Latest / Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell / Future You Deserves A Vote

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Future You Deserves A Vote · 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.
• 0:14
  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 Warrentry 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 to this week's episode of the podcast.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm going to open with a question, a question I really want you to sit with, not just let it wash over you, but actually pause and feel into it.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here it is.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: When you are in the middle of one of the hardest seasons of your life, and if you're listening to this, there's a good chance that you are, whether that's deciding if you should stay or leave a relationship, or you're navigating your way out of a marriage through a divorce, moving through the messy season that is divorce, or even reorganizing life on the other side.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're in a hard season.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: The question I want to ask you, and I want you to sit with is who is actually at the table when you're making decisions?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you consulting?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you asking?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Who has a vote?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, maybe that's your lawyer.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, maybe that's your therapist, maybe your best friend, your sister, your mum, your dad, maybe that's me or another coach or social support person.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a voice in your head that's running, running on fear and exhaustion, and the desperate desire for this to just be over.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I understand all of that.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And some of those actually deserve to be listened to and heard, right?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that, I really do, but here's who I want to talk about today, and that is future you, that person you will be in one year, in two years, in five years' time, because that version of you already exists, she's real, and right now she doesn't have a seat at the table, she doesn't have a vote.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: But today I'm gonna give you the tools so that you can give her one.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know that wherever you are right now, it is a hard season, and it's how you move through this season that matters just as much as getting through it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about the problem with deciding, making decisions from the floor, from lying on the bathroom floor, right?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: When we're in crisis, and let's be honest, divorce, even making the decision to leave, is a crisis.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Separation is a crisis, even just questioning whether to stay is its own particular kind of quiet crisis.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: When we are in crisis, we make decisions from the most contracted version of ourselves.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: The scared version, the exhausted version, the version of you who hasn't slept properly in maybe months, the version of you who cries in the car and then pulls it all together before you walk through the door, the version of you that just wants somebody else to tell you what to do, because the weight of all of it is almost unbearable.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is real, that is reality, and I'm not going to sit here and tell you to simply think more clearly when you are in the middle of something that has cracked your heart wide open, is terrifying and overwhelming and life-changing.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I do want to say, I do want you to think about the decisions that you make from that contracted place won't magically disappear when you get through this.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever this is yours.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: They won't magically disappear when all of this is over and the dust settles on a new version of life.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: They actually have real weight and they will continue to impact you and your life.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Decisions that we make from that contracted place have weight, they will continue to impact and they compound.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it, that financial agreement that you're tempted to sign just because you want peace, you want it over, you don't want to have to deal with that other person anymore, even though something in you knows it's not quite right, or the parenting plan you're tempted to agree to because you're terrified, you're exhausted, and you just need to get it done so you can start moving forward.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Even small things, seemingly small things, like the way you spoke about your ex, even the way you spoke about yourself, to your children, to your mutual friends, to yourself in those raw most reactive moments.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the story, the narrative that you've built for yourself, and perhaps probably shared with others about why your marriage ended is ending.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I wasn't enough, maybe I gave too much, I should have known.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: They were always like this.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: I wasted years, whatever your version of that story, whatever the version is that you're telling yourself.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's about the way you showed up or you didn't show up in some of those really hard conversations, some of the hardest conversations of your life.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't just moments, these aren't just decisions, they're not just things that happened or are happening.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: They are the raw material, the building blocks of the person you are becoming, the version of you you're evolving into is being built from these moments, from these decisions.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Future you inherits every single one of those decisions.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And most of us don't actually think of our future self as a real actual stakeholder in the decisions we're making today.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: That version of us feels so far away, hypothetical, like almost like a luxury to think about when you're in the mess of it, right?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: When you're just trying to survive the day, the week.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: But future you is not actually a fantasy.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: She's not some polished, heeled, glowing version of you that exists only on the other side of all of this.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: She's actually being constructed right now, she's being built right now.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: One decision, one reaction at a time, one agreement, one conversation, one moment at a time, and one moment of choosing fear over values or values over fear at a time.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And right now, maybe she doesn't have a voice or a seat at the table or a vote.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: You are making decisions that will shape her life, shape her sense of herself, her financial reality, her relationship with her children, her story, and she hasn't really been thought about or consulted.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what could maybe change if she was?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Really, what might change if you brought her into the room?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Brought her into the space where the decisions that will actually impact her are being made right now, and so some questions to really sit with and ponder if this is kind of landing with you.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that I want to start these questions with what's important to you right now, and what's going to be important to that version of you in five years' time?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: What are her values?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Anchor you right now in her values, her wants, her desires, her needs.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Make that part of your reality now and make decisions from that space.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: But the questions, the first question I want you to sit with is if the woman you will be in five years could see the decision, the decisions you're facing right now, that one decision that's keeping you awake at night, the one that keep you keep going around and around and around on, would she feel proud of how you navigated it?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Not brick, not proud because of the decision, not proud because you were perfect, not proud because you won the argument, not even proud of the decision itself, but proud because how of how you navigated it, proud because you navigated it as deeply anchored into your values yourself.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Would she look back and be proud of the way you're making these decisions right now?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Second question, and these are in no real order, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Second question: Are you making this choice from fear, from that contracted lying on the floor version of you, or from values?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why I said let's start with values.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: What's important to you?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: What are your values?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: How do you want to move through this?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: But what are her values, future you values?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Are you making your choice from fear or from values?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes it's hard to know.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: They can look almost the same.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Fear might say, it's time, just agree, get it done, it's easier.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And values sometimes says, This is gonna get harder before it gets easier, and that's okay.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Fear might say, Don't rock the boat, don't make noise about this, and values might say to you, babe, your boat is already sinking, rock it.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: This matters.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Fear can be loud, values can be quieter, and in the middle of a crisis, often our fear wins because it's loud and because it's whipping us into a frenzy of I've just got to get this done.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, unless you're actually actively, deliberately asking yourself which one is driving, fear often wins.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: The third question: what are you agreeing to just because you want this all done, you want the pain to go away, you want the overwhelm to ease off all of the hard stuff to be over with.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And, and this is important, is that okay?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes, honestly, it is.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the cost of pushing and fighting and negotiating is not actually worth what you'll gain.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes choosing peace, choosing to rip the band-aid off and just get this done is a deeply wise and values-aligned decision.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the question isn't whether you're choosing the easy path.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: The question is whether you're choosing consciously or whether you're just allowing the pain to choose for you.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth question: what story are you telling yourself here?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: What story are you telling yourself about what happened, about why this marriage ended, about why this relationship imploded, about your role in it, about the other person, his or her role in it, about what that all means about you.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because that story, that narrative, that one that's spinning around, the story that you're actually telling yourself and building right now in the thick of hard stuff, that story has longevity and it carries power.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a story that you will be living inside and with for years, probably forever.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the story that Future You wants to inherit or inhabit?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Future You does get a say here about the story you're telling her about her life.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: She gets a vote.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is the story you're telling yourself and how can you shift or change that if you need to?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the fifth question almost circles back to the first opening about values, right?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: How are you showing up in this process, in all the mess and all the hard stuff, not perfectly, but intentionally?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Are you showing up intentionally and in a way that aligns with your personal values?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Are you showing up intentionally in the hard conversations, in the negotiations, in the co-parenting relationship, if that is your reality, in the way you think about and talk about this season, this experience to your people, to your kids, to yourself?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is the person you're being in this season someone future you will look back on with tenderness, with gratitude, with respect, with pride, as someone that she can feel proud of and respect for?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: What is the legacy you're gifting that future version of yourself by how you're choosing to show up?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't about getting it all perfect and being perfect and getting it right all of the time or having your shit so completely beautifully together, because that's not realistic in what is one of the hardest seasons of life.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know too how that perfectionist brain can take something like this and turn it into just another way that you're getting it wrong, and that's not what I'm trying to do here because this is not about doing your divorce right.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: There is no right, there is no one right way to do or get through this.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's your way, so it's not about performing gratitude or grace when you feel like you're falling apart or you feel like keying someone's car or sending that hated text right.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about toxic positivity all wrapped up in this future you language, and it's not about never losing it, never losing your temper, never falling apart on the bathroom floor, never sending that text that you know maybe you shouldn't, never collapsing on the floor crying or feeling like you simply cannot do this anymore.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can't keep going or do the next hard part.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: You are human, this is hard, it's painful, and you will get some of it wrong.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know that, and future you know that too.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, what future you needs, what that future version of you is actually asking for, is not perfection, it's intentionality.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Even in those hard moments, even when you get it wrong and you might have to course correct or apologize or make a change.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: There is a profound difference between decisions made unconsciously, reactively, from survival mode, from fear, from that most contracted version of ourselves, and a decision made, even a hard one, even a painful one, with some thread of awareness about where that's leading you and who you are choosing to become.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: That thread is really important, and these decisions have a cumulative effect.