The “100% Yes” Philosophy
We have long been familiar with Zeynep Sevil Güven, one of The Wise’s contributing authors. She has impressed not only me, but also many other people, with the “100% Yes” philosophy she has frequently expressed over the last few years. We interviewed her about this topic, which I believe to be life changing.
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
Dear Zeynep, please tell us briefly about your “100% Yes” philosophy. How does it affect our lives? Where did it come from? What’s its basic principle?
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
Actually, I’m just someone who has put this topic into this particular pattern. All the ancient researchers, experts, masters, and gurus all said the same thing: Think positively and live positively. You can try to be positive, but if things within you are still negative, it leads to resistances that work against you. All these wise men said such things, but none of the ones I could see, hear, or read offered a formula to change this. Seven or eight years ago, I visited a camp in Austria to train in Bert Hellinger’s techniques. There were 350 experts from all over the world, all practicing Family Constellations and Systemic Constellations at various levels, and Bert’s wife made all of us shout, “Yes, yes, yes.” We were saying “yes” to everything.
After the camp, I started saying “Yes” to everything that existed, yet as I did this, I began to notice how my inner negative parts became more and more activated, just as all the ancient teachers had warned. I started to encounter more things that I could say “No” to. One day, however, I said: I see you. I know you exist and are there. You are inside me, and you are a part of me. I thank you for being there. Thanks to you, I progress. If you didn’t say “No” to me at certain times, I wouldn’t turn back and look at things again, assuming they had been done. Thanks to you, I become aware of the things that are left undone, but let me say “Yes” sometimes as well. Stay back a little. I see and understand that you exist, and you don’t come out unless necessary.
Something suddenly then changed, really suddenly! My view on life and my relationships with people changed, and at that moment, I started to understand how I could find within me the reasons for growing angry with people. I later told myself, “I think the reason for this resistance is our denial of these negative parts.” If we can honor their existence rather than denying them, and if we can accept them as parts of us, then they will not try to make themselves visible. These inner parts we deny are like the naughty students in a classroom, the ones the teacher doesn’t care whether they are successful or not. They are like students asking permission to speak or trying to get the teacher’s attention in some other way, such as by throwing things at other students. However, once we say, “All right, I see you. I’m aware you’re there, and I appreciate you,” they calm down.
Soon, as I arrived at each stage of progression, I started to identify the states that could hinder my progress. I started to see the parts in me that resisted my progression, and I began to honor them. Slowly, I started to say “Yes” to them. I later made the formula of saying “100% Yes” to everything that exists.
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
So, what kind of a formula is this?
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
Let’s say I feel like killing someone whom I’m very angry with. Like most people, I could try to suppress this, because everyone needs firstly to be loved and secondly to be accepted. Then this person plans to go to Heaven, whatever that may be for them. What they are then most afraid of is to sin, at least what we call as sin. People are afraid of mental states such as wanting to kill a human being, lie, steal, gossip, etc. They believe that if they act like this, they will feel guilty, and this leads them to blame themselves and consequently punish themselves.
Well, how could I formulate this? What’s the most serious crime? It’s killing a human being. I said, “Yes, there’s definitely a killer in me! Whenever I’m very angry, I say, ‘I want to kill you!’ Because it can happen during those moments, it must be there.” I started to say to this inner killer, “I see you, and I honor your existence. I say a ‘100% Yes’ to you as well. I’m allowed to be a killer, but I choose to preserve life.”
As I said this, I was amazed by how calming this was as a way of lowering the resistance and increasing my involvement in the flow of life.
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
You were of course feeling what you were saying. It wasn’t just a mental phrase, was it?
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
Feeling it is very important, but this shouldn’t deter people from continuing to practice this regularly, even people who say, “I don’t feel anything, and I don’t believe either. Who would bother with such nonsense?” After a while, they may identify the resistances that prevent them from feeling it. These resistances then gradually soften and can start to transform. The feeling process then follows. After all, once a person feels this and recognizes its power, he or she can hardly deviate from it again. In such cases, whenever people are angry, irritated, offended, or saddened, they can immediately be allowed to be like this and pass easily into the energy at the other side of the opposites, which are actually inseparable. Therefore, I suggest to people, especially those who disbelieve or doubt such things, to say, “100% Yes to Everything That Is. I am allowed to act and exist with the lowest vibrating energies, but I choose to be in tune with the highest vibrating energies as much as possible.”
