Personal growth and skills

Assertiveness training

Say no without guilt. Ask without fear. Speak your mind without aggression. Assertiveness is a skill – and skills are built through practice, best of all in a group.

Join the waiting list 732 059 980

Signing up is free and without obligation – we'll get in touch when the group starts to form.

Assertiveness is not a character trait – it is a skill

Submissiveness comes at a high price: being overloaded with other people’s business, suppressed anger, the feeling of being used – and outbursts you are ashamed of afterwards. Aggression has a different price: conflict and loneliness. Assertiveness is the third way: clearly expressing your needs, boundaries and opinions with respect for the other person. Contrary to appearances, you don’t have to be born with it – it is a set of specific, learnable skills.

In the training we work in a workshop format, on situations from the participants’ lives: a boss’s request that was due “yesterday”, a mother-in-law with unwanted advice, a friend who is forever borrowing money, a partner who leaves the chores to you. We practise proven techniques: saying no without endless explaining, the broken record, responding to criticism and manipulation, accepting compliments, expressing anger without hurting.

A group is irreplaceable for this kind of training: it gives you a safe space to try things out, real conversation partners for role-plays and the support of people with the same difficulties. The training is led by a psychologist. We also work on the source of submissiveness – the beliefs (“it’s not the done thing”, “what will people think”) that keep old habits alive.

Who is this group for?

✓people who find it hard to say no – at work, in the family, in friendships
✓people who hold in their anger until it explodes or turns into days of silence
✓people overloaded from taking on other people’s responsibilities
✓people who, after every difficult conversation, go over “what I should have said”
✓people who confuse assertiveness with selfishness – and pay for it by being overloaded

What will you gain?

✓saying no without guilt and without breaking off relationships
✓expressing your opinions and needs directly – even with “difficult” people
✓standing up to criticism, pressure and manipulation
✓less bottled-up anger, more calm and energy
✓rehearsed scripts for your real-life situations

What does it look like in practice?

Formatin person (Gdańsk or Gdynia) or online

Group size6-10 people

Sessionsweekly, 2 hours, a series of 8-10 sessions

Startonce the group is complete – people on the waiting list are invited first

Admissiona free initial conversation

Join the waiting list

Assertiveness training – the group will start once enough people have signed up. Leave your contact details and when enrolment opens, we'll get in touch with you first.

The controller of the data you provide to join the waiting list will be Magdalena Raba, running a business under the business name RABA Magdalena Raba, ul. Konstantego Bergiela 4/10, 80-180 Gdańsk, NIP: 5833557278. How we process personal data: www.sztukaharmonii.pl/en/polityka-prywatnosci

Frequently asked questions

Answers to the most important questions

I’m afraid assertiveness will damage my relationships. Does that happen?▼

Healthy relationships gain from assertiveness – clarity is easier to live with than guesswork and resentment. The change is uncomfortable mainly for people who benefited from your submissiveness; the training teaches you to make it gradually and without aggression, so relationships worth keeping usually get better, not worse.

Aren’t the role-plays at the workshops artificial and embarrassing?▼

The first exercise can feel awkward – that is normal. But it is precisely rehearsing a difficult conversation out loud, in a safe setting, that makes the words come naturally in a real situation. The difference between “I know what I should say” and “I said it” comes precisely from practice.

I’ve always been submissive. Will 8-10 sessions really change anything?▼

Yes – because we work on two tracks: on technique (specific phrases and behaviours, with visible results from the first weeks) and on the beliefs that keep the submissiveness going. Deeper patterns may need further work afterwards, but most participants finish the series with a real, noticeable change in everyday situations.