#6: You Don't Owe Anyone an Apology for Existing — The Art of Saying No...

Intro & Music: 0:06

Welcome and get ready to embark on the journey of a lifetime with your host, Kamara, motivational speaker and certified professional life coach for women. With over 20 years of experience as a life coach, healthcare executive, and mother of two, Kamara shares her own story while providing expert insights and building self-confidence and resilience, while overcoming fears and breaking down self-defeating mindsets. Subscribe now to Kamara Speaks and begin your journey of transformation to becoming the woman you want to be and living the life you want and deserve.

Kamara: 0:52

Ladies, we are going to start a little different today. Close your eyes just for a moment and think about the last time someone asked you to do something that you really truly did not want to do. Maybe it was covering a shift at work or working late. Maybe it was attending a family gathering when you were completely drained and exhausted. Maybe it was lending money to someone when you actually needed it, or agreeing to plans that you dreaded. The question is now, what did you do? If you said yes when every fiber of your being was whispering no, this episode is for you. If you started your response to them with I'm so sorry, but then this episode is especially for you. And if after you said yes, you spent the rest of the day feeling resentful, exhausted, invisible, and somehow guilty for all those feelings, well then pull up a chair. This episode is definitely for you. Welcome back, ladies. I am your host Kamara, and this is a new episode of Kamara Speaks. I'm so honored that you're here, and today we are talking about two of the most quietly destructive habits that steal women's power every single day. And I know I talk about a lot of those powers, but there's there's a lot of power out there that tries to steal our joy, and there's a lot of powers out there that try to steal our power. So today we're gonna talk about the inability to say no without drowning in guilt, and the chronic, compulsive, over apologizing that has become so deeply wired in all of us that most of us don't even notice we're doing it anymore. But we're not gonna just stop there and name the problem today. We're gonna go deep to the root of it. We're going to understand where it comes from, why it lives in us so stubbornly, how to begin dismantling it, and in the most sacred part of today's conversation, we're going to meet the little girl inside of us that started all of this in the first place. Because she is still in there and she needs us. Okay, let's begin. Let's talk about the why, understanding why we as women say yes when we really mean no. And before we can change a behavior, we have to understand it, right? And without judgment. And I mean that sincerely, without judgment. Because if you are a woman who cannot say no, you're not weak or a pushover or broken, you are conditioned. And there is a massive difference. We've talked about this before. From the time we were small girls, we receive thousands of micro messages about what it means to be a quote unquote good girl. Or sometimes a good little girl. Good girls are agreeable, they share. They don't make scenes, they don't get angry, they don't throw tantrums, they don't disappoint, they put others first, and they smile even when they're hurting. And these messages come from where? Parents who were themselves conditioned, teachers who praised the quiet, compliant child, and even fairy tales that rewarded the gentle, self-sacrificing heroine, and sometimes even from religion that elevated meekness and gentleness, from cultures that labeled assertive women as difficult, bitchy, aggressive, or cold, and celebrated the ones who gave and gave and gave without asking for anything in return. By the time most of us were teenagers, the lesson is so well embedded and truly learned that making other people comfortable felt like it was our job. Keeping the peace was our responsibility. And setting a boundary? Well, that was selfish, of course. So let me say that again, because I really want it to land with you. As little girls, many of us were taught, not in words, but through every social interaction, every reprimand, every reward that having a need, expressing a preference, or telling someone no was the same as being selfish. And selfish girls were not lovable. And if you're not lovable, you're not safe. And that is the deep primal fear underneath all of this. Here's something that might genuinely shift how you see yourself. People pleasing, like we talked about, is not a personality flaw. For many women, it is a nervous system response, like we said, and it's what psychologists call a fawn response, a survival strategy. And when you perceive a threat, whether that's a physical, dangerous situation, or simply someone being disappointed in you, or someone being condescending towards you, it's a negative response that our nervous system kicks into gear to fight back, either fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. And fawning means appease, make nice, keep the peace, right? Agree, smile, say yes, because if I make you happy, I am safe. And this for women who grew up in those chaotic households with emotional, unpredictable caregivers, or environments where their needs were consistently and unmet or punished, fawning became the strategy that kept them emotionally safe, and sometimes even physically safe. And those are the strategies that keep us safe and we continue to rely on, because they don't just disappear when you grow up. They become the default. They become our personality, and they stick with us, or at least so we think. Now I know this gets deep, but I want you to think about this deeply. We have to. It's been conditioned in us for years. And this is why willpower alone doesn't work. You can't just wake up tomorrow and decide to be different. Um, well, you can, but it's gonna be difficult sometimes to change certain habits and certain things that are embedded in us. You can't just wake up and start saying no if your nervous system believes that saying no means abandonment or conflict or punishment. You can't just start saying no when you've been saying yes for a very long time. We have to work at a much deeper level. So even when us women we manage to say no, what often follows that is a guilt loop. A loop of us feeling guilty, going around in a circle, and there's an internal voice that says, I should have said yes. Why didn't I just say yes? Oh, I feel bad, they really needed me. Why am I being so selfish? I can give up some time. What's wrong with me? I could have just gone, or I could have just dealt with it. I need to make it up to them. I'll say yes next time, even if I don't want to. And there it is, the guilt loop, around we go. And that guilt isn't random. It's an internal voice that actually we hear. And those might not be the exact words that you hear, like what I just said, but there is an internal voice, and we all have it, it comes from experience, and it comes from the system that always told you that your needs don't matter as much as everyone else's does, and why you need to be so giving. And when you violate that internal rule, even to take care of yourself sometimes, you feel guilty, because somewhere inside you still believe that that rule is true. What's particularly ridiculous is that guilt can sometimes feel virtuous. It feels like empathy, it feels like caring, and sometimes it even feels like a moral responsibility or sensitivity. But I'm here to tell you that we can mistake our guilt for proof that we are good people. But there is a crucial distinction between guilt, I did something wrong, and healthy remorse, I acted against my values. When you honor your own needs and you have not done anything wrong, the guilt is a false alarm. Now, I'm gonna segue from that and I'm gonna talk about something that is so normalized, it is so woven into the fabric of how we as women communicate pretty much on a daily basis that most of us genuinely don't even hear it anymore. We don't hear ourselves saying it or doing it at all. And that is we apologize. We apologize constantly, reflexively, compulsively, and for things that require absolutely no apology at all. We say sorry when we ask a question. We say sorry when someone bumps into us, we say sorry before we share an opinion, we say sorry when we're crying, when we're sick, when we need help, when we're happy, when we're taking up space, when we're breathing. We front load almost every sentence, believe it or not, with an apology like a permission slip just to exist in the room. It goes something like this. I'm so sorry to bother you, but sorry, this is probably a stupid question, but I'm sorry, I just need a minute. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a burden. I'm sorry, I just have a question. Do any of those sound familiar? Be honest with yourself. And there are more. I can keep going down a list. I say them to myself sometimes, or at least I used to more often. And what I want you to understand is that those constant apologies are actually communicating something both to the world and to your own subconscious. Every time you apologize for something that doesn't warrant an apology, you're sending a signal. You're sending a signal to others and to yourself that your presence or whatever you're talking about is an inconvenience, that your needs are burdensome, that your feelings require some type of explanation or they're too excessive, and that you're fundamentally just a little too much. Overapologizing is preemptive self-diminishment. Did you get that? Overapologizing, and it's something that we do, is preemptive self-diminishment. It's a way of shrinking before someone else asks you to say something or do something, and is basically just shrinking in general. It says, please don't be upset with me, please don't reject me, please accept this from me, please see that I know my place, I'm here. And here's the cycle that makes this so damaging. The more you apologize, the more your brain reinforces that belief that you had something to apologize for. The language we use literally shapes our perception of reality. So when you say I'm sorry for taking up your time, before you even open your mouth, your brain files that experience under, my time is less valuable than other people's time. And over time, those thousands of repetitions, those thousands of