The Yes-No Game, Healthy Lifestyle, and Surviving vs. Thriving

Today’s post is another short-and-sweet one, in part because I'm back in training today, and in part because today’s topic is easy to explain, understand, and put into play!

It’s also a topic that addresses both your physical and your mental health. So, whether you’d like a simple tool that’ll help you amp up your healthy lifestyle, or you’d like to give your mental health a boost, you’re in the right place at the right time!

Books like Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score and When the Body Says No by Dr. Gabor Mate highlight the reality that your mind lives in your body. How you treat your body affects your mood and emotions, and how you think affects how you take care of your body.

So, as a registered dietitian and ACE-certified health coach, I often talk with clients about the foundations of a healthy lifestyle—sleep, hydration, healthy eating, and physical activity.

That said, it can be especially challenging for those of us who had a parent with narcissistic traits to follow through on healthy lifestyle activities. If you have a parent with narcissistic traits, chances are good you often didn’t get what you needed.

One way you might have chosen to survive this is by finding ways to get what they want instead. Maybe you found ways to stay up late at night reading, gaming, or drawing. You might have used over- or under-eating, or maybe you engaged in excessive daydreaming and dissociating. As a teenager, you might have shifted your focus to dating and relationships, or to drugs and alcohol.

Making the mental shift from settling for what you want to giving yourself what you need can be challenging. After all, it’s one of the tools that got you through the experience of parenting yourself through childhood.

If you settled for your wants instead of needs, two things happened. First, you got used to getting what you want. Wants tend to make wonderful distractions from what we’re not getting. They’re pleasurable, and they take us out of the present moment. When settling for wants becomes a habit, it can be hard to say no to feeling better right now, even if means you’ll feel worse later.

Second, you didn’t have the opportunity to learn how to give yourself what you need. That can result in a variety of challenges. For example, you might need to learn how to notice your thoughts and feelings more effectively, so you can meet your needs. Or you might need to learn how to ask for help in order to get your needs met.

Happily, you don’t need to stay stuck in the surviving tools of childhood. The Yes-No Game is an easy way to help you create and maintain healthy lifestyle habits, and give yourself a boost as you’re making the shift from surviving to thriving.

How do you play the Yes-No Game? It’s easy! All you’ll need to do is increase your awareness of when you’re choosing what you need, over what you want. Then, notice what you’re saying Yes to, and notice what you’re saying No to. Here are some examples:

• I’m saying Yes to getting up early, and I’m saying No to getting a little extra sleep, because I want to get in my workout this morning. I’ll go to bed early and catch up on my sleep tonight.

• I’m saying Yes to eating more fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, and legumes, so I can reach my 30 a week and hack my health, and I'm saying No to eating fast food today.

• I’m saying Yes to drinking water, so my body has the hydration it needs for good health and maximizing fat burning, and saying No to buying soda this week.

  
  

You can reverse the order of the Yes-No Game to No-Yes, if that makes more sense. Again, here are a few examples:

• I’m saying No to gaming after 9 PM this week, but I’m saying Yes to getting to bed on time.

• I’m saying No to eating foods with gluten, but I’m saying Yes to having a healthy gut, so I can absorb nutrition from the food I eat!

• I’m saying No to eating chips and dip, and saying Yes to enjoying a piece of fruit instead.

  
  

Life is full of yes-no moments. The Yes-No Game helps you navigate them, because it helps you find balance. You're acknowledging what you're giving up, but you're also acknowledging why you're making the choice to do so.

The Yes-No Game also supports one of my favorite quotes, Don’t give up what you want most for what you want now. (I prefer this quote as I choose what I want most over what I want now, but either way works.)

If the idea of giving up what you want now for what you want most feels impossible, there’s a good chance a part of you is stuck in surviving. I encourage you to consider working with a therapist who specializes in trauma recovery. You deserve to have the power to choose what you want most, instead of what you want now, so you can thrive!

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