14
From the Editor’s Desk: YES. and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. — James Joyce, Ulysses
yes is an opening up to life, to fully experiencing what can be.
The sublime yes.
There is, as always, an exception. As Tara Brach says, “If we have been traumatized in the past, old feelings of terror may be triggered…our attempts at Yes might actually end up flooding us with fear. For the time being, saying No to what feels like too much, and Yes to what simply works to keep us balanced, is the most compassionate response we can offer ourselves.”
The most important single coping technique in my toolbox for EDS, for life, is the word “yes.” Will I get out of bed this morning? Yes. Will I answer someone’s question today? Yes. Our lives, particularly as people with all the challenges of EDS, can be filled with “no” so easily. At times, for some of us, it becomes an automatic response, the simplest answer. Instead of wondering whether or not we'll be able to manage an adventure, why not just say no to the possibility of disappointment? The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure. — Joseph Campbell No builds walls. Yes opens paths. Sometimes no seems inevitable. But saying no can instead be viewed as saying yes to something else, to something more important. No, I can’t work in the yard today — because I’m saying yes to going to the opera tonight. No, I won’t take a proton pump inhibitor to manage reflux — I’m going to say yes to other solutions that allow me better digestive access to nutrients.
The tension between ‘yes’ and ‘no’, between ‘I can’ and ‘I cannot’, makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one’s self. — Anatole Broyard I was a few months shy of the age of six when I failed my first test. I came home from my first day of school with a note from the school nurse saying I hadn’t passed a physical examination for flat feet, along with a sheet of exercises to develop my arches. I was ashamed, somehow thinking the failure was personal. But my mother just laughed, threw it all away, and said, “Exercises won’t help your feet, believe me. You’ve got the family joints.”
‘No’ is always an easier stand than ‘Yes.’ — Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Across my life, I’ve learned how deep in my family those joints ran, and how despite some extreme difficulties, we had nonetheless triumphed generation after generation in unexpected ways. My mother’s problems were different than those faced by her mother and aunt, yet each of them managed to overcome significant challenges despite their bodies to live extraordinary lives. They each found paths that were examples to me of how to continue to say yes through life, and more, how to help others find their own voices to say yes.
Yes isn’t necessarily easy, though. Yes isn’t positive thinking, something superficial to make us feel all better by getting rid of those nasty feelings. Saying
Edvard Ehlers’ case study was published in 1901, the year my grandmother was born. EDS was named in 1936 when my mother was three. Both were gone
Can I do the housework today, can I get to the store — maybe not, but can I lift my soul with music, can I watch the birds in the trees and the sun on the grass? Yes.
AUTUMN
2015