If you want to know someone, tell them NO

You can easily lose a close person whose self worth rides on your self sacrifice.

Almost three years ago, when I first came across the term boundaries I realized how leaky or more precisely non-existent my boundaries were. I started noticing how it was very hard for me to say no to people how I felt guilty anytime I did not play the role of the good girl to the detriment of my own inner peace to the detriment of my well being overall. It was then when I slowly started discovering my enmeshment wound and my abandonment wound.

After my spiritual awakening, I realized that I’ve been saying yes to people all my life, regardless of how the thing that I said yes to impacted me.

So this is how I slowly started practicing saying no whenever it felt like something was harming me in some way.

Two years ago I did that with my best friend.

I remember she wanted to talk to me at a time that was completely inconvenient for me, as I was moving out. My old self would have dropped everything I was doing in order to hold space for her even if that would have hurt me in the long term.

But my new self understood that this was the right time and the right place for me to practice being authentic and true to myself and say no. And so I did.

I declined her proposal for us to talk, at the same time letting her know that I wish I could be there for her in this very moment and that I would do so, only later on. Her reply was "I don’t need you to."

I remember her reply to this day because it hurt me badly as it was the last thing she said to me.

She disappeared from my life because of a boundary that I put up.

I realize now in retrospect that you truly and genuinely get to know somebody only when you tell them no. It’s easy to be close to somebody and to be friends with somebody who always says yes to everything, even if that means that they sacrifice themselves.

It’s not easy to say no to the people close to you, specially if you have wounds around your boundaries, wounds around being entrapped & the need to always be the good girl or the good boy.

Relationships that don't tolerate a NO are unsafe & frail.

If self sacrifice keeps people close to you, then your authenticity will most likely push them away.

And that’s a good thing.

Because you deserve better.