Podcast Ep. 199: Yes Isn't A 'Clean' Word If It's Not Authentic

Tags: boundaries - personal electric fence, boundaries and recognising discomfort, fear of uncertainty, how to say no, personal bandwidth, self-care

In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I break down why no isn’t a dirty word and how it leads to a happier you and more fulfilling relationships and experiences when you learn to say yes and no authentically.

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Nuggets from the episode

Yes and no are two sides of the same coin. If you say yes to something, by extension of that, you are saying no to something else. When you say no to something that isn’t in alignment with who you are and your wellbeing, you say yes to being open to the people, things and experiences that are.
The heart and lungs work together to fuel our organs with oxygen-rich blood, and yes and no work in a similar way. When we use one ineffectively, it impacts the other, stifling our life.
We become a casualty of our relationship with yes when we don’t refer to reality or ourselves when we say yes. In not considering us in our yes, we cannot practice self-care. We’re saying yes without boundaries, and that’s a big problem.
Feelings of unworthiness and fear drive us to say yes for the wrong reasons.

When you say yes authentically, you’re voting for who you are while also communicating what isn’t a fit for you.

Saying yes to something that based on experience, you need to say no, means saying yes to being in a repeat experience of the past. You inadvertently sign up for ignoring you and being hurt again. Willingness to listen to the feedback from the experience helps you to discern where you need to say no.
I used to say no resentfully as if it were an inconvenience and a reflection of how I wasn’t a ‘good person’.
No isn’t a judgement of a person; it’s about judging the situation and whether it’s good and right for us.
There’s no need for us to wait until we’re full of rage and sadness to say no. Before I embraced saying no, it was as if I had to torch the place and go out in what I thought was a ‘blaze of glory’. I discovered that it was far better (and easier) to create healthy boundaries at an earlier point.
After hearing the term boundaries for the first time, I experimented with what they could mean in my life by having a go. Recognising that what I’d been saying yes to hadn’t worked for me meant that I gave myself permission to explore through trial and error. It’s been bumpy at times, but still way better than when I had no boundaries.

Giving ourselves permission to say no is giving us permission to heal.

When faced with challenges, struggles, stuckness, the solution has always proved to be figuring out what I need to say no to. From there, I always find my back to joy.
I’ve experienced a lot of joy, ironically, at times when it’s felt like I’m losing or have lost a lot.
Best interest is different from self-interest. The former means being boundaried for ourselves and as an extension of that, the situation. Self-interest is when we claim we’re being boundaried or that we’re doing something mutual when, in fact, it’s ego-driven. It’s self-serving.

Links mentioned

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