You can’t edit what doesn’t exist. You have to write it, speak it, then you can decide what to keep or let go.

Sara Fagan-Hirsch

What’s the most powerful word in your vocabulary? Mine has only two letters, yet it packs a punch greater than Goku’s kamehameha. One syllable that’s more definitive than a full stop. Some even say it’s bold enough to be both the answer and reason. Have you cracked it yet? No? Well, actually that’s it. The word is ‘no’.

Optimists are naturally ‘yes’ people, and I’m an eternal optimist! To an optimist, saying yes is the same anticipation a kid feels with a Kinder surprise in their hand. When you talk about ideas with me, I see it as an exciting opportunity to create possibilities. Think of it like a metaphorical door that I just can’t wait to walk through.

It’s a great tool to move you forward if you feel stuck in life. Don’t think, just say yes. It moves you from a space of fearing what hasn't happened yet to becoming the change you want to see. I said yes to facing my fear of public speaking and it brought spoken word into my life. I said yes to trusting myself, so I started solo hiking. I said yes to dating men that weren’t ‘my usual type’ and they showed me what I actually needed in a relationship to be happy. Those lessons even helped me to write my first book. Thanks guys! Each door I opened changed my trajectory like a pinball machine cracking the highest score.

If saying yes has made such a great impact on my life, why does the word no sit at the apex of my vocabulary? The answer came to me at my first poetry mentoring session with Sara Fagan-Hirsch recently. Google her, she’s amazing. Sara was giving feedback on a piece I had written and shared some of her own editing processes. “You can’t edit what doesn’t exist. You have to write it, speak it, then you can decide what to keep or let go.”

The poem is called ‘Pages’, quite fitting really. It’s about the day I realised that over the years, I was in fact dating the same emotionally unavailable man, just with a different face. I had to write about him in glorious metaphors over and over again to finally become the woman who was ready to hear the truth. On the page I saw my own resistance to vulnerability. I too was emotionally unavailable.

Write it. Speak it. What do I keep and what do I let go?

I say no to romanticising past mistakes. To him who will be, I say no to making you ‘prove yourself’ to me before I choose to be emotionally available. I say no to being scared of what hasn’t happened yet (and may never will). By saying no to people and things that don’t align with my values, it will hold space for those that do when they come along. Saying yes has opened many doors in the past (opportunities and adventures that I may never have had otherwise), and now what I say no to becomes the gatekeeper to what I choose to keep from that. I have plenty more of this story to write, and hopefully, I can throw in some glorious metaphors in the chapters to come.

xo Ronna Grace

fivefootronna is Ronna Grace Funtelar - a thirtyish adventurer, sometimes poet and lover of cheese. She has a unique brand of optimism that is a combination of her great enthusiasm for life and cups of coffee during the day.