Why Do I Feel So Guilty After Finally Saying No?

Why Do I Feel So Guilty After Finally Saying No?

This uncomfortable feeling in the body that we call guilt, which arrives after we say no, is very often an old alarm mechanism rather than proof that we’ve done something wrong, since for many of us saying yes was once the way our intrinsic needs for survival, connection, belonging and even safety were kept intact. Therefore, when we begin to choose differently, the old mechanism protests loudly in the body. This pattern is often linked with what is called the fawn response, which is a survival strategy of pleasing and appeasing others. The importance lies in understanding it, for it then allows us to navigate the guilt when it arises, to meet it with compassion and to let it slowly lose its authority, without having to take our no back.

Why can a “no” feel so dangerous?

When we say no, it feels so hard, rarely because of what's being said no to, but the no touches something much older and deeper under the surface, which is namely: the fear of losing connection, of being rejected or left, and beneath each of those fears lies a belief, usually formed in childhood, such as “if I disappoint them, they will stop loving me”. As children we are wholly reliant on the adults around us, therefore our whole system is wired to protect that attachment-bond at almost any cost and when the truth of who we are is not welcome, we learn to protect the connection by losing connection with ourselves... to paraphrase Gabor Maté, we give up our authenticity for attachment … We find ourselves not trusting our own knowing, or we may keep our needs quiet, and we soften or omit our truth whenever it might disappoint or disturb somebody else. Thus, even decades later, a perfectly reasonable no can register in the body as a threat to the relationship itself, and therefore to the deep need to stay attached, which is why the guilt can feel so alarmingly out of proportion to what actually happened.

How the yes became your island of safety

For many, the yes carries a quiet condition, something like “I am only alright (or accepted, or ‘good’) once I have done what is needed”, so that being useful becomes the way you earn your place, and the child’s logic of “if I carry more, I stay chosen, if I need less, I stay loved” continues running long after it has stopped serving you. Being appreciated for always helping feels like love, whilst it also creates a subtle pressure, because your sense of worth becomes tied to the helping, and to stop helping begins to feel like losing yourself. When a child takes on the job of keeping the adults around them alright, whether that’s emotionally or physically, family therapists call this parentification, and the over-responsibility it leaves behind can make every adult no feel like abandoning a role that should never have been theirs to hold in the first place. Moreover, when your attention as a child has thus been trained from an early age to be constantly vigilant outside yourself, what happens is that you may sense extremely well exactly what everybody else needs whilst your own wishes cannot be heard, so that when you finally have room for yourself, you may not quite know your likes and dislikes, your wishes and desires, or who you are.

A small segue here, since this is compounded for women, as the societal conditioning is one of women being the ones who give, mother and quietly give up their space, so that there is no space for us to listen to our womanhood in the first place. How can we listen to our intrinsic bodily needs if we cannot even take time off for our bleed, or have communal support during motherhood, or even the time needed for inner healing, bodily and emotionally, during perimenopause, because society expects us to keep on working to stay afloat? For many this is a hard reality.

What is the fawn response?

The psychotherapist Pete Walker described fawn as a fourth response alongside the more familiar fight, flight and freeze, each of them being a natural and instinctive way of protecting ourselves when something feels threatening, thus, fight pushes back, flight gets away, freeze goes still, whereas fawn seeks safety by pleasing, soothing and accommodating the person or atmosphere that feels dangerous.

In the women I work with, whether in the circles I facilitate or in 1:1 sessions, these responses rarely show up in their dramatic forms, appearing instead in the moments when a no is needed, so that freeze happens as the mind going blank and the words that won’t come until long after the conversation has ended, whereas flight can look like keeping endlessly busy, perfecting, needing to know, over-working or simply leaving the room before anything difficult can be said. Fight may surface as a sharp reaction or criticism (know that in its healthy form it is the very thing that allows us to hold a boundary at all), whilst fawn is making sure the other person is alright, thinking about what they might be thinking or needing and feeling awful and deeply guilty at the thought of giving any answer other than the one they want. For most of us, we carry a mixture of these, and over time the pattern can feed into anxiety, low mood, exhaustion, resentment, or anger that turns inward or comes out sideways.
Fawning is neither a diagnosis nor a character flaw (as it gets a bad rep), however, it is an extremely intelligent and even noble adaptation, the way a young psyche found to move forward and handle situations that ought never to have happened in the first place, and to stay safe in an environment where pushing back or getting away was not possible, or was too dangerous, therefore the work is not to shame it away but to understand what it has been protecting… with compassion and honour for the young part of us that came online to keep us safe.

