I wonder how many times I need to hear the same message before I actually hear it? Apparently a lot! While many things I’d hoped would happen in Hawaii didn’t materialize, there has been tremendous growth and lessons along the way. When I got here and began working with my previous boss, I was so inspired by her. She was so comfortable in her skin. I admired that in her and wanted to learn how she got there. I’ve never felt “Ok” or “enough.” If I wasn’t contorting myself and shapeshifting to conform to what everyone else wanted me to be, I was beating myself up for not managing to please all the masters in my life and those masters could be anyone – the man in my life, the man I wanted in my life, my parents, my sisters, my “friends,” my actual friends, the cashier at Target, my hair stylist, the person on the other end of the phone, you name it. It was impossible to be all things to all people but I didn’t lack for trying. The result was I felt like I was failing all the time and wanted to be invisible. So here comes this woman that is Ok no matter what the circumstance and I WANTED that. As a result of that desire, anything she said to me, I lapped up with enthusiasm. 

She told me there were two kinds of people in the world – yes people and no people. She was a yes person and I was a no person. WTF? I was a wee bit offended, if I’m being honest. She went on to explain that people have a default reaction of either yes or no and I’m a no person. Hmmmm. Once I got over the tiny sting of her remark and contemplated the concept, she was absolutely right and I didn’t like it one bit. I started to notice all the ways I said no in my life. I said no to big things and little things, important things and ridiculously trivial things. I say no to trying new things, change, uncertainty, the unknown, risk, challenge, basically life. I’ve stayed in absolutely miserable situations for YEARS because I KNOW this misery and can handle it. It could be worse. It makes sense to me when I’ve been so oriented toward safety. When I was a kid, it was physical safety. When I was no longer in unsafe environments, my emotional safety was heavily guarded and that armor was reinforced over a lifetime of poor choices with unsafe people. 

There was a shift about a year ago when I rage applied for a job that I wasn’t remotely qualified for across an ocean on my lunch hour one day. I did say no, at first. When Indeed prompted me to add a cover letter since I was clearly lacking the required qualifications, I clicked “no” and hit submit. I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell anyway so I’m not going to waste my time on a cover letter. What would I say anyway? “I know you can’t tell on paper but I can do this job.” Yeah, no. That wasn’t gonna happen. But when the phone rang a few hours later requesting an interview, after I picked myself up off the floor and stopping dying of laughter, I said yes. I said yes to each subsequent interview request, online assessment, and any other hoop they asked me to jump through. I remember at the time having to really talk myself through each step. I think it was possible for me to say yes because again, zero chance so nothing to lose. Besides, I had a job so whatever. And as we know, I got the job and moved across the ocean.

Since that time, there have been many opportunities to say yes or no. My first day on the job – I’m meeting my new staff, trying to learn all the things, and the chefs prepared a lovely lunch. We had no clients that day, only staff. Just before we served ourselves, an employee gave me a lei which was customary for new employees. And then, the maintenance man takes a ukelele off the wall and begins to sing to me. The other employees get other instruments and they are all singing, to me, like, looking at me, and singing, for God’s sake. As I stand there, awkwardly, my maintenance man says “now it’s your turn to bust a move.” Excuse me, what? It’s fucking NOON on a Monday. I’m NOT dancing, sober, in front of my brand new employees, that is NOT happening. But as those thoughts raced through my mind, at the same time there was a microscopic pause. These people know nothing about you. You have the opportunity to be whatever you want. Are you gonna be a stick in the mud in front of all these people that are putting forth the effort to welcome you or are you gonna get over yourself and join them? So I shimmied for a nanosecond and claimed the victory. Yes.

A few days later was BEACH day. Again, what??? You want me to show up for a new job, in this body, at this age, in a fucking swimsuit, in my first week? Are you outta your God damn mind? This was NOT in the job description. But then I remembered my purpose. We take clients to the beach because perhaps they haven’t been to the beach, sober, in years. We are there to provide comfort and support to them as they work through their issues. We model what being sober looks like and that it’s possible to have fun without substances. So, am I gonna allow my negative body image prevent me from being of service to these people? Never. Another yes.

And so began many months of saying yes. Food would be prepared at work by these amazingly talented chefs. It would look scary to me or the description would make me turn up my nose. However, not only am I pushing myself but clients are watching, always. Am I going to even politely decline? Nope, I’m going to try scary food and do so with the best smile I can plaster on my face. I have yet to try something that I LOVE but that’s not the point. Life, I’ve figured out, is about effort, not outcome, and I am responsible for the effort. 

