Decisions. I don’t think any of us took classes in how to choose. A woman called me in tears about a challenging time of her life. Unexpected changes arrived. Her tolerance for her husband’s behavior made her pack her bags. Then she put the black suitcase back in their closet.
Her immediate response to her pain was to get out. She was tired of talking about it with him and with herself. Change wasn’t really sticking. He would say the same thing over and over to her with a big big I AM SORRY.
She felt hurt too many times. She felt like him unavailable. She walked on shattered glass, defeated from trying different ways to impact her needs.
She loved him or wondered if it was love. She knew hope was tossed in a locked closet. All the losses she would hold by leaving, were laid out on the bed. She said she needed to get away from unchanged behavior. She needed to be loved in kindness. She needed him to grow up. She needed him to PARTICIPATE in what she called, HER style and not only his. She longed for him to show change and go beyond,” I am sorry.”
What to do? Stay or go?
Decisions. In living my own CONFLICTS and being privileged to speak with many men and women struggling with pain and lost positive impact when expressing themselves, I empathize with the DERAILMENT caused by not knowing what to do and not having answers to WHY? WHAT NOW?
Here is one way that I feel helps when making a decision:
PAUSE over and over. Step out of the room of rage, pain and tears. Comfort yourself by saying, “I know I have been through this so many times and I know how much I feel deeply hurt. I know I cannot change this person. I know I know. I am going to be ok. I can make choices. I can get help. I am not TRAPPED. I just have so much to lose that I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to start over. MOSTLY, I want to remember that I don’t want to be this MEAN PART OF ME as a way to protect myself and defend myself. I don’t want the WORST PARTS of me to express more than the BETTER PARTS of me. I don’t like me that way.
Thank goodness I am in touch with more than two parts of me. Thank goodness I am aware of the button that gets ripped off my shirt when he acts NUMB or righteous. I KNOW THAT PART OF ME. I know how I shut down and then attack. My fear makes me so ANXIOUS. My hurt makes me want to throw a PLATE across the room. I know. I know. Still I have more to me than that rage and hurt.
I don’t know that he does. I don’t know that he has been taught and integrated making a PLAN for change. That is NOT MY FOCUS. Mine is to know me, COMFORT me, say what is, and PAUSE. I don’t have to know all the WHY’S of behaviors. Honestly, I don’t really know. I just spend time unfolding more of me, PAUSE and respond to my sorting of HISTORY, THOUGHTS, AND FEELINGS. COMPLEX for sure. In the past, life has shown me what decision to make. SOMETHING always buckles me into my own SAFETY and from there, I wheel down the road.
I am able to FEEL and THINK in a full range. I TRUST I am able to handle my decision when clarity sits in my driver’s seat. I will still WEEP. I will still have a doubter ringing in my ear. I will still have a speaker saying, “try again, give it a little more time, there is so much good here, there is so much to lose, you can make this work, you can live with this and just get some goodies from your friends, you don’t want to quit , again, you don’t want a failure, again, you don’t want to do all the work to leave.”
When you hold more than one awareness of who you are and who you are not, decisions become a little easier to expose. SAY WHAT IS: Today, I just don’t have to take any action because I am ok with uncertainty. Right now I am fine.
PAUSE. PAUSE. PAUSE. Go WITHIN and ask for HELP with PATIENCE, CLARITY, AND COMFORT. You will know when it is time to buckle up and slowly drive down the road.
You are not ALONE. You will not be “punished” for your decision. You will be feeling the sorrow of a dream that didn’t wake you to a walk together, side by side. You woke to a quake. You heard the night message that whispered, “YOU HAVE GONE AS FAR AS YOU CAN IN THIS RELATIONSHIP. NOW IT IS TIME TO APPRECIATE WHAT WAS AND GENTLY MOVE AWAY.
YOU DID NOT FAIL. YOU DID NOT BAIL. BE KIND TO YOURSELF. WHAT YOU HAD WAS REAL. TODAY, the winds have turned you and landed you with a new view. NO INTERPRETATION of what you see. SIMPLY NOTICE.
YOU DO KNOW WHAT TO DO. GO AT YOUR OWN PACE and not that of others. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. ALLOW YOURSELF TO COLLAPSE AND RISE UP OVER AND OVER. YOU WILL BE OK.
YOU ARE LOVED.
Natalie Caine M.A.
Life In Transition, What’s Next?
Empty Nest Support Services
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Natalie Caine, M.A. natalie@lifeintransition.org
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