I was sitting with a girlfriend the other day and she was talking about a guy who keeps asking her out and it was driving her crazy. The truth is he is a total hottie, and she used to have a HUGE thing for him in college, but after the reconnect all these years later, she just isn’t that into him! He is literally offering her all expense paid trips in an effort to try and spend time with her and she is annoyed that he just can’t get the damn hint that no means no buddy! So we explored a bit further….
The convo went a little somethin’ like this…
Me – “Have you told him that you’re not interested?
Her – “Not exactly.”
Me – “What exactly have you told him?”
Her – “Well I never make time for him, I always give him excuses why I am never free, and I told him a while back that I was too busy to date because of moving and work, and now that work has died down and the move is over he has resurfaced, and I keep telling him that his offer of a trip is too much for me to accept…”
Me – “Right, so you would like him to get the hint? Read between the lines? Read your mind?”
Her – “haha, yes. Ugh why can’t he just get that I am not that into him. It’s so annoying.”
Me – “haha, sounds like until you actually say what you really mean that you are just going to be subjecting yourself to unnecessary turmoil!”
Her – “I know!!! I just don’t want to hurt his feelings! And besides what would I even say?!”
Me – “It sounds like you might already be hurting his feelings by stringing him along…”
Her – “Yea, I know. UGH. I guess I could say that I am not looking to date right now…”
Me – “Is that what you really mean?”
Her – “No. But that will at least not hurt his feelings as much.”
Me – “So what if he shows back up later asking – ‘is now a good time? How about now?!’…. Because it sounds like you already tried that before with him and he has resurfaced seeing if now is a good time…”
Her – “This is awful.”
Me – “I know – It sounds like what you really mean to say is ‘I’m just not interested’, period.”
This is INCREDIBLY common! Where we feel we are being polite by not telling others what we REALLY mean but in all actuality we are just causing them and ourselves unnecessary turmoil!
Introducing….
The “Say What you REALLY Mean” Game…
As an example – I was sitting on a plane recently, on my way back from Mexico. It was close to a 4 hour flight, and I was soooooo excited to relax and do whatever my little heart desired! Maybe read a bit, take a little nappy poo, watch a movie, whateves! And the guy sitting next to me was a total Chatty Cathy… I was reading my book and he kept chatting away, asking me qs. Literally, I was buried in my book…. and the guy kept on going and going and going… I was answering him with one word answers… all the while I was SCREAMING inside my head for him to STOP! I recognized my passive aggressive behavior immediately and started walking myself through this formula and decided to share this with you in hopes that you can be proactive in stopping the unnecessary turmoil in your own life too! 🙂
Play with this formula as a game for exploring saying what you REALLY mean to say!
#1. Ask yourself – If there were no consequences and no judgment of yourself, what is it that you would actually like to say? Think about it and / or write out every single thing you are REALLY thinking! Do NOT hold back!! The only person who will know what you are REALLY thinking is YOU, and the sooner you can stop judging how you REALLY feel, the sooner you can be liberated and set FREE! No one else is ever even going to see this list that you make, (you can even burn it later if you want to!) so just be BRUTALLY honest with yourself! Think about it, if you cannot be brutally honest with yourself, how the hell are you ever going to be able to be honest with others and / or get what you want?!
i.e. in the case of the guy on the plane I was thinking to myself…
– ummm seriously dude, read my F’in* social cues!
– How the f* are you not understanding that I do NOT want to talk to you when I sending you the F* off signals – I have my face buried in a book and I keep giving you dirty looks when you interrupt my reading! Yes, I am being passive aggressive, but RAAAR!!!
– WHAAAAT THEEEEE F*CK!!!!!!
– SHUT IT. SHUT UP. Put a cork in it! STOP TALKING! Go to sleep! PIPE DOWN!!!
#2. Then ask yourself…
A. What is the behavior that the person is doing that you would like them to stop?
(To be clear – this is NOT about controlling another person, because that is impossible, you can only do YOU! This is about saying what you REALLY mean, and a piece of the puzzle is expressing what you want, which you can find through looking first at what you do NOT want to happen anymore so that you can flip it into a want! This is all about you finding your own truths, and has nothing to do with them! We are just exploring playfully here with this process!)
AND…
B. What is your IDEAL situation? This doesn’t even have to be what you believe is even possible – Use the straight up magic wand and unicorn imaginative desire here and just have fun and play with it….
i.e with my airplane guy…..
A.
Stop talking.
Leave me alone.
B.
– I wish… That he would read my mind. (Yes, I am aware that is going to be on most of our lists. We would all love it if others were mind readers! It would make things sooo much easier, right?! 😆 )
– I wish…That he would leave me alone so that I can read my book peacefully, and guilt free….
– I wish…That David Blaine was on this flight and would make this guy disappear…
– I wish… That I had a time machine and I could pick a different seat so that he wasn’t sitting in my row…
– I wish…That there was a magical fairy that sprinkled sleepy dust on him so that we would fall peacefully asleep… for the ENTIRE flight…
You get the idea…
#3. And finally… Play with all the possibilities that you could actually say out loud that would be –
- Direct
- To the point,
- Crystal clear
- And get your point across of exactly what you DO want to have happen.
Oh and don’t forget the most important part of this step… Call yourself out on your bullshit when you have a cop out answer and you aren’t saying what you REALLY mean to say!
