So often we see mere obstacles as limits. I have a huge obstacle that I’m trying to get around. I know I’ll never be able to climb over it so I have to find a way around it. The one thing I know I need to work on is those pesky times I actually create my own resistance. Those times that seem a lot harder than it should be. Even when it comes to others. I know the resistance I feel really is from myself and my own perspective on the situation, whatever it may be at that moment. Sometimes, I even complain about not being able to do something because so and so can’t seem to grasp the idea. the resistance isn’t coming from the other person; it’s coming from my own lack of being able to express it in a way that the other person can understand and then accept the response from them regardless if it’s what I want to hear or not.
There are lots of ways that we can create our own resistance in life. We hear all about “Self-sacrifice” and “self-love” and “self-care” all the way down to “Self-Awareness” through the art of shadow work. But in the American society that I see on social media, among people I meet and even people I know and love personally who take those very important things with a grain of salt because they get dismissed as blah blah bullcrap as if we’re saying “you know, the sky is blue”. But the truth is, These things are actually the foundation of living a healthy life and manifesting our lives to express fully our true potential. We hear a lot of excuses to justify why we haven’t done this or that or to justify why this idea or that suggestion will never work without even considering the concepts before it’s immediately dismissed as irrelevant.
One of the biggest ways people create their own resistance is by not understanding the importance of speaking their truth. Saying NO when your truth really is NO. The same goes for your yes. I see so much passive aggression these days. Because of the abuse I grew up with, my resistance is my lack of tolerance for passive-aggressive behavior. That is something I struggle with every day. It just aggravates me to no end to have to deal with these personality types or any flavor of this personality type.
Just for the record, I used to bend over backwards for this very type because I couldn’t speak my truth because I didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings or make them feel bad and I just wanted people to like me to the point that I was creating ALL the resistance that kept me from achieving my highest potential. I wasn’t being true to myself and in not being true to myself I was being untrue to those around me. Because I was afraid to say “NO” to anyone for any reason, I was seriously taken advantage of, then, kicked to the curb almost every single time.
I see a perfect example of this behavior all the time. We’ve even had this come up with my 10 yr old granddaughter when we were driving. Sometimes, being polite is NOT polite at all but simply annoying and a display of ignorance. This example is regarding driving and four-way stop signs. In our city, it is a driving hazard to come up to a 4-way stop. The driving rules say that the first person to the stop sign goes first but when two cars show up at the same time the one on the right is supposed to go. That is how driving with others works fluently. When everyone is driving by the same rules and we all know the rules, everything works like clock-work. BUT… in our city, people are trying to be polite by waving others along when it’s actually their turn to go. It’s like a broken cog in a wheel. It has no rhyme or reason and just causes a disruption in the functionality of the traffic causing more grief than if the person would have JUST FREAKING WENT ON THEIR TURN. My granddaughter said they were being polite. They were not being polite. They are simply ignorant and don’t know the rules around stop signs in California so they wave everyone along until they are the only ones left and then they go. It has nothing to do with Politeness and everything to do with ignorance. If the driver who waves everyone along when it’s their turn understood the rules, they would just go and the cog would flow like water.
Even now, I hear people in their 60s or older still complaining about what so and so did to them. Listening to their complaint, a simple “NO” would have prevented their whole bad experience with the person. At the very least, it would have changed the experience. If you go through life saying yes to everyone to make everyone happy with you, you will be the one who suffers.
Self-sacrifice is also one of those things we do that is often really self-sabotage. I have to come to realize that people make excuses and place blame on things and others outside themselves when all it will take to resolve the issue creating resistance in one’s life is using the power of your “NO”. Saying yes when you mean yes and NO when you mean no is actually smart and pragmatic and will empower your life by simply taking control of it with the proper use of the word.
Being able to speak your NO will be difficult at first if you’re not used to using it.
Here is an unspoken truth…
When people ask you “Will you…” “Can You”… and it takes up your resources regardless of time, money, or some other resource of yours and you don’t want to spend those resources on that, you have a right to say no. If you would like to do it but for whatever reason, you can’t, just say NO. One of the biggest Passive Aggressive self-sabotages is saying Yes to something that you likely or obviously or even probably won’t ever get around to doing. I’m not talking about the one moment when you actually forgot about it because you have so much on your plate. I’m talking about all the times I’ve heard someone say, Oh yeah, I’m totally interested and I’ll be there, only that person had no true intentions of showing up and if they did have an intention it was intended to be the last resort if nothing else (if absolutely nothing else comes up in the meantime even though they have nothing else planned at the moment) comes up and they “feel” like it, they might attend which really should have been a NO.
That tells the other person that the one who said yes when they should have said no is not a person of their word and therefore can never be trusted. It says that the person who said yes when it should have been no, lies too much and it actually damages the relationship. This could be a professional relationship, a romantic relationship, a familial relationship, or a friendship of some level.
There are times when I would like to say no but saying yes and actually showing up will manifest the results I want in that relationship and that becomes a priority and in that circumstance, I will say yes. When I say yes, I have no right to complain at all about it. After all, I agreed to it when I said YES. At the beginning of my Wicca Training, I recall the very difficult lessons about saying what I mean and meaning what I say. I didn’t realize how important it was at the time and how empowering it is to speak my truth even when my truth is Unpopular. My responsibility at the moment of the invitation or request is to thoughtfully consider the invitation or request and determine if it should be a yes or should it be a NO.
Brené Brown says “Clear is Kind and Unclear is Unkind”.
Use your words to speak your truth directly, clearly, and honestly through a place of love and that is all that can be expected of you.
That also applies to your clarity of Yes and No. I have to agree that it does piss me off when I ask a family member that I lived with at the time to give me a ride to a work event that was taking place AFTER the public Transportation shut down for the evening. Her response was, “no, I don’t feel like it”. Everyone I asked said no and I didn’t make it to that event and I didn’t get to keep that job which affected the family member I asked for the ride. It did piss me off “why,” she said no. So, Just like it was ok for her to say “NO I don’t feel like it”, in turn, when she asked me for a favor, I exercised MY right to say no because I didn’t feel like it.
When I ask someone something that I need help with or from them or whatever, I expect an honest answer even if they say no. When I’m told NO, I’m like, ok and then I move on until I find someone or something to fulfill that need. I can be disappointed if I asked someone I really wanted to do that with me but I will take no for an answer. I have found that people who ask for favors then get pissed off when you say no, even for a good reason and they get pissed off at you and start calling you names and playing on your need to be liked or playing on your guilt are nothing but Manipulators trying to take advantage. When you can say NO, it’s because you aren’t controlled by what other people think of you.
Saying NO when you should say no will create more flow and less resistance in your life.
When you can say NO when you need to, you will find a piece of your personal power. Don’t let that go. Once you realize that the stupid crap we keep saying isn’t stupid or crap and if actually APPLIED, it actually is empowering and helps the practitioner to manifest the actual life they imagine and constantly are trying to find spells to create. When one discovers the power of their NO, they begin to actually take control of their own life. Your life is your responsibility. There is no one coming to save you and saying Yes to everything, even stuff you’re really not going to do is creating your own resistance.
The power of the pragmatic NO is part of creating the life you want to live. Once you discover it’s power, try not to abuse it, because then you’ll just be an asshole.
Remember, In order to be able to speak your NO and stand by it, You also must be able to accept NO as an Answer.
Stay wise and be true,
