No" is a Complete Sentence
An important throwback... I need this reminder. Regularly.
NO.
This isn’t simple for me. This is the collision of my professional, people-pleasing part and my living with a chronic illness, disabled part.
For most of my life, the people pleaser in me said “yes.” Even when it meant working against my best interests. Even when it meant doing things that did not feel good. Even when it meant sacrificing my needs for the needs of someone else. Especially if someone else would benefit from my yessing.
I was good at this. And for a long time, I did not know that there was another way. Enter chronic illness. You better believe that I said ‘yes’ even more than I might have otherwise. I needed to demonstrate that I was okay. I needed to demonstrate that I was confident. That I was competent. That I was more than a diagnosis, and that I was capable, despite my limitations.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Until my body gave me the gift, and the responsibility, of saying no. Of needing to say no for self-preservation. Of needing to say no because saying yes was no longer serving my whole self.
In retrospect, it never was. So yes if you want to. But I understand that ‘NO.’ is a complete sentence. It requires no further explanation. And while I still grieve my ability to say yes, this illness and disability have given me the gift of saying no and not feeling much of anything about it. >>> You don’t need to have a chronic illness to say no. You do not need to be a disabled person to say no.
You need to be a human. You are worthy of saying no and expecting to be cared for and about anyway. I find that saying no around the holiday season is more difficult than it can be at other times of the year. The thing about the holiday season? It’s a relatively short period of time, and we need all of you to come out on the other side.
Setting limits for the win.
