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Why It’s Good to Say “No”

As a mom, wife, and stateside missionary, I spend most of my time taking care of others.

This is great most of the time, except when I forget to care for myself.

Caring for myself can be as easy as going to bed at a healthy time rather than staying up four hours later so I can finish a project.

I’ll be honest: self care hasn’t been on my priority list until now. But the lack of it has caused me significant health problems in the past year, and I am waking up to the necessity of doing a better job of caring for me.

Sometimes we think that in replacing self care time with others-centered time, we are doing a good thing. In reality we are missing something crucial. If we ignore the need for self care, we not only hurt ourselves, but we inadvertently affect those we desire to care for because we don’t have the inner resources to serve them to the best of our abilities.

Saying no is hard sometimes. I know from experience. But I’ve learned some practical tips that are helping me to say no more often, for my own health and the well-being of those around me.

Recognize Your Limited Time

We all have the same twenty-four hours in a day. When we say yes to one thing, we have to realize that means we may have to say no to another. When we keep saying yes to everything, it is difficult to focus on our own needs. Time is our most valuable commodity. We must learn to spend it wisely.

Part of spending your time wisely is knowing why you want to be involved with a project or endeavor. Before committing to a project, ask yourself this question: Will I be investing my time, energy, and spiritual passions wisely with this?

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Understand Your Priorities

What are your primary priorities in life? Is your own care somewhere on the top of that list? For the longest time, I made everyone else my first priority out of a limited understanding of what it means to do God’s work. I didn’t recognize that I am God’s priority, which means I, too, deserve to be on my own list of priorities.

Sometimes this even means I have to put me first.

This is okay.

Our spiritual, emotional, and physical needs have to be met before we can care for the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of others. Sometimes we need to ask ourselves: Does God want me to stop and assess my priorities? Have I made my own needs a priority?

Jesus himself took time away to pray, rest, spend time with just his disciples, and to be alone (see Mark 3:7-21, Matt. 12:15-20, Luke 22:39). “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine” (John 15:4 NIV)

Listen to God’s Abiding Spirit

Pay attention to that inner voice when it is saying no. Too often we do things (or don’t do things) out of guilt or fear, ignoring the Holy Spirit’s prompting within us.

Guilt and fear are faulty emotions. They surface when we find ourselves looking through a distorted lense or hearing a lie, unable to see ourselves, our lives, and our needs clearly. Guilt and fear make people irrational, and choices made in an irrational state are almost never productive.

Sometimes no is how we give into guilt or unworthiness and sometimes no is how we combat guilt or unworthiness. Sometimes no is a way we give in to fear and sometimes no is a way we combat fear.

Listening to His abiding Spirit helps us to decipher whether or not no is the right response to an opportunity.

While many Scriptures such as 2 Corinthians 4:5 clearly state we are to serve others, it is important to make sure we are also giving time to self care. Although saying no can be a difficult thing, it’s often one of the best boundaries we can set, enabling us to serve others by being our best selves.

Brianna_GeorgeBrianna George is a speaker, teacher, and missionary as well as a part-time writer and full-time encourager. She lives in central Tennessee with her husband of twelve years, two spicy little boys, and Bosa the boxer. More of her writing can be found at unveiledandrevealed.com.

 

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51 Comments

  1. great article brianna:) it took many years to learn this now it is part of the way i help encourage my friends. seems to catch up with women at middle age if they never learned it. i’m always learning it in new ways.

  2. ““No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine” (John 15:4 NIV)
    This verse is salve to my soul!

    “Guilt and fear are faulty emotions. They surface when we find ourselves looking through a distorted lens or hearing a lie, unable to see ourselves, our lives, and our needs clearly. Guilt and fear make people irrational, and choices made in an irrational state are almost never productive.”

    I love the clarification of guilt and fear. Sometimes it’s hard to recognize the damage of these emotions.

    Beautiful Brianna, just like you!

  3. This is beautifully written. I commented on Facebook about this already, but I’ll say again how important it is to take care of ourselves. I oftentimes forget to, but it is so, so important.

  4. We underestimate and minimize the importance of this all too often, Brianna. Thanks so much for your encouraging and refreshing perspective.

  5. I agree with this so much! I am a nurse and I frequently say (to myself and other nurses) that you have to take care of yourself if you’re going to take care of other people.

  6. For me, using Day on One page inserts in my planner has really helped me stop over scheduling and over filling my To Do list. If you have a planner, I recommend trying this or if you just have a notebook, maybe write 7 am to 9 pm (or whatever hours work for you) down the side and try to organize yourself?

  7. Thanks Sarah. It is a struggle for sure some days, especially when you see and the things you need to do, should be doing, want to do, etc…

    May we both experience the freedom of rest as we navigate this need for Self-care.

  8. Spirituality is something I really believe in and can relate to! Being free spirited, following your dreams, not letting yourself get dominated, leading change and believing in it.

  9. One of the things I’ve been working on figuring out this week is how I’m actually using my time. That way I can actually utilize my finite time in ways that puts my priorities in the biggest chunks of time. Knowing how to best use my time is a huge part of practicing self-care for me.

  10. I love this! Sometimes it’s just hard to say no to things but I feel like if it’s something you don’t want to do or doesn’t make you happy then you shouldn’t do it. This is defintely a reminder I need to keep in mind.

  11. What a brilliant post. I have such a hard time saying ‘no’ (although I am learning!). Thank you for this post. I am also finding it hard still settling into a new year and new routine and working out what are the things I am going to focus on, what am I going to say no to etc. This is great to help me remember to focus on self-care 🙂 Katie

  12. I am so awful at this. I like to believe that I can do everything but I really just can’t. I need to learn to say no!

  13. I need to learn to be better at saying no and realizing that I can’t say yes to everything because I am ill enough as it is and I am making myself 100 times worse! Clarifying that I need time to practice self-care should be the next step moving forward.

  14. Yup…identifying my most important focus is what helps me…it’s when I forget to be intentional about it that I get messed up. 🙂 Thanks for reading and commenting , Kelly.

  15. This was a “need to read” for me today! As Mom and wife especially we divide so much of our time up, by the end of the day it’s all gone. This year I’m working on saying no so I can have more family time and ME time. Guilt and fear can make that so difficult.

  16. Oh yes, it is so important to learn to say no. I have been working on that the past couple of years, and finally feel at peace about it. I still struggle with what people will think of me when I do say no, but I am moving beyond that realizing that I need to be able to say no in order to say yes to the things that are important to me and my family!

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