Latest / Confident and Empowered Women / All I Know Is — This Ain’t It | EP 336

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All I Know Is — This Ain’t It | EP 336 · Confident and Empowered Women

0:05
You can know this ain't it without knowing what is.
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As soon as that feeling creeps in, you are already performing the mental gymnastics of reviewing the analytics and structuring your 10-year plan.
0:20
And yet, not having the next move figured out doesn't make what you feel any less true.
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It may simply mean the answer is still taking shape.
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When was the last time you gave yourself a little credit just for noticing before you rushed to solve it, explain it, or ask everybody else what they think you should do?
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What if just noticing this ain't it is more of a power move than you even realized?
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So before you glaze over it yet again, let's get into it Oh, and make sure you're following the show so you don't miss a thing.
0:59
Around here, we talk about real life, what it teaches us, and how to stay connected to ourselves through it all.
1:07
So if you like a little laughter with your life-changing conversations, go ahead and hit that follow button.
1:14
And if this podcast has ever made you feel seen, understood, Or slightly called out, but in the best way possible.
1:22
Leave a review.
1:23
This invites more women into the group chat so they know these conversations exist and they are not alone in feeling any of it.
1:32
Your review tells the next woman, "Girl, come sit down.
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You are in the right place Hey, hey, hey, friend.
1:41
You know that strange place where you already know something doesn't feel right, but you have absolutely no clue what to do about it?
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You don't know what the next job is, whether the relationship can be fixed, or even if you just need a nap and revisit the whole situation in a few days.
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All you know is this ain't it.
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And the minute you admit that, your mind instantly says, "Okay, but then what is?"
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And you say, "Well, I don't know."
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And your mind is like, "Well, what are you gonna do?"
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And then you come back with the, "I just said I don't know."
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But your mind is still like, "But what happens next?"
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Ma'am, if you ask me one more question I do not have the answer to, the inner debate team is at it again, and I hate this for you.
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We do not give ourselves much room to know one thing at a time.
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We think recognizing what isn't right only counts if we can immediately name its replacement.
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But that's not how real life works anyway.
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The first truth may simply be, I don't wanna keep living like this."
3:00
I was talking with a client who reached that place in her relationship.
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She came into the conversation saying, "I don't know what to do."
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She was losing sleep, struggling to focus, and changing her mind every other hour.
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One minute she was sure the relationship needed to end.
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The next, she was replaying all of the best moments and wondering if she was about to throw away something good.
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And she talked for a while, and I got curious, and I asked, "How does this relationship feel to you right now?"
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Not how it felt at the beginning or on their best vacation or even how she hoped it might finally feel if he understood everything she'd been trying to tell him.
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How did it feel now?
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She got quiet and she said, "It doesn't feel right anymore."
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And that was the thing.
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She kept saying she didn't know, but she did know something She knew she felt alone in the relationship.
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They kept having the same conversation over and over again.
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And no matter how many times the location changed, because listen, they done talked about it over dinner, in the kitchen, the living room, and yet the conversation was giving deja vu and not in a good way.
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She knew.
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She started carefully measuring every word to keep the peace, and she was tired.
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What she didn't know was what to do with any of it.
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and those are not the same thing.
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You may not know what the final decision should be, but that doesn't mean you don't know nothing.
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You noticed something.
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Something changed or feels different.
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There's an underlying feeling in you that keeps bringing it back up even after you've tried to explain it away.
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So give yourself some credit just for catching that.
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It may not be the full answer, but it is part of the answer.
4:59
Noticing rarely feels like enough when you're someone who's used to handling things, okay?
5:06
You see a problem, and you want a solution stat.
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You want to know where this is going, how long it's gonna take, and what will it look like when you get there, okay?
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My client didn't only want to know whether the relationship was right for her.
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She wanted to know what her entire life would look like if she left.
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Where would she live?
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Would she feel lonely or regret leaving?
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What if she never met anybody else?
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What if he changed a few weeks after she walked away and then became the man she had been asking him to be?
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Now, listen, she's over here picturing him emotionally available, planning dates, communicating beautifully, and frolicking through Paris with the next woman.