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
Not accepting, after all, is what leads to the greatest troubles. We are angry with our parents, but why? It’s because they’re not the way we want them to be, but we’re firstly angry with ourselves because we set ourselves ideals. At the first act that deviates from these ideals, we start to beat ourselves up inside.
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
I share frequent status updates on Facebook, and a few years ago, I wrote, “When we give up trying to be ideal people in order to be loved, we will be able to build the Oneness Consciousness.”
There is no ideal human. We are ideal as we are because the Creative Source has created us the way we are for a reason. After all, we are in our ideal states. To pass from this ideal state to a better one, we must accept ourselves as we are before anything else. You said we get angry when our parents don’t behave like we want them to, but what does this mean? It actually means we believe they did not produce us with ideal qualities. In essence, people who are angry with their parents are angry with themselves. However, the day we stop being angry and stop saying, “If I were the Creative Source, I would create it differently!” and start to say, “If the Creative Source created me like this, I’d better accept myself as I am and add to myself the other things He wants!” is the day the transformation begins.
As the ancient wise men always said, “The man who loves himself can love everybody.” This transformation is that transformation. Then, at the point when you can accept yourself with your good and bad deeds, your truth and your lies, your inadequacies and excesses, your love and hatred, and your fear and anger, you become able to accept others as well. This does not mean you have to say, “It’s good you hurt me, so come on, hurt me some more!” whenever people hurt you. In our relationships with people, we must approach those who hurt us by asking, “Why do I hurt?” The moment we see we are reflections of this or that part within the other person is the moment we start to work with that part. This person will then no longer need to act out in that way again. If people persist in acting out, then it’s about them, a part they do not look at. However, I still say there are parts I have not yet examined in myself, but if I don’t want to, I don’t have to stay in touch with the other person. There is a big difference between choosing to avoid someone and wishing them dead. We can remain at the point of wanting to avoid someone while still sending that person to the Light with love. Wherever people’s lights are, they will go to it. There’s something in this phrasing that reminds people of death, but I don’t mean it like that. The light is everywhere.
I’m talking about being able to live in your own light. After the transition, you will be within your own light again. However, as we live now on earth, there is a light we produce, and if you can remain within it, you can illuminate your darkness by yourself and hold a mirror to the illuminated parts of others. That is why we say, “100% Yes!”
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
You explain it so well. I can be very angry, oh so angry, at times. Thank God my brakes have started to work well, so I can calm myself down at angry moments. However, I do get really mad. I was really beating myself up before. You know, there is this spiritual identity saying to me, “How can a spiritual person get so angry? How does such a person get mad?”
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
All of the answers are “Yes!”
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
It’s because if you create an ideal for yourself, at every point you digress from this ideal, you start to beat yourself up. This is something we start learning from childhood. You know, all uncles and aunties say, “Good girl” or “Clever boy,” but upon the slightest mistake they scold us by saying things like, “But you’re such a good and clever boy. How could you do that?” Even when you are 40, you can still feel this child within you. You keep on denying parts of yourself, the parts that can be naughty or mischievous.
Well, is it possible to apply this philosophy at the point between losing and not losing yourself completely?
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
Of course it is.
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
How?
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
First of all, accept you are angry. When you are angry, you want to reject the angry part, because anger isn’t consistent with spiritualism, because it doesn’t gain acceptance from others, and because anger is against the general temperament of a gentle person. So, first of all, yes, you are very angry right now. Later, when you shout out, “I’M VERY ANGRY!” with all your might, you let out the energy of anger that was inside. The energy of anger is the seed of creativity, and the home of creativity in our bodies is the liver. If you don’t release the energy of anger, it will settle in your liver. So, after shouting it out, direct your awareness toward your liver, and if you keep your awareness there, creativity will come out. Then, as you transform that anger into creativity, say, “My dear anger, I thank you for being the seed of my creativity and for allowing me to move along better on the path. I’m allowed to be angry, but now in calmness, I choose to turn this energy, which comes from your seed, into something beneficial for the world.”
