Bloom Your Mind

Ep 136: The Yes Trip

• Marie McDonald

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This episode is the joyful, slightly reckless little sister to episode 72, “The Freedom of a Hard No.” Because once we get clear on what doesn’t serve us…we open up all kinds of space in our brain, our schedule, and our sense of safety for possibilities and new ideas that can expand our life. 

This past month I had a series of invitations from folks I didn’t know that well to visit them in different states. Before I knew it, those invitations had strung themselves together into a necklace of adventure— it was the possibility of a two-week road trip in an electric car, zigzagging across state lines by myself with two kids, to visit people I barely knew, and sleep in houses I’d never seen.

I didn’t ignore the red flags—like range anxiety for an EV car with kids in the backseat, driving through states without many chargers and through wide open national park spaces that require all day trip. I also didn’t discount my concerns about taking my kids to stay environments I didn’t know with people I’d met once, or maybe even never met.

I didn’t ignore those things, but I got curious about them. What followed was one of the most magical, spontaneous, soul-sparking journeys I’ve had yet. 

That trip was only possible because I said yes.
 Yes to a possibility.
 Yes to the discomfort of not having control.
 Yes to new people, new rhythms, and new roads.

What happens to our brains, bodies and our lives when we say yes to new ideas? That’s what we’ll find out today. 

What you’ll learn in this episode: 

  • The difference between a gut no, and a reactive no 
  • How research and data gathering can turn a no into a hell yes 
  • How every great idea starts with doubt 
  • How saying yes to things that stretch our comfort zone supports overall well being 
  • How saying yes to new things impacts hormones, nervous system and brain function 
  • How saying yes to things we initially resist builds our resilience and self-trust
  • When saying yes is out of the question 
  • A simple practice to increase the yes in your life 

Mentioned in this episode: 

How to connect with Marie:

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Bloom your Mind podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified coach Marie McDonald. Let's Well. Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode number 136 of the Bloom your Mind podcast. I'm going to talk today about the yes trip. I'm going to tell a story, which I love to do to illustrate a concept, give you a little bit of data behind what we're talking about today and then give you a practice that you can use to practice the yes trip. This episode is a companion episode to an episode that I recorded called the freedom of a hard no. We sometimes talk about a hard no and a hell yes and the difference between those two, and I'm going to explore a little bit, using some of the data and some of these anecdotal experiences, and to talk about what happens in our brain and body when we say yes, and I think it's super important to also, although I will touch on the freedom of no, I think it's also important to go and listen to that episode in combination with this one.

Speaker 1:

As always, our content is directed at turning ideas into real things. So, while my example for today's podcast is based in a life experience, that is a trip that I took. That is an example of what I call an idea. I have an idea for a trip I might take. Everything starts as a glimmer of possibility. This trip started, and I will tell you the story of how it started. It was birthed as a glimmer of possibility, and so I use the word idea to describe anything that begins as possibility in our mind until we take a series of actions, until we have a series of thoughts and feelings that then begin to turn the idea into a real thing. And, of course, we are all about choosing ideas that are both regenerative for us and are in line with our values and our authentic expressions of who we are, what we want and what we want to contribute in the world. So that's what we're all about today, and this episode I'd like to think about as like a maybe joyful, slightly reckless little sister to our last conversation in the freedom of a hard no, last conversation about this topic, because when we get really clear on what does not serve us, we open up all kinds of space for what does.

Speaker 1:

So a few months ago, I started saying yes to a few things. There were some casual invitations. There were some ideas thrown out by other people. A few different people that I knew not very well and some people that I knew really well threw out invitations for myself and my kids, for my family, to come and see them and to come and stay with them. Now, what I want to say about this is most of these people were people I didn't know that well. So my initial reaction when each of the first two families said come and stay with us, come and visit us, was an internal. That won't work. It wasn't a hard no, it was a habitual, reactive no, because the place is far, because I don't know you that well, because you're not my child's best friend. And then, when other invitations came up friend, and then when other invitations came up, the initial reaction was no, because hey, that's too far, how would I get there? How would this work? But because there were multiple glimmers of possibility, two of them in a row, that I started to play around with.

Speaker 1:

And then another idea I started stringing together the possibility into this necklace of adventure. It was a two-week road trip in an electric car, zigzagging across eight states, to visit some people I barely knew sleep in houses I'd never seen. Try this with an electric car, which all I had read about was range anxiety. So and do it myself with my two kids, just me Not knowing if they were going to be road worn and weary from the road dog experience or if they were going to enjoy it right. So there's all kinds of doubts that came up in my mind and I didn't ignore those red flags. But I did just ask myself the question what, if? What would this lead to if I just said yes, and what would have to be in place in order for me to feel like this is a like? I read about the range anxiety and I had to do some thinking about that. I thought about the fact we'd be staying with you know, friends that we didn't know too well, kind of acquaintances, and I started doing some research and planning.

