by Anne Dickson
Monica: That’s very kind of you but I know I’d be better in a hotel.
Penny: I feel terrible. You should have said last time if they were bothering you.
Monica: They weren’t bothering me, Penny. You were very kind and hospitable. It’s just that I need to get away from everything at the end of the day and it’s easier to stay in a hotel.
Penny: Well, we’ll be sorry not to see you.
Monica: I’ll be sorry too but I know it’s the best decision for me. There is one thing though. I’d really like to see you all while I’m there. Could I come round for a meal one evening? Would that be OK?
Sometimes it is appropriate to offer a compromise. Maggie and Monica offered a compromise which felt right because it did not negate what they had decided. On the other hand, Sally needed to leave right away because there was no point in drawing it out any further. It is important to follow through on your refusal. Backtracking weakens your position and confuses everyone concerned. If you stand firm, people know exactly where they stand with you: this encourages respect even when you are turning someone down.
This means challenging a deeply held assumption that a refusal is always a rejection of the other person: this is not necessarily so. When you say ‘no’ you are refusing the request, not rejecting the person, although this doesn’t mean that a refusal will never be experienced as rejection or that you have not felt rejected when someone said ‘no’ to you. There are bound to be occasions when the other person may well feel rejected by your refusal, even if assertively handled. This reaction can be used to manipulate you into changing your mind but, when there is such a response, it puts you in the front line of the tension between conflicting priorities. Only you can decide what is important enough for you to risk saying ‘no’ for – prioritising time on your own, privacy, spending your social time with people you want to be with – and only you know how important the decision is on each occasion.
The aggressive ‘no’ I remember that one of the repercussions of women being reminded about their right to say ‘no’ when I first started teaching assertiveness training was a pendulum swing in the opposite direction. Class members would arrive for the following session and proudly relate how they had said ‘no’ to their children, ‘no’ to their husbands and ‘no’ to their colleagues: clearly on a roll and making up for lost time. However, there was a problem in that the tendency was to say ‘no’ (which was good) only by excluding consideration of the other person (which was aggressive). When you say ‘no’ while blocking out the person’s request, there is no equality in the interaction: by over-ruling anyone else’s right to ask – or their right to respond – we are, in fact, behaving aggressively.
This kind of ‘aggressive’ refusal is most frequently used by those who say ‘I don’t know what the problem is – just say NO! They soon get the message!’ It has become the norm in so many contexts that we assume wrongly that this is assertive. If you don’t want to shut out the other person and pretend they don’t exist, then an assertive refusal entails a different dynamic: it entails negotiating in an equal manner. It means listening to the request first. Once you feel assured that you have made the right decision for yourself, you can acknowledge that someone is angry or disappointed or upset without immediately trying to appease your own guilt. Nor do you have to make excuses but accept that this is your decision and stand by it.
A refusal does not have to be heavy, aggressive or hurtful. By clearly taking responsibility for your decision, you can also give the other person equal space to express their feelings. This allows the other person to feel acknowledged even though you are saying ‘no’. They do not feel their needs have simply been overridden or ignored.
Equality applies both ways. It is also important to consider your part in failing to set limits when deep down you want to: this is the down-side of doing something for someone only because you feel sorry for them or because you tell yourself they couldn’t survive being told ‘no’. Submerging your own needs when you want to refuse is not necessarily charitable: it can be invalidating and demeaning for the other person. Think twice before acting out of pity.
When you do not remain true to your own needs and wishes and you put aside a heartfelt ‘no’ for a half-hearted ‘yes’, don’t kid yourself that it does not matter. The heartfelt ‘no’ will seek expression through some outlet. A refusal, if not open and direct, will always emerge in an indirect manner.
The indirect ‘no’ Have you ever sulked or bellyached your way through an evening because you did not want to be there? Have you ever left a job to the last minute, done a task badly or ‘forgotten’ about a chore because you did not want to do it in the first place? Have you turned up late to a meeting that you did not want to attend or lost an address when you didn’t want to arrive there? Sometimes we use our bodies to say ‘no’: headaches and backaches appear with miraculous timing when they can provide an unimpeachable excuse for not attending a function to which we could have said ‘no’ in the first place.
If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of an indirect ‘no’, you’ll also understand how infuriating it is when someone cancels at the last minute with an excuse you know is fake or when someone has agreed to help you and then lets you down by not turning up. Most of us have responded with surprise, disappointment and frustration with people who did not say a clear honest ‘no’ at the time. There is a security in knowing that you can trust someone to say what they mean: that they will say ‘yes’ when they mean ‘yes’ and ‘no’ when they mean ‘no’. Instead of feeling guilty for accepting someone’s help, you can allow yourself the pleasure of knowing they are free to choose.