This will sound funny at first, and you’ll laugh at yourself. After a while, a poem, a drawing, a cake, a meal, or a dress will come out in accordance with your talents. Something will come out. Wherever your talents lay, your creativity will be activated there. After the second, the third, and the fourth time, because you have learned “how to transform anger” with your whole being, it will become something beneficial to humanity.
The biggest fear and anxiety of people is to have feelings that they call negative and think low vibrationally. Actually, what underlies everything is the fear of not being loved, not being accepted, or being rejected. However, when we draw a “T,” we see the extension on the left exists as well as the right. Where there is X, Y also exists. This is a law of physics, and you cannot change it. In this case, the issue is to take and accept both, accept.
I may be sad, grief stricken, mournful, angry, troubled, resentful, or mad—I may be anything. These are but emotions. Humans, in theory, are already dealing with all kind of emotions wherever they are before being born into the world. They live in a place where every possible consequence of every emotion exists, and they come here to apply it in practice. That is, they know that if they are in favor of one side, the opposite can make them angry. They know this, but what kind of an emotion is anger, and what does it do to their spiritual fields? They know this in theory but not in practice. Because of this, they say they will make use of matter that will allow them to feel it, so they take a body and continue their existences in the world. Whatever the basic emotion they need to recognize, they live accordingly. Let’s say it’s sadness, so they lead very sad lives and always encounter sadness. How long does this last? It continues until they change their relationships with sadness, until they discover that sadness can be transformed into something beneficial. The energy of sadness settles in the lungs. The lungs are connected with metallic elements, and these are our children. That is, our future. sadness is the seed of future healing.
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
That is such an elegant description.
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
If we can take sadness and turn its energy into something useful for humanity, we begin to stop being sad. Therefore, people should not avoid such emotions but rather learn to be thankful for them. Yes, I’m sad now, and I am allowed to be sad, but now I choose to turn this energy of mine into something that can be used on behalf of humanity. This may be an insight, a concept, or some material invention. First, we should choose to do it. Otherwise, why have we come into this world? After all, we come from a place where we say, “Be!” and it becomes, so what’s the point of coming into this world?
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
So, we came here to experience?
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
Yes, we came here to experience. We came to gain firsthand experience of the states we call “emotions.” I’d like to explain about emotion as well. Feelings and emotions are often confused. Feeling is our perception of the effect of the vibrations that come toward us from outside as they enter through the solar plexus, which is our third chakra or the center of the self. If someone curses at us, we feel the vibration of this cursing. The intention behind this outburst provides its vibration. For example, say a father calls to his son, “Come here, you son of a gun!” This might sound like an insult, but he says it with such love, good intentions, and sweet feelings that there is no lower vibrating field attached to it. So, this term enters through the third chakra, and the child perceives the feeling of “Yay! My father loves me.”
The same boy then goes to school, where his teacher scolds him by saying, “You son of a gun, don’t make me beat you!” The intention here is different from before, yet when it enters the child, it still creates an effect. The child connects this effect with his thoughts and might then conclude, “My father calls me a son of a gun, and he loves me. It felt good. My teacher called me a son of a gun, so he must love me as well!” In this case, his vibration rises as well. Alternatively, he might conclude, “Teacher said it differently to my father. He shouted it with anger. I’m scared!” At the point he feels scared or interprets it as bad, he turns the same vibration into fear. This is the emotion.
