Difficulty in saying No - Gabor Maté's Wisdom of Trauma

Here is a useful self-help exercise about saying No. It is from Gabor Maté's Wisdom of Trauma webinars on Zoom in Oct 2021 at www.scienceandnonduality.com. 

I wrote this up from his words of wisdom. It a six-part exercise that you can do if you have trouble saying No. (And it's not self-accusation, it's self-inquiry.)

1. When in your life is it difficult to say No? (When is there a No that wants to be said but you don't say it?)
2. What is the impact of your difficulty in saying No? (Eg physically, emotionally; eg anger, stress, poor sleep, autoimmune disease, tiredness, powerlessness)
• Note that No is the first meaningful word that we say. There's a reason that nature designed us to start that way. 
• Not saying No has a huge impact, especially on your relationships. Here's the irony of it: you don't say No because you want to preserve your relationship. But when you don't say No, you feel resentment towards the person that you don't say No to. It moves you away from them. It does the opposite of what it's meant to do.
3. What was the belief behind your inability to say No. 
• There's likely to be a hidden belief there. Examples: 
• I'm responsible for other people and don't want to let them down.
• If I say no, I'll be a bad person and feel guilty. 
4. Where did I learn this belief?
5. What am I not saying Yes to?
• There's something you want to say Yes to. It might be: an inner calling; to be outside in nature; it might be to write, to paint, to dance, to make music. 
• What you are not saying Yes to is just as damaging as what you're not saying No to.
6. Who would I be if I didn't have these beliefs?
• Eg a person who does not have to believe that they are responsible for other people.
• Eg someone who won't see these people again. 
• ... People, that's the whole point. As a child, you had this dilemma: If I'm authentic, I'll lose the attachment of my loved one. So, to keep the attachment, I mustn't be authentic. That was the dilemma that you had as a child. You had no choice in the matter. Now, you do. Now you can ask yourself, what would I rather have? Usually, saying No is not as drastic as having to give up major relationships in your life.

When you say no, you're going to find out who your friends are. They want the best for you. There will be others whose friendship is conditional, whose attachment to you depends on your meeting their needs. 

Do you want those people in your life? Do you want a drain on your energy? I can't make that decision for you. But it's the same question that keeps coming up: authenticity or attachment? Ideally, we can have both. 

Ideally, you'll form relationships with people who will celebrate you being yourself, but it may take a while. What happens is that we attract people to ourselves at a kind of an energetic level. If you're authentic you're going to attract authentic people. You couldn't do that as a child because you had no choice in the matter at that time. If you still perceive yourself as not having freedom now, it's because the child part of you is still dominating. And that's something to work on.