How can I toughen my heart up?

Question

I’m a very tender hearted person and have a very hard time saying no to people and being mean to those who are mean to me. I’m always worrying about hurting peoples feelings that I never stop to think about my own. Is there anyway I can toughen up this heart, all I need to do is learn how to say no, yet I’m too afraid it will hurt the persons feelings, it’s really starting to get me down! Also does this sound selfish?

Answer 1

It is not selfish at all. I would like to start be suggesting you go to Yahoo Personals. Fill out a free membership profile. Once the profile is submitted, you will find a Personality/Relationship Test that you can take for free. You will receive about 20 pages of information which will bluntly give you a pretty good idea of what you are about and how to fix the negative traits you are displaying.

I am pasting a section here that helped me to work through much the same thing. I hope to give you some insight into what to expect...

Your Biggest Challenge Is:
How can you promote harmony and still allow healthy conflict?
Idealists go out of their way to promote harmony at work, in their families, and among their friends. You're a natural peacemaker and take it upon yourself to mediate disputes. And whenever possible, you try to prevent them. On more than one occasion, you've probably asked: "Why can't we all just get along?!"
Yet conflict doesn't have to be destructive—there is such a thing as healthy conflict. Even heated exchanges can be useful as long as both of you play fair.
Part of your challenge is learning to tolerate uncertainty and being disliked. As a creative person, you know that some of your best ideas come after long periods of frustration and feeling "blocked." You may find that some of your relationships are blocked as well, and require "creative conflict" to move forward.
Asking an Idealist and peacemaker to have more conflicts is admittedly ambitious. Still, one of your strengths is that you're always open to new ideas and trying new things. In that spirit, here are some other areas you might want to improve: