Learning to Find Your Yes and No

Last week we talked about what boundaries actually are — not walls or confrontations, but the honest lines that allow you to show up fully for yourself and the people you love. This week I want to go a layer deeper.  Because knowing what boundaries are is one thing.  Feeling them — in your body, in real time — is something else entirely.

Here's what I've learned after two decades in bodywork: your body has been tracking your boundaries your entire life.  Long before you had language for it, your nervous system was registering yes and no — opening toward what felt safe and nourishing, contracting away from what didn't.  That intelligence hasn't gone anywhere.  It's been there all along, underneath the noise of should and sorry and I don't want to make this awkward.

The practice isn't learning something new.  It's coming back to what the body already knows.

What yes feels like

Think of something you love without reservation.  A person, a place, an activity, a moment that is an easy, uncomplicated yes.  Let it be real and specific.  Now notice — what happens in your body?  Does something open or lift?  Does your breath deepen?  Is there a warmth or a quiet pull forward?

That is your body's yes.  It is unmistakable once you learn to feel for it.  A sense of expansion.  An opening in the chest.  Energy that moves toward rather than away.  Breath that deepens rather than shortens.

What no feels like

Now bring to mind something you've been saying yes to when your body meant no.  An obligation that feels heavy.  A commitment you dread before it even begins.  Don't analyze it — just notice.  Does something tighten?  Does your jaw, your belly, your shoulders respond?  Does your breath shorten or hold?

That is your body's no.  It is equally unmistakable — once you stop overriding it.

Every body speaks a little differently.  Trust your own signals above any list.  You are the expert on you.

Why we stop listening

If the body has always known, why do so many of us end up so far from our own yes and no?  Because we were taught — most of us, especially women — to override the body's signals in favor of keeping the peace, meeting the expectation, being agreeable.  We learned to distrust our own knowing.

Chronic stress, persistent pain, deep exhaustion — these are often the body's last resort.  What happens when the quieter signals have been overridden for too long.  The body finds a way to enforce the boundaries the mind won't.  I saw this in my massage practice for years.  I lived it myself.

This is the practice of the Summer Solstice season — the time of peak light, full illumination. The sun at solstice holds nothing back.  It shows us exactly what is there.  This month, I'm inviting you to let the same light in.  To look honestly at where your body has been sending signals you've been too busy, too obligated, too afraid to hear.

A simple practice to try this week

Before you answer the next request that comes your way — an email, an invitation, a favor asked — pause. Take one breath.  And check in: does this feel like yes or does this feel like no?  Not what you think you should feel.  What you actually feel, in the body, right now.

You don't have to act on it immediately.  You don't have to say no out loud.  Just notice.  Start building the habit of checking in before you respond.  That pause — that single breath — is where everything begins to change.