apologies, those small silent apologies to yourself and your brain become your truth. And it affects every decision you make. And it affects the actions that you take. Research consistently shows that women apologize significantly more than men. And not because they make more mistakes, but because they have a lower threshold for what they perceive as offensive or burdensome. Women are more likely to view their own needs, opinions, and presence as potentially potential potentially problematic. I know that was a tongue tongue twister. I don't know. Did you get that? Okay, I'll say it again. Women are more likely to view their own needs, opinions, and presence as potentially problematic. And we are socialized this way from childhood, like I was talking about. Little girls who are assertive are frequently told they are rude. Little boys who are assertive are often told they are leaders. Girls who cry are told they are too sensitive. Girls who don't smile are told they need to fix their face. I've actually said that to my daughter, which is a little alarming. The message is constant. Your natural way of being is inconvenient. Adjust it and then apologize for the inconvenience. I had a client who started tracking her apologies for one week at my suggestion. She counted over two hundred apologies in seven days. Two hundred. And when she went back through her notes, she realized that fewer than ten of them were actually situations that actually called for an apology. That means the the what, the other hundred and ninety, she was apologizing for just being human, for just being a woman, for just having needs, and for just existing. And that was a turning point for her. And it might be one for you too. So I'm going to ask you to do the same this week. Just notice, if you can, or make a note. I don't know, keep a tigler, uh tickler, just jot a line, put a dot in your phone, something. Just notice it. And don't judge yourself, just witness it. Because awareness is the first step in making true transformation. Okay. So now how do we say no? We've done the deep uh evaluation, right? So let's let's talk about what we actually need to do. Because understanding why we do something is important, but we also need practical, usable tools, right? So that we can get to the root of it and we can actually affect change. We're trying to remember who we were, but we're trying to remember who we were when we wanted to be that person. So we have to erase some of the socialized conditioning and get back to the little girl inside. Now I'm not suggesting that you walk around being terse or unkind or non-apologetic if you really actually need to. Context matters. So relationships and tone actually matter as well. But the compulsive need to over-explain a refusal or a reason why you're saying or doing something usually comes from an old belief that with someone else's, it comes from another person's discomfort. And it comes from that discomfort which you usually take on as your responsibility to manage, which it's not. Also, when you over-explain, you're actually inviting pushback from the other person. You're giving them a reason to actually respond and to continue on the conversation so that you can continue to overexplain. For example, you get an invite, and maybe you're giving the excuse, you know, sometimes you even say sorry, like, you know, sorry, can't make it, or I'm not going to be able to make it because, and then fill in the blank. And then watch, isn't sometimes the response, oh, you're busy on Saturday? Well then what about Sunday? But when you offer a clear, warm and simple no, there's often not much more to say. What is there to say? So instead, just try, nope, won't be able to do that. No, I can't make it. And notice you're not saying, no, sorry I can't make it. Although you can say sorry if you actually mean it. But if you don't mean it, don't say it. Just say I can't. Because I can't implies that you have no choice. When really you are making one. And I won't or I can't is being honest and it's being powerful. One of the most effective strategies for chronic people pleasers is to create that built-in pause between that request and response. So it gives you a second. When someone asks something of you, instead of the automatic yes that jumps out, or the quick sorry that jumps out before your brain has even processed the question, practice saying, Let me get back to you on that. Or I need to check my calendar. Or simply, give me a moment to think about it. I know, and those sentences that I just said probably seem a little uncomfortable because it almost makes it seem as if you're trying to think of an excuse, right? But no, it's being honest. It's being honest with yourself to take a moment to think about it. And what's wrong with thinking about if you want to say yes, if you really want to attend something or do something. You see, that's the conditioning that makes us think that taking that pause or taking a moment to think about it or check your calendar is not important. And it is. The pause does something crucial. It gives your authentic self a chance to be heard, yourself to be heard, because most of us know in the very first microsecond after a request is made, exactly what we