My mom used to say "It never hurts to ask." But that's simply not true.
It does hurt. Bad.
For most of my adult life thus far, asking didn't hurt.
Here's why.
When I was a child, and I asked my Dad if I could stay up late.
Dad said, "No. Kids go to bed by 9."
I asked my Mom if I could wear only bottoms in the pool like my brother did.
Mom said "No, girls wear bathing suits."
Upon hearing that cement sound of "NO," I felt pain. I felt like I was doing something wrong. I felt imperfect. I didn't like to be imperfect. I didn't like trying to break the rules. It felt bad and it hurt.
No sends an explosion of pain through your heart into your brain. Your brain reminds you of that pain each and every time you approach another person with your desires. I'm pretty sure that I cried. I always cried when I got into trouble. I didn't like getting in trouble. I didn't like feeling wrong.
So a long, long time ago my brilliant, hurt, child-mind devised a plan so that I would never feel pain when asking. I would only ask for something when I knew the other person would say yes.
Here was the plan: Instead of asking specifically for what I wanted, I would ask supporting questions that would let me know if the person would say yes or no. If I thought they'd say yes, I'd ask them. If I thought they'd say no, I wouldn't. Or even better (comes in my brilliant teenage mind!), I could use my powers of intelligence to convince them to say yes, even before I asked them!
But very few brilliant ideas are also brilliant in their implementation. Over time, this behavior was tucked neatly away into my unconsciousness, along with my inner child.
Over time, things came about from this behavior that affected me in very negative ways.
1) I missed out on things.
If I thought someone would say no, I simply wouldn't ask. It's scary to think of how many times I stopped myself from asking for things over the years.
I tested this recently. I'd been doing some cash-only project work for a small business. Since I'd never worked in San Francisco proper before, I didn't consider the cost of travel to get to the job when I negotiated a price. Taking alternative forms of transportation was costing $13.60 a day, which was almost a full hours' work.
In the past, I never would have asked. We made a deal at the beginning about price and that was it, is how I would talk myself out of risking the feeling of pain of rejection. But I resolved to change that behavior, so I assembled my supporting arguments in my head and thought of how to best present my case. I thought of what I would say if they said no, and how I would react.
Luckily, I didn't have to practice that. Because when I asked, he said Yes. Yes, he would pay me for the cost of transportation. Wow!
Yes.
Yes sends an explosion of pleasure through your heart and your brain. Yes feels very very good.
2) I didn't fully develop the tools to deal with the rejection.
When someone said no and I thought they were going to say yes, I completely lost it. My emotions took over and it ended in an explosion of my own frustration.
For example.
Two weeks ago, I received my cell phone bill. The bill was a whooping $560! This is far from my usual $90 per month. I called Verizon Wireless Customer Service and asked them what was going on. It had to be a billing mistake!
It actually wasn't a mistake. I'd been calling the California Unemployment office for many hours in the last few weeks. Once I did for almost an entire day. I would get through to the menu and then hear the message 'Due to the number of callers already waiting, we are unable to take your call. Please try again later'.
I eventually gave up on calling and went down to the CA unemployment office in person to use their phones. What I didn't know was that each time I dialed their number and was connected to the automated service, it charged me for minutes. I don't have an unlimited plan and thus went over my minutes -- by $460!
I immediately called the Customer Service department and spoke with a few different people. They would take off $200 of the bill if I upgraded to the new plan, which would cost me $125 a month instead of $90. However, there was still $160 that I didn't feel I needed to pay (and frankly couldn't afford -- I mean, I was calling the unemployment office, after all!)
So here I was, wanting something that I felt I deserved. I agreed to get roped into their plan upgrade. I did my part. Now I wanted Verizon to remove the other $160. I wrote down my supporting arguments. I called them with the intention of being calm and reasonable.
I spoke to two different Customer Service Reps, but they wouldn't remove the extra $160. I kept my cool. One of the reps said, "I can send you to the Finance Dept. and they can help you further."
I asked her, "Do you think there's any chance they will take off the $160 in that dept.? Because if not, I'm just going to work out a payment plan."
She said, "Yes."
Yes sends an explosion of pleasure through your heart and your brain. Yes feels very very good.
Unfortunately, however, I built an expectation. I built an expectation that the next department would fulfill my needs by taking off the $160.
However, contrary to my belief, the Finance Department rep said "No. We can't do that here in this Dept. I'll have to send you back to Customer Service."
What:?!?! I was blindsided. I was lied to. My expectation of the fulfillment of desires was shattered by this terrible, terrible voice. I hated her and this whole experience!
