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Preparing to be assertive!

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Twoapenny:
Hi Lighter,

Yes, I see what you're saying here and I suppose we can only do what we can do in all aspects of life, I guess that applies to everyone, across the board?  It's useful to keep that in mind, I think.

I realised today - and I'm wondering why it's taken me so long to notice this now - that I am simply afraid of saying no or of having any kind of opinion that doesn't suit another person.  I think I had been so well hammered into shape as a child that it's taken me this long to realise that the way I behave simply isn't appropriate.

Last week a parent at a club my son goes to asked if we could car share.  I've turned it over in my mind all week.  It isn't convenient for me; I go to an activity myself while my son is at his club so I'd still have to do the journey each way making it pointless from my point of view.  I then looked into doing a different activity somewhere else and felt upset that I would have to give up this tiny bit of me time I have finally carved for myself after twelve years of doing without.  I then worried about the fact I don't really know these people very well and wondered if I could offer to do both runs instead as I'd be going that way anyway and then got resentful that it's always me that seems to do the extra work.  Then I started to worry about the fact that there is a problem with the catch on the back seat that would need to be fixed before I could safely carry a passenger and was getting in a flap about where I was going to find the extra money to get that done and when I was going to get the time to do it.

And as all of that became a bigger and bigger problem I suddenly realised I can just say no to them and it really shocked me that I was preparing to go to such extreme lengths to accommodate the needs of other people.  And as I look back over the years I can see that that has probably been at the root of so many of the things that have made me unhappy.

Meh:
Yes, you can say no to them especially when they are not an employer paying you etc.

Not everybody can fit into the same car pool. Tell them that you would like to but you have other appointments etc.

Hopalong:
I suddenly realised I can just say no

Woo hoo! Go, Tupp! Yee hawwwwww!

Present for ya: http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/infopax.cfm?Info_ID=51

Hops

Twoapenny:
Thank you, Hops and Green, yes, it seems so obvious now but it feels incredibly unnatural, it's very odd.  I was so worried about telling them no; in my mind I can hear my mother's reactions to being told no to anything - ranging from quiet fury to not so quiet!  In the end I just said I couldn't do it, they said no problem and that was that.  I hadn't realised how big a part of my life this is.  I leant some items to a friend a couple of months ago.  At the time she asked to borrow them she offered to come and collect them and I said no, I'd drop them off.  Then she offered to bring them back and I said no, I'll pick them up!  I only realised today how bizarre this is, I don't know what it's all about!  I texted her today about coming to fetch them and she offered to drop them in instead, I had to force myself to say yes!  It felt completely unnatural and as if I were taking the mickey or something.  I really need to work on this, I can see how this has had such a negative impact on my life now.  How funny that it's been there all along and I didn't see it.

Hopsie,thank you for that link, I will have a good read through when I get the chance, it looks very interesting :)

Meh:
Yah, I get it, when I had $, I sometimes went to this lady massage therapist. I would fold the sheets up after the whole thing. She would tease me about it. She would say, "you are so polite!! Nobody ever folds the sheets"...

It's just the way we are, always hyper-vigilant that we will offend somebody or encroach or inconvenience somebody else. BECAUSE we were taught that we were inconvenient so we try hard not to be... We are used to not being number one.

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