Learning to say no and to set boundaries is one of the hardest and most important skills when it comes to intimacy, especially for people socialized as women. One of the many reasons why this is hard is because we often have a Fear Of Missing Out - or FOMO… FOMO causes us to say yes to things that are NOT actually a yes in the body.
When I first started to practice consent in all the areas of my life, I realized the feeling of FOMO was an enemy in my inner emotional battlefield. FOMO kept me from really being in consent with myself. I became a consent warrior and I got curious about how ruthless I could be with my NO. I did this amazing experiment of letting my body decide what I needed and wanted. I said no to a lot of things that my mind thought I wanted but my body didn’t. I learned that life got better when I did this. But then, life happened. Relationships happened. Heartbreak happened. Love happened. I started prioritizing intimate relationships more, and my ego got severely rattled (which is a normal process of growth) and FOMO has crept back into my day to day life.
Today I want to share (as a reminder to myself!! And you!!!) about why saying yes due to FOMO is not going to get us any further down the road towards self-realization or the embodiment of the soul.
If you ignore the feeling in your body that is saying NO, and instead say yes to something because of FOMO, what is actually happening there?
You are saying yes to fear.
You are saying yes to some story your mind has constructed.
You are saying yes to scarcity and maintaining the status quo.
Sometimes this is still what we need to choose, because fear, mental stories, scarcity and the status quo all serve their purposes.
But what if you want a different future for yourself?
What if you want to feel what it feels like on the other side of the paralyzing grip of FOMO?
What can you do instead?
First, simply noticing the feeling in your body is a huge step. What is your body telling you about the invitation or question at hand? This is OFTEN different than what your mind is telling you. When you think about the invitation, is there a feeling of openness and expansion in your body? Or is there a contraction of some kind? It might be a subtle contraction, or it might be a big one. The subtle and quiet contractions are the ones that are the easiest to ignore.
We need to let the body have a VOICE and to learn to HEAR what it has to say, because usually the mind is the LOUDEST voice and we can’t even hear the body at all. First, it’s just about learning to even hear what is happening in the body.
After cultivating the skill of listening to the body, there is some chance that you might be able to lean into the next step, which is trusting the feeling in your body and possibly allowing it to guide your decisions. Trust that your body knows, and is naturally closer to the divine than your mind is. Say yes to its wisdom. What does this path lead to? It leads to the mystery of growing your intuition and the magical life that happens from alignment with your soul.
Introducing the FOMO alternative - JOMO, the Joy of Missing Out. JOMO is the joy of having spaciousness in your body, it’s the expansive feeling of deeply trusting yourself and your wisdom. It’s the joy of the unknown version of yourself that you are in the process of becoming.
When you trust your body, and say no to something that might otherwise have been swayed to a yes due to FOMO, you are saying yes to the void, to the great mystery of the unknown. You are saying yes to something that is yet to emerge that will likely be more glorious, unexpected and incredible than whatever you were having FOMO about.
You can do it! I can do it!
There is more where this opportunity or invitation or relationship came from…. And there is something that is even more aligned for you!!
