No thank you

There are times in my life that I take on things I would rather not. Sometimes I take on work, some times I take on chores at home, sometimes I volunteer for tasks I would prefer not doing. Sometimes I take on things that not only do I not want to do, but that don't really belong to me: I take on judgments of others that I hear from this person or that, I take on feelings about a situation that may have no basis in reality, I take on ideas and ideals that I haven't had time to sit and think about, I take on guilt or negative emotion that doesn't serve me well in the long run but sticks to me in the moment.

I think there are times we have to say "no thanks": to the negative thoughts that creep into our minds, to the judgments pressed upon us by others who presume to know us, to the burden of not living up to expectations real or imagined, to disappointing ourselves or others who believe in us. It's these ideas that sneak in and do real harm by taking us down a notch, by making us feel smaller or less important or less proud or less happy. These shadows cling to us and hang on us and drag us away from where we seek to go and bury us beneath their weight.

But if we don't fight the darkness and say "no thank you" instead, the shadows move along, the darkness fades away. When we simply shrug off what we don't want to take on we disperse the energy from it; we make it weaker by not giving it credence, we make it less real by giving it less consideration. "No thank you" means that we can simply walk away, we can simply move along, we can simply be ourselves in a lighter and freer space.

After all, this is the life.
Love,
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