"No!": A powerful way to get to "Yes!"

Three simple steps that allow you to be free

Photo by Beth Hope on Unsplash

“No!”

"Your voice is a very powerful weapon. When you are in tune with the cosmic breath of heaven and earth, your voice produces true sounds. Unify body, mind, and speech, and real techniques will emerge." ~ Morihei Ueshiba

Life just doesn’t feel good if you are not being true to yourself. It is necessary. The cost of forgoing living your truth is a loss of inner integrity. Your energy body gets twisted. When it happens to me, I feel frustrated or resentful. Sometimes I feel sad or go all the way into full blown anger. A good “No!” can save me from that.

The word, “No!” can be a beautiful thing.

It is a two letter word and somehow, it can feel more terrifying for me to speak than something in the four letter category.

Now, some of you may be thinking, “Well, Terra, I can say no. I am a strong person.” And I would say to you that there probably have been moments where you felt your no and brushed it away. Where you justified doing it to be a “good” something and even now, don’t see that it was even there. You tell yourself you are strong. And you are. Except when it slips by you and I think it slips by all of us. That moment when you or I get a tiny whisper of discomfort and ignore it.

For me, sometimes it is loud and clear, the feeling that something is not right and I don’t want any part of it. And other times things come outwardly disguised as kindness, care, or an ask for help and I tell myself to “just be nice,” “do the right thing,” “love your neighbor,” or “show some empathy.” Meanwhile, I throw myself under the bus and hardly notice. But I feel it. I always feel it when I ignore my “No!” I imagine you do too.

A few weeks ago, I wrote to you about energy and why I think it is a real thing.

This week I will stand at my edge and attempt to explain something I am playing with around saying no to things. It is my edge because I am still learning it. I literally spent an hour and a half yesterday with a friend, practicing.

I think it is worth writing to you about because it feels important in the context of our personal and collective evolution at this time. Mostly I think it is worth it because it allows you and me to feel more free, more in our inner alignment and integrity, and as an added bonus, it feels good to the people around us. A good NO can change the world in my opinion.

I want more world-changing experiences.

There is a lot to say no to in the world right now. Some of that is what has brought me on a journey to El Salvador.

My friend said she would like me to write more about that. Right now a cat/kitten is playing with a bug, leaping completely into the air. Focused. Black with white paws. Someone who works here told me I had to move my computer to a new table. I am in a beautiful hotel where I come to write. They have fresh juice and frozen mochas with the most exquisite view of white capped, wind-blown sparkling waves, dancing palm fronds, and dark volcanic black cliffs coated in a carpet of verdant green trees. There are police here today. I asked why? It seems Ms. San Salvador is coming. I have met her now. Twice. So, perhaps soon I will see her again, by chance, if there is such a thing. One of the policemen just took a video of another looking into a tiny black plastic trash can in front of me. They are very serious about security here. I will see how long I last in my new location here before I am shuffled away, by security. Yep, just happened. Now I am at table number three.

Puro Surf, at table number 3, waiting for Ms. El Salvador

So, maybe at some point, I will write to you more about those things. Money, spies (I have met two I think, maybe?), countries, and the world. But what it all comes down to lately is root chakra energy. The energy of belonging, trust, freedom, money, and sexuality. I am in Bitcoin country and this country has a “No!” to it. It is helping me find mine. Today we are going to talk about it as the root chakra is an important thing. It is a red thing. There is a reason stop signs and stop lights are red. We are going to talk about boundaries and freedom. That is a little bit about El Salvador too. I am learning to check things. Just like these policemen. Carefully. Is this ok? Does this feel right? Yes or no? That keeps things clean. It keeps them safe and secure. Security. Let’s have some of that in our root chakra energy without pulling out any guns. These policemen are friendly, at least to me. They smile. I feel more relaxed when I see them. This is a first for me in any country.

You know there is a lot happening in the world right now. At least if you have a device to read this you know. And I feel I need discernment for this, and the capacity to say no to what is not working for me. You and I might have different things we say no to and that is fine, as long as we respect one another. As long as we honor our own and each other’s sovereignty. Because ultimately, a “no” is about freedom. I believe it actually leads to order rather than chaos.

There is a reason it is one of the first words you learned to say. Your soul was landing in your body and you started to feel your own personhood, your autonomy and sovereignty. The path to that is feeling and saying no to things you are not, or don’t want. As children, at two, we were practicing. That is a good thing.

My Mom told me I was a challenging young child. I had tantrums. I had ideas on how to do my hair for preschool by myself that involved a lot of plastic clips. She said she let me go to school with my hair in multiple clumps of colored me-ness. She was fostering my independence. And maybe, just maybe, she might have been a tiny bit scared of my “No!”

She said my sister was easy.

Today, I want to guide you to find your power. Not power over anyone, and not people-pleasing. True power. The power of a clear “No!” Isn’t it time? I know it is for me. And the universe is abundant. It keeps sending me opportunities to learn. To practice. I will tell you about a couple recent ones that I am receiving with open hands as opportunities. (Now, not when they happened. When they happened, they were unpleasant. They were icky. But icky is a great way to learn things. That is where I am going to take you. Into the gift of icky and the path to freedom. Let’s do this together, shall we?).

If I think of my body surrounded by an energy field, I can see that my capacity to say no, was my way of keeping mine clear and clean. There is a sea of energy around me and bodies with their own energy fields. Some of it enhances mine. It makes it more sparkly. I want to say yes to those things. For example, I am six and my grandma is making bacon in the kitchen and telling me how much I matter. Yes. Yes to that I-love-you-so-much grandma energy.

Some energy feels icky and is simply looking for a place to land. Like my friend who was in pain and told my parents I did something I hadn’t. It was icky. My energy got cloudy. “No!” to things like that. I was too young to know or see that it was not my stuff, not mine to carry. Instead I got sad and confused. Cloudy.

Or that moment in the back seat when that same grandma held my hand and I felt some energy drain out of me. I was young. It felt weird and I loved my grandma. I wanted to help her. She was depleted. I learned later, after evaluating that moment with a number of teachers, that it wasn’t helpful to her or me to let my energy leave my body. Now, I do my best to notice and say no when I feel a sense of someone, mostly or always unconsciously, wanting to “suck” some of my energy.

I know that sounds strange and it is a thing. I imagine you might be thinking of someone right now, who you love and yet at times, feel energetically drained after being with them. A good dose of an energetic “No!” is just what you and they, might need (and it can be silent, that is the cool thing).

My grandma was one of the gifts in my life. She was magical and she loved me. We had fun together. And sometimes, she just didn’t have energetic hygiene. Honestly, most people don’t. It’s not like we go to school and the teacher talks to us about how to enhance our energy in healthy ways and how it is good to not suck the energy of your playmates at recess. It would be cool if they did.

Grandma didn’t know any better and I am sure she was not trying to hurt me. It is just what she learned to do at some point. A coping mechanism. It was not empowering for her or me.

But here’s the thing: the other side of “no” is “yes”. I don’t believe you can have one without the other.

It is likely you are or will disagree with me in some way right now. That is even more likely as the topic of which I write is about “No”and so the energy of it is here, floating in our mutual field, as you are here with me. Right now.

It is a risk that you may feel the “No!” energy and make it about something you are reading or about me. I may lose you as a reader if you don’t notice it is simply a frequency, and you are feeling it because I am bringing it into the room for you and I to explore together.

I hope you can look at it with me and we can have some fun with it. Because what I want to do right now, is teach you an energetic technique, through some words on my computer. I think it is possible. Anything is possible. And I think it can be fun. You can use it next time someone tries to hold your hand and you feel an energy-sucking thing. You can turn that bad date around quickly.

The best part of this is you don’t actually have to say anything out-loud. This can be useful. Sometimes, an out-loud “No!” might be counter productive.

Here’s the thing. Everything is about energy. Energy comes first, and form, physical form, follows. So if you (and I…I am a work in progress here) simply do this energetically, it will change the people and situations around us. You will change. Your frequency will become more aligned.

There is a healthy boundary for that two year old. It comes in the form of a parent who also knows how to say, “No,” with alignment, authority, and kindness. You probably know some people like this. They are people you respect. You listen to them. They are not reaching over to control you or manipulate you. They are saying things from an energetically aligned place in themselves.

Those are the people I find worth listening to. I believe we are all a work in progress around this. I don’t know if a Jedi Knight ever stops learning.

"A good stance and posture reflect a proper state of mind." ~ Morihei Ueshiba

You may or may not have had such a parent. I imagine most of us did not, at least not consistently. Our parent’s are in a process of growing too. I have my own parenting regrets. The times I wish I had been stronger, or more clear and stood up for something. And here I am, practicing and learning. Want to come along with me…?

Here are the nuts and bolts of how to express a clear “No!”:

The first thing that happens is:

1. Someone says or does something and it feels a little, (or a lot), icky to you. (I love the word, “icky,” as just saying it in your head evokes the exact feeling I am talking about).

As children, I believe we often learned to bypass this feeling. Ignoring it was the only option and in this world, there are many things that come with an icky feeling. Maybe you had an alcoholic parent, or there was depression, narcissism, gaslighting, covert gaslighting, codependency, and an overall sense of cognitive dissonance? You know, some of those childhood things that many of us experienced. Honestly, I don’t think one can be on this planet without experiencing some form of “icky” growing up. It is just that some of us were swimming in a sea of it and others were in an energetic field that was more clear and clean.

