Latest / Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell / Maybe You Already Know. You're Just Not Ready.

Transcript

Maybe You Already Know. You're Just Not Ready. · Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate, a podcast covering all things relationships, separation, and divorce.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: How to create healthy, happy, fulfilling relationships without sacrificing any part of yourself.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Supporting anyone feeling challenged in their relationship or marriage.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: These are confidential conversations for you if you're navigating separation, divorce, or reorganising life afterwards.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Decide whether to stay or leave a relationship or marriage, divorce with less drama, and consciously choose what's next for you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Warren Tree people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this land.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: This week's episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate is called You Already Know, You're Just Not Ready.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to open by telling you, talking about a woman I know really, really well.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: She's smart, she's self-aware, she's a great mum, a kind friend, really thoughtful person.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: She's someone who spent years doing the work, trying to understand herself, the way she moves through the world, her relationship.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: She's also spent a really long time second guessing, wondering, doubting, never quite trusting what she finds, getting close to an answer, and then talking herself out of it.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And she is completely, utterly stuck.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: She's been asking herself the same questions on loop probably for longer than she'd like to admit, even to herself, and not just should I stay or should I go, should I stay in this relationship or should I quit and take a chance outside of it?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: But on a more deep level, is this all there is?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Can there be more?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: More to life, more to love, more to marriage, more to relationship, more to me, more for me than this.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she can't bring herself to make the final call, even though some part of her already has.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've sat with this woman more times than I can count, honestly.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: She shows up in my reflect community, in my coaching work, different faces, yes, with slightly different background stories, different details, but that loop, that cycle is almost always the same.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I also add that I see this woman, this person, not just in those questioning whether to stay or leave a marriage or relationship.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I see this same pattern, the same woman in those who've already left, who find themselves then stuck in a different version of the same cycle, repeating the same pattern, circling, second guessing, pulling back, maybe just when something good is in reach, or wondering again and again, is this enough?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is this all there is?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is this as good as it gets?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: This paralyzing indecision kicks in, overwhelms them, and it's a little bit like last week's episode about quitting before you've even given what you most hope for and dream of a shot, right?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be really honest here, I also recognize her from the inside, so not just professionally in my work.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: I know something of what it is to be her, which is exactly why I want to talk about what keeps her stuck and what it actually takes to free yourself from that stuckness.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: There is a pattern, and here's what I see again and again and again, and it is about outsourcing our power, waiting for something or someone external to make the decision, for things to get not just bad enough, but there is an element of that, right?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But things to be clear enough that you can't argue with them anymore, but you're externalizing your agency there in the most fundamental way.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: You are sitting in the passenger seat of your own life, but hoping something outside will drive and will drive you somewhere better, right?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you're outsourcing that agency, you're waiting for a really big, obvious sign, and that's not that's not a weakness.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to shame or judge or blame anyone.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is your brain and your body seeking certainty, and this is what we do, particularly when the stakes feel impossible, huge, and the grief of the truth or the grief of accepting that truth and taking the next action can feel almost too much to hold, right?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also what keeps her stuck, what keeps you stuck, what keeps us stuck, waiting for certainty, waiting for there to be one single right answer, waiting to know definitively.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps you never can.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Even when you make the call to leave, can you ever know definitively that it was the exact right one?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, yes, it's really clear and it's really obvious once you step out, but sometimes it's not.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's nuanced, it's grey, right?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And here's a part of that that's hard, I think, for some of us to talk about, except because it's not just what's happening between the two of you, it's not just what's happening inside that relationship, it's about a dance, a dance that both of you are in.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And going back to that woman, there's a particular feeling that she knows really, really well.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a distance that opens up or constantly exists between her and her other person, and that's not always dramatic, it's not always a fight.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's just the silence that sits there, the disconnect, living like flatmates, like friends in parallel rather than partnership.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And while that might be a season or a chapter in some relationships, that's not what this is.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: This has gone on or sat between them for so, so long.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: It can be a conversation that never quite never quite completes or gets resolved, right?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a sense that she's reaching out and he's somewhere else, or that she's withdrawn and he just doesn't even seem to notice, or does notice but doesn't know what to do with it.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: That connection, that disconnect that feels out of reach and it's replayed over and over and over again.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And in that in that space, in that gap between them, both of them have a pattern, you know, and often she's building, she's building up, she's building evidence, she's banking enough, and she gets brave enough to stay take a step forward towards something, and that might be googling something, looking at family lawyers online, it might be reaching out to connect with me and make an ink make a booking for an intro call.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: It might be a hard conversation, a decision, or or looking at or daring to look at a version of herself in her life that she knows she wants, and then she gets back in her head, or she lets herself get back in her head.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Her fears or doubts, her deeply human tendency not to do the hard thing, not to trust what she already knows.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: She might convince herself that she's overreacting or that this time will be different, or this time things can change, and she stays.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not because she's weak or naive, it can be because she wants this to work so badly that she then interprets everything through that lens, right?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: We don't do this to ourselves on purpose, we do it because we've got a big heart, we love hard and we hope even harder because we want the relationship, we want to believe in and trust in and hope in what the relationship can become, right?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: To transcend the hard part so much that we'll even use the smallest thing, the smallest piece of evidence that it might.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: But hope when it's doing that work, when it's doing that much heavy lifting lifting, is actually worth a really honest look.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about the shifts.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: What does it actually take to break this, to break the cycle?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: In my experience working with people in this place, and also knowing, as I said, something of it from the inside, personally, it comes down to three things.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: First, you have to stop ignoring or minimising your own part in the cycle, in the pattern, in the dance.