I’ve heard this quite often, when I do it provokes the trickster in me to respond (or is it the therapist in me?) with a question that always shows the statement to be false.

I politely ask things like: “Tell me your bank account details, and be sure to include your PIN number please”, of “Do you always lie like that?”. I have a couple of other questions too, but you might misunderstand my motives so I won’t mention them here.

You get my point though? It’s pretty easy to get someone to say “No”, often much easier than getting them to say “Yes”. And I get THEIR point, some people do have difficulty in setting their boundaries, polite refusal, or rebuttle of unwanted advances. And I sympathise. But I also like to rattle their cage a little with questions that show that self-defeating statement to be false.

I don’t do it to be contrary; that is, I don’t ONLY do it to be contrary. Remember my strapline, “Life doesn’t have to be like that”? I do it to demonstrate something.

Once the spell of negative belief has been broken, even for a moment, it can start a chain reaction because some part of the mind has to accept the folly of the original statement. This is true of all generalisations (“All men/women are…”, “The entire human race is…”,   “He she is never on time…” etc) .

The more you say something like that the more it becomes real for you. But if you temper it a little with “On some occasions I can’t say ‘No’”, or “I find it difficult to say ‘no’ to her/him”, you’ll be doing yourself a favour.

Nothing is constant and no statements we can  make about ourselves should be be self-defining fixtures (That sounds a bit of a generalisation to me!). Anyone can say “No” some of the time, but some need more encouragement than others.