you gotta say no to say yes

Between the Harvey Weinstein allegations and #MeToo last year, and now the Kavanaugh trial and the #WhyIDidntReport stories on Twitter, it's been confirmed that the last year has been rough for trauma survivors. I have been blowing the dust off my trauma wounds and digging deep to get to the root of them. It's a painful albeit necessary process to work toward recovery and healing.

How do you even begin to silence the voices you've spent so long trying to outrun?

To silence the voices of your abusers, you must first give yourself a voice that is louder than theirs. I don't mean sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming as loud as you can. Learning the nuances of your own voice takes years of practice and discipline and work that truly comes from deep within your soul. It is something that I still struggle with every single day and will continue to work on the rest of my life. I am constantly reminding myself that we as human beings can do hard things. We can go to war with our scared selves inside our heads, but that only leads down dark depression wells. In order to shut down the people that hurt you, you have to exercise your right to say, "No."

Not "Sorry I can't" followed by a made up excuse.
Not "No, thank you."
Just "No."

As Oprah Winfrey once said, "'No,' is a complete sentence."

I think, in life, we all go through "Yes" cycles and "No" cycles.

We start off by saying "Yes!" to new adventures. Then we get so excited about life and all of its potential that we start saying yes to everything out of habit. "Yes!" to that extra shift at work on your day off. Gotta get ahead. "Yes" to cramming one more thing into our already jam-packed to-do list. You can totally complete that giant project in a day. "Yes" to one more load of laundry after doing the dishes. Gotta keep the house clean. "Yes" to one more episode or one more chapter before we go to bed at night. Sleep? What's that? Before you realize it, you're exhausted and cranky and the anxiety beast is inside your head, guilting you for not getting everything on your to-do list done for the day before you zonk out for another full day ahead of you tomorrow.

Once you recognize the cycle, you have to gain back your power again and start saying "No" out of an essential need for survival that can be masked to the outside world as mere self-care. Turning down that extra shift at work so you can actually get some sleep. Showering at crazy times of the day because you finally feel like you have the motivation to clean yourself. Building a routine for things like laundry and grocery shopping so you don't wait until your spaces look like a dirt bomb went off before you clean them. Keeping a set bedtime is also a tactic to help avoid those Netflix "One more episode" traps.

One by one, these little acts of saying no add up. Before you know it, you'll be able to set clear and defined boundaries and confront the people that try to cross them. You will harness the power of "No" to take back your "Yes."