What’s the meaning of Hell, Yes, I Can! How I moved from making do with the scraps of life to the power of weaving life with the strands of the best of me.
I was raised to take care of others, putting my desires behind the wishes and demands of other people.
In my daydreams, I walked the edges of my desire to be and become. Yet, I found that to keep others happy, I needed to make do with whatever scraps I could manage after others got what they want for themselves and from me.
This isn’t to say, I had a crummy life. That’s not the case.
This is to say that for a long while giving myself up for others and making do was the process which drove my life. What I wanted wasn’t as important as what others wanted.
This dynamic shifted as I got older and especially with divorce. No longer needing to tend to a husband and a family, for the first time since graduating from high school and going on to college, I was on my own.
Life had a new trajectory for me driven by one consideration: What do I want?
Gone was the need to consider others before me. The obstacle before me since birth … gone.
In this absence, my presence stepped forward and urged me to develop a new habit of being and becoming.
First, I had to adjust to putting me first in my life. An adjustment which was difficult because I needed to adjust almost everything I thought about myself. This required letting go of old stories, false self-beliefs, and the incessant feeling I’m not good enough.
Next, I homed in specifically on the must-make-do habit which had me waiting for the scraps I hoped others would send my way.
I read. I studied. I experienced my dreams for myself in hundreds of situations and with family, friends, students, and the guys I met online dating.
What I noticed was a new feeling of alignment within me especially when I did something powerful for myself. Something which I wanted to celebrate and dance for joy. As these moments increased, I found myself saying YES! with a deep attitude of appreciation and thanks for me!
I had stepped past having to do for others and I had skated beyond making do.
Instead, I was at YES!
As I thought and felt into my experience, I realized I had shifted the fundamental motion of my life away from I can’t because of some sense of other’s needs.
Instead, the new motion of me was joyfully emphatic:
Hell, Yes, I Can!
As the joyful freedom to be me, to focus on my becoming began to gather steam, I realized that by exercising my choice for me, I can always live my life at Hell, Yes!
To do otherwise is me making do, and me finding some poor excuse to not go after what I want.
I decided I always wanted my life to be guided by my sense of powerful self-worth and a strong belief that I am able to be my best and live within the joy of balance, resonance, and alignment.
Thus, for me, in one powerfully declarative sentence, I have put behind the feelings of I’m not good enough and I must make do.
This one sentence symbolizes how I live my life knowing I am worthy beyond measure:
Hell, Yes, I Can!
PS – If it feels more comfortable, drop the first word and try:
Absolutely, Yes, I Can!
This is a short piece I have written for a new book on Affirmations. Read more in this column: A View from the Boundlessness.
