What we most need in order to support our own development is the capacity to say no to ourselves.

No to our habits, no to our preferences, no to our compulsions, no to doing the same thing we’ve done again and again because we like it, or because it’s familiar, or because of all of our explanations that the world and I are this way.

Our surrounding culture doesn’t do much to support this move. Mostly we’re socialised into saying yes – we come to believe that the answer to all our difficulties is saying yes to more activity (which leads us into busyness) or yes to more consumption (which numbs us to our more genuine needs).

Until we can start to muster a sufficiently strong no to ourselves, we find ourselves imprisoned in a repetitive cycle of our own making.

But if we want to be able to step into a bigger world of possibility for own lives and those around us, no to ourselves is the first and most necessary step.

Photo Credit: harold.lloyd via Compfight cc