No is the bodyguard of Yes

When things fall apart and that makes you positively batty

In the 18 months since yanking up roots and moving from British Columbia to Ontario, a lot has happened. Suffice to say, all parts of the ‘Coaching Life Wheel’ have been upturned, even the things I thought were so-called forever.

As a recovering high achiever, this has made me squirm, right down to my sit bones. It’s also given me new empathy for the plant who outgrows its pot, and needs to be split up and made into two. Never the same again. Better? Probably. But still.

In this squirming replanting phase, I’m noticing the phrases and wisdoms that are helping. Just the other day, helping a client affirm a decision, we agreed, the answer was ‘no.’ Interestingly, they didn’t have much resistance to saying no, per se.

But they had some hesitation. It turns out the hesitation was about ‘being a person who says no.’ Because that meant something. It meant being a ‘no-sayer,’ an obstacle, an in-the-way, way of being. This did not sit well. I relate.

I asked the client for permission to share a quote. I told them it was me, I was going to quote me. We had a good laugh over that. It’s this:

“No is the bodyguard of yes.”

And in that moment, we had one of those coaching session shifts. Not fireworks so much as a click.

When you hesitate to say no because you feel you’re in the way of something…

Reframe your no to being the red carpet that allows the yes to occur.

Then all of a sudden your no is a helper of yes. And that feels better.

Have you been pulling your punches, holding back from saying no to something?

What if your no, is actually the guardian of yes?

What does that make possible?

Photo credit: Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash