I remember that line at the beginning of the film of "Mission Impossible II" with Tom Cruise, when he was out free climbing in the middle of the desert, and this helicopter flies over and shoots him this pair of secret agent sunglasses.

After they explained his mission to him, the boss says, "Oh and Mr Hunt... next time you go on holiday, tell us where you will be!"

And Tom Cruise says, "If I told you that, then I wouldn't have a holiday!"

By this example, I mean, if it is your day off - then make it your day off! Turn off the cell phone, and don't even open your email! Don't answer the phone, because you're "not at home" - even if you are.

And if you bully boss gets pissed off, and says to you, "WHERE WERE YOU YESTERDAY?! I called you, emailed, faxed you, and even sent the FBI out looking for you, but YOU DIDN'T CALL BACK!"

Just put a stupid look on your face, blink as if someone woke you up from a nap, and say, "Oh... I thought yesterday was my day off - so I didn't think about reading my email - sorry!"

So long you are always available - so long they will have you at their call and beck. If you "aren't there" on your day off, they will look for another victim.

This works well for vacations. If they ask you where you are going on your vacation time, say "Jamaica, France, Tahiti, Austrailia" - anywhere that is far off and costs a fortune to go to. NEVER say "I'm going to visit my sister that lives 10 miles away."

That way, when they want to cancel your vacation time, you can bluff, and say, "Okay, I can do that. But who's going to reimburse me for the ticket to Hawaii? Should I submit my ticket to personnel department? Because the ticket wasn't cheap, and I expect compensation, because it cost a real fortune, and I don't make that much money here."

You don't need to feel bad about lying, because it's the bully boss in this case who decides that visiting Hawaii is more important than visiting your sister - because he will have to compensate for cash forked out for you vacation to Hawaii, but not for visiting your sister.

Do this for a while, and soon they will get the picture at work, that when you work you work, and when you are not at work, you ARE NOT AVAILABLE. It's up to you: Are you an employee or an indentured servant?

The agency is in financial crisis
Night positions posted in Human resources
In the past HR told me that boss was
wrong to me about something
I was told I get nights 6 months ago
I am very flexible
I sent out resume for job somewhere else
I have illness- it is stable
Do you think I should tell them I am looking
for another job?

No. I don't think you should tell them you are looking for another job yet.

Were I you, I would think of this like a kind of poker game. If you play poker, you know you can't win if you show your neighbour your poker hand, and say, "What do you think of my cards?"

What until you get offered another job, then have something to play poker with. Then you can say, "Hey, yo! I'm going to this other company, because they treat their people better than you do. How about making me a better offer to make me stay, because if I leave, you will have to go to the expense of training somebody new to learn all of the special little things to make this job work."

But BE CAREFUL! You boss might say, "Yeah, okay, we'll do that!" And that might work out for a week, before they go back to doing what they always do to make you feel like you're getting the short end of the stick. They might only do it temporarily, just to make you not take the new job, and wait until the opportunity is gone, and go back to what they think is normal and you think sucks.

So if Mr. Boss promises to change things for you, ask him to write it down and sign it - better yet, make your own list of things you want to happen at work that you think are fair for you, and fair for your employer, and say to Mr. Boss, "Look this is only a short list of conditions I think are fair, and will help make me a happier and more confident employee. I don't think I asking too much to have you sign this, because I know you have a lot to worry about, and when you sign this, then later, then you know exactly what we agreed to, and there is no chance of me fudging or making up stuff along the way. It's the normal responsible, professional thing most employers do, who know that people are an important resource."

If Mr. Boss says, "Yeah, well, we'll just agree to this in private, but I won't sign it", then bye-bye Mr. Boss - he's just dicking you around. Go to the other employer who will treat you like a human.

Remember: the "crises" will always be used as the top reason to keep you quiet, and settle for less - the favourite excuse for making you do more for less pay - the favourite trick to make you believe hundreds of other people would die to work for an asshole boss - the most effective way to make you feel bad that you are supposed to be grateful for having a job even though you feel like you are not being treated fair.

But I know from experience that it is far better to be poor and feel human that work for little money for some who abuses you and feel like dirt.

The worst thing Mr Boss could say to is "no". But you will never know if he will really say "no" until you demand what you want.

It's great to hear that you applied to work elsewhere, because now you know that you don't have to be abused like this.

I understand what you mean but I have
been there the longest and work hard
and In ER's all the time and being sent
emails contiuously at home -that si
almost harrassment
I told her so she would lay off for a while
I have done nothing -they are awful to me
I have told the union steward because
she warned me not to talk to DIr about it
She needs to hear what she is sending on emails-I left it on her machine - because
I cannot live and work with constant
harrassment about things that are not true
I always let it go by- I need to work
so I have to stop her

This is a chapter out of the book I have, titled

"How to Piss Yourself Off" - a paradox advice book by Professor Dr. Rainer Sachse

This is all advice you are NOT suppose to follow:

-------------------------------------------------------

Your Own Needs

All people have needs. Psychologists call these motives. Motives are the keys to what we want and what is important to us. There are some people, who have to be together with other people. There are some people who need achievements, and there are some people, who strive for power and recognition. Motives determine human behavior. And the satisfaction that a person attains in his life is dependent on how far he can satisfy these motives.

Usually, the only thing we know about motives, is that what we heard on crime shows on television. They always talk about how a suspect had some motive to kill someone. Fortunately, this isnt the only motive humans have. Motives can also be defined as needs or goals. They determine what a person would like, what they need, what is important to them, and also which goal they have set for themselves. In everyones life, motives are more or less realized. Some of them will be very satisfied, while others wont really be satisfied. You could lead a life in which the majority of your motives are satisfied. You will reach what you strive for, which in turn leads to the feelings of satisfaction and relaxation. Some people live their lives parallel to their motives. They hardy reach any of their goals, and hardly attain things they strive so hard for, which, in turn, leads to a life full of feelings of dissatisfaction and tenseness.

If a person follows their motives, then they adapt their behavior accordingly, so they will be satisfied, and quite possibly happy; if on the other hand, he follows rules and regulations (e.g. he does what is expected or what he must or what he should do or refrains from doing what everyone else thinks is foolish, etc.) and ignores his motives, then in due time he will be dissatisfied; this dissatisfaction will continue to grow, and eventually lead to feelings of discomfort, listlessness, and even to depression.
People are very different when it comes to recognizing their motives. Some people have a very definite idea what their motives are. Usually these are the more satisfied people, because they adapt their behavior according to their own feelings and rules, and dont let other people around them influence them too much. They know what they want and they dont have a difficult time making decisions. If someone else demands something from them, then they can decide very quickly if they want that themselves, or if it corresponds to their own personal goals.
On the other hand, some people have very vague ideas what their motives are, and are not really in touch with their own needs. These people tend not to have any of their own rules, and thats why they usually orient themselves on other peoples standards and expectations. If they receive an assignment, they usually cannot figure out if they even want to accept it or not, or if its good for them (because in order to do this, they would have to know what they want first). They tend to accept assignments without thinking about them critically, and after a while, they even begin to believe they made the decision to accept the assignment on their own. They tend to ignore their motives and follow rules (be a good girl, do your best, be successful), and they tend to forget that their motives are not their own. This, in turn, makes them very unhappy and they cant even figure out why.

This state of mind not having access to your own motives is defined by Professor Julius Kuhl, a psychology professor in Osnabrueck, as alienation. This kind of alienation is an essential factor in many psychological problems. As you can see, alienation is a very good pre-requisite for a psychosomatic illness.

