Have you ever wondered what sets highly successful individuals apart from the rest of us?

Many of us struggle with self-doubt, fear of failure, and a lack of confidence, often holding us back from reaching our full potential.

In this episode of Living True by Design, Dr. Libby Schanzmeyer dives deep into the world of confidence, revealing how you can break free from self-imposed limitations and unlock your inner power. Say goodbye to self-doubt and hello to a future where your potential knows no bounds.

🌟 BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL LEARN:

• The secrets to understanding and conquering self-doubt.
• How to harness the power of confidence to propel your personal and professional life to new heights.
• Practical steps to cultivate and maintain unshakable self-assurance.
  
  

---

🎧 Apple Podcast: Listen and Subscribe
🎧 Spotify: Listen and Subscribe

Professional Bio

Are you a high-achieving, ambitious professional working mother, feeling trapped in the whirlwind of your demanding career and family responsibilities? Overwhelmed by stress, busyness, and societal expectations? Drained of energy and struggling to find balance while silently battling guilt and unfulfillment?

Welcome to a transformative journey a certified lifestyle medicine physician, experienced yoga and meditation teacher, and a mother of three. In this immersive podcast, she provides a path to authenticity, purpose, and vitality. Through tailored coaching programs, Dr. Libby Schanzmeyer equips you with the tools and strategies to regain balance and create a life aligned with your true self.

Our listeners, our clients, are high-achieving professional working mothers who have successfully transformed their lives with life design. They’ve overcome stress, found peace within their careers and personal lives, and are thriving.

Discover how to harmoniously balance your professional and personal life, relieve stress, and find your true purpose. Learn time management techniques, prioritize self-care, and regain meaning in life. Join Dr. Libby Schanzmeyer and begin your journey towards a life of ease, vitality, and impact, where authenticity leads the way.


Welcome to Living True By Design Podcast!

👍Liked this episode? Share it with a friend.

❤️ Love the show? Write a 5-star review (even just one sentence helps us keep bringing you the content you want to hear.)

📖 Want to learn how to design your life -start with self compassion? Sign up to receive the Ultimate Self-Compassion Guide here.

Join high achieving professional women like yourself in our FREE Facebook community here.

Connect with Libby:

• Website
• TikTok
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
  
  

---

Podcast Episode Transcript

Hello, beautiful soul. Today, the advice about saying no that no one is talking about. Have you ever found yourself struggling to say no? Join me on a journey through the different levels of saying no, as we uncover the power behind the simple yet profound word no.

I wanna start off with a little experiment. So, hope you’re comfortable wherever you are. And just, this is a little thought experiment. So, close your eyes if you can, if not, no big deal. And just notice if you’re comfortable, notice if you’re comfortable noticing sensations in your body, notice how you feel when I say this word. And I’ll do it a few times and then.

I’ll tell you what I’m done.

Ready? No.

Okay, I won’t torture you anymore. How did that feel? Did you have anything that arose when you were hearing that word multiple times in different ways? We all have our very distinct reactions and they are in our body. For me, saying no has been an ongoing learning process. And they say we teach what we…

Want to learn what we need to learn. And so here we are. Recently though, I was thinking about this, about saying no, and I realized that there’s levels to saying no.I don’t know if you’re familiar with the levels of competence. There’s levels of competence in saying no. And I was thinking of it as like a bullseye. I’ll show you my

little idea that I had, this is, this, this is quick and dirty. If you can see the video, it’s, I think it’s backwards even on the video, but it’s a bull’s eye with like three concentric rings, one in the center, one surrounding it, and then one more surrounding it. So the center circle is our core beliefs. These are all the levels that we say no core beliefs. Then empathy is the next one. And then the next one.

Is script. So we start on the outside, this outside level with our script for saying no. Then we build up to empathy and then we go to core beliefs. we’re gonna be diving deep into these three levels on Living True by Design today.

So these three levels are basically the levels of competence. You know, first is the outer level is a script. So we’re gonna talk about ways that we can say no from a script. Then going in one level is empathy. And one of the best strategies, skill sets that I’ve learned is through non-malent communication. And that’s through empathy for saying no, that’s a skill.

And then finally, core beliefs, where it is unconsciously competent, if you will, if you’re familiar with the competence levels. If not, we’ll do a show about that too, because I think it’s super interesting. But when we get to our core beliefs, I believe that it’s not a difficult process anymore, because it’s something that

is in us and we function from that. And so then it’s not like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna say this or do this? It just becomes a way of being. So that’s the goal. So we’re gonna go through each of those levels today.

So level one, the script. So this is a multifactorial approach, right? The outer level, the middle level, and the inner level. We’re gonna approach this as a multifactorial system and look at these three levels. So our first level today is the script.

