This week I'm helping Sheila.
Welcome to Friday Flip on the Becoming You Again podcast. Every Friday I take your divorce problems, conundrums and questions and do a quick flip around to empower you to show up as the best you after divorce.
How often do you feel like you're carrying the weight of the world (yours and your kids) on your shoulders? How many times have you bit your tongue around your kids so you don't 'bad-mouth' their dad to them - only to find out that he's being trash talking you every chance he gets? How many days a week do you go to bed feeling exhausted, hopeless and powerless in your own life?
If this is happening to over and over again, then today's podcast episode will set you free. I'm answering Sheila's question about why she's constantly feeling exhausted, frustrated and powerless in her own life, and what she can do immediately to change that.
The weight of the world is not yours to carry and the more you believe that it is and there's no way out, the more trapped, hopeless and powerless you feel living your own life. When we work together I will teach you how to untether your mind from the years of societal patriarchy that permeates how you think, feel and act, so you can finally intentionally decide how you want to live your life after divorce. Click here to schedule your complimentary consult with me to find out more.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to Friday Flip on the Becoming You Again podcast. Every Friday I take your divorce problems, conundrums and questions and do a quick flip around to empower you to show up as the best you after divorce.
This week I’m helping Sheila with her question. She asks, “Why is it that a man can walk away, prioritizing whatever he wants, living a dude’s single life, while the mom by default picks all the crap, puts it on her shoulders and carries on, and then she’s expected to uphold the image of their father and be accommodating and reasonable in the coparenting relationship? Why is that?”
Sheila this is a great question. I think the first thing that we need to understand is we live in a patriarchal society that has permeated every aspect of manhood and womanhood. Now this means that women are socialized to believe that we are the caretakers, and that can even go so deep in meaning that we think it’s our job to pick up the slack in every way even when the men drop the ball. Even when they check out. Even when they’re like, I’m done. You take care of all this crap.
And on top of that we’ve been socialized as women to people please because if we don’t please and placate those around us then then they might see us as unreasonable, or they might see us as unaccommodating or irrational in some way and our socialization has us believing that if people think those things about us then there must be something wrong with us. Then we’re bad, we’re wrong in some way. It’s not true first of all.
So one step to breaking out of this narrative, this patriarchal narrative that permeates everything around us is we have understand that you, as a woman, as a mother, you do not have to do any of it. I’m not kidding. You literally do not have to do any of it. You do not have to ‘pick up the crap’ as you say, and you do not have to carry it on your shoulders and of course you are not at all expected to uphold the image of their father or be accommodating or be reasonable in any way. You do not have to do any of those things.
Right now you’re giving all of your power away because you think those are requirements to being a human woman in the world today. They are not requirements. You are choosing to do those things but not taking responsibility for your choices which is leaving you feeling powerless in your life. And feeling powerless, my friend, does not feel good. And I’m not even saying that you have to continue to choose to do these things. Because you don’t. You could literally walk away from all of it in this moment if you want to. 100% you have that choice.
The way to free yourself from this cycle of patriarchy and feeling out of control in your own life is to take back your own thinking, and your own feeling and your own experience of your life. When you decide on purpose what you’re willing to do and what you’re willing not to do, and manage your mind around that, you will feel empowered in your choices and feel liberated to live the life you want to live, just as your ex is doing. Because that’s what’s really going on here, is you feel like he has freedom to do whatever he wants and that you don’t have that same freedom. But you do and you always have, you’ve just been socialized to think different about what that looks like for you.
So here we go, moving forward what are you willing to do and what are you willing to not do? Make conscious choices, even if you choose to continue doing what you’ve always been doing, in taking care of the kids and handling all of the things and paying all of the bills on your own and having the job and doing it all. Even if you continue to choose to do all of those thing, I want you to intentionally recognize that you are choosing to show up in this way. That is where all of your power is and when you choosing it intentionally and decide, yes I’m doing this; no I’m not doing that, you will feel so much freedom in your choices that your whole life experience will change from now on.
That was a great question, Sheila. Thank you so much. I’ll be back next week.
That’s your Friday flip! Stay tuned for the weekly podcast episode that comes out every Monday. And remember if you want more one on one help from me as your divorce coach to help you create an even better life than when you were married, then you need to schedule your free consult with me by going to www.karinnelsoncoaching.com Remember that’s Karin with an ‘I’.
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