Moving from Obligatory to Optional

Karen shares an experience she had where she had to make a very hard choice to say no to her father's deathbed wish regarding her supporting another family member.

Her process of moving from guilt to love in this situation helped her see that it has far reaching impacts in all of her life. 

Some of the things we touch on: 

• The shift from obligatory to optional in how we evaluate how we are spending our time and our emotional energy
• Navigating the emotions that can come up with letting go of these expectations, of ourselves and of our relationships
• The importance and difficulty of accepting "what is" in life
• How grief and relief can exist in the same space
• Being driven by guilt or doing something because of love - and the freedom and healing that can come from recognizing you have a choice
• Love is everything and it magnifies the healing of every choice we make
• Saying no when you are coming from a place of obligation is more loving than showing up with guilt or an empty tank
• That we don't always have to choose to be nice
• Moving from obligation to choice is relevant in the day to day and the big things in life
• Having to work through something over time doesn't always mean it is the wrong thing to do - it might not be hell yes or no
• There can be healing in the reflection time we spend thinking through something that challenges who we think we are or how we show up in the world - especially if you have competing values
• Values change over time, and sometimes our struggles help us see a shift in values
• We can always add "right now" to the difficult choices we have to make in recognition that things are always changing

Chapters

00:00 Navigating Complex Emotions in Midlife
07:42 The Shift from Obligation to Choice
12:41 Understanding Values and Decision-Making
17:53 Evolving Values in the Sandwich Generation

If our messy is your kind of messy, we would love for you to rate, review and follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 

We would also love to know what is on your mind. If you were to join us, what would we be talking about? Email us at messymidlifepodcast@gmail.com or message us on Instagram or TikTok @messymidlifepodcast.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Real women.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Real talk. Real messy. This is Messy Midlife. Hi, everybody, and welcome back to yet another episode of Messy Midlife. Hi, ladies. Hello. And I know you had something on your mind, so I'm not even going to ask what's everybody's mind because you got something you want to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I do have something that I want to talk about. This has been building for months and it's been quite a journey and it's challenging and awkward to talk about. So I know that this is a safe space and we'll stumble through it because it's really heavy. And the reason that I wanted to talk about it is because the process just feels so aligned with what we are focusing on, which is learning how to put ourselves first. And well, maybe not first always, but learning how to prioritize ourselves in a way that helps our lives feel more sustainable. And this comes from an experience that I'm having with a close family member who is going through a very, very challenging medical process. And that's where things get hard for me to talk about because it's still really heavy. It's still happening. And I don't want that aspect of it to distract from what has been transformative for me, which is learning through this really significant and complicated grief, that I can still sort through the heaviness of the emotions that aren't just about the grief, but also what I learned that surprise, surprise, plays such a big role in how historically I've made decisions in my life. And what I'm learning is that through navigating that and continuing to ask myself questions about what is it that I'm really feeling and what is it that's driving me and what are all of the pieces that are involved here? Because it's not just this one family member, it's it's like this domino effect of other family members that are also involved. And what I finally, the breakthrough that I had around it is that I recognized that guilt was making repeatedly making situations feel totally obligatory that were actually optional. And that once it shifted to optional, not that that has been easy, but it at least presented the possibility that I could make a different choice versus in this particular case taking a trip to visit this person and being there in person, being physically present for them, aside from all of the things that I do from a distance. And it just didn't feel really possible for me to do that. And I had to really dig into what that was about. And what came up was that ultimately, I mean, this was I mean, I want to say weeks, but probably months truly of digging deep into what was coming up for me to finally get to a place where I understood that as much as I care about this person, the amount of sacrifice that would be necessary to make this trip possible was not at the level that our relationship had reached. If that makes sense. I know it's really difficult to communicate, but the love that I have for this person was not equivalent to the amount of self-sacrifice and logistical juggling that I had to do to make that happen. Because the moment that I realized was if this were this other person, I wouldn't think twice about it. And there's so much involved there as to why the feelings aren't the way that they are for this other person. But it did, we don't have to get into that because what really matters is it just is this way. And there's a lot of sadness about the fact that I wish we did have that kind of a relationship. But we don't. And that is nobody's fault, right? We don't even need to get into the blame game of, well, if that person had done this thing or whatever, right? It in this moment, this is how things are. And all of a sudden, when I saw it that way, so much came into place because I thought if I go there out of a place of guilt, yeah, superficially, you know, will that be a feel-good experience? Superficially, yes. But what really makes a difference in these situations is when we show up from a place of love where we are that love fuels the action. And then we show up with that energy of love. That's what's truly healing and deeply transformative. So in a previous time, I would have done this out of obligation, fueled by guilt, which would have just been like the superficial, okay, that's kind of nice. In the meantime, I am having to leave my entire family and my life and add so much extra complexity to just the practical logistics, right? Let alone the effect that that kind of stress is going to have on me and the way that I can show up for my patients or my friends or other relationships. Just everything made sense to me from that awareness of the guilt driving the obligation versus love choosing to do this thing that can be so powerful in healing.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

