Living Yes Principles
Living Yes begins with observing the behaviors in self and others in various contexts. We learn to recognize how Life itself is providing repeated opportunities for us to Live Yes, based on the ongoing choices we are making. By observing our emotional response to each of our life’s events, we apply insights to identify barriers. We reveal our resistance (find the No) and accept the core truth of the situation (Live Yes).
Living Yes does not mean saying “Yes” to everything, faking positivity, or pretending that what we think is always true. That is avoidance.
Living Yes offers an opportunity to manage our unconscious, automatic reacting. By Living Yes, we overcome such self-destructive habits as blame, resentment, undue anxiety, unnecessary frustration, expectations of fairness, complaining, criticizing, gossiping, or making unnecessary demands on ourselves and on others.
Living Yes means realizing that anger or shame are possible only if we believe in our rigid version of the past, and that there can be no anxiety, worry, or fear if we stop working to control the future.
Living Yes means being honest about our feelings, our distorted thoughts, and our relationship with Life.
Living Yes means we recognize that what we think is not the same as who we are. We engage in the ongoing battle against our falsely held beliefs. We notice our separating responses (find the No), and we identify our constructive behaviors (Live Yes in context). We use our free will to make choices, overcome fate, and create destiny.
Living Yes means we identify the signals and meanings of each event that is offered to us by Life as it is. We accept the lessons of reality. We choose to accept Life’s gifts in full, even if we don’t like what is being offered and even if we have failed to do so in the past.
When we realize that we have not been “meeting life on Life’s terms,” we examine our own attitude and accept the lessons of reality that are being offered to us by Life as it is. In our personal context, we take responsibility to change our attitude and improve our choices.
From awareness, we move forward by accepting what is being offered. We notice and experience our thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. We let go of resistance.
Once we say “Yes,” we have chosen our outlook. In each situation that arises, we use the opportunity to stand on our truth by taking concrete action in a values-centered direction.
We continue to Live Yes by moving forward: through faith in what is greater than we are, confidence in our humanity, and bold action resulting from our clarity, while we continuously plumb the deep well of peace.
Living Yes means accepting everything that happened in the past and having zero expectations of the future. This is done by knowing that the present moment is infinite.
Living Yes means we accept our limitations honestly and balance them with our faith in the connectedness of all Life, which is commonly called love. We discover that making this quantum change in ourselves produces a sea change in our world.
Living Yes means we constantly open our hearts and minds to do what our truest inner self is being called to do.
Living Yes means being right here, right now, in all of Life’s glories and all of its pains. Those who Live Yes know that suffering is part of the human experience. By Living Yes, we do not become attached to that suffering. Instead we evolve into a new state, which is found in the silence that lies behind the veil of our conscious awareness.
When we Live Yes with deep humility and infinite gratitude, we find ourselves present in a newfound peace, reconnected to our essential self. In order to Live Yes, we must continually discover where we are saying “No,” and that is where the work of Living Yes begins.