12. SAY NO

 

You can be a good person with a kind heart and still say no.

Why is this even a thing? I mean, why does it feel like we, who want to define ourselves as nice people, need permission to say no? 

I guess its important to understand love; its origins and destinations. It's my divine obligation to love myself, to respect the gift of this earthly sojourn, and revere the magnificence of this marriage of body and soul that is the basis of each one of us. It holds priority over the desire to be acceptable and accommodating. 

Being bound to someone who has seriously never yelled at me, who speaks only encouragement, and who doesn't feel he needs to improve me, has slowly but surely helped shift my sense of self. It's strange, I know... and so rare. Nearly 50 years of being married to someone who does not feel he possess me, who recognizes I have the right to make my own decisions, who seriously does not judge me poorly and finds me strangely interesting... all this takes its toll. And that "toll" is shedding the mean words I might say to myself,  to release unholy self flagellation and turn it to self-acceptance, humble confidence and sincere love. We mistake belittling ourselves for righteous humility, and we're wrong.

I learned from a therapist, years ago, to see myself as a child, allowing me to instinctively have compassion on myself. After some life altering abuse as a child, I found an image of myself as a young girl who had been playing with the kids on the playground. Suddenly, without warning, I saw that girl who was me standing outside the playground fence, her fingers curled around the metal links, looking in at the other kids still playing. My experience put me outside the safe places of childhood. I wept for that girl. I still do... as if she wasn't me. My compassion for her swept the silt away from the foundation and helped me build an inner vision of myself that is not unrealistic and is also compassionate. I keep a safe and tender place in my heart for that girl.

The night of my abuse, when I awoke in a terrible situation, after the beast had slithered away, my angels directed me to hand the responsibility for that event back to the perpetrator. The Holy Spirit whispered that I did not get to own this - he did.

"You have done a very bad thing to a young girl ...." 

I don't recall all I wrote, except it began with those words. I thank the Lord repeatedly for having the wherewithal to place ownership where it belonged in that abuse. That "No, I will not take this as my own" rescued me from so many sorrows. It didn't relieve me of all that followed and still haunts me, but the empowerment to say NO, not necessarily to the act itself,  but to ownership of the weight of responsibility, was one of the finest life gifts I have ever received. 

Some 'no's" are necessary in order to remain good kind people. 

Be gentle next time someone tells you "no." We cannot see behind their closed doors.