"Letting go is hard. It is painful to have to deal with someone you love being angry with you. It is painful when someone you love is in pain. It is painful to watch someone you love make destructive choices. It is scary to let go of trying to control their reactions. If you continue to feel responsible for how others react to your "no", however, you are agreeing to be a part of an unhealthy relationship based in distorted concepts of responsibility. Your only hope for a healthy relationship is to continue to work toward breaking your own patterns of unhealthy responsibility.
Fortunately for those who want to transform unhealthy responsibility into healthy responsibility, there are internal signals that alert you when you are possibly falling prey to misconceptions about responsibility. Two of those signals are guilt and resentment. Guilt and/or resentment often reflect an anxiety around saying no that comes from feeling responsible for the other person's reaction. When you feel guilt and/or resentment, you have an opportunity to reflect on whether you are fulfilling your responsibilities in no saying. If so, you must try, try, try … to let go."
'via Blog this'Healthy Parent / Healthy Child, Part Three: Saying no (kindly) and then let go | SierraSun.com:
