Have you ever felt the weight of the world's expectations on your shoulders, forcing you to say yes when you desperately wanted to say no? This week, I’m supporting you to take away the guilt and embrace the liberating act of prioritizing ourselves.
We delve into the powerful transformation that unfolds when you start declining requests that don't align with your personal needs. Expect to learn about the subtle art of polite refusal and the importance of setting boundaries to preserve your time and mental wellbeing. It's about filling your cup first, without a drop of selfishness, and I'm here to guide you through every step.
And I would love to connect with you on Instagram thehealthyceliac
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Music Credit bensound.com
Speaker 1:
So back when I was studying to become a health coach, we did this activity for a week, where it was called being bad for a week. So it was basically permission to stop being a people pleaser and saying yes to everybody and fulfilling everybody else's needs before our own and saying no and doing something that perhaps you wouldn't normally do. And I thought today it might be fun to talk about this, because sometimes we do get a little bit serious or we get stuck in our ways and we don't particularly, you know, go out of our way to do things for ourselves or say no to people that we should be saying no to. Now, on my website, I've done a whole blog post on the art of saying no, and that's basically something that I think we should all definitely be doing more of, because as women, we have been brought out to be generally this is a general statement to be good girls and to do the right thing Okay. And we get to becoming adults and we find it really hard to say no to things when our heart and our soul is screaming no. We still verbally say yes when our body says no, okay. So when we start to tap into this power of actually saying no when we don't want to do something. It can be a game changer for your whole life.
Speaker 1:
Basically, you can get time back, you can free up some space in your head and you will feel better. So one simple, simple example is when you are packed with activities, you are packed in your schedule with. You've got so many places to be and do and someone invites you to go out somewhere and you're just wanting to say no, but you don't want to let that person down, so you end up saying yes. So this is an example where you know you need to have these, these, I guess, little quotes ready to go of why you can't go. So no, thanks. I'd really love to come, but I'm so sorry, my schedule is packed this week and I just can't fit it in. Or, you know, I'm really bogged down at the moment and I just don't have the extra bandwidth to fit this in. Can we do it another time? You know people aren't going to be heartbroken with you when you say no. They're not going to be as disappointed as what you think. So sometimes you just have to say no. So back to the bad day.
Speaker 1:
Or, being a bit naughty, you might have seen a movie called yes Day. Have you? Have you checked out this movie? It's quite funny actually.
Speaker 1:
So yes Day is this crazy family and the mum constantly has to say no, no, no, which, as a mum myself of three kids, I know exactly how that is. You constantly say no, no, no to things and what happens is on this yes Day, the kids have this control of the day and their parents have to say yes to every request. So they do all these amazing fun activities and, you know, eat what they want and all this sort of stuff, and it's literally a day that they do it and they end up having a fantastic time and all the rest of it. So it's a little bit. It's a little bit more. You know that concept of doing the opposite of a yes Day, but doing it for yourself. So you're doing things where you're saying no to others but yes to yourself. Okay, so you could do this for a day, you could do it for a week or you could just do it when you need to tap into it.
Speaker 1:
Because, as you know, living with celiac disease is a constant Like there is. There is not a day that goes by that in my brain I'm not thinking about celiac disease. I'm not thinking about gluten, I'm not thinking about food. It is there every single day and I'm sure you're the same. Even if you're the parent of someone with celiac disease, you are likely constantly thinking about it and making sure that your child is safe and not getting sick and worried about symptoms. There's just this ongoing bombardment of emotions and thoughts. So it's nice to say no sometimes to things that we don't want to do and saying yes to ourselves.
Speaker 1:
So one of the examples in my handout when we were doing this week of bad behavior like I always say bad behavior we're not talking about anything illegal. We're not talking about anything that's going to hurt somebody else. We're talking about really silly little things, like you need to leave work an hour early because you have an appointment, but that appointment just happens to be a massage or a pedicure, something that's a little bit cheeky, it's a little bit naughty that your boss doesn't need to know about. It's not hurting anyone. It's time for you, it's doing something for yourself. Or it could be turning down an invite to something where you really should be going to, but you just don't want to. You know there's not going to be any safe, gluten-free food there. You know that you're not going to be looked after at that event and you just don't want to go. So say no. It's fine being naughty if that's what you want to look at it as.
Speaker 1:
Say no to that event. You don't have to give a reason if you don't want to. You could say that you've got something else on. Or again, you could say that you don't have the bandwidth for it, you can't fit it in. Or a good one blame your kids Can't get a babysitter. That's always a good go-to, but it's okay to say no. It's okay to do things for yourself. So look at these situations that come up in your life and figure out what it is that is happening for you that you don't want to be happening. What can you push out of your life, what can you start to say no to and what can you start to say yes to? And when we look at this, it can be a game changer.
Speaker 1:
Now I worked with a client I think it was two years ago now and she was always busy. She's got heap of kids more kids than me and she was really, really busy and she never had time for herself. She never had time to exercise, she never had time to sit down and eat a decent meal, even when she was getting food for her children in the morning. So she had all of these excuses and she did have the time. She just needed someone to help her see that she had the time. So it was helping her to say no to certain things that weren't nurturing her, they weren't bringing her joy and they weren't adding to her overall lifestyle. So I started to help her say no to certain things so that she could say yes to herself and bring in the things that she wanted to. And she would say that she'd feel a little bit naughty doing some of these things for herself and I was like heck, no, this is your life. You're living your own life. You don't have to do things for other people all the time.
Speaker 1:
Many of us are people-pleasers. If you're a people-pleasing, you know what I'm talking about where we just want to help other people and we want to make other people happy. And I'm not saying don't ever do that. I'm just saying sometimes you need to put yourself first and you need to look after yourself as you travel all the time. That's not sometimes. You always need to look after yourself.
Speaker 1:
But you know, other people are okay without us. Other people can do their own thing, but we need to nurture our body, we need to nurture our soul, we need to look after our mindset and by doing this, by saying no, by saying yes as well to the things that we want to do, and being a little bit cheeky, being a little bit naughty every now and again can bring you so much joy and happiness in your life and help with that bandwidth and help with that overload of all of the stuff that we have to think about. So make sure you do this. I'd love to hear from you. It's just such a fun activity.
Speaker 1:
I do challenge you to do it for a week, so you might want to write these things down, or you might just want to be spontaneous and just do it as the time happens or go with the flow. So give it a go and I'd love to hear from you if this is something that you are going to give a go or if it's something you've never even thought of or you just think it's ridiculous. But it is definitely something that has helped my clients, has helped me as well, especially with the saying no. So give it a go and, like I said, let me know if you give it a try or if it's something that you're going to do in the near future. I'd love to hear from you. So give me a DM over at the Healthy Celiac on Instagram. So have a great week. Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking with you again very soon. Have a great week, take care. Bye.