getting to yes | Dare Boldly

There are only two words that will always lead you to success. Those words are yes and no. Undoubtedly, you’ve mastered saying yes. So start practicing saying no. Your goals depend on it! Jack Canfield

When I was a little girl, growing up in the 50s and 60s, ‘No’ was not an acceptable response.

Don’t be difficult.

Be nice.

Quit making trouble.

These were the responses to my ‘no’.

So I learned to say yes. Yes I’m okay. Yes I’ll do that. Yes. I’ll be there. Even when I meant no.

Believing I always had to say yes taught me to be accommodating. It taught me to accept the unacceptable. It taught me to lie and manipulate. To undermine myself and others. Not believing I had the right to say no taught me to disregard my needs and always put other’s needs first.

Not saying no taught me to disregard my dreams, my voice, myself.

Now, I’m not saying it’s not important to consider others needs or to say yes when appropriate. As a mother, being able to say yes was invaluable. Yes meant my daughters and I wandered under clear blue skies, examining every petal of a flower, picking up worms and moving them from the sidewalk to the grass so they wouldn’t get squished. Yes meant leaving the dirty dishes on the table to go outside and explore the rain. It meant dancing around fires and singing about witches in the backyard, and hurling eggs at the firepit to work anger out.

Yes lead to lots of adventure.

But, saying yes when I wanted to say no caused confusion.

My daughters would ask for something. I’d say yes, think about it and come back with a no. “But you said we could!” was a running theme in our house. And my response, “I’ve changed my mind,” only added confusion.

Where the yes that was meant to be a no had the most damage though was within myself. I’d commit to doing something for someone when really, I didn’t have the time, nor the interest to do it, and then, rather than actually confess to my misguided direction, I’d stall, hide, not do, and even lie about why I hadn’t got it done.

Yes has not been my friend when it comes to managing my own time, and my dreams.

But I still don’t like — NO! And I don’t want to do things I don’t like to do anymore.

Which is why, I’m moving into YES! in a whole new way.

I’m moving out of yes I’ll do it because you asked into Yes! I will take the time to consider your invitation and tell you the truth about what I want to do. And, no, I don’t mind that you have to wait for my answer. I’m okay with thinking long and hard about what I’m doing, why I’m doing it and whether or not I want to do it in the first place!

I’m moving into yes I am willing to do what it takes to live the life of my dreams, and getting out of saying yes to all the flotsam floating by enticing me out of my no, I don’t have time or interest or desire for that.

What I’ve learned in life is that my yes has put a no on so many things I want to do I’ve run out of ways to say yes when I mean no!

Saying yes because I thought it was required has meant I haven’t turned up for me and my dreams.

And I’m not prepared to do that anymore. I’m not prepared to waste my time saying yes to all the things I don’t want in my life, and don’t really want to do when my No is waiting for me get into action and be present in my life so that I can say YES to living this one wild and precious life in the rapture of now.

I may have been born in the 50s, but I’m living in the new millennium right now. And right now is all I’ve got to live.

I may as well live it in the know of what I know to be true — no one can keep me from living the life of my dreams, except me.

And no one else can live my life for me!

It’s up to me to let go of saying yes to what others want of me, or for me to start saying yes to what I want for me! It’s time to stop saying yes because I want to be nice and start saying no because I am a woman of integrity. A woman who believes in herself and knows, sometimes no is the only way to get the yes she wants.

My life. My way.

May your day be filled with a thousand yeses to living the life of your dreams as you say no to the things that would pull you from your path of beauty and light.

Namaste.

************** This is a Throw Back Thursday post — this post originally appeared on my original blog, Recover Your Joy on September 19, 2011. ***************

I am a “Yes’er”. When asked, “Will you?” “Can you?” I have in the past, inevitably replied, “Yes” — before considering all my options, before weighing the impact of what I am agreeing to will have on my life.

Some of my ‘yesy’ behaviour comes from a belief I do not have the right to say ‘no’. It also comes from a belief that if I do say no, people will be mad at me, they won’t like me. And, it comes from a place of wanting to be needed and to feel important.

Being a ‘Yes’er’ has also lead to some wonderful things. It’s lead me to do things I never before imagined I could, take risks I never thought I could, go places I never dared to venture before. But far too often, my automatic yes has come without thought, without measuring the distance between what someone else wanted and what I needed to feel balanced, whole and at peace within me and in my world.

I am learning.

I am learning to find my authentic yes. That yes that comes from knowing what I want more of in my life is only found from a place where I give myself the gift of freedom to ask for what I want, state my truth and do what fits best in my life, without compromising myself to fit into someone else’s.

I have discovered my authentic yes is a constant journey through my ‘no’. My authentic yes is not the opposite of No. It is not the immediate response of, “No. I won’t do that.” Or, “No, you can’t”. It comes through knowing what I want more of in my life. It comes from understanding I need to give myself time and space to breathe into the question, or, as Rilke wrote:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” Rainer Maria Wilke

There have been many times in my life I have said no to the things I wanted to do and yes to the things I knew were not healthy, healing, supportive or loving of me. In those times, I was not saying YES! to life, I was saying NO to living in the light. No to shining. No to being my authentic self.

In those moments when I said yes to the things I really didn’t want to do simply because I was afraid or feared the opinions of others, I was saying yes to what I didn’t want in my life. I was acting from the dark-side of authenticity, the shadow side of living.

I’m giving up the game. Giving up saying yes to what keeps me playing small, holds me back from breathing freely. And, I am saying no to the things I know hurt me, pull me down and drag me back.

I am leaping into the power of YES!

YES! This is my one and only life and I choose to live it in the light.

YES! This is my time to shine. To dance. To laugh and spin about and be real and authentic and true to who I am.

YES! There is no one path to finding myself because no matter what path I take I am always on the path with me. This is the path where I find myself fearlessly saying YES in the joy of knowing, when I treat myself with tender loving care, when I celebrate my strengths and share my gifts, I am creating ripples of my best for all the world to see. In my YES! I know I am exactly where I want to be living this one wild and precious life for all I’m worth.