Dr. Shadé Zahrai

That process allows you some space to then ask yourself, okay, is this something that I genuinely want to do or I feel compelled to do because I don't feel like I'm enough?

You run it through that little criteria.

And then if it's compulsion because you don't feel like you're enough, you give them a polite decline.

And if it is something you want to do, you go ahead and you do it.

That is a powerful way to remind yourself that what you need matters too.

And you can politely decline without affecting your relationship.

Yes.

So to peel off a label, you need to have a deeper yes.

What does that mean?

We often say yes to other people because we're trying to maintain who we are and that perception.

And again, that risk of social rejection is so painful that we want to avoid it.

What's really helpful is to, okay, you know that there's a yes that you can be giving them, but what is your deeper yes?

What is you declining this thing going to allow you to say yes to, which is actually more important for you in the long run?

So it might be saying no to working late tonight is me saying yes to spending more time with my kids before dinner time.

Me saying yes to investing in my physical health.

So there's this idea of know what your deeper yes is so that you're not just saying no to someone, you're actually honoring something within you.

But the second element, these labels that we wear, the brain loves labels because the brain lacks efficiency because it wants to operate with the least amount of metabolic energy.

So it'll label things hot, cold, good, bad, true, false.

And we also slap these labels in ourselves.

I like to encourage people, once you're aware of your labels, now, how do you know what a label is?