I'm curious if it was just the exercise where you were inspired to say, what if it was this other person? What would I do? Is that what helped shift it from a place of feeling obligatory to feeling optional?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

That was the last, like the little straw, right, that brought the aha, that broke the camel's aha. It reminds me of the conversation that we were just having, you know, about all of the work that Alisa has done in the last episode to get to that magical moment, you know, where things shifted similar. It's very similar. But it was. It was during that exercise of realizing how much I how much love I have for many people in my life. And if it were any of those people, it would have been instantaneous, right? Things would have been booked and I would have been packed before I had an opportunity to even think it through. Um, yeah. And it just brings this bigger perspective of this is where I get, you know, into my my woo-woo self. But I just feel like love is everything. Love is love is the most healing energy that if we if that is bottled up into any action that we take, it magnifies its effects. And so it's not just realizing, you know, the grief that I have for the for the absence of that level of connection with this person, it's also recognizing where is my energy most leveraged and where do I feel most supported in doing those things as well. And where there is that deep love and connection, things just flow so much more easily. And the effect, I I really do believe that the effect that it has on whatever circumstance we're talking about, in this case, visiting someone going through some really significant health issues is going to have a bigger impact for them if I bring that. It just was a big aha moment where I think it permanently transformed the way that I perceive my obligations versus the choices that I have in my relationships and how I show up.

SPEAKER_04 7:55

It's like shedding all the obligatory pressure that we've known from for, I mean, I think for you also, but definitely for me from a very young age. I've like, these are the right things to do, these are the nice things to. I mean, John and I had a short conversation. She was still a little drugged, driving her home from surgery, right? And she was, it was like I was thinking about doing something. She said, Well, why would you do that? And I said, Because I'm a nice person and that's the nice thing to do. And she said, Maybe you don't need to be so nice anymore. I don't remember this conversation at all. Oh, yeah. Maybe you could maybe don't need to be so nice anymore. Yeah. Maybe, maybe you don't need to be so nice anymore. And I was like, but that's true. It's like so much of what we were taught to do and how we move in the world is like it's an obligation because that's what we are supposed to do. It's the nice thing to do, it's the correct thing to do, it's the proper thing to do. And so we end up doing a lot, not not for ourselves, but for other people, because we feel like we're supposed to. But we're never really checking in as like, is this what I want?

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Yeah. I know that so many of us have 10,000 things, even on this like a micro level for the way we spend our day. And I'm thinking about my sharing with you guys a couple of episodes ago about the sort of reset and the mindset shift I'm trying to make about what I can let go of and what my value as a human is as I'm in this recovery stage and I'm getting a really, really stark understanding of what I have to do and what I don't have to do. So it goes from like even that like how we spend our day so that we can do the things that we want to do and the things that would help us feel better versus the things that we're just feeling obligated to do that maybe don't really, we don't have to continue to choose to the like so the day-to-day thing, to the really big, am I flying across the country? Am I stopping my life? Am I giving up a week of my time and this much of my financial resources and my emotional resources to this thing? Can you share with us anything about the months-long process? Because you said that the comparison of if it were this person, what would I do? But it, but that was the final straw. Is there anything that you can pinpoint or share with us about the process that got you to that?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

I spoke with a lot of people in my life and I took a lot of different perspectives. And it's funny, one day I'd be like, okay, that's it. It's so clear, and it's the decision is made and I'm gonna go. And then the next day, either I would speak with someone else. That's actually what happened more often than not. And they would say, Well, what about this other angle? And then I would think, oh, okay, well, I need to think about that. And so it was this back and forth and back and forth, which is I don't know, I think most humans don't love ambivalence and and gray, you know, and it was really, really difficult to not have a final decision made. You know, I mean, there there were big, big issues here, like deathbed wishes and um, you know, really identity within relationships, right? Like what is this relationship in my life? And what does that represent? And what does that mean about me and who am I if that changes? There the process was long and painful and not linear. We've talked about that quite a bit, you know, getting to a place where I thought I was an action stage, but then shifting back to pre-contemplation where I didn't want to think about it, you know, and I would go a couple days with completely ignoring that this was something that needed to be sorted through and then coming back to it and finally getting to that. I mean, I don't know, I don't know what led me to that moment when I decided that it was a matter of the the quality of feeling that I had, right? The love versus caring for someone. I I can't remember exactly how that came to be, other than the many conversations that I had was really meaningful and and loving people in my life. But I guess all of that to say that it it was a roller coaster.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