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Friend, the imaginary future will disrespect you if you let it.
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Despite an extremely active imagination, None of that actually happened.
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She was putting herself through the pain of 10 possible futures while she was still trying to survive the relationship she was actually in.
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And every unanswered question became a reason not to trust what she already felt.
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We do this even outside of relationships too.
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You know the job is draining you, but you don't know what you wanna do next, so you convince yourself the job must be fine.
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You know you don't like the way your days feel, but you can't picture a different life yet, so you just keep living the same one.
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You know a friendship has changed, but you don't know whether to address it, accept it, or let it go.
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Instead of acknowledging the change, you act like ain't nothing going on.
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Not knowing what to do next does not make what's happening now work any better.
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You are allowed to notice first.
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The next move can come later on Now this is where we get caught up.
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The relationship wasn't horrible every day.
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That mattered to my client.
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They still laughed.
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They had history.
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Ooh, that one right there can definitely have you overstaying your welcome, even if that was never your favorite subject.
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And the thing she kept coming back to was there were things about him she genuinely loved.
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So whenever she admitted the relationship no longer felt right, guilt followed right behind it.
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She would say, "He's not a bad person."
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And friend, that can be very, very true.
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She would tell me all of the good things that he had done and the difficult things he had experienced.
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All of that can be true, and the relationship could still be wrong for her.
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Yet she felt like she needed a reason nobody could argue with.
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She wanted to say, "Here's what had happened," and actually have an entire jury agree that leaving was the only reasonable choice.
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Real life doesn't always give you that.
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There may be good days mixed with the foolishness and the loneliness.
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There may be love mixed in with disappointment.
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Someone can be a good person and not be a good partner for you.
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That's an uncomfortable truth, especially when you've been taught that leaving is only justified after everything becomes terrible.
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If nothing is on fire, you start thinking you should stay in the building.
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Girl, the heat has been off for three winters, and half of the roof is missing.
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We do not need flames to admit this living situation is no longer ideal.
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There can also be shame around not knowing what you want instead.
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She thought as a strong, capable woman, she should have a plan.
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If she couldn't produce the plan, maybe she was just being emotional or making a problem out of nothing, or just needed to be more grateful.
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And that is the exact recipe for how you begin shaming yourself back into something your spirit has already started pulling away from.
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You don't need to call yourself ungrateful to avoid an inconvenient truth.
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You can appreciate the good and still acknowledge what doesn't fit anymore Once my client finally said this relationship doesn't feel right, she immediately jumped to, "Okay, so do I need to leave today?"
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Okay, wait a minute.
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Hold on.
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How did we get from telling the truth to ordering moving boxes in under 12 seconds?
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She had turned the discomfort of knowing into a full-fledged emergency.
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Okay?
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And listen, an actual safety issue is urgent.
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Harm happening right now is urgent.
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A real deadline is urgent.
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But there was no immediate danger or outside deadline in her situation.
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She felt like she needed to decide that day simply to make the discomfort stop.
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That is the question I want you to ask when your mind starts demanding an instant answer, ask yourself, "Is this urgency real or did I manufacture it?
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Did something happen that requires immediate action?"
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Or are you just trying to rush through the unknown?
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Because uncertainty is uncomfortable.
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You have one foot in what you know and no idea what the other one is supposed to be doing.
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Naturally, you wanna get out of that position, so you may force a decision before you're ready or run back to the familiar and tell yourself everything is fine.
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You might even grab the first available solution just to have one.
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My client didn't need to decide the whole rest of her life During that singular conversation, she needed enough room to hear what she had been trying to tell herself.
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Taking away the fake deadline changed the conversation.
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She could finally breathe.
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The relationship didn't suddenly become right.
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She simply stopped trying to solve the entire future before she acknowledged the present.
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Because listen, the unknown, it scared her.
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Of course it did.
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She knew the relationship had to end, but she also knew the routine, And which subjects could turn dinner into a two-hour argument nobody wanted.
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She knew how to function there.
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The life after the relationship, she couldn't picture it yet.
