accept it. They seem to get the message in direct proportion to how staunchly I hold the conviction. Replace draining “shoulds” with empowering words like can, want to, choose to, or will. For instance, “I choose to work late tonight” or “I choose not to work late today” is much more empowering than “I should work late” or “I have to work late tonight.” “Shoulds” enslave us. “Choice” words help free and empower us.
A key method for having your “no” heard is to choose one statement and stick with it:
| you: | I'm not able to chair this particular committee. I'm sorry. |
| they: | Oh, please! I don't have anyone else I can call. |
| you: | I know that's hard, but I'm not able to do it at this time of year. |
| they: | I don't know what I'll do. I'm desperate. |
| you: | It really is hard to organize this stuff, isn't it? I'm really sorry I'm not able to help you right now. |
Notice that “You” stuck to the statement “I'm not able to,” thereby honoring her limits and boundaries while expressing compassion for the other person's problem. “You” did not give herself away.
Before you say yes, take several deep breaths. Ask yourself if you are saying yes out of habit, guilt, or fear. Reassure yourself that you have the right to choose. Pause. Stop. If you feel unsure and need time to consider your alternatives, take it, and return the phone call later. You don't have to let yourself be terrorized by your own or other people's expectations of you.
THE TERROR OF EXPECTATIONS
Unrealistic expectations can cause us to give ourselves away to such an extent that we end up feeling we are a tiny little nubbin of exhaustion without one iota of energy left to do the next task. That may sound melodramatic, but haven't we all pushed ourselves past our limits because we felt we should do it all—and perfectly? Or because we felt others expected perfection of us?
Our own expectations and the expectations of others can kill us emotionally. All of us—women, men, and children, young and old—have suffered under the tyranny of expectations. Didn't we expect our honeymoons to be romantic and idyllic and our children perfect? Only a few are.
There's a scene in a play I once saw where one of the characters gives a wonderful commentary on expectations. She's talking to a classmate at a high-school reunion and says, “I thought that once he and I got together things would change. That's what's written over the women's entrance to Hell: 'Things Will Change.'”
Change is inevitable and to be expected, but so much of what we expect is sheer fantasy. We expect to be able to make our families happy. (Unfortunately, many of us have allowed our families, too, to expect us to make them happy.) We expect ourselves to be unfailingly bright, cheerful, and healthy. We expect ourselves to be unchangingly attractive, always patient and nurturing, a constant source of wisdom and comfort. Unrealistic expectations such as these are exhausting, not to mention terrifying and paralyzing.
One of the most crippling things we can do to ourselves is expect someone else to make us happy. Other people can only help to bring out what is already within us, such as the capacity to feel good about ourselves, to feel useful, to feel loved. When we feel unhappy and unfulfilled “because” of others, we can be sure we're giving ourselves away. We then need to take a long look at the beliefs and expectations we hold that are keeping us dependent on others.
Maria, the woman who was raised a Catholic and who was emotionally abused by her husband, finally said, “Enough!” To save her life emotionally, she left her husband. Unfortunately, because she took so long to free herself from the indoctrination of her church and to realize that she had other choices, her sons were old enough to resist leaving their school and home and chose to stay with their father. Had she honored her limits and boundaries sooner, maybe her marriage could have been salvaged and her mothering role secured. But so many years of swallowed pain and anger had created scars and animosity so deep that it was too late for the marriage.
It's important to notice that there's a definite difference between asking for what we want and need and expecting others to follow a hidden script we've written for them. Often, especially when strong-willed people are involved, there are going to be different ideas about how to live, work, and play. By adhering too rigidly to our interiorized picture of how things should be, we activate normal, healthy rebellion in other people.
My husband and I had a fairy-tale romance. We met in Hawaii and courted across the Pacific. It was perfect. We were perfect, confident that we'd been sprinkled with fairy dust and that our relationship would be forever blissful. Of course, it wasn't. After we'd settled into an everyday routine, our real lives began to get in the way of our expectations of happily ever after.
As a novice marriage counselor with a divorce in my background, I felt I had a pretty realistic picture of what my new marriage should be. However, my husband's wants, needs, and images differed significantly from mine. It took me a long time and a lot of grieving to realize that I was smothering our relationship with my expectations and my “expertise.” I was activating my husband's rebel personality with my it-has-to-be-this-way script. After a great deal of inner struggling, I was able to stop terrorizing both of us with my idealistic expectations.
A funny thing then happened. After a cooling-off period, when he trusted that I had really gotten off his back, he began to inch toward being the way I'd earlier demanded that he be. Since I'd released those expectations and found other ways to fulfill my needs, his change was much appreciated (the chocolate chips in the cookie of life), but no longer necessary for my emotional survival.
As I found out, in even the most stable and caring relationships, there will be unmet expectations. I may expect a quiet evening of firelight and intimate sharing, and he may intend to watch basketball. We both may expect our kids for dinner, and they'll want to go have pizza with friends. We simply can't survive emotionally if we insist that every expectation be fulfilled. Life just isn't set up that way, so the healthiest response is to stay very flexible and not take it personally when our expectations fizzle.
THE HAVE-IT-ALL/DO-IT-ALL TRAP
One of the most damaging myths we've been led to believe is that we can have it all and do it all, in all ways, all the time. It's true, we can have it all on occasion and do it all for stretches at a time. We can even be it all for hours or days. But when we fall into the trap of trying to have, do, and be everything on a consistent basis, we run the risk of draining our energy reserves to a dangerous low.
One of my clients, Sarah, raised three children alone. Then she remarried and raised four more children—her stepson and three emotionally disturbed siblings whom she and her husband adopted. She made nearly all their clothes, cooked all the family meals from scratch, balanced a budget that would send chills up a contortionist's spine, and remained extremely active in her church. It upset her greatly when she occasionally felt unloving.
Sarah came from a background of trauma and deprivation that left her saturated with fear and struggling with deep emotional scars. Although she's one of the sweetest women I've ever known, fear of failure, abandonment, and not being lovable ruled her life. When she came to see me, she was desperately unhappy due to continually giving herself away, terrorizing herself with expectations
