The first time you have to to tell someone a hard no is traumatic. It hurts both you and the person having to hear it. It hurts because it isn't usual.......it's an uncomfortable place none of us want to visit much less live in. We buy into the mindset that if we love, we must do everything we can.
But sometimes a hard no has to happen. It needs to happen for us and it needs to happen for them. Hard nos don't mean we don't love someone, they don't even mean we really at our core want to do what is asked. In fact the no might be the biggest act of love we can offer and the proof that we know that person is fully capable of making it work without us. They've gotten lazy, they've learned that they don't have to finagle their own solution, they don't have to think....all they have to do is ask and suddenly there we are with the life jacket, the lifeline and **poof**...problem solved. Yes, problem solved for them, but how about us? We've invested in something that at some point we are going to be told is none of our business. Because people who do not like to hear a hard no, have exactly zero remorse in delivering one.
People, are at their core, pleasers. We want to help, we want to make things better, and there is a certain little part of us that likes the heroic feeling of bringing order to someone else's chaos.
However, the continual desire to "fix" problems for others makes us, in a word, enablers.
We are enabling behavior that leads them to constantly being in need of salvation. We are enabling them to not exercise their problem solving skills. Skills, which up to this point have gone exactly as far as asking us. Those life management muscles need to be built up and nourished, not starved by our constant interference....or help if you will.
So, maybe today is your day to practice a hard no........or just a regular no and start building your own ability to allow others to try, to fail, to pick themselves up, to start again and eventually to succeed. And that will be a big old hard YES!
