If you really want to RADICALLY change your life (and your wellness), you need to be confident in yourself and stand on your own two feet with your decision making. In this episode, I share lessons from my own journey to step into making confident decisions. We’ll explore the different people who often look to for validation, and deconstruct that.
Disclaimer: This podcast does not constitute medical advice. You should always speak to your doctor before changing your nutrition or exercise habits.
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WELLNESS DECISIONS – EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hello, friends, and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s story starts with a very big decision that I wanted to make for myself and for my personal growth. And naturally, because this was a big decision, I’m not gonna say what the decision was you guys can use your imagination. I really wanted my husband’s blessing about it. And I think this is very normal in most marriages, especially when spending a certain amount of money is involved. So I went to speak to him about it, I was so excited, I felt really confident about the conversation. And he said no, he said he could not support me doing it.
And my husband is amazing. This is not like an opportunity for me to bash my husband. Because he’s incredible. This is a very normal response from husbands. But it just, I remember in that moment, like my stomach just sinking and like the the fear rising into my face, and just feeling like I knew so deeply that I needed to do this thing. And I didn’t want to do it without his blessing. And I didn’t want to be in that position. And just so much fear, right, so much fear around this decision and his reaction to it. And then I kind of just had a pause moment, not during the conversation, but later on where I was like, Wait a second, the problem here is not my spouse. The problem here is me. The problem here is the way that I am approaching decision making. And this really sparked like this huge, sort of, I don’t know black holes, not the right word, but like a wormhole of thought around the way that we make decisions. And you can really apply this episode to your wellness, like your decisions to maybe like start a particular workout program to join a new gym. Maybe you’ve decided that even though you’re an adult, there’s a sport that you want to learn to play. You could apply it to parenting, you could apply it to really just about anything. So I always obviously come at things from a wellness angle, because I’m a wellness coach.
But this is like an overall a huge challenge that I’m seeing amongst women who are ready to make decisions for themselves. We tend to go to other people for permission, and validation. And you know what everybody needs support. Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with meeting support. But what I’m recognizing in my own life is that you had to be very careful about the people that you go to for validation and support. And oftentimes we choose the people that are closest to us and the people that we feel most comfortable sharing vulnerable parts of our life with. But we fail to recognize that they may not always be in the best position to say yes, that’s an amazing decision or to support you through it.
And I’m going to talk a little bit about why and about the specific roles that different people in your life play, and how important it is to recognize and honor their roles, not just so that you can make big decisions for yourself and not get stuck on other people saying no, or that’s a bad idea or whatever it might be. But also so that you can like have some peace with those relationships. Because feeling like you’re getting a no from someone when you want a yes. Ultimately that creates resentment in your relationship. So this is a twofold really important thing. So let’s talk about this a little bit more. The people who are closest to you playing important roles in your life. So let’s take husbands for example. Husbands typically, obviously are men. Otherwise we’d be calling them wives or partners or some other PC name. Husbands are protectors. They are protectors, and I used to take
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this as my husband being negative or being a naysayer or not being supportive, but I finally reframed it and realized husbands are protectors, their job is to keep you safe. Not just you. But really, when you look at like the foundation of family, there’s a huge part of security in the role of the man, males are bigger than females, they’re more capable of like doing violent damage typically, like from a very fundamental anthropology, anthropological place. Men are the protectors and the security force in the family. And we all know that change is scary. And the unknown is scary. One of the greatest threats to safety and security is going into the unknown, right. So oftentimes, in my coaching practice, I see women going to their husbands for blessings about decisions, because they share the finances or just because their husband is their life partner, and they want to share things with them. And they don’t get the support and the response that they’re looking for. And it pisses them off. And it sometimes starts a fight, or it completely deters them from doing the thing that they wanted to do in the first place.
And both of those are awful outcomes, right? Like you deserve the life of your design, you deserve to grow, you deserve to change, you deserve to step into the best version of yourself, you also deserve to have peace in your marriage, right? So. So both of these things are things that you deserve, there’s there’s so the first piece that’s important here, when it comes to husbands is just recognizing that they’re supposed to be the protector. Now, that may mean that you have to make some shifts in how you live in relation to your marriage, like a lot of people, for example, feel like over a certain amount of money, they need to ask their husband for permission about things. And maybe you and your spouse need to go and you need to rework that dynamic that you have between the two of you about the decisions that you make about how you use your money, or how you use your time or whoever it might be, maybe you need to raise the limit. Or maybe you need to start using a separate bank account and say that you get to do whatever you want, with the money in that bank account, simply because you cannot really expect that person to stop being your protector, that is their role in your relationship. Now, of course, in some marriages, you may have a partner that’s more mindful than others, maybe he might even listen to this episode. And be like, ah, that is totally true.
