The Loving Truth

When Clarity Finally Comes (And Why It Feels Elusive)

• Sharon Pope • Episode 113

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“Anger gives us courage… but courage is not the same thing as clarity.” – Sharon Pope

The renowned sociologist and life coach Martha Beck taught me to ask a very important question when I’m feeling unclear about my next steps. 

In this episode, I’ll share the question, the brain science, and the first step to take if you feel unclear about a decision in your relationship. I’ll also talk about the difference between courage and clarity and explain why the story of my first marriage has nothing to do with your own… 


Struggling to decide whether to stay or go in your marriage and you’re serious about finding that answer?

Book a Truth & Clarity Session with a member of my team. We’ll discuss where you are in your marriage and explore if there’s a fit for you and I to work together so you can make - and execute - the RIGHT decision for YOU and your marriage.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Loving Truth Podcast, where it's all about finding clarity, confidence and peace in the face of marriage challenges. And now your host relationship expert and certified Master Life Coach, sharon Pope. Hello, loves, this is Sharon Pope and this is the Loving Truth. Today, we're going to talk about when clarity actually comes and where it comes from. Actually comes and where it comes from. So when I was going through my coach training with Martha Beck, she shared how important the process of meditation had become to her life, and she said something that 10 years later now still sticks with me and I'm paraphrasing here. These are probably not her exact words, but she said something like can you sit still until the water runs clear? And the reason it sticks with me is because the visual of this says a lot. Right, if you're thinking about a stream that has rushing waves or rapids going down it, you cannot see your reflection. But if you see a pond or a stream where it hasn't been raining five inches upstream and now there's all these rushing rapids, like, now it's just a gentle, slow brook of a stream. Now you can see your reflection.

Speaker 1:

So when our emotions are raging, we can't see things clearly. Okay, we can't see our reflection in a boiling pot of water or a raging sea. We can't see things clearly. So when we are pissed at our partner, when we are hurt and we're confused and we're heartbroken, or when we're just feeling shame and embarrassment about how we hurt our partner, we can't see things clearly. Nothing is clear, right. We don't know who we are and what we really desire. We don't know the outcome we're aiming for. So we're not very direct in how we approach these challenges. We're not seeing our partner clearly, and certainly not with much compassion when our anger is really riled up, and we certainly do not see our relationship itself very clearly, probably way more focused on all the negative things, all the things that are broken and do not work about us as a couple, with almost no time or attention being spent on why we still truly love each other. Right, we don't think about that because the mind wants to focus on solving problems. So let's focus on the problems. We don't focus on what's actually working when both are there and both are true and both are real. And here's what's happening.

Speaker 1:

You have different parts of your brain, the two biggest parts that I speak of. One is your reptilian mind, or your lizard mind, or your brainstem. That's where fight or flight lives. We all have it. When that is on overdrive, you cannot access the most useful part of your brain, which is your prefrontal cortex. This is where all your decision making happens right. This is where we're making conscious, rational, logical choices. We're able to weigh the pros and cons and come up with the right decision for ourselves. But you cannot access that part of your brain.

Speaker 1:

When your brain stem is in overdrive, when your fight or flight is in overdrive and that's what's brain. When your brain stem is in overdrive, when your fight or flight is in overdrive, and that's what's happening when you are triggered and when you're pissed off and angry or you're hurt and upset and heartbroken and crying, you cannot access that. So we've got to wait. We've got to let that slow down, because there's a lot of momentum going in the wrong direction and, just like a train that's going 80 miles an hour in this direction, you cannot get it to go 80 miles an hour in this direction at the snap of a finger. Now you can get it going in a new direction, but you need to be able to bring it into the station, slow it down, bring it to a stop, turn it around and start going the other way, and it's the same way with the momentum of our emotions.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so oftentimes when people find me, they're seeking clarity, of course, about their marriage. Their marriage has been struggling. They've been trying to fix it. It hasn't been successful. They're thinking the only answer might be to leave, but that's terrifying, and so they get stuck in this place of real inner turmoil, and so you cannot get to clarity when you're feeling that way. All right, so one of the things that I help them do is start to understand their mind and start to slow down the thought processes that are keeping them from coming to clarity.

Speaker 1:

When we're upset and angry and hurt, we will say things that don't align with who we are. We'll do things that don't align with how we want to show up in this world. We'll say and do things that don't even really reflect how we feel about this person. We're just acting out of anger and hurt. And here's the interesting thing is that when our marriage is struggling and we think that the only answer is to potentially end the relationship, we'll wait till there's a big argument, right, we'll wait till there's a big blow up, and then we'll be like, well, screw you. I'm out of here, we're done. I'm getting a divorce. I'm contacting an attorney Monday F you right. Why do we do that? Why do we wait until we're pissed before we finally say how we're really feeling, or at least with some oomph behind it, right? Why do we wait?

Speaker 1:

The reason we do that is because anger gives us courage, but courage is not the same thing as clarity, my friends. Anger gives us courage, but courage is not the same thing as clarity. My friends, the more we're in our anger, the less clear we are. We have a lot of courage. We'll say all the things We'll do all the hard things that we've been hesitant to do for years. In a moment of real anger, we have a lot of courage, but we are our least clear selves. So clarity does not come from a place of anger. It just doesn't right. It's the boiling water in the pot that you can't see your reflection in. It's the raging sea that you can't see your reflection in. Okay, so you can't see things very clearly when you're angry and you're upset. But where you can get clarity is from a place of within, going within.