Either way, we learn what icky feels like.

Now you and I are in adult bodies and it is time to retrain our capacity to say no to things that feel icky. I honestly think this may be key to the survival of our species, but the great thing is, it really is about you. Just do this for you. It clears the ocean for everyone, including the person or situation you say no to. Because if you say no to something that doesn’t feel good to you, you are not participating in the frequency of it. And it shakes them out of something at the same time because you refuse to participate. As long as you do it right.

I know, now it is sounding complicated.

I am saying you have to do something right.

Well, imagine you are a young child with two parents in front of you. You do something that you know is icky. One parent yells, “No!” to you. They are disgusted. You feel bad. You take it personally.

That person shot energy at you. They judged you. They did not say no to a thing you did. They made you, as a person, bad.

For example: my grandmother (yes, the same one I mentioned above) used to talk on the phone for hours at a time. At six years old, I decided to press down the buttons on the phone and hang it up while she was talking. I don’t know what made me do it. I think I wanted to test something. Her reaction was to throw me out the kitchen door where my body glided over the few small brick steps leading to the entry, and landed, without physical harm I believe, on the concrete drive a few feet below. I never did it again. It did work. But that would be a “No!” that came at me. Just saying. I imagine you may have a similar memory about something in your childhood as well…

Here is a different way to say an adult-no, that comes from an aligned, secure place.

You do something icky and your parent looks you in the eye and says, “No!” with authority. You stop. They have used The Voice (watch Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars movie). They may take you aside (so as not to shame you) and have a talk with you about what you did. Because they care. They are secure.

That is the “No!” we are talking about and going to practice, mentally, today.

Please don’t discount the mental thing either. I was talking to some surfers this morning and mentioned how the body responds when we watch someone do something, if we feel ourselves doing it while we are watching. The muscles required to do whatever that thing is, actually fire. You can literally get exercise watching someone in the Olympics, if you let yourself feel the movement in your body. Chances are they did something similar when they were training to compete.

So perhaps try this as I relate these stories. Feel yourself doing it, or feel it in your own situation where you would like to find your “no” to something.

If you have forgotten Step 1, above, it is to first notice something doesn’t feel good.

2. 

   Photo by Irham Bahtiar on Unsplash

   Next, really feel specifically what the energy feels like that is coming towards you. What is the specific flavor of “Icky”? Where is it? (For me, I realize it had an actual location). Now, don’t worry if you have a different way of doing this. We all have different ways. Some things “smell funny.” That is another way to sense “icky”. Or, they don’t “feel right.” They “look shady.” All these words describe how different people sense icky. So, sense it and be as specific as you can. If you were going to say no to a child, you would notice their age, where they were standing, what they had done, how serious it was, what it felt like, etc… etc… and you wouldn’t have to sit down and break out in beads of sweat to figure it out (I do things like that, God help me). You just take in the situation. So do that. In your own way.

Like Fleetwood Mac says (it is playing right now…what a magical world): Go your own way.

3. Then find the energy in you that can say, “No!” to what you are specifically sensing. If you are practicing like me, try saying it out loud so you can feel it in your body. Match the frequency. I had to feel what was coming my way, like a special delivery energy package and then find the counter response in me. I didn’t push it away. The image that comes is of a King, with a capital “K”. A plate of food is delivered. He looks at it. He is discerning. He is King. He knows the subtleties of food. He looks at something and says, “No,” as he swipes it to the side. He will not take it in. He doesn’t throw it across the room. He doesn’t yell at it. Hopefully, he doesn’t judge it. He doesn’t even expend a lot of energy on the decision. He just looks at it, sees what it is, doesn’t want it, and doesn’t take it in. He doesn’t eat it to make someone happy in front of him. It goes back to the kitchen. They will have to try again.

In this case, the kitchen is the person who sent something your way, that doesn’t feel right to you.

Now, here is the interesting thing for me. When I did this with my friend, she described her experience being on the receiving end of my “No!” She felt like she was covered in armor and she was sending something my way from that place. She wasn’t feeling what she was sending. She was protected. Often, people really do not know what they do.

When I said “no” she felt a sense of relief. She described some cracks in the armor around her where the light could get in.

What she didn’t tell me was that she felt angry, upset, or offended. Her face was surprised, as if my expressing an energetic “no” from a place of alignment, was something new for her in that role. It changed something.

"True victory does not come from defeating an enemy, true victory comes from giving love and changing an enemies heart." ~ Morihei Ueshiba

I didn’t feel any of that. I was just focused on steps 1, 2, and 3. Something feels icky. What does it feel like specifically? Find a “no” in me and say it, from a place of that energy. Address the frequencies of what I sense.

This is the first phrase she and I practiced with. These words triggered me and I missed my “No!”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how much did you get it for?”

I had made an offer on a property here. I signed an agreement and signed contract with the owner confirming he will sell it to me when he finishes clearing the title. I have wired him money. Since this is really only the third major thing I have purchased in my life on my own, it is both an adult kind of thing and something that brings up a lot of my shaky uncertain energetic places that have to do with money and security.

Soon after, someone I know sent me the words above via text. He had felt pushy and opinionated in the past. He was also a developer in the area.

He asked how things were going with the property and I texted him back that I had it under contract.

My phone beeped when his text came in.

“If you don’t mind my asking, how much did you get it for?”

Now, I could analyze this with you a lot. But let’s just go with what I am writing about here today. It felt icky and I knew it.

I ignored my feeling, told myself things would be fine, and texted a response that I regretted.

Now, around my property, I think things will be fine, so don’t worry about that. And this situation? Well, as I have said before, one of my favorite quotes from one of my mentors is “This is happening for me, not to me.”

So I took that situation and ran with it. My friend “represented” that man and said those words to me. “If you don’t mind my asking, how much did you get it for?” I felt the energy of them. I had to stop to do that and close my eyes. Then I said, “No!” She felt the energy shift in her. I felt like I avoided being slimed by something I didn’t like.

Now, in so-called “real” life, I responded and it is over and done with. But in the energetic realm of what my teacher, Bev, has referred to as “no-time-no-space” I addressed it.

I think we can do things after the fact and it matters. I think next time a packet of icky energy comes my way, I will be quicker to notice. I may still say yes to it in the moment. Learning is a process. But now I have steps. I know what to do.

Situation number two was more nuanced. These things can be. Here is the phrase we worked with:

“Let’s meet for coffee.”

I was with someone new, that I liked and we met for dinner. This person had a lot of challenging things going on. I listened. Many of them had to do with things I had gone through myself in the past. Some of them, I had worked on a lot. I had hired coaches, read books, and practiced. I had learned how to play the game differently. At one point, she was talking and I was starting to feel frustrated, as I could see that she was stuck in the situation and I wasn’t sure she really wanted it to change. Sometimes, we can be like mice running in a wheel and we feed off the energy of running on it. I have done that. And the particular wheel she was running on was an old one for me. I found some words emerge from my mouth, without thinking, without preparing. She said something and I said, “Oh! Well, you know that that’s codependency!”

Now, really, I simply said something that was true. But she didn’t want help or advice. She simply wanted to talk on and on about the pain and challenge of everything and it was getting tedious for me. So she lashed out at me immediately. There were just a few words. I think something like: “I know that!” But the energy was like a sword coming towards me.

I don’t blame her for this, or me really. I do try to watch what I say and sometimes I call things like I see them and people get angry. That’s ok. But I decided our time together was not serving me as I was feeling it was draining my energy and not helping her.

I paid for dinner. Even the energy of figuring out how to handle that felt sticky.

Soon after, she texted me. She wanted to meet for coffee.

“Let’s meet for coffee.”

People are often energetically depleted. They are tired. And they really, really want to be with someone who helps them feel better. For her, that someone was me. And I knew meeting her for coffee would simply give her a temporary fix of feel-good while not addressing things. Meanwhile, it would drain and frustrate me.

So, this is the other situation I practiced with my friend. She said, “Let’s meet for coffee,” and I went through steps 1-3 and said, “No!”.

Here is the actual dialogue:

My friend, representing the challenging person: “Let’s meet for coffee.”

Me: I paused, and really felt the energy in the words. I could sense where they were (this is how I did it, you may do it differently…like see a color, or just know something is off), a little to the right in front of me, like a little ball of grey energy. I really paused to feel what was coming towards me as clearly as I could. Somehow, I think this is quite key.

Me: I said “No!” to that packet of grey energy headed towards me. Not to the person. Just to that thing.

It was helpful and fascinating. My friend, representing my other friend, felt a sense of relief. I got to feel my “no” to something that was not right for me.

I am sure you have similar situations you are thinking of. Things where you can feel the quality and texture of whatever feels icky and then find your inner “no” to them. You too, can practice energetically.

Both people in the situations I described above have been helpful to me. I likely will meet the developer for coffee sometime. I will meet my other friend as well. I just will do my best to not participate in those particular frequencies. I wasn’t actually saying no to coffee, I was saying no to the energy of that specific request.

"In true budo there is no enemy or opponent. True budo is to become one with the universe, not train to become powerful or to throw down some opponent. Rather we train in hopes of being of some use, however small our role may be, in the task of bringing peace to mankind around the world." ~ Morihei Ueshiba

May your “No!” create a space for the “Yes!” of your soul to be here, in all its glory, fully expressed and may we hold hands as we learn and practice.