Make the Decision to Stay or Go Intentionally and Then Always Have Your Back Going Forward

Sometimes you can get so caught up in stressing about past decisions and regret that you miss the life and decisions happening right in front of you.

Then life begins to feel like you’re always chasing the tail end of it. Always reacting and recovering rather than intentionally heading where you want to go.

When we make a choice and then don’t have our back on it, we become our own worst enemy.

We put fuel on the fire of those negative inner thoughts and then they go to work tearing us down mentally.

This is why so many of my clients are afraid to decide.  They are afraid of what their mind will do to them afterwards. 

But here’s the thing, every single thing that happens to you after you choose to stay or go is something you get to choose to interpret however you want. 

If you choose to leave you can make going out and getting a job because you’re no longer dependent on your husband’s income mean:

  • an opportunity to try new things or
  • a depressing consequence of previously choosing to be a stay-at-home Mom.

If you choose to stay you can make your husband continuing to forget to take out the trash mean:

  • “He still doesn’t love me and I should have left,” or
  • “It’s just not his thing and it means nothing about how he feels about me.”

The key will always be your mind and what you choose to make everything mean.

When you make the final decision whether to stay in your marriage or go, the greatest predictor of success will be what you choose to make that decision mean and how you have your own back going forward.

This is the foundation that we build together in coaching through examining all of your habits, thoughts, patterns, feelings, beliefs, etc. and making sure that you know yourself and what you want most BEFORE you decide.

Then when you do make that decision, you are set up for success afterwards. 

Instead of floundering and struggling after divorce or spiraling back into depression and contention after choosing to stay, you move forward with purpose and direction into a new future.

It is worth every ounce of time, money, and effort to invest in yourself in this way before making one of the biggest decisions in your life.

This is the work I take my clients through. This is how they decide whether to stay or go, make their decision, and move forward without regret.

Mind Drama: How to Clean it Up with Three Steps

Pain is a part of life.

Like the opposite side of the coin for pleasure, one can’t exist without the other.

But there’s the natural pain that occurs in life, and then there’s emotional suffering that comes from all the mind drama we add to the pain.

This is the torture we self-inflict with our brains through negative thoughts.

For example, your husband makes a comment about your outfit such as “You’re wearing that again?” And your brain, instead of just interpreting it as a question, answering, and moving on, goes “What the hell man!? Obviously, I’m wearing it again, it’s on my body. He’s so freaking critical of me. He doesn’t like it. He never likes what I wear.”

Now I’m not saying your husband likes the outfit. Maybe he doesn’t, but ultimately, we don’t care because where we want our focus is on you and whether YOU like the outfit.

And when you start bringing everything back to you and how you want to think and feel about the situation, a lot of the drama can fall away.

To do so takes three steps:

  1. HAVE AWARENESS – Notice the thoughts you are choosing to think and what emotions they are creating for you. Remember that no matter what your husband does or says, you get to choose how you want to think and feel about it. This DOES NOT mean you choose to always feel “happy,” but it does mean you remember that you do not have to take on any of his thoughts or opinions.
  2. PROCESS EMOTION – Allow yourself to feel whatever comes up for you in your body without judgment. Maybe you feel shame because you think “He doesn’t like the way I dress.” Allow the shame to be processed by dropping into your body and breathing into it. Then see what’s left behind. Be curious. Why does it matter to me that he likes how I dress?
  3. CHOOSE INTENTIONALLY – How do YOU want to think and feel about your outfit? If you love it and think you look amazing, then that thought and feeling is available to you regardless of whatever your husband says. If you don’t, then explore more around what thoughts and beliefs you want to have in the future around your body and what you wear.

Life dishes up plenty of experiences for us to grow and learn.

We don’t need all the excess drama on top.

Photo by Mark Thompson on Unsplash