Every time I want to sit and write about my experiences or about a topic I find interesting I get torn, do I write it as a counsellor, a life coach or just me? I think that is a problem many of us face when we write as a professional on our blogs, we forget that first and fore most we are ourselves and sum of our experiences. With this in mind I have decided that I will write as me, and where necessary fill in some theory along the way.
Today’s events started with a phone call, nothing unusual about that but this call set off a sequence of events that happen to me on many occasions and am sure they probably happen to others as well. The caller was from the Diabetic clinic reminding me I was due to attend a course the following Monday. I had forgotten about it completely and so I was thrown by the call, and then she asked, ‘will you be attending?’ Ohhh damn, no I do not want to go, that means sorting transport and spending a day doing whatever they had planned and errr no I don’t want to go….. ‘yes I will be there, thanks for the reminder’
Why did my mouth say that when my brain was screaming no?
My grandmother would say that saying no is always far harder than saying yes. She would say when you say no you often need to qualify that with a reason why but when you say yes that is the end of the conversation. Maybe my mouth overrode my brain and said yes to get the woman off the phone, so I could carry on writing up my notes. I don’t think so although I probably picked up a subconscious message that sat in my unconscious that to say yes was easier. My parents raised me to respect those in official posts so maybe I did not feel I could disappoint the caller. I am sure both have a place and hold some responsibility for me saying yes but I also believe that it is a bad habit I have formed and need to break.
There was a time when I would say yes to all sorts of things I did not want to say yes to, from doing someone a favour, to taking on a responsibility or giving up my time when it was already in demand elsewhere. I made a rule not to say yes to anything until I had thought about it for at least two hours, and I practiced that until saying no came easily. No, I am too busy to take on that role, no I am not available to give you a lift, no I cannot make it to your Tupperware party. I got pretty good at it and I forgot it was ever a problem until today, when under pressure to give an immediate answer that old habit snapped in. I guess the lesson in this and the reason I am sharing is that these habits or tendencies, in bedded beliefs run deep within us, and even when we become aware of them, we still need to work hard to change them. We need to take that breath, pause, think take another breath and then answer with complete conscious decision in what we are saying and how that makes us feel.
Keep up the hard work.