You can listen the full episode here: Listen to Ep 31: You Don’t Have to Say Yes

You don’t have to say yes just because you have the energy.

Late spring and early summer bring a surge of possibility. The days are longer, the weather is inviting, and suddenly there are more social invitations, events, and opportunities than there were just a few months ago.

But rising energy can easily turn into overcommitment.

In this episode, Blaze explores how to recognize your real capacity during busy seasons and how to choose your commitments intentionally. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you need to.

🌿 In this episode we explore:

• Why having more energy doesn’t automatically mean more obligation
• How seasonal energy can lead to accidental overcommitment
• A simple question that helps you decide whether to say yes or no
• Why protecting your capacity helps you show up better for the people you love
• How to balance social connection with solitude and recovery time

Hello, everybody. This week I want to say that having more energy does not mean that you are more obligated to do things.

What a relief it is to realize that just because you have the capacity and the energy to do things does not mean automatically that you are obligated to do everything, or to say yes to everything. The concept that I want to introduce this week is to ask yourself as things are coming up in your life right now.

Would I still choose this if I was tired? And really...

Think about or feel into your answer because summer is an invitation to do things, but it's not a command to do things.

Right now, I feel like there's a lot of possibility. People are offering up, "Hey, what are you doing this weekend? Do we want to have board games three nights a week or on the weekends too?

There're still volunteering and they're still regular standing dates for playing games.

There's wanting to go on hikes and walks. There's regular things that are happening.

And occasionally I have to think to myself, "Wait a minute, what if I was tired, though? Would I say yes to having every single night this week?"

When is my off day where I get to like, stare off into space?

And not do things, because I think it's still important. It is really easy to get caught up in all of the goings-on around me.

And I don't want to be left behind, and I do want to be a part of it all. And I want to build memories with everyone, I guess.

So much of loving people is wanting to spend time with them and I want to be around everybody. So if they're going to go off and do stuff, I kind of want to go off and do stuff with them.

And I'm still me, and I know that in order for me to show up and not be cranky or mean or just not having a great time.

I also need off days where I'm not obligated to go out or that I'm able to say yes, you know what, go have fun and tell me about it and we'll have something to catch up on next week.

And realizing, I guess, that just because everything's happening now doesn't mean that if I don't go to everything, I've missed it all.

Sometimes I really have to remind myself of that and go, there will be, again, opportunities to continue to meet up with my friends and go camping and do all the vacations and have all of the fun.

I don't need to do every single thing, and if I did every single thing, I could end up completely a husk of myself and tired and resentful. And I don't want to have that energy with the people that I care about and that I love. I actually want to show up happy and fun and fulfilled.

For me, that really does mean planning on saying no.

And learning how to say no with grace and with ease and without the expectation that if I say no, people are really disappointed or they hate me or I'll never get another invitation. So some of this is a balance of realizing that I have to say yes and I can say no.

And if I say no, I can say yes. The back and forth of realizing that,

If I say no all the time, people stop inviting you places and you're no longer participating, so that makes sense.

There's also realizing if I say yes every time and I'm burnt out, I become like a crappy person to invite to these things that no one wants to hang out with. So I have to find the right balance for me.

And for everybody, I think it's different. I know that my husband and my daughter can hang out so many more times than I can.

Like their capacity for that is just higher and I think almost their need for it is higher than me.

I want to be kind of near all of the activity and dive in, like dip my toe in and then dip out. So I have found that having opportunities available, I'm learning how to craft some opportunities that allow me the space that I need to rebuild my energy.

So if we get together and we go someplace that we can all be together, like, out at the park. But then I could take a walk by myself or with only one or two people and then come back to the big group.

I can do that a lot more times than I can if everybody's crammed inside of a house for a few hours. So I'm learning about myself and how I interact well.

And planning ahead for contingencies, such as that, so that everybody's having fun, and the people who thrive with 30 people around can enjoy that, and the people like me who thrive with like one to two people at a time can thrive and enjoy that.

And if they need even more time to just be quiet, they can go be quiet and then come back or not as they choose. I'm a huge fan of allowing space for everybody to interact at the amount that feels right for them, being who I am and living in the family that I have.

We're not all the same type of energy people. And I think almost everybody has families that aren't exactly like them, or they've joined families that aren't exactly like them. And then there's this negotiation of like, well, how do they live like that? Why are they so loud? Or why are they so quiet?

And what does it mean? And for me, I've come to realize I don't think it means anything about anybody.

It just means, you know, we have different nervous systems, we regulate differently the way that we feel most at ease is with a different level of stimulation.

So I very, like I guess I take a lot in. If there's a lot going on, I'm kind of taking it all in. And I hit capacity on being able to process that really quickly.

I'm not able to filter. I guess that's it. And other people are able to filter a little bit better and they can manage it for a lot more time or with a lot more inputs than I can.

I'm the kind of person where I'm like, "Your light bulb is making a noise and I can't take it anymore because I can't not hear it. It's just I'm going to hear it the whole time." Can we move to another room? So I understand that about myself and I try not to put it on to anyone else in these interactions.