Finally, it may be helpful to remind yourself that you have the right to change your mind. It can act as a half-way house while you are still learning to say ‘no’ effectively. We have become so unaccustomed to thinking for ourselves and to knowing what we want that an assertive and immediate refusal takes a lot of practice. A commendable compromise, and one that many women have found helpful, is the following: you do not have to suffer for an unassertive decision. If you realise you really wanted to say ‘no’, instead of avoiding someone, ignoring a phone call or trying to concoct all sorts of acceptable excuses, try taking the initiative and communicate your change of heart in a firm and assertive manner.
This right includes the responsibility to communicate your change of heart and not leave it to the last minute: you could risk facing a reaction of disappointment or frustration but taking time to acknowledge the other person’s feelings is often a better alternative to feeling trapped and resentful in the aftermath of your own indecisiveness. The advantage of saying ‘no’ assertively is that you have more time to spend on things you want to say ‘yes’ to instead of wasting time trying to extricate yourself from various unwanted commitments.
There is, of course, one remaining issue we haven’t yet dealt with: how do we cope with feeling guilty when we say ‘no’? This is what we address in the next chapter.
9
Self Disclosure
This is a new chapter. Although self-disclosure was included in the original, it is given more prominence this time because, although it sounds simple, I know from teaching this skill over many years, first, how supremely effective it is, second, how amazed people are when they get the hang of it and third, how very difficult it is to learn. This essential skill could be called the jewel in the assertive crown. It is not to be confused with a heart-to-heart dialogue or a chance to confess everything once and for all. It is not complex or sophisticated: it is a simple expression in words of the truth of what you are feeling.
Difficulties in putting our feelings into words arise from the following anxieties going round in our minds:
If I say what I feel, I’ll give them more power over me; I’ll be more vulnerable – I’ll be labelled hysterical Although it is true that there are certainly occasions when it is wiser to keep quiet and probably more appropriate to do so, most of the time this anxiety
is based on the cultural dismissal of ‘emotional’ as ‘weak’ and in the workplace, for example, tradition requires that feelings are excluded from all interactions. Even in a professional context though, it is important to distinguish between, on one hand, naming specific feelings to make our communication more truthful and more effective (self-disclosure) and, on the other, being ‘over-emotional’ and incoherent (messy collapse). It is entirely possible to acknowledge anxiety or annoyance and remain competent at the same time: it all depends on the way you do it.
I might get it wrong Fear of looking foolish discourages us from listening to our emotional wisdom and makes us reluctant to address feelings that might show us in a bad light. It also means that we tend to hold back until we imagine we are absolutely in the right which quickly translates into being in a superior position: a guarantee that the other person will respond defensively.
I can’t find the words Understandable, but practice really does help.
If I don’t say anything, the problem will just go away Highly unlikely! In reality, when we avoid paying attention to what we are feeling for any length of time, it is probable that when we do decide to say how we feel, it is often when things have gone past a comfortably manageable level. We tend to defend ourselves against vulnerability by relying on self-righteousness and blame. So the understandable mistake we make when beginning to use this skill is to appear to be expressing our feeling while, basically, issuing statements which hold the other person responsible:
‘I feel that you have no right to say that’
‘I feel you shouldn’t do that’
‘You make me feel miserable’
‘I feel that you’re wrong’
‘You intimidate me’
‘I feel that you’re insensitive’
‘You make me feel really small’
This can be contrasted with authentic self-disclosure:
‘I feel very uncomfortable when you make that kind of comment’
‘That makes me feel very angry’
‘I feel pressurised’
‘This isn’t easy for me to say . . . ’
‘I feel intimidated’
‘I feel very warm towards you’
‘I feel a bit anxious about bringing this up . . . ’
Self-disclosure lies in assuming responsibility for our own feelings which entails recognising that whatever you are feeling cannot be blamed on someone else. This is why it is so difficult to do. It involves a profound shift in awareness as it goes deeply against the conditioned grain to accept that what you are feeling is what you are feeling and that nobody has made you feel like that.
Individual responses to perception of another’s behaviour vary so much that we cannot simply attribute a feeling to a cause even though we find comfort in doing so. If someone treads on your foot, you might have a case for arguing they had caused you pain, but even then, your response would vary from others’ responses to the identical action. If you are predisposed to see someone’s action as ‘deliberate’ or ‘accidental’, ‘clumsy’ or ‘malicious’ you will perceive it in exactly that way and respond accordingly.
The skill of self-disclosure lies in being clear and honest and upright.
Being clear Naming your feelings as specifically as possible improves with practice. At first, you will find that words like ‘upset’ come more easily than angry, that ‘confused’ hangs around for a while until the fog begins to clear and that you will almost certainly understate the intensity of what you are feeling. Blanket terms of ‘rejected’ or ‘stressed’ or ‘guilty’ tend to block your ability to be more specific and express yourself more effectively.
Being honest There is no point in saying you are ‘a bit upset’ when you are furious or hurt when you are angry. Nor is this skill about saying what you think the other person wants to hear or what you imagine will prevent someone expressing their anger towards you. It is simply about conveying your emotional truth as far as you can see it at the time. That is enough.
