Sometimes I dislike the term “people pleaser.” It can be just as hard to say “yes” as it is to say “no.” Especially when you are a quote-unquote “people pleaser.” You are constantly evaluating and psychoanalyzing what you are saying “yes” to. Am I being too selfish? Am I making the right choice?
Is that you too?
But there have been times, just like when I have said “no,” that I have learned something invaluable by saying “yes.” Here are 5 of those times:
- Saying yes to dating apps.
- Saying yes to solo traveling.
- Saying yes to putting down a pet (and then yes to moving forwards).
- Saying yes to applying to a super scary conference (with public speaking!)
- Saying yes to swing dancing.
Saying YES to dating apps
It would not be complete if I didn’t include dating apps. Whether you like or dislike them, or your relationship is complicated with them, you have to admit – dating apps changed the dating game. No longer is dating like our grandparents’ in the 1950s where you meet someone, know they are your person, and five months later, you are married. True story. That’s how my grandparents met. They were in the school gymnasium that my grandmother worked at, she was so pretty, Grandpa was a clumsy ole guy and fell in paint, and Grandmother cleaned him up. The rest, as you say, is history.
Cute story, right?
But those stories don’t seem to happen anymore. Men and women are moving across the country, meeting a potential partner online, and relationships are beginning through texts. The first time I signed up on a dating app, it was 2023, and I was in a Year of Me. I know, it sounds like Eat, Pray, Love (which for the record, I have not seen so I only know the basic premise). But it was a year that I was discovering who I was. So I joined Match and I lasted about two weeks.
I met a guy on the app. We just texted, I was hesitant to go further and then I flew up to visit a friend in Colorado. I decided to stay off the site the week I was in Colorado to decide if I want to pursue anything. There, my friend (without knowing I started a dating profile) mentioned Stephanie May Wilson and how she did her LYSL course. I knew who Stephanie May Wilson was and knew that she was having her last live LYSL course. Since I was discovering who I was, I decided I’ll delete my profile and join the course if the LYSL early bird discount was still available. It was.
I stayed off the apps until this year.
This time, I am enjoying the apps more. Although, admittedly, it is still exhausting. But I think that’s just dating in general.
Going back to my grandparents, their love story sounded fairytale and magical. They met, fell in love, and quickly got married and soon daughters, foster kids, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren filled their house through those 67 years. But I know it was hard for them. While my grandpa would say how pretty my grandmother was and that it was evident that he fell for her instantly (by the way he looked at her), my grandmother once told me that she wished she knew some things about my grandfather first. Not that she regretted him. But there were things she wished she knew. I never asked what, but I think it was just things one should know before settling down. Like who the person is, their family, their personality, et cetera. Things that takes time to find out.
The point is that dating apps and the dating game made me realize that no love story goes from A to B. Sometimes it is A to M to N to B. Other times you may never get to B. But you never hear those stories, you hear the short and sweet ones. And saying yes to dating apps taught me about myself.
Lesson Learned: Who I am and what I want out of life.
Saying YES to solo traveling
I grew up traveling.
I have the travel bug and it is incurable.
But it’s different when you solo travel, it is scary.
As I write this, I started to think about my first-ever solo trip. Then I kept going backwards. I think this lesson was a gradual one. I think I gradually said yes at my own pace.
At the age of eighteen, I studied abroad. It was terrifying and exciting. I wasn’t alone though. I flew with 175 other students. I didn’t know them, but I knew we were all heading in the same direction and had the same nerves. During that time, I did trips that the school arranged although one time I took a train to Nottingham and explored by myself. Or when my parents visited me, it was my choice on where we went. I took them to Sir Isaac Newton’s home and to the town’s farmer market and then we explored the small town I was staying in, finding an old cathedral that had a tea shop inside of it. That was my first experience of planning a trip.
In 2021, I visited the same friend mentioned above, but this time for her wedding. Some extra days were added on due to my boss (at the time) and I both requesting to be off that week. I remember thinking I could try and extend my Colorado stay or maybe spend those extra days with my grandparents. I opted for my grandparents. I saw them in 2019, but due to the COVID pandemic I wasn’t able to visit them in 2020. I was overdue for a visit. That was my first time ever driving the four hours to my grandparents’ house by myself. Before then, I either didn’t have a car, my car wasn’t reliable, or I grew accustomed to having my parents or a brother pick me up that I never thought about actually driving myself.
It’s funny how you get stuck in a mindset without realizing it.
But from June 2021, I would make the solo journey to see my grandparents every year until my grandmother’s death in 2024. Since June 2021, I have made several solo trips by myself to visit my parents and brothers too.
Lesson learned: The value of making the choice to visit family and friends.
