Non

I was recently inspired by a very specific segment of Kelly Newsome George’s podcast episode “Saying Yes to Yourself by Saying No,” where she shared that French women are very good at saying No. Or, “non” in French. 

She used the example of ordering at a restaurant - 

“Can I swap walnuts for hazelnuts?”

Non.

“Can I swap chicken for seafood?”

Non.

Etc. 

In many ways this can be a lesson for those of us who struggle to say no, those of us who struggle to follow our intuition or gut feeling out of concern for “being rude,” or for those of us who cross our own boundaries in order to get others to like us. 

In his book The Gift of Fear, Gavin DeBecker (or “Gav”, as a friend and I now say, as we work to integrate his teachings into our lives) shares endless examples of women who fail to follow their gut, their instincts, and their intuition when in the presence of danger...for fear of being rude. 

For many of us (myself included), the idea of being perceived as rude is utterly terrifying. But speaking from my own experience, there have been several instances where my commitment to “not being rude” overruled my intuition, my gut instinct, and that nagging feeling in my stomach that just wasn’t quite right. When I ignored these feelings in service of my desire to “not be rude” or to “be polite,” things didn’t end well. 

Thankfully, in my cases, these gut feelings were not related to violence or danger. That said, they were related to situations that could have transpired much differently (and much more positively) if I would have been willing to listen to my intuition over the voice in my head that was concerned about “not being nice” or about being rude. 

As someone who deeply values kindness, compassion, and empathy, my sense is that I’ll never be quite as comfortable with the straight up “non” as some of those women refusing substitutions in the French restaurant. However, I love it as an experiment to play with - especially in situations where there is a conflict between intuition whispering (or screaming loudly internally) that something isn’t right, and the perception of being rude. 

What do you think? And which side of this equation do you fall on?

I’d love to hear your thoughts; feel free to drop me a note anytime.