The Art of Saying No: Setting Boundaries When You've Been Trained to Say Yes - Emotional Abuse 101 | Part 2 [357]
Flying Free
Natalie Hoffman
5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 December 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Have you ever been told that saying "no" makes you selfish? That good Christian women never rock the boat, always serve with a smile, and definitely do not have thoughts of their own?
This episode is Part 2 of our Emotional Abuse 101 series, and today we’re diving into the art of saying no.
If the idea of saying no makes your stomach flip or sends you into a guilt spiral, this episode is your lifeline. I’ll walk you through WHY it’s so hard to say no and HOW to start saying it anyway with confidence and without apology.
Key Takeaways:
- Saying no without guilt is an adult skill, not a rebellious sin.
- People-pleasing is often a trauma response. Your nervous system isn’t broken. It’s just been doing its job a little too well.
- You don’t need permission to have boundaries. You’re not waiting for anyone’s approval.
- Boundaries ≠ controlling others. Boundaries = choosing how YOU respond when others misbehave.
- There’s neuroscience behind this. Your brain can be rewired to feel safe even when saying no.
Read the full show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here
Get a FREE chapter of Is It ME? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage, along with the companion workbook for that chapter, by going to flyingfreenow.com. I'll also send you the Freedom Letters. (Also free. 😉 )
Related Resources:
- Check out Part One of this eight part series: “The 10 Subtle Signs of Emotional Abuse in a Christian Marriage.”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Natalie Hoffman of Flying FreeNow.com, and you're listening to the Flying Free |
| 0:07.8 | podcast, a support resource for women of faith looking for hope and healing from hidden |
| 0:14.2 | emotional and spiritual abuse. Welcome to episode 357 of the Flying Free Podcast. |
| 0:22.4 | But this is also part two of a 10-part series I'm doing called Emotional Abuse 101, Everything |
| 0:30.5 | You Need to Know. |
| 0:32.1 | Today we're going to be talking about the art of saying no, setting boundaries when you've |
| 0:36.4 | been trained to say yes. You can listen to |
| 0:39.2 | part one, the 10 subtle signs, like the most subtle signs of emotional abuse that most people miss, |
| 0:46.9 | and I'm talking about emotional abuse in Christian marriages, if you go to flyingfree now.com |
| 0:52.1 | forward slash 356. Or if you're on your, you know, if you're on a |
| 0:57.3 | podcast app, just go to the episode right before this one and you can listen to part one. |
| 1:02.0 | So this is part two. Before we start, though, I want to read something to you. And I want you to |
| 1:06.6 | ask yourself when you're listening to this, is this who I am? Are these things that I have developed |
| 1:12.5 | in my life? Or is this something that I want to become, that I want to develop in my life? And what would |
| 1:20.3 | I need to do to become a person who believes these things? So this is what one of our Flying Free members |
| 1:27.2 | wrote. I've been in Flying Free since |
| 1:29.1 | 2021 and I'm just looking back at all the things I used to believe that kept me stuck and in fear. |
| 1:35.3 | In the past four and a half years, I have learned to be my own hero, to be okay with people not |
| 1:41.7 | approving of my decisions, to stop trying to control my husband and adult children, |
| 1:47.4 | to release myself from the responsibility to manage other people's emotions, |
| 1:52.8 | that radical acceptance is the key to peace, to see all the ways scripture has been twisted to keep me under control, |
| 1:59.5 | to come to a different understanding |
... |
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