Listen in to another anonymous 1:1 coaching session. This time with an individual who feels tied down and stuck in their marriage but they aren't sure what the next move should be.
This is a situation I am personally familiar with, after fourteen years with my ex husband I also faced the difficult decision of staying or walking away, lots of lessons learned through the process.
Listen to my response and access more anonymous sessions and mentorship through theflowprotocols.com
Listen in to another anonymous 1:1 coaching session. This time with an individual who feels tied down and stuck in their marriage but they aren't sure what the next move should be.
This is a situation I am personally familiar with, after fourteen years with my ex husband I also faced the difficult decision of staying or walking away, lots of lessons learned through the process.
Listen to my response and access more anonymous sessions and mentorship through theflowprotocols.com
CAT
Welcome to another episode of The Flow Protocols. I’m excited because on this episode today, we’re going to be sharing another anonymous one on one session, this time with a woman who has found herself unfulfilled with her marriage, a 16 year marriage, but feeling stuck and trapped and not sure which way to move, which direction to take in her life.
So tune in on this anonymous session and hear my response to this situation. This is definitely something that I can personally relate with as I’ve been in this situation myself, divorced, finding we were on different pages, and I learned a lot of lessons through that process.
So enjoy the episode.
ANONYMOUS GUEST
So I think my biggest block at the moment is probably my relationship with my husband. So just sitting in this spot where I just am just very much disconnected from it.
And it’s almost like I just don’t feel anything there. It’s just frustration and anger and then just couldn’t be bothered. So that’s probably my biggest block at the moment.
CAT
So how long have you guys been married for by the way?
ANONYMOUS GUEST
Oh, I would say probably 16 years and we’ve been together just over about 22 years. So yeah, we were 17.
CAT
And how long have you been feeling this way about the marriage?
ANONYMOUS GUEST
Probably a couple of years, I think after the birth of our third child, which was three and a half years ago, I think that’s when it shifted for me. I just was like, “Yeah,” just started to check out a little bit
CAT
And it’s affecting you how? It’s just like you guys are differing views where you want to go in life and…
ANONYMOUS GUEST
I think mostly it’s, no communication there anymore. I avoid it with him. We still have pretty similar views on life and certain things, but I guess I want to go down a different route of more spirituality and having my own business. And he’s very much stuck in the, “No, you’ve got to work for someone. You’ve got to have that consistent income.” So there’s differing views on that, I think. And yeah, there’s a lot of blockages with language and stuff and communication and…
CAT
I can totally relate. I’ve been there. How long have you had your business for?
ANONYMOUS GUEST
I’ve had it since 2017, just as a side hobby from 2017. And then I worked into it a little bit probably just after we had our third and… It’s not been an instant disconnection, I think it’s… Because we were so young when we got together, we were 17, and we’ve grown together and learned things together and that sort of thing, and I think I’m at a stage where I just want to be my own person. I don’t want not so much the tie downs of having a husband, I’m okay with that, but just, he’s such a strong personality that I feel like I’m rebelling against him, if that makes sense. Because in the beginning it was just because we were young, I’m just easier to go along with things and I’m at a point where I’m like, “Am I me or am I him?” I don’t know.
CAT
So what you’re really seeking at this moment in your life that you feel like you’re not getting right now is what? Self identity, self autonomy, support?
ANONYMOUS GUEST
Yes. Definitely.
CAT
So it’s kind of coinciding with your business a bit as well, the timeline there, which is exactly what happened to me as well. I was with my ex-husband for 14 years and then I started to get into the entrepreneurial space and doing meditation and mindfulness and it felt like we were on two different planets in a way from there on. And it was really difficult to come to a place of accepting that that can happen sometimes and that there’s nothing bad about that. It’s just sometimes people grow in separate ways or they need different energy. So I stayed for five years knowing that I was done with it because I was so scared of leaving and I didn’t know how I would even financially support myself, to be honest. So in many ways the success of my business gave me some of that freedom. It allowed me to make that move that I was so scared of making for so long.
But I will say the thing that I’m grateful for, that I did in that process was that I really tried to fix it. And I think the first step is to recognize that a lot of the times people, when they trigger us, it’s resolved as soon as we come back into ourselves fully, because every trigger in our reality is always just a lesson about us more than him. What you’re saying you want from, from reality right now is support, self autonomy, identity, a sense of identity. So that’s what you’re telling yourself you’re not giving yourself. You’re you are waiting for him to do that for you. And any time we have conditions like that, usually it’s a mirror and it doesn’t really… Walking away, we just walk into the same situations.
But it’s not to say that this isn’t you need to walk away or you need to stay. By the way, there’s no right or wrong. You make each decision right and wrong. That’s entirely up to you. So no one could tell you you need to walk away and no one can say to you need to stay. That is only a decision that you will ever know within yourself. But I would say the first thing you want to try to do before you make a decision to walk away, because you don’t want to just walk away into the same circuit, and then it’s the same thing. You want to make sure that you give yourself what it is that you’re communicating you don’t have right now. Because if you’re able to do that first, what you’ll sometimes find is the thing that bothered you a lot, it actually doesn’t bother you at all anymore. It’s totally fine.
