Mastering Boundaries: How to Say “No” Without Being “Rude”

Nothing gives me “the ick” more than that feeling I get after I let someone cross my boundaries. Not ever wanting to be “rude” or make someone feel uncomfortable, ashamed or rejected, I said yes to things or accepted behaviours that didn’t make me feel good. From letting men walk me home after a first date when I really didn’t want them to know where I lived and knew I never wanted to see them again to answering work calls outside office hours, agreeing to meet up with “friends” who competed with me and made me feel bad about myself, and overextending my time and emotional energy to others and their problems when I didn’t have the capacity for it.

Many of us, particularly those of us who would identify as people-pleasers, learned early on to be accommodating to other people’s needs and desires at the expense of our own. We will sacrifice our personal space, finances, time, happiness, emotional and mental well-being, and even our physical safety to avoid being “rude” or making someone upset with us because we learned in an early life event that not being accommodating to our own detriment was potentially unsafe. On top of that, some of us live in cultures where being self-sacrificing and overly generous are admirable qualities in both personal and professional spheres, and as such, saying no is not only seen as a social faux-pas but can…