Is it guilt, or is it shame?

The voice of guilt says “I have done something wrong”, whereas shame says “there is something wrong with me for wanting this”, or “I am bad”, and the two are often tangled together beneath a no. Underneath much of the guilt that follows a boundary sits a layer of shame, very often rooted in the responsibility a child once felt for another person’s happiness or for keeping the peace, so that failing at something that was never theirs to do left them believing that they themselves were the problem. Naming which one you are feeling can be surprisingly freeing, because guilt can be met and allowed to pass, whilst shame asks for something gentler, namely compassion for the very young part of you that believed it held so much responsibility.

Also, as we grow in childhood, shame frequently arises as a desperate, self-protective adaptation to preserve vital attachment bonds with our adult caregivers, for a young child depends entirely on caregivers for physical and emotional survival, therefore maintaining attachment is a non-negotiable imperative… Thus, when a child experiences rejection, emotional distancing, unresponsiveness or mistreatment, the child’s mind faces an intolerable dilemma, which is either to acknowledge that the parent is unsafe or incapable (which means that the parent cannot take care of them, and to a child this ultimately means not surviving), or to assume that they themselves are at fault. To protect the essential bond with the parent, the child’s psyche and body take on the belief: “It’s my fault; I am bad or unlovable”. The driving belief may then become “If I just work harder or become good enough, I will earn love”, which gives the child a sense of agency and safety, even at the cost of taking on chronic shame.

When guilt is telling you something true

Not all guilt is an old alarm system going off in the body, therefore it helps to take a moment and ask a few questions to know the difference: the first being whose value is this feeling of guilt defending? Is it my own, or is it an old rule from childhood, such as “I must keep everybody happy”? I then ask whether I have actually gone against my own values, such as being dishonest or causing real harm, and if I have, the guilt is pointing towards something I can repair. Whereas if somebody is simply disappointed because I’ve made a choice for myself, the guilt may be a sign that I am doing something different and good, rather than something wrong. It can also help to ask whether I broke any promises, or expectations I never agreed to in the first place and whether I am being pulled back into the old pattern of making sure everybody else is alright. Lastly, when repair is needed, it does not mean taking the no back, for instance, we could acknowledge how something was said, or the effect it had, without apologising for having a boundary at all.

What happens in the body after the no

The moments after a no can be quite physical, for setting a boundary is rarely followed by immediate relief and is often followed instead by an aftermath of physical discomfort, remorse and fear… you may feel a sudden contraction, or a spike of alarm in the nervous system, which triggers an urgent impulse to take it back, or to over-explain it, offer a concession or something extra, or to re-check the other person’s mood again and again until you’re sure they are not angry and very often, saying yes simply feels easier than staying with the deep discomfort a no can bring up in the body. Over time, and usually since childhood, guilt, shame and resentment become internalised and work like inner guards who keep enforcing the old ways of reacting, so that the discomfort after a no can feel so unbearable that we return to saying yes instead, and thus a familiar cycle forms, one where giving too much brings discomfort or irritation, irritation brings guilt and the guilt leads to giving even more, so that each turn quietly tightens the whole pattern.

Choosing guilt over resentment

Gabor Maté, writing in When the Body Says No, passes on a piece of advice, that when a refusal brings guilt whilst agreeing would leave resentment, it is better to always choose the guilt over resentment and this has been one of the most freeing teachings in my own training. What many of us never understood is that we can feel guilty and still allow our choice to stand. Let the guilt rise and gradually subside (and it will) without taking the no back, explaining it better or finding another way to make everybody comfortable. Furthermore, when guilt appears around a conscious choice for yourself, it need no longer be seen as proof that you’ve chosen wrongly, for more often than not, it’s a sign that you are doing something different, like making room for your own wishes and needs rather than immediately giving that space away... therefore, in this sense the guilt can even be recognised as a victory.

Ways forward

The first step is often simply to pause before the yes, long enough to ask yourself “Am I giving because I truly wish to, or because I am afraid of what it would mean if I did not?”, and to notice in your body how the yes feels compared with the no, since one path usually gives a feeling of a little more space and openness within you and the other a little more contracted and tighter. Keep in mind that the feeling in the body may be a very subtle difference. Also, to look at the beliefs beneath the pattern and naming them is usually very helpful, such as “I must always say yes”, and if you wish to take it further, gently ask where it came from and whether it still belongs to you now.