I was caught off guard. I was frustrated. I felt pain. So, instead of staying calm and saying, "Please send me to a Manager," I completely lost it. I gave the poor guy and ear full and had to call back later and start over.
I lost my temper. I lost their respect. I lost a teeny tiny bit of my own self-esteem.
I never did get the $160 back. But once I caught up, I left Verizon. And I never used a cell phone to sign up for unemployment again !
3) I lost my ability to listen to my own desires.
When, as that young, brilliant child, I'd tucked away my aptitude to ask directly, what went with it was my ability to listen my own desires. I didn't realize this. In fact, it took about two years of therapy to even uncover what going on.
I don't have a real-life example for this except to say that often times I would get lost in the supporting questions instead of the root desires. It would be like going into a grocery store wanting to buy coffee. You think to yourself, I want coffee.
But you aren't sure if you have coffee at home and you definitely know you're out of cream. And you simply can't have coffee without cream, so you're definitely buying cream. And if you have cream then you can make that Penne with Spicy Vodka Tomato Cream Sauce you've been wanting to make. So then you need pasta, garlic, red peppers, sausage and Parmesan cheese. Yum!
You go into the grocery store, you buy the ingredients for dinner. But you forget the coffee. And you even forget that coffee was your original desire.
Because I was asking supporting questions to figure out what the person thought (to know if they'd say yes), I'd forgotten what it was I had desired in the first place!
If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I've been starting a new phase of my life. I've been changing dramatically. I've been looking deeply into my own self. I turned over this rock and found this thing that I do, this indirectness, with its negative repercussions, and I don't like it. So I decided to change it, or at least have knowledge of when I'm doing it and thus have a choice.
I decided: when I'm going to ask someone for something, I will first ask myself: What is it that I desire? Then, I will ask the person directly to give me what I desire.
Then BAM!!! They say no. OUCH. That hurt.
Now, the next step: dealing with the pain. Ok, now that I'd put myself here, I found that there are different kinds of pain to deal with.
Lots of different kinds of pains.
And completely new situations. Situations that didn't necessarily surface before, because I'd only asked for things if I thought someone would say yes. Which means, they would want to do them. Now I'm learning that, people sometimes say yes, even if they don't want to.
I've found myself in situations where I now have to defend my original desires.
4) I don't know I could lost things by asking for what I want.
Back to that cash-only project work I'd been doing for the small business in the city. We'd negotiated that the business would pay me every Friday. The first week, the owner forgot I had worked 5 days instead of 4, and he only paid me for 4. I brought this to his attention and he paid me the rest right away.
The second week, the envelope was $25 short of the total. When I brought it to his attention, he asked if he could pay me on Monday. However, Monday morning, he said he didn't have the cash, could he pay me the next day.
I said, "Yes, but I'd rather that this is the last time this happens. We negotiated that I am to be paid in full on Fridays, so I would prefer to get paid in full on Fridays".
The owner of this small business didn't like this. At all. The next morning, upon my arrival, he met me out front. He gave me an envelope with the rest of what they owed me and said, despite the fact that my project was not over, my services were no longer needed.
I was fired. Ouch.
A new kind of rejection. A new kind of pain. A kind that took me some time to understand.
Speaking to a good friend later that week who had set me up with the temp job, he laid it out for me. "Yeah", he said, "(the owner) doesn't really like to be called out on."
Was I calling him out? Or was I simply upholding my value.
It took me some time to realize that, unlike the previous negative impacts, what I did was not wrong. Sure, I'd lost the project, which hurt especially because it was at a time when I really needed the cash.
However, I did something that was even more valuable. I
stood up for myself. I asked for what I wanted. I defended my
position when it was challenged. I protected myself, my desire and my value, in spite of the
risk of pain. In spite, even, of loss.
Back to the negative impacts. This is one that was the hardest to come to terms with.
5) I manipulated people.
I manipulated people whom I love. I manipulated people whom I respect and would not ever want to hurt. I manipulated people would probably have otherwise made
up their own minds into deciding to fulfill my desire anyway. This
was especially true with my romantic relationships. I'm coming to terms with this, I'm healing through this. I'm changing this.
Healing a process. Changing is a process. Having compassion for what I have that I don't like is the first step in starting that change.
My world has had lots of no's lately. They hurt. They hurt every time. Sometimes, I even cry. The difference now is that even though that is true, as long as I continue dig into my desires, and have the courage to ask, sometimes, maybe, once in a while, my ears will hear those sweet, sweet words.
Yes.
And yes sends an explosion of pleasure through your heart and your brain.
That one yes erases all no's along the way.
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"He who dares, my son. He who dares." -- Jip in 'Human Traffic'
