Saying Yes and Feeling No

Every time you say “yes” but really,  “feel No”, you block yourself, ignore yourself, smother your voice and you end up feeling sadness and anger. When we don’t allow who we are, what we think and how we feel to be expressed in our life, a little part of us dies inside, we don’t allow ourselves to exist. We feel purposeless, empty, not worthy and powerless. When I started my journey with Living on the inside 7 years ago I began to observe myself. I had spent a lifetime observing others, knowing what they needed, how they felt, what they liked and disliked, how to please them , even manipulate them if I wanted to. It was survival for me to know the people around me so that I new what to expect, how to react and what I needed to do to keep the peace. And I did keep the peace ……. for everyone except myself. If they were happy, I was happy. If they were sad, I was sad, If they were angry, I was upset. The result ~ Anxiety and Depression! I had trained my mind to never think about myself, to ignore myself. Everything I thought about and acted on was based on how the people around me were feeling and what they were doing. I invested myself in all of the things that were completely out of my control. The day that I actually recognized this was the day that I wrote in my journal ~ “I’m not going to live this way anymore” When I began observing myself, it was difficult because I was unfamiliar with how I felt, what I thought, and what I liked or disliked. It took time to recognize the feelings that were “mine” because my mind was trained to know everyone else’s. I actually said yes and felt No, and observed how I felt and learned that I was sad and angry because I never chose me. I saw what I was doing to myself … I would make some plans for the weekend, things that I wanted to accomplish and was kinda excited about but at the end of the weekend I would see that I pushed them aside to help someone else fulfill their plans. I was always making room for everyone else and ignoring what I wanted. I realized that there was no one to be angry with but myself. I was making myself sad and angry. I was saying Yes to everyone else and No to me. By listening to myself I have brought some joy to my life by allowing myself to be who I am. My struggle in this life is not in loving others, I am very good at that ~, it is in loving myself and allowing myself in my life. I work on it everyday but it is not a burden, it is my passion and my purpose. My journey has taught me that I am gifted in knowing others but the greatest gift of this life has been found in knowing myself.