learning to say no and letting go of the pressure to be extra

Last week, I wrote about the night my son Aiden told me the truth at bedtime. About the moment I finally understood that my body had been begging me to stop, and I hadn't been listening.

Today I want to talk about what came next.

Because the moment I stopped, I had time. And time meant I had to figure out what came next.

Learning to say no

I started saying no.

Not maybe. Not let me check my schedule. Not I can probably squeeze it in if I move a few things around. I started giving people an actual no.

I said no to the extra responsibility I would have automatically accepted. I said no to treating every request like an emergency. I said no to running myself into the ground because I was afraid someone might be disappointed in me.

At first, saying no felt uncomfortable. I had spent so many years being the person who could handle everything that turning something down felt like I was failing. Over time, I began to understand that protecting my health was not selfish or irresponsible.

It turns out saying no is a skill, and it gets easier with practice.

Letting my husband hold more

I also began letting my husband hold more of the weight. He was already doing so much, but as I started trying to heal mentally and physically, he took on even more. He gave me the space to focus on myself without making me feel guilty for needing it.

I don't know what I would have done without him. I will be forever grateful for how much he stepped up.

Accepting that help was difficult. I was used to being the person who helped everyone else, not the person who admitted she needed help too. But allowing someone to care for me became an important part of learning how to care for myself.

Needing help from others is not a failure. More often than not, the people in your life will gladly extend the support, because you have been so supportive of them.

Letting go of the pressure to be extra

I started releasing the pressure to make every moment bigger and better.

That doesn't mean I stopped loving the details. It means I began checking in with myself before committing to them. Now I try to ask whether I genuinely want to do something and whether I have the mental, physical, and emotional capacity to do it.

Sometimes I have the energy, and I happily go all in. Other times I realize that pulling off my original idea would require me to sacrifice sleep, ignore pain, or spend days recovering afterward.

On those days, I'm learning to choose a simpler version.

The world will continue to function if I throw a party without themed food labels. The people who love me will still enjoy themselves if every detail is not perfectly coordinated. A meaningful moment does not become less meaningful because I protected my energy while creating it.

Actually stopping

I'm also learning to stop when my body tells me to stop. Not after one more email, one more errand, or one more thing on my list. This has been harder than I anticipated.

With ADHD, I have huge surges of energy and motivation that let me get an insane amount done. Those surges usually come after a significant ADHD crash, where completing everyday tasks can feel impossible. So I overcompensate. I push harder even when I know I should go to bed or rest. I try to make up for the lost time. But all I am really doing is setting myself up for the next crash.

So I have learned that I have to force myself to actually stop. I set reminders and alarms telling me to go to bed. I ask myself what my future self will think of this decision. Will she be happy that I stayed up until 3:00 in the morning and the house is clean(er)? Or will she be exhausted, in a daze, and unable to function the next day?

She has taught me a lot. Rest is something my body requires. Not something I have to earn.

What I've learned so far

You cannot pour from an empty cup. You cannot show up for the people you love when you are running on fumes. You cannot be the best version of yourself when you are exhausted from being everything to everyone else.

Saying no is not selfish. Choosing rest is not lazy. Letting someone help you is not weak.

It is how you come back to yourself.

This is exactly the work we do in coaching. Together we identify the areas of your life where you no longer feel aligned. We build systems and strategies that let you show up for the people you love without disappearing in the process. We figure out what needs to go, what needs to shift, and what needs to come back.

Because you deserve the time and energy you so freely give to others. It is time for you to start recognizing yourself again.

Next: The systems I'm building for the person I am now, not the person I used to be. Come back next week.

Melissa

…despite it all…