Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #268| The Real Reason Saying No Feels Dangerous — and Why "Just Set a Boundary" Advice Hasn't Worked
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn why you spin out every time you have to say no.
- 0:09Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:16Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:21Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:26Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:33Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend, thanks for joining today.
- 0:38Michelle Gauthier: You've probably heard someone say, just set a boundary a hundred times, and maybe you've even tried it.
- 0:45Michelle Gauthier: But if saying no still feels like you're doing something wrong and you feel yourself spin out when you're in that moment where you're deciding to say yes or no, and you end up just defaulting to yes, this episode is for you.
- 0:59Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn what's actually happening in your body in the split second before you say yes, how to catch yourself in that moment before the yes comes out of your mouth, and the exact phrase to use instead.
- 1:11Michelle Gauthier: Plus a simple suggestion on how to know what to say next.
- 1:15Michelle Gauthier: Stick around because by the end of this podcast episode, you will know how to catch yourself before you say yes on autopilot.
- 1:23Michelle Gauthier: Okay, let's first talk about what happens.
- 1:25Michelle Gauthier: So you know when you're watching a movie and there's the sequence where everything is happening in slow motion, that's how I want to think about this moment between someone asks you to do something and you say yes.
- 1:37Michelle Gauthier: Picture this, someone asks you for something.
- 1:39Michelle Gauthier: Maybe it's like, hey, can you watch my dog this weekend?
- 1:42Michelle Gauthier: Can you be in charge of this bake sale for school?
- 1:45Michelle Gauthier: Can you cover me while I'm on vacation?
- 1:48Michelle Gauthier: Remember, we're in super slow-mo mode.
- 1:50Michelle Gauthier: So the words are coming out of their mouth.
- 1:52Michelle Gauthier: And before you've even thought a single word in your mind, your body will start reacting.
- 1:58Michelle Gauthier: So maybe first your heart starts pounding and you can feel it.
- 2:01Michelle Gauthier: Do you know when your heart beats really fast, you can hear it in your ears and things start to get quiet?
- 2:06Michelle Gauthier: And this happens before you've even had a conscious thought about the request.
- 2:11Michelle Gauthier: Your body starts to think, oh no, we're in a dangerous situation.
- 2:15Michelle Gauthier: Then your nervous system fires, and all of a sudden your body is reacting and treating this ordinary request like, hey, can you watch my dog this weekend like it's a threat?
- 2:24Michelle Gauthier: And here's the part I really want you to sit with, which is that your body in that moment thinks it's an actual danger.
- 2:31Michelle Gauthier: Not danger like, okay, someone might be annoyed with me if I say no to this, but actual physical danger, even though obviously consciously you know that it's not, but your body can react in a way where you just immediately go into this panicked fight or flight type stage.
- 2:46Michelle Gauthier: Why does that happen?
- 2:48Michelle Gauthier: I think it's two things stacked on top of each other.
- 2:51Michelle Gauthier: One, we're wired for it, like for most of human history, being cast out of your tribe could mean that you didn't survive.
- 2:58Michelle Gauthier: And rejection used to be life-threatening.
- 3:00Michelle Gauthier: So this wires us to be people pleasers.
- 3:03Michelle Gauthier: And then, this is a big one for women especially.
- 3:06Michelle Gauthier: We've been socialized our whole lives to believe that to be agreeable is to be safe.
- 3:11Michelle Gauthier: Good girls don't disappoint people.
- 3:13Michelle Gauthier: Nice women don't cause problems.
- 3:16Michelle Gauthier: You have to put everyone else before yourself.
- 3:18Michelle Gauthier: So when you stack my brain thinks rejection is dangerous, with I've been taught that my worth depends on people liking me.
- 3:26Michelle Gauthier: No wonder your heart is pounding before you've even opened your mouth when someone asks something of you.
- 3:31Michelle Gauthier: Your body is doing exactly what it thinks it's supposed to do, getting you to say yes to fast as possible so that alarm in your head will stop going off.