One of the enormous advantages alienation entails is the problem you no longer know what you really want, or whats good for you, or which goal you should strive for. That makes it extremely difficult to satisfy your motives (that you still have despite not being able to recognize them), because you no longer know what you want, and are no longer able to constructively work at satisfying them. In fact, you create with very high probability, the basis for not satisfying your motives, which in turn will make you feel very dissatisfied a feeling that you will not be able to resolve, all because you dont really know what you want. If you dont know what you want; if you dont have any rules and standards of your own, then you wont be able to answer the questions:

? Am I doing the right thing?
? Is it okay what Im doing?
? Am I making the right decision?

And because you dont have any of your own rules and standards, which you need in order to behave, you orient yourself on other peoples standards (i.e. you do what youre supposed to do), in order to meet other peoples expectations. If you conform to other peoples standards, chances are, your motives are not your own. This in turn, will ensure that you will be living parallel to your own motives, which never really go away. But because you arent capable of noticing this, you will only have a vague sense of dissatisfaction. And then you will attempt to reduce this feeling, by doing exactly that which corresponds best to your abilities: you will try even harder to conform, which only tightens the vicious circle.

Dissatisfaction works like an inner stress factor, though. It weighs on your psyche, puts you under pressure, and prevents you from experiencing relaxation, recuperation, equilibrium and pleasure. Another stress factor coming from the constantly pressure of more of the same is when you keep trying harder to conform and belong to a standard that isnt your own. That way, you catapult yourself into the ideal state of permanent stress: you no longer require external active or passive stress from your boss, your job or your spouse youll be producing your own stress. This way you will maneuver yourself into an automatic stress reaction syndrome.

Be smart make your own stress!

This self-made form of stress is much more effective than regular stress coming from external sources, because fighting this kind of stress is much more difficult than trying to out-smart your nasty boss. External stress, as it is now becoming apparent, is not a pre-requisite for a psychosomatic illness. Some people dont need external stress factors at all they produce their own! And they usually have better results in making themselves sick that those with real external stress.

In therapy sessions with psychosomatics, we often keep hearing the same things from our cliental when the question is asked: But, what do you want? or Whats important to you?. The answer is always the same: I dont know. Even if the question gets more specific, such as: What would you have liked to have done in that situation? or How would you have hoped that person would have reacted? the answer is still the same, I dont know. And careful analysis proves the same thing in each case: the patient has no idea what they want. Some even answer the question, What do you want? with the answer, My spouse wants me to At this point, we have to explain to our patients that what they have just said is not their own wish. Then they react by saying, But it doesnt matter, because I want the same thing too! These patients are no longer capable of discerning their wants from those of their spouses.

Now were moving up to the professional league. In order to turn pro, you must follow this advice: Do not, under any circumstances, think about what you want! Dont ask yourself silly questions about what is important to you! Dont even attempt to find out what your wishes and needs are! Assume that its all bunk! Conform unquestionably to society! If your father always told you to be successful and a high achiever, then accept this standard, and do it without question! If your family expects you to be a successful manager, then be one! Nobody cares about your artistic side! That Bohemian life is for free-loaders and scum anyway! Just do what everyone expects you to do! And if you do become unsatisfied, then dont even think of it as a hint that you should start thinking about what you want out of life! It would only distract you from what you should be doing! If you are dissatisfied with your life, well then, thats just because you didnt try hard enough to get along and fit in! And if you start feeling more and more dissatisfied, just stick your nose to the grindstone and you wont feel dissatisfied anymore.

Gyro Gearloose, from the Donald Duck series, demonstrates an excellent example of this type of thinking. Gyro Gearloose runs around in Duckville trying to sell his inventions. One day he walks by someone who is mowing his lawn with a sickle, complaining about his aching back. Gyro offers to invent him a lawnmower, so that he doesnt have to mow the lawn with a sickle anymore. But the guy tells him off angrily explaining, My grandfather mowed this way; my father mowed this way; why should I want to mow the lawn any other way?" Gyro, who is frustrated with this answer isnt giving up, and offers the guy to at least put the sickle on the end of a long stick so his back wont hurt anymore. But the guy is still insulted, and answers, My grandfathers back ached; my fathers back ached; why shouldnt my back ache, too? Gyro, still frustrated, decides to invent a laughing machine. As absurd as this example sounds its true. If you conform to standards that are not your own, and ignore what your body is trying to tell you; tell yourself you really dont have a problem, and dont seek help, then youre well on your way to becoming a professional psychosomatic.

