Thanks, but no thanks.

I remember one time as an adult, I was venting to my father about someone who I felt was taking advantage of my kindness. My father said, “I don’t feel one bit sorry for you. If you don’t know how to say no, it’s your problem! Go stand in a corner every day and and practice saying, no, no, no…” He threw the blame right back on me for not standing up for myself in this situation.

Does this ring true for you when it comes to food? Do you find that you desire to eat one way because you know that this will improve your health, only to be derailed because someone is pushing food at you to make themselves feel better?

And you don’t know how to say no!

I had a client who had this problem. We’ll call her Mary. Mary had a friend who kept making her homemade cookies. Mary explained that she couldn’t eat the cookies because as a diabetic they would make her sick.

With this information, Mary’s friend only brought her two cookies at a time. However, even two cookies could send her blood sugar soaring. Mary couldn’t bring herself to throw them away every time, and having them in her environment sabotaged her goals. Mary learned to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

This sounds easy enough. But it isn’t.

Conflicting values often cause inner turmoil.

Mary valued being kind and pleasing others, and this came naturally to her. But she also valued her health. She had to look inside of herself and decide which value would move her intentionally towards the vision she held for herself. Mary had a servant’s heart, and she could still serve, but she had to find a different way. She chose her health because being sick would get in the way of her serving even more people.

It’s not always easy to stand up for yourself when that involves letting others down.

We all have needs that we’re trying to meet and we do this through our behaviors. Mary’s friend was trying to meet one of her own needs by making and offering the cookies. But that really wasn’t Mary’s problem. Her friend needed to find another way to get her needs met that wouldn’t wreck Mary’s health.

Sometimes in order to calm our inner spirit, we need to take a moment to discover what our values are and what we want to achieve in life (our vision) so that we can intentionally move towards that vision one choice at a time.

What are your values?

I encourage you to take a moment and take the free values test provided in the link at the end of this post.

What did you learn about yourself and how will this change your choices and actions moving forward? I’d love to know. Feel free to leave a comment below.