Saying YES to putting down a pet (and then yes moving to moving forwards)
This one is a sad yes. In the span of three months, I have put two cats down. I had these cats for 15 years. Since I was a high school freshman to being twenty-nine. Those cats taught me how to take care of another living creature, they were with me throughout my teens and twenties. They got me through graduate school and a pandemic. The first one was essentially on hospice for a week because of abdominal cancer. When I took him in for a check-up, I knew I was going to have to euthanize him.
It was hard though.
As I talked to the vet, weighing my options. This cat kept trying to stand up, looking over at me with his big turquoise eyes as a way to say, “It’s okay, Elizabeth.” Even just writing this is bringing tears to my eyes. That cat was taking care of me and trusted me to make the right choice.
Three months later, I came home late and rushed the second cat to the 24 hr vet clinic. It was there when I learned that she had lung cancer. In some ways, saying “yes” to euthanizing that cat was harder. It was sudden. I just had hope the prior day. The cancer just showed up. My pastor actually showed up to the hospital and talked to me about what to do. I said yes. Because just like Honey (the first cat), Effie (second cat) trusted me. I can still remember Effie curled up on the table, facing me as she purrs ever-so loudly as I said my final goodbye. She was not scared, because she trusted me to make the right choice. It was a terribly hard choice to make. One that I sometimes still wonder if it was right, but in the end I knew it was right. Because those cats did not deserve to live in pain or to be hospitalized.
People like to ask if I’ll get another cat. My answer was always the same, “One day… But I don’t know when I’ll be ready.”
In April, I went to a pet adoption fair and met a cat named Penelope.
If you were to ask me that day if I was ready for another cat, I would have shrugged and said “I don’t know.”
If you were to ask me now, I’ll look over at Penelope, all curled up, and just smile, “I don’t know. But I’m glad I said yes.”
Lesson Learned: Sometimes saying yes is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. (And sometimes you might not know why you’re saying yes).
Saying YES to applying to a super scary conference (with public speaking)
Last summer, I spoke at a national conference on a panel about my experience with Childhood Apraxia of Speech, a neurological motor speech disorder. Having a speech disorder, I get anxious with public speaking or even having to engage with someone. While most neurotypical people – am I allowed to say that? Someone told me recently that “neurotypical” is no longer acceptable. If I may, I’d like to describe what I mean by neurotypical. It is a person who does not have any sort of disability that changes how their brain works. Such as autism or apraxia. So for a neurotypical person, I assume speaking is done so without thinking. You think of a word and you say it, you don’t think of your tongue placement or the tone that you use or the fluency of your speech. For me, I think of all those things. I think of how I might say a word, my fluency, my tone, and constantly trying to be one step ahead of my brain.
So last summer, I bravely applied to speak at the national conference and I got in. So now I have to speak in front of speech therapists and parents of apraxia children while sometimes I feel like I can’t speak good. Yes, yes, I meant to write “can’t speak good.” A little grammar humor.
But I did it.
I also met parents who saw me as a person. They did not see me as a girl with apraxia or the girl who talks funny. They saw me. They saw their child’s future and it gave them hope. Which encouraged me to keep speaking and advocating for Childhood Apraxia of Speech, which fun fact this month is Apraxia Awareness Month.
Plus, as a bonus, going to the conference I got to turn Abbi and Katelyn from FaceTime friends to real life friends.
Saying YES to swing dancing
This is a new yes. I started going to swing dancing with a couple of friends. It has been a great way to self-care, exercise, and meet people of a wide variety of ages. It also is empowering. The swing dancing club has a beginner’s class at 8pm, then free dance starting at 9pm. During the beginner’s class, the instructors talked about the leads (men) and the follows (women).
At first glance, the leads had a harder job. Their job is to tell the follow where to go and when to spin. The follow just has to, well, follow and hope for a lead that will spin them around. Because spinning is fun. But there’s more to following. Follows need to keep their hands available and have enough tension that they aren’t being flung across the dance floor. Leads and follows need to also match well with each other. I noticed with every partner I had, each man brought their own personality and their own literal twist to the dance floor. My leads needed to be aware of how I (the follow) was feeling. If I was not feeling a particular turn, they should recognize that and adjust instead of pushing me forwards which puts me at risk of getting hurt.
Swing dancing taught me empowerment and what it means to be pursued and how to act to be pursued.
It’s so easy for people to say, “wait for the guy to pursue you” or “if a guy likes you, he’ll pursue you.” What they don’t tell you is that as a woman, you need to encourage them to pursue you. With swing dancing, if I don’t want to dance, I can sit on the wall and just take a break. Or if I am feeling the music, I can sway or dance to the beat of the music and that signals a lead to ask me. Or if I’m feeling bold, I can ask a lead to dance.
Lesson Learned: The interesting balance of empowerment and putting down my defenses to create something beautiful.
What have you said yes to?
Please share below in comments!
Elizabeth