123 ~ Tools for Speaking Your Clear Yes and No (Toolbox Edition)

Ever feel that automatic yes come out of your mouth, before you've really had the chance to think about it? We’ve been there, and we built a simple, reliable toolkit to help you answer with clarity instead of obligation or auto-response.

We walk through five practical tools you can use today. The pause that interrupts people-pleasing, a body check that reads expansion or contraction, a desire filter that reveals whether you’re avoiding or creating, clean scripts for yes and no, and a future self check to test how you'll feel tomorrow about the choice. We share personal stories about ghosted messages, sensitive friends, and the subtle ways we dilute our boundaries by over-explaining. You’ll hear language you can borrow word for word ~ “I’m not available for that,” “That works for me,” and “Let me check in with myself and get back to you” ~ plus tips for closing the loop so relationships feel clear.

This conversation blends somatic awareness, emotional intelligence, and relational hygiene. If you’re tired of resentment, calendar overload, and the constant stress of managing other people’s feelings, these tools will help you move from autopilot to intention. Learn how to honor your yes, protect your no, and build self-trust one clean answer at a time. Listen, practice your next request, and notice how much energy you reclaim when you choose from desire, not pressure.

Highlights:
• the pause as an antidote to autopilot
• body check for signals of expansion or contraction
• desire filter to spot avoiding versus create motives
• clean yes and clean no scripts that hold boundaries
• closing the loop to honor connection
• future self check to forecast approval or resentment
• courage, self-trust, or excuses

You can find our handles in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.

Chapters

• 0:07 Meet Brenda And Catherine
• 1:41 Why True Yes And No Matters
• 3:20 Tool 1: The Pause
• 5:56 Tool 2: Body Check
• 8:18 Tool 3: The Desire Filter
• 9:49 Tool 4: Clean Yes And Clean No
• 15:20 Close The Loop And Honor Connection
• 17:50 Tool 5: Future Self Check
• 19:15 Practice, Intentionality, And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

Welcome to Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire, inviting you into our world.

SPEAKER_01: 0:16

I'm Brenda. I'm a devoted practitioner to being my fully expressed true self in my daily life, motherhood, relationships, and my business. Desire has taken me on quite a ride, and every day I practice listening to and following the voice within. I'm a middle school teacher, turned coach and guide of the feminine.

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the truest and hopefully the highest version of me. I don't have children, I've never been married, I've spent equal parts of my life in corporate as in some down and low shady spaces. I was the epitome of Tired and Wired, and my path led me to explore desire. I'm a coach, guide, energy worker, and a forever student.

SPEAKER_01: 0:58

Even after decades of inner work, we are humble beginners, on the mat, still exploring, always curious. We believe that listening to and following the nudge of desire is a deep spiritual practice that helps us grow.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12

On the Desire as Medicine podcast, we talk to each other, we interview people we know and love about the practice of desire, bringing in a very important piece that is often overlooked: being responsible for our desire.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26

Welcome back to the Desire as Medicine podcast. This is Brenda, and I am joined by the very amazing and wonderful Catherine Navarro. And we are back. We have been talking about obligation, your true yes and no, and today we are offering you a toolbox episode, which is a mini-episode with tools and practices that will help you play with desire. Because speaking your true yes and no is something that we all need to practice. It's an epidemic out there, folks. People saying yes when they mean no, and saying no when they mean yes. So today we're going to practice it. So have you ever done that? Have you ever said yes when you meant no? Are you laughing? And have you ever said no when you mean yes? Because that happens too. And what would it be like in your life if you honored your true yes and no? If you could trust yourself and others to say no when you mean no, and say yes when you mean yes, and build self-trust in this way. So today, Catherine and I are offering you a tool to help you build this skill because it is a skill and it is a practice and it does take time. So feel free to listen to this on repeat because it takes time. All right, let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00: 3:21

Catherine. It's totally gonna you will so benefit from listening to this on repeat. We're gonna go over like some top five tools for this. We are so shocked, Brenda and I, that we haven't done this yet. So we're really excited to do it. We we're over a hundred episodes in, and we really haven't gone as deep as we have wanted with this topic. It just hasn't been top of mind. And then the holidays came through, and boom, here we are. So today we're gonna talk about the pause, body check, desire filter, the clean no, and the clean yes, plus a future self-check. So without further ado, let's talk about number one, which Brenda and I both definitely practice, and it is the pause. So someone asks you, can you fill in the blank? And you pause to just be with the question, and you do not answer in the moment. You want to pause so that it disrupts any old family patterns, like those survival patterns of, oh, well, in my family, women do this. Or in my family, we instead of it being autopilot and automatic, that you're pausing to give yourself some time to be with your options. And the options, let's be honest, are yes and no. Like you can say no. And ultimately, yes, we have false yeses when we really we say yes when we really mean no. And sometimes we say no when we mean yes, because that's usually the that question is normally asking us to step into a higher version of ourselves. So let's see if we can pause to find our true yes, because that would require courage and that's not so easily available, or pause and really have the courage to say no. Like really be courageous in our answer. What is the honest answer for us in that moment? And the pause is definitely helpful.

SPEAKER_01: 5:36

Amen to the pause. That's such a powerful one. I think that a lot of people don't even realize you can do that. So we're giving you pure permission here that you can just say to somebody, I'm gonna sit with that and I will get back to you. Power move. Okay. Tool number two is a body check. How do you feel when you are sitting with this invitation? Do you expand? Do you contract? What is happening with your breath? Can you breathe in deeply? Or is it hard to breathe? Now this one could be tricky because you could be stepping into a next version of yourself and you might be scared. Or maybe you feel obligated in some way and it feels scary to say no. So some self-awareness is needed here. How does your heart feel? Does it feel warm and fuzzy? Is it beating really fast? Is it cold? How do your limbs feel? How do your hands feel? Are they steady? Are they shaking? Is it because you're about to override yourself? Or is it because you want to say yes to something and you're a little scared? There is healthy fear. And do you feel like you are saying what is true for you in this moment? The body check asks you to tune into your body. Not your mind, not what you think you should do, but what is the wisdom of your body right now? Or over time. Because the pause could be five minutes, five hours, or five days, or longer. So how do you feel about this over time? Catherine.

SPEAKER_00: 7:59

I love the body track. I love checking in. I do it often when I'm freaking out about something. So for me, it's definitely when I'm requiring more courage for sure. The next one is the desire filter or aka mode of filter. Like, why am I saying yes? Why am I saying no? Why are you saying yes? Why are you saying no? Are you doing this to avoid something? Or are you doing this to create something? This is one of the ways that you can see: does your yes or your no align with what you desire? This question of am I trying to avoid or am I trying to create helps you to connect to the underlying energetic of the intention behind your yes and your no. And the intentions behind your yes and no are important. I even think that we should be always checking this. I mean, the desire filter is a little bit close to the future self-check, but it's sort of like in the moment, asking yourself, okay, why am I really doing this? Why am I really saying this? Being a little bit um detective-y with yourself so that you can see if there's any motive. Not because you shouldn't do it if you have motives. I'm sure we all have motives, we all have needs and things that we want, but just so we're clear on it, so that we can track our own actions. It's the desire filter is great for that. It's like a great motive check. Why am I saying yes? Why am I saying no? Love it. Thank you, Catherine.

SPEAKER_01: 9:42

Okay, moving right along here. Tool number four. This one is juicy. The clean yes and no script. How do you say yes or no? First of all, no is a full sentence. You can just say no. You can also just say yes. But there's many variations of that as well. And depending on the situation or who you are, you'll tailor it for you. So I'm just gonna give you a couple of options. I'm not available for that. I won't be doing that. I don't want to do that. That works for me. Let me check in with myself and get back to you. You could still, you can always go back to the pause. That is always available in any moment. No, thank you. No way, Jose. You can also add some play into it. It doesn't have to be super serious. As long as it's clean, you don't have to give a reason. You can if you want to, but you don't have to make up excuses for why you can't do something. You are allowed to not want to do X, Y, or Z just because you're a no. That's enough of a reason. And this one takes practice and finding your own language and groove and what works for you. Thanks so much for that one.

SPEAKER_00: 11:35

And I find that the clean no, like just practicing no can be so helpful because I think we're used to saying no because. Like, no, I can't do it because I have to take care of the kids, I have to wash my hair, I have a headache, I whatever. And there's a a justification behind our response. The only thing with that is that we're sort of training the other person that when we can't do it, it's because of something. And then it's almost like we're giving it to them and saying, hey, you be judge and jury and decide, is that good enough? Versus just saying no and having that be good enough. And you are deciding that the no is good enough. That was hard for me in the beginning. I used to be like, well, why not just tell someone why I can't do something? And I realized, oh, I'm not helping the situation by giving a reason or excuse for something. It somehow dilutes what I'm saying. It takes the attention off of my no, and I have found it to be more powerful to stay on the spot and just say no more often than not without giving a justification. And there have been times when I give a justification for different reasons, and it that would fall under motive, like the desire filter. Maybe I'm giving a justification, and this is so sad, but we do these things because of like this is an example. One of the reasons why I would justify it sometimes is when I'm speaking to somebody who's super sensitive. And I'm like, oh, I'm sure I'm gonna be hurting their feelings, and I don't want to hurt their feelings. And somewhere inside of me, I see them like not capable of being with the discomfort. So I want to ease the pain somehow, versus seeing them as a capable adult, they can be with discomfort and they can just increase their own capacity of being with something that they don't like. For sure.