want to say doesn't usually come out. We've been trained to override that knowing of what we really want and quickly give in because that's what we do as people pleasers. And we so quickly give in and we don't even notice it. But that pause will help you to catch it. And during your pause, check in with your body, not just your thoughts. Your thoughts will immediately start running the anxiety script about disappointing people and you might get a little uncomfortable. And your body. Your body may feel a little tense, so notice where do you feel the tightness? Is there a sinking feeling or a feeling of dread? Or is there ease and openness? And it may take time for you to become more comfortable with this. But ultimately, if you start to pay attention not just to your thoughts but to your body, you'll notice that your body knows the truth of what you want before your mind even does, before your mind has talked you out of it. So pay close attention. And you can be kind when you respond and still hold firm. These are not opposites. They can go together. A warm and clear no sounds something like, I appreciate you thinking of me. I'm going to pass on this one. Or that's not going to work for me, but I hope you find someone who can help. I care about you, but I'm not able to do that. Or I care about you, and I'm not able to do that. And the last one is, no. But thank you for asking. That's it. Quick, short, and simple. And notice what's not in any of those responses? You guessed it. An apology. There is no I'm so sorry. Because you've done nothing wrong. And do you actually mean it? Are you sorry? I mean, if you really are, I guess you can say it. But really think about it. Are you really sorry? I think a lot of times we say I'm sorry and we think we mean it. We think that's what we want to say. Sometimes it's conditioning and it just comes out, and sometimes I really think that we think we really are sorry, but we're not. So just take a moment and take that pause. And here's the part that nobody likes to hear. It's going to feel terrible at first. Like I said, it's going to feel terrible, it's going to be uncomfortable. And not because you're doing it wrong, because you are doing something that your body and your mind has been trained to avoid. And the discomfort is not a sign to turn back, it's not a sign that you're not going to be able to get through it, that you're not going to be able to affect the change, that you're not going to be more comfortable with it over time. It's just a sign that you're going through the change. It's a sign of the transformation. So when you say no and someone expresses disappointment, frustration, or annoyance, the old part of you will immediately want to backpedal, to go back, to soften it. You're going to be tempted to follow up with an apology. You're going to add a little yes somewhere in there just to relieve the tension or some type of excuse. And that impulse is going to kick in immediately. It's the fawn response this. Kicking in. So notice it, name it. Be like, oh, there's that old pattern, and stomp on it. So in that pause, take a deep breath and breathe through it without acting on it. Someone else's feelings about your no are their feelings to manage, not yours. This is perhaps the hardest lesson in the entire practice of boundaries, and it is perhaps the most liberating one. You can feel compassion for someone's disappointment while you're still holding your own boundary. Compassion is not the same thing as apology. It's not the same and they don't go together. So just breathe and take note. And here's a few more things you can put into practice. Instead of leading with sorry or trying to throw the sorry in there, try something like this. Thank you for your patience instead of sorry I'm late. Try, I have a question, instead of, sorry, this is probably a silly question, but try I need a moment instead of I'm so sorry, I'm just a little overwhelmed. And try, I'd love your help with this, instead of I'm sorry to bother you. Notice how the replacement phrases don't diminish you, they actually elevate you. They don't begin with the premise that you have offended someone. They're honest, direct, and they're still kind. And they're self-saving. So here's a powerful exercise. Every time you catch yourself saying sorry reflexively, gently ask, What am I actually sorry for? So you're gonna make a note, like I said, write it down, jot it, use a tickler, but also ask yourself that question. Because in most cases, the honest answer will be nothing. I'm just afraid of being too much. And over time, that question will start to interrupt that automatic pattern, that automatic apology that comes out, and it's gonna give you that moment and that pause that I'm talking about to choose differently. So I want to pause here, actually, and talk about something else that I think gets missed in a lot of conversations about people pleasing and overapologizing. This isn't just a communication issue. It isn't just a habit issue. At its deepest level, this is a self-love and self-trust issue. And if we only address the surface behavior without touching the root, we will keep getting pulled back into that old pattern, no matter how many times we retry we try to