My Month of YES

I remember calling my friend Nekole around this time last year and saying to her, “I just don’t know what to do. I don’t feel like myself, I feel disconnected from who I am and who I’m meant to be. I feel disconnected from the Universe. Unmotivated. Uninspired and standing in my own way at every turn. I don’t know what to do.” I was in a place where I could literally pinpoint the EXACT ways I was holding myself back and yet… I couldn’t seem to correct them.

There is nothing more frustrating than being acutely aware of exactly how to fix something and yet still not being able to do so. I spent the last year in a vicious cycle of identifying areas of improvement, beating myself up about falling short, and doing every.single.thing possible to avoid taking action to change it. Even when I would start to shift something I would feel in my heart the inevitability that it couldn’t last. All this pushed me further into the cycle and cemented that I would never escape it.

Yesterday morning I woke up in that same cycle. The mental punches. The feelings of “not-enoughness.” I said to myself, “HOW is it possible that I have been thinking of ways to stop this cycle for over a year, and yet I’m still stuck in it?” Immediately, a voice came through me that said, “It’s because you can’t THINK your way out of it, you have to ACT your way out of it. “

I knew immediately that I should do a short period of nothing but action. What if I do a month where I act AS IF (a key point to manifestation) I am the person I believe myself to be. The person I’m capable of being. Stop {over}THINKING about everything and just act on it. It’s not at all revolutionary but it was something I couldn’t do before.

I knew I had to pick up my journal to let this continue to flow.

It started by writing that I was going to have a month of…

The same word kept coming to me over and over again. But it didn’t feel right! I had envisioned something like, month of action, or month of “as-if” but repeatedly the month of YES was coming to me. “Yes, isn’t right though,” I thought. And as I was questioning “Yes” I was sent a note from the Universe.

Recently I had a session with my therapist where he told me I am too strong of an “editor.” I never want to let things come out as they are, I always want to edit, and over edit, and this stuck-ness was a result me editing before I even let myself begin. A few days later, I was on a brand call with an astrologist. She asked if anyone was a certain type of rising with some other type of moon and I was. When I told her, her first words to me were, “Oh… So you’re a major editor, huh?” I have been seeking signs to reaffirm my belief in the universe, and THIS was most definitely a sign for me. What are the odds of the same exact word coming to me directly in such quick succession?

I was reminded of this sign as I was literally trying to EDIT my stream of consciousness journaling lol. Even though “yes” didn’t feel right, I stopped editing and wrote it down anyway. The rest just flowed through me. Yes WAS the exact right word for my month.

I understood this as my pen explained that I have been saying “no” to myself for my entire life. “No, don’t do that. No, not THAT way. No, you aren’t good enough. No, that isn’t right. No, you can’t have fun because you need to X. No no no no no.” No was even my first word as a baby! I have never given myself affirmation in any way, shape or form. I have never said “YES” to myself. “Yes! You’re doing a great job! Yes, you did that! Yes, you should be proud! Yes, you are enough!”

Even when I’m doing something that supports the life I’m looking to create, like going on a walk, it’s never “Yes! You’re on a walk! Look at you go!” It is instead, “No! You aren’t doing enough. You should have walked every day this week and it’s Friday and this is only your first time out.”

This, my pen told me, was how I got stuck and why I couldn’t escape. It was a build up of a lifetime of No.

How could I ever change something if I knew I was going to be critiqued regardless? What is the point? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t was the life I’d set myself up for over 30+ years.

So this month, I’m making it a point to say YES to myself everywhere possible. To take action wherever I can, acting as if I’m the person I believe I’m meant to be, and saying to myself each time, “YES! This or even better!” Instead of “No, it’s not enough. No, you could be doing more…” just all kinds of YES.

I’m starting with a month so I don’t freak myself out, because after so many years of no, yes is going to be a muscle I have to build. But I am hopeful I’m on my way to a Life of Yes. It feels much lighter, doesn’t it?

Let me know if this resonates with you. Cheers to YES! Or as my friend Nekole says, *tink tink*

Xx,