I hear it often – “say YES” to life. Say YES to it. OK….I hear it, but why? Saying NO comes more naturally to me. It seems to come more naturally to my dog, too. 

My pup Luna has adopted a new habit of protesting by laying down on the lawn and not moving when she’s on the leash and I’d like her to come inside. She is telling me NO with her whole body. My pup and I can be very similar in our stubbornness. While her NO frustrates me, I understand it. She simply is not coming inside right now. 

Respect, Luna. 

NO is powerful. NO is necessary. 

And yet, I hear it over and over. Say YES. 

UGH. 

Anything that goes against the grain of my patterned behavior will often elicit an UGH from me. Like eating my vegetables and swallowing the cough syrup. Yet life persists in presenting opportunities to say YES. I’m not thinking about situations where boundaries are being crossed, or my values are being undercut (NO must persist). These are simply opportunities to say YES to something that is not what I would normally choose. 

So here we go. The other day my husband asks if I would go with him to our neighbor’s horse farm and get some manure for our lawn which is dying. In other words, would I go with him to shovel sh*t for a while. 

UGH. 

In the long space of a second I see the opportunity – the choice in front of me to say NO (my default) or to try saying YES to something that is outside my preference… I had it in me. So we went. 

And it was fine. It was nice, even. We had a chat with our lovely neighbors. Got to hang with some horses. We were outside. We were doing something together. We were doing something new.

It felt fresh to be in an experience that was not something I would imagine or choose on my own. It was a space for my husband’s desires and preferences to live.

Saying YES to something we normally wouldn’t can be an expander of our experience. If we always did what we wanted to do, we are limiting ourselves to the parameters of our own perspective. Saying YES to someone else, and to what life is offering, is a chance to expand in ways that go beyond what we can imagine. 

Aside from it being good for my relationship, saying YES in this instance also turned out to be good for me. How beautiful that someone else’s desires can be a source of richness in our own lives, if we allow it. 

LISTEN to this song. My husband recommended it for me 🙂

Next time you see, in the space of a second, a glimmer of a YES which is possible for you, but not your preference, try it out and see what happens. Report back, please, in the comments 🙂

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