The Freedom to Say No
On resistance as territory, not obstacle
On this Friday’s support call, I was working one-on-one with a woman in the group, guiding her through a Sedona Method release — a process of opening to what’s already present, and gently asking whether it might be possible to let that go.
I asked her if she could let go of that feeling.
She said no. She was having a hard time with it.
I said: excellent.
A moment later she stopped me. She wanted to name what had just happened. When she’d said no, and I’d responded with something like wonderful — something opened. It felt, she said, like permission to just be herself. Permission for all those uncomfortable feelings to be there.
She said: I somehow needed that.
The Sedona Method asks a deceptively simple question: Could you let this go?
Most of us assume the right answer is yes. That yes is the point. That no means we’re stuck, failing, doing it wrong.
But the question isn’t a test. It’s an invitation to notice what’s actually here.
And sometimes what’s actually here is: hell no.
Early on as a facilitator, a no felt like a problem. Like I’d missed something, or she had. Like we needed to get back on track toward yes.
That belief — that it’s not okay for the answer to be no — is itself what the work addresses. It’s not separate from the resistance. It is the resistance.
When she said no, she told me something true. The most honest thing she could have said in that moment. To greet that truth with disappointment, or another attempt to get her to yes, would have been pressure wearing the face of gentleness.
Excellent means: you’re right here. This is it. The real thing just showed up.
What we’re working with in this practice isn’t the feelings we’re able to release. It’s the ones we can’t — the ones we’re certain we’re not supposed to have, the ones we’ve been trying to manage for years.
The resistance isn’t the obstacle. It’s the territory.
And the no — the honest, unperformed no — is sometimes the most complete release of all. Not because it’s a technique. Because it’s true. Because the heart opens when it’s finally allowed to be exactly where it is.
There’s an inner freedom in saying no. In giving yourself permission to not be further along than you are.
That itself is the release.