Here is a very important point: if you start believing you should begin to re-think your life, then do it right! (But of course its better you dont and you keep on doing what youve always done you dont want to make any mistakes at this point!) One important rule here is: You should basically never start questioning everything that happens around you! If you feel a deep dissatisfaction in your life, then you should never ask yourself:

? Is being a lawyer really the right profession for me?
? Did I only go to college because my father wanted me to?
? What do I really want? What is important to me?

Just accept the given set of circumstances in your life as decisions etched in stone, and try to concentrate on more important questions like:

? What could I do to make my boss more satisfied with me?
? What could I do to become more successful?

Just try to think about how you could fit in better in your life. That way you will never get to the bottom of what is making you feel dissatisfied. Conform to the system, dont question authority, be a dependable member of society, and above all keep driving yourself towards the shoals of dissatisfaction. Your stress will increase immensely; your problems will never get solved; and your life will get stuck in a rut. Great! You can foster the most dramatic psychosomatic illness of all time!

Its also helpful if you dont make any more decisions for yourself. Just ask your wife what your favorite meal is; or what kind of films you like to watch; or when you should go to bed! That is responsible and considerate. Dont even attempt to decide whats best for you!

Alienation can also increase the stress factor another way. People who arent in touch with their motivation system accept assignments from other people, and after awhile, they consider those assignments their own decisions. These people cannot perform what Professor Kuhl calls a compatibility test: They cant decide if they really want to accept the assignment, or whether its good for them, or if it corresponds to their own set of motives. And because they cant make a decision, they often have no plausible reason to reject the assignment. They start to believe the decision to accept the assignment was their own decision sooner or later, because there wasnt a good reason to reject their assignment. This makes these people easy to manipulate. They have a hard time figuring out what their own personal limits or borders are, in order to prevent themselves from being abused. In other words, they have no defense mechanism to prevent themselves from being taken advantage of. This opens up a whole new dimension to stress: they are now free game for everybody at the office! And as you will see, it can grow worse.

Poor Self-Esteem

Everyone has their image themselves, their assets, skills and capabilities their so-called self-image, which is often known as self esteem. This self-esteem influences a person very much; it influences how a person thinks and how he acts; whether he is optimistic or whether he believes in himself; and if he has fear of how others react; or he believes that he wont be able to accomplish something.

The self-esteem can be positive and thus contain basic assumptions, such as:
? I am competent
? I am a loveable human being
? I am okay
? My behavior is acceptable

Self-esteem can also be negative and contain these basic assumptions, such as:
? I am not okay
? I am a looser
? I do not have anything in my life under control
? I am not attractive
A persons self-esteem has a lot to do with determining how a person behaves on a day-to-day basis. A person with positive self-esteem believes he can accomplish many things, attempts new things, is confident, and can positively interact with other people. A person with negative self-esteem, on the other hand, doesnt believe he can accomplish much; they believe they will fail their assignments; they believe that others wont like them; they believe that others will criticize them.

Make sure you always have negative self-esteem!

In case you make a mistake here, keep telling yourself what an absolute idiot you are. If you forget something, keep telling yourself what a jerk you are and how much more stupid you are getting by the minute (probably losing your mind, while youre at it). Keep telling yourself that youre such a looser, and youll never do anything right in your life. If someone criticizes you, keep reminding yourself of all the times in life youve blown it. If something, by chance, works out in your life, keep telling yourself how much better it could have been, and keep reminding yourself that it could have been much better, if you werent such an idiot. Never let legitimate reasons or excuses get in your way when putting the blame on yourself; never say that youre having a bad day, when you really know deep down inside you are an absolute looser. Its not your colleagues fault when something went wrong at work it was really all your fault. Even when your boss doesnt criticize you, keep remembering all the times he did criticize you, and all of the times you goofed up and how you let him down. Keep reminding yourself you could have made everything much better at work, if only you werent such a doofus and tried harder.

