For years I rested securely in the righteousness and rightness of phrases like, “No is a complete sentence” and “No means No”. I readily passed out these phrases when giving advice. These phrases are righteous. They are correct. But I was missing a step in my own journey. I wasn’t actually saying “No” — I was just talking about saying “No.”
In my first Impact class, I experienced yelling a forceful “No!”
I needed to take a minute.
At IMPACT, we say and hear “No” a lot. Instructors modelling how to do it, students practicing saying or yelling it in roleplays to a stranger or a familiar person.
No.
No, I don’t want to talk.
No, don’t touch me.
No, get away from me.
No.
NO.
As a trauma survivor, I’ve struggled with different modes of healing. Oftentimes, my cognitive awareness far outruns my visceral understanding. I know I can say “No,” but do I? Until working at IMPACT I mostly didn’t. I knew I could and I knew I should. But something stopped me. An inner freeze or an inability to be a person who says “No.”
I am not only made up of what happened to me. I am made up of what is changing me. I am an evolving story of learning to say “No”.
In my first Impact class I experienced yelling a forceful “No!” while delivering a strike. I felt something inside me shift. Was it the yelling? The “NO!”? The physicality of the strike? All of it together? Since then, I’ve yelled “NO” countless times as well as hearing students yell it hundreds of times, in classes, in workshops, and trainings. Something shifts in me every time.
Every time I say “No” – in role plays or scenarios, when coaching students, in my life outside IMPACT – it is an act of repair. An act of repair for what has been bruised or damaged. An act of repair for trust that has been broken. An act of repair for hope in a future that couldn’t exist.
The phrase “No is a complete sentence” is a familiar one to me, but Impact training brought the visceral, tangible strength of “No” into my body, spirit, and voice, empowering me to reject that which is unsafe for me and welcoming me to say “Yes” to myself.
Before IMPACT, I primarily experienced healing through a lens of control. I experienced different modalities as a way to control the unmanageability of feelings and flashbacks. They all worked, to a certain point. But control is an illusory thing. I was using my feelings of control as a shield against the discomfort of uncertainty and the fear of not knowing. Through my work at IMPACT I’m learning the visceral knowledge that empowerment is real. Empowerment doesn’t ensure safety but lies within me as a well to draw upon. Empowerment is transforming my physical power, my muscle fibers, and confidence — but also how I view my own narrative.
I am not only made up of what happened to me. I am made up of what is changing me. I am an evolving story of learning to say “No”.
No.
No, I don’t want to talk.
No, don’t touch me.
No, get away from me.
No.
NO.
In some environments such an overwhelming cascade of No’s might feel dispiriting. At IMPACT it feels celebratory. Every “No” is an act of repair.