Overcoming challenges and our resistance to even acknowledging those challenges is a big part of the problem. Our resistance to change is a part of the problem. But with any challenge that we need to overcome, that challenge will make us uncomfortable. We will have to do things that don't feel right all the time. Today I will give you a story about the importance of trusting your own intuition and inner wisdom when making decisions in life, rather than relying solely on the advice of others.
And lastly, I will introduce you to one more of my invaluable tools, The Wise Her!
I was halfway through my divorce proceedings and transitioning through divorce myself. I had a close friend and confidant with whom we spent lots of time drinking wine together. We drank coffee together. We would read all the emails together from my boys' father and from everyone. And there were all kinds of negative emails and voicemail calls piling up. Now her suggestion was to keep all those emails. Her reasoning was so that when the time came up that I needed to use them, I could use them.
I went home from meeting her that night and I went for a walk. I always go for a walk when I need to clear my head. So I went for a walk, went to a favorite willow tree around the lake that I always walk past. I started thinking about what I was going to do with all the negative messages piling up around me.
As I sat down and I thought about every time I read any one these emails, and the effects it was having on me. I was reading them over quite often, and every time I listened to these voicemails, I came back to this same question: “How does that make me feel?” The answer was always some combination of terrible, angry, sad, frustrated and so on. Nonetheless, I carried on, walked home, and I decided that the best thing for me, the best choice that I could make was to delete all the emails, delete all the voicemails, and rather than focusing on all the negative, I was going to focus on the positives in the situation.
I decided to focus on Dad, the wonderful dad that he is to my boys, the wonderful boys that they have become, that we have raised together. I decided to overcome this challenge that I was going through by doing what was best for me. You see, what is best for you may not be the advice that you're getting from other people. It may not be the things that you're reading.
But what is best for you is only for you to know inside yourself. So when you have a challenge, take a moment, decide what's best for you, and don't listen to what anyone else says. Do what's right for you.
I want to emphasize that what is best for you is unique to your situation and that true happiness and fulfillment come from living authentically and being true to yourself, even if it requires difficult conversations or actions.
Many of us just carry on in life, repeating old patterns and old behaviors, searching for happiness, looking for happiness from other people, other things. And we never find it.
What I've found in my life is a way to tap into my intuition, my inner wisdom, my knowing. And I call her "The Wise Her".
What I do is when I have a problem, I find a quiet place. So that could be early in the morning, late at night, maybe at my cottage, at a park. I have a little path that I walk around a lake and there's a willow tree. And I love her. Sometimes I sit down beside her and I think about my problem. And then I feel my problem. And when I go past the stage of thinking about how to solve the problem, such as I have to do this, and we have to do that.
My mom said, do this or my friends say, do that. And when I go to that next level, The Wise Her, I feel the problem. And I have the ability now to be able to know what's best for me. And it's not always easy. The solution that I come up with while I'm leaning up against that willow tree is not always easy.
It's not always going to be fun. The conversations that I need to have with people, they're going to be tough some of the times, but I know that's what I need to do for me to live authentically, to be my true self, and to bring my best self to everyone else.
The Wise Her is what I call her. You might call her something else.
You might call him something else. But it's the intuition. It's the knowing within yourself. You have the answers.
And until next time here's to youfirst!
Wendy
xo