Hard to Say No?

 

Have you ever encountered a situation where someone expects something from you, but you don't want to do it, and yet you find yourself unable to say no? You agree to do something you really don't want to, and later, you feel stressed out. This could involve your parents, classmates, friends, or even your boss. Afterward, you reflect on the situation and regret not expressing your true feelings.

Deep down, this difficulty stems from an inability to show your authentic self, leading to stress, anxiety, and people-pleasing behavior. Hiding the real you often begins when your mother or father disregards your emotions as you try to express something—be it crying relentlessly, throwing tantrums, or simply wanting to eat fruits, only to have your feelings unacknowledged. Even if the other person had good intentions, a child's brain may perceive it differently. In other words, it's also a form of rejection.

A newborn can also sense rejection or abandonment. For example, a mother might not give her child milk because the doctor advised feeding every four hours. While the mother follows the doctor's instructions (scientific or not), the toddler's brain perceives it differently. He can sense the mother's presence and express his urge, but not receiving it can instill a sense of abandonment, even in a month-old child. Here, the process of not showing your authentic self begins, because expressing your needs doesn't guarantee fulfillment, no matter how valid they are to you. Later in life, this manifests as difficulty in saying no.

With abandonment, you not only experience stress and anxiety but also begin to resent the other person. You might start to avoid them or become submissive, and gradually, you realize that people start to take advantage of you unintentionally. For example, your family might sometimes pressure you, and you just can't express how you feel. You bottle it up, and the resentment surfaces in different forms.

So, what can you do about it?

Here's a small exercise you can do weekly—a simple four-step formula to help you recognize and practice saying no. Start by doing this weekly, then increase the frequency of your self-analysis. Reflect on the emotions you experienced when considering saying no and after you were unable to do so—these could include stress, anxiety, discomfort, anger, etc. This awareness helps you understand the physical signs your body exhibits, aiding in identifying what makes it difficult to set boundaries.

1. What do you notice in your body? – This grounds you in the present and helps you recognize the physical signs of stress, anxiety, or discomfort.
2. What story do you tell yourself to justify your action? – This uncovers the internal struggle you experience, such as thoughts like "If I say no, they will be disappointed" or "I'm not a good person if I say no."
3. What is the actual truth? – This helps differentiate between reality and perception. The reality might be: "It's okay to care about myself" or simply "I don't know how to do it."

Take a notebook and write about the previous week. Document how you felt and what conclusions you reached. Eventually, you'll become more aware of these situations and be able to take action in real-time.

If you think you need a worksheet, let me know.

A scientific way of being Happy

Like every other parent, I worry about my 13-year-old niece’s future as well. The world she is born into is harsh and not going to be any easier to live in. I worry about what she will go through and how I can make sure that it will be a happier place for her and to many other children. But then I realized that no matter how hard I try, happiness does not come from the outside world. It's something that you search within you. Of course, as the most brainless animal on earth (Destroying our planet), we have our responsibility towards this planet and other living beings. We also have the responsibility of renewing the things we are destroying but at the same time, we have to understand that the destruction outside is a product of what is decaying inside us and so to understand yourself is as essential as “food, house and clothes”, and so here I will introduce Vipassana.

Now one can wonder – what does Vipassana have to do with science and neurology? And if Vipassana can then other methods can too. But some basic fundamental differences are there that distinguish Vipassana from others.

Neurology accentuates two points when it comes to stress-free life and being happy on the scientific level. One is that a brain stays in the Parasympathetic phase which means your brain stays in a calmer zone. The second phenomenon is that if a human mostly thinks rationally that is with its Pre Frontal Cortex (PFC) then he/she will make decisions in his life with a balanced thought process.

Now I really don’t need to say but I am anyway mentioning that if you think being equanimous (Calm and composed) and then making decisions is not that important then think of all the people especially women who live their entire lives in an abusive relationships, or think of a man going through so much of stress and trauma just because he has social pressure on him to act like a “MAN”. Of course, these are some extreme cases I am mentioning here. On the opposite side, an adolescent girl not able to focus on her studies or a boy being bullied at home by his father or at school by other boys and scared to react comes from the same place of the brain where the above two extreme examples I have given come from. Here comes the importance of balancing PFC and the Limbic system of the brain and so here I introduce Vipassana meditation.

Vipassana does not only calm your mind or help you concentrate but it also tells your brain to be balanced and think from your PFC and not the emotional part of your brain. There are three steps in Vipassana that a person goes through. 1^st one is to concentrate on your breath – that’s mostly just to make your brain sharp and focused, this helps you to concentrate on your studies or work. The 2nd part is to focus on your body and the sensations that are occurring every minute and every second. This part of psychophysics tells you that your mind is connected to your body. And the 3^rd and last step of Vipassana guides you to deal with your emotions. Now this part is a little tricky to understand and until you don’t try and practice it, it won't be easy to comprehend by merely reading about it. The 3^rd part guides you to look at those same gross and subtle sensations without emotions. Let me give a very simple example – try to remember when you get angry or nervous your ears will get warm or maybe your nostrils will flare up and you will breathe heavily. This means, your emotions and your brain are connected to your body, and when you tell yourself to look at these sensations in a balanced way you are literarily instructing your brain to deal with your emotions from PFC and not use your limbic system. When you don’t react to your sensations you guide your brain to think rationally on the emotional level as well and not just barely react to your emotions.

Now, I don’t say this is easy. If someone thinks that it is then he should think from his PFC. But if you really believe in having a change in your life on any level. It could be as easy as following your routine and not procrastinating. This technique will help you and sustain.

I think this part is also important – Why Vipassana more than any other method? Personally, I think the authenticity of a method can be judged based on the following points.

1.      Before joining a meditation group see if they are charging for it. Basically, if it’s a business for them as well.

2.      Does it tell you to worship a human being?

3.      Is it related to a specific organized religion?

4.      Does it tell you to imagine or pronounce a god or a specific word respectively?

5.      Does it push you towards pseudoscience? Now this could be something we can discuss.

But, Just keep your eyes open if someone is telling you to depend on something more than your own breath and body. We don’t really need more than these two things to live ….. Do we?

Lastly, Go for a ten-day course if you decide to try this method.  

www.dhamma.org  

                        

 

affect of mobile phones on your child's brain

A few years back, just after the lockdown, when everything started to seem normal, I went to see a not-so-close friend. 

I greeted everyone in her family, including her in-laws, and husband. I saw her child, probably five years old, watching a video on mobile, and we went to a little more private place where we could talk freely, gossip about common friends, who we were in touch with, etc. I stayed there for maybe an hour and a half and then went into the living room where everyone was watching TV. I greeted her In-laws and Said bye to her son, who was still on his mobile. He did not reply to me as it was normal for a child not to react specifically if he was concentrating on his mobile. I felt a little agitated to see how freely the adults were not controlling the screen time of that child. They were educated, so-called urbanized family, living in a metro city. I wanted to tell her that it's not good for her child to spend so much time in front of a digital screen especially scrolling but I hesitated to say something as she was not a close friend. I was not sure how she would take it, especially when I could not tell her more about it scientifically. I only knew that it's not healthy for a person's brain to be so much on the screen and scrolling. 

Fast-forward to a few years later, in 2024, when I started my second master's in Psychological counselling and started to study topics like Stress, trauma, thinking processes, and emotions. However, I was still not studying the brain and its function or how the outer environment affects it or in other words the science behind it. 

The irony is that I saw an ad while scrolling through Instagram about a small course on Neurology. The course was conducted by Dr. Siddharth Warrier, a neurologist and influencer himself. This course gave me a whole new perspective on human psychology. 

We as human beings, deal with situations in two types of mindsets. One where we think rationally. Take our time before reacting. Most of the time this phenomenon happens when our brain is in relaxing mode. This is called the Parasympathetic state. It can also rationalize you and that comes from the brain part called “Pre Frontal Cortex” (PFC) On the other hand, when you feel stressed or anxious, we also call it “fight, flight or freeze” mode you react based on your emotions, mostly it ends up with you doing something or saying something that you regret later. This is called being in a Sympathetic state. That comes from the part called the “Amygdala” which is a part of the limbic system of the brain. A balance of both is required to deal with situations in one’s life.  

A fight or an argument with someone, beating up a child, driving carelessly, drinking too much, spending money carelessly, eating without control, or scrolling up on your mobile etc. comes from when you react based on your emotions & irrational mind. 

The scariest of all these situations is scrolling on your mobile. It just not only consumes your time endlessly but also makes your brain stressed. Your brain then does not be in a stress-free state. You think you are giving yourself a break and going through your mobile will give you a time out from your work but unfortunately, exactly the opposite happens. Your brain is constantly stressed and anxious which makes it always in threatening mode and to recover to the same level of concentration It takes 20 – 25 minutes. The terrifying truth is that your brain can and no surprise if already have gone into chronic stress because of the lifestyle you lead. Which also means that you cannot work to your full potential. 

Imagine what it will do to you and especially to your child. Remember when your child throws a tantrum at you to watch mobile and you are helpless, thinking what to do and at that moment you just give a tight slap….. So, the next time when you complain about your daughter or son is not good at studies or not able to concentrate, remember how many times you have screwed up with your child's brain – no matter how unintentional it was.  

Now, What to be done – 

1. Read more books – make a habit of reading, especially before sleeping, instead of watching a video. 

2. Disable the notifications on your mobile as much as you can.

3. Disable notifications of any kind on your smartwatch. Imagine having an irritating companion for your brain to poke constantly whenever and wherever it wants to and you do not have a choice. You have to live with it for the rest of your life until you throw it away from your wrist.

4. Meditate – The best meditation technique is Vipassana. Why? I will write about it in my next article. 

5. Throw away your TV (There is a reason why it's called a Mad box). 

6. Less time digitally.

7. Remove OTT from your mobile, YouTube is enough to screw up your brain which btw you cannot delete from your mobile.      

8. Say “NO” to every impulsive thing you do. You want to buy a dress online, you want to eat a midnight snack, you want to have a drink today, or just want to see your Instagram/ Facebook profile to see how many likes you have. Say no first even if you do the same thing after two minutes.

9. And Finally “don’t give your mobile” to your kids for more than an hour. An hour also exceeds the time limit but I don’t want to go extreme which you won't be able to do. Just remember he/ she already has to use a laptop/ mobile for their school work. 

10. Zero exposure to “Chat GPT” types of applications.