And that's what I find most of the time, these big changes that we're experiencing. I mean, even Jen, for you, like with your surgery, talk about a roller coaster, getting to that place, not the surgery itself. That of course was another roller coaster. Um, but even the decision, getting to that decision.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Yeah. I'll be honest, there's a part of me that's trying to hack this and being like, well, if you have to think about it a lot, then it's the wrong thing to do. But thank goodness you just said, you know, in on our last several conversations, there's been plenty of opportunities where just because you have to work to get there doesn't mean it's the wrong thing to do. And, you know, I'm thinking about all of the little micro things that we talk about that we know are the right thing for us to do and are aligned with our values, but we still struggle with making the decision to do and taking that action step on versus, you know, recognizing that we can't possibly know what the an outcome is gonna be and figuring out what to do. And we don't know what our deathbed wish is gonna be. Ultimately, we don't know until we get there how we're gonna feel and what we're gonna wish we had done with our time and our energy and everything. We can just make those decisions with our values. And unfortunately, as much as I want it to be a hack where you're just like, if you have to think about it at all, it's a no, because then it's not clearly aligned with your values. That's also clearly not the case that we can't just hack our way into this and say, well, what like if it's not hell yes, then it's a no. Like that was part of it.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Yeah, that came up, that came up quite a bit many times. And I think you're right. I think at the end of the day, yes, if I had to think about it that much or or for that amount of time, it was a no. And the healing component here was all of the reflection and all of the, well, why? Because the good girl in me, you know, the the training in my life of the last 45 years to do the nice thing, you know, was not okay with, well, it's not a resounding yes. And that part of that good girl part of me was like, who the hell cares if it's a resounding yes or no? This is what you know you're supposed to do. And to be able to break through that supposed to do is why it took me so long to get to a place of feeling peace around it, because that is a hack and it's a great hack.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

You know, but there are places that it's just not gonna work, you know? And so I mean, I think it's a it's a good hack to start to bring you back to what your values are and maybe even start to help you refine and understand your values because that's one of the things too, is like we sometimes we talk about values as if they are static and they're not. They fluctuate and change over time with the information that we've got going on, with the changes in our life. It's okay that they change. So we might just be in a place that we're needing to reevaluate what our values are now and understand that things could change in the future as well. And that we might constantly need to be in this talking to lots of different people, getting different perspectives, doing the investigation for a big decision like a surgery and all of that, so that we can make a decision that is aligned with our values as we are now, as well as it sounds like letting go of the expectations of other people that you've been holding and internalized as if they are your own expectations, but that just really aren't. And that the discomfort that can come with choosing yourself shouldn't be so uncomfortable, but it is.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

I find myself wanting to add right now to like every sentence that you're saying, because choosing myself shouldn't be this difficult. And likely right it just is right now, right? Like this is it is difficult for me to choose myself right now. It is all of the things that you said, even you know, showing up doing this cross-country, week-long, whatever trip in this circumstance is just not possible right now. It's not the best thing right now. If this were 10, 20 years ago or 10, 20 years in the future, I am pretty certain that this would be a different outcome. And so that that plays a really big role. It's a big variable, the midlife aspect of this, you know, where we are already bursting at the seams.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

So we've got like we this ties back in, and I know we need to wrap up today, but I know that this this ties back into a conversation that we had recently about how the sandwich generation that we are in right now and the sandwiching of life, and the well, what did we say, the sandwiches on fire, flaming sandwiches, flaring sandwiches, one of those things. But we we face with where we have evolving and changing values and very clearly entrenched values that are in competition with each other, and that we sometimes have to let down one of our values for another that is taking priority in the moment and or logistically is the thing that we have to focus on. So it's just a really tough place to have this evolving and competing values occurring at the same time and lots of things in our environment and our world that's giving us an opportunity to really examine them again and again and again. That's the fire.

SPEAKER_04 18:05

Yeah. Well, that's also part of getting to the resounding yes. It's I don't, it's not always immediate. Getting to that resounding yes sometimes takes those layers of contemplation too.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're discerning, I mean, these are just we're splitting hairs, you know, in some of these situations where it's it's like, yeah, these are all important to me, and there's not enough room for everything. And that's very painful. And it's an opportunity for us to really come into a place of knowing ourselves, unlike we have at any other stage prior. And sometimes you just gotta make a decision.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

Like the decision I'm gonna make that Aliza go take care of herself so we stop our conversation today. So love you both, and I'm always so grateful for our conversations that we get to have. And boy, have we had a lot that has happened since our last time, all three of us together. So I'm glad we're able to tease it all out, and I will look forward to talking to you guys again soon. Okay. All right. Love you, everybody. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

If our messy is your kind of messy, we'd love for you to rate, review, and follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 19:16

We'd also love to know what's on your mind. If you were to join us, what would we be talking about? Email us at messy midlife podcast at gmail.com or message us on Instagram or TikTok.