Saying No Without Guilt in Relationships & Sex...and everywhere else too

Saying yes to things you don't want to do is not helping your relationships. It's not being "nice" either. 

Today's episode will help free you from guilt that keeps you from showing up authentically and saying no when you want to. Learn how and why your "no" can be a gift to others, and why it can really liberate your relationship from hidden...or not so hidden...resentments. 

Get my free email newsletter with helpful tips, plus a free guide to Finding Your Deepest Turn-Ons, and learn how to work with me at https://laurajurgens.com.

Transcript

Welcome to Sex Help for Smart People. I'm Dr. Laura Jurgens. I'm here to help you have better sex, intimacy, and relationships. So let's get at it. Hey everyone, welcome. I am glad you are here today. Today we are talking about how to say no without guilt. This is episode 61 and it is another one for the people pleasers out there because there's a lot of us.

I'm a recovering people pleaser. I will just put recovering instead of recovered. I'm mostly recovered really but I do feel like it's kind of a ongoing process. But there's a lot of people pleasers in the world and if that's you, I know it's hard. You are a good human. You want to be kind. You want to be loving.

You want to be giving. I see you. I've been you. Here's the thing. Saying no can be the kindest thing you do, and learning to say no kindly without guilt is really one of the best things ever for your relationships, all of them. and your sex life. You may not believe me yet, and that's okay. I'm going to invite you just to keep an open mind today as we talk about saying no kindly and without guilt and see what you think at the end and see how you feel about it.

When we do stuff we don't want to do. Whether that's cooking dinner way more than your share, or having sex in a way you don't want to have sex, or when you don't want to have sex, it creates resentment. There is no getting away from that. Most of the time, we're not honest about not wanting to, and we just do it anyway.

And then that's resentment. Our resentment is resentment our partner didn't even sign up for. Because we didn't even tell them. We didn't want to do it. So here's the deal. You're an adult. You get to choose what you do. It's pretty awesome, actually, being an adult. Sometimes, we choose to do stuff we don't want to do, on purpose.

So, like, we go to work when we don't feel like going to work. Because we want the things that we get from that. We like the consequences of that choice. Like getting paid, right? Or we choose to take out the trash because we want the trash taken out. Or we choose to go to the dentist when we don't want to because we want clean teeth.

And side note, I am a big fan of dental visits. I don't get stressed about them, but I know a lot of people do. But the point here is that we choose these things because we're adults, so we gotta adult. Right? That is not what we're talking about today. We're not talking about just basic adulting and doing those kinds of things when we don't want to.

Figuring out how to actually want to do those things is my suggestion. Like, adulting stuff because we kind of got to anyway unless we want to be living in our mom's basement at 45 with like a pile of trash and bad teeth. But I trust you all listening to this. You are smart people in the podcast name.

And you have sorted out this part. You know how to do the basic adulting shit that you don't want to do on the days that you don't feel like it or to figure out how to want to do it, right? How to like dance your way with your trash out to the trash can. to make it like, oh, I get some fresh air, right?

You figure that shit out. What we're talking about today is doing stuff you don't want to, or putting up with stuff you don't want to, in your relationships, in your sex life, because you don't quote unquote want to be mean. Or you think you're somehow helping the other person by not saying no when you really mean it, when you really would like to say no.

And here's the thing about that. That's the people pleasing stuff. And a lot of times we're so afraid of this guilt that we think we're going to feel. We're trying to avoid feeling guilty and so we say yes to stuff that we don't want to say yes to because we don't want the feeling of feeling guilty.

for saying no, and that is a shit trap to be in, and it's a trap of our own making, right? We're trying to avoid the discomfort of this emotion, this guilt, from not doing something we think we quote unquote should do for somebody else. And then we create resentment in our relationships, which is not being kind, because those people did not sign up for that shit.

It creates distance and disconnection. If you are a people pleaser, you will know this because there is resentment simmering inside you. If you don't notice, I invite you to take a look in there. If you, if you have been doing a bunch of stuff that you didn't want to do for other people, there's going to be resentment in there.

And if you tell me that there's not I'm going to tell you you're lying because it's kind of like, look, I'm a scuba diver. There's two types of scuba divers. There's the scuba divers who pee in their wetsuit and there's the ones who lie about it. Like, especially if you're a cold water diver, you always have to be in your wetsuit.

So look, we know that that's the case. Don't be the person who lies about the resentment. There's definitely resentment in there. You know it. I know it. We, we all know it. So what we're doing today. is rethinking what no means and helping you find your way to authentic, kind, honest connection, which is only possible when you own your own no's.

You own the things that you don't want to do. Then you can have real yes's and people can trust you. to hold your own boundaries and you can trust yourself. You can have clean, honest relationships. It feels amazing. So here's the deal. We live in a world with billions of people and modern life are many roles and relationships in it.

They just flood us with all kinds of requests and opportunities. It feels like everybody wants something because people are just going to constantly ask for things. The world is constantly asking for things. It's asking for your attention, it's asking for your money, it's asking for your time, right?

That's Okay, if we are allowed to say no, if we're not allowed to say no, if in our own minds, according to our own rules, then we're up a creek like this is really fucking hard to navigate modern life because they're You So to just be truly successful, to have time in our lives for the things that bring us joy, we all have to stand by our own priorities and say no to a lot of requests and even great opportunities.

We just don't have time for everything that's available in the world. But a lot of us actually refuse this power to choose and we stay stuck in feeling obligated to say yes all the time. And, or feel just guilty for saying no. And I think, you know, our current culture has led a lot of us to internalize this total bullshit idea that saying no is somehow mean or hurtful.

And this is especially the case for people socialized as women, because we are fed extra large doses of expectations to take care of other people ahead of ourselves. As soon as we come out and they notice that we have a vulva, it's like, oh, this person is supposed to take care of everybody else and not notice what they're doing.

And it puts us in this horrible conundrum. So we can say yes to everything, we can burn ourselves out trying to be quote unquote nice, or we can say no and feel guilty for being mean. And there's no way out if we continue to believe that false dichotomy, that saying no is mean. But there's actually nothing inherently hurtful about being told no.

It is simply an expression of your own ability to choose what is best for you in that moment. Parents say no to their toddlers out of love all the time. Otherwise most of them would literally kill themselves at some point. We have to tell them not to run across the street or they will die. I say no to myself all the time to keep myself safe and healthy and I bet you do too.

So why do we think that other people can't handle a no? Being honest about what we actually want to do, whether it's a yes or no, is the true expression of kindness. You are the only one who knows the time and energy resources you have available. You are the only one who knows what you're up for in that moment.

And you're the only one, therefore, who can decide how to spend those time and energy resources, right? No one has to take no as a rejection. It doesn't mean they won't, but you're not in control of that. And I want you to think about how you like it when someone agrees to a request that you made, only out of obligation.

Would you prefer? that they do something they don't want to do out of obligation to you and then feel resentful about it later? Or would you prefer an honest no? Almost everybody prefers an honest no when actually offered the option. So I want you to think about giving other people that choice too. So the practice, we talked about people pleasing a couple weeks ago and how it kills intimacy.

And I stand by that 100%. It absolutely does. The practice of saying yes when you really mean no, it's designed to placate other people and to convince them to think of us in a certain way. And it comes at this really high cost because we can't actually people please our way into feeling loved or feeling joy or success in modern life really because There are simply too many requests to do so without burning out and sacrificing yourself, breeding resentment, and we don't get to be seen, right?

We're hiding our true selves, and that just like poisons relationships. So We talked a little bit about that in that episode, but I want you to recognize that for every yes We say there is a hidden. No, you can't say yes to something without saying no to something else And if you are saying yes to something a lot of times what you're saying no to is yourself and your own desires.

So in like a work example, saying yes to after hours emails is saying no to personal time, okay? Saying yes to having You know, sex in a position that actually feels bad to you or hurts you or before you're ready is saying no to your own desires and what works for you and what feels good to your body.

And the more you say no to those things, the more your body is going to shut down and the more you're going to feel disconnected to your partner. When we are grounded in our own priorities and desires, we can look at no as a gift. We can say no thanks from a place of kindness and honesty, knowing that We are preserving our relationship and we are saying no so that we don't get resentful and we don't put that on the other person.

And another benefit of saying no when we want to is that it makes it easier for people to trust us when we say yes. They can trust we really mean it and that we really want to do it and that we will follow through and it won't make us weird later. Because we're, like, all harboring all this resentment, right?

And of course there are some exceptions, and some people will get mad at you for saying no, especially if you've people pleased them for years. And you may have to retrain them to understand where you're coming from, and that you're actually trying to preserve the relationship and not have resentment.

And usually those are people who are kind of temporarily blinded by their own wants while under pressure and they will usually come around really soon as soon as they understand what's going on, if you communicate it clearly. You don't want to just like flip the switch and behave differently and not tell people what's going on.

