Awhile back, on the subway, I ran into a former colleague from my Sony Music days. It was good to see her again, and we spent the next few stops chatting about what we’d been doing lately. We’d last seen each other a few years before at the “Farewell to All That” going away soiree I threw for a couple hundred of my closest co-workers, musician friends, and community, corporate and non-profit partners in the exclusive Sony Club. It was a wonderful affair and a fitting end to both my department and my 20 years with the company.
My friend said she was still occasionally temping with the company, along with teaching several college courses and giving private instruction to a few music students. Her calendar was booked solid. I don’t remember what we were talking about – a yoga class, massage, or something in the self care line – but her response was that she did not have any time. Besides work, she had too many obligations she’d committed to. She said it regretfully, but with an air of finality, as if the demands on her time were way beyond her control.
That’s when these words rolled off my tongue and rang in the air like a mantra or some hip TV ad tagline. “No to them means yes to you.”
Think of it! We load up our calendars with obligations large and small that eat up our time and suck the life out of our psychic energy bodies. They range from commitments we make to our children’s school, favors we promise to do for friends, errands for family members we squeeze into an already packed day, and the committee we volunteer to chair because no one else will, to the employee whose work we end up doing over because it’s easier than correcting them, or the staff party for which we stay up late baking a cake.
This way of overloading our lives turns into a habit because we become “reasonable” with our commitments to ourselves. We reason our way out of our resolutions. When we make the commitment to, say, walk each morning, or meditate at night, we leave mental room for “unless something else comes up.”
Why do we over commit to others and under commit to ourselves? It’s more than because we are such nice people. If we look deeply enough, we might see an unwillingness to appear uncooperative, a desire to avoid conflict, a need to control everything, an urge to be liked at all costs, or an appalling lack of self love. When we act as if everybody else comes first, we are saying that we come last.
The trick to maintaining optimal self care is to put ourselves first on our list of things to do every day, and then becoming completely unreasonable about keeping our word to ourselves. My friend, the masterful coach Alicia Marie taught me that. She’s the mother of 5 who fits her athletic pursuits into her day, every day. She’s a better mother, mate, coach and woman because of it.
Every time you say no to some extra request, and stop yourself from giving away too much of your time and energy, you say yes to your own health, yes to your own life. And if you believe you are made in the image and likeness of the Divine, then you’re saying yes to the God in you, too.
