Learning to say No

I think all of us growing up in India have never learned how to say 'No.'

Since childhood, we got trained to respect elders and comply with their requests.

A harmless practice in childhood that later leads to many ill-formed mechanisms as we grow older.

A major downside of it often is our inability to know if we want to show up because of a personal choice or an obligation.

We take on all the demands placed on us by our environment and then exhaust ourselves while fulfilling them.

By some stroke of luck or good sense, when we realize the behavior, changing it requires practice too.

In the instances where we do muster the courage to say no, guilt follows.

And at any stage of standing up for yourself, a family member or a relative will point out how you've changed (not for the better).

So one of the things that we could all practice often is saying no. We could also nurture the ability to run a quick 'Yes/No poll in our heads about any seemingly obligatory (almost everything) event.

I've tried it out in the last few months, and at first, it felt heavy, but after repeating it a few more times, it helped me at least tune into what I truly felt about something.

More importantly, learning to say no creates the headspace and time for you to pursue activities for yourself.

Beyond work and other routine tasks, time is a scarce resource. Being tied up because of activities that you're supposed to do and not the ones you'd like to do builds resentment in the long run.

But you can't learn to say no using the tips you read online, Instagram, specifically.

You'll have to explore what works best based on unique family dynamics.