And maybe you guys can just talk about it rationally, and you don’t need to do that. But maybe you also need just a little bit of physical space in terms of your assets that you’re able to have freedom wins that you can buy a peloton if you want to work with a coach, if you want to go to that retreat that’s going on in Costa Rica to learn about yoga and meditation, right without constantly having to be battling against the know of your spouse, because that doesn’t feel good for either of you. And it makes it less likely that you’re going to step out of your comfort zone and do the things that are really, really important to you. Hold up, don’t worry, this episode is coming right back. But I wanted to take a quick break because I know that you have been super curious about what it looks like to work with me in the wellness reborn intensive.
So I want to make sure you know that you are personally invited to schedule a time to talk to me one on one, just a very casual conversation about what it looks like to work together intensively. And it’s a chance for me to listen to your personal story and find out if working together intensively would be a good fit for you. So head to the show notes, you can schedule your time there. And I’m so looking forward to talking to you. I also want to highlight that so many of us get married when we’re babies, right?
Like whether you’re 30 or 40 or 20, when you get married, I was 24 when I got married, we all are on such a long life journey in terms of growing ourselves. And sometimes, because we’re all basically babies when we get married, there are relationship dynamics that we entered our relationships with that no longer service. So for example, I find like for a lot of women, and I know for me in the dating stage, and in the long term relationship stage before we got married, like I’m very much accommodated the length interests and habits of my partner because that is what I felt like you did in a romantic relationship. You were nice to the other person basically to make them like you like that’s how dating works. That’s how dating works. Right? If they don’t like you, they’re not gonna want to date you. Right?
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So, you know, looking back on myself, I would have given myself a lot of advice about like, you know, identifying the things that were important to me and making sure that I was clear about asserting the things that I was willing to compromise on and the things that I wasn’t regardless of my romantic aspect patience in my relationship. But that’s not what happened. Right? So I entered into my marriage very much like being a yes, sure whatever you want type of person, and not necessarily being very clear about who I was, and the things that I knew were non negotiables for me, right. And I think it’s so important to recognize that, like, it’s amazing to wake up to the fact that that was something that you were doing and to start changing it, and just start setting boundaries around the things that are important to you. But it’s also going to create shockwaves in your relationships, right. And I find that a lot of women who want to do huge things in their life, whether it’s working with a wellness coach going on that wellness retreat in Costa Rica, going back to school, or like, whatever it might be, whatever you need that yes, decision about, we’re so afraid, sometimes of creating those shockwaves in our relationship, maybe we’re afraid that it’s going to lead to divorce, maybe we don’t think our husband will ever go to therapy with us, we just don’t have the confidence that our relationship can survive those shock waves, or we don’t have the bandwidth, we don’t have the bandwidth to participate in the process of literally reshaping our marriage. Because of that a lot of women just shut down, and they turn off their dreams. And they turn off their aspirations, and they don’t shoot for the stars, because the fear and the pain of having to reshape their marriage, or possibly start over and their marriage, if it doesn’t work out, is just so paralyzing. And to me, like I’ve been there, I’ve been there and I’m so grateful that my husband has really stepped up to the plate in terms of seeing who I am in life and that we’re we’ve been able to grow together instead of growing apart. And looking back though, like knowing how scary it was, for me to start living true to myself, I just want to speak like life into anybody who is in that position. And just really let you know that like it’s gonna be okay, but you have to start the process. And you have to go through the turmoil a little bit in ordered for your relationship to grow, so that you can become the person that you were meant to be right. Now, this doesn’t just extend to relationships with spouse, too. I know a lot of people who maybe will talk to an older parent, to a sibling to whatever it might be. So let’s talk about those relationships too, because it’s super important. Your parents, for the most part are also designed to protect you. And if we look at the generation that most of our parents came from our parents or grandparents, for the most part, it’s all been about stability, consistency, safety and security for their generations. I know for my grandfather, who is the same age as my husband’s parents, because my family all had kids really young, he held the same job for almost 30 years, because that’s just what you did, then you stayed in the same job until you retired, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That was it. Right? Same thing for my mom’s generation. She was born in the 60s, huge generation of stability, all about the benefits, all about creating stability and financial stability in your life, the first generation of women that really started talking about finances for women, like I’m thinking people like Suze Orman and people who really started like touting the importance of stability and money and like the era that really championed women in the workplace, and all these really super important things. But we have to recognize that there are cultural and social things that make those people more likely to say no, to your healthy risks and your healthy changes in your life. Right. Then let’s look at sibling relationships. You know, a lot of us, God bless siblings, I have two half brothers that I didn’t meet until I was in my 20s. And I’m honestly grateful. Because we don’t have any baggage from our childhoods. We can just like create a relationship as healthy, mature adults without any crap bogging us down about who stole whose lunch money and like who broke somebody’s favorite toy or ripped the ear off of their teddy bear. We
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don’t have that right. But for those of you guys who have had siblings for your whole life, and are now adults, oftentimes there’s a lot of unresolved crap, there’s a lot a lot of unresolved crap and sibling relationships. And even though we feel that like, we can share some more vulnerable things with the family, because their family, I think it’s also really important to recognize that you have to be careful to make sure that you understand the limits of your relationship with with your siblings, and also to understand that anybody who is not already on a journey of growth may not be in the best position to support you, right. So if you’re in a position where you want to make a big decision, and you’re like, I, I want to talk to somebody about it. I maybe because you’re excited and you want to share it or maybe because you do need a little bit of valid ation and support.
