No

Have you ever known exactly what you wanted but not spoken up because you didn’t want to impose or be difficult or thought of as demanding? Or maybe you don’t even know what you want because you’ve spent so many years denying yourself, either because of the way you were raised or because of societal pressure that still exists for women to be agreeable and accommodating?

When Mark and I were first dating he’d ask me where I wanted to go out to eat and I’d respond with, “I don’t know” or “I don’t care” or “You choose.” Sometimes I really didn’t know, I was paralysed by food choices because of my eating disorder, because I’d been conditioned to deny myself for so long. In my disorder, I’d wanted to eat, I was hungry, but I wouldn’t allow myself any food. I was good, so very good at saying “no” to myself. And the problem with this kind of thinking was that it didn’t just impact my diet and food choices: it trickled into every aspect of my life. Whether I was negotiating for higher pay, in conversation with friends or family. I didn’t know how to speak up for myself. 

Many women don’t, because we’ve been told “no” for so long it became engrained, got into our genes, passed from generation to generation. Then we internalized the no and started speaking it to ourselves. 

When I think about this inability to speak up for myself I can point to a few points of origin. In some cases, I didn’t speak up for what I wanted because I was too afraid of being disappointed by someone elses “no” so it was easier to say no to myself, less risk, less exposure, less potential embarrassment. 

Standing up for what you want can sometimes invite conflict, it requires a negotiation, requires challenging the status quo and as someone who was conditioned by the culture I was raised in towards obedience there was no room for negotiation or conflict, only silent compliance. Society has long held up the construct that women should be agreeable, accommodating and at extremes subservient. 

And so the voice that advocates for us, the voice of our hearts deepest desired is shut up. And we learn not to speak up for what we really want. We tell ourselves ‘no’ before we’ve even gotten a chance to try.  We never have the opportunity to let our ambitious dreams run wild, like a horse put out to pasture. 

But the problem with that "no" is it often leads to us saying "yes" to things we really don't want to do. We say "no" to ourselves and "yes" to everyone else and then wonder why we feel stressed out, burnt out and depressed. 

I’ve seen the fallout of women who have stopped advocating for themselves, who don’t speak up for what they want. Some accept their fate quietly and harbor a wound deep inside. Some become resentful and bitter. Some blame the circumstances around them to pinpoint why they never had a chance at what they wanted. Some lash out aggressively at others or passively because the hurt and disappointment of denying yourself for decades becomes too much for one body to bear. 

I’ve also seen the glorious transformation fo women who find that voice and tune themselves to it. Who work on saying “yes” to themselves and decide to endure the discomfort of “no’s” from the outside, who make peace with conflict and negotiation even though it never feels good.

It starts with asking yourself what you really want, then finding out in what ways you've denied yourself (it could be something as little as food or as big as your biggest dream). And then the hard part: the change. The slow and small steps of rearranging habits, setting boundaries, and keeping them. It's not easy, for sure, but it is a remarkable and beautiful thing to watch a woman learn to speak for herself. 

So what is it that YOU want?

-Sarah