And I’ll just give you, I have a few scripts that I thought I would share and we can talk about this. So first, here’s one, you could say, I appreciate the offer, but unfortunately, I won’t be able to commit at this time. Perfectly fair, right? So maybe you could just learn these things to say, thanks for the offer, but I can’t commit right now. Another script.

I’m honored that you thought of me, but I have other commitments. Simple. Then the third, thank you for considering me, but I’m unable to participate right now.

That’s the outer level. So the first level is when we’re starting to learn, hey, things aren’t working with me, working well with me not being able to say no to people about things that I wanna say no about. First, we can start off with, okay, here’s a script. Try this, say, thank you for considering me, but I am not able to participate right now. Simple enough, right? But that’s a very kind of brainy thing. Like we’re in our brain saying,

No thank you and we’re remembering our script and kind of it’s not in us it’s not ours we’re not owning it as much as kind of reciting a line right and so the next level is this technique of empathetic refusal and that is basically starting to change the frame from where no is

Could be upsetting to someone, changing that frame to enjoying the no, if you will. That might be a long jump. Sometimes it’s a huge jump for me, but it is a way of meeting everyone’s needs. And if we can start to take that in and really understand it, and if we believe it, meeting everyone’s needs is wonderful.

And so a no is wonderful. So that’s the next level. That’s this kind of,  middle level of going from a script to embodiment of not even worried about no, because we’re connected and we know that we’re all supporting each other. 

On this level too, we could have a whole workshop about saying no in nonviolent communication. And I would love to do that. We’ll do that on another show, just the nonviolent communication. But the importance of this is basically showing empathy when you are communicating the no. And when I said no at the beginning,

I was like, no, all the different nos. It can be jarring,especially if what you’re asking for is vulnerable or something really important to you, just hearing no, it can raise some pain, And if we’re trying to connect with others and be true to ourselves at the same time, that’s where it gets a little bit dicey about saying no, because 

a lot of times we compromise ourselves and our authenticity by not saying no, because we don’t wanna hurt other people’s feelings, but we hurt our own feelings, but we remain connected. And this is a way to remain connected and authentic and actually say no to things that are important, but not sacrifice the whole relationship.

Caveat is some relationships people just aren’t gonna understand and those, if they will only accept a yes from you that might not be a relationship that is beneficial to be a part of. But I think once people in general, people that have a level of emotional intelligence, they can see what, how that no is serving you and them, then

Then they’re willing to hear you out, hear us out. The no might look like in that case, could you make cookies for the kids holiday party at school? And you don’t wanna do it.

You have other things, you have other commitments, and it’s okay to have other commitments. It’s okay to have your time occupied otherwise. So recognize that, which will be our next step too. But one way that I’d like to offer to say no in that situation would be

You know, I hear that that’s really important and that you do need some help with that. I’m really sad because it would be something I would really enjoy doing and really support you. And I’m not able to do that right now. And this is not like a toxic positive, don’t tell people the word no kind of a thing. It is communicating that what they want is important.

And you see that as validating what they’re asking. You know, hey, I hear you need help. I have feelings about this. Like I’m disappointed because I would really like to help too. And there’s not a but, it’s an and. We can hold all these ideas together. We can hold the fact that they need help and the fact that we have other things going on and the fact that we don’t wanna disappoint them.

And the fact that we don’t wanna compromise what we can physically do, all those things at one time. We can hold these things. And when we hold them and say, I would love to and I’m disappointed and I see that you need help I think we would really enjoy hanging out with each other while we do it. That would meet some needs of friendship and connection and fun. And I can’t right now.

That’s a way to connect and maintain your honesty, your authenticity without being hurtful. It’s true. And I believe the truth, it is, the truth will set you free, right? So that is something that can set you free with your no’s. Okay, so that is the second level of no, this level of empathy.

We’ll do another episode just about saying no with empathy because it is so helpful and so powerful.

And I do believe it’s on the second level of saying no. And that level being, it’s not a script, but it’s not wired into the core of our being. It is a way to kind of intellectually think through and ask our heart, you know, how do you feel? Well, I’m sad because I’d like to help them, but I feel torn even. You can express that. I feel torn because I want to do this and this both. And I can’t physically do both.

And so it’s like using your mind to kind of figure out, well, how do they feel and how do I feel? And how can we meet all of our needs? How can they get help for the party and me have time to do the things I was already gonna do? most of the time, those answers show up when we have space for the questions of how can we meet both of our needs.

Anyway, so that is that second level.