Speaker 1:

I started thinking about the possibility of a road trip with my kids and thinking why is this coming up for me? Number one it's absolutely in line with my values to be present with my children in the summer. Number two, to expose them to more natural environments. Number three to bond by not having something that's super easy to do, but to develop the skill for them in flexibility and iteration. When something goes wrong, how to handle it on the road, how to set ourselves up to be flexible and to actually teach them the skill of trip planning by introducing our design constraints from this idea, which are the amount of miles we have to drive, how many places do we need to stop, how often will we need to charge our car? What are the things that we will need in order to make ourselves successful, no matter what we encounter on the road, and I love to leave and try something challenging myself. So I was like, okay, beautiful places, quality time with children, making new friends, having some time with close beloved friends and making the effort to go and see them. All of these things are in line with my values.

Speaker 1:

And so I began to do the research to see if my gut know was something I wanted to pay attention to. And as I did that, as I looked up all the EV charging stations, as I gave that assignment to my daughter to find out what the range of the model of our car is and if we change the charge setting to 100%, like, how far can we get? Are there any factors that might limit that distance, like traffic or whatever else? It started to become this really cool project. We went and got books about the states we were going to, about Oregon, about Washington, about Montana and Wyoming and Yellowstone, and we started stringing together the possibilities. It turned out that, to the best of my knowledge, based on my research, I was not too concerned about the range anxiety. I thought it would probably work.

Speaker 1:

And then I started thinking about all of the unknowns we might encounter and we started doing some trip planning to outline all the things we might need to be comfortable even if things got wild. We had towels, we had sunscreen. I had a little pharmacy in a hidden trunk in my car in case there were allergies or we need aloe or whatever else like this kid pharmacy. I had all of this healthy food that I made sure could last for the two weeks. So if we were in places where there weren't options that would make our bodies feel happy, I would have things that my kids would eat and things that I would eat. I had all kinds of things. We downloaded books, we made playlists for the car and it was all so fun. We researched the things that we might want to see along the way and which ones of those things were in line with the stops we would have to make to charge our car, and what ended up happening was we had the most amazing two-week adventure, my children and I. It was easy, there were no problems. There were unexpected things that came up, but we were in such a flow state and had all of the resources we needed in order to solve those problems that we just solved them and the kids really developed some knowledge and some skill around problem solving.

Speaker 1:

When you get to the Airbnb and it's the wrong one, they actually accidentally give you an Airbnb with one bed and there's not enough space for everyone to sleep what do you do, right, when it smells like terrible chemicals? When you get to the Airbnb, what do you do? Like we had road bumps, but they felt like adventure because we had prepared to have some road bumps. The range anxiety was not a thing. It was so easy. Each of the people that we stayed with we were prepared to make ourselves comfortable, so we had what we needed for that. It was delightful and new. The relationships that we built were so beautiful.

Speaker 1:

Surprises ended up happening. That are adventures and experiences I will never forget, including reaching out to one of our very closest friends and saying let me bring our kids to you in Portland, and finding out that that very best friend it was my husband's best friend for his whole life was actually planning a secret wedding the day we were up there. So, because he found out we were coming, they ended up inviting like 15 or 20 people and making it a small event where my husband got to play the music. We ended up hanging with them for a couple of days and spending this beautiful time driving to Montana and getting to know the childhood homes and family town of one of our dearest other friends.

Speaker 1:

Driving through Yellowstone and having this adventure of looking, you know, searching for wildlife binoculars all of this adventure with my children and then heading Vegas on the way home because, you know, we needed to rest. All of the rivers that we jumped in, all of the lakes that we swam in, all of the challenges we solved together, were unforgettable and so valuable. The time we had, talking through what life is like for all three of us right now and seeing my husband, he came and joined us for three days. It was incredible, but the only reason it happened is because I pushed past that little voice inside us that wants to say, no, this ain't going to happen. This isn't realistic. I've never done this before. How would this even work? I've heard this is hard Pushing past it to ask the question where's that no coming from? And do I want to listen to it or not?