And should something, by some freak chance, actually work out for you, then dont give yourself the credit for it you just lucked out for once, and it has absolutely nothing to do with your abilities or talent, because a loser like you doesnt have anything like ability or talent!

If you really work hard at reinforcing your negative self-esteem, you will begin to actually begin to believe you are the born loser, given enough time. This in turn, will allow you to experience fear and anxiety in challenging situations fear of failure, fear of reaping criticism, fear of getting fired, etc. This way your poor self-esteem will become a very powerful source of stress:
? You will constantly doubt yourself and your capabilities
? You will doubt if you can even do anything to change your situation
? You will constantly experience fear of criticism and rejection
? You will not believe that you are capable of doing anything, which will make you nervous in any given unfamiliar situation.

What a difference this makes can be easily demonstrated. Imagine your boss wants to talk to you in his office. If you had good self-esteem, you wouldnt have any problem believing that youre competent, hard-working, and a good person.

Automatically you assume your boss is satisfied with you. On your way to his office, you would be relaxed and thinking about how he might be paying you a compliment about your work, and that way, you might be looking forward to this meeting.

Now imagine just the opposite; you think youre a complete idiot; a born looser. You think that your work is lousy, that you always make lots of mistakes, and that nobody will ever be happy with work. On your way to your bosss office, you will, instead, now be dying a thousand deaths, thinking about how your boss is going to yell at you; about how anger he is going to be; about how his is going to fire you soon, if you dont get your act together. But, of course, you dont believe you will ever get your act together, because you believe you are the born looser, which means youre going to get fired. And after getting fired, youll be unemployed, poor and the laughing stock of the neighborhood. You stomach is in knots, and you are already breaking out in a cold sweat. Your blood pressure is going through the roof, and your immune system is producing the stress hormone cortisol in XXL doses; in other words your body is extremely full of anxiety. Great work!

Nothing has even happened yet, but you have already worked yourself up! As you can see, self-induced stress is fantastic. And its so easy and so effective to produce, once you know how. There are lots of subtle techniques to ruin your life, and finally youve learned to use a few of them.

Constant insecurity, and above all, constant fear over-tax your nervous system, which, in turn, over-taxes your body systems. Stress hormones are constantly released, and the endocrine system is thrown out of whack. You have finally realized how to create your own source of internal stress. This way, you will become independent of external stress sources, and foster a psychosomatic illness par excellance!

The important key here is that you ignore your fear and dont dare pay any attention to what the emotion fear might be trying to tell you. Otherwise, you might come up with the fatal idea of consulting a psychologist, and that would ruin your chances becoming a really good psychosomatic.

Poor Self-Esteem Improves with Success

People only develop positive self-esteem when they are constantly feed. You have to make some positive experiences in order to be proud of yourself. You have to give yourself credit when you accomplish something, so you can reinforce your positive self-esteem. If your self-esteem is not fed on a regular basis, then it will starve you will begin to have self-doubts, and start to wonder if you really are competent. You will begin to wonder if you are an attractive person.