This happens with clients. This happens in the business world. You’re really annoyed at something because you feel that it’s curbing your creative freedom. But then when you just go and give yourself that flow and that creative freedom, suddenly you don’t mind doing the menial tasks in the business anymore. They don’t bother you half as much and you can just get them done. And actually a lot of relationships can be resolved this way. The person that annoys us, suddenly… We get this with our children. They reflect us. When we’re stressed out and we’re anxious, our kids are menaces to be around. They completely mirror us back, and it’s the most triggering thing for us, because it’s like, “Can’t you see?” But it’s totally a lesson of this is this trigger is telling you something more about yourself than the children themselves.
The solution is not to adopt out your kids or walk away from them. The solution is to just go, “Oh, okay. What is this situation? How is this making me feel insecure or lacking a part of something that I want?” And then you find that when you calibrate back, suddenly your children have a totally different behavior. It’s almost like magic. They just calm the fuck down. It really is a mirror of you. So a lot of relationships can be solved when we simply give ourselves what we’re saying we don’t have. A lot of partnerships that I… A lot of my friends and clients I work with and what I’ve become more perceptive since reading the Five Love Languages is that we communicate very differently, each one of us, we have different perspectives. And sometimes we can really create stories and narratives in our head about how somebody is trying to snub us or cause us harm or do these things to us.
But in reality, they’re truly trying to show affection and confused, and it’s our perspective that pushes and aggravates and inflames the entire situation. But that perspective is one of scarcity and lack because it doesn’t feel good. It’s red light. It doesn’t feel good to believe that. It doesn’t feel good to think that your husband is this person that’s just there to take away your identity and leave you feeling like you have to bear the world on your shoulder and all of these things. It doesn’t feel good. Is this making sense?
ANONYMOUS GUEST
Yeah.
CAT
Have you tried different things or have you tried this before of feeling into what… You say you want identity and support? What else do you think is… A good sign is look at the red… What is he making you feel? What is the situation making you feel? What is the structure you’re in making you feel? What are the red lights? And if you can identify those, you can spot what it is you want because it’s always the polar opposite.
ANONYMOUS GUEST
It’s a little tricky, because I think in the last few years, our biggest struggle happens on a weekend and it’s because he drinks, and he’s not violent or anything that. He has a foul mouth and he can get say some nasty things, but just the way he says it and it’s triggering for me so that as soon as he has a drink, I’m just like, “I’m out,” I’m checked out. I’m like, “No, I don’t want to deal with this.” So that’s become a very repetitive pattern over the last couple of years. So it’s really hard because he’s not coming from a place of sobriety where by having an argument about something, it’s just ridiculous, stupid stuff that’s masked because of his drinking, which is to me, makes me far more angrier. Does that make sense?
CAT
So you have a very big trigger existing right in front of you in your household and it goes against everything that you value or you are. So let’s go back to those red light states. How does that make you feel, that situation where he’s drinking and you just feel like you have to leave the house or… What is the red light there? Do you know? Is it frustration, anger?
ANONYMOUS GUEST
Anger, yeah.
CAT
Deep red. Deep red. And it hijacks your body. You can feel it in your nervous system, your nerve endings are on edge. Just nobody touched this woman right now, you know? So what is the polar of anger?
ANONYMOUS GUEST
What is it? Is it love or secure?
CAT
I mean, ultimately it’s all love, but secure, empathy even, peace of mind as well. So tell me, there’s this version of yourself, because that’s what you’re basically not… That your environment, your reality right now is not validating a space of security, peace of mind, and empathy. It’s too much. It’s too triggering. But your reality is never going to be the one to change. This guy is not going to stop his drinking. Facts. Well maybe he will, we don’t know. But it’s not the odds you want to bet on, if you’re going to put bets on him, he’s going to be the one who will suddenly rectify everything.
So it’s really risky business to wait for your external environment to validate that green light of what you’re in. But you can do that, you can change your circumstances by you doing that to yourself first. So security, empathy, peace of mind. There’s a version of yourself who has this deeply in her life. There’s no triggers existing, there’s no problems like that. She feels really at ease, peace of mind, empathetic. Nobody triggers her like that. Do you know what that feels like? When’s the last time you felt something like that?
Probably when I get to do things for myself, when there’s no one else around, no other duties and must dos and that sort of thing. If I go away for a weekend with some girlfriends, probably. That’s probably the last time I felt that.
But you have muscle memory of it, which means you’ve felt it before and you have memory recall and you’re describing it as something that’s almost a flow state when you’re with your friends and you’re deep immersion in a project and you feel secure and you feel at ease and you have empathy for other people and their circumstances and what’s happening, yeah?
ANONYMOUS GUEST
Yeah.
CAT
But it also sounds like you don’t really remember because you had to go picking and fishing. And this is exactly why that trigger’s showing up. You’ve been relying on your external circumstances to validate. You’ve been relying on you being with girlfriends or in a project or external things in your environment and experiences to help you find peace of mind, empathy, and a space of security. So the invitation here is you figure out how to give yourself this sensation before your reality does this to you, suddenly your reality will change. Now we don’t know which way this is going to go, and trying to guess, you’re going to leave or you’re going to stay, whichever one is more useful to believe in. Basically just picking that one for now. Because there’s no point even trying to guess. There’s so many probabilities.
