Has anyone seen the Jim Carrey film “Yes Man”?
In this film, he decides to change his unsatisfactory life by saying yes to everything.
While he ends up modifying his yes stance somewhat, he may have been on to something.
Mindfulness practitioners for many years have understood the effects that saying “no” can have on the body, mind and spirit, especially when we are saying no to our emotions.
And while we can’t agree to everything in life, the following exercise taken from Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance may help illustrate the effects of saying yes to our emotions:
“Sitting quietly, close your eyes and take a few full breaths. Bring to mind a current situation that elicits a reaction of anger, fear, or grief…The more fully you get in touch with the charged essence of the story, the more readily you can access the feelings in your heart and throughout your body. What is it about the situation that provokes the strongest feelings?..Be especially aware of the feelings in your stomach, chest and throat.
In order to see firsthand what happens when you resist experience, begin by experimenting with saying no. As you connect with the pain you feel in the situation you have chosen, mentally direct a stream of no at the feelings. No to unpleasantness of fear, anger, shame or grief. Let the word carry the energy of no – rejecting, pushing away what you are experiencing. As you say no, notice what this resistance feels like in your body. Do you feel tightness, pressure? What happens to the painful feelings as you say no? What happens in your heart? Imagine what your life would be like if, for the next hours, weeks and months, you continued to move through the world with the thoughts and feelings of no.
Take a few deep breaths and let go by relaxing through the body, opening your eyes or shifting your posture a bit. Now take a few moments to call to mind again the painful situation you’d previously chosen, remembering the images, words, beliefs and feelings connected with it. This time let yourself be the Buddha under the bodhi tree, the Buddha inviting Mara to tea. Direct a stream of the word yes at your experience. Agree to the experience with yes. Let the feelings float, held in the environment of yes. Even if these are waves of no – fear or anger that arise with the painful situation or even from doing this exercise – that’s okay. Let these natural reactions be received in the larger field of yes. Yes to the pain. Yes to the parts of us that want the pain to go away. Yes to whatever the thoughts or feelings arise. Notice your experience as you say yes. Is there softening, opening and movement in your body? Is there more space and openness in your mind?…
Continue to sit now, releasing thoughts and resting in an alert, relaxes awareness. Let your intention be to say a gentle YES to whatever sensations, emotions, sounds or images may arise in your awareness.”*
Exercises like this are one more tool that practitioners can use when helping patients review their past experiences so as to create positive future ones.
Would you like to hear more?
Then check out our mindfulness programs.
Please leave a comment, telling how you have used mindfulness to help patients accept their emotions.
*Used with the author’s permission.
getting a masters degree is of course necessary if you want a wage increase and improvement in your career.,
When a client was traumatized by being raped, am I making her say “yes” to her experience of the rape? How might this work for rape victims or sexual assault victims? I am imagining that as these victims bring the experience to focus, they will be re-experiencing what they experienced during the assault. How can saying “yes” to the experience make them heal?
Thank you.
It wouldn’t be about approving of the experience or associated PTSD symptoms. But, saying yes to or allowing the feelings/sensations/thoughts that they have been avoiding. Learning to adopt a different, more open and compassionate stance when responding to painful or uncomfortable inner experience. Resistance and avoidance of this inner experience (and external stimuli that trigger these experiences) have been demonstrated to maintain ptsd symptoms.
First of all, you don’t have to apologize for what you believe in. 🙂 I’m not at all surprised that you have guardian angels, or, spirit guides. I do too. We all do, but those who do not share in these beliefs will never come to know or ‘see’ theirs. It has nothing to do with religion of any kind. I do not share your beliefs in a christian god though, those beliefs belong to you, respectfully.. . I do believe in a higher intelligence of ‘some kind’ just not the biblical kind, speaking from my own experience. I receive my messages in very vivid dreams, or, right before I wake up I will see something written in my mind’s eye or hear something. I’m not psychic, but from time to time I receive messages about future events or circumstances that are happening in my life now that do come true. I have also heard from my relatives that have passed on. Removing all doubt about the spirit realm.. . Also, being very careful with regards to what you are listening to or being told. Be sure you hold on to your heart and mind and lovingly guard and protect them at all times. Always use discretion, no matter how much you trust your guides, making sure nothing else, of a negative nature, sneeks in.
