154. When Life Didn't Work Out As Planned

What do you do when the life you imagined completely falls apart when the betrayal divorce and the silent grief of what could have been knocks the wind out of you and suddenly you're not where you thought you'd be. In this episode, I take you into that tender space And how you can still find agency purpose  📍 and even color again. Hello. Hello, my amazing, beautiful listeners. How are you? Thank you for joining me today. Thanks for being here and taking time to click to follow and to be a part of this conversation. Working with my clients, working with majority of clients that are experiencing betrayal Whether they are still in the space of trying to navigate the relationship, whether they're on their way out. Whether they're out, I see the whole gamut of that journey. And one of the common denominators, the common thread that I work with, who experiences this kind of relational betrayal in their life, in their partnership Is watching their brain try to conceptualize that life as they knew it has completely fallen apart. then the question now then becomes, why didn't life go as planned and well, Why did it all fall apart? And a deep grief that comes with the belief that it should have gone as planned and it didn't, and now my life is over or it's never going to be the same.  In that It's never going to be the same. I'm noticing a lot of times we write off joy, happiness healthy relationship. We're writing all of that off as well under the umbrella that life didn't go as planned.

I was thinking back on how when I was a little girl, gosh, I don't know, elementary school, maybe even up through middle school, one of the games that me and my girlfriends used to play was mash. If you know what I'm talking about, you're probably giggling. I remember that game.

It would tell you if you are in your future, you're going to live in a mansion, in an apartment, in a shack or a house, how many kids you would have. And we would add all kinds of things. The number of kids, the kind of car my friend Wendy would have to make sure that we had the car in there, but the kind of car, the, the name of our husband, right?

The city that we would live in, like whatever you wanted to add. you would play this game and draw the circles and count when you said stop. And then, anyways, it was a predictor as to what our future was going to look like and how many times I would end up in a shack with a Lamborghini , It was all playing into the dreaming of the future, the happily ever after, and all of the romcoms that we would watch. giving ideas and scripts of how real, happy, good life and a relationship should look like. And sometimes We also get the script of what that looks like, what the future happy should look like from family of origin, from religion, and if we maybe do certain things, obey certain rules when we're young, then this is going to ensure a happy life, a happy future. No pain, no hurt. Maybe just a little, but you know, if we just follow the steps, keep the rules, right?

Some of you listening saw maybe in your own home how things maybe don't work out and how unhappy people can be or are. And so maybe you tried everything that you could to do the opposite of what was.

Emulated in your home to again ensure that you are gonna get the happily ever after. Maybe you saw the Ozzy and Harriet life, and so you just assumed that you would follow the same script and you'd get the same, but you didn't, and then. Don't get me started on the timeline, right, the timeline of when all of this should happen, right?

In Certain cultures, there's this idea that if you're not maybe married by 20, that something is wrong with you. And if you don't have a baby a year after you're married, then you're selfish. And it might be a tad exaggerated, but not too far off. I grew up in that culture. We do this so much though, even in the healing journey.

I should be better by now. I shouldn't still be triggered by my ex's new fleeing or new wife, ugh. Right, or the timeline of when you should stop being sad or grieving the timeline of when you should be dating. I had very well intended people in my life wanting me to just get back out there and show that bleep bleep ex of mind, that it's his lost.

Yet, it doesn't work that way. We compare, oh, the comparing brain. Well, she started dating, or Why are they moving on so fast? And I'm still having a hard time getting out of bed. Or they're remarried already. I'm behind. I'm so old, I'll never find love again. I actually used to think. If I didn't get remarried by 40, I'd be a spinster for the rest of my life.

And I did not get married by 40, and it worked out just fine. I have clients of all ages and stages, and I've seen it all. And the ones who are in their twenties feel like they're behind not doing enough to be where they think they should be. And the ones that are in their forties would love to be back in their twenties.

And the ones who are in their fifties seem like. Time's just not their friend and they're worried that time is running out and they're running out of it. And my clients in their seventies wish that they could be back in their fifties. All of this kind of thinking is powerless thinking, and it takes us out of agency.

