How do you respond when someone tells you ‘no’ to a request?
Do you get angry, accusing the other person of not supporting you sufficiently, blaming them for not caring about your needs?
Or do you withdraw, because you feel you are not worth the help you had asked for, you are not good enough, you are a loser?
Can you accept this ‘no’ just the way it is because the response has nothing to do with you? Maybe the other person might not have time to fulfill the task or does not have an interest in taking on the responsibility.
Of course, we are formed and informed by our past experiences. But that does not mean we need to assume that the pain we have gone through will repeat itself by default. That disappointment is waiting just around the corner. That we ‘deserve’ to struggle.
Rather than making assumptions about you or the other person, and instead of telling yourself (and others) a story, step back and examine the reality more closely. Give yourself a time-out to calm down. Separate past experiences and the current event. Maybe there’s a simple explanation. When in doubt, just ask.
Remember, you have a choice: there is reality – and there’s the story we tell about it.
Wishing you a wonderful week and the clarity to distinguish between reality and story.
Christine
