CuddleLA
Home of Cuddle Party in Los Angeles
About
Learning To Assert Yourself
Our happiness in relationship depends, to a great extent, on our ability and willingness to ask for what we want.
But if we have difficulty with this skill, how can we improve?
***
There are three basic attitudes essential to healthy self-assertion:
1. Respect for boundaries.
2. Trust in others' ability to take care of themselves.
3. Willingness to know and express what we want, free of our fears about what someone else may or may not want.
Let us look at each of these in turn.
1. Respect for boundaries.
If you feel that others have a duty to serve you, regardless of their needs, desires and boundaries, or that you have a duty to serve others, regardless of your needs, desires and boundaries, you will have difficulty asking for what you want.
You will not get, on an emotional level, that asking really means asking. You will see the issue in terms of obligation, and you will fear the resentment that inevitably arises in relationships where individual needs, desires, and boundaries are deemed irrelevant.
For this reason, if you want to learn to ask for what you want, you may want to begin by learning how to honor your own boundaries.
As you come to understand boundaries — the way in which they protect your health and vitality, the way in which they maintain your self-respect, the way in which they improve your relationships — you will come to see that asking for what you want is not about placing demands.
You will also see, if you are afraid of rejection, that when someone says "no" to you, this is a good thing. Someone who says "no" to you straightforwardly is someone you can trust.
And when you understand this, you will feel less fear and shame in asking for what you want, and you will be able to ask more clearly and lightheartedly.
2. Trust in others' ability to take care of themselves.
If you fear, not outright rejection, but rather that someone will say "yes" to you out of a sense of obligation and then resent you for it, you will have difficulty asking for what you want clearly.
So you must start by assuming that the other person can take care of him- or herself, so you can ask for what you want in a clear way. By asking clearly, you also give the other person an opportunity, and a subtle invitation, to respond in a clear way to your request.
There is one tricky part, though, for people who have great difficulty asking for what they want: When the other person says yes, you must learn to take them at their word.
Those who have difficulty asking for what they want often cannot believe anyone would ever honor a request willingly and wholeheartedly. But if someone has said yes to you, it is not productive to obsess, "what if they don't really mean it?"
It wastes your time, and isn't valuable for the other person either.
If someone has said yes to you, go enjoy yourself. The other person in most cases will too, and will appreciate the respect you give them when you take them at their word. (If they don't, your unwillingness to enable their addiction to dishonesty will be an excellent learning experience for them.)
3. Willingness to know and express what we want, free of our fears about what someone else may or may not want.
Growing up, most of us are naturals at knowing and asking for what we want. "Mommy, I want that toy!" "Daddy, I want to play video games!" "Mommy, I want spaghetti for dinner!"
To the extent our requests are met with clear yes's and no's, we will learn healthy self-assertion and healthy boundaries. But if our requests are met instead with shaming responses (along the lines of, "how dare you inconvenience me by asking!"), we may lose our very connection with what we want in the context of a relationship.
This is where an exercise comes in handy.
Consider some relationship context in which you have a desire for something different than what you currently enjoy in the relationship. It may be a certain activity, or a certain relationship agreement, or a certain kind of response from the other person in certain kinds of situations.
Now, as a fantasy, forget for a moment that the other person has any mind of their own. (This is just an exercise!) In this mindstate, what would be your fantasy ideal? Be as specific as you can, and write it down.
Notice that at certain points, a subtle voice in your mind might stop you, saying, "oh, the other person would never go for that."
For the sake of this exercise, put that voice aside, and simply sketch out your fantasy, without considering at all what the other person may or may not want, agree to, etc.
Got it? Well, now you now know what you want. At this point, how willing are you to ask the other person if he or she would be game?
If you're up for it, go ask, without expectations. It will perhaps feel strange if you are not used to it. But by asking for what you want, you will give the other person the opportunity to say yes, or to say no — or perhaps to say yes to certain parts of your fantasy but not others, in which case you can begin to negotiate.
Of course, to those who may say, "but all this is so unromantic!" we would ask a few questions: Is sitting on your desires more romantic? Is replaying your childhood parental issues over and over again more romantic? Is resentment more romantic?
***
If you want practice asserting yourself in a safe, structured environment, come to Cuddle Party. Our Welcome Circle instills a great respect for boundaries, and the format and rules are such that you can more easily than usual trust others to take care of themselves.
If you're single, you will likely have some desires to connect physically with at least some people in the room, and then you can practice asking for want you want according to the principles outlined in this article.
If you're in a couple, come to Cuddle Party together and use the structure to practice self-assertion skills with each other, or with others in the group too, if you are both comfortable with that.
We also encourage you to practice, of course, in your day-to-day life!
Whichever way you practice, however, notice the demons that may arise and try to stop you from asserting yourself in a healthy way. And, notice how you feel — about life, about yourself, and about relationships — when you acknowledge those demons and assert yourself anyway.