But what you’ll find is the moment you start to calibrate to that sensation of empathy, peace of mind, security, and validating that within yourself, suddenly you’re going to find you either cannot put up with it anymore, and you’re out, because the version of yourself who feels that would see that behavior and just be like, “Why am I here? I’m out.” Because they value themselves so much. Or you will have such empathy for this person that you will stay and whatever. We don’t know which one that’s going to be and there’s no right or wrong. That’s the cool thing. Either way is right or wrong. The decision comes down to you always, but you have to always lead the way.
And right now the reason this trigger is happening is because you’ve started a business, you’ve started to get into new circles of different paradigms and different ideas, and the structure of your reality that you once believed in is seriously changing, and you’re being called and invited to expand because now you see, you get new ideas of what’s possible for you in your life, and you’re wanting identities so you can fulfill these desires. There’s a big growth happening in your life. But you’re not going to get there until you teach yourself security, empathy, and peace of mind, and that’s why this trigger’s showing up, so that it can invite you to transmute and make this lesson one that helps you expand, because you’re going to need that to receive and allow the things that you now have awareness you want in your life.
No one will argue that your state of being the way you feel is going to determine your actions, because a jealous person behaves differently than a secure person, or an angry person makes difference choices right than a empathetic person. But your reality is not going to be the one that’s going to change that for you. This man is not… Well, he might, we don’t know. This is the cool thing, but would you put your bet on that? Are you going to stick around and wait for him to make… For him to make the final decision it’ll have to get so bad. He’ll have to do something so horrible. So it’s such a bad way to wait for that outcome that you want right now. You want clarity and you want to know either this gets fixed or resolved, or I need the courage to step away. Something has to give. I cannot be in this space of anger anymore. But waiting for him or waiting for external circumstances to make that call for you is really risky business.
So you have to figure out first, “What is it that these triggers are inviting me to calibrate to? Oh, peace of mind. When’s the last time we felt that? Long time ago.” Well, maybe this is a big reason why we have this trigger and why we’re being invited to this lesson because you’re going through a big transformation and you’re going to need that ability for yourself to give yourself… You think you can grow a business really successfully if you don’t validate yourself fully and you are secure in yourself? Do you think you can receive millions of dollars? Do you think that’s possible? You’d probably end up squandering it, just like a lotto winner. You wouldn’t be ready. You’d be so afraid of the success that you’d be like, “Oh no, when is this going to go? I’m not used to this.” So you’re being called to transmute states so you can normalize it first so that you can properly receive it when it comes to you. You get that?
ANONYMOUS GUEST
Yeah.
CAT
So what are you going to do?
ANONYMOUS GUEST
I’m going to recognize when I’m am in those states and then I’m going to try and just… I don’t know, I think I’m going to just try and be more empathetic towards his points of view, as inebriated as they are at that time.
CAT
Make it a game. This is the beauty of your imagination. Literally be like, “Every time he says something rude, he’s saying he loves me.” Make it a game in your head. Who fucking cares how ridiculous it is? Just use your imagination because you can do shit that with your imagination. And then it becomes fun. But I would say even more proactively, because if that’s really deep red, it’s really hard to transmute that into empathy right off the go. That’s a deep stretch you’re wanting to do. So even more proactively practice those states, even when the triggers aren’t around, because that will build the stretch, that will build the muscle, that will teach your nervous system what that sensation feels like so you have easier memory recall and you can keep yourself in it longer. And then you’ll find you can approach the red lights and even transmute them on the spot in such a way.
But I think don’t expect that from yourself the first or few goes. Just keep practicing because it sounds like you haven’t given that to yourself in many, many years, so you’re having to teach yourself. You’re having to stretch back into it and you have to have patience with yourself through that. But it will happen very fast. And when you calibrate back to green unconditionally in this way, you won’t even have to… Your reality will organize itself to solve the things that are not aligned anymore. The things that are just… It’s time, it’s time to walk away, and it’s okay to say, “We had a really good fucking run. We loved each other and nothing that happens here on out negate that history or that past, or the respect we had for each other.”
But it’s also okay to say sometimes people change and they go different ways, and that happens, and we shouldn’t shouldn’t shame that, because man, if we did that for business, for example, you have so many ideas. Most entrepreneurs are like, boom, boom, boom. And if we felt shame and guilt about walking away from every single one of those or the failures, it would just be like this… It wouldn’t even be worth it to be creating in this way. It’s okay to admit that. But I wouldn’t walk away until you calibrate to what it is you’re telling yourself you need first, because then it’s like you won’t even have to pick. It’ll be very clear. It’ll be a very clear magnetism, and life will organize itself to help you lose the things that are not aligned or help you fix what can be aligned for you.
CAT
Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of The Flow Protocols. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did, please make sure you leave a review wherever you’re tuning in from. I would really appreciate that.