Are You Sure?

Decisions are hard.

If you’ve ever read the book or seen movie “The Polar Express” each of the kids has a theme, something within them that needs uncovered, accepted, and whitnessed. Some of the themes are “Believe” and “Humility,” and while both are amazing, the one that always stuck out to me is “Are you sure?”, the theme of trusting yourself and your own authority. Needless to say this is the little girl’s theme, which is not surprising. (Right, Ladies?🙄)

I never felt that I was good at making decisions, most likely steming from a lack of autonomy as a child over even the smallest decisions. And I never liked making them because most of the time decisions could hurt, physically, especially if I thought I was making a wrong decision. They would usually send me spiraling into many anxiety attacks and sleepless nights.

So where did it all begin?

Growing up I was afraid of not being liked and as a result became an extreme people pleaser. It was so much easier adopting other peoples’ opinions, acting like they did, or even doing what they told me to do, rather than trusting my own instincts or inserting my own opinions. Plus people pleasing was easy. It gave me a set of rules to follow that kept me safe and under the radar.

So I became a rule follower.

Rules gave me structure and a safe place to remain to avoid the uncomfortableness of being labeled ‘bad’. They always told me who to be, how to be, and how much or how little to be. It was predictability in a place where I couldn’t trust my myself. And I made so many people happy being the “good girl”. How validating, right? 🥰 But I often wondered…

“Who Am I?”

I ached to understand the purpose of this life here and what role I played in all of it. But how could I know who I was if I didn’t know what I wanted…for myself? If I didn’t know who I was and what I wanted, how could I make choices for myself (that I didn’t berate myself for later)? But I couldn’t make choices for myself unless I learned who I was.

You see the conundrum here?

We have such tunnelvision as children and only see cause and effect in the outside world. This shapes our opinions on life and what is considered the rights and wrongs. But how often do we go inward to ask ourselves if those the rights and wrongs are something we want to adopt and hold true for ourselves? How often do we challenge the facts that make sense to us and instead default to following the crowd, because it’s easier?

So, to sum it up:

We have the real and/or perceived lack of autonomy ✅

We have people pleasing ✅

We have a negligible sense of self ✅

Which landed me smack dab in the middle of Insecurity Land, where I spent not only my childhood but a large portion of my adulthood as well. This, in turn, had a lot of (not surprising…) unfortunate effects on my life. Then, at the tender age of 43 (eh..hem…) I had an intense revelation.

I never validated myself!

I spent years trying to undo the lack of ‘knowing thyself’ through meditation, praying, journaling, researching, expensive programs, and self-help anything. I became obsessed with trying to ‘fix’ the girl that was trying so hard to be perfect so that she would be everyone’s favorite person. This got me really good at knowing exactly what other’s wanted, but… what did I want?

And then I got angry…really angry. 😡

I was angry at the world for telling me who to be and how to show up, yes, but mostly at myself for allowing it; for covering up the voice that was dying to be heard…my own! I then thought back to all the times I repressed myself, diminished myself, played small to make others feel validated, saying ‘yes’ when all I really wanted to do was to say “NO!” No, I don’t want to do that!

Are You Sure?

In the past this question would have devastated me, would have put my own beliefs under scrutiny, would have made me question if I was choosing, not correctly for me, but if I was choosing correctly to make others happy or even better yet, happy with me. This paralyzed me in many situations.

So what’s changing that?

I will tell you. Life. In each and every life event that I thought would break me BUILT ME UP, instead. And somehow because of it…

• I have learned resiliance.

• And this resiliance has brought me into an acknowledgement of who I am.

• This acknowledgement then turned into uncovering and honoring my preferences.

• These preferences then turned into setting boundaries.

• These boundaries then turned into confidence.

• This confidence turned into self-trust.

• This self-trust then lead to letting go of the outcome of the decisions that I made.

This final step of letting go may be the hardest one of all. This, if not done, can lead to regret. Regret is a plague on our nervous systems and another instance that can lead to internal struggle and negative self-identity labeling.

I have been striving to look at myself with kindness, or like a little child even, knowing I am doing my best with the information I have at my disposal at the moment I make my decision. I am coming to realize that it is critical to give myself grace and permission around my choices and untie my self worth to them. This is so validating and freeing!

But learning this does not happen overnight, oh no. In fact, I am STILL learning. Because my human remembers. She remembers so deeply how it feels to ask herself… Are you sure? and to freak out because she wouldn’t know the answer.

My human still puts on a poker face with her demons, hoping they won’t see through her or, rather, see the parts of her that tell the world she’s not real.

So I thought, it’s time. It’s time to decide for yourself, Jill. To make your life what YOU want. This is when I come back to myself; when I sit alone and breathe.

You see, my mind gets cluttered and messy when I have to make a hard decision. It has the habit of pulling in too much information and pressure from the outside world. Almost always it’s perceived pressure and most of the time it’s not even relevant information. Then I try to sort through all the real facts, the perceived facts, the historical facts, the new facts, and after a while my brain feels more like a tornado. (Analysis paralysis, anyone??🤯)

How can I make a clear and proper decision out of that?

I don’t. Rather I’m learning to use my body instead. You know that feeling in your gut or the chills your body experiences? These are all signs your body is helping you choose! Trust this! I have discovered if I always do what I’ve always done, I will never get closer to how I am meant to show up. Using my brain never worked for me. The overthinking alone, ugh!

And the better I get at feeling what I should do, the more natural it will become and then, just maybe, choices won’t be so difficult. I will be in tune with the core of what is most important. This will allow me to be happier, guiding my life from a space where I was always truly meant to. And the more I choose from this place, the more trust in my own authority I will obtain. I will do everything in my power to make others happy, except compromise myself. Because now? I choose me.

And this is where, I believe, TRUE authenticity lies. In knowing yourself…your likes, dislikes, your dreams, your wants, your desires, and then showing up in them, NOT showing up to apologize for them. Authenticity lies in telling the truth…YOUR Truth and therefore choosing for YOU… and then letting the rest go. Que Sera, Sera! What will be, will be!

And when you DECIDE to show up in all your glory and someones ask you… are you sure? Take a moment to dig deep within yourself to reveal your true answer… and then exclaim:

“YES!”

“I AM SURE!”

xoxo

jill

Photo by: BURST/ unsplash.com