Who can you talk to instead? Right? First thing I totally recommend everybody have a therapist, having a therapist is an amazing opportunity to have support while you’re making big life decisions. And therapists are really trained to help you make those decisions in a way that honors you. And they have no baggage regarding themselves when they do that. So that’s really amazing. The second thing is, I would not recommend reaching out to family or even sometimes close friends unless they’ve already been where you want to go. Because that’s the type of experience where like, they don’t have limitations, mental or emotional limitations around your experience, they’re not going to have fear for your safety and security, because they know what’s on the other side of your decision. And if you don’t know anybody like that, the internet is amazing.
Like, you can seriously go on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Quora, Google, and find people who are already doing the thing that you want to do. So maybe if you want to go on that wellness retreat to Costa Rica, you can ask the tree or retreat organizer, hey, can you um, can you connect me with a few people who have already been on their retreat, because I just want to talk some things over and talk over some concerns. And just make sure that this is like really the right thing for me, right? Talk to somebody who’s already done it. When it comes to when it comes to like, maybe joining a gym or something or starting yoga, like go on to Reddit and find a yoga forum and start talking to people on there about it, right?
Because people who have already been where you want to go, not only will they have the best wisdom for you, but you’re going to feel a lot more supported, they’re going to be able to validate you, and they’re not going to be afraid when they’re giving you answers and support. Right. Of course, like I should preface this by saying the internet is filled with lots of crazy trolls. So take this with a grain of salt. But the last thing that’s super important is you have to go back to yourself right?
There is a level of all of this of needing to talk to other people about your decisions, that stems from not believing in yourself not believing in your ability to make good decisions. If it comes to something that’s related to spending money. It’s oftentimes something where like, you don’t believe in your ability to bring in more money, like you have a lot of scarcity around money mindset, if you haven’t listened to my episode with Carrie CO, which is the last episode on this podcast, definitely should listen to that, right. So after you reevaluate the people that you’re asking to support you through decisions, you really need to start looking at yourself and believing in yourself. Again, it is that that is probably the most important pillar of all of this is like you should eventually be able to get to the position where most decisions you just feel confident in. Like I honestly, I don’t ask anybody for opinions about most things anymore. I invested
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over $18,000 in myself in the last 12 months, my husband and I invested part of that together. And then I invested another 12,000 Just to my own development. And, you know, he and I talked about the investment that he and I were making together, we didn’t talk to anybody else about it. With the 10,000 or $12,000 investment, I made it myself. I didn’t talk to any of my other business coaches, I didn’t talk to any of my personal development coaches, I didn’t talk to my therapist, I talked to my husband didn’t talk to anybody else. Because I am so confident in the decisions that I make. And I do not need to bring other people’s journeys into my journey because I don’t need to dilute the confidence that I have in my decisions with other people who might be going through a bad day or not have the right life perspective, or whatever it might be.
So believing in yourself in making decisions is a huge component to becoming the badass Wonder Woman that you have inside of you. So I know that’s like a whole other topic. But I could do like tons of podcast episodes about if you’re not in the Facebook group, I actually think I’m going to do a live training on this on this coming Friday. So make sure you’re in the Facebook group. It’s in the show notes and come to that live training. But either way, I hope that this has been a super meaningful conversation for you. I would bet that you have never heard this talked about in the context of wellness anywhere else before right and that’s really what I’m here to do is to give you guys cutting edge topics and mindsets that are related to your wellness so that you can break through all these things that are holding you back that have nothing to do with food and nothing to do with exercise.
So please screenshot this episode, share it on Instagram tag me in it, share it on Facebook share all over the place because I really want this unique message to get out there. And yeah your friends and family are worth it. They’re worth hearing this so love you guys talk to you soon. Have you joined at the Rock Your Wellness podcasts official Facebook group if not, what are you waiting for? It is the best place to continue conversation about these episodes and get to know your fellow listeners. If you’d like to do that the link is in the show notes for this episode. I can’t wait to see you there.