Deborah Mitchell Counselling

Let’s consider your sense of healthy entitlement and human rights as a person. Is it easy or hard for you to claim a right! In the list of rights and healthy entitlements below, check the ones you’d like to be able to do.

• When something feels exhausting to me, I have the right to say I don’t want to do it.
• If someone wants me to listen and I’m very tired, I can ask to postpone or tell them I’d be happy to talk for [a certain amount of time] and ask if that would be okay for today.
• I’m entitled to think about my own well-being along with everyone else’s.
• I have the right to politely jump in with my thoughts and opinions in a conversation.
• When someone is making me feel uncomfortable, I have the right to abruptly end the interaction.
• I am entitled to have my own thoughts and feelings, regardless of what others think.
• I have the right to make space for myself and set boundaries on my time.
• I am entitled to be authentic about what I like to do and don’t like to do.
• When others try to pressure me, I have the right to tell them no and then switch topics or change the subject.
• I am entitled not to solve other people’s problems, even if they ask nicely.
• I have the right to not please everybody.
• When people are laughing at something I don’t find funny, I have the right to not participate.
• I am entitled to decide how I want to spend my time, and I can refuse an invitation without offering a reason excuse.
• I have the right to tell someone I can’t help them with their problem.
• Just because someone loves or needs me, I have the right not to feel the same way.
• I have the right to act on my own behalf, even if others disapprove.
• I am entitled to take the time I need to think and come to my own conclusions.

Lindsay C. Gibson / New Harbinger Publications