Speaker 1:

So let's first look at the data behind saying yes. Here's what the science says when we say yes, we experience novelty and exploration, which are two key ingredients that come from this yes. That, of course, comes from saying yes scored much higher in resilience, optimism and vitality. So, being able to handle things, having an outlook, a sunny outlook, and just that feeling of aliveness. Outlook and just that feeling of aliveness. Also, saying yes to social invitations, which this trip did include a lot of, even when you're tired or unsure, it has been linked with better emotional wellbeing, lower rates of depression and stronger social ties, especially in women, but for everybody, in women, but for everybody. So here's some basic data about what saying yes does for us. So translation saying yes builds the kind of life your future self thanks you for right, and that's definitely true of the experience I just had.

Speaker 1:

Now let's look specifically at what yes does physiologically for us. When we say yes, especially to something outside of our comfort zone. Our brain gets a chemical reward Isn't that interesting? Dopamine is released in anticipation of this experience. That has some novelty to it. It's new, it's different, it's wild. Right. Our prefrontal cortex activates, helping us plan and problem solve and adapt, which is fun for the brain. That's the brain playground, right? Instead of same old, same old, routinized behavior, our prefrontal cortex gets to play, which is really good for us as well as being fun, and our nervous system learns to tolerate uncertainty more easily over time.

Speaker 1:

If you want to dig in more to this, listen to the podcast how to Learn New Things I think that's it. Or how to Try New Things. I talk about the red, the yellow and the green zone and how to expand our green zones by trying and learning new things. So saying yes is actually training your brain to grow, and when you support it with good planning and rest and safety, that yes becomes rocket fuel for your own nervous system's resilience. So amazing, right?

Speaker 1:

All right, let's look now at what yes does for us physiologically. So, physiologically, saying yes is a vote for your own aliveness. It's an act of self-trust because you're saying I can figure this out, I got me. It's an act of agency I get to choose my experiences. I choose when I say hell yes and hell no. And curiosity it's an act of curiosity Like, well, let's see what happens, I'm down, let's do this. So it shifts us out of perfectionism and like the uber hyper control and that rigidity that's like fear-based, and it shifts us into something way more powerful, which is growth. Maybe we're exciting, way more fun, and it's also one of the most effective ways to repattern habitual avoidance. Okay, so if we don't make an effort to say yes when our gut instinct is to say no, then we're going to stay in that rut of habitual avoidance. It takes effort. So the more we say yes with care, the more we can kind of just like expand the experiences we're having and that sort of like multicolored rainbow of the experiences in our life, instead of doing the things that are just within our comfort zone.

Speaker 1:

Now, before we move on to an exercise that I want to give to you today, before we wrap, I want to really touch back on when a yes is really a no. Not every yes is wise and, in fact, like I think it's 50-50, right. So we won't say yes when our gut is screaming no when our values are being compromised. When the yes is coming from an obligation who we think we're supposed to be, or people-pleasing, we're saying yes. When we're just trying to make people happy, or when our body's in distress or thinking our body's telling us this is not safe. We never would say yes in those circumstances. So it's important to differentiate, not to override intuition, but discern between that type of fear that protects us and that type of fear that's just trying to keep us in a predictable, habituated box.

Speaker 1:

So a little guideline that I like to use is when my gut says no, I pause and I honor it. When my gut says maybe or I can't quite tell what the no is, is it a real no, like I described in the in the trip planning, my gut says maybe but my fear says no. That might be the moment to gently and intentionally say yes by starting to do some research. Is this in line with my values? Is this? Why do I want to say yes? Why do I want to say no?

Speaker 1:

All right, and here's a three questions saying yes practice. Number one a quick reflective tool you can use anytime. Number one where in my life am I saying an automatic or habitual no? Number two what's one thing I secretly wish I could say yes to, but haven't yet. Maybe that's a trip, a conversation, a creative risk, a new friend, a new path, a move who knows? Go big. Write them all down. And number three what would I need, either logistically or emotionally, to feel safe enough to try? Is it information, support, preparation, permission, a thought partner, a mini adventure?

Speaker 1:

First, let these three questions maybe just crack open the door a little bit. Open the window even. First. The door is too big. You don't have to let a bust wide open, just maybe let a little breeze in, because saying yes isn't about being reckless, it's about being awake and alive and willing to expand our green zone so that that green can encompass more and more of the beautiful variety of the experience of life. Let that yes surprise you a little bit and delight you, maybe even let it scare you a little.

Speaker 1:

And if you want help turning that yes into a real thing that you get to experience in life, come join us in the Bloom Room. We got you, that's what I've got for you this week and I will see you next week. If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, you've got to come and join us in the Bloom Room. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts and we apply them to real life in a community where we have each other's backs and we bring out the best in each other. We're all there to make our ideas real, one idea at a time. I'll see you in the bloom room, thank you.