Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person

by Shonda Rhimes

It’s pretty shameful of me to sit around saying I’m miserable when there are no bullets in my face and no one’s kidnapped me or killed me or left me alone to treat all the lepers.

You never say yes to anything.

Saying no has gotten me here. • Here sucks. • Saying yes might be my way to someplace better. • If not a way to someplace better, at least to someplace different.

She has learned to not let go of the pieces of herself that she needs in order to be what someone else wants. She’s learned not to compromise. She’s learned not to settle.

She’s learned, as difficult as it is, how to be her own sun.

If I have to be on TV, if I have to do something as scary as Kimmel, we’re going to do it my way or we don’t do it at all. See, I’m keeping all my pieces.

YES should feel like the sun.

I did it. I said yes to something that terrified me. And then I did it. And I didn’t die.

What do I care? It happened. I did it. And I kept all my pieces. YES does feel like the sun.

What am I afraid they will see if I am really myself?

I am going to say yes to everything that scares me.

I wait for the wave of fear and panic to wash over me. But it doesn’t come. I shrug to myself. It’ll be here any minute, I know. I’m tense, waiting for it. Any second, the familiar freezing panic of stage fright will hit me. The tsunami will hit me. But it never does. I am nervous. I am scared. But that is all.

You can see the very last instant, the very last moment, the very last breath of my fear. From that exhale forth, I am someone new. Someone comfortable. Someone unafraid.

Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means that I am failing in another area of my life.

My dreams did not come true. But I worked really hard. And I ended up building an empire out of my imagination. So my dreams? Can suck it.

Be brave. Be amazing. Be worthy. And every single time you get the chance? Stand up in front of people. Let them see you. Speak. Be heard. Go ahead and have the dry mouth. Let your heart beat so, so fast. Watch everything move in slow motion. So what. You what? You pass out, you die, you poop? No. (And this is really the only lesson you’ll ever need to know.) You take it in. You breathe this rare air. You feel alive. You are yourself. You are truly finally always yourself.

She guards a very sensitive heart—any human suffering brings her to tears.

You know the character in the old war movies who always gets shot because he panics and runs? That character is me as a mother.

I didn’t cry. But it hurt. The betrayal ran deep. But, I have to admit, there was also a small sense of relief. Because now I knew: I had not failed.

I don’t know about you, but it’s the idea that I’m not measuring up that gets me.

But I will take off my earrings and ask someone to hold my purse for the verbal beat-down we will need to engage in if you try to tell me that I must define my motherhood in the same terms as yours.

I am not telling you to do it that way. You go bake your ass off. But we all have to acknowledge that our way is not the way.

I am already in the middle of a Great Mommy War and it is against my worst enemy—me. I don’t need another war against you. I’m betting you don’t need one either.

For the love of wine, why?

And if you are met with condescension, then yell the obscenities.

Now, I’m no longer looking for the enemy. So I no longer see the enemy.

This Yes is about giving yourself the permission to shift the focus of what is a priority from what’s good for you over to what makes you feel good.

Fifteen minutes, I say. What could be wrong with giving myself my full attention for just fifteen minutes? Turns out? Nothing.

We could all use a little more love. A lot more love.

This is the best YES. Wanna play?

Losing yourself does not happen all at once. Losing yourself happens one no at a time. No to going out tonight. No to catching up with that old college roommate. No to attending that party. No to going on a vacation. No to making a new friend. Losing yourself happens one pound at a time.

What an extraordinary waste of a life.

People tried to be tactfully helpful. People said things to me like, “Endorphins make you feel good.” So does chocolate cake, fool.

“Nothing tastes as good as thin feels!” Who says that to a fat woman? Seriously? WHO SAYS THAT? Because clearly, a) you have never had barbecue ribs, and b) shut your stupid mouth.

Meaning, nothing works if you don’t actually decide that you are really and truly ready to do it.

Everything sounds like crap until you are in the right mind-set. Everything sounds like crap while you are still busy listing reasons you should get to eat that whole cake.

I didn’t want to be looked at. I didn’t feel okay being seen.

Now, though, I am seen. And I am getting comfortable being seen. I’m getting used to being seen. I am realizing that there’s a part of me that wants to be seen.

I have been enjoying this year in a way I haven’t enjoyed life in a long time.

How many women had to hit that glass before the pressure of their effort caused it to evolve from a thick pane of glass into just a thin sheet of splintered ice? So that when it was my turn to run, it didn’t even look like a ceiling anymore.

So I’m breaking my family’s rule today. This is a trophy for participation. And I am beyond honored and proud to receive it. Because this? Was a group effort.

Thank you to all the women in this room. Thank you to all the women who never made it into this room. And thank you to all the women who will hopefully fill a room one hundred times this size when we are all gone. You are all an inspiration.

“Me? She’s talking about me? Don’t talk about me, nobody should ever talk about me. Talk about someone else.”

“Did you notice not a single woman in this room can handle being told she is awesome? What is wrong with us?!”

The editor in chief blinked. I was not engaging in the rules of dinner conversation, which requires you to start with small talk.

Not a single woman in the room could handle being told, “You’re awesome.” I couldn’t handle being told I am awesome. What in the hell is wrong with us?

The point of this whole Year of Yes project is to say yes to things that scare me, that challenge me. So in order to YES a problem, I have to find whatever it is inside the problem that challenges me or scares me or makes me just freak out—and then I have to say yes to that thing.

It’s not insanity. It’s just tough.

There is a part of my brain that is SCREAMING at me right now for giving myself all these compliments. Screaming and wringing her brainy little hands and nervously hopping around. “You cannot say that out loud! People will think you believe that you are . . .” That I’m what? Into myself. Cocky. Immodest. Brazen. In love with myself. That I think I’m special. Shudder. Shake. Hop. FLIP OUT.

I am worried that people will be whispering: “Who does she think she is, acting on a TV show? What, does she think she’s all that? Does she have that high an opinion of herself? My, aren’t we just a little in love with ourselves these days?”