Surrendering to “No”
“I say yes when I mean no
and the wrinkle grows.”
— Naomi Shihab Nye
Saying Yes When You Mean No
This summer, while I was trying to make everyone happy, I realized how much this quote applies to me.
I kept saying yes, even though I really didn’t want to say yes. And my wrinkle kept growing. I’ve done this since I was a little girl, so I really didn’t know any different. My subconscious mind always believed that if I didn’t please people or do what they said, they would cut me off and they wouldn’t love me.
But this summer, I realized that they actually didn’t love me—at least not in the way I want to be loved. The love we shared was based on attachment and co-dependency; the “if you do this for me, I will be nice to you” type of love. It was so glaring this time that I no longer cared if they cut me off. Pernilla, the adult, needed to protect Pernilla, the little girl.
Forgiveness, Surrender, and Avoidance
I began to see that the practice of radical forgiveness and surrender, when it comes from a place of fear and avoidance, can give people excuses. It can create passivity and, in essence, become a spiritual bypass. If my surrender disguises my anger—if it suppresses or represses my feelings—then is it really surrender?
The practice of forgiveness and surrender, used this way, becomes an excuse. And when I don’t stand my ground, I give up a piece of myself. Denial is sneaky like this: when we don’t see the truth, we miss the small things we do to make life easier, or at least the small things we think will make life easier.
What Surrender Really Means
I realized that surrender is just as often “NO,” as it is “YES.”
In fact, surrender really has nothing to do with yes or no. It’s simply letting go of control and attachment to outcomes, and trusting that things will work out the way they are supposed to.
We surrender to taking the hard road, the challenging road, the angry road. We surrender to the fact we cannot say yes. We surrender to the outcome of that no.
We surrender to the future and its outcome—maybe even to losing someone we love—because the relationship makes us feel uneasy and pressured. Sometimes so subtly we don’t even really know. We were so used to feeling that tightness in the upper abdomen that it didn’t seem out of the ordinary.
Learning to Say No
So, as I begin a third decade of sadhana, I’ve discovered this: I have to surrender to saying no.
I have to surrender to being difficult, to raising my voice. The true surrender happens when we step off the ledge without having any idea what will happen next—and being completely present and okay with it.
The body tells us so much about what works and what doesn’t. Yet even after 27 years sober, I am still often out of touch with my feelings and the signals my body gives me.
I was lucky. This summer, the universe gave me an impossible situation that forced me to finally say no when I meant no. And when I finally did, it just made sense. I wondered why I hadn’t done it earlier.
Compassion and Freedom
I encourage you: lead with compassion, but primarily compassion for yourself. Look at the places in your life that hold you back from truth, from freedom—your freedom to say what you want to say, do what you want to do, be who you want to be.
The inquiry is always: Do I surrender because I don’t want to fight? Or do I surrender because I’m unattached to the outcome?
It always has to be the latter. We surrender not because we passively let things go, but because we are unattached to what will happen. Sometimes choosing freedom hurts; it’s painful; and it can be heartbreaking to lose the ones you love.
But if you know that you say yes when you mean no, think for a moment—at what cost? Who am I forgetting? What am I afraid of?
The Truth of Saying Yes and No
Don’t do it.
When I say yes, when I mean no, I remain separate. I am still me, different from you.
But when I am true to myself, and no longer resist my own needs or wants, I slide into the present moment and the feeling of oneness—the place where we were intended to be.