SPEAKER_01: 13:40

Amen. I want to add something to that before you go on to number five. Own and speak your yes and no. Don't just leave such leave it open and empty. Don't ghost someone. Like give someone the answer. Come back to the connection and tell them the truth, yes or no. It honors yourself and it honors the connection. Close the loop. Don't just leave it open where people are guessing. Well, did she want to do that? I guess she didn't want to do that because she didn't answer. Just own it in whatever way that you can and come back. I think that's powerful to do and respectful.

SPEAKER_00: 14:25

Thank you for that. I do think that that's a higher level game. I don't think that it's so easy in today's day and age because you can leave a text unanswered. You can leave a voicemail unresponded. Like it's so easy to not respond that sometimes the default is like, oh yeah, well, I, you know, I got busy. I didn't, whatever. One of the things I my text messages, like, you know, that little bubble, I have an iPhone. And then once I see something, it like goes away. And then sometimes I have to go back and search my phone because there's like a zillion texts, and sometimes there's something I had to respond to that I didn't respond to, and that sort of thing. But I do love what you're saying because it does increase our capacity to be with discomfort, like being able to honor your yes or no, being somebody of your word. I think it's really powerful. I think it helps us with our own confidence, I want to say. I think it's like a confidence exercise when you have the out built in. Like it came in a text, it came in a voice note. I don't actually have to text back. I don't really have to respond to the voicemail, but I do. I uh I have a cousin who's constantly emailing me about things. And sometimes I read it and I just forget one day. She's like, you didn't respond to the message. I'm like, but there was no question. Like you were just giving me a statement, like I read it. She's like, Yeah, but you have to tell me that you that you got it. I'm like, okay. And sometimes we just have to learn as we go. Like, I was like, okay, she's somebody that she needs me to give her a thumbs up or like let her know, hey, I saw that. It would love that. It wouldn't be my preferred method of communication, right? But if I want to be in connection with this person, well then it's not just what do I want, right? It's also, like you said, what's going to honor the connection the best, right?

SPEAKER_01: 16:32

I think that's really important. And the reason that I thought of that was I recently had a friend who invited me to something and I slipped. I never responded to her. And she, her feelings were hurt. And that's okay. She's an adult. I'm an adult. We've been friends for a long time, but that's not how I want to be in relationship with my friends. And so she invited me to another thing recently, which I also unfortunately couldn't go to. And I made sure to call her and tell her that I wasn't able to come and why that mattered to me.

SPEAKER_00: 17:06

Well, I want to stay here for a second because I'll say the same. I have I've been recently invited to a wedding. There's a lot of intricacies to that wedding. I had said to the bride, I planned to be there, but I didn't RSVP until everything was in place because I wanted to make sure, God forbid, one of the pieces wasn't falling into place that I had not said yes when I wasn't a full yes, like that I had not physically RSVP'd on something. So there are intricacies, right? Who are yes and are no, and it feels almost like a living entity. And we have to sort of be with it and be in the dance of what is or isn't happening. Okay. So without further ado, number five, the future self-check. It's when we pause to imagine our next day self saying something like, Oh, I'm so glad I honored myself, whether I honored my yes or my no, and why? Or, hmm, why did I agree to that? That why did I agree to that is very similar to the desire filter? Like, why am I a yes? Why am I a no? But not everybody's willing to say, oh, I'm trying to manipulate something. Oh, I'm trying to avoid, or oh, I really want to create. That not everybody's on board for that one. So this could be an easier way of checking. Like my future self. Will my future self say, oh, I'm so glad I went? Or will my future say self say, I really should have been a no, to sort of get an idea of where you are when you can't fully feel the yes or the no. So hopefully these five tools will help our listeners, our loved ones, our friends cut through autopilot and be just even 1% more intentional with your yes and your no because your connections will thank you for it. Thank you so much. Until next time. Bye for now.

SPEAKER_01: 19:24

Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine podcast.

SPEAKER_00: 19:27

Desire invites us to be honest, loving, and deeply intimate with ourselves and others. You can find our handles in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.