"I've had enough work on my own, but when my colleagues asked me for help, I would agree right away."
"I don't really like to play with them, but I still agree to their invitations and pretend to be happy."
"In fact, I am not rich now, but when others open their mouths to borrow money from me, I will not only agree to come down, but also pat my chest and say that this is all a small matter, and I will come to me again when I encounter difficulties in the future."
These three sentences are from three people of different ages, genders, and social status, we can see that although they all agreed to each other's requirements, but their hearts were full of entanglement and pain, they said that after agreeing to others, they were eager to slap themselves a few mouths, blame themselves for falling into this strange circle, obviously reluctant in their hearts, very much want to reject others, but their mouths agreed to it.
Many people who dare not refuse others will have a similar experience, and it is a very simple thing to reject others in the eyes of others, such as: "Sorry, I am very busy now", "I have something else at night, I can't play with you, I'm really sorry", "Sorry, I've been tight lately, and when I have a little more money, I'll lend it to you." Even though these words have been repeated many times in private, they still cannot be spoken at critical moments.
So now, let's see, what is the cause of this?
First, fear of loneliness
Sometimes, people will worry that rejecting others will affect their relationships, be isolated by the people around them, and for them a stable relationship, even if the relationship is not so good, but it is also crucial, without these "friends", they will feel difficult, they do not like to feel alone, as if they are alone in the ocean, and "friendship" is the straw that can save them.
Second, look forward to winning everyone's likes
People who dare not reject others will ignore their own needs because they expect everyone's love too much, they are very vague in their inner positioning, they can't see their own advantages and values, when a person does not have internal affirmation, that is, self-affirmation, then they will seek external affirmation in order to achieve a balance of needs, so they will pay more attention to others' evaluation of themselves, they will be too cautious in interpersonal communication, and constantly observe each other's views on themselves, so, in order to obtain external affirmation, It's hard for them to say no to others.
3. Have a traumatic experience
Some people have experienced traumatic experiences in their early years because of rejection, such as violent treatment in school during adolescence because they refuse to do so, or because they have endangered their families because of rejection, and these negative events have caused psychological trauma to people. Sometimes, we deliberately avoid because we don't want to face the past, which is our protection mechanism for ourselves, but the impact of traumatic experiences will still be manifested in other ways, such as not daring to refuse again, because we are afraid to repeat history.
So, knowing why, how should we adjust ourselves?
First of all, we must first understand why we dare not reject others. Now, let's play a little game, close your eyes and imagine the last time you wanted to reject someone else, and when someone else asks for it, ask yourself what happens if you refuse?
Let's take an example:
Q: What happens to him if he refuses?
A: He will not be happy.
Q: What happens if he's not happy?
A: He wouldn't be friends with me.
Q: What happens if he doesn't be friends with you?
A: I will be lonely / I will think I am a failure / I will be retaliated against...
Second, change cognitive patterns
When we understand the reasons why we dare not reject others, then we will face these problems one by one.
The book "Emotional Self-Help" talks about the classic ABC theory, A represents the induced event, B represents some beliefs generated by the individual for this induced event, that is, some views and explanations of the matter, and C represents the results of the emotions and behaviors generated by himself.
Usually, people will think that the inducing event A directly leads to people's emotions and behavior results C, for example, Xiaomei is depressed for a month because of losing her wallet, she thinks that the reason for her depression is "losing the wallet", but in fact, if you change a person, the same thing that happens to lose the wallet, he will only regret it for a little while, and then he will not be affected by this matter, therefore, the reason for Xiaomei's depression is not the "loss of wallet", but her attitude and views on the matter of "losing the wallet". It was also her unreasonable beliefs.
When we dare not reject others, it is also because of some of our unreasonable beliefs.
The irrational beliefs that people often have are summed up in three categories: absolutization, overgeneralization, and extreme badness, and now we come to eliminate the irrational beliefs that surround us.
(a) Lead to loneliness
When we feel that rejecting others can lead to being very lonely, the feeling of loneliness makes us unbearable, which comes for us
It's a "terrible" experience. But in fact, when we think about it from the other side, when our request is rejected by someone else, will we completely deny this person? In fact, it will not, so rejecting others may not have as much negative impact as we think, and just imagine, if we express our own grievances, but the other party still expresses dissatisfaction, then maybe this person is not the friendship object we expect, and what we need at this time is to accumulate our own courage to find a friendship that matches us.
(ii) Think you're a failure
When we let the other party have a bad evaluation of ourselves because we are worried about rejecting others, and then deny ourselves, at this time we fall into the unreasonable belief of "partial generalization" in "overgeneralization". We can think about what are our own strengths, what honors we have received, and what affirmations we have received, which can prove that we are valuable, and if we completely pin our evaluation of ourselves on others, is it too unfair to ourselves? Therefore, we need to strengthen our own hearts, increase inner affirmation, when we are confident enough of ourselves, then naturally we will not care so much about others' evaluation of self-memory, so it is not so difficult to reject others.
(iii) I will be retaliated against
Bad experiences in the past can put themselves in a vulnerable situation, especially children who were bullied because they were rejected when they were young, and if they did not carry out psychological counseling in time, even if they grew up to have the body of an adult, they were still helpless and humble children inside.
As a result, they don't put themselves in the same situation again because they think they are still powerless to solve the dilemma. But they did not realize that the children at that time had grown up, they had a strong body, strong strength, they can now protect themselves, so they can help their inner children grow up through professional psychologists, so they can restore their due strength.
As the book "You are your own psychiatrist" said, when we reject others, it does not mean that we are not kind, nor does it mean that we are too selfish, only when we love ourselves, the people around us will love us, and only if we love ourselves, we will have the strength to bravely say: "No! ”