You see, negative self-esteem will not necessarily become negative when it receives negative information; it can become negative if it is not reinforced with any information whatsoever.
In order to feed your self-esteem, though, it has to have its own rules and standards. Because only your own standards should be satisfied, in order for you to be proud of something you do, or in order for you to feel recognition, or in order for you to know if you have done something right. Your own standards will help you to determine whether the results are great or lousy. Only you can decide if a positive event has been registered in your self-esteem. But if you are missing your own set of rules and standards, then you would not be able to register any positive events, and this would eventually let your positive self-esteem starve. Self-doubt would win the upper hand, and the negative assumptions about your own competence, control and attractiveness would deteriorate your self-esteem. This alienation has another far-reaching aspect: it suppresses your self-consciousness.
When you are able to turn off your inner standards, then you will not be able to register any positive reinforcement about yourself, and your self-esteem will deteriorate. Remember how you see yourself and how others see you are not too far removed from one another. If you dont appreciate yourself, then you cant expect other people to appreciate you either (and vice-versa). If you are able to allow your self-esteem to deteriorate, then you will find yourself unattractive, unrespectable, and not a nice person to be around. You will be making sure your self-esteem deteriorates, while at the same time making it impossible to reinforce itself. Great! Youre going to be a smashing success as a psychosomatic!

Co-Dependency on Other Peoples Opinions

A person who has negative self-esteem is much more dependent on other peoples opinions than people who have positive self-esteem. Someone who thinks positive about themselves is capable of telling themselves theyre good. Of course, they like hearing it from other people, but they dont depend on it. But someone who doesnt think positive about themselves is very dependent on other people to tell them theyre good. Usually theyre starving for positive feedback. For the same reason, negative feedback has an even worse effect. It goes directly unfiltered under their skin. Thats why people with poor self-esteem avoid criticism whenever they can.
?
Because of this, people with poor esteem fall into a form of co-dependency on other peoples opinions, which in turn reinforces their poor self-esteem, because if they consider themselves unworthy or unimportant, and hardly receive any positive feedback they become more or less addicted to seeking recognition from other people. This fosters their tendencies to want to please other people, because they hope to reap praise and recognition from other people, when they do things other people either want them to do or expect them to do. If you really try to do your best in this direction, then you will have obtained a very respectable form of psychosomatic illness. The majority of your social behavior will consist of trying to please other people; to fulfill their wishes; to meet their expectations; and literally to second-guess what they want. If you bother to think about it all, then you will be asking yourself these questions:
? What else could I do to make other people happy?
? How can I strive to be an even better employee?
? What could I do to make my boss even more satisfied than he already is?

If you do this, then you will become externally oriented: that means you orient yourself on what other people expect from you. Youll try to do what you think other people want you to do, in order to gain praise, recognition and acceptance, or else you doing it because you want to avoid being criticized at all. But the more you orient yourself externally, the less your orient yourself internally, because you can only focus your orientation either internally or externally. And the more you focus your orientation externally, then less you concentrate on what is going on inside you. This facilitates an alienation process. External focus means focusing on other peoples standards by sacrificing your own standards. And this, in turn, causes a vicious circle. Once it starts its very hard to break out of. Once this happens, then you have catapulted yourself to the professional league in psychosomatics. All you need, at this point, is to polish off the last details. As a true professional, you should at least be able to master this discipline.

This vicious circle has some very interesting aspects to it. One of them is that the social recognition you so crave doesnt satisfy you. Its not feeding your self-esteem like you hoped it would. You might think it would reinforce your self-esteem when you receive positive feedback, but after a given amount of time, you will notice it wont. You will begin to notice that others around you will soon consider what you believe to be heroic efforts as your normal everyday behavior, and may not be as appreciative as you hoped they would be. Even worse is when you notice other people around dont even seem to care and have stopped giving you positive feedback, or they give you too little positive feedback.
The other problem you may begin to notice is that you begin to doubt the positive feedback you receive, because it isnt as overwhelmingly positive as you hoped it would be. You will start to wonder when a person praises you, you will think, Are they just saying that or do they really mean it? Because the trick about orienting yourself on other peoples standards is that opposed to your own inner standards, which you have a definite picture of external standards is involved with a lot of second-guessing, because you never really know the standards of other people. A person, who praises another, can do this, because they have a definite idea what is good and poor. A person can also do this, because they dont trust themselves to say something negative. And a person can do this, because he is doing it, because hes after something completely different. You never know. And this not knowing carries the consequences that the feedback information you receive will not be the information you necessarily hoped for. This, in turn, only feeds your self-esteem with something like bubble gum, and not with soul food; i.e. youre getting feed, but youre not getting satisfied. Maybe after a while, you will notice that all your efforts are returning you hardly any rewards. But because you dont know what else to do about it (remember, you dont have any inner standards), you will have no choice but to keep plugging at it. This way you will never break out of your dilemma. As time wears on, you will continue to orient yourself even more externally, and your access to your own inner standards will deteriorate.