Recently, I said a HUGE yes to opening my heart. That one yes led to 100 more opportunities to say yes and each time, same answer. Courage over comfort. Yes. If you want a life you’ve never had, you have to do things you’ve never done. For me, that’s saying yes even in the riskiest of situations which is the case when sharing the most tender parts of myself through affection and trust. I couldn’t have predicted the outcome of this yes but it’s a yes that I am proud of myself for saying and standing by even when it’s hard. If riding out your feelings of loss and showing up as your whole self anyway doesn’t demonstrate vulnerability and bravery, I don’t know what does. Yes.

Tonight was another big yes. I signed up for a webinar that teaches how to write and publish your book. I’d seen this webinar many times in the past few years but never took any action. I was sure there was some hidden cost therefore, a scam. But then I saw a woman I knew years ago that had published a book using these strategies and she’s nowhere near as interesting as me! Ha! LOL Well shit, if SHE can do it, surely I can. But still, I sat on it. Self doubt and worthiness or lack thereof came to the party and started chattering. So onto the back burner went the idea of writing a book. Hell, it wasn’t even on the stove anymore. Then, I shared my story with a small group of people. The feedback I got was overwhelming. I just sat and sobbed as all these people that I respect told me that I should not only continue to write but I should be published. That night, I submitted my story to a few online publications. Two of the three published my story. The one that said no rejected my story due to its length, not its content. Wow. That was a huge yes. Tonight, the focus of the webinar was the power of saying yes. Once you say yes, things happen without effort on your part. Really? Are you sure?

Another big yes story where the word yes didn’t even come from me. It just came out of my mouth without thought or decision. A woman who I thought had all her shit together and all her ducks in a row asked me to work with her, to help her, to mentor her. While my head was questioning – um, have you HEARD me talk? Do you NOT see that I have ZERO answers but rather only problems? Why on earth would you think I have anything of use to offer to someone like YOU? And while those thoughts rattled around, out of my mouth came one, little word – yes. If I believed in God, I’d say God put that word in my mouth but I don’t. So no idea who said yes – in my voice. But that single yes has led to SO many amazing opportunities. More and more women have asked for me to work with them, guide them, walk with them in their path through recovery. I continue to be shocked but I say yes anyway. What this has done is allowed the smallest seed of self worth and belief in myself to germinate and dare I say, flourish. Had these things not happened, Hawaii never would have happened. I wouldn’t have believed that I could handle whatever may come my way once I got here. And while I feel very shaken and unsteady at the moment, I’m still here, standing.

I’m becoming a yes person. The world opens up to yes people. Choice is available to yes people. I’m starting to believe that the universe rewards yes people by presenting more and more opportunities. “Fortune favors the bold” to quote a latin proverb – or Bohemian Rhapsody (which I prefer). When I was asked to be interviewed for a class by a student working towards her masters in social work, I said yes. When I was asked to be interviewed for a podcast to share my story to inspire other women, I said yes. (stay tuned – it’s supposed to drop this week). This book publishing webinar instructed me to say yes to this process and the universe will provide. So I did things I’m SO uncomfortable with and am trusting the process. My homework was to put a few “live” videos on Facebook – which I did. One was to introduce myself, where I’m from, why I’m passionate about my book, and what I hope to get from this experience. The other was to read my vision letter – a letter we were asked to write to ourselves from the future and talk about what was the impact of publishing our book on both our lives and our audience. I also completed some worksheets but that video stuff is next level yes – for a shy, introvert. But I did it anyway, scared. I set aside my self judgement about how I should look, wrinkles, double chin, gray hair, glasses, old, no longer beautiful, but yes. (isn’t that voice loud? Sigh)

Last night, I was in an abyss of pity. But even in that moment, I said yes. I allowed myself to have a night of pity and not judge or criticize that I shouldn’t be feeling the way I did. I didn’t introduce logic to my emotional experience. I said yes to not having to find the bright side, the lesson, the positive spin. Some days are just hard. One thing I’ve learned, you can’t heal from the things you’re unwilling to feel. While crying S.u.c.k.s. with a capital S and makes me feel weak and small, sometimes a good cleansing is necessary to find the clarity I seek and today, the world is clearer to me. My thoughts about being done in Hawaii haven’t changed nor have my thoughts about not returning to dark and rain, but the grim outlook has dissipated. I WILL figure it out. And I’ll say yes to gratitude, I’ll focus on what I do have vs what I lack or what I want, and yes, I will rise, yet again. Hell, I already have. Turn the page.