All of that to say that when there's a lot available, I'm recognizing that I need to be the one to know myself and to introduce barriers or limits or boundaries around how much I'm available for in order to preserve my ability to function. And even at...

A high amount of energy and getting a lot done, I still require copious amounts of time in solitude to just recalibrate. But because there's so much more time and I have so much more energy, I actually am able and capable and desirous of hanging out with people a lot more right now than I am at any other time of the year.

So having the ability to go out and to go into nature or to open windows or to just back off seems a lot more available and I feel a lot less trapped, I guess, like indoor spaces even seem more open and spacious and available for me.

And I'm enjoying that. It's interesting that I've been thinking a lot about my cat lately and how she is this wild creature and she just does what she wants and I love that about her. And I frequently will think, well, if I also am a wild creature,

What would I be doing in nature in the wild if I was functioning in that way and not having to behave in any certain way?

So I think I probably would be waking up.

I don't want to wake up to an alarm, but I probably wake up early anyway, and I want to stretch, and I want to have my tea, and I want to have water, and I don't want to talk to anyone.

And then I want to go and meet some people and go out and walk and enjoy like the sounds of everything being alive. I love the sounds of like the birds and the trees and smelling the flowers and all of these wonderful things.

I want to go touch stuff and take care of my plants. And then I want to come in and like get down to work and do stuff and feel like I've accomplished something. And then after that, like I want to meet people again and go out for lunch.

And I'm thinking about all the things that would feel really good and then being grateful that I'm able to do that and say yes to that. But then I think about the things that I probably wouldn't do and I would think, well, if there was a giant loud party happening in the afternoon every day,

I wouldn't go. Like, I don't want to go to the loud party with all the music and all the food and like the crazy glaring lights and sounds. I might go...

You know, to the, when the town has its faire and there's like the Ferris wheel and all the rides and stuff and it's loud and it's glaring and there's greasy food and it's amazing.

I do enjoy it, but only for one day, one afternoon or one evening, but it isn't something that I would choose to go again and again and again.

So that's what I'm asking when I say, like, would you still choose this if you were tired?

How long would you continue to choose this given your actual inclinations? And are you able to structure things to honor that about yourself right now?

And understand that we're all going to say yes a few more times than we probably meant to. And we're going to get pulled into some things that we really can't say no to, and it's just going to happen.

But the more we're able to honor who we really are and what we really wanted to be doing, I think the happier we are and the happier the people around us are as well.

I've come to realize that when I treat myself well and I don't push myself beyond my capacity, I am kinder and more generous and more fun and more silly and loving with everyone around me and I'm not full of complaints.

And I don't like who I become when I am frustrated and stressed and upset. And I don't like complaining and I don't like looking for that and feeling like every interaction is a place where I want to offload my (ire) at someone.

I am grateful to have the groups of people that I know and the friends that I have and be able to be around them and really share with them the parts of me that I like.

I guess that's what I want to cultivate this summer and with all of this energy. And I feel

I guess, almost like an impending sense of wistfulness about the middle of the summer.

Like it's coming and I feel like it almost already has happened but it hasn't yet and I'm not sure if that's because of just the seasonal calendar aspect of realizing there's so much packed in, getting my kid ready for the end of the school year and getting her prepped for the summer and camps and activities and sports and all of that.

So there's a lot asked of me, there's a lot changing. And when I'm on the cusp of many things changing in my life, I tend to feel

Like I kind of want to lock in my energy a bit more and say no to things and narrow it down just so that I have a little bit more control.

And it's interesting because this is the season where I should have more energy to say yes and open up and simultaneously sometimes, I want to preemptively shut it down and be like, "No, that's too much and I just want some control."

So if you're finding that you have that instinct too, it might be a similar instinct to just protect yourself and protect your time and energy and feel like you have some control over what's about to happen even though a lot of it isn't up to us, it's just kind of what's gonna happen anyway.

That can be tough, but I think we all have the capacity and the ability to bear with it and get through it, and we're all doing great.

We are, even when it's hard. So some ways that you can help conserve the energy that you've got right now.

And actually, let's really talk about that because I think at this peak of energy where we are currently, we're in the final build-up energetically in the year of all of the reserves that we're gonna hold onto for the whole rest of the year.

Like up until springtime starts building energy up again.

Once we hit, you know, July, everything that we had, like that's what we had and then like no new stuff is coming.

Doesn't that sound like jerry and horrible, but I think in nature, that's kind of what happens is everything's pulling up energy from the earth right now, anything that you planted in your garden, it's a growing fruit, it's growing vegetables, like all of that energy is getting stored.

And for us in a weird way, like we're feeding off of the sunshine, we're feeding off of this food, we're feeding off of all the social energy, like everything is building us up right now. And it feels great. And we have a lot of energy to give and it's awesome when we're using it. And hopefully, we're also holding on to more than we're using.

