“No" my favorite word
I don’t know about others, but for a long time, I did not know that I mattered…
As a child amongst most other children, I did not have the opportunity to choose my beliefs. I agreed to the information that was passed down to me by my parents, just like they agreed with the same information passed down to them by their own parents.
As children, it seems like we don’t have a choice but to agree with the information passed down to us. And as soon as we agree we believe and we call this faith.
To have faith is to believe unconditionally… this is how we learn as children. Children believe everything adults say. Although some of us choose to rebel, our tiny souls are not strong enough to go against the striking sound of our parent's Roar…
So naturally when we disobeyed we got punished, and therefore we learned that our thoughts, our feelings, our needs didn’t matter. What matters is what other people told us to do and what they needed us to do. As beautifully written by Don miguel Ruiz "When we did what mom or dad wanted us to do, we were told “You are a good girl” or you are a “Good boy”. And when we went against the rules we were told we are “a bad girl” or “ a bad boy”. We were punished many times a day and we were also rewarded many times a day. Until we became afraid of being punished and also afraid of not receiving the reward. The reward is the love and attention we received from our parents, siblings, teachers, and friends. The reward felt good and we kept doing what we needed to do to keep getting the reward."
Experience, therefore, taught us to be silent about the difficulties that we experience in life and to be loyal to people with the fear of being punished and the fear of not receiving the reward.
With this fear we started pretending to be what we are not, just to please others, just to be good enough for someone else… So we started acting. We pretend to be what we’re not because we are afraid of being rejected.
When doing this, we slowly but sadly learn that we don’t matter.
So I am here to RECLAIM my lost identity and to stop pretending to be someone that I am not, to stop acting or trying to be something or someone just to please others. I am here to honor that I do matter and that we all matter. Your mistakes matter, your difficulties matter, your tragedies matter. It is all about the way you look at them.
And it all begins with learning to have a strong NO.
As said by Iyanla Vanzant: "So many of us don’t have a NO…
We have to learn to say NO to the things that don’t honor us, NO to the things that do not bring us joy, NO to the things that do not bring us peace and we don’t ever and I mean ever have to explain our NO.
We have to have 100 different ways to say No; Nope..; Not in a million years and my favorite: “Not Gonna Happen!”
And we should not back up on our no. What we tend to do is, we draw our line in the sand and when someone crosses it we back up on our No. We need to learn to Stand on our Line and Stand for our No. Just like we stand for our YES.
When you matter, you stand in your NO and FOR your YES. We need to strongly understand what each one represents to us. What we want at the moment, we have to make it matter...
We make it matter by saying NO to what we don’t want and Yes to what we’re willing to attract and create and bring into our lives. We need to stop chasing people and chasing things that are beneath the truth of who we are. We need to stop holding on to people and things that weigh us down. And we need to start behaving in ways that honor the grace and beauty within us."
So please, a small reminder from my heart to yours…
Have a Strong NO and Stand in your YES…
Because love... You Matter.
#IDOITFORTHELOVE
Author: Roshni Jagroep
References: "You Matter" by Iyanla Vanzant