You're no longer and your agent power mode when you entertain these kinds of thoughts, the defeat of life as you now know it. It can feel very overwhelming. It's really this linear way of thinking, this linear idea of how life should go according to the plan, to the time that maybe we set or believe was set for us.

Sometimes we think higher power sets the timeline, and what if you have way more control over your life than maybe you're allowing yourself to believe. when we believe this linear idea of how it should go, it's harming you. It's actually binding you. It's limiting you, which is taking you out of agency.

When we can more fully embrace the flow of life, we more fully step into the choice and the choices that we have in it. there are so many choices to be made Hard ones and beautiful ones too. how many times in this space that you're navigating have you thought, well, might as well give up? I'll never have, said, dream, it's too late, it's over. Or we sort of just lay down in defeat and feel like, well, it's all over for me now. I thought this every time I would see a couple walking down the street or in the grocery store and feel like, well, it's over for me now.

I'm never gonna get that. Never gonna get that guy that wants to go to the grocery store with you.

 It's too late. It's over.

I hope it works out better for you. And if I'm being honest, sometimes I wish the same demise on those cute couples walking in the grocery store. I take all of that back now. Right. But for reals, like do you relate to that? We do this with jaws, motherhood, friendships, you name it. The beliefs that arise when life situations, circumstances.

Our plan doesn't work out the way that we hoped, the way that we wanted and then the belief of, well, maybe I'm just not good in relationships. maybe not, I'm not as lovable as I thought. Not enough, too much.

And when you feel that loneliness and Just miss the connection. It can feel it as if you are being left behind in life and now that you're divorced, you're just even more behind when Betrayaled trauma hits. It doesn't just break your heart, it scrambles your brain I know I couldn't picture a future. I couldn't even feel safe in the present. And when your nervous system is hijacked in that destructive way, dreaming about a future feels like a luxury that you do not have the backstage past to, if that's where you're at, it is not because you're lazy.

It's not because you don't want to dream. You're in survival mode. the truth is, unlike. What my hundreds of mash games produced for me, no matter how much I tried to do all of the quote right things to make sure life was gonna work out exactly how it should, it rarely works out how we plan, like rarely never, and when we live in a culture of everyone else's life, looks like it worked out for them because their latest social media post makes it look that way. Good hell, we really feel bad about ourselves. then there can be the shame that gets carried with a sense of brokenness and that's just massively overwhelming, this is the kind of suffering that I don't think we all have to experience.

I think we bring it on ourself in a subconscious way, not realizing that we're doing this. So let's just look at how we might be doing that and how maybe you can see your life a little bit differently. see that you do have choice in life despite the choices of others and how their choices impact you.

That you don't get to choose, but you still get to choose what you do next. You don't need to white knuckle your way through the next chapter of your life. You get to live it and actually find some happy moments along the way. You're not just grieving the life that you had. Oftentimes we're grieving the life that we almost had, the one that you gave everything to the kind of grief that doesn't come with a funeral. It comes in waves. When you see family photos, an anniversary post kids with both parents, that's the grief that doesn't get talked about enough, but it is very, very real.

In the midst of my depression after divorce, I was feeling as if there was just no more joy to be had, no more happy. My life felt bland forced in many ways. I was working. We moved in our apartment. The kids were adjusting the best that they could and, the, the rhythm of this new life was starting to take hold, but it felt colorless.

I was really at that point ready to give up on myself. I lived in Arizona at the time. Well, that place didn't have a whole lot of color to add to that department, so I just remember really missing color. Color in my life, literally. And just feeling like my life in general was just colorless, just very boring, very bland. And what I was doing,

I longed for my Kentucky home, the bluegrass, the colors of my garden, the flowers, the bright, because it just felt. Because the present felt gloomy. I remember one day waking up and testing God a little bit. Like, alright, if you even know what I'm going through, if you even care, right?

