When we avoid feelings, fear unconsciously drives our behavior. We organize our lives to avoid feeling difficult emotions. We stay stuck. It’s so normal yet so unhelpful.

The “yes” allows you to open up your life to the inevitable and by extension more happiness. How to say “yes” even when you do not really feel like it? Here’s help! The next time you struggle with an unpleasant emotion, instead of pushing the feeling away, lean into it. This involves going into your body and noticing what the emotion feels like physically. As much as you want to turn away from this feeling, get to know it. Learn as much as you can about it. Use adjectives to describe the feeling in great detail- its color, shape, movement, texture, location, temperature.

.To say yes is to accept your life completely, with all of its richness and complexity and messiness. In the words of Jon Kabat Zinn, it is like “putting out the welcome mat” and allowing everything to come in. Being human is a guest house. Every morning there is always a new arrival. It could be joy, the great depression, a momentary lapse of concentration anything can waltz into your life as an unexpected visitor. It does not have to ring your doorbell, so prepare for it. We are only human; it will set us back a bit. But you need to pick up the pieces and recover.

Start your day off on the right foot. Choose to spend your breakfast time with an optimistic influence for example a book, a blog or your mom. Or talk to someone early in the day that most often supports and cheers you up like a co-worker or a friend in school. When things have been standing still for while or you hit a road bump it is easy to always back down. To shrink. To give in or give up. But a better way is to say yes and find the bright side in those situations. Keep going. When you fail or make a mistake do not give up. Reconnect with optimism. Find inspiration from books and blogs and the people around you. Do not beat yourself up. Instead nudge yourself back on track once again.

Please refer to the book for more details on this activity.