reframe and rework ourselves or apply change. So saying no is an act of self-love. And you've probably heard that before, but really think about it deeply. Every time you say yes when you mean no, you betray yourself. And that may sound dramatic, but think about it. You had a need, a preference. There was a limit there, there was a boundary, and you felt it clearly. And what did you do? You overwrote it. And that override is so important for you to notice. You overrode it not because of a higher value, but because you valued something higher than your own well-being, because you made that choice, because you were afraid of someone else's reaction or response. And what does that tell you about your inner self? It tells you that your needs don't matter, or that your needs don't matter as much. Your limits will be ignored, and not just by others, but by yourself, the person who is supposed to protect you. You're the person that's supposed to protect you. We're not supposed to rely on other people to do that. And over time, all of this creates a fracture in your relationship with yourself. Because technically, your thoughts, your thoughts are what create the relationship with yourself. And when you betray yourself, when you override that no and say yes, you create a loss of trust, a sense that you are not safe on the inside. You're not safe with yourself in your own life. Self-love is not a bubble. It's not a bubble that you live in, it's not bubble baths, it's not just affirmations, it's not just positive thoughts. Although those things are important and they do have a place in there, real self-love is choosing yourself consistently and even when it's uncomfortable. It's showing up for yourself, it's showing up for your own needs, the way you show up for everyone else's. Not because I'm selfish, because I am worth caring for. And you are worth caring for. And then what happens? Women who don't trust themselves are profoundly vulnerable. They look to others for validation, they defer their decisions, they doubt their perceptions, and they become increasingly disconnected from their own inner compass. And what happens? They're apologizing about it all the time. But every time you honor what you know, every time you feel the no and you honor it and you say it and you stick to it, you make a deposit into that self-trust account and you continue to build on it. It's like growing interest. You prove to yourself that you are reliable, that you'll listen, that you'll listen to yourself, and you're protecting your own heart. You're telling yourself that you will protect yourself. And over time, that builds into an unshakable foundation. And that's the self-love that I'm talking about. That's the self-love that we need. That's the self-love that grows and builds on confidence and builds more compassion, and it builds a strong, reliable person that gets things accomplished, that seeks out goals, that puts out their big, hairy goals and goes after them. And think about a woman in your life who seems genuinely at peace with herself or genuinely confident. I bet you she speaks up. I bet you she trusts herself and she speaks to that no. If she's someone who doesn't twist herself into knots trying to manage everyone else's feelings, she's someone that says what she means. She cares deeply, but she still holds her own. And what is it about her that draws you to her? It's that confidence. It's that willing to bet that it's not her productivity that brings out that resilience in her, not just her pleasantness, it's her integrity. It's the fact that she lives in alignment with what she actually believes and feels. That is what self-trust looks like. And that's what it looks like from the outside. So when you think of that woman, think about what's happening internally as she thinks and reacts and responds. And that woman is not born. She's not born that way. She's gone through some of the same conditioning that we all have. She is built because she is doing work on herself. She is built choice by choice, boundary by boundary, honest word by honest word. And it is possible. She is possible for you. She is not some far-off fantasy. She is you and she's somewhere in there. She is you, and she is in the process of becoming. You are becoming, and you're also coming home to yourself. Now I want you to do something with me right now. If you're somewhere where you can close your eyes, please do so. If you're driving, please keep your eyes open. But let yourself be really present for this. If you're walking, slow down just a little. And if you can, stop. I want you to go back, way back, before you knew how to people please, before you had learned that no was dangerous, and before you understood that the world wanted you smaller and quieter and less. There was a little girl, your little girl. As some of you know, that little girl would I reference as Tiara, hence Tiara's and lipstick. Go back to that little Tiara. That little girl who came into the world knowing exactly what she wanted. She cried when she was hungry without apologizing. She laughed with her whole body without wondering if she was too loud. She said no, and she said mine and I don't want to without guilt. And why did she say those