written by Sara Arey
Do you ever feel so drained that your first response to any question is “No!”
Do you wish you had more energy and power in your own life?
Do you feel weighed down by what’s happened in the past?
A fundamental step in regaining the driver’s seat in your life is to stop saying no to the wrong things.
What?? Shouldn’t we be saying no more often – not LESS?
Actually, saying no to certain things saps our energy.
We give away our power when we say no to things
over which we have no control.
And the #1 energy-zapping-no is when we say no to something that happened to us in the past.
We say no when we feel like it’s something we couldn’t handle, or something we didn’t want to have happen. Something that felt painful, overwhelming or simply too much for us.
We say no in order to keep what happened away from us, to protect ourselves from it and from getting caught up in it. Ironically, it does the exact opposite! Pushing something away doesn’t make it go away. It actually keeps us engaged with the event, connected to it, hooked in.
What happens when we say a disempowering no is that we contract. We pull inward. We’re trying to escape something “out there”. We’re trying to get away from our own feelings, like feeling isolated, powerless and scared.
How do you know if there’s something you’re saying no to from your past?
Think of something that happened to you. How are you feeling? What’s going on inside you? Are you pulling away from that experience? Do you feel yourself shrinking inside? Do you feel less connected to your inner truth, your inner strength? Do you feel heavier and less empowered?
If so, you’re saying no to that experience.
Anything from your past that feels unsettled, unfinished or unacceptable is something you’re saying no to. And you have energy stuck there.
Sometimes “stuckness” shows up as anger or fear. It may even look like it’s related to something that’s happening now (but isn’t really). Sometimes it shows up in the way we retell the same stories over and over again.
The only way to get “unstuck”, to call your power back to you, is to accept what’s happened. Saying, “yes, that happened” – in a way that resonates through all of you – begins to settle the internal struggle. It’s the beginning of true freedom. Staying stuck in the past only robs us of our energy, our present and our future.
Part of saying yes is recognizing that you’re okay. You’re here and this is now. You’re no longer in that place and time. You can take a deep breath and relax.
If it’s an on-going situation, then accept that it’s happening. It’s no use fighting the fact that this is how it is right now and this is how people are behaving. (Thoughts like “He shouldn’t do that” and “This isn’t fair” are ways of saying no.) Giving up that fight gives you the power and freedom to look and see what you can DO about it.
Sometimes we feel like we’re carrying scars from the past, that we have on-going problems because of what’s happened before. The limiting beliefs, negative things we say to ourselves and fears that we’ve accumulated from the past are held in place as long as we say no to what happened. When we stop saying no to the past, we realize that it doesn’t define who we are or how life can be. We gain the power to let go of the limits we’ve put on ourselves.
Is it easy to say “yes, that happened” to the past? Not always. But it can be done, and the more we do it, the easier it gets. And happily, there are some really good energy techniques and processes that can make it easier.
The tricky part can be that any little place where we’re still holding on to something, any little part of it that we say isn’t okay, is a place where we stay stuck and where our energy is tied up. These energy techniques can help our yes be even more thorough and complete.
The only way to be free of of what's happened – to take back the energy we’ve tied up in holding it back – is to say yes to it. To fully accept that it happened and that we’re okay. We’re here. This is now.
So, when you notice yourself feeling weighed down, drained or responding with anger, take a deep breath and see if there’s something you’re saying no to that you can change to a yes.