By My Own Free Will: People Pleasing and Learning to Say No

I have always been the one who steps aside.

At the table, I take the smaller piece. At work, I take the extra task, the late evening, the blame for something that was not only mine. In a conversation, I am the one who listens and agrees, even when I don't. When someone needs to be comforted, I comfort. When someone needs to be right, I let them.

For a long time I thought this was kindness. Some of it was. But if I am honest, a lot of it was something else.

I once described myself as a sacrificial lamb. And then I added, almost proudly: but by my own free will. Nobody forced me. I walked to every altar myself.

It took me years to understand what that sentence really meant.

I didn't give everything away because people took it. I gave it away because somewhere deep inside I believed that this was my price. That I was worth something only as long as I was useful. Only as long as I carried more than others. If I stopped giving, what would be left of me? Who would I be, if not the one who always says yes?

So I said yes. To things I didn't want. To people who didn't ask how I was. To days that left nothing for me at all. And I called it strength.

The strange thing is that I don't lack strength. What I lack is something smaller and harder: the ability to say "this is mine" and keep it.

I have carried things that would have broken me if I had been weaker. But my time, my opinion, my tiredness, my no: those I always gave away first.

Pride was always a bad word for me. A proud woman was a cold woman, a selfish one. I was taught to be humble, to be grateful, to not make a fuss. But I am learning that there is another kind of pride. Not the kind that looks down on others. The quiet kind that simply says: I am also a person. My needs also count. I will not disappear so that everyone else can be comfortable.

I am not good at it yet. I want to be honest about that, because I don't want to write one of those stories where the woman learns her lesson and walks off into the sunset with perfect boundaries. I still say yes too quickly. I still feel guilty when I rest. I still apologize for things that are not my fault, sometimes for simply taking up space.

But I have started with very small things.

I let a phone call go to voicemail when I am too tired to talk, and I call back the next day. I say "I can't this week" without inventing an excuse. When I am hurt, I sometimes say so, out loud, instead of swallowing it and smiling. Each time my heart beats fast, as if I had done something terrible. And each time, the world doesn't end.

I am beginning to see that a boundary is not a wall. It is not a punishment for the people I love. It is a door that I am allowed to close for a while, so that there is still a me left to open it again.

Maybe I will always be the one who gives a little more. That is part of who I am, and I don't want to lose it completely. But I want my giving to be a gift again, not a debt I am trying to pay off. I want to choose it, really choose it, not because I am afraid of what I would be without it.

By my own free will. I still like those words. I just want them to mean something different now.

Is there something you keep giving away that you would like to keep for yourself, just once? It's alright if you don't know yet.

Would you like to share your answer?

I read every answer myself. It stays private unless you say otherwise.

If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, please reach out to local emergency services or a crisis line in your country right now. You deserve immediate support.

With love, from HerWay

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