When No is a Secret Gateway to Yes

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When no is a secret gateway to the real yes.

The morning sun still holds the promise of summer, yet there is a distinctive autumnal turn. The ‘back to school’ vibe is real, with its corresponding prepping mode. September always feels like a new start for me — my work is still connected to academic cycles, but my psychology is too. Come late August, I become squirrel, furrowing, burrowing, plotting and planning to give myself a good foundation for what are traditionally busy months ahead.

As a school kid, I loved the opportunity to get new stationary and the ritual of covering my new school books. I seem to need these physical triggers, to mark a new clearing. At the weekend, for instance, I did some tedious but deceptively pleasurable tasks. What was a fridge in desperate need of defrosting, now ordered to a ‘capsule wardrobe’ of condiments. I was never going to eat that ferment really. But alongside the physical sorting, there is the mental sorting. In the time it takes to clear a fridge, there is space for review, reflecting on learnings and reconnecting with priorities to buttress the months ahead.

In looking back, I have a chance to think about this past summer, one which held an incredible opportunity and incredible challenge. The opportunity: to take on the running of a beautiful building (cafe/ pottery studio/ learning space) in the village where I live, and develop community events and learning programmes. The challenge: exactly that!

So, trying to put into practice what I teach, I set about applying design methodologies to the task. There was so much learning in the process. From engaging in deep listening approaches, using community participatory practices and ultimately listening to my instinct, after almost three months of research, I realised on a fateful dark night of the soul, that while a wonderful prospect, the opportunity was not for me. There are moments in life you have to give a full yes, and there are moments in life where you have to listen to a full no. Embarking on the process, a strong values-driven yes, led me into the possibility, but it was a gut instinct, body based, no, which led me the decision to not to proceed. Sometimes no is a gateway to the real yes.

I’m so glad I tried. And I am so grateful to people, the place, and tools that have helped me. It was not the summer I expected, but it was a summer of learning, then letting go with confidence in the process which underpinned the path which took me here. (Given the richness of the learning experience, I have written more about the process over on Thrive School- which I hope might be a useful resource to those embarking on their own projects)

So, the real yes. Isn’t that always the challenge, and the opportunity.

I don’t think our yes is ever singular, or crystal or static. Our yes can speak in whispers, nudges, bringing us closer towards that idea, image or story that just won’t loose grip. It’s not always linear or logical. It requires listening. Sometimes over and over again.

For me, that yes starts in my journal. There are scribblings, sketchy inklings, allowing ideas and longings to land, perhaps for years, letting them ripen, grow, find ground in my psych and soul. The ideas which keep repeating, the desires which keep rising, over time, these patterns become evident on the page.

The listening is supported with ritual. Yesterday, I took a wander down some overgrown paths, on the hunt for blackberries. The picking is such a marker of the season, both in its turning and its gifts. As I was picking, with the birds and the waves as sonic companionship, I was thinking of the privilege and power of such space, of where I find myself. I was thinking of the preciousness of time, and how to use it wisely. I was thinking of hope.

There are so many needs in the world right now, so many causes and urgencies, no one person can bear. At times I find myself numbing, blanking out the news and the social feeds of another tragedy. And there is one part of myself which shames me for doing this- how can I turn away, how can I be so removed, from my place of privilege and vantage. Another part of my brain knows that the numbness is a protective mechanism from grief. It’s how the limbic brain has learned to be animal: fight, flight, freeze. Freeze can be strategy for survival. The challenge with freeze though, it’s cold and solid and immovable, and it too requires defrosting.

Plug out, remove the clutter, replace only the essentials, leave space.

Who knew that lessons from deep cleaning a fridge could be so valuable.

Alongside the briars, there are fruits, ready for picking. In a quiet, unplugged solitary afternoon, I pick enough to fill a small container. A few are bitter, but they are mostly sweet, products of time and weather, just enough sun to ripen. I return home, invite a friend over, bake a blackberry pudding, and together we eat the season, letting the inky berries stain our tongues, leaving them longing for more. So we have some.

Later, I take out my journal, and can see the patterns more clearly again, these inky stains of longing. My pen meets some questions.

What am I longing for?

When that question is exhausted with ink, it’s time to go to the next one:

But what am I really really longing for?

And when that one is done, the next:

But what am I not giving myself permission to really long for, but secretly do?

This last question, it is hard, and revelatory. For me right now, it plugs me into long held ambitions around my writing, teaching, owning a home, and travel. It also brings me to questions about how I am using my voice to speak up and out about injustices, and climate, and the issues I care about. It demands that I focus and keep on dreaming. It demands that I keep going, even when the path ahead is uncertain. Longings are not tame like that; they make us become more of ourselves, so we can continue to bring our gifts to the world. Secretly, they have our back. And when we let them, perhaps not so secretly after all.

Your ten minute writing practice.

What are you longing for?

What are you really really longing for?

What are you not giving yourself permission to really long for, but secretly do?