Sometimes we're not ready for it
When invitations come and we say no
Pre-note: This post talks about an invitation related to food and the body. I know this can be a difficult topic for many of us, so if it’s not helpful for you, please be kind to yourself and feel the freedom to pass on by.
Also, I’m speaking from my own lived experience on this topic and how I’m receiving, living into, and learning my invitations related to this area of my life. I am not offering a prescribed path for anyone else. As always, this Substack is about how we are each continuing to become ourselves, both in the discernment part and the action part, which means I care about you finding what’s right for you.
Sometimes invitations come and we sense there might be something to them, but we’re just not ready to say yes.
That’s what happened for me in 2016.
A friend told me what had worked for her when it came to caring for her body with food, so I bought the book, started reading it, and then threw it across the room.
The book talked about things that felt impossible to me.
It talked about using a food scale. I had no idea what a food scale even was.
It prescribed no sugar of any kind (even artificial or additives). I could enter a contest for the biggest sweet tooth.
Seriously. Stories abound in my family about this.
Like how I never had enough room to finish my dinner but miraculously had plenty of room for dessert. And how my parents wised up to this and created a rule that there was no dessert without finishing dinner. And how I then wised up to them and asked “Then what’s for dessert?” This was how I would decide if finishing dinner was worth it.
And how there was that one time they left me at the dining table by myself for thirty minutes, after everyone else had finished, until I finished my dinner. I think I found a way to sneak it into the trash eventually.
And how my favorite after-school activity was walking across the big field near our house to reach the liquor store that sold candy bars for fifty cents. And how Hot Tamales and Abba Zabbas and Big Hunks and Sugar Daddies were my favorite. And how I would rifle through my dad’s coin jar—the one he kept on the high shelf in his closet, the one someone made him as a gift because it had the letters DAD glued down the side of it—for as many quarters as I could snag without him realizing they were gone.
So, go off sugar? I really couldn’t imagine it.
And weigh food with a food scale? That was more scientific than I’d ever been, and too complicated.
Book, meet wall.
Invitation, meet no.
The thing I love about the invitation-based life is that we always have the dignity of choice.
We get to say no when an invitation crosses our path or shows up on our doorstep. We get to say “That’s not for me” and “No, thank you” and “Please take that back where it came from.”
We get to say yes, of course. But we also get to say maybe. Or “Come back later.” Or “Try again another time.”
That’s what happened for me here. I said no. But then, seven years later, when that same invitation crossed my path again, I said yes.
Sometimes we’re not ready for an invitation when it comes, and we’re allowed the dignity of choice. Is there an invitation that arrived on your doorstep sometime and you said no? Is there one you’re saying no to right now?
Sometimes saying no is the bravest choice in that moment, because it's the most honest. At least, that's what I think. <3 I love you. I'm so proud of you.
I love this, Christianne. It's as if our invitations were testing the waters with us, seeing if we're ready... like shy visitors, not sure if they are truly welcome... but persistent like a mother, or a very good friend, never giving up on us... . I have been doing so many things in my life now, things that I never thought possible. It's better to listen to the invite, better to give up on our ego than to give up on our life.