33: Why "No Is a Complete Sentence" Rarely Works

No is NOT a Complete Sentence.  So many of us want to believe “no is a complete sentence” and will try to will ourselves into saying it.  But this line falls apart when it matters most.

In this solo episode Sheri explains the missing pieces behind this social-media slogan and reveals the real prerequisites for a boundary that protects your own needs, your heart and your relationships. You’ll hear the short list of things every effective boundary requires (and why missing any one of them makes a single “no” fragile), plus a simple practice plan to get you started.

The power move is not that you learn to say ‘no’ and walk away - the power move is learning to wrap that no in kindness so that you actually maintain the relationships you want to keep.

If you're a recovering people pleaser, or simply want to get better at setting and maintaining your own boundaries, here's what you'll discover:

• 8 different reasons women find it so hard to say no and walk away
• the damage a flat out "no" can do to a relationship and how to avoid that
• how to effectively set up boundaries and what they require 
• 5 steps to start setting boundaries more effectively 

If you want to set better boundaries, steal our simple boundary scripts here. 

Join us in Costa Rica, October 2026 for our Retreat: Soul-Aligned - Design Your Extraordinary Next Chapter! Click here for details.

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 @midlifewomenrising

@jenreimercoaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome. This is the Midlife Rising podcast. I'm gonna ruffle some feathers by saying this, but no is not a complete sentence. You've probably seen a line traveling around on social media. No is a complete sentence. And then lots of fire emojis and yeses in the comments. And I get it. It feels really empowering to imagine saying a flat out no in response to something that you don't want to do. And these lines on social media, they they give us permission to say it and then walk away. However, a plain flat out no doesn't actually work for most midlife women. The reality is that boundaries are way more complicated than that. And real boundaries are not one word, they're structures. They protect your soul's needs and your and your desires and your relationships. A flat out no might sabotage your relationships. In this episode, and you've got Sherry here, I'm doing a solo episode again. I'm gonna break down why a flat out no doesn't work and what to do instead. So if that makes you curious, stay tuned. You're a woman over 40 who spent your life being the one who holds it all together. But now your body's changing and your soul is done pretending everything is fine. Welcome to Midlife Rising. We're your hosts, Sherry and Jen, twin sisters and modern medicine women, here to help you rewire your stress response, balance your hormones, and reclaim your feminine power. Every episode is a rebellion against the rules you never agreed to and a return to yourself. Join us where midlife isn't a crisis, it's a catalyst. I just had a conversation with Carrie Lowe on the She Ignites podcast just a couple of weeks ago. And we were talking about this exact topic. No is a complete sentence. And the reaction that I got from her was so interesting and powerful. And the conversation we had was so great that I really wanted to expand and go deeper on this. So I'm gonna reiterate no isn't a complete sentence. And it might not be the best advice for actually handling, maintaining, setting boundaries. So let's talk first about why the industry says this and why we want so badly to believe it. Because I've been, you know, I see that on social media, and I'm like, oh yes, that feels like that would feel good. The mindset industry, the empowerment industry, that space, they sell or want to sell simple, portable tools. And short slogans like this, like no is a complete sentence, they travel easily on social media. They make you feel empowered really fast. And they maybe even help you practice a new identity. Like I am assertive now. I am stepping into my midlife assertive woman who does what she wants and asks for what she needs. And that can be really useful. It gives us, it gives, it gives us permission to stop the automatic people pleasing, which is what we've, as women, we've learned to do through our 20s and 30s. And most women that I talk to, most of our clients, most of our audience, they identify as people pleasers or recovering people pleasers. So for you, as a midlife woman, if that's who you are listening to this, if you've spent years caregiving, smoothing over, absorbing other people's needs, and you want a single reliable sort of lever you can pull, then this saying no is a complete sentence, it feels like it feels accessible. It feels like reclaiming that a sort of part of yourself. This part of you that you want to uncover. And so it's understandable that you, we, we all would latch on to that promise. So let's talk about why it doesn't work. Actually, let's talk about where it might work. So no is a complete sentence. If you just say no, that might work with a telemarketer. You know, you're on the phone, somebody calls you, wants to sell you something, unsolicited call, you can say no, thank you, hang