- 3:39Michelle Gauthier: And that's why that just set a boundary advice hasn't worked for you.
- 3:43Michelle Gauthier: It's not that you don't know how to say the words or understand the concept.
- 3:46Michelle Gauthier: It's just that this alarm is going off in your body underneath it before you can even have the conscious thought to react and say, What do I actually want to say here?
- 3:57Michelle Gauthier: Do I want to say yes or do I say no?
- 3:59Michelle Gauthier: Here's the good news though.
- 4:00Michelle Gauthier: Once you know that alarm exists, when you were just hearing me describe in slow motion what is happening and picturing yourself being in that situation where your heart starts beating fast and you start getting nervous and you just automatically say yes, once you know that exists, you can start to catch it in real time before the yes even comes out of your mouth.
- 4:18Michelle Gauthier: Being able to catch it isn't super complicated, but it does take some practice to simply notice, oh, okay, I'm in that spin right now.
- 4:26Michelle Gauthier: I'm in that spiral where my body thinks I'm actually in danger.
- 4:30Michelle Gauthier: If you've noticed that your body is going into that fight or flight danger response, and here's something that you can say right in that moment.
- 4:37Michelle Gauthier: You can say to yourself, my brain thinks this is an emergency and I'm in danger.
- 4:42Michelle Gauthier: But what's actually happening is my friend asked me if I could watch her dog this weekend.
- 4:46Michelle Gauthier: Something that I used to have to say all the time is my body is reacting like this is an emergency and it's really just a text message.
- 4:54Michelle Gauthier: Like I would get a text message and feel so panicked and like I had to immediately respond and get it off me in order to be safe.
- 5:02Michelle Gauthier: But when you remind yourself, oh, it's just a text message, and I can use my thinking brain to decide what I want to do with this message, it can really help you calm down.
- 5:10Michelle Gauthier: So let's imagine that you noticed your heart was pounding.
- 5:13Michelle Gauthier: You've reminded yourself that this isn't an emergency, and then all you need to do is remember the one line, which is let me get back to you.
- 5:21Michelle Gauthier: You don't have to evaluate it in that moment and say yes or no.
- 5:25Michelle Gauthier: You buy the pause so that you can think about it and you can get back to them.
- 5:28Michelle Gauthier: Right now, it feels like everything in life is an emergency because we can get a hold of everyone so quickly.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: But remember, you don't owe anyone an answer in the moment if your nervous system is firing.
- 5:38Michelle Gauthier: Then once you're out of the moment, run it through the love and fit test.
- 5:42Michelle Gauthier: The love and fit test is a tool that I created for you to figure out if you want to say yes or no in a certain situation and how to communicate the no if that ends up being your answer.
- 5:52Michelle Gauthier: If you go to episode number three, way back to episode number three, you can get the full scoop on that tool as a next step.
- 5:59Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so in summary, just remember that sometimes when someone asks us to do something, our brain reacts as if we're in danger.
- 6:06Michelle Gauthier: If you can catch your physical feelings, remind yourself that it's not an emergency, and get the words out of your mouth, let me get back to you.
- 6:13Michelle Gauthier: You can buy yourself the time that you need to make the decision that you want.
- 6:17Michelle Gauthier: If this episode speaks to you and you find yourself in this pattern of freaking out in your mind and saying yes and not even realizing that you have said yes until the whole thing is over, and you'd like to break that pattern, I can absolutely help you.
- 6:30Michelle Gauthier: I'd love to help you break that habit and all of the habits that are causing your overwhelm right now.
- 6:37Michelle Gauthier: The first step is to set up a consultation with me to talk about one-on-one coaching.
- 6:42Michelle Gauthier: In my coaching program, I have worked with hundreds of women since 2018.
- 6:47Michelle Gauthier: I have an exact formula dialed in to figure out what is causing your overwhelm and to help you move out of it step by step using my proven system.
- 6:57Michelle Gauthier: If you feel like you're ready to change your life and start feeling calm instead of overwhelmed, set up a time with me.
- 7:04Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 7:10Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com.
- 7:16Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.