When "No" Means "Yes"

I'm currently reading Gabor Mate's book, "When Your Body Says No"  

It explores the fascinating body-mind connection as it relates to illness and dis-ease.   Very provocative stuff.    Besides being sure that every subsequent eye twitch or unexplained  pain that occur when I'm reading is a yet-to-be-discovered tumour deep within me,  I am compelled by Mate's stories gathered tenderly from the many first-hand relationships he formed with terminally ill patients as their palliative care physician.

The basic premise of the book is that when you do not learn to say 'no', your body will do it for you.    Mate provides account after account of self-neglecting, over-achieving caregivers who refuse to say 'no' even when their body is balking and breaking down right in front of their eyes.   A striking example was Lou Gehrig, known as the "Iron Horse" who continued to play baseball, with a forced smile,  even as his ALS was making it agonizing to do so.

Guilty of decades of my own compulsive overwork, chronic over-achieving, self-neglecting care-giving of others and ignorance of my own body's signals, my decision to learn to say 'no' to many unhealthy patterns in my life is being affirmed in reading this book.    And saying 'no' to other distractions has been the only way that this book found its way off the bookshelf and into my hands.

The undeniable dotted line leading to the too-muchness of never saying 'no' seems to be drawn consistently back to an original woundedness; a deep core, heart-rendering wound.  One we all have.

Despite the focus of this book on illness and learning to say 'no', I've discovered something else, something less no-centred.  In learning to say 'no',  I have seen a desire to start saying a bold 'yes' to life.   Yes to meeting my own needs.   My deep belly breath need for regular solitude, self-care, self-expression through writing and plans for my life-work evolution, emotional intimacy, sexual companionship and erotic exploration.

Work always came first as if I didn't deserve any of above things until all the work was done.  But funny thing, the work was never done.   The reward for a job well done was never awarded to me so the compulsion to keep working kept the cycle going, onward and downward.

How was working myself to exhaustion to the neglect of these areas ever a good idea?

It wasn't.

But now, moment by moment, things are changing.    I'm saying yes to taking a break, a deep breath, listening to my body's wants and needs and knowing that I can say 'yes', if I so choose.  For me, not for what others think should be for me.  'No' has opened the door to 'Yes'. And I cannot wait to see what's on the other side of the door.