If you have a hard time saying NO, this post is for you

Hello beautiful,

Bypassing your no’s is like creating a massive blazing fire without a fire hose. What I mean here is that saying YES when you really mean NO creates chaos and brings you further away from your rhythm and your truth.

Have you ever said YES when you really wanted to say NO?

Even though you may think you are, you are not serving anyone by saying yes when you really feel a full body no.

You might be thinking, “but Melanie, isn’t being a “YES girl” an opening into new possibilities?”

YES! Saying yes, even when it’s scary, does create new possibilities. But, bypassing a no – in my experience – distracts you away from saying YES to your creativity, your aliveness, and the things you really want to be doing. This applies even on your yoga mat!

I know first-hand how alluring and tempting it is to say yes when you really mean no.

“I want them to like me”,
“I don’t want to feel uncomfortable”
“What if I hurt their feelings”
“What if I never get asked to do something cool again”

All these stories (and yes they are just stories) can keep you in a perpetual state of over-committing, people pleasing, and creating a dissonance with aligning to your own inner rhythms and what you really want to be up to!

Even though I know this and teach this, I’m here to share I am not perfect at this.

I am still learning, and inspired to share this article with you this week, especially after recently creating another big experience for myself where I got to see what can happen from saying yes when I felt a clear NO. At the time it felt like a really small issue, but I got to see how quickly it blew up!

While I don’t feel that going into the full story of it is necessary, what I will share is that I am feeling clearer and clearer on what no feels like for me and what yes feels like for me in my body.

I am feeling clearer and clearer that I am responsible for my feelings/experience, and I can choose to keep this pattern going or make a new choice.

I am feeling clearer and clearer that other people’s experience and feelings are actually none of my business…

And in fiercely loving the one in me who has bypassed her no’s, it creates an opening for me to make a new choice.

You’re truly not doing anyone any favors by trying to control what’s not yours to control in the first place.

If this is resonating with you and you want to play with aligning more and more with your own authentic rhythms which means honoring your no’s and honoring your yes’s here are a few places you can play:

• Begin to get curious about what No feels like in your body. What sensations are you aware of, what feelings come up, how is the quality of your experience?
• Practice saying no and trying that on, and then take a deep breath. Breathing is a gateway home to yourself when you get scared.
• Give SO much love to the one in you who bypasses her no, instead of beating her to shame and trying to get rid of her. No part of you wants to be gotten rid of, and the more you explore and love this one, it can create an opening for you into loosening the grip of that old pattern.
• Begin to get curious about what YES feels like in your body, so you can be choosing towards what lights you up and nourishes you more on the reg!
• And from one of my dear mentors Katie Hendricks, you can try on the question, “I wonder how I can easily say “no” to agreements I do not want to make?” Key word here is easily.

I would love to hear your discoveries as you try these possibilities on!

In appreciation and wondering with you,

P.S. If you’re longing to be held in sacred space and deepen your fluency in retreating, slowing down, and re-aligning to your body and feminine rhythms stay tuned! Beginning in September….I plan to  introduce a brand new podcast series: real honest conversations right in your living room which I imagine will invoke laughter, inspiration, and practices to further support your learning/discovery… AND along with this special series I’ll be announcing a powerful offering straight from my-heart-to-yours that will be an invitation for more if that is what you are desiring.