Speaker 1:

And that's why what Martha Beck was talking about was can you sit still Can you be with yourself in a quiet moment, asking and answering the difficult questions for yourself, owning your choices, taking accountability and responsibility and coming with answers to those deep questions? Can you sit still long enough with yourself for those answers to come to you? Because, if you can, those answers do come, but in order to hear that, you've got to quiet the outside noise, right. We've got to stop asking everyone else what do you think I should do? What do you think I should do? Adding other people's fears on top of your own fears about what's happening in your marriage is not actually going to help you. It's just going to layer more crap that you've got to wade through. It's not. Adding more voices is not going to help you hear your voice, okay.

Speaker 1:

So people want to ask me about my, about the story of my first marriage. All the time you know, and I'm glad to answer their questions. They want to say things like well, sharon, how did you know when your first marriage was over? Do you regret your decision at all? Or my personal favorite is if you knew then what you know now, would you have stayed Like? They want to ask me all these questions and, to be honest, I'm glad to share my story because I know that it helps people feel less alone. So often when we're struggling in our marriage, we feel like we're the only ones that are facing this and they don't realize that nope, there's actually millions of women around the world that are feeling the exact same way that you are, as soon as we finally open up and tell the truth about that. So I am glad to do that for that purpose, to help people feel not so alone.

Speaker 1:

But, my friends, my story, while mildly entertaining, has nothing to do with you, has nothing to do with you and your story. My answer for my marriage, my first marriage, and for my heart and my life is not the same thing as your answer for your heart, your marriage and your life. Right, it's just not. Most people I'll be honest with you most people want you to do what they did. Like. The advice they're going to give you is going to sound very similar to what they did in their lives, because they want to feel good about the choices, what they did in their lives. Because they want to feel good about the choices that they made in their lives. Or they screwed it all up and they know they screwed it all up and they're going to tell you to do the exact opposite of what they did. But this is why asking other people isn't actually helpful Certainly people without any training in relationships Asking other people what you should do.

Speaker 1:

It's filled with their challenges, their fears, their insecurities, their doubts, their life experiences that have led them to think a certain way, and it doesn't make it wrong. It just makes it right for them. But their story, just like my story, has nothing to do with you. You have to get to your answer and the only way to get to your answer is to be able to be quiet with yourself for a little bit and ask and answer those hard questions. And ask and answer those hard questions To get to that inner voice, because our inner voice does not speak. It doesn't like yell at us, right? We think that we're going to get like the big answer where there's going to be like the heavens are going to part and there's going to be fireworks and all this stuff, and it's going to be undeniable. It's not.

Speaker 1:

I will tell you that. I remember very clearly I just had this little whisper and I don't know where it came from, but I trust it, and it just said not this, not this. That's all I got. You don't get a lot of details. You get yes, no, you get not this. But if your mind is noisy and you're thinking and overthinking and your emotions are all in turmoil like a raging sea, you can't hear any of that. It doesn't mean it's not there, it just means you can't access it. You can't see it, can't hear it.

Speaker 1:

So what's really important here is that you're able to come to your answer for your heart and your life. Because here's what I will tell you is that there's no path through this that is easy or comfortable. So if your path is, let me roll up my sleeves, let me dive in, start showing up differently in this marriage and see if we can't create a shift between us that creates a new possibility that doesn't exist for us today. Let's see if we can evolve this relationship to a new place. My friends, that is not easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it. Most people don't do it because they think it's easier to leave, and I can argue both sides of that equation right. I just want you to know that's not an easy path forward and ending a marriage that you thought was going to last forever and probably everyone you know thought was going to last forever. That's not easy either. So, whether you choose to stay or go, neither is easy, and so that's why, when you're doing it for your kids or you're doing it for your mother, you're doing it because your best friend thinks your husband's a piece of shit.

Speaker 1:

It's not going to be enough to carry you through those challenging times, because either answer is really challenging. Other people's opinions cannot carry the weight of it. However, when you know your answer at a very deep level internally, you know that that's your answer. The level of challenge becomes irrelevant, because it just becomes. This is what I have to do.

Speaker 1:

But when it's all about what everyone else thinks and you don't know what you think, you will end up back in this place of comfortable discomfort. It's a place of I don't know. I don't know if I should stay, I don't know if I should go. I'm in indecision. I don't know. I'll just stay in this, I don't know. That's a comfortable discomfort that we become a little bit comfortable in, because to take a step forward to fix my marriage feels scary and to take a step forward towards ending my marriage feels scary. So maybe I'll just stay in this place that I know how to wake up and exist in. I'm not happy. I'll just stay in this place that I know how to wake up and exist in. I'm not happy. I'm in discomfort, but I've become a little bit too comfortable with my discomfort, and that's what I mean.

Speaker 1:

So, my friends, if you want to come to clarity, one of the things you've got to start wrapping your mind around is that the answer is not outside of you, it's actually within you.

Speaker 1:

But you've got to be able to learn how to manage your mind better so that you can manage your emotions better, so that you can hear and access those whispers and that internal knowing that we all have those whispers and that internal knowing that we all have.

Speaker 1:

When we can quiet some of the madness that is all around us and sometimes feels like is within us, and that's where you get your answer. And then that's when the tools that you get equipped with to be able to navigate that answer whether that's to reinvest in the marriage and apply tools in a new way that you were never equipped with, or it's to unwind the marriage and do it in the most loving and peaceful way possible now you can access those tools and really apply them in your life to create an entirely different outcome, an entirely different possibility that maybe didn't exist 30 minutes ago. All right, I hope that's helpful for you. I hope that gives you a little bit of a glimpse in terms of the walk towards coming to clarity for your life and your marriage. Until next time, take good care so you can make and execute the right decision for you and your marriage. Go to clarityformymarriagecom to fill out an application now. That's clarityformymarriagecom.