Practising in small, low-stakes moments allows a new choice to become a familiar response, without waiting until every choice feels comfortable. Furthermore, rehearsing a coming conversation in your imagination, feeling your way into saying no and staying with whatever arises, can prepare the body and psyche before the moment arrives. This is where hypnotherapy truly helped me, since during my four-year training, alongside the inner enquiry, I applied hypnotherapeutic interventions to myself, and this is part of the work I now offer women in my 1:1 sessions.

When the guilt comes, and it may well come, you can let it be there without obeying it, meeting the young part of you that came with this protective reaction, with curiosity rather than criticism and asking what this response has been trying to protect… In my experience it is compassion and understanding, far more than confidence, that opens the way to change. Also, it’s an and-and situation, meaning: you can hold real care for the other person’s concerns and feelings and not disappear into them… because understanding somebody does not require you to accept the effect of their behaviour, nor to make yourself responsible for their mood. Finally, practise receiving... like a cup of tea made for you, help you didn’t ask for, or a compliment you do not deflect, and notice the flicker of discomfort when you don’t immediately pay it back, because learning that you can receive without repaying is part of the same healing.

When to seek support

When this pattern runs deep, also, when you notice it was born in an environment that felt frightening, or when the guilt and shame feel too heavy to meet alone, it can make a real difference to explore it with a trained professional/ therapist because some things can only begin to soften when somebody is willing to meet you there first with care and without judgement. NOTE: It is worth knowing that a relationship where your no is not safe is often very hard to recognise from the inside, and even from the outside as a friend, since the self-blame that fawning carries can make it feel as though the problem is you, therefore it may be time to speak with somebody when you notice that you:

• are walking on eggshells around somebody’s moods
• doubt your own memory or perception after a conversation
• rehearse how to phrase things so as not to cause a reaction
• feel you must explain and justify every choice
• are seeing friends or family less, without quite knowing how it happened
• feel relief when the other person is out of the house
• meet anger, coldness, silence or punishment whenever you say no

Your GP or huisarts can also be a good first step when anxiety or low mood have stayed with you for weeks. Not every fear belongs to the past, therefore if you are unsafe in a relationship now, you can call Veilig Thuis (Safe at Home) on 0800 2000, free, day and night, and anonymously if you wish, or 112 if you are in immediate danger.

Questions and answers

What is the fawn response?

The fawn response is a survival strategy described by the psychotherapist Pete Walker, in which a person seeks safety by pleasing, appeasing and accommodating others. This is usually learned in childhood when fighting back or getting away was not possible and it often continues in adult life as people-pleasing, over-responsibility and difficulty saying no.

Is it normal to feel guilty after setting a boundary?

Yes, it is very common, particularly for women who learned early that their needs came second, and the guilt is often a sign that you are breaking an old rule rather than evidence that you have done something wrong.

What is the difference between guilt and shame?

Guilt is the feeling that you’ve done something wrong, whereas shame is the feeling that there is something wrong with you. Moreover, beneath the guilt of a no there is often an older layer of shame for wanting anything for yourself at all.

Will the guilt ever go away?

Healing does not necessarily mean never feeling guilty again… it does mean the guilt can rise, be met with understanding and gradually lose its authority over your choices, so that it no longer decides for you.

Is people-pleasing the same as fawning?

They are closely related yet not identical, and I explore the difference more fully in What is the difference between people-pleasing and fawning? (I explore the difference more fully in a coming piece until 3.6 is live)

A gentle invitation

Learning to let your no stand is not just a single moment of courage, for it is a practice and a slow return to your own wishes, your body and your choice. This is the work I love walking alongside women with, whether in 1:1 sessions beginning with the Foundations Path, or in the NewMoon Women’s Circle at De Roos, where you can be held by other women rather than carrying it all alone.

In tenderness and truth,
Wen-Wei

Wen-Wei Ong is the founder of Rest2Flow, a trauma-informed practitioner and mentor for women in Amsterdam and online, working with somatic and body-based practice, depth-oriented enquiry, hypnotherapeutic and guided imagery work, ritual and cyclical wisdom.