No, You May Not
Welcome to Your Love Breakthrough! Get Real. Love.
In this edition: No, You May Not
Perspective – The Hedges of Mays
Practical Tactics – Liberation in Limitation
Perspective – The Hedges of Mays
The word "May" has various meanings. "Mays" are also the flowers on hedges.
Hedges can serve as protection. But they aesthetically set boundaries around a property or divide sections to distinguish their contents and characteristics. They state welcome to visitors and warning to strangers.
In dating and relationships, we often dish out or are confronted with "no's". With "stay outs". Most of the time, especially in dating, you'll face a "no" more often than not.
Some "no's" strike so deeply that we need room to grieve. Others are just "ouch", or require a "bandage" for a few days.
As adults, though, learning to process the refusals with grace aligns with emotional health the same way that proper digestion involves physical health. We absorb the nourishment, we let the waste and toxins pass through us.
Case in point: I came to despise the adage "rejection is protection." It seemed trite and flippant to me. Many of the failed connections in my dating process, rejections, presented as emotional injuries to me. I needed protection from rejection.
It also implies that the rejector is some harmful person to be protected from.
While that's accurate in some cases, many use the saying to protect themselves from taking responsibility in the dynamic of getting turned down. But owning our part produces understanding and empowerment to avoid repeating the dynamic.
Practical Tactics – Liberation in Limitation
A may hedge isn't a barbed wire fence or a prison.
It's an expression of ownership - mine, yours, not mine, not yours.
Asserting and receiving boundaries can be emotionally charged with defensiveness.
We can practice articulating and receiving no's matter-of-factly and naturally, especially knowing that it's sometimes challenging for both parties.
It can still really sting. We need to process that.
We often think of a refusal as a disenfranchisement or misplacement. It is, at least momentarily, if you were adapted to a partnership or way of partnering that suddenly is no longer available or fruitful.
The displacement gives you a chance to review if you had really felt at home where you were, or if you were just making do and got used to it.
If you reflect and think yes, "that was for me", then you can call, knock, ask to get invited back into that practice in your partnership, or request the one who left to return.
Often, reflection leads us to realize that where we had been was not ever right, or is no longer right. May hedges provide guidance in what and who our destiny holds.
If this email was forwarded to you, Sign up to get uplifting messages from Christy Sanborn Grassman.
What you have you missed? Check out past email messages from Christy Sanborn Grassman.