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Sometimes, love says no.

By August 2, 2012 45 Comments

I’ve been thinking about the “If-you-don’t-have-anything-nice-to-say-don’t-say-anything-at-all” thing. It might surprise you, but I’m not a fan.

Most of us gals were raised on some form of this notion. We grew up into lovely caring grownups who always want to be positive.

Here’s my problem with that. You can’t be awake to what’s happening in the world right now and also always be calm and sharing something positive. Not in this insane world where:

25 % of American children — 1 in 4 — live in poverty.
Almost 1 in 100 Americans are in prison.
Globally, 1 out of 3 women is beaten or sexually assaulted during her lifetime.
We are wreaking havoc on our planet — with no plan in place to course correct.

Caring women and men around the world are angry and sad about all this, but we often shy away from raw, passionate critique about the status quo because

we don’t want to be angry.
we don’t want to be negative.
we don’t want to just talk about the problem, if we have no solution to bring to the table.

We’ve been scarred by the times the skeptic stood across from us and said, “Well, it doesn’t sound like you have anything to propose instead. This is obviously just how the real world has to be.”

Lately, I’ve been noticing how many of us (myself included) have come to feel it’s wrong, unattractive, or toxic to criticize something, unless we have a complete, plug-and-play, flawless solution ready to offer.

But what if the deep order of things is that solutions arise after a critical mass declares:”No more!”?

What if it is sometimes necessary to say no to reveal what you want to say yes to?

I am working on courageously saying those big no’s of protest without feeling like I have to have solutions in order to do so. I want you to come with me—not only because it’s less scary to do it alone, but also because I think your doing so will serve the world.

Can you give yourself permission to say your honest, heartfelt critiques even when you don’t have a solution to share?

Give yourself to permission to simply say no to the systems — an educational system, a health care system, a financial system, a food system — that do not place human health and communal wellbeing at the center. Say no. Say, “this is insane.” Say, “we’ve lost our way.” Say, “this isn’t the way it has to be.”

Saying no to the systems as they are can be an act of fierce love.

Sometimes, before it can say anything else, love says no.

In saying no, we get in touch with the goodness in us, the decency that demands something better for humanity. There is a place in each of us that became so sad long ago, as we each witnessed the everyday inhumanity of the world. It probably happened in you before age 8 or so.

That part still mourns daily for what happens daily on earth.

Let that part speak, and cry, and say no more.

We have yet to see what an ocean of compassionate tears can do.

Love,

Tara

Join the discussion 45 Comments

  • Rebecca in Switzerland says:

    Yes, yes, yes! I often start my heartfelt critique with, “We can do better than this!” or “I think we can do better.” That’s a nice segue into, “What else can we do?” and we’re off to the races getting creative in no time. Thanks for this.

  • i adore this post and you. I have been mulling these thoughts too – how do we keep standing up in the face of our pain and bewilderment? Especially if we feel unable to fix or help? I think this is rich territory, off to write. Thanks my friend!

  • Tara – Thank you for putting into words what I’ve been thinking, and more to the point, feeling for the past few months! This is the loving kindness, compassion, empahty and connection that call us to something far bigger than our ourselves. I haven’t quite known whether or how to express it, but your post has given me a necessary nudge to try.

  • Rebecca says:

    Wonderful post. So true. When we repress our critiques in the name of “courteousness” or “no better alternative” we block ourselves and others from actually coming together to find solutions. Thanks for your encouragement.

  • Well said, Tara. So many of us are programmed to be happy all the time when in essence real happiness comes when we are able to really feel sad and be affected by events around us. Then we feel true happiness from a deeper place. Thank you for the push and Rebecca thank you for the YES to this No!

  • JC says:

    Amen! and Thank you for this!
    I’ve often thought about this, especially when I’m thinking about how to be a model for my children. I see their gut reactions to what is right and wrong in this world and then I see how those reactions (and mine) are often tempered or changed by what the media puts forth, how the world “is,” what is accepted or cool or okay. I want to, and I want them to, find a way to say and be okay with standing up to wrong even when we don’t know the exact course to right.
    As always, so grateful for your words, Tara.

  • I am amazed that I just found you yesterday and then you post this.I just recently wrote a piece on our own collective mediocrity = how we do not take that stand. I see it in myself and in others. Here is an excerpt. I’d be interested in finding a group of women writers where this is what they are waking up to. Wouldn’t it be powerful if we found a collective voice!

    This is a time of taking a stand for something more. To not be okay with mediocrity. This is a time to fight for our lives, but not fist to fist, or to lash out in anger against the ‘perpetrators’. Instead it is a time to stand with an open stance, open hands and an open heart to both welcome the rage we experience and to see we are at cause of our present collective circumstances. In that moment, we both feel the rage and brought down to our knees in humility, seeing how we have so easily fooled ourselves. This time in our planetary existence requires for the fire in our belly to burn. But the fire must be acted upon with great care, great responsibility and with great love.

  • KH says:

    Yeah! Thank you. I want to say no and I want to be able not to feel guilty when I have no love and get angry… It can be better to be better… 😉

  • henrietta Daphne says:

    hi. Tara you are a real gift and blessing I wish to meet some day. I’m time and again inspired by your logical writings.
    Love you always !

  • Caryn Aviv says:

    Hi Tara: yes, yes, yes. Recognizing injustice and saying no to it is the first step in social change. The second step is having the courage to imagine something else, something different, something better. Marge Piercy has a line in her poem “The Art of Blessing” that I think about every day:

    “What we want to change we curse and then pick up a tool….If you can’t bless it, get ready to make it new.”

    Inspiration for action.

    -Caryn

  • […] This morning, I was reading this post by Tara Sophia Moore. […]

  • I was just watching Marianne Williamson on Super Soul Sunday and what really resonated with me was when she said that in every species, the female protects the children at all costs. And that the earth & the world’s children are “our children” yet we are not standing up to protect them.

    Great post!

  • Margaret Lacy says:

    Thank you, again. Sometimes I think that those of us who care are in the majority, but the voices of the opposition are louder. Imagine combining our numbers with a little volume.

  • Katie says:

    YES! A great big Yes! It’s so good to hear someone else articulate this. I was raised to believe that Speaking Truth To Power was a moral imperative…and that Truth is seldom “nice” (of course, I may be one of the few females of my generation who really never aspired to be nice…or sweet. Kind and generous, yes. But those characteristics are often not nice as well.).

    I firmly believe that we must speak that truth broadly so that more voices will be willing to stand up and say “No. We go no further. We stop here. We shall no longer tolerate this.” And the whole “What have you got to offer instead” is now and always has been and will continue to be a red herring, a way to avoid listening and acting. A solution cannot arise if you will not admit there is a problem.

    Go Tara! Speak!

  • amy says:

    Once again you’ve so beautifully hit the nail on the head. Yes. I left a career in international social justice because the disconnect between the optimists and the reality on the ground was overwhelming to me. Saying No, and linking arms with others in that collective despair, is the beginning of an alternative path. One that might actually lead us somewhere.
    Your brilliance lights the world. Thank you, sweet friend.

  • I love this so much and have been trying for the last decade to figure out how to say NO – to really open my heart to the feelings that instinctually arise – while a) not being leveled by the intensity of them (early adulthood was spent metaphorically knocked out on my back because of them, which, at least for that decade, didn’t seem to serve the world very much) and b) finding the inner resources necessary to think creatively and hopefully about how to create the systems/world I want. When I’m depressed and despairing, I can’t do that kind of thinking very well.

    Maybe the life I’m living right now is a result of the ocean of tears that I cried, though. So maybe there’s no need to try to do both at the same time. Maybe letting the ocean wash over us is a baptism…

  • Cynthia H says:

    Living in poverty as a single, disabled parent, the rage that I felt was almost my undoing. But I discovered that speaking out was an antidote; taking positive action was a cure. Living my reality, yet working to change that reality for myself and others.

    Being online is a gift in so many ways. I have an email account dedicated to online advocacy. The changes that I’ve seen in the past 10 years in attitudes and the willingness to speak up, to reach out, are phenomenal, not just in the US, but world wide.

    Despair? Rage? I understand both. But we have to learn to acknowledge them and transform them, to use that energy to re-create what we know in our innermost beings needs to change.

    We need to believe that each and every action taken, no matter how small or inconsequential it may seem to us, helps to create or re-create our realities.

  • Anja says:

    Ii agree with you Tara.The other day , we had a workshop named “Together, we are stronger or weaker” regarding on how well do NGO’s cooperate among themselves here in Dubrovnik/Croatia. After debate we came to conclusion that it is very important to have initiatives and activism. A representativ of one NGO , declared as anarchist made one very string statement: everithing counts…so if you have an initiative that doesn’t pull through completely it still is worty…everything counts. Black people in America didn’t get their rights acknowledged and practicaly implemented from the first attempt. It took a lot of effort but every single action counted. So yes, everything counts and sometimes some amount of accumulation of single energies is required before real shift can happen. But with persistance it can and will happen.

  • Sara Ellis Conant says:

    Thank you Tara. It is so easy to turn away from the pain of our world, because it is so intense. I love the image of an ocean of compassionate tears and can’t wait to see what it will do! Love you!

  • mjw says:

    thank you for this! xo

  • […] … Sometimes, love says no. (via Tara Sophia Mohr) […]

  • Tara says:

    So true, Jeanne – I love your point. We are missing that deeper root of happiness in our culture.

  • Tara says:

    Bewilderment is such a good word here – haven’t thought of it that way before, but it’s true – the worldy insanity is so extreme it can leave us feeling utterly bewildered.

  • Tara says:

    Beautifully said, Carolyn.

  • Tara says:

    Yes!! It’s really a new insight for me that I’m trying to bring into my life day to day.

  • Tara says:

    Oh, that’s fascinating. I imagine that must be hard to watch (the tempering part). How beautiful that you are aware of that in them and can talk with them about. Grateful for your words too, JC.

  • Tara says:

    I feel your fire. Something powerful is emerging through you. May you trust it and create from it!

  • Tara says:

    Thank you Caryn. The idea of “courage to imagine” is intriguing to me…I have never thought of it that way before!

  • Tara says:

    YES! I loved that too. So powerful.

  • Tara says:

    I think that’s so true, and it seems most of the polls done show it is true. That’s one of the reasons corporate influence in politics is so devastating to me right now – the decisions being made are in stark opposition to what the majority of citizens want. I’m increasingly compelled by the thinkers who are arguing that corporate power in government is the underlying thread preventing us from addressing many of our collective problems – from the increasing gap between have and have nots, to climate change. Thanks, Margaret.

  • Tara says:

    Woo hoo!! Thank you Katie!!

  • Tara says:

    “Saying No, and linking arms with others in that collective despair, is the beginning of an alternative path. ” – I’m so drawn to this idea right now – the mystery of it and the question of where that could lead.

  • Tara says:

    Hmmm….so my question is around saying the “no” – does that in itself help decrease the intensity of the feelings? Does it help them move through you?

  • Tara says:

    Thank you Cynthia. It’s great to hear that you feel like you’ve seen so much positive change over the past 10 years- that’s heartening to me! And thank you for sharing some of your personal story too. Love to you.

  • Tara says:

    Thank you Anja. I love that your voice can join us from Croatia for this dialogue. Amazing.

  • Tara says:

    Yes, let’s find out.

  • […] can replace judging, expectation, or hurry.   Three recent highlights from the blog:   1. Sometimes, love says no. I’d been talking with my close friends about this topic, thinking about this topic, […]

  • Inga Michaelsen says:

    Wow, great post and great responses. I resonate with all that was shared. Time and time again I find myself stuck in the different forms of how anger and despair present themselves in all aspects of my life – keeping in hidden within to not rock the boat. I love how Allison describes it as the collective mediocracy. I feel so strongly that now is the time to wake up, as individuals, doing our own work and connecting to our power within, as well as waking up as a collective – collaborate, speak out.
    Even if we don’t have the answers, we can use the energy of our rage and anger to set positive change into movement.
    A great example of how a collective group of woman can generate change and set something in movement are the “Pussy Riots”. I just heard about them yesterday and it is inspiring to see the effect of their courageous actions.
    Thanks everyone

  • sarah says:

    I find this so interesting since for a while (maybe the last year or two) I’ve read many blogs that talk about staying positive, focusing on the good rather than even daring to look at some of the darker realities of the world, and also to be so zen that nothing upsets you. But i’ve sometimes questioned whether these ideas pacify us to the point where we allow things to happen, and aren’t agents of change. So this post has been really helpful.
    For me, there are so many no’s… no to honour killings, no to slavery, no to gun cultures… and actually not thinking about the solutions (or having solutions) brings a certain peace.
    Thanks again Tara x

  • Karen says:

    I saw that same episode and was completely moved by those words! Tara, this is a wonderful post that calls on us to exercise our power to not be part of toxic systems. We can start to change the world just by using our consumer power.

  • Mary Tracy says:

    Thank you so much for this, Tara.

    I’m a radical feminist-lefty writer, so I lurk around blogs like yours not really commenting or engaging because I don’t feel my “questioning” the status quo is welcomed. I’m always afraid of being labelled “negative”…

    I am currently trying to bridge these two worlds: the “political activist” world and the “mindful self discovery” world.
    Thank you for making me feel welcomed in this space. It means a lot to me.

  • Shieralyn says:

    You made me want to shout, helped me find the inner voice in me! & tell those noisy big boys at work to “Shut Up!” I have something to say too! Thank you, Tara, please keep saying your No’s,Yes’s, Maybe’s all you want- we sure will read them all!

  • Roxy says:

    A book I recommend on this topic is The Power of a Positive No by William Ury – life-changing!

  • Smithb972 says:

    Very nice! eefaakegbe

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