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: As I said earlier, they compound, and the decisions we make in pain, in fear, in reactive mode, from that contracted space in the fog of grief and exhaustion and overwhelm, they don't just affect you right now, they don't just affect the outcome of separation, of a divorce, they actually shape us, they shape who we are and who we are becoming, and they become the lens, the lens through which we interpret what happened.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: They become the stories we carry and tell ourselves, they become habits, they become habits of either self-abandonment or self-advocacy, and that those habits, those patterns follow us into whatever comes next and whoever we evolve into next.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I've sat with so many who have arrived through the mess on the other side of separation divorce and asked or wondered why they still didn't feel release or freedom, why they still felt held down or small or stuck or like the divorce had promised reclamation and liberation, but didn't quite deliver that feeling.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, not always, but sometimes it's because the decisions made during the process were made from that contracted space and so have kept them contracted, kept them in a version of themselves they were actually trying to leave behind.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that woman who or that person who kept saying yes and agreeing to things when everything inside is screaming no, because she'd been doing that her whole marriage and perhaps kept doing it through the separation too.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Those ingrained patterns that we live within carried into the negotiation and into future you, the person who maybe kept her her voice small in negotiations because that's what she'd been trained to do and carried that smallness through the process and also out the other side.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And don't don't think I'm blaming here.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is not about blame or shame.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Please hear me.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of those people that I'm talking about was doing their very best with what they had in circumstances no one really prepares you for, right?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is about awareness and it's about what is still possible because it is never too late to begin deciding from alignment.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's never too late to ask, what does future me need from me right now?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's part of my role as a coach wherever I meet my client in the beginning, early questioning phases, in the messy middle, or right at the end out the other side.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Part of my role is holding my clients, holding you gently, kindly, compassionately accountable, accountable to the vision that you hold, accountable to that future version of you.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's probably something that's a little bit underrated or undervalued in what I do.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not strictly strategy, although, of course, we always talk strategy, it's not just emotional psychosocial support, although there's that too in a coaching container.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's this, it's when you are in survival mode, and you will be at some point if you're not already.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is almost impossible to keep your vision focused, to keep one eye on that future vision you have for yourself, on who you're becoming.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost impossible to do that for yourself.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: You are just too busy surviving, managing today.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: That lawyer's email, the conversations with the kids, the financial spreadsheet that just makes no sense, the grief and overwhelm and stress and anxiety that ambushes you in the middle of the night.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: I get it.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I know it.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know it myself, I've known it myself, and I support clients through it.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that is precisely why having someone, whether that's me, whether that's a friend, who can hold the longer view for you can change everything.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: My role as coach is to keep you gently, compassionately accountable to the future vision you already hold for your life.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not my vision for you, it's yours.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one that you know is waiting for you, that you can sense, you can feel it, you've glimpsed it, even in the dark, hard moments.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's the person you want to be, the life that you're quietly, maybe not quietly, you're reaching for.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And one part of my job is to ask the questions that make future you a real present voice in the decisions that you're navigating and negotiating today.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: To notice with compassion, not with judgment, to notice when a decision is being made from fear rather than values, when you to question you and challenge you, when perhaps you're abandoning abandoning yourself again without realizing it, when you're about to agree to something that today you want because they just want it done over, but future you is going to have to live with.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Even in the messy hard parts, probably especially then.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: So before your next hard conversation, before your next decision, before you maybe agree to something just to make this all go away, or before you send the message that you know you might regret, before you react when everything just wants you to, pause just for a moment and ask her.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Ask them, ask future you, what do you need from me right now?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because that version of you is not only waiting on the other side of this, that version of you is not some gift or reward you get when all of the messy hard stuff is finally over.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: That version of you is being built by this now, right now, by the choices you make in the hard moments, by the way you show up when no one would blame you for falling apart or ranting wildly.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Future you is being built, constructed, created by that thread of intentionality that I'm hoping you can keep finding your way back to.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: So give Future U a vote.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Future U deserves a vote because it's her life that you're creating here.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: If this landed for you, if something shifted or clarified, or it spoke to something that you've been feeling but couldn't find the words for, I would love to hear from you, you know where I am, you can send me a message via the show notes.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're at a point where you want or need someone to help you hold that longer vision, that longer view with you, where you want support that keeps Future You in the room right throughout all of this, come and find me.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: The links in the show notes to book an intro call and we can talk about what that can look like for you.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, take care of you and allow Future You a say, a voice, a vote in the life that you're creating.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thank you for being here.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sally Ann Hartnell, divorce coach and strategist, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 25:42
  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.
• 25:50
  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.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll join me next week for another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Until then.