If you say YES to what’s a clear NO, you will find that the YES eventually wins.
It will come at you in a louder and more aggressive manner, possibly as illness or nervous symptoms, until you listen.
If you’re an avoider, as I have been, you’ll have a PhD in denial.
I say that with utmost compassion, because I know how difficult it is to see, let alone, break out of denial.
Before long, you’ll have spent most of your life doing what you thought you should do, living by rules that have nothing to do with your truth.
Not that you would admit it easily, or even see it, of course.
Two and a half years ago, I had a one-time session with a master coach where it became clear that I loved writing above all else.
She encouraged me write for profit, and I proceeded to ignore her and myself.
I had many other conversations with people over the years about my writing preference, and here’s what I found shocking.
This was not an isolated incident.
There had been many times when I ignored my NO and said YES instead.
To jobs.
To events.
To men I married.
I always had a choice but wouldn’t let myself know it.
Within a nano-second, I’d shut myself down.
Looking Away from the Truth
But my body always knew.
My body knew what was good for me and what was not, and I talked myself out of listening to it.
And here’s how I did that on other occasions.
“Take the job they’re offering because it’s being offered. You never know if there’ll be another one,” I told myself, though my back seized up so badly after the first of 11 interviews that I couldn’t straighten up.
(I got offered the first job I applied for every time, and I had a lot of false pride about that.)
“Go to that networking event because that’s what entrepreneurs do,” I said to myself, though the format was repetitive, and I’d be uncomfortable for days before and after.
(I told myself other people knew better than I did if the subject was foreign to me, as business was then.)
“You’ll never survive if you leave him,” I warned myself, though I was feeling more like dying than living day by day.
(I could easily scare myself by underestimating my resourcefulness.)
That was how I shut down exploration and kept myself in check though my body had known the real danger all too well.
And Then…I Looked
A few days ago, a close friend asked me to consider how I might integrate writing into my business offerings, and it made me want to look at this challenge in the eyes.
To that end, I asked myself what I’d been so afraid of, all those times when I wouldn’t slow down to find out.
It was clear to me.
How I would appear to others.
The judgments.
The shame.
And failing.
Suddenly, out of the silence, I heard this.
“Try failing. And keep failing.”
And in that moment, with a BIG YES from my body, I knew I wanted to take that on.
I knew that I wanted a new conversation about writing, even a day or a week from now, without the chance of dying with that song still left in me to sing.
Gentle Awareness
Reflecting on what you read, what struck your heart?
Where in your life are you looking away and not letting yourself know what your body knows.
A relationship? A job? Your health? Finances?
Take the smallest of peeks and begin to know what’s true for you.
Much love to you my friends.
You matter to me.
Miriam