The Zen of “Yes” or “No”

Written by Tabby Biddle

Are you a “Yes” person or a “No” person, and is one better than the other?

Movies like The Yes Man starring Jim Carrey would have you believe that saying “no” leads to a boring life and a host of unexplored possibilities. After saying “no” to just about everything, Carrey’s character is depressed, disconnected and on the verge of missing out on life altogether. As an antidote, he attends a self-help seminar that advocates saying “YES” to EVERYTHING. His life totally turns around: he goes bungee jumping, takes guitar lessons, learns Korean, flies an airplane, and finds love.

All good things.

But what really happens to people who go through life saying “yes” (note the lower case) to every request made of them without a “no” in sight?

Louise Hay, teacher, author and expert in looking at the emotional causes of disease, says in her book Empowering Women that there is a consistent pattern that she has noticed with almost every woman she knows who has breast cancer. She says that they usually have a tremendous inability to say “no.” “Breasts represent nourishment, and people with breast cancer seem to nourish everybody in their world but themselves,” she says. “They give and they give until there is no nourishment left for them.”

True or not, there seems to be a fine line between moments when we say “yes” to  open up to new life possibilities, and, when we say “no” to honor ourselves and maintain a healthy boundary.

For example, do you say yes to donating your time to a cause because you feel it is a good thing to do, but then start bouncing checks because you gave too much of yourself and your bank account? Maybe that should have been a no.

Do you say yes to learning another language, traveling abroad and possibly meeting the love of your life? That yes could work.

Sometimes the Zen of “Yes” or “No” can be a tough call.

We’ve all probably had the experience of sharing a confidence with a friend, and then they later spilled the beans to someone else. The next time around when they asked you to share something intimate, you thought twice about this.

If you are a yes person, learning to say no can feel difficult  — especially the first time! The first time I said “no” to someone when they asked for one too many favors, I was so nervous. I was so afraid the person was going to get angry with me. I wondered if I was being selfish, or even worse, not nice. I even contemplated reversing back to “yes.” If I said yes though, I would be betraying what I knew to be true for me — deep down I wanted to say “no.” After much deliberation, I stuck with my no.

“Anybody who is learning to say no has to put up with anger for awhile,” says Louise. “You can expect that reaction.” The people around you have become so used to you saying yes, that this disruption in the pattern can be unsettling for them.

Although some people would have you believe that when you say no, you are closing off to possibilities in your life … I would like to challenge that by saying that sometimes saying no, will open up tremendous possibilities.

Maybe when you say no to someone in certain circumstances, you are actually saying YES to yourself!

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Tabby Biddle is a writer and editor specializing in helping women entrepreneurs and emerging authors get their message out. Additionally she is the founder of Lotus Blossom Style, a yoga lifestyle company created to support women in their personal transformation. She lives in Santa Monica, CA.

Making More Money Than Your Man

Written by Tabby Biddle

What would it be like if you made more money than your husband or your boyfriend or your father? For some of you, you are already in this position. For others, what once seemed like a faraway possibility, is now closer in view.

According to a recent article in Time, 75% of the job losses during this recession have gone to men. In order to pay the bills and support the family, women are stepping in to work longer hours and, those who took time off from their career to raise children, are re-entering the workforce – many of them as business owners.

Before the recession, Sarah Janosek, a 47-year old hospice nurse and mother of three daughters in Austin, TX, brought in roughly one-third of her family’s income. Once her husband lost his job as a software engineer, she became the principal breadwinner.

So what happens if the balance of earning power is tipped toward the woman? How will this change the relationship of the couple?

For those of us who grew up in a generation or a household where it was expected that Dad was the one responsible for bringing home the money to support the family, and Mom was the one responsible for cleaning the house and raising the kids — the idea of the woman now being the main breadwinner can be daunting and frankly, disorienting.

One friend, who is close to earning a lot more money than she has been, revealed to me that she keeps tripping herself up because she doesn’t like the idea of making more money than her husband. When I asked her why, she told me that she didn’t want to lose respect for him.

I asked another friend her opinion on the subject, and she told me that she was afraid that her husband wouldn’t feel like “a man” if he earned less than she. “So what would this mean to you if he felt like this?” I asked. “I’m afraid I might lose him,” she replied — sounding surprised to hear herself say this.

Could it be that some women are afraid of their own achievements because there is an old tape playing that says, “My marriage will dissolve if I make too much money.”

We often hear about Hollywood couples breaking if off not too long after the woman gains more spotlight and cash flow than the man. Hilary and Chad. Reese and Ryan. Halle and Eric… to name a few.  Whether there is any connection between the bigger earnings and the breakups is hard to prove, but word around town is that it was a factor.

I have a friend who is the CEO of her own company and is re-entering the dating scene. One day at a women’s gathering, she asked our opinion about whether she should avoid talking about her work as she goes out on dates. “Why would you do that?” I asked. She replied: “Because I don’t want him to feel intimidated.”

With this remark, it started to dawn on me that as modern and as ambitious as many of us women are, there is a lot of old belief system knocking around and perhaps knocking us back.

While many of us ache to earn more, charge higher fees, and bring in more money for our time spent on work, can we get comfortable with a role reversal? Are we willing to let go of old belief systems and truly respect a man who makes less than we do?

And finally… can we as women own our own earning power?

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Tabby Biddle is a writer and editor specializing in helping women entrepreneurs and emerging authors get their message out. Additionally she is the founder of Lotus Blossom Style, a yoga lifestyle company created to support women in their personal transformation. She lives in Santa Monica, CA.

The Anti-Affirmation

Written by Tabby Biddle

I have heard it said over and over in the personal growth world that in order to reach your potential, you must “embrace your dark side,” or “shadow.” What the heck does this mean? I thought for years. What dark side?

Little by little I would step a toe into what I thought was my “dark side,” but I was navigating through uncharted territory and I would inevitably turn back.

Instead, I found my way to positive affirmations through the wise women teachers Louise Hay, Anodea Judith and Caroline Myss. This seemed like a gentler approach to waking my potential. I liked the idea of overriding old programming that said, “You can’t do it,” “You’re not good enough,” and “You’re just a girl,” with “I can do it!” “I am good enough,” and “I am proud to be a girl!” This all seemed liked a worthy pursuit and revealed hints of working, but I have to admit never felt like I was getting down to the root of things.

Then more recently I heard someone say, “If you want to manifest your full potential you have to reclaim the parts of yourself that you’ve denied, hidden or given away to others.” Could they be referring to our “shadow” I wondered?

The person who said this was Debbie Ford, author, teacher and faculty at the Chopra Center in La Jolla, California. “We might not like all of our disowned parts, but acknowledging them to ourselves (and maybe even others) is a huge step toward owning our potential,” she says.

But how do we figure out what are the disowned parts of ourselves?

One method, according to Debbie, is to first look at all the qualities that upset you in other people. The idea here is that what we dislike in others is actually a projection of the parts of ourselves that we have disowned.

I thought to myself…how many times have I called someone (in my mind) – lame, boring, phony, annoying, overbearing, stingy, greedy, manipulative, mean – and a whole host of other “undesirable” adjectives? Was I actually pointing a finger at myself?

Yikes!

“If we embrace it internally, we no longer have to create it externally.”
– Debbie Ford

Although skeptical at first about owning things for myself that I did not like about other people, I decided to consider Ms. Ford’s idea.

Here’s a method she uses in her seminars:

She asks participants to write down five words that they wouldn’t want used to describe them in the newspaper. Once they’ve got these words, she has them partner up for a mirroring exercise that looks like this: Say one of your charged words was “shameful,” you would look your partner in the eyes and say, “I am shameful.” Your partner would mirror back to you, “You are shameful.” Then you would repeat, “I am shameful,” and your partner would repeat, “You are shameful.” This continues until it no longer matters to you if you are shameful or if you are called shameful. You work with your partner until each one of you no longer has any emotional charge on any of your five “disowned” words. Wow, could this really work?

Having been a part of the affirmation generation, I wondered if by going around saying, “I am shameful,” — would actually be a wiring recipe for negative self-imaging and quite the opposite of helping someone expand into their potential.

Apparently not, according to Debbie, “Just saying the word out loud, over and over, breaks down our resistance to being called that word and to having that quality.” In other words, it loses its energy and grip on our life.

I haven’t taken one of her seminars yet, but I went ahead and tried another method she suggested. You can do it on your own. The old stand-by…go to the mirror and say the words to yourself out loud. I did just that and while unsure at the start, I was surprised to feel the words lose their charge and felt a sense of liberation!

What are five things you wouldn’t want to see written about you in the newspaper? Are you willing to own them? (Or at least look in the mirror and say them over and over?)

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Tabby Biddle is a writer and editor specializing in helping women entrepreneurs and emerging authors get their message out. Additionally she is the founder of Lotus Blossom Style, a yoga lifestyle company created to support women in their personal transformation. She lives in Santa Monica, CA.