up. Maybe it's just even no and hang up. Might work with a waiter. With people where there's no history, there's no identity, there's no relationship, no stake. But it's a completely different thing when you try to say no to your boss without following that up with something, or to your partner, or to a friend who really desperately needs some emotional support, or try saying no to a parent who has trained you inadvertently to please them and watch your nerves just fall right apart. Saying no isn't a boundary. That by itself isn't a boundary, and it can be a relationship suicide. The boundary setting skill is not in the single word, it's not in the word no. And it's also not in the willpower that you need to say it. It's in the creation of the safety and the nervous system regulation in order to say it. Plus the structured, sort of compassionate messaging that surrounds it, that's actually going to maintain your relationships as well. Now, I want to go deeper on why this actually fails. I've got a bunch of them that I really want to go through, and I think you're gonna resonate with some of these. So, first of all, a blunt no often reads as I'm not who you think I am. So it's like saying, I've got a different identity than the person you think I am. And I'm, or I'm no longer the person you think I am. And in the people that know you, people around you, that is gonna spark defensiveness and probably escalation. You're not gonna be able to just walk away from that. And you probably know this already. The people who love you the most, they're gonna push back on your boundaries. And a flat out no might actually instigate more of that because it doesn't feel good. It probably isn't gonna feel like you. And it's not gonna feel good to the person on the other side. And for you, if you identify as a nice person or a kind person or a helpful person, those are things that you have been all of your life. Even if you want to stop being that person, it's gonna go against your identity to just say no and walk away. And your nervous system is gonna object. So your nervous system is gonna ramp up as soon as the boundary is, as soon as somebody presses up against that boundary, and before you know it, you're gonna say no, but then you're going to reverse that. As soon as you see that the person's disappointed, you're gonna reverse the no. So if your identity is under threat or question by using the blunt no, then you're gonna reverse that, or the no is not even gonna get out of your mouth if it doesn't align with who you think you are. Okay, so that's the first one. The second one is past history. So in relationship systems, where, you know, in families or friendship circles or work systems, quite often requests are they're loaded with past patterns. You have a way of working with people. You have a way of dealing with your mom, for example, or your sister-in-law, or your boss, or your colleagues at work. You have patterns of communication. There are patterns of requests and responses that you're accustomed to using. And a bare no with nothing else is going to seem very out of place. And it might also trigger some old stories, some old patterns. Um, or it might create new ones if this isn't something that you that your systems, your relationship systems normally encounter. So, whatever past history you have are going to come into play. There's almost like habits. So as soon as you want to go against that grain, as soon as you want to do something different than what is habitual for that relationship, it's gonna stand out. And your brain is is not gonna want to do it. It's always looking for the fastest, easiest way to get through something and to help restore balance. And if a if a no is gonna disrupt the balance, then your brain is not gonna allow for it. So again, the nervous system wires up and you're saying yes before you even know it. So past history really comes into play. The third one, manipulation. So I wasn't aware of this always. This came out probably about for me about eight years ago when I was with an energy healer, and something came up around feeling guilty and people who make me who who sort of make me feel guilty or use a guilt trip to get me to do the things that they want to do. I had never thought of that as manipulation. And it almost made me sick to think about it in the context of some of my close relationships with people that I love. The fact that I was being manipulated by them. And so with all that to say, you may resist this one. But what a flat out no might open up is more of that. Guilt trips, gaslighting, emotional escalation. So if you have someone in your life who has learned to use guilt trips, these sorts of manipulation techniques, then they will uh try even harder to convert the no into into compliance with whatever it is they want you to do. So the no by itself, it doesn't have any it doesn't have any armor and it doesn't have any backup. So it leaves you unprepared. So that's number three. Number four is when you're dealing with families, teams, people that you love, people who are close to you, maybe your partner, the flat out no leaves you with no repair path. So quite often, with you know, if you think about saying a flat out no to your partner, that is like, especially if you if you're in