I was recently speaking at a women’s small business gathering. The speaker before me, a dynamic personal coach, was suggesting to the women that they must learn to say “NO”, because as women we tend to feel that we should be there for everyone, helping when asked or when we perceive we are needed. Yet often times we provide this help at our own expense leaving us exhausted and at times resentful, sacrificing our quiet time, our workout, or our own work/personal or responsibilities. However as I was listening, I had the thought that actually what we must learn to say is YES! Yes to ourselves.
5 Moments Women Should Say YES!
Say yes to our spirits – create quiet time for meditation, contemplation, prayer and retreat.
Say yes to our dreams – give your dreams the same time and commitment we give to our children’s dreams, our spouse’s dreams, our friends dreams.
Say yes to our marriages or intimate relationships – create space to share ourselves and to clean up any old issues or regrets that hold us back from physical, spiritual and emotional intimacy.
Say yes to our bodies – create time for exercise, time for shopping for healthy foods, time for preparing healthy food, committing to and choosing activities that are health supportive.
Say yes to love and allow our hearts to open: • To those we love • To those we find challenging • To a beautiful sunset • To the smell of a baby • To the forgetfulness of an elderly parent
We must boldly and with great excitement say yes! Yes to our lives, the good the bad and the ugly of this human process.
Life was never meant to be neat and easy, and you would do yourself a great service to give up that ideal. Life was meant to be juicy, like a ripe mango dripping through your fingers with the strings lodged between your teeth and the succulent juice tantalizing your tongue. Life’s like that, messy, challenging, sticky but so worth the sweetness of the juice.
So just say yes to yourself. Let go of all resistance to what it is. It’s just like the strings between your teeth, just part of the process of the experience of a juicy ripe succulent mango.
Allow yourself to become all that you would like to be. Then like a baseball player sliding into home plate, when you are done you won’t regret the bruises, scrapes and the dirt. You will simply and emphatically shout Yes!
Note: By the way if someone around you judges your Yes (and someone will) calling you selfish or saying you have changed, suggest that they join you in this change, explain that you will be more than happy to support them in finding their YES!
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