I grew up hearing the word no.
A lot.
No, you can’t go play with the neighbor.
No, you can’t say that.
No, you can’t wear that.
No, you can’t ask that question.
No, you can’t have an opinion about this.
No, you can’t have money for that.
No.
No.
No.
My mother was very stern and very controlling. There wasn’t much room for discussion in our house. Things were the way she decided they would be, and our job as children was to follow the rules.
Sometimes I would try another route.
I’d go to my father first.
“Dad, can I…?”
And he would say, “Yes, if your mother says it’s okay.”
Well.
We all know where this is going. 😂
I’d go to my mother.
No.
For a child, those experiences don’t necessarily become conscious conclusions.
I don’t remember sitting in my bedroom thinking, Apparently my desires have no value and therefore I shall develop a lifelong difficulty giving myself permission to have what I want.
I was a kid.
But I was learning.
And one particular lesson was being repeated over and over again:
What I want isn’t for me.
The Shoes
I was the youngest of six children, so I grew up with plenty of hand-me-downs from my older sisters.
That was simply part of life.
But there was one thing my mother always bought new for each of us: shoes.
She believed, quite rightly, that good shoes were important. Shoes shouldn’t be passed from one child to another because they needed to form to our individual feet.
So every year, toward the end of summer, my mother would take me to Le Sabot d’Or, a quality shoe store in our town, to buy my shoes for the new school year.
And every year, the same little ritual took place.
She would say:
“Look at what you like in the window. I’ll wait for you inside.”
Oh, that was easy!
I’d study the shoes, find the pair I loved, and call my mother to come outside.
“I want those!”
She would look at my choice.
And then, abruptly:
“No! You can’t have those. We’re buying these.”
And she would point to what, in my young opinion, were invariably the ugliest shoes in the window. 😂
Year after year, the same thing happened.
I was invited to choose.
I discovered what I liked.
I expressed what I wanted.
And then I heard:
No. You can’t have what you want.
My mother wasn’t a villain in this story.
I loved my mother very deeply.
Today, I understand that she parented with what she knew. She had learned her own ways of being from the world in which she grew up. She didn’t have access to many of the tools and opportunities for personal growth that I would eventually have.
She did what she knew how to do.
Understanding that has allowed me to have compassion for her.
But compassion doesn’t require me to pretend that those experiences didn’t affect me.
They did.
When the NO Moves Inside
Years later, I was a young woman living on my own.
I had a job.
I earned my own money.
Nobody was standing over me telling me what I could and couldn’t buy.
In France at the time, there was a huge catalog company called La Redoute. Their catalogs were enormous, filled with clothes and all sorts of wonderful things.
I would sit and turn the pages.
Oh, I love that dress.
And immediately, without even thinking:
No. You can’t have that.
There was nobody there saying it.
My mother wasn’t in the room.
I wasn’t a little girl anymore.
It was my money.
And still:
No. You can’t have that.
The voice had moved inside.
That’s what can happen with so many of the messages we receive growing up.
Eventually, nobody has to tell us anymore.
We take over the job ourselves.
We tell ourselves no before anybody else gets the chance.
No, I can’t do that.
No, that’s not for someone like me.
No, I shouldn’t want that.
No, I shouldn’t say that.
No, I can’t ask for that.
No, no, no.
Until one day, while looking through that catalog, something different happened inside me.
I saw something I wanted.
The familiar voice arrived right on schedule:
No. You can’t have that.
And I thought:
The hell with that. I’m getting it.
😂
I bought it.
It was a small rebellion.
But perhaps it was also one of my first little yeses.
Learning to Say Yes
A few years later, when I was 33, my life reached a point when I knew I needed help.
I stopped living in the problem.
I asked for help.
And I began living in the solution.
When I started therapy and began doing the deeper work of understanding myself, I discovered something that astounded me.
So much of the work I needed to do came down to learning to say one very simple word:
Yes.
Yes to myself.
Yes to my desires.
Yes to my opinions.
Yes to my questions.
Yes to my choices.
Yes to my voice.
Yes to being different.
Yes to making mistakes.
Yes to changing my mind.
Yes to enjoying my life.
Yes to being myself.
And perhaps most of all:
Yes to life.
What a concept!
Permission to Be Yourself
Saying yes to yourself doesn’t mean going to the opposite extreme.
It doesn’t mean buying everything you want, indulging every impulse, ignoring responsibilities, or deciding that nobody else’s needs matter.
That’s not freedom.
What I’m talking about is much quieter and much deeper.
Permission.
Permission to recognize that what you want matters.
Permission to have preferences.
Permission to make choices.
Permission to listen to yourself.
Permission to discover what brings you joy.
Permission to take up your own space in your own life.
Sometimes we are still waiting for someone else to give us that permission.
But the person who originally told us no may not even be there anymore.
And yet we keep hearing the voice.
So perhaps it’s worth asking:
Whose voice is saying no?
Is it really yours?
Or is it an old voice you’ve been carrying for so long that you’ve forgotten it once belonged to somebody else?
You may discover that nobody is standing in front of you anymore, pointing toward the ugly shoes.
😂
I Can Breathe in My Life Now
It took me years to learn this.
I’m still learning it.
But today, I can say yes to myself without automatically feeling guilty, ashamed, selfish, or afraid that somehow I’m going to be punished for it.
And something wonderful happens when we stop constantly denying ourselves permission to be who we are.
We can breathe.
I can breathe in my life now.
I can enjoy being myself.
I can listen to my heart and discover what I actually want instead of automatically assuming it isn’t available to me.
Sometimes the answer still needs to be no. That’s part of being a responsible human being.
But now it is my no.
And when the answer is yes?
It can be my yes, too.
Maybe coming home to yourself begins with noticing all the places where you’ve been unconsciously standing at the door of your own life saying:
No, you can’t come in.
And then, perhaps, opening that door.
Say yes to your heart.
Say yes to your desires.
Say yes to your voice.
Say yes to the beautiful person you actually are.
Say YES to yourself. ❤️