That second level is also almost a mindfulness practice. It’s about being in the moment and what’s alive in us right now. If we’re connected with the flow of life and what’s alive in me right now is that this isn’t gonna work, we can communicate that and it really connects us to the present moment. this is honestly the best way I have learned to start using this process

Intellectually understanding these steps and then trying them, connecting with my heart and then trying that.

So when we can connect in that way, we’re connecting with the needs of the other person and the needs of ourselves, and is saying my need is not matching that right now, and hopefully we can find a way to meet each other’s needs. Or I can’t meet your need right now. There’s other strategies you can ask other people. There’s a lot of other ideas to get that need met that I might not be able to do.

So it’s about what our needs are behind the no, not just the no, is what is the need behind the no.

And one other thing to think about in this level of our ever expressing empathy is the idea, it’s along the lines of if we want to maintain the connection with the other person and don’t want to compromise our integrity or compromise our truth or what will work for us in that moment.

Do we want true harmony or do we want faux peace, faux harmony, false peace or false harmony? Because I think about this and I know I’ve definitely done it at times. I think, well, I’ve met my need for peace and harmony by not speaking honestly about this and just kind of being more quiet and passive, honestly. And…

That is a false sense of harmony and peace because it’s not true. And honestly, I don’t want my friends to have like a false, false harmony with me. Like I want to know what they really think. And so you’re not doing true favor for a true friend by not speaking up. And so we can have false harmony or true harmony by speaking the truth.

Where again, the truth sets us free. So it’s just a small discernment to notice that it might be helpful. It’s been helpful for me to think of it in those terms of how do I want to serve life? Is it with this false harmony or is it with true harmony where we connect and express ourselves honestly? Okay, so that’s at level two.

This little picture again. So we have talked about the script. We gave several ideas of that and this outer ring. And then the next ring in was empathy. That’s where we connected with our feelings and needs. That’s a nonviolent communication. And then the inner core, our core beliefs. And that is where we begin to truly embody our no. Can you imagine?

Maybe you do. I applaud you if you embody your no, and it’s not something that has been a conscious effort. For me, it has been a conscious effort. And it still is some of the time, a conscious effort of maintaining that integrity, the honesty.

Now, our core beliefs, we will be talking about honoring our highest wisdom and our core beliefs about ourselves and how that contributes to challenges and opportunities with saying no.

And this is the part, this core belief area is where we come into embodied boundaries. I like that term, where our boundaries are embodied by us. And that is where we’re unconsciously competent, where we know that we’re worthy of these answers, we know that we’re worthy of honesty and truth from others and from ourselves.

And we have embodied this honesty and boundaries. So how to do that? So we’re gonna talk about a few challenges that might come up.

The next episode we will be talking about this core levels of embodied boundaries a lot more. Right now, I want to point out that boundaries are not just a wall. It’s not a wall to keep people out. I like to think of it like a picket fence or like a fence with a few gates in it at different places.

Where we can let people in and out. And it’s also important to think of boundaries in two levels, like an orange. Oranges have boundaries, like oranges, on the outside they’re orange, and then on the inside they’re like light orange. They’re kind of pale tan white, you know? So you have these two layers. So you have an outer boundary and an inner boundary, right?

The outer boundary is what you let in from the outside, in or you don’t let in, you might keep out. Something from the outside, like another person saying something not necessary, you don’t have to like take it in, right? That’s an outer boundary. An inner boundary is protecting other people from ourselves. It might be something that you wanna say that, how’s we say it’s quote is the truth, so I needed to say it well.

We don’t have to say all the truth out loud all the time. And frankly, if it’s not gonna be helpful or constructive, there’s not a need for it. So there’s a boundary of protecting other people from ourselves. So there’s two boundaries. There’s not just one, there’s two boundaries that are involved. And the idea is that we look at our core beliefs, we look at our core functioning, and

begin to learn or do learn or embody our boundaries so that we have mastered the skill and we can say no with ease and honesty and create a life that is meaningful for us that we are directing instead of being directed in our life. 

I would love to hear from you. What is the biggest struggle that you have when it comes to saying no? I would love to hear this. Share your experiences and if you have other tips, if you have other areas of challenges with saying no, I would love to hear that too. You can find us over on our Facebook community. There’s a link down below. Check out our community.

We would love to see you there.

And I challenge you this week, practice saying no, say no to something simple that’s reasonable, of course, but practice it, see how it is, or even just see how your body feels when you say no to someone. Like, do you get scared or how do you respond when you say no? How is that for you? So come join our group. We have support there, we have community. Come on over, I would love to hear from you.

Join us next time as we delve deeper into how to strengthen your no muscle. And we’re gonna be in that middle core area working on our no muscle.

Join us to be unapologetically firm about your boundaries, but still remain connected.

Learn practical strategies to bolster your confidence and make know a powerful tool in your everyday life.