How many of you done that? If you even care about what I'm going through, this is what you're gonna do. And I, and I played that, that game with him. I was like, all right, look. If you even care about me, if you even think about what I am dealing with right now, I need to see some color. Show me some color.

And again, Arizona, not much green, darker, green, brown, lighter brown. Not a whole, not a whole lot of color. Right?  and so I was just like, look. I wanna see you show up. I need to see something to keep me going. And so I looked, I looked for how God was going to show up for me that day, and the day came and it was going, and I was heading to the last house that I had to clean that day.

And I had been there every week, right? Nothing new. Been to this house often, and I had never, I mean, never. Seen this bush in the front yard of this house. When I pulled up, I got outta the car the front of this house had the most gorgeous, colorful bush. I had never seen something like it in Arizona, and I had not seen that at this particular house. I saw color for me. That was all I needed to see that not only is God like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I see you, but I had a moment of happiness. I had a moment of joy back in my life and in my heart.

Even if it was just for a short time. Those moments are available. Are we looking for them? Or are we looking for what's wrong? For what's not available and how broken we are and how things don't work out? And see, there we go again. Look at how things don't work out for me. Look at how everything and everyone is against me.

There is no perfect life. Y'all. Whatever you want to experience in life is just that and experience if you have children or not, you're not less. Then in some way, because you have kids and the other person doesn't, they're just having a different experience. One is experiencing motherhood and the other isn't, not better, not worse, not more worth or value.

When we identify so heavily with the plan of life that we set out, right, that linear, this is gonna happen, then this is gonna happen, or this should happen, and then that should happen. When we make that mean something about our identity, we identify with it to the degree that it's attaching to some worth and value for us.

When that life plan is different, doesn't work out, shifts adjust changes, then our worth value, lovability changes and it can't. Your worth and value is fixed. Your lovability is fixed.

The things that we grab, hold to, to identify are variables, they're changeable things, especially people. People change. So when we hold on to something that's variable, that's changeable and we hold on for dear life because when that thing variable is changing, that we're holding onto, we hold on even tighter for dear life because it means something about our worth, our identity.

We don't believe that there's life outside of that person or experience. the truth is there is. There has to be. And if you believed that, what would be different for you today if we believe that there's no point after betrayal and divorce that all the desires we have to experience in life are just not available to us anymore, then you'll never experience it. You won't go for it. If you don't believe it's available, then it won't be.

 Did you know that I have a group coaching membership where we meet every week, believing in you. Group coaching offers a safe and supportive space to help you navigate this path that you are on with clarity and confidence. I believe that knowledge is power. So each week I'll offer concepts and tools that you can choose to practice that empower you to take your healing to the next level.

Beliefs that you're not enough to damaged, will never love again. Never trust again, and never maybe trust you again. Those beliefs are gonna keep you stuck. I know they did me.

They held me in a place where I couldn't grow and thrive and I had to start believing something new. Come join me and I will show you how to believe something new. Head over to amy woolsey.com and join the Believing in New Coaching Program today. See you there.   📍 We have to learn to and practice That when those things, those experiences that we have in life are over, we have to resign ourselves to the fact that it's over and that there are seasons in life where some things are available and some are not. We might experience different things at different times.

I always wanted four children. That's what was in my mash game. Just kidding. Actually not. I actually would always get four anyways. Maybe that had something to do with it, but I always wanted four children. And I had four miscarriages If I told myself after that first miscarriage, well, and actually let me be honest.

If I had believed what I did tell myself at the time that I didn't have a good body for babies to grow in. Then I wouldn't have had my other three, and I can't even pause long enough to think about what that would be like in my life. So hold on to the dream. That thing of the things that you want to experience and let go of the expectations surrounding how it should or supposed to look, it might look different than the way you originally thought.

If the MASH game that I played With the brain that I had back into middle school, I'd be living in a shack driving a Lamborghini and have 10 kids married to a guy named Tom. Like you change your brain changes your perspective, changes your situation, changes the people in your life change. It doesn't mean that you can't go do some of the same things when you start to relate to yourself.