I think it's important that we're doing that right now because we want to hold on to some of this energy for our life as we're rolling into the autumn, as we're rolling into the winter, to be able to sustain ourselves through times where there just isn't as much energy coming in.

There's something really wonderful about this time of year with like so much sun.

Beautiful smells, wonderful food, everything's fresh, the air is nice, even the rain feels good. Like there's just wonderful stuff about it. Puppies and kittens and little baby birds, like everything is just life and energy and beauty.

I love almost taking little snap shots and emotional prints in my heart of how nice things feel at this time of year because I'll remember them when it gets cold and I'm drinking a cup of tea because I'm cold and I want to wear a sweater later in the year and right now I'm like gosh how nice it is that I'm just going out in a t-shirt and wearing my sunglasses and I have a hat and I'm gonna go walk by the water and take in all of this good stuff.

And I love sharing it with my friends and being like, "Wow, we're sharing this wonderful nourishment and I'm being nourished just by the conversation."

And reading new books and playing new music and trying new things.

Let all of that really build you up and build your capacity because this is the stuff that nourishes and sustains you through the whole rest of the year.

And you can be conscious about it, and you can be like, "What new thing do I really want to take in and say yes to and make space for that means I have to say no to something else?"

So I can hold onto that memory, so that I can have that moment with someone who's precious to me and really enjoy it and be present and not be thinking about all of the things that I need to do somewhere else.

This is where it's awesome to have systems in place that let your life flow so that you really can have those moments without having a background program running in your head about all the things that you need to do or wanted to do.

If you find that you are distracted and you wish you were more present and you want to be taking more of that in, here's a quick thing that you can do that will help.

Definitely sit down and do a brain dump is what I call it where I'm just writing out all of the things that are on my mind that I'm worried that I'm not gonna finish.

Or that I thought about that I might want to do as a project, that I might want to organize or act on later.

The act of just putting it on paper or getting it out of my head allows my body to calm down a little bit and to let me truthfully tell myself later if I panic about it to go, "Don't worry, it's written down so you're not gonna forget."

You can email it to yourself, you can leave a voice note for yourself, you can save it somewhere, if you have a place that you already do that.

It's perfect, but it's a quick way that you can really help yourself to be more in the moment and to be able to have your energy actually available right now and not waste energy running it on worries.

This isn't a season for worries. This is a season for enjoyment. Worry will come up and we want to have a place to put it that lets us address it.

And also to say, it's okay if you don't know what to do with everything that you wrote on that paper, just the act of writing it down is great because guess what?

If it's in your head and looking at it on paper means you still can't figure out what to do with it, you certainly weren't going to figure out what to do with it with it in your head either.

Give it a place to go so that you can let it rest and you can rejoin your life and have some fun and relax and play and nourish yourself.

I think there's so much enjoyment and fulfillment that comes out of being present right now in these moments.

And it's something that helps us as humans to really exist and be and thrive.

We need moments of community. We need moments of nature and moments of not doing all the time.

And I guess this is where we're at. We're at the cusp of doing a lot of things. And as the season turns and as we hit mid-summer, we'll then be in the down ramp. And there's still so much going on.

But we want to hold on to as much of these memories and energy and nourishment as possible to carry us through the rest of the year.

I am wishing you a wonderful week.

Next week I'm going to be talking to all of my parents out there that (are) going through the mental gymnastics of what we're going to do for the summer as everything happens and we're dealing with all of the emotional and logistical pushback from kids.

Can't wait to talk about it. I will see you then.

Before you go, I wanted to let you know that I'll be holding a live summer solstice gathering on June 24th.

If you're feeling the shift in energy already and you want a space to move through it with support, you're very welcome to join us.

You can find the details on my website.

Related Episodes

🌿 More conversations about seasonal energy and protecting your capacity:

When Your Energy Suddenly Surges (Late Spring Energy Explained)
Why late spring brings a sudden increase in energy and how to work with it instead of fearing a crash.

How to Decide What to Keep Doing (and What to Let Go Of)
A guide to pruning commitments and choosing what’s truly worth carrying forward.

How to Stop Overcommitting (Keeping Your Projects Small Enough to Thrive)
Why scaling things down often leads to more success, sustainability, and enjoyment.

🌿 Feeling overwhelmed by everything you could be doing right now?

The Living in Rhythm Starter Kit will help you understand your emotional patterns, calm overwhelm, and make decisions that support your real capacity.

Inside you’ll learn how to:

• recognize your seasonal energy patterns
• reduce burnout and decision fatigue
• build a life that works with your rhythms instead of against them

🌿 Download the Living in Rhythm Starter Kit

You don’t need to keep pushing harder.
Sometimes the most supportive choice is simply choosing less.

🌿 Join the Summer Solstice Gathering

If you’re feeling the shift into summer and want a space to move through it with support, I’ll be holding a live Summer Solstice Gathering on June 24th.

It’s a gentle, real-time space to reflect, reset, and work with this transition in a more grounded way.

Explore the details and join us here.