The first case showed the emotion of love, and the second case showed the emotion of fear. Here is the formula for you: Feeling plus thought equals emotion. When we understand it, we can see how all our concepts of good and bad make up the basic emotions. Otherwise, energy is energy, and all energies are supportive, whether they vibrate low or high. Unless we add a meaning to them, they are energies that can be used. Here, we can see this light because energy arrives there, negative and positive, in equal measure. We perceive their resistances against each other as light and heat. The same is true in our bodies as well. However, when we add thoughts to them, we become cold, hot, or neutral. In order to be neutral, we need to create in ourselves a state of being allowed to feel low vibrating emotions.
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
So, you’re somehow bypassing the thought, if you can. In this case, you are only open to the frequencies, so whatever comes supports you. I mean, even if someone swears at you, this is also energy. Just as 10 Volt electricity can illuminate a bulb, so can 220 Volt electricity. So you open yourself in this way, and everything becomes a whole.
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
The issue is the difference between feeling and emotion. We can train our thoughts, but when we say “Yes,” we can more easily train them. Why is this? When I really allow myself to err, I also allow everyone else to err as well. Compared to five years earlier, I’m much more relaxed now. I’m gentler and more in the flow of things, and this is because for the last five years, I have said a 100% yes to all that is. I am allowing everything and everyone as well. Even with people I’m really annoyed with, I say, “I don’t know which inner part of mine you are reflecting back, but 100% Yes to it too!” Half an hour later, I start defending people by saying, “Maybe their intentions were good…”
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
I have a nagging question about when you mentioned that we can avoid people in life. There are so many people in my life. All right, I love and respect everybody, and I don’t hate any of them, but let’s say I didn’t want to be with this or that person anymore. I don’t want to walk through this life with him or her, yet I immediately feel guilty about it.
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
It’s because you don’t understand that it’s nothing more than a contract. Our relationships with all people are just contracts. In a parent and child relationship, the contract is for life. In partnerships, some contracts last for life while others have a more limited duration. There are also contracts that have the potential to last a lifetime, but they can be terminated if we cannot agree along the way.
Let’s take our relationship. We’ve known each other for 13 years and shared good and bad days over that time. Sometimes we quarreled, and sometimes we agreed, but our paths never diverged. We continued in parallel and supported each other in various endeavors. This is a clear contract of love. Is there a reason for us to terminate it? Certainly not today, but we cannot predict what will happen tomorrow. Maybe we told each other, “Our potential contract is like this: If what we can teach other is exhausted after 22 years, or if one of us needs to take another path, we can separate.” It could be we made an arrangement like this, but I don’t know. However, there is no reason to terminate our contract for the time being, because our contract is not based on low vibrating emotions but rather to establish a balance of giving and taking within a framework of friendship and exchange.
But not every contract is like this. With some…well, I don’t know their soul level. I mean, which soul accepts someone just because their level is higher? I cannot know either, but I think those who choose to give harder lessons are stronger souls because it’s not easy to accept being unloved. The easiest thing in the world is to be a good person. When you are good, everybody loves and respects you; everybody bows to you or runs to aid you in times of need, supporting you because you are “good.” It’s a hard thing to accept being a “bad person.” Is there anyone around you when you teach, even if you are “bad”? That is why I say that souls who harass me and poke me are at a higher level. They accept my anger, my shouting at them, and my emotions of hatred, rage, and revenge. Of course, these levels are on such a scale that we cannot talk about all of them. However, we can say that when the lessons are completed, our paths can be separated, or we can stop by saying, “I’ll skip this lesson. I can’t endure it. I’m dropping out of school, but maybe I’ll pick it up again another day.” Therefore, we can end our relationships with people. We are not obliged to either give or take. We can refuse the lesson while we give or while we take. Have you not seen a teacher resign from his or her job? There is no need to feel guilty about it, and this is what matters. You just mentioned you beat yourself up inside, but there’s no need for it at all.
Today, I can do this much, and I thank everybody who has showed me that I can. A 100% Yes to all kinds of lessons. I am allowed to take all kinds of lessons, and I can choose to cease this lesson here at this point. I am for 100% Yes to All That Is.
Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş:
Sevil, I thank you for this wonderfully informative interview. We’ll meet again soon for another one…
Zeynep Sevil Güven:
Thank you too, Hasan.