Be happy about this your psychosomatic illness is near and for heavens sake dont do anything to break out of this vicious circle! Because if you do (usually only with the help of a qualified psychologist), you will completely ruin your psychosomatic illness.

At this point, you probably wont have any problem in recognizing what marks a really advanced psychosomatic: The most important processes such as, ignoring your own needs, ignoring your feelings, external orientation, avoiding reflecting on your own personal situation these processes will at some point take place without any effort on your part whatsoever.

You wont have to pay any more attention to details at some point. When you finally get this far, you wont even notice how deep youre in the mess youve made at this point not that it matters because even if you do notice, you wont want to break out if it. Thats because its really hard to break out of behavior ruts. In fact, without somebody elses help, you probably will never get out of your rut, which of course, is just perfect!

Saying No

Not that youve finally come this far, you certainly wont hesitate getting into another trap waiting for you, which will only add to your stress burden and this trap is practically unavoidable in your condition. Its perfect! Once you reach this level, then everything else practically falls into place all by itself without you having to make any extra effort!

And heres the trap: You will no longer be able to say the word No. When people ask you to do things, you wont be able to turn them down. You wont be able to protect your personal boundaries, and it will become extremely difficult for you to confront other people. Should you happen to have the stupid idea to refuse to do what they ask of you, then remind yourself how selfish and self-centered you are, and how much they will hate you for saying no. Then you wont have any problems saying yes. Just behave like the guy in the classic cartoon, where one co-worker enters the office of another, whose in box on his desk is piled up to the ceiling, and says to his colleague, I just said, yes, because I cant remember what the other word was.
There are two reasons why you cannot assert yourself. The first one is because you no longer have any access to your own personal standards and dont know what you want or need. Now when someone comes along and they challenge you with a request, such as, Can you cover for me for a while? I have to go to the dentist, or another colleague asks you, Could you hold a speech for Mr. Jones retirement party?, then you will have a real hard time saying no, because you really dont know if you want to do that or not. You no longer have a frame of reference to decide whether fulfilling the colleagues request is good for you or not, so you will not be able to say no, because you will have no plausible reason to say no. Instead, you will have a better reason to say yes, because you orient yourself on what you believe other people want or expect from you, and because you put pressure on yourself which compels you to say yes.
Theres also one other important compelling reason why you will always want to say yes, and that is your co-dependency on positive feedback from other people, or else the fear of negative feedback. If you refuse someones request, you will certainly frustrate this other person (well maybe you might, but you are certain of it). And you will assume this will really piss off this person. So you start to worry about how this person feels about you. What happens when you refuse to grant this persons request? You are sure they will consider you a stuck-up, self-centered egotistical person, and they will surely hate you for refusing their request. This train of thought reinforces negative feedback something you cannot deal with at all. So you do everything in your power to avoid this situation. Thats why you are incapable of saying no. You feel compelled to help and accept assignments and requests, even though you are probably already drowning in work. You will make that speech even though you might be scared out of your wits about public speaking. And even if you were your colleagues boss, who asked to cover for them, you wouldnt even have the gumption to tell him theyre very poor employee and should be trying harder. You would do everything you could to avoid a conflict with him, and instead make compromises you really shouldnt be making. This strong co-dependency on positive feedback or the avoidance of negative feedback strengthens the tendency to never say no.