In a way that supports the dream, that supports what you want to do, that supports the idea. For example, if you wanna believe that you can work and raise kids, relate to the woman that does, right? See that, explore that. If you run from it and believe that you could never figure that out. You won't. You won't figure it out.

And. If you end up doing it anyways, you won't figure out how to be happy in it and you'll resent it. Lean into the idea of what might be exciting about working and raising children at the same time. What might be empowering about that? What might be creative and new.

About that for everybody involved, hoping for something. Again, when you experience this kind of betrayal, feels like a luxury. It feels like, you know what? Everyone else got that ticket and I missed out. Hope doesn't mean pretending that things didn't fall apart. It means believing that they can still come together in a new, beautiful, and maybe totally unexpected way.

I was working with a client years ago who was in a similar situation of, never working outside the home, never wanted to, never imagined that she would ever have to. So being thrust into this experience of divorce, which wasn't her choice, felt like she also didn't have a choice on working outside the home, yet she needed the money she needed to support her children. That is what she, believed was her role and job. It was just looking completely different in the way that she was gonna support her children, and she didn't want it to look that way.

You can totally relate, right? That wasn't the original plan. as we were exploring options together, I saw that she was crocheting something on her lap. In fact, she was always crocheting during our sessions. Making what she called silly animals for her kids and her kids' friends.

one day we were in a session and I asked her to look down at what she was doing. I said, just look down at what you're doing. And again, she was doing this like crocheting, knitting, I don't know, whatever it is. This animal, like hardly even looking at what she was doing, it was just so second nature.

She's brilliant at it. I said, just look down at what you're doing right now. she looked down, she's like, what? I was like, what are you doing right now? She's like, I, no, she's knitting. I said, knitting what? It's dumb animal. And I said, okay. Dumb animal. For who? Like for my kid's friend. Are you just gonna give it to her?

Well, yeah. What if you charge $5, $10, $15? her eyes got really big and she's like, what? Wait, what? . She had never entertained the idea. It's something that she was doing already in her life creatively. So like haphazardly, like not even, it wasn't even a job to her, right? This just wasn't even a job.

She did it all the time. What if you made money? What if you charged and you could just see the light bulbs just ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Going off is the most beautiful moment.

Then of course her brain got involved and her brain was like, well, but I probably wouldn't make enough money. Right. Boom. Back into scarcity. Right. And long story short, after a few sessions later, she was selling these things on Instagram, like hot cakes. But she had to start seeing herself as someone that can make money, someone that can work and raise kids.

Someone that can do both in her own way and in her own time. And she was able to grow that business and step into that space because she started to believe that she could exist in that space. She started to relate to the woman that can do both. I believe that when we are open to and engaging in life, rather than hiding from it, afraid of it and resisting it, that's when we can really change our whole energy and how we relate to ourselves, how we can relate to our life in the present.

The world around us and how we can start to become the creator of our life and be a creator in this world, contribute to the world. What an incredible shift and way to be an agent unto yourself. So if you're feeling uninspired right now in your life, going through divorce, after divorce, and feel as if you can never, never have the kind of life that you thought.

You would have that. It's over. So that's just the end. It's over. And everything from here on out is just seconds, leftovers, molded chicken in the fridge that no one wants and it smells. Just try on the thought that maybe just, maybe it isn't over. maybe it's just the beginning.

When you feel you are defeated, as you take next steps towards that new life, like once again, something didn't go on my way. See, I tried to do the thing like Amy said, and boom, didn't work out again. Stop right there how like you are seeing yourself as defeated and that energy is seen. Nothing works out.

See, nothing works out for me.

Now you're not gonna explore another way, another option when something doesn't work out the way that we think it should. It is so normal for our brain to look for evidence to support that story, that things just don't work out for you. If that's the story that you keep telling and believing and repeating.

Then that your brain's job by design is not to hold on to your dream, right? It is not designed to do that. It's not, it's not gonna go, oh, yeah, that didn't work out, but hey, remember the dream that Amy has? No, no, no. Your brain. It doesn't give a crap about the dream. Your brain's like, yeah, that didn't work out again.

