I am a woman who can't say Yes. There are plenty of women who can't say No - they find themselves taking on too much, being overstretched in their commitments and a victim of their own generosity. They pride themselves on 'multitasking' while looking harried and strained and never actually finishing or achieving very much at all. That's just not me.
I'm the opposite. I can't seem to say Yes to save my life! I have this knee-jerk reaction to say No - even when it's something I want to do; even when I know it's exactly what I need; even when I am fully aware that the opportunity might never come around again...and in a way, I'm almost glad of that because it gets me off the hook!
I read about this in a book recently; I think it was one of the Good Psychopath books, where this inability to say Yes is referred to as resistance bias. So apparently, it's an actual thing and not just one of my quirky little ways. Other people do it too. Who knew? It stems from a lack of trust in others and is a lingering aspect of traumatic stress, which makes perfect sense, because saying No all the time will certainly keep you safe.
This resistance bias means that I don't allow myself time to assess the situation and weigh up the pros and cons before I respond - I just say No, often before I'm even fully aware of what I am rejecting. Of course, there have been times when resistance bias has done it's job and has kept me safe. Like the time I said no to a weekend away with someone I barely knew - I mean why would I say Yes to that?! Why would an honourable man even expect me to say Yes to that? - he wouldn't, and so his true colours shone through and muddied the water completely. He lost my trust before he'd even won it! Though truth be told, I was probably too harsh on him in my refusal at the time. But I'm just not that fast. I'm more of a 'slow and steady wins the race' kinda girl. If you can't be bothered to take the time to get to know me properly and honourably, then you're just not the man for me and I'm certainly not the woman for you. Simple as that.
However, there have been other times when I have said No and then kicked myself - hard - afterwards. Times when I have basically slapped Opportunity in the face and couldn't see the gift that it was at the time, because my over-triggered survival instinct had immediately logged it as a Big Threat, and was protecting me accordingly. It is only later, once the trigger has deactivated, that I realise what I have passed up and missed out on. Sometimes we can be so busy trying to hide away from perceived threats that we fail to see all the good stuff too, walking past it blindly and then sobbing into our wine glass that "Nothing good ever happens to me!"
So it would seem that resistance bias and my inability to say Yes is a form of self-sabotage; a way of shooting myself in the foot so that I don't have to dance with the handsome stranger, because then I might fall in love with him and he might turn out to be a rat and then I might get my heart broken and never be happy again...like ever. Oh the perceived catastrophe of it all! But that's exactly what it is - a perceived catastrophe - because none of it has actually happened yet and my imagination has just made it all up...to keep me safe from something that wasn't even a real danger...to keep me in my comfort zone.
The mind is a powerful thing. It can play tricks on you if you let it. The moment you try to step outside of your comfort zone the brain gets scared and prepares itself to do battle. It throws up impostor syndrome and resistance bias to make you hot-foot it back into your comfort zone. It amplifies your negative self-talk of how you don't deserve the job, the man, the house etc, so that after a while, you might start to believe it to be true. But it isn't true. You deserve to be the best that you can be in all things, in all aspects of your life.
They say that you teach best that which you most need to learn. For the past six months I have been teaching my clients to see the possibility of life again, following bereavement; to believe that there is a world of adventure out there just waiting for them to participate. And it hasn't escaped my notice in the therapy room that I am also teaching myself these things too. Helen Keller said
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing"
Now if a woman who was blind, deaf and dumb could believe in the great possibility in life, surely there's hope for all of us! Even those of us who keep rejecting it out of habit.
I have decided that it is long past time to get a grip on my No-ing ways. It is time to actively seek to expand the parameters of my life; to make it bigger, bolder, brighter than ever. It is time to try and break the knee-jerk habit of saying no and to start saying Yes again. Yes to new work options; yes to new experiences; yes to new places and people and pleasures; yes to new adventures.
Because in saying No all the time I'm just letting the PTSD get the better of me. In saying No I am depriving myself of all that life has to offer. So from now on I am going to challenge myself to say Yes to things. I'm going to turn it into a game, to see how many things I can say Yes to each day, from the little things like a cup of coffee, to the big things like a new job or a new romance.
It's not going to be easy - breaking a bad habit never is - but now that I know it is just a bad habit and where it stems from, I'm hoping that will help me to go against my current grain and find a new way to live life; to find my sense of joyfulness and shine it out into the world once more. And all I have to do is...
xxx
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