Being upright Ultimately fault and cause and blame become irrelevant. The aim of self-disclosure is to verbalise what you are feeling in response to your perception. Communicating your feelings without blame allows the other person to hear more clearly and the possibility of an exchange becomes far more likely.
Putting your feelings into words need not involve blame or apology. Self-disclosure is a way of taking responsibility for what you feel, simply stating the truth, without the need to be right or wrong. We often do get it wrong but the only chance we have of sorting emotional issues in relation to another person is by communicating without blame and in the spirit of informing the other person. We can never make pronouncements with anything approaching absolute certainty. Emotional articulation is relative and remember that, as a medium, emotion is always in motion and is in response to a perception which may be inaccurate or may conflict with someone else’s perception. When you state your feelings, you have a chance to compare perceptions and then evaluate your own feelings in light of this exchange.
Eventually feelings can be included as just one part of your ordinary communication, even at work, as unselfconsciously and as naturally as you communicate your ideas, your opinions or thoughts. Self- disclosure is useful at the actual time of awareness of the feeling or in the longer term, when talking about past events or when wanting, for example, to clarify misunderstandings in any relationship.
In the previous chapter, we looked at the difficulties of saying ‘no’ assertively. Self-disclosure is helpful in avoiding an aggressive refusal while at the same time helping you deal with your own feelings of anxiety or guilt. Often women tell me they are able now to say ‘no’ but ask ‘How can I say no without then having to feel guilty afterwards?’ The answer is that no magic bullet exists to exterminate guilt or indeed any other feelings which we would rather not have. All feelings arise because we are human, whether we like them or not, but what helps is to put these feelings into words.
First of all, how do you feel about making your refusal? Remember the significance of acknowledging hesitation when someone makes a request of you. If you know that you want to refuse but are worried about doing so, you’ll probably review your decision and possibly agonise about how, when or where to communicate your refusal. This is why the skill of self-disclosure is so appropriate at the beginning. For example, all four dialogues illustrated in the previous chapter could have begun with a statement such as:
‘Sheila, I feel really anxious about saying this . . . (refusing to go on holiday)
‘I’m not sure about the right moment to tell you, Mum . . . ’ (refusing to go home for Christmas)
‘Penny, I’m feeling a bit awkward but . . . ’ (refusing to stay at a friend’s house)
‘This isn’t an easy thing to talk about, Ian . . . ’ (refusing to meet for another date)
If you’re feeling guilty, then this is what you put into words:
‘I feel guilty at having to say “no”, but I must refuse’
‘I don’t like having to say “no” but on this occasion, I must’
‘It’s really hard for me to say “no” to you, but I have to this time’
And if you are genuinely regretful, you could say that too:
‘I feel really bad about this but I have to say no’
Self-disclosure impacts on your body language. By acknowledging what you feel – in other words being truthful – your body and your words are acting in unison: they are matching instead of conflicted. So you relax a bit more, the tension subsides and you become a little stronger in your resolve to say whatever it is you want to say. As soon as you are relaxed, you will automatically deepen your breathing: this affects your voice which, with your gestures, can now convey a totally coherent assertive message. The importance of this particular skill cannot be over-emphasised.
Karen wanted to practise asking her friend, Myra, not to let her dog jump up on her new leather sofa when she came round. Myra had asked if it was OK but Kar
en hadn’t said anything because she never knew how to handle it. When she role-played the first time, she managed to say ‘no’ to Myra but it sounded stilted and uncomfortable. The second time, she started off by saying, ‘You know I feel really awkward saying this but I would prefer you not to let Smoky jump on the sofa. I’d prefer him to stay on the floor.’ As soon as she disclosed what she was feeling she was more comfortable in making her request and the tension and stiffness disappeared.
The spinoff from being more relaxed and less defensive yourself is that you become more able to see the other person as an equal: that they have also have a right to ask or to expect or to assume something of you. This kind of dynamic makes it easier to put across your message without hostility.
Ruth’s sons, Robbie and Tom, were 11 and 9. They were constantly nagging her to buy new trainers, a new Ipad, a new game, a new this, a new that and she resented having to say ‘no’ all the time. She couldn’t blame them for asking but she had very little money to spare. She did three jobs as it was and she found it really difficult to cope with their demands and felt guilty about not being able to afford to buy them more.
She knew she was being aggressive in her refusals. She was feeling so frustrated that she resented them even asking her because she didn’t want to have say ‘no’ to them: so it all came out in yelling at them. She decided they were old enough to have a discussion about it and so she got them both one afternoon to turn everything off and sit at the kitchen table.
Ruth: Look, boys, I want to say something to you. (Their eyes open and they stare at her, knowing from her tone of voice that something is coming) When you keep asking me for new things, I have to say ‘no’ all the time. And I hate having to say ‘no’ (self-disclosure), I really do. It’s just that I don’t have enough money and I hate that too.
Robbie: It’s OK, Mum. We know that.
Ruth: I feel bad about not being able to get you what your friends have.