This is the fourth and last of this series, and it’s the one that asks you to do something rather than just read it. Twenty minutes, a pen, and the back of an envelope. I nearly left it out, because written down it looks like homework. Do it anyway. It’s the cheapest useful thing in the whole four weeks.

Kathryn

The List of Ten

There was one on Thursday.

Somebody asked you something, and you heard your own voice answering before you’d finished reading the message properly. You were kind about it. You said what a lovely idea, and that you couldn’t this time, and you meant the first half.

By Friday morning you’d forgotten you’d done it. That isn’t carelessness. A no takes about nine seconds and leaves nothing behind it, and there was a wash on and somebody wanting something and the week carried on the way weeks do.

I want you to go and find nine more.

Why they have never been in the same room

Every no you’ve ever given was judged on its own, in its own week, against whatever else was going on that week. On those terms, every single one of them passed.

The Tuesday you were shattered. The Saturday you’d already said yes to something else. The evening it was raining and the car was making that noise again. The weekend your daughter rang and you were on the phone for an hour and a half.

Hold any of them up on its own and it’s fine. Better than fine. Sensible, considerate, the decision of a woman with a great deal on.

So you’ve never had cause to look twice, because there’s never been anything to look twice at. The reason was always sitting right there next to the no, explaining it.

What you’ve never done is put ten of them on one piece of paper with the reasons left off.

Three women, all certain this paragraph is about somebody else

If it’s your body, every no on your list has a logistical reason attached to it. The distance, the timing, how early you’d have had to set off, not knowing how the day was going to go.

If it’s rooms, every no has a diary reason attached. A clash, a late finish, a week that was already too full to put anything else in.

If it’s being seen, every no has a modesty reason attached. Somebody else would be better at it, you’d rather not make a fuss, it didn’t need to be you.

Three different reasons. Now stop reading what they say and look at what they do. Each one holds up under inspection on its own, and each one arrives before any evidence does. It’s one shape, three times over, with a different reason painted on the front of each. And a reason that good never gets examined, which is how the shape behind it has stayed out of sight for years.

What to write down, and what to leave off

Ten lines. The back of an envelope is about the right size for this, and a notebook is too formal for it.

For each one, put down what it was and where. Three words will do. The quiz. Helen’s birthday. The thing at the school.

Then, beside it, answer one question only, yes or no. Would you have liked to go.

Not whether you should have gone. Not whether it would have done you good. Whether some part of you, reading the message, wanted to.

And leave the reason off. I know that’s the bit you want to write down, because the reason is what makes each line defensible, and ten undefended lines are an awkward thing to be looking at on a Sunday evening. Leave it off anyway. You can supply all ten reasons from memory and you’ll be doing it automatically as you read. What you have never once seen is the list with that column missing.

What you’ll be looking at

Two or three of the lines will be plain noes you don’t regret for a second, and you’ll cross those off with some satisfaction. Keep them on the paper. You want the real proportion, not the version that makes my point for me.

The rest will be in the handwriting of a woman waiting for something, which is where last week comes in, because the feeling you’ve been waiting for arrives afterwards and never before. A yes given while nothing at all has changed about how you feel is the only sort of yes that was ever on offer.

And nobody announced any of this. That was the first essay of this series and it’s the thing the paper makes obvious. There was no day you decided to become a woman who does less. There was a Thursday, and then another Thursday.

Then pick the easiest

Not the most important, which is a different exercise altogether and a much harder one.

By easiest I mean something specific: nearest, shortest, soonest to come round again, and with a door in it so you could leave early if you wanted to. If it’s twenty minutes away and there’s something you could plausibly have to get back for, it qualifies.

Put a star next to it. That’s the whole job for this evening.

You’re not going to do anything about it today, because today there’s nothing to do. It’ll come round again, because these things do. A message, somebody mentioning it in passing, the same invitation with a different date on it. And when it does, the decision has already been made, at the kitchen table, on the back of an envelope, by a woman who could see all ten at once.

That’s the advantage the paper gives you and the reason it’s worth twenty minutes. In the moment, a no is nine seconds and a good reason, and it wins every time. In a row, with the reasons gone, it’s a pattern, and a pattern is something you can get hold of.

Keep the envelope. Put it in the drawer with the takeaway menus and the spare keys, where you’ll come across it again in a few weeks and be able to see which of the ten you’ve since done something about.

Next Sunday a new series starts, and it opens on the map you carry about in your head of every route you take. Nobody else can see it, you keep it up to date without being asked, and you’ve never once counted it as work.

If you want something to listen to before the next hard thing you've got coming sign up for Twelve Minutes Before You Walk In alongside my weekly email Confidence Collection.

Kathryn Dunn, cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist, MFHT. York, Yorkshire and online.

[email protected]

Hypnotherapy is not a substitute for medical care and does not diagnose any condition. The essays and the recording are for information and relaxation, and sit alongside the care you get from your GP.