What value does your YES have when you never say NO?
Some time ago, after concluding a training in a remote area in the southern part of the Netherlands, I asked a few colleagues if they'd be up for sharing a taxi to the nearest train station.
One of my Dutch colleagues who came there by car kindly offered to make a brief detour on her way home just to drop me off at the nearest train station. Mindful of not delaying her trip back home, I hesitated in accepting her offer and suggested that, as a last resort, if she would be ok with it, I could potentially accompany her all the way to her city (so she wouldn't have to take a detour) and then catch a train from there (even though that would have meant a slightly longer trip back home for me). Without any delay, she replied: “No, I want to have some time alone in the car to clear up my mind before I get home." In that moment, a light bulb switched on: I could trust her YES (i.e. her offer to drop me off at the station) because of her ease in saying NO. I didn't need to attempt to protect her from any discomfort because she knew her boundaries and stood by them.
This experience made me further reflect on a question that my teacher had just asked us afew days before: what value does your YES have when you never say NO?
Authenticity and connection thrive when both “yes” and “no” are equally valid, acceptable options. It’s only we can allow ourselves to feel and express both a heartfelt YES and a firm NO that we can connect with ourselves and others from a place of authenticity, respect and trust.
An important nuance here is that the capacity to comfortably say NO does not exclude the capacity to say YES and potentially stretch our boundaries for supporting another when needed. I am emphasizing this because many people get tricked into believing that those who easily say NO are connected with themselves and have a healthy sense of their boundaries. While this may sometimes be true, it’s not always the case. For some people, NO is the answer before they even get to hear the question. In such cases, we can speculate that rather than being an expression of healthy boundaries, saying NO is an adaptive survival strategy (i.e a learned cognitive, emotional, behavioral and physiological pattern that people develop especially in their early formative years to protect themselves).
For example, sometimes people may default to saying NO regardless of the question as a way of avoiding something. Sometimes they avoid connection, intimacy, closeness with others, other times they avoid getting connected to themselves and their needs, other times they attempt to control the possibility of being hurt, used, taken advantage of, etc. While these people may easily leave the impression that they’re rather confident and connected with their boundaries from the outside (afterall, they can say NO loud and clearly), in my experience it’s often quite the contrary. Their NO is there precisely because they’re too afraid to let themselves be connected with their YES. If you recognize yourself (or other people you care about) in this scenario, please know that there’s nothing wrong with you using these strategies. They certainly worked for you at some point in your life and maybe they will be needed in the future as well. A growth area for you will likely be to allow greater flexibility and elasticity of your boundaries, and have greater choice in how you connect with yourself and the people around you.
Healthy relationships and intimacy are strongly depending on our capacity to be connected with and allow ourselves to express both a heartfelt YES and a firm NO.
If you could use a supporting guide in exploring what might be getting in the way of you having more capacity to stay connected with both your YES and your NO and set healthy boundaries from an embodied place, don’t hesitate to reach out. Your journey to a more authentic connection with yourself and others begins with a simple step, and I'm here to walk alongside you.