By doing this though, you are giving other people in your environment definite signals. They will not miss the fact they can dump any and all kinds of unpleasant work in your lap, because they will notice you cant say no, and you wont stick up for yourself if the situation demands it. It will encourage your colleagues to take advantage of you: If I have an unpleasant assignment, then Ill just pawn it off on Mrs. Williamson; if I dont feel like doing this assignment, then Ill just pawn it off on Mrs. Williamson. In the end youre going to become the receptacle for all of the unpleasant work in the office. You may as well hang a sign around your neck with the Bible phrase, Come all ye weary and tired, and I shall nourish your souls!

Lots of our clients have this same problem, not just at work, but at home too. One of our patients told us about her neighbor, who constantly asked if she would baby-sit her dog. She really didnt want to, because she couldnt stand dogs, and really didnt have time to do this. But she never said no, because she just didnt have the heart to do that. She was afraid her neighbor could get mad at her, and alone this thought was preventing her from saying no. So what did she do? She looked after the dog, kept on smiling, all the while she hated her neighbor (because she kept asking her look after the dog), and she kept hating herself (because she didnt have the gumption to say no). Thus she created a stress situation and lost a little more control over her environment.

This mechanism also detracts from your ability to show other peoples where your personal boundaries lie: Like when your mother wants the keys to your house, because she thinks you never properly clean it, and she is forced to help you clean house from time to time. You never have the gumption to say no, because youre afraid shell get mad at you. So what do you do? You grind your teeth, but you give her the keys, and get pissed off you come home after work to find that she has re-arranged all of your furniture and the contents of your closets. But you still dont have the gumption to push the furniture back the way you like it, or re-arrange the closets how you want, because you dont have the heart to tell your mother, that you dont like they way shes done things, or to say something appropriate, like, If you feel the urge to re-arrange things, please do it in your own house! Its my life and my house, so just leave me alone! Or it like if you paint cars for a living, and your boss asks you to re-paint a car this one car, but he doesnt want to pay you for it, and you just do it without arguing, because youre sure that arguing about it will only make things worse.

By doing this, you are tapping into deeper sources of personal stress:
? You will receive more work, because everyone around you will consider you the dumpster for unpleasant jobs or assignments.
? You will not be able to defend your personal boundaries and will continue to suffer.
? You will continue to suffer from conflicts of interest that will never be resolved.

And when you get this far to the point where you constantly worry about these aspects, even though you will never come near an acceptable solution, then you will have created your own 24/7 source of permanent stress. And this will make you the absolute perfect target for becoming a hopeless psychosomatic!

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The Pawn in the Chess Game

If you are along this far in the game, then its just a tiny step further to succumb to the true feeling of helplessness of a psychosomatic that feeling of being a pawn in a great game of chess. This is the feeling where you feel like:
? I cant do anything about my situation
? I cant defend myself against this
? If I try to defend myself, it will only make matters worse
? I will just have to bear with the situation

You will get the impression that you are being pushed and shoved around by everyone around you; the feeling that you have absolutely no control over your own life. And then, with very little effort, you will be able to construct an insolvability structure.

? The situation with my boss is unbearable
? Conflicts only make everything worse
? If you try to defend yourself, theyll only fire you
? At my age, Ill never find a new job
? Ill just have to learn to live with this unbearable situation

With this line of thinking, you will have set yourself in a permanent rut. This is only possible if you have carefully considered all the pre-requisites: you cannot recognize that this is created structure, or that it is a structure you should question. You have to consider this structure as the harsh reality you find yourself in! Otherwise, if you dont, you might be asking yourself these questions:

? Are there appropriate methods I could use to defend myself?
? Is it really going to get worse, no matter what?
? Are there other alternatives besides working here?
? Do I really want to do something to change my situation?

Psychologically, scientists have known for a very long time the loss of control in ones environment is one of the most powerful sources of stress that a human can experience. So if you reach the point where you feel like a pawn in a chess game, then you have finally tapped into the most awesome source of mega-stress, which can hardly be topped by anything.