things? Because she meant them. Because she hadn't yet learned that her preferences were inconvenient. She danced in the living room because the music felt good in her body, and she drew pictures and said, Look at this with pure, uncomplicated pride. She knew she was worthy of love. And she knew what self-love was. Not because she had earned it, simply because she existed. And then gradually, over time things happened, didn't they? Someone told her to be quiet. Someone punished her for saying no. Someone laughed at her dance or her drawing. Someone said, You're too sensitive when she cried. Someone left when she needed them. And someone stayed but made her pay for it. And in her little girl wisdom, she adapted. She learned the rules. She became what was required. But here's what I want you to know. And I'm trying not to get emotional with it because we all know this, don't we? Here's what I want you to know. With everything that I have, she never left. She is still in there, ladies. That little girl that little girl who knew her worth without question, who hadn't yet learned to shrink, who said no without flinching. She is living inside of you right now. She has been quiet for a long time, but she's there. And she's been waiting. She is so very tired of waiting. So I'm just going to try to teach you, like I've taught myself, how to hear her. Because she speaks to you in the first reaction that you have before your mind talks you out of it. She is the flicker of longing when you imagine a different kind of life. She is the tightness in your chest when you say yes and mean no. She is the tiny voice that whispers, This isn't right. And that you have learned to dismiss as irrational or selfish or too much. Learning to say no is at its core learning to listen to her again. Learning to stop apologizing is learning to say your feelings are not a burden. Your needs are not an imposition. You, that original, unfiltered, unafraid you, that little girl that you need to listen to is not something you need to apologize for. She is not someone you need to apologize for. So I invite you this week to write her a letter. The little girl in you, your little Tiara, tell her you see her, and tell her you're sorry for all the times you overrode her just to keep someone else comfortable or someone else pleased. Tell her that you are remembering and you are becoming, you are learning to choose her again. And tell her something that she might never have fully believed before, but that she is enough. She has always been enough. And not because of what she does or did, or what she gives or gave or produces or performs, but simply because she is here. The work that we're doing about saying no and releasing the habit of over apologizing is not just about better communication, ladies, or healthier relationships, although those things will come. It's inevitable. It's about keeping a promise to the little girl in you before the world told her to be less. She trusted that the world would be kind to her, and it wasn't always, was it? She trusted that she could take up space, and she is often told that she couldn't. And she trusted that her feelings mattered, but she was frequently shown that they didn't. You can be the one who finally keeps that promise. Every time you say no, let it stand. Every time you speak without prefacing it with an apology, every time you feel the guilt and stay with yourself anyway. Every time you choose your own needs, not instead of others, but alongside them, as equal, you are reaching back through time and taking her hand. You are saying, I've got you. And that is where the real healing begins. That is where the real self-love lives. All right. I think that's all I've got for today. And I know I got a little emotional in there, but I really feel passionately about all of this. So I just want to leave you with this. You're not going to change overnight. So be patient with yourself. Be gentle. This conditioning that took years to build does not dissolve in a single podcast episode, or in a single no, or in a single week. But it's okay. You just have to be willing to try. Willing to pause before that automatic yes. Willing to notice when you override your own knowing. Willing to sit in the discomfort of a held boundary. Willing to be uncomfortable for a little while. This work is some of the most important work you will ever do. And not because it makes you more productive or more palatable, but because it makes you more you. And the world does not need more of the diminished, apologetic, overextended version of you. The world needs the full version, the real you, the woman you are becoming. The one who knows what she wants, asks for it honestly, and doesn't shrink for anyone anymore. She is in there. She has always been in there. Now go find her. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if so, hit subscribe. Remember to check out Tiara'selipstick.com for information on my personal coaching services, group classes, and special promotions. And come find me on Facebook or Instagram and Let's Connect. Send me a message, say hi, and let me know if you like this episode. I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, this is Kamara reminding you to step up and think big.