Yes and...

This week is kind of light on 'busy-ness' for me. I like it. I know I'll fill the time sufficiently and I've decided to play a little game this week (or maybe just today). This morning I awoke with the words "yes and..." in my head and I remembered my mentor Michele Woodward has described this approach to living where you say "yes and...." and/or "no but...". So when you say yes, you actually say yes and add to it to clarify or define more what you're going to do. The "no but..." is where you authentically say no to something, but come up with something else that feels more like what you're willing to do. This feels like a fun experiment to see how much more I feel engaged in what I do and how I do it.

Before even posting this I tried it on for size. My daughter asked me to help her tie her shirt and I said "yes...and...I'll give you a hug afterward". Just remembering that exchange gives my heart a little warm stir. That little moment of declaring that and then following through totally shifted my perspective and helped me to feel good about the morning hustle and bustle of kid management. Then, my friend called and asked if I could walk at 9:30am. I said "no...but...I can do it at 11:15am". We could have easily written off the walk if I had just said "no-can-do"...but the BUT allowed us to come up with another workable solution.

I'm already on a roll and excited to see what adventures I whip up (or misadventures I avoid) by saying yes and no with that extra oomph to it. Right now I say "yes I will post this blog AND I will change the picture of the month because it's March"...FABULOUS!