Have you ever felt guilty when people offered you help? It just happened to me today. I met my cousin for lunch, and then we came to my parents’ place and continued chatting with the rest of my family. At 8pm I told her I still needed to write this newsletter, and she volunteered to take care of my daughter while I do it. It made me pause, I wasn’t sure if she really wanted this, or if she only said it because she felt obliged to do so.
Learning to define my boundaries has been a big learning for me these past few months. I realized I over-explained my "no"s as a defensive tactic in order to avoid being disliked/abandoned. Things have gotten better once I discovered that healthy people will easily accept a simple "no" at face-value.
This was an interesting idea about how it takes time to internalize you're not in danger, and a thought-provoking linked post on Seth's Blog: https://seths.blog/2017/06/the-right-effort-of-generosity
Learning to define my boundaries has been a big learning for me these past few months. I realized I over-explained my "no"s as a defensive tactic in order to avoid being disliked/abandoned. Things have gotten better once I discovered that healthy people will easily accept a simple "no" at face-value.