Why Your Yes Is As Valid As Your No
Today I’d like to share a passage from Chasing the Wild Authentic.
In this passage I share a story, a personal one, about a revelation I had one day while working with a client in my therapy practice. It completely changed the way I think about boundaries—in particular, the Yes side of boundary-making, though the insight sparked while working with a client on how to say No.
It might change the way you think about boundaries too. Enjoy.
I must admit, I enjoy coaching clients on how to say No: No to all the unwanted or painful aspects of their lives. And this is exactly what this client and I had been working on, her ability to say No to what did not work so she could more fully access what did.
Because in the end, No is not about the painful things; it’s about the good things the No protects—the safety and wellbeing that lies in wait behind one’s ability to say No.
To really thrive in life, we must master the ability to say No. No is a powerful ally.
Now for a bit of story background. The client I was working with had not been getting her emotional needs met in her intimate partnership. And while there were several things going on in that relationship, of chief concern to me was that my client’s basic functioning was deteriorating in the overall context of not being seen and loved for who she was.
I was holding space for this dilemma during one of our sessions when I had a sudden flashback. Maybe it was triggered because my client was also losing weight in the process. I don’t know.
In that moment I flashed back to a skin-and-bones, failure-to-thrive infant I’d encountered in my previous work as a child protective investigator. Failure to thrive is a term that’s used to describe an infant that’s underweight and not progressing; in some cases, as in this one, it can be life-threatening.
This infant was on the verge of death. And the cause? If we really go to the heart of the matter, the cause in this situation was not being seen and loved, and thus not cared for in a way that accompanies being truly seen and truly loved.
And clarity struck.
Remove what we need to survive, and death is as likely an outcome as if we’re intentionally flooded with toxins.
Death is still death, no matter if it’s caused by getting too much of what would harm us or getting too little of what we truly need.
In that moment, I realized that saying Yes to what’s needed is as vital as saying No to harm. The urgency and legitimacy we’ve come to accept relative to our No applies equally to our Yes!
Saying “Yes!” to ourselves is not only a valid response in general, saying “Yes!” to ourselves can be a matter of survival.
Being anchored by your No and your Yes can steady your ability to follow through with better actions, reclaim your power, and express who you are in the world.
Yes and No are key reference points for your safety, and together define the passage to your brilliance and joy.
Your ability to say both Yes and No with clarity and conviction can chart a course to a life beyond what you now imagine.
(The “client” in the above segment represents no actual client, but is a composite of many client experiences and made to respect privacy issues.)
Explore Zone 3: Protecting Who You Are posts below.