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Familiarity has an advantage, and it already has furniture.
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You know where everything is, even when you don't like the house.
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The unknown is standing there completely empty talking about, "You can make it whatever you want."
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Okay, HGTV, that sounds lovely.
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But where am I supposed to sleep tonight?
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This is why familiar doesn't have to feel good to feel safe.
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You know how to survive it.
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That doesn't automatically mean it deserves more of your life.
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My client kept comparing the most frightening version of the unknown with the best version of the familiar.
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Of course, staying every time won.
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She imagined leaving as lonely, difficult, and full of regret.
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Then she compared that imaginary future with the good days in her relationship.
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She wasn't comparing her actual options fairly.
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If you're gonna consider staying, include what staying has actually been like Include the nights you cried, the conversations that went nowhere, how much energy you spend trying to make yourself okay with things that are not okay with you.
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And when you think about the unknown, leave a little room for the possibility that it may hold something other than disaster.
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It may hold peace, relief, or perhaps a version of you who isn't instantly working to feel secure.
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You don't know yet.
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That is actually the point.
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There's nothing wrong with saying, "I don't know."
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The problem comes when you use it to talk yourself out of everything you do know.
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I don't know where to go, so I guess the relationship is fine.
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I don't know what I wanna do, so I'll stay in this job forever.
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I don't know what would make me happy, so I'll just keep putting myself last.
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And now I don't know is no longer an honest answer.
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It's just become the loophole you use to keep accepting what isn't working.
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My client would reach a clear moment and then ask herself a future question she couldn't answer, and those unanswered questions created doubt.
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The doubt sent her right back to the beginning without passing go or collecting 200, And then she would just call somebody.
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Oh, yes, the committee was fully involved, okay?
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One friend told her to leave immediately.
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Another reminded her that relationships take work, and a family member told her dating was horrible.
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Someone else thought she should just wait it out for six months.
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Everybody was giving her the answer that made sense through the lens of their own life.
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She had more opinions and way less clarity, and that's the tricky part about asking everybody else what you should do.
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You may think you're collecting wisdom when you're actually looking for somebody to remove the discomfort of choosing.
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If they tell you to stay, you don't have to face the unknown.
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If they tell you to leave and it goes badly, you can just tell yourself it wasn't fully your decision Either way, you don't have to trust yourself and listen.
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I'm not saying never ask for advice because wisdom and support matters.
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A good friend can help you see exactly what you've been avoiding.
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But after everybody gives their opinion and goes back home, you still have to live inside the answer.
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At one point, I asked my client to put everybody else's, advice to the side just for a minute.
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Not throw it away, but just turn that volume down.
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And then I asked, What do you know when nobody else is talking?
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She said, I know I don't wanna keep feeling like this."
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And that answer, it had been there the whole time.
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It just didn't come with the million-dollar budget it just didn't sound loud enough to compete with the committee.
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And after she stopped forcing herself to make an immediate decision, we could actually explore what she felt.
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not to debate it or fix it, but just to explore it.
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What was it that felt wrong?
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When had it started?
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What had she actually already tried?
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What would need to change for the relationship to feel healthy for her?
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Was there advice that both people were willing to create that change?
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Was there any evidence that both people were willing to create that change?
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And who had she become while trying to make it work?
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Those questions didn't tell her what to do.
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They helped her hear herself clearly.
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Over time, her next move became clearer.
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That clarity didn't arrive through one person handing her the answer.
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It came through her willingness to stop treating "I don't know yet," like a reason to dismiss everything she felt.
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The yet matters.
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You may not know today.
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I mean, listen, you could need more information, more time, support, more conversations, or even a space to see what's true when you aren't in the middle of managing everybody else's reaction.
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That is different from staying stuck forever.
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Listen, you're not committing to uncertainty for the rest of your life.
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You're just giving yourself enough room to hear the answer that's actually yours My client's real shift wasn't ending the relationship or making some knee-jerk reaction she wasn't ready for.
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It was telling herself the truth about it.
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She stopped requiring the full exit plan before she let her feelings count.
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She stopped calling herself confused when she was actually just uncertain, and she stopped acting like not knowing what came next meant nothing could change.
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This is what I want for you today.
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Not to rush a decision or jump into a 10-step plan created under pressure.
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Give yourself credit for noticing what no longer feels right, and let that recognition be meaningful.
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You don't have to know exactly where it leads yet.
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All you know right now could simply just be, "I don't wanna keep feeling this way.
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I don't feel like myself here.
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I've tried to make this work, and something still feels off.
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All I know is this ain't it."
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Okay, now you have somewhere honest to begin Friend, if you are listening to this right now thinking, "Okay, I know there's something in me, but I don't quite know what it is yet," that is exactly where the Main
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Character Energy Journal Prompts can support you.
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Because sometimes you don't need somebody else giving you any more advice.
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You need better questions, a quiet moment, a blank page, and enough space to hear yourself.
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These prompts are designed to help you get back into conversation with yourself, what you want, what you believe, what you're ready for, and what you're ready to leave behind The journal prompts are designed to help you get back
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into conversation with yourself.
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What do you want?
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What do you believe?
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What are you ready for?
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What are you ready to leave behind?
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And who do you want to be in your own life?
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So I'll put the link in the show notes so you can go ahead and grab yours Okay, friend.
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And now it's time for our favorite, the self-love two-step with the remix.
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Okay, step one, notice.
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Notice what keeps returning after you try to dismiss it.
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Maybe it's a feeling you keep explaining away, a conversation you keep avoiding, or a thought that shows up every time life gets quiet or another argument ensues.
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You don't need to judge it or turn it into an immediate decision.
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Just stop pretending you didn't hear yourself.
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Step two, explore.
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explore what feels off without asking yourself to solve it in the same breath.
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What's changed?
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What are you tired of?
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What do you need that you haven't been willing to name?
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What part of this no longer feels like you?
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Just let yourself answer before you call the committee And this is a special you step.
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I want you to finish this sentence: All I know is this ain't it because...
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And friend, don't clean it up or make it sound reasonable, okay?
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All you have to do is just state what's true for you, and then take one step that says, "I heard you."
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Maybe you journal about what came up, gather more information, give yourself space, or finally just have the conversation that you've been rehearsing in your head on repeat.
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The move isn't supposed to solve your entire life.
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It's simply proof That when you speak, you listen Now let me pour into you right quick.
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Friend, you don't have to be ashamed that something no longer feels right.
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You don't even need to activate the emergency evacuation plan just to escape the discomfort of not knowing.
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And you don't even have to run back to what's familiar while the next answer is still taking shape.
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Just give yourself some credit for noticing.
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You know what's powerful?
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When you say, "All I know is..."
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Friend, you do know something.
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Maybe you've just been speeding past what you know because the discomfort feels too heavy to bear What's just as powerful is what comes after you say what you know, because that is your truth, for now at least.
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So give yourself credit for listening to yourself, hearing yourself, and allowing what is true for you to mean something just for you.
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It's a sign of self-love and self-respect.
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there may be a version of you who may have talked herself out of this feeling, swallowed it, or called the committee before she even gave herself a chance to answer.
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But you're listening now.
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You're letting what you feel mean something.
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You may not know exactly what comes next, and you still are allowed to pause here for a little bit and tell yourself the truth about where you are.
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That is how you begin trusting yourself again, not knowing every answer, but by refusing to abandon the one you already have Friend, yes.
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Before you go, take a deep breath in and let it out Let that exhale go for as long as it needs to.
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You don't have to make the decision today unless today truly requires one.
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You don't need to know what your life will look like six months from now.
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For just this moment, Ask yourself what you know when fear, guilt, urgency, and everybody else's opinions leave the room.
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Then let that answer sit beside you without arguing it down.
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and if someone came to mind while you were listening, the friend who keeps saying she doesn't know what to do even though a part of her already knows what isn't working, go on ahead and send her this episode,
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okay?
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You don't have to give her the answer.
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Just tell her, "Friend, come sit down.
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I think you need this conversation."
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Okay, friend?
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Love you so much.
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And until next time, keep coming back to you