She told me the story of how a friend of hers was meant to come to her house with something to cook for dinner - they had agreed on the plan a while before. And then on the day of the dinner, he called her and said that he'd agreed to meet a business associate that night and he'd forgotten about it but felt he had to go due to various complex reasons he couldn't really go in to. He didn't really want to go to this other thing, but felt he had to. In the end he turned up at my friend's house much later than he had promised and when he arrived, he did not have the food with him that he said he would bring because he hadn't had time to get to the shops en route. And the rest of the story is about how everyone ended up losing - my friend was upset that they had to eat late, venture out and get food, he felt he'd had a rushed evening with most of his time spent traveling between places rather than spending quality time with the people he'd arranged to be with, the business colleague probably felt the time spent was too short and rushed - and as you can see, one 'no' may have solved all this difficulty.
In my childhood I don't remember many occasions where 'no' was an acceptable answer. It seemed to cause trouble if I answered 'no' to something that my parents or teachers wanted me to do. And that's where the relationship to 'no' begins - we learn that is causes difficulty, we see that when we use this word, the reaction from the trusted adults around us does not bring us the love and approval we are seeking, so we stop using it because we don't want to be seen as bad. It may also have happened that we used it more and more because the attention we got from saying 'no' became accentuated and life became more interesting than if we just agreed and went along with things (maybe another topic for a blog!).
When we are young, much of the time we are craving love and attention, we seek validation that we are OK, we are loved, seen and welcome. And our unhealthy relationship to 'no' that develops in our early phases of life gets carried into our adulthood, where we cannot tolerate the reaction of another if we go against what they ask of us. If you take a minute and imagine someone asking you for something and all you say is 'no', it's almost unbearable, it's too awkward and uncomfortable.
In the fullness of our lives today, this relationship to the word 'no' leads to burn out and overwhelm at work (I have a 'can do' attitude, and I always say 'yes' to my manager), conflict in our relationships (an over filled diary that leaves no time for spontaneity and togetherness time), unhealthy busyness (a schedule that does not allow for rest or recovery) and many more things.
And there's the subtlety of the word 'no' in action around technology, which means we HAVE to answer the phone when it rings, or we constantly check our emails on our mobile / cell phones because someone may have asked something of us. The 'yes' culture supports that we are 100% switched on to technology because worked into this 'no' / 'yes' topic is the fear of missing out, of missing the boat. If I do not respond immediately, if I do not take up opportunities whenever they are presented to me, I might miss out on something important. But what's the cost to us of being unable to say no to things ? How do our bodies, our families, our relationships, our friends suffer because of it.
Can you think of consequences that comes from a life without the word 'no'?
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