Saying NO is the highest act of SELF LOVE
Saying NO is an act of self love
Building on my previous blog post on quieting the noise in order to locate your inner compass, I want to break it down even further. How do we quiet the noise?
Quieting the noise means we have to commit to being LESS BUSY. This encompasses two ideas:
We have to commit less time to the things that feel draining and joy-less
We have to commit more time to the things that light us up and feel joy-full
Since there is a set amount of time in each day, this means we most likely need to be saying “no thanks” more ofteBrene Brown talks about saying “no thank you” in one of her books. She relates it to the time she was asked by the PTA at her kids’ school to make brownies for the bake sale. She says that she’s learned that feeling uncomfortable for 5-10 minutes after saying no is SO much better than feeling resentful for 6 months after saying yes.
We live in a culture where YES is honored and NO is shamed
I’ve struggled with a chronic illness for years. I don’t talk about it much (more on that later), but I had mono when I was 15 years old and the virus that causes mono (Epstein Barr) never went completely dormant in my body. In some bodies (like mine), for some reason, the virus can reactivate under certain conditions and this is what happened to me.There is virtually no research about this topic. Western medicine doesn’t recognize it as a “thing” (much like they don’t look at fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue… much like they used to not look at lyme… also, side note, there is speculation that EBV is at the ROOT of ALL of these….).
Epstein Barr virus (EBV) is in the herpes family so it’s symptoms tend to be cyclical. I’ve found this to be true for me because in the recent past, every 6-8 weeks, I would be in bed, unable to move due to extreme fatigue or because I “caught” something. Every 6-8 weeks, I was forced to say NO to everyone and everything (including my family) because I was sick in bed.
I hit a breaking point with this pattern one year ago. I was getting to the point where I was feeling like I was feeling sick more often than I was feeling healthy.
I was frazzled, moody and tired but unable to calm my mind so I was having trouble sleeping. My mind felt scattered, I was forgetting a lot of things. I was feeling overwhelmed by the most basic tasks; even waking up in the morning felt hard.
I remember sitting in counseling, talking about how tired I felt. My therapist asked me what I had said yes to in the past few months… and it was then that I realized: I had been saying yes to everything.
I had committed to too many things. I was co-president of my son’s school’s PTA, I was running my three kids from activity to activity, I was (unsuccessfully) juggling my mom duties with my work duties, and I was getting into more arguments with my husband because I felt pulled in a million directions.
I felt like I was being pulled in a million directions BECAUSE I WAS BEING PULLED IN A MILLION DIRECTIONS and I was entirely responsible for creating this mess.
My therapist said to me “you need to take a sabbatical, this extreme time is calling for extreme measures. You need to find your no, Jess”. So I made a really difficult decision to commit to saying no to nearly everything for 30 days. So I could feel healthy again. I un-committed myself to many of the things I had already said yes to. I backed out on many of my duties and roles, other than being mom and wife. I felt like a flake, a fraud. I felt un-reliable. I felt like a failure. But, in reality, the most important person I was failing was myself. I needed to clear my plate so I could clear my mind.
I started working on my boundaries, which I had come to realize were way too fluid. I was saying YES to waaaaay too many people and waaaaay too many things. And I found out that I was saying YES to everyone and everything until it made me sick. And tired. My YES was the reason I was forced to be in bed for several days every 6-8 weeks.
Saying no has never felt easy for me. It’s felt like a life lesson, one that I continue to learn and relearn. But this is what happened when I started saying NO on a consistent basis:
My energy came back
My mind felt clear
I could sleep
I could breathe
My menstrual cycle regulated and wasn’t as painful
My cognition improved
I no longer felt pulled in too many directions
I had MORE TIME to spend with my kids, my husband AND with myself
I went 12 whole weeks before my health relapsed again… TWICE as long as I had gone in the past. And I spent less days in bed this time around because I could pinpoint where I had said yes to something I should have said no to. I am more aware of my boundaries now so I don’t get to the point of exhaustion like I did in the past.
Saying no is an important act of self care.
Saying NO is the highest act of self love.
In order to quiet the noise, you must have strong boundaries. You must have a clear idea of what “yes” and “no” feel like in your body. Working on your boundaries is a requirement for feeling vital in your life.
Essential oils that have helped me strengthen my boundaries:
Tea tree + clove (or doTERRA protective blend)= both of these oils are wonderful for protecting your physical, emotional and spiritual energy.
Essential oils that have helped me find (and stand in) my NO:
Black pepper= the oil of unmasking. Black pepper helps you strip away any doubts and insecurities you have about saying “no thanks”. It strips away the ego so you care less about others’ reactions to your “no”. It also gives you the courage to stand in your “no”.
Wintergreen= the oil of surrender. Wintergreen is wonderful for helping you LET GO of the need to control a situation. It can help you let go of the expectations you have for yourself (and others). I find wintergreen to be a super important oil for helping me to dismantle my perfectionist tendencies. Wintergreen helps you let go and trust in a higher power.