a relationship where the expectation, expectation is that you will negotiate, that you will compromise. There's no a flat out no leaves no room for that. And if a family member, your partner, a colleague that's close to you, or or maybe not even just saying no and walking away, it leaves no chance for repair. If there is, you know, if if you upset someone, if they expected you to at least negotiate or come to some sort of agreement. Walking away leaves no chance of repairing that. And it's gonna come up again. So it it doesn't seem to me like it's very realistic with some of these close relationships where, you know, people may not like that you set a boundary and and that's okay. Like I want, I want you to be able to set a boundary and and not be worried about upsetting people. And yet, if you want to salvage the relationship, then you might need to. You might need to negotiate your boundary, you may need to move it slightly, or at least have an opportunity to talk about why you set this boundary, why you're not able to do what the person wants you to do. You need to at least give some context to that person in order to maintain a repair path with them if there requires some repair to the relationship. So that's number four. Number five is your tone matters. And when you're delivering a boundary. And with a flat out no, it's very difficult to get a tone across in one word. So quite often a no is already going to be perceived negatively if you're going against what someone wanted you to do or what they needed. And the tone of a voice is also going to potentially be perceived as negative. The other thing is that saying no without regulating your nervous system usually does sound reactive. And if your nervous system is ramped up, which for most people it likely is, when they're encountering, when someone is is bumping up against a boundary, your nervous system is gonna ramp up almost automatically. Because especially if you're not practiced in saying no, then you're gonna be activated. And when you say no in that situation, the tone may not be as loving or kind as you'd like it to be. And so people will fight the tone, not the content. They might fight the content too, but they're definitely gonna fight the tone if it doesn't come across well. So that's the other difficulty, another difficulty in saying just a plain no. Number six is around social expectations. So this one I think particularly would happen at work, where a flat out no might be perceived as insubordination. And this might not just happen at work, it might happen in your business if you have clients that you're working with and they're paying you for something, and you say no without any context or without explanation, they may not understand and see that as you're not fulfilling your obligation, you're not fulfilling your end of the bargain, or you're being insubordinate. This might also happen in cultures where there's a norm to comply with cultural leaders or with people in positions of authority. And so you're upsetting the social expectations, not just saying no to a boundary. So there's honor involved and ego and potentially payment if it's a client. So I find it very difficult to imagine saying just no and walking away to a client or a boss or someone that I really look up to and respect. So that's number six: the cultural expectations, social expectations or um work dynamics. Let's call it that. I don't know what to call this one really. So moving on to number seven, dependency. So saying a no to someone that you depend on becomes very difficult because it may escalate into a real risk of losing whatever it is that you depend on them for. So this may relate to number six. If you're dependent on your boss or someone that you're working for or working with on for income, then a flat out no may escalate into you no longer have a job or you no longer work with this client. So there's real risk in losing something there, losing income, maybe losing respect, maybe losing reputation or care if you require care from someone. So if you're dependent on someone for something, then a no can have some very real risks of losing that. And it may offer no kind of contingency plan to that. That is number seven. And moving on to number eight, this one I think is really important actually. It doesn't teach others how to respond or how to treat us. So we live in a world where we interact with people all the time. They bump up against our boundaries, but we also bump up against theirs. So in a relationship or in situations where it's not kind of a one and done, like a telemarketer or a waiter that you see once in a restaurant, a raw refusal, it doesn't say anything about how you want to be treated. In fact, it might say, This is how I expect to be treated. So you might also start getting a flat out no without any explanation or context or follow-up. And I don't think that's what I would want, because there are times when I hit up, when I bump up against a boundary that I don't even know is there. And a flat out no can really leave me confused. This is what I'm imagining. I don't very often get a flat out no. But if I did, I can imagine that it would leave me confused as to why actually I can think of an example where my husband received a flat out no from someone, and we