I am not sure if it has just taken me this long (about 20 years and lots of work on myself), or if these series on Mindfulness that have been presented by NICABM are making more sense to me, but I have finally been able to really get Mindfulness going for myself. I cannot stress enough what a truly wonderful gift it is to practice addressing thoughts as they arise, making a choice, and resting in peace. I had the experience last week, for the first time in 58 years, of being quiet. No buzz, hum, what ifs, just peaceful quiet. Talk about a powerful motivator to continue with the practice of mindfulness! I can truly offer this to clients with the knowledge that if they persist, they too can reach this state.
“Just say yes” may be the antithesis of the honest feelings deeply routed within our hearts. Does one compromise our life standards, or principles of integrity to “accept” (or ease up) on what is unacceptable with utilizing an affirmative word?
Do we say “yes” to the carnage in our world..so by viewing the pain of our own or others as less than it is, we can be more positive or feel better? Surely forgiveness can be enlightening, but dealing with devastatingly painful ongoing situations need to be dealt with, not just accepted.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful mindfulness practice. I notice while I did the practice how much more energy it took to push away painful emotions that it takes just to sit with what is without judgment.
A very useful and powerful exercise to experiment with to discover how the way we are with something affects that something. It reminds me of the initial steps of something called “focusing” a deeply aware and compassionate process for self inquiry originated by Eugene Gendlin that I use a lot in my personal process as well as with clients.
THE CLOAKED VOICE
In all things resides a song
cloaked by the passing cloud of time-
The pain of too much loss;
the ripening ache
of undiscovered days;
the falling and long continuance
to climb the Mountain’s peak;
the dark gravity
of named and unnamed desperation,
even the strategy of the tongue
salvaging some gnawing betrayal
with a quick slice of the human heart-
In all things resides a song
only shrouded in its desire,
to free the voice
of yes
The emotions we experience are a testimony to how powerfully we connect to ourselves and the people or things we care about. Civilization/culturization has done us a grand dis-service to limit the spectrum of expression. We practitioners need to continue supporting people in honoring their hearts.
What a nice tickle to see this long passage from Tara Brach, who is a friendly acquaintance of mine from when I was doing inter-religious dialogue work in Washington, DC. I look forward to the interview.
Your blog reminds me also of something Daniel Siegel does in a couple of his books (“Mindsight” and “The Mindful Therapist”), and that is to just sit and say to oneself, a little slowly, “No, no, no, no, no, no,” and to pay close attention to what one is feeling in one’s body. Then do the same but say, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” and feel what one is feeling.
But where he actually is headed is to something more like this “exercise” of Tara’s that you offer. Thanks for this post.
Greetings Ruth,
And many thanks for sharing Tara’s exercise. You asked what we do with our clients regarding emotional courage and awareness.
What I have always called awareness is the first thing I teach clients. And it takes courage to do so. Then comes the second step of being with the feelings: this includes much of what Tara describes (although I’ve not used the “yes”/”no” strategy and am grateful to learn of it) as well as skills to moderate the feelings. This is all necessary to enter the next step which is to listen to the message of the feeling and to do a reality check with it. Finally, comes the last of the four steps: to decide (and it’s an option, not a requirement) whether to express the feeling or act upon it.
Clients can learn these steps and become emotionally honest and competent. In other words, they can really learn to utilize this amazing guidance system we have, called emotions. And it’s so much more that “tolerating” and “managing” the feelings, which, I believe, is a shortcoming of many systems that focus on making them go away, rather than listening and learning from them. But first we need to be aware and mindful.
There’s a short article on our website called “The Power and Peace of Awareness” that one can download and that details these four steps a bit more.
Would love to hear from others. Andrew
Ruth, thank you so much for this lovely post. I’ve put it on my Facebook page, as it strikes me as a particularly useful exercise to do on one’s own.
So many spiritual teachers tell us that it’s not the events of life that cause our suffering, but our reactions to them. This exercise is a great way to train ourselves to simply accept the events of life, and the emotional charges we often feel toward them, as they come. Thank you for sharing it!
hello Ruth , i decided to say a loud YES to …….you
now i have to wait for your reply .