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not about blaming or shaming, it's not about minimising what's been hard, what's been left undone, what is actually on the other side of the of the fence for them, the other person to do.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's about looking really honestly at the role you are playing, we are playing in our own pattern, in our own relationship, in our own dance, the ways that maybe you self-abandon, the way you go along with things, the way you don't speak up, or the way you choose to not listen to what you already know.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can't break out of a pattern or a cycle that you haven't been able or willing or capable to fully see.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Both sides of it.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, look at what the other person is and is not doing, but also look at what part of that is yours.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Where can you take responsibility?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: What part of that pattern is yours to hold?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when you can look at that, you can look at shifting it, right?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Second, you need to give yourself permission to let go of that certain kind of hope.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that sounds a little brutal, but just stay with me.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: There is that kind of hope that sustains us through genuinely hard seasons, right?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there's another kind of hope, trust, belief, hope that actually keeps us frozen, stuck, cycling through the same process, the same ground, going over the same ground indefinitely.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when hope actually becomes a way of not looking at the reality, not looking at or avoiding the truth, it's time to look really honestly at what we're hoping away from.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Releasing that kind of hope isn't giving up, it's actually facing into the wind and facing finally what's real, as cold and as hard and as heartbreaking as that might be.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So giving up the hope of shift change when all the evidence is suggesting it's not coming, giving up that kind of hope is actually freedom, not defeat.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the third thing, you have to let yourself feel it and feel the magnitude, yes, but feel the reality, all of it, the grief, the fear, the full weight of what choosing differently on a path forward is going to mean, and you have to stop accepting, settling, performing that this is fine because it's not fine, and by feeling all of it, you can then stop using that bigness, that enormity of the feelings as a reason to stay stuck or frozen.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's about really feeling them and moving through them, not pushing them down or dodging around them.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is going to be hard to shift, change, move through, right?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's that gap I talked about in last week's episode between where you are and where you want to be.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if we focus on the hard in the middle, we never get to where we want to be.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to, yes, look at where you want to be, but also come back to where you are and allow yourself to feel all the big hard feelings.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the fourth thing that I want to talk about here is just a really practical, tangible thing that you can do.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: With anyone who's in this cycle, whether it's stay or leave a marriage, what am I going to do with this dating situationship afterwards, what's coming next for me, I always suggest write it down.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Keep a log, a private note on your phone.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Build your evidence, the moments that between the two of you, if it's a should I stay, should I leave debate question, the moments that it didn't feel right, didn't sit right, the things that were said, the things that were left unsaid, the times the other person's actions didn't reflect the words, the times that you felt let down or you let someone else down, the times your words didn't align with your actions, those disconnect moments, the distance, and the times that you talked yourself out of what you already knew.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because you will forget our brain is really good at making us look at things with a bias, right?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't want to do the hard thing, you don't want to move through the messy, hard phase of creating change, you will allow your brain to look to seek evidence for why you should stay.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: You'll look back and reach for all the positives and you'll use them as evidence.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this time, maybe the next time.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's okay if that's what you really want.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's not, then you've got a record.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a record there, and it will show you your part in the pattern really clearly in the moments you're about to talk yourself out of everything that you already know, everything that you already understand, but you're perhaps not ready or willing or able or in a position to look at honestly.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: So write things down, keep a journal, keep it on your phone, whatever, however, it works for you.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Write things down, get them out of your head and onto paper so that you can reflect back on them, remember them as they were in real time, not just as your brain wants you to remember them.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the simplest, most practical, and probably underrated things that I recommend.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking here about building a case against the other person or a legal case, right?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's about clarity.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And clarity is really hard to find, create, hold on to when you're standing in the middle, when you're standing inside something.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you need to be able to give yourself really clear evidence to override the stories your brain is telling you and to anchor yourself into reality, into what actually happened, is happening, and your your part in that.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's the only thing you can shift or change, right?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Your part, your choice, your decisions, your actions.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so back to her, back to that woman.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to say here that she's not any of the things that she's telling herself or calling herself at 2 a.m.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: She's not crazy, she's not irrational or illogical, she's not failing at something that everyone else is managing easily.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: She's maybe just not quite ready to see what she already knows, and she's protecting herself the best way she knows right now.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: She's middle cycle, mid-cycle, and cycles, patterns by design, pull you back in.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we call them cycles, right?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's stuck because she's deeply human with a big heart and hopeful and generous and caught in a pattern that's probably bigger than either of the people in it contributing to it.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the first step out of that pattern, the first step out of that cycle is recognition.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if this is you, if you've been listening and thinking that's me, then let's talk.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: DM me, I'll send you the link to book your free intro call.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's no pressure, no pitch.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a conversation about where you are, what this cycle looks like for you, and what is possible for you on the other side.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because maybe you're telling yourself, I don't know, I don't know.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps, perhaps you actually do know and you're just not ready.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: As always, thank you for being here.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you know somebody who would benefit or feel supported by listening to this, please share it with them.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: There is a link in the show notes if you want to book an intro call with me directly in my calendar or DM me and we can go from there.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week, bye for now.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sally Ann Hartnell, divorce coach and strategist, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow me on Instagram at Reflect Coaching, and if you can think of anyone who would love or benefit from listening to this episode, please share it with them.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also be so grateful if you would follow and review the podcast so we can get it in the ears of a whole lot more people just like you who are ready to reclaim and liberate themselves in life and love.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll join me next week for another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Until then.