still talk about it because he doesn't understand where the no came from. He thought that this Person was on board and just got a no. And that was it. And he's still confused and annoyed and all kinds of things as a result of it. And it it I it happened probably three or four years ago, and we still talk about it. So there's an example of being on the other end of that and how that left us healing. And I don't want to teach people to treat me like that because I really would like to understand when someone says no, why. I don't need to necessarily, you know what? I should rephrase that. I don't necessarily need to know why, but some context or some kindness coming along with that is helpful. Because I don't think we necessarily deserve to always know why someone has a boundary, but some kind of a loving no, a kind no, and perhaps some context can be helpful. Okay, so those are my eight. Let's so before I move on to what to do instead, the bottom line here is that this slogan, no is a complete sentence, it treats a very complex interaction like a one-step transaction. And yes, in some cases it might be, but I would venture to say that in life, in relationships, at least relationships that we like to maintain, are not made up of one-word transactions. So in 95% of the cases, this isn't going to work for you. Okay, so I've got a few steps for you on what to do instead. Let me tell you that setting boundaries is actually a complex process. It is a process to understand why you are not able to say or find it difficult to say no in the first place. So it would be impossible for we have a whole course on this, a whole module on this inside of the midlife red tent. It'd be impossible for me to really share all of it inside of a podcast episode. But what I do want to give you is a couple of steps to get started. And the first one is to notice when someone is actually pressing up against a boundary. So often we don't even know. Well, first of all, many of us don't even have boundaries or don't even know where our boundaries are until someone is pressing up against it. And by that point, we're in it. And we're saying yes, or we're doing exactly what we don't want to do before we even register that there's a boundary in play. So the first step is really getting clear on what you want, what you need, what you're willing to accept, how you want to be treated. And that's a long process. It requires some thought and some reflection on what you're doing and where you, where you're not setting boundaries or where you're allowing your boundaries to relax. So the first step is really to, well, it's kind of a two-stepper because it's to notice when someone's pressing up against a boundary, but you need to actually put those boundaries in place in the first place or to understand what your own boundaries are. Once you've done that, the second step is to calm your nervous system. So this is another process that we cover inside the midlife red tent in our solo line boundaries module. It involves understanding the beliefs that cause your nervous system to wind up in these moments. And it does. We move into a stress response when someone is asking for something we don't want to give, or when they're encroaching on boundaries. So for example, somebody is a close talker. I have somebody in my life who's like this, and it makes me very uncomfortable because she talks very in my, she's in my personal space. And I like to say, step back. You're making me uncomfortable. And yet there's a part of me that feels like it goes into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn because I'm worried about what she's going to think. I'm worried about hurting her feelings. I'm worried about her not liking me, all of those things. And what happens in boundary setting situations is we move into freeze or fawn. We don't talk a lot about fawning. Fawning happens, you see it in the animal world. In I have a dog. My dog is probably more of an alpha dog, but I've watched dogs in the dog park and I've watched him do this with other alpha dogs. They display subordinate types of behavior. So they put their head down, they might roll over and show their belly. That's fawning. It's playing up to the alpha. It's it's making them feel good. And we do this as well. It's a stress response. And the fawning response is typically the one that's involved in people pleasing. And in boundary situations, that's usually when the people pleasing, the fawning response, that's all happening. So calming the nervous system, making your nervous system feel safe to say no is a really critical part because willpower does not do it. Practicing your script before you go into situations, that doesn't do it. If your nervous system ramps up, your whole body just wants to remove the threat. And removing the threat means saying yes. Okay, number, that's number two, calm the nervous system. Number three, call in your intuition. So another practice we teach inside the red tent, when you reconnect with your intuition, it starts to become more accessible. And it starts to become more accessible in these moments. Now, you probably feel like in these moments, this is not a hell yes. And that's your intuition coming through. But then that gets clouded by the fears and the worries about what the person's