What a Muddy Garden Taught Me About Saying No
Saying no isn't working as well as you thought it would because you don't know what you want to say yes to, yet.
I remember years and years ago every book I read, every podcast I listened to, there was a push to say no.
What do you need to say no to?
Where do you need to put up boundaries?
What do you need to stop doing?
I loved the idea of it. But when I tried to put it into practice, it fell apart. And I wasn't the only one.
People would start saying no, no, no only to find that the big dramatic changes they were promised weren't happening. There was a missing piece: super clear intentions.
Cut to this past weekend.
I was standing in the rain, covered in mud and dirt, plants everywhere, and I had just reached that critical point in the growing season where I had to start making tough decisions. There were just too many plants in the bed for any of them to thrive. And I was having a real issue deciding what to let go of.
How could I say no to any of them when they had such potential?
And then a thought – or maybe an intuitive nudge – dropped in and reminded me it wasn't about saying no as much as it was about yes. What did I want to say yes to?
Something shifted in that moment. I tapped back into what I had decided my intentions were for my garden this year and what I had learned from last year's garden.
Yes to tomatoes on this side, but not that side.
Yes to more cucumbers and zucchini and making sure they have space to grow.
The bee balm grew well, didn't take much effort, and the bees loved it. Yes to more of that.
I really wanted more cut flowers this year.
And as I went through my list of yeses, I realized I was figuring out the no's at the same time. Because with each yes, something had to be let go to make it happen.
My intentions were the missing ingredient. When I switched to using them as a decision making tool, all of a sudden I became really clear on what needed to happen.
For me, the only way to know what to say no to was to know what I wanted to say yes to first.
What is a burning hell yes in your life right now? And what has to drop away to make more room for that?
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