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Be Happy - Just Say Yes
I was at a women’s networking event recently where the speaker encouraged people to “Just say no” – no to taking on new commitments, to doing things we didn’t want to do, or just for the practice of saying no. No, she told us, is a complete sentence   I felt like a fish out of water. While I accept that many of us do too much for all sorts of reasons, I am not convinced that we should spend so much energy celebrating putting “no” out into the universe.
 
What if, instead, we said “yes”?
  • Yes, I can help you with that if you can help me figure out childcare.
  • Yes, I would love to take on a new project, can we figure out together how to solve my concern about having time to get it done?
  • Yes, I would love to come visit you, I’m worried about traffic, I’ll come next weekend.
  • Yes, I will make time in my life for you because I know that what matters in life is the people and the connections, not the work.
  • Yes, I want to listen to you, truly deeply listen, can we find a time when I am not preoccupied with other things?
  • Yes, I care about you.
Clearly, sometimes we need to say no, but I do not think it should be our default.  I do not think it is necessarily a sign of strength, independence, or courage, even though sometimes it can be.   I think yes can be a sign of strength, independence and courage as well.
 
What if there is something to Karma and to what you put out in the universe?   To me, it seems better to state the positive rather than the negative.   In self-hypnosis, they teach that your unconscious can’t actually process the negative, so it is necessary to create a positive intention.   “I will sleep better” rather than “I won’t have trouble falling asleep.”   Think about how hard it is to not think about elephants once you have said to yourself “don’t think about elephants.” It is so much easier, instead, to just think about giraffes – do that and the elephant is nowhere in sight.
 
The networking session I mentioned particularly troubled me because it was full of young women, building their careers.  We who are “of a certain age” have so much wisdom and experience to offer – is the best we can do to say “No.”  Please, instead, can we say, “Yes and here’s how?”