Ex. I could have actually said to the guy on the plane…
- …Nothing and hoped he would eventually get the point! (Had to call myself out on my BULLSHIT on this one, this is not direct, and I would not even be saying a damn word, try again! NEXT!)
- I could have said…I am sorry, I am just tired… (Which would have been a half truth, I was a bit tired, but I do not apologize for how I feel – not to be confused with apologizing when I am in the wrong on something, which I will own my own shit for sure – yet apologizing for how I FEEL, just in the mere attempt to not hurt someone else’s feelings, well that would have been going against my truth of being unapologetically ME! It would be more damaging to ME to put his feelings above my own – Something that is sooo common, and holds us back from the most epic existence imaginable!)
- I could have said….I’m sorry, I’m not much of a talker….(BS! I am not sorry, and I am sooo a talker! I just don’t feel like talking right now… Sooo try again!!)
i.e. What I actually ended up saying to the gentlemen was…
“I need to catch up on work.” And then went right back to reading my book.
And if I am being honest with myself that was probably even a bit of a cop out! Because then I felt guilty when I put my work down a couple hours later and wanted to watch a movie! And the very second that I put my book down, his energy peaked right up and you could tell he wanted to engage in convo. After all, I was now taking a break from my work which was the very reason that I gave him for not speaking to him earlier. SIGH. This is incredibly common! Most people believe what you TELL them, (aka NOT mind readers) and that is why it is SO important to say what you REALLY mean, or you will continue to be bothered when YOU have the power to prevent that from happening in the first place! The guilt I started to experience for wanting to watch a movie, AND the fact that his energy peaked back up to the point where I could blatantly tell that he was thinking it was now time to talk, were both my clues to myself that I wasn’t 100% honest when I said what I said. I did NOT say what I REALLY meant. (It is NOT about them, it’s about YOU. It’s about being true to YOU and saying what you REALLY mean!) The truth is I didn’t feel like chatting! And I probably could have just said… something like… “You know, I’ve been around people all week, and just craving some me time to read and relax!” Or even more simply– “I’m not really in the mood to chat!” Easier said than done, and easier to see in retrospect, I am well aware! Yet, even the reflection of this process has allowed me to see how I can be even more authentic next go round!
Then beware of the guilt trip and manipulation trap!!!
i.e His response to me when I said that I need to catch up on work – “Oh, I am so sorry, I know I keep bothering you, I will stop bothering you now…” UGH. TRAP! And my response – “Thanks!”And then I went right back to reading! I am well aware that he was fishing for a response that most others often respond to such a comment with… something like “you’re not bothering me!” or “It’s not you, it’s me”, etc. (All the things we have been conditioned to respond to such a trap with so as not to hurt someone else feelings, even if that means that we have to sacrifice ourselves in the process.) But I can read energy peeps, and trust me when I say that that would have launched me right into a full blown convo with this guy, AND the truth was that he was bothering me, and so I held my ground and stayed true to myself, and did NOT allow guilt to make me jump into an obligatory response to make him feel better and sacrifice my own peaceful 4 hour plane ride that I was craving.
This is one of the hardest parts – avoiding the trap! And some of you are even reading this and thinking “how could she be so cold?!”… “That poor guy…” lol, and THAT my friends, is precisely what is holding you back from being set FREE! Why is it that we believe that we should sacrifice our own wants and needs in order to prevent hurting someone else’s feelings?! It is NOT about him. Who cares if this person, who you will never see again, doesn’t like you, or thinks that you are cold? If you walk around your entire life caring what others think about you, playing by everyone else’s rules, doing what you think you “should” do… you will end up being one super depleted, exhausted, unhappy person. Trust me, I KNOW! I have been there, done that, and I am NOT going back!
Trust me when I say that once you play with this game and this formula long enough, you’ll see that what I did was NOT cold, it is being unapologetically YOU, which is liberating and sets you FREE!
Experiment with it, play with it, and see what works for YOU!
Oh and PS – If there are super deep life long patterns that you are trying to break – i.e. saying what you really mean to say to family members, or a long term friend, or a long term lover – Take your time! Do it on YOUR terms! If you aren’t sure what you want to say, or how you want to say it, and if being around them is just making you go kray kray… give yourself permission to take a break, find your truths, so that you can eventually say what you REALLY mean to say instead of being stuck in a perpetual cycle of unhealthy codependent patterns – aka the hamster wheel of hell! So as you play with this game, if you find it easier to start with strangers and work your way up to those closest to you, do your thaaang! haha! The guilt and manipulation traps are the most intense with those who have known you the longest! They know exactly what to say to really stick it to you, what buttons to push to make you doubt yourself and question your truths, and how to leave your brain on a broken record of an all consuming replay loop! Often times people have a hard time hearing your truths when you have never practiced sharing them with them before, especially when your truths are that they are hurting you and that you will no longer tolerate their toxic behavior – Which is likely to rock their boat since that will require change and who the hell likes change?! RIGHT?!! So just know that if you are met with some epic resistance on their end, it’s normal, and all part of the journey!
Sending you vibes of love, light, laughter, endless epic adventures, feeling super sexy swagalicious, and being fierce, fab, and free!
If you have any questions, or need anything at all do not hesitate to reach out! I am here to help you crack the codes of your own plaguing patterns that get in the way of you being a you that you love being, and creating a life that you LOOOVE living!! 🙂
Xoxo,
Morgan
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