gonna think of you and what are they gonna say if I don't respond the way they want me to? Am I gonna get fired? Am I gonna get a poor performance rating? So all of these fears will cloud your judgment to a point where you don't even know if you want to do this thing or not. So Jen and I are actually gonna talk about this in a couple of episodes, not next week, but the week after, where we will move into I want to help, and we almost can't hear our intuition on whether that's something we actually want to do. So your intuition is critical in these situations, and so often it's clouded. So really practicing, listening to your intuition and even hearing it is a really crucial practice. That's number three. So the the first three are actually really kind of about going internal and understanding your own response, your own boundaries, your nervous system, your intuition. The last two are more about looking externally. So number four is finding the common value. So, for example, at work, I used to work for a company and I was my my role was part-time. It was a part-time job. I was working 30, I was supposed to be working 30 hours a week, but I was working 40. And that didn't leave me much time to work on my business. I was working too much. And at first, I tried to talk to my boss about it. You know, we can we like start getting my workload down. I'm I'm working too many hours. And I'm the kind of person at the time, I was the kind of person who I have a lot of responsibility. I have, I take on a lot of responsibility for doing quality work. So I'll work more hours if I need to to get something done or to get it done well. And so I was telling, trying to talk to my boss about it. And that didn't work. Because really, you know, talk about empowering, that's giving your power away. I was giving my power to my boss. I was leaving it up to him to figure it all out, to get my workload down. And it didn't do a thing. Then I started asking, you know, when he wanted to drop something new on my plate, I started to have a conversation with him about my boundaries. So I have all these projects on my plate. I really want to do them all well. I know that you want them done well. There's the common value. But that's not possible for me to do them all well. So what is it that's the most important? And what can I move to the bottom of the priority list? And what that did, it forced him to think about okay, what is what do I value getting done here? What does my boss's boss value? What are our overall goals? It caused him to think about what is really important here? And that made a huge difference. I was able to get my my number of hours down and without saying, well, I'm not going to do that, or just doing a half-assed job on everything, or working 40 hours instead of 30. So finding the common value is something that really helped me in negotiating a boundary and being able to maintain my own boundaries. And this last one is about having compassion. Quite often when we, you know, even when someone just simply asks for something, asks for our time, they call too much, or they do whatever it is, we immediately become resentful. Why is this person asking this of me? And that immediately takes us out of compassion. And compassion is what leads to connection. When you are able to put yourself in someone else's shoes, get curious, like legitimately curious about why they might be asking for this? What why might they need this? Why are they coming to me? Realistically, do they know where you're at in life? Do they know how much is on your plate? Probably not. Only you really have a good sense of that. Even at work. Even in that situation with my boss, like he he doesn't really, he just hands things to me. He can't really say how fast I can get things done, how much is really on my plate, what am I working on from other people in the team. So it's, you know, when someone is asking you for something, coming up with the compassion to understand where they're coming from and why they're asking you might also lead to a better ability to negotiate your boundary. So those are my five steps. As I said, we go into so much more detail and practice inside the midlife red tent in our soul aligned boundaries module and with that process. What I really want you to take from this episode is there's no pressure for no to be a complete sentence. Let's just remove that pressure because in most situations, it's just not that realistic. And I don't want you beating yourself up over not being able to say no and walk away. Now, if you do want some really good boundary scripts as a first step to practice, then we actually have some boundary strip boundary scripts that you can steal. I will drop the link to get those into the show notes. So go down there and check those out. They will be at midlifewomenrising.com slash scripts. Midlifewomenrising.com slash scripts. Those will help you to get started. And that is it for today. Come back next week. We have a really hot topic that we're gonna be discussing next week on why we hate the body positivity movement. So it's gonna ruffle some feathers and I want to know what you think. So come and listen to that. And if this episode was helpful for you, please share it with somebody who you know wants to set better boundaries.