Every now and then you will run into people who are unwilling to treat other people's desires as equally important to their own and that is their issue. You are not responsible for rescuing them. and you are not helping by enabling them. The more you practice offering no as a gift, the more you'll also find gratitude for polite refusals from other people.

It's actually really nice to practice. This is great to practice with your friends. Right? So, I really suggest doing a little no yes inventory if any of this stuff seems like things you might be challenged by. If you recognize yourself having some people pleaser tendencies. What this looks like, a no yes inventory, is writing down all the things you actually did or spent time on during the last week.

And if you want to focus it on any part of your life you can, if you want to focus it on a relationship, just do that. Write down the things you actually did with your partner or spent time on with your partner or for your partner. And for each item on the list, consider, brutally honestly, what you said no to in order to say yes to that thing.

Write the thing you had to say no to down in another column. So you will have a column of yeses and a column of noes. And I want to invite you to look them over as non judgmentally as possible, just with curiosity, not judgment. See where your yes column has items that you have done that you didn't want to do and trade offs that you made that you didn't like.

that you don't currently like. This is figuring out how well your behavior is aligning or misaligning with who you are and who you want to be and what feels good to you. Where are you happy with your yeses? Where did you really enjoy those things? Where are you glad that that's where you put your priority?

Notice that too. But see what the balance looks like. Is there a lot of stuff? That you're not really very happy about the trade off. Are you doing it just to please other people? And then ask yourself, what do you want to say yes to more often? What do you want to say no to more often? Right? Remember, you don't have to say no in like a rejecting way.

You don't have to say no in a knee jerk, mean way. Usually if you're a people pleaser, you think you have to be mean to say no because your no's are usually only mean when, because you've gotten to, the only time you say no is when you've gotten to a place where you're just like really angry. Like otherwise you're like a yes to so many things.

That you're just not practiced at saying no in a kind way more. Like, early on before you get mad, right? You can just say, No thanks, I don't really want to do that right now. Or, I'd like to do that another time, but I'm not up for it right now. You don't have to make a ton of excuses. You don't always have to have some sort of, like, justification.

If you don't feel like having butt sex that day, then, you know, just say, I don't want to. That's totally fine. You don't, end of sentence, right? No is a complete sentence. You can just say no, thanks. You can say, you can have empathy for someone and also say no. Oh yeah, I really, I understand that you would really like, To, you know, go out to a fancy dinner this weekend, or like, you'd really like to have a date night, or I understand that you'd really like to have some doggie style, or whatever it is that the person's asking for, or I know you've gotten used to me making dinner every night, or whatever it is, right, and I get that this is maybe going to be hard for you, and I'm open to hearing your, how, how you feel about it, but I'm not on board with doing it, right?

That's okay. People can have their feelings. Thanks. You don't have to rescue them from those either, and people are allowed to feel disappointment. They're adults. Life is full of disappointments. It's okay. It doesn't mean you are a disappointment if you just don't feel like doing something, and it is better for the relationship for you to say it honestly than for you to bullshit the person and then feel resentful about it later and just bring in more and more disconnection.

Okay. So, remember, also, you do not need to apologize for your nose. You do not need to apologize. It's, that's also a Typical people pleaser trait, but if it helps you get the no out of your face, then go ahead and apologize, whatever your step needs to be to get it done, to actually show up for what's true for you, right?

It's okay. It's okay for you to say no. You are still lovable, even if you are not people pleasing people and doing stuff that you don't want to do. That is not what makes you lovable and you will be more lovable and be able to receive by being loved. By which I mean you'll be able to receive more real love for who you really are if you actually show up as who you really are and tell people what's true for you.

Okay, my dears. I hope that's helped give you some perspective that you are allowed to say no and you do not have to feel guilty about it. And even if in the beginning you do feel guilty about it more often than not, just recognize that that's maybe just a step in the process, right? Maybe starting to say no, letting yourself, oh, okay, I feel a little bit guilty, but I'm also noticing that I feel proud of myself.

Right? And then maybe look around and see how, you know, oh gosh, this person managed to survive me saying no, and like, this feels okay, and I feel better towards them. Right? Start noticing some of the positive impacts. Okay. I hope that helps, and I will see you here next week. Hey, if you're curious about how you could have better sex and connections, go grab my free guide, Find Your Secret Turn Ons.

It's right on my website, www.laurajurgens.com, and the link is in the show notes. I'll see you here next time.