And because Amy thinks once again it doesn't work out, hey, now let's find all the evidence to support that. Right? It's so not helpful. It's not meant to be. 'cause this is where you, your higher stuff have to step up and step in and remember that you have options. My best friend was coming to visit me here in Austin a few months ago and when.

She got here, she called, she landed and she called and she's like, Hey, they lost my luggage. I gotta go talk to luggage people. And I needed to keep circling the airport pickup. And so I hang up and of course my brain goes into, ah, right, like that. For me, that is like my worst nightmare.

Like, I tried to shove as much as I can and to carry on to bring on the plane with me because I absolutely hate the idea of losing my luggage.

  📍 so I was freaking out for her and my brain went to the scarcity, like, oh my gosh, now we have to go to the store and we ave to get her all the things, and that's gonna take time. And we're trying to get on the road to the beach and she's gonna. Miss her stuff and, and maybe she'll be grumpy and then not have a good time.

And I know she needs her heated blanket and so now I'm gonna have to go, maybe I just go by her one, like anxious brain. So I'm looping around the airport waiting for her, to tell me what pillar she's standing next to. That she's, done it talking to the baggage clean people. so she gets in the car and.

I've got the whole plan, right? I've got the whole plan of how we're gonna get her things and make up for, for in my mind, this tragedy again, for me, losing my bag would be a tragedy. And she gets in the car and she's like, well, shit just works out for me. And I'm like, huh? What? She's like, yeah. They found, not only did they find my bag.

It'll be here tomorrow. And if I come and pick it up, rather than them delivering it, they're gonna give me a $500 plane. Ticket voucher. Shit just works out for me. And I laughed and I was just like, well, okay, that's one way to look at it. Right. And she wasn't.

She wasn't bothered, she wasn't fazed, and this is something that she says all the time and she's sending that energy out into the universe. She is viewing right, she views herself. She views her circumstances when things don't work out the way that she hoped wanted expected. She still believes that it works out for her it stops her from looping into that space of. Woe is me. Oh no. Now I can't. Now I'll never Right. Limiting herself from options like I was doing, right. I'm like, oh, now we're not gonna be able to get to the beach on time and now we're not gonna be able to do that. Da da. That's what my brain was doing, right?

But her, she was seeing the situation that didn't work out as planned in a completely different energy than I was. Because that energy she was carrying with her, because she saw herself, she showed up the way that she communicated to the baggage people the way that she, right, that she showed up in that situation.

Invited a different, invited different options, invited something actually really cool. She got a, she was so excited about that $500 voucher. More importantly, this is what really stood out to me. More importantly, she didn't let the experience that didn't work out as planned stop her from being present with me, who, sharing that experience as best friends. I was really looking. Forward to spending time together. And so was she. And because she showed up that way, it didn't interfere with the opportunity to have connection.

We allow the belief that everything is ruined and therefore I can't have the experience that I wanted.

The principle that I'm teaching, I hope is resonating with you, have self-compassion when things don't work out, and choose self responsibility to take your choice back. Ask yourself, what can I do today that is going to support me in what I want just for today?

How can I align with my values today that helps me move forward in the life that I want, the experience that I want just today? There are always options. When you feel like there are zero options. You really need to take a hard look at the energy, the beliefs, the thoughts that your brain is offering you.

You're just believing to be true, and we need to start questioning those thoughts. When one option doesn't work out the way we hoped or planned, are we believing that there are no other options available? That is limiting your agent power mode. So if your life didn't go as planned. You are in good company and maybe today instead of fixing the whole thing, you just start by noticing the one thing that feels meaningful, the one thing that's working, even if it's small.

That's enough for today. The woman that I am today wouldn't fit into the life that I thought I wanted to. 16. 18 and even 25. I've outgrown that I want more, and I'm not looking at that as failure. That's growth, and you get to choose growth every moment of every day.   📍 You get to create the life that you want every moment of every day because you can Take care, everybody.