BW 160 Decisions
===
[00:00:00]
Introduction to Episode 160
---
welcome to episode number 160 of the Brave Widow Show. Today is gonna be so good, and I'm gonna do some coaching for you on this podcast. Some of the types of education and coaching that you would experience, whether you're doing one-on-one coaching with me, whether you're part of the Brave Widow Academy, this is part of what you might experience, and so I wanna invite you to listen with an open mind and an open heart and coaching.
The Reality of Coaching
---
Sometimes we think of coaching as the coach is the cheerleader rah, you could do this. You've got this. And the reality is in coaching, coaching can be very confronting. Coaching can be hard to hear, really good coaching calls you out on [00:01:00] stuff that maybe you don't wanna admit. And I say that as someone who actively works with three different coaches on different things in my life and always will because coaching has helped me become a better version of me.
And because it in from a place of love and a place of wanting to see the client be successful. Coaching tells the hard truth, like coaching speaks, words that people need to hear to do things differently. And so my intent today. As I walk through the content is not to be triggering. It's not to offend anyone, but you might find that it strikes a nerve.
And so I just wanna give you that heads up. I don't think you should turn it off. I think you should keep listening, but if you're not ready to hear it, it might [00:02:00] be a little off-putting. So sit back, relax, brace yourself a little bit, and let's go on a journey of coaching on being able to make a decision.
Welcome to The Brave Widow Show. I'm your host, Emily Tanner. The Brave Widow Academy is open for enrollment right now. If you're a widow, feeling stuck, lost or just ready to start living again, but don't know where to start, this is your next step. It's the only program that gives you a clear proven process to rebuild your identity, your confidence, and your life after loss.
To learn more or to enroll today, just head to bravewidow.com/academy. I'll see you on the inside.
Now, you might be able to tell my sinuses are a bit wacky today, i'm gonna try to not let that be too much of a distraction, but if I [00:03:00] sound a little bit different or I'm coughing more than normal, you can just know something's going on with the sinuses here and I am okay, not sick. But it's I just feel it a little bit differently today.
Challenges in Decision Making for Widows
---
One of the most common things that widows might experience when they lose their person is a lack of confidence in making decisions. And there are a lot of reasons why this happens, and I'm gonna go through some of those reasons here in just a minute. But I want you to be aware that's very common.
We've lost our thought partner. We lost the person who was our safety net. Our reality feels a little bit shattered, and so our ability to make decisions and not second guess them is lessened. So if you have been second guessing decisions, big or small since your person died, this is for you. I see you. It's [00:04:00] normal, but it doesn't have to be permanent. By the end of the episode today, I'm gonna share with you a decision protocol that my coach taught me. By the way, one of the many values of coaching, you're gonna have this decision protocol to start trusting yourself again, even if you are scared.
And yes, this is the same framework that you are gonna learn inside the Brave Widow Academy and that we are going to use to help you be able to move forward. Widows tell me all the time I don't know. I don't know. Should I sell my house? Should I keep my house? Should I date again? Should I get remarried?
Should I change jobs? Should I do the coach? I don't know. Or they'll say, yes, I'm all in. And then you never hear from 'em again. Or you might get an email that's I thought about it. This just isn't the right time. I just need to keep waiting. And you really hear the fear and the [00:05:00] doubt that comes across when people send those types of messages.
And not that I'm sad that maybe they decided not to join coaching for me. I'm sad for the types of messages that I see back from people where it's obvious to me from the outside looking in, that they're giving up on themselves, that they just are going to perpetually wait to magically feel better one day.
That they're hoping some other solution is just gonna fall from the sky into their lap and help them move forward. So my heart does hurt for people like that.
The Harm of Delaying Decisions
---
So first, let's start with why delaying a decision is harmful. This is one of the things that we tell people often oh, I just need to think about it.
And listen. As an introvert who processes everything internally, I get it. I don't always like making snap [00:06:00] decisions. I don't wanna be a person who rushes into things without having thought it through. I believe in the biblical principle that, there is, a multitude of safety and having counselors and having people of wisdom around you and having people that are experienced in helping you make decisions.
So I completely understand the desire to want to think a decision through and make the best decision possible. The trap that I see so many people fall into, and I can say this clearly because I've fallen into it myself many times, is delaying a decision for way longer than we need to delay the decision.
And there are some reasons why this is actually harmful to you. One is that it robs you of peace. So when we think. Giving ourselves more time, needing time to [00:07:00] decide, wanting to think about it later when we think that's actually going to bring us peace. It actually robs us of peace, because until we decide, it's always gonna be in the back of our mind.
What if I decide this? What if I decide that? Or we'll have the thought of oh, I still need to make that decision. Oh, I still need to decide and I don't know what to do, and I feel overwhelmed. Like it's everything but peaceful. Now, if you have a clear action plan, as far as, oh, I wanna ask so and so what their thoughts are about this.
Oh, I wanna look up some ratings and reviews about this company and see what other people have to say. Whatever those steps are, if there are tactical steps that you wanna take in order to come to a place of peace, take them. Take the steps. Bring yourself to a place of peace and then decide. So many of my clients will spend more time [00:08:00] trying to decide what to do or trying to decide that they're ready than the task actually took them to do, than the thing actually took.
And if you're a procrastinator, you know this very well, right? Like you procrastinate, you put things off, you don't wanna deal with it, and it ends up taking you like 15 minutes. And the time it's taken up in your mind has been about three hours because you're constantly like, Ugh, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna think about it.
It robs you of peace. Number two, why delaying a decision is harmful is that it prolongs the time for you to take any action. So whether you're deciding like, I want to join the academy, whether you're deciding I wanna sell a house, buy a house, I wanna get a new car, whatever it is, the longer it takes you to make a decision, the longer overall it will take you for you to see a result.
Number [00:09:00] three, why delaying a decision is harmful? Delaying your decision is actually making a decision. And that decision might be, I'm gonna wait. The decision might be, I'm not gonna do that. The decision might be a variety of things, but by deciding to wait to make a decision, you've made a decision to wait to make a decision.
Are you with me?
It is crazy. I know I have several clients. This is really interesting. So I've been coaching now for a couple of years in the grief space and in the past few months I have particularly been coaching a handful of widows through house buying and house selling and widows who they ultimately want to buy and sell a house, but get caught up in the spiral of all the decisions and am I really ready to do this and could I find another house that [00:10:00] I like?
And what if that house isn't as good as this house? And so we spend a lot of time coaching through this thought spiral. Think of it as spinning your wheels. You're thinking, worrying, trying to decide. You're waffling back and forth and you're not getting anywhere. It's okay. Of course, I've been there.
I totally get it. Why it's hard to make a decision, but the longer you allow yourself to stay there, and I commend these widows, they have a coach who is helping them to find the traction to be able to move forward. But for a lot of people, they don't. They just spiral and spend their wheels on their own.
And so my heart goes out to those people because until they decide to do something different, they're gonna be struggling with making this decision of buying and selling a house. And ultimately, by waiting to make a decision, they've decided that they're gonna wait. And [00:11:00] so it's gonna take more time. And they may miss the peak time of buying and selling a house, which is spring and summer typically.
Understanding the Brain's Response to Trauma
---
So why do we struggle with this? Why do we just second guess everything? Why if we were the decision maker before, if we were confident before, why is it so hard? There are a lot of reasons why going through a traumatic experience like losing your spouse causes your brain to feel all scrambled and causes you to feel that you have lost your confidence So quickly, let's just run through a few of these. One, when you have experienced a traumatic loss, like the loss of a spouse.
The loss of your other half, the amygdala in your brain kicks in, and some people call it like hijacks your brain. So you have a part of your brain that [00:12:00] thinks logically and clearly that thinks about the future and visions and dreams and goals, and can map out a project plan and can do very complex things.
And then you have the part of your brain that kicks in survival mode. Think about this. If you're a mother like that mama bear instinct, or that ability for, if you've ever seen the story of oh, a child was trapped under a car and a mom who physically could not have lifted up that car, like physically jumped in there and was able to do that because her adrenaline kicked in, right?
There's a part of your brain. That is survival mode. Fight flight, fawn freeze. You might have heard of some of those response types, but it's almost that animalistic instinct to keep you safe. The challenge is that when you've gone through something very traumatic, [00:13:00] like losing a spouse, you must intentionally come down out of that fight or flight, what we call survival mode, that first season of grief, and it takes time and it takes intention and it takes practice to sink down into your body and to almost reprogram it that you are safe.
Now, many widows often describe that they still feel like their nerves are on edge. They. Are hyper aware of everything, like social situations feel overwhelming. It's loud, the lights are bright. There's a lot of fear and anxiety that just like wells up in the body. It just is hard to function and it's exhausting.
Like your body is chronically fatigued in especially those early days of grief. Although I've met widows who are years out and who are still in this mode because [00:14:00] we haven't intentionally been able to create enough experiences where our brain and our body knows that we're safe now. So without going into too much detail, the reason why we have brain fog and we can't think clearly or we forget things and we can't remember is because our brain is not functioning the way it normally does.
The brain is functioning in a, I'm scanning for danger mode. I'm looking for danger. Looking for danger. The brain's number one job is to keep you safe. This is the second reason why we have trouble making decisions or we second guess ourselves. The brain's job, number one is safety. It also likes pleasure, comfort, familiarity.
What feels soft and easy, and you can run on autopilot. If you could just wake up and every day was exactly the same and you never did anything different, [00:15:00] your brain would be so happy it wouldn't have to work. It's like I know what we're doing. We're rolling out of bed. We're getting the coffee, we're reading the newspaper.
We're going here and doing this. We're taking this route to work. We're at work. I don't have to think. I don't have to worry as familiar. It's safe. I know this path. I know what we're doing here. This is also why when you try something new, your brain pushes back. It doesn't want to do something new. It doesn't want to go somewhere you've never gone before.
It doesn't want to put yourself out there to talk to new people because that puts you in a vulnerable state. And if you're in a vulnerable state, you're not safe.
Overcoming the Brain's Resistance to Change
---
It's really important that you identify that your brain naturally does this. It doesn't mean that you're broken. It doesn't mean that anything's gone wrong.
It means you're functioning like a normal human being. The trick [00:16:00] here and not getting stuck here and not getting trapped here is recognizing that, oh, okay, when I want to go to a place I've never been to meet new people and my brain pushes back and tells me all the reasons why I shouldn't. Right? What does your brain say?
What if they're not nice? What if we don't know anyone? What if it's awkward? What if everyone looks at you? What if everyone judges you? What if everyone thinks you're a weirdo? And the more that you and your brain push back and forth on each other, the more desperate your brain gets with coming up with excuses of why you shouldn't go somewhere new.
Why you shouldn't do something new is gonna come up with a bunch of excuses. And the analogy I've been using recently that I've been having a lot of fun with, and if you're listening and you're not watching on this on video, it will help you if you see it on video. Okay? I'm totally gonna do it. But when we think about and think even about when you are trying to start a diet or you're trying to get into going to the [00:17:00] gym or you're trying to start a new habit, first of all, we always say, oh, I'll start on Monday.
That's a brain's easy way of delaying we don't wanna start that today. Let's start Monday. We're like, okay, Monday. Yeah. But the second thing is your brain pushes back a lot of excuses. What if we go to the gym and what if people look at us and what if we don't know what we're doing?
And then we're gonna be outta breath and everybody's gonna make fun of us. And on trying to talk you out of going. So think of it, if you've been around toddlers or if you've had a toddler, you're immediately gonna know what I'm talking about. How I picture the brain pushing back against us when it doesn't wanna do something new and familiar is like when toddlers make that ninja move where you're trying to pick them up, or you're trying to get them to stand up and go somewhere and their arms go up like on either side of their ear and they just slink down like this.
Okay, if you're watching the video, you got to see that. And I'm [00:18:00] sorry you had to see that, but. Where they become like these limp noodles. And so now all of a sudden you're trying to pick up a toddler that doesn't wanna be picked up. And they're like, no. And it's really difficult to get a grip. It's difficult to pick them up.
They're just like falling to the floor. You're getting frustrated. That is what's happening is your brain's going, no, I don't wanna do this. Okay. And I invite you to think about anytime you've tried something new, maybe when you were a kid, you tried out for the cheerleading squad, maybe you joined a baseball team, maybe you were learning how to play the piano for the first time.
Whatever it is, anytime I, we just want you to observe. Anytime you're trying to do something that's new and unfamiliar, your brain's gonna push back. And the more that you resist that, the harder it's gonna push back. The more what feels like valid excuses are [00:19:00] going to come up. But when you decide, I'm gonna do this anyway, brain, that's when the noise will start to quiet down when you decide, I know I'm scared too.
I'm scared to go into this building where I don't know anyone and meet new people. I'm gonna be scared and I'm gonna do it anyway. And then your brain like pouts and is fine, but people might still look at us and they might not like us and they might make fun of us. And you're like, sh, I get it. I'm gonna do it anyway.
When you decide, you start to quiet down some of that noise and there will be times where you have to remind yourself, no, I've decided. I am going to do this, even though I'm afraid, even though I'm unsure