I'll be presenting in Grass Valley, CA at the Passion into Action conference on January 23, 2010 - my workshop is called: "Finding Your Voice: Asking for What You Want, Saying No, and Speaking Up!"  This blog entry is a sneak preview of that material.

Saying No
Our culture has a “no” phobia.  In some circumstances, saying no is simply not an option.  First off, it makes sense that we would avoid saying no, since so many people interpret no as rejection, disconnection, and anger.  Let’s reframe no so that we can understand it better.  First of all, no is a promise not to do something.  It’s a contextual answer to a contextual question.  We want to practice saying no to a request, not to a person.  If you have trouble saying no, you might be overdoing it by the time you get around to the no itself. It’s just as important to learn how to receive another person’s no as it is to say it.
When You Say No, You Are Saying Yes to Yourself
Your no protects your yes.  When we don’t say no, we water down our agreements, our commitments, and our focus.  Most of us suffer from time scarcity: there’s never enough time to do everything we want to do.  Alternately, you could look at this as a problem of abundance – you are too interesting and interested in the world, and the only way to do what you want to do is say no to one or more other options.  When you say no, you are saying yes to the commitments you’ve already made, protecting your time and energy, and allowing the person to organize appropriately, knowing that you are true to your word.
Remember that your no creates an opportunity for the person who is asking to 1) find out why you are saying no, thus learning more about you, 2) offer something different that works better for both of you, and/or 3) find someone else to do what they are asking.  If you say yes when you mean no, it creates problems for you and for the other person, who doesn’t know why all of a sudden you are resentful or have disappeared.
No With Gratitude
Try this: add a “thank you” to your no.  “No, thank you” is a much easier no to hear, and also perhaps to say.  It shows that you appreciate being asked, and that you are considerate of the person who is asking.