It feels mean to say no
We know that setting boundaries reduces anxiety, that saying no protects our peace. But so often, I hear some version of, “If I set this boundary, the person will be upset, and I will feel guilty, so it’s better for me to continue having panic attacks/taking seven medications/crying all the time/hating my life than to face this conflict and guilt.”
Guilt operates to confine us and control our behavior. The second we try to escape our role as pleaser, guilt puts us back in our place. Guilt is our punishment for daring to be autonomous.
We can retrain ourselves to interpret guilt as pointing out something we need to do to grow. “If I don’t go out to lunch with my aunt when I’m in town, I will feel so guilty.” Great! Don’t go to lunch with her. Guilt signals that you are heroically disrupting a dysfunctional pattern—so move towards it.
It is much easier to deal with the guilt of setting a boundary than it is to manage the fallout that comes if you don’t. People say, “I can’t skip [holiday] at home because I will feel too guilty.” So they go, and then we end up dealing with the trauma from that visit for the next four months in therapy.
We should feel guilty when we actively do something mean. We should not feel guilty for simply living our lives. So here’s a pop quiz. Are the following acts a) mean or b) just authentic and not at all mean even though some people may react as if you are evil and intentionally murdering them?
1) Moving away from home
2) Punching someone in the face
3) Declining to go on a family vacation
4) Spreading a false rumor that your neighbor is embezzling from the PTA to fund their Afrin habit
5) Requesting to be called by your name and not your childhood nickname
6) Stealing your cousin’s puppy
7) Not answering the phone when you’re busy or not in the mood to talk
8) Throwing your sister’s car keys down the storm drain
9) Asking someone to please drive a little bit slower
Answer key: 1) b, 2) a, 3) b, 4) a, 5) b, 6) a, 7) b, 8) a, 9) b
How’d we do? Easy to differentiate, right? So why is it so confusing real-time when someone tries to make you feel (a) for doing (b)?
Very commonly, family “logic” goes like this: I have come to depend on your soothing. When you stop soothing me, I feel pain. Ergo, you have caused my pain, you horrible mean person. Incorrect! Unhealed pain is exposed, yes, but the cause of that pain has nothing to do with the person being blamed. The only person who can heal someone’s pain is themselves. If they are counting on someone else to do it, that is not only unfair but ineffective. I get why people would rather be soothed than face their pain. It’s fucking painful. But it’s what adults do.
I wish we could send a memo to our nervous systems when we achieve independence that says, “You can shed those people-pleasing survival patterns because I no longer need those relationships to survive. At this point in time, if they reject and shun me, that would be very sad, but I would not die.” Therapy is a long, slow way of trying to get this intellectual understanding into our cells.
Let’s try another quiz, the flip side of the last one. Are the following acts (a) people pleasing or (b) authentically being nice?
1) Loaning your friend your car when you don’t need it that day anyway
2) Loaning your friend your car even though you actually need it and they returned it full of trash and empty of gas last time, but if you don’t, they will give you the silent treatment
3) Going to your friend’s performance because you love spoken word
4) Going to your friend’s performance even though spoken word makes you want to stab something and the event is four hours long and you’re going to be in a terrible mood the whole time and likely make passive-aggressive comments
5) Throwing your parents a mellow anniversary party with your siblings’ help
6) Throwing your parents a lavish anniversary party with no help from your siblings and paying too much money for it because your dad has been dropping hints that he wants an ice sculpture
7) Taking your brother to the airport at a time that works for you
8) Taking your brother to the farther away airport at 4am on a day you have an interview because you feel indebted from when he changed your light bulb last month
Answer key: 1) b, 2) a, 3) b, 4) a, 5) b, 6) a, 7) b, 8) a
Clear distinguishing features, right? Being nice doesn’t arise from a sense of obligation, debt, or fear of punishment. Being nice doesn’t harm you in any way; in fact, it feels good. It gets blurry because hardcore people-pleasers stopped asking themselves long ago what would feel good and exclusively started asking, “What will placate others, ie keep me safe?”
Slowly, we start to discover what you would do if it didn’t feel like life or death when someone might be mad at you. If love were granted unconditionally, not contingent on pleasing, how would that free you up? We come to understand that your worth and beauty and lovability is based in something much deeper than your willingness to sacrifice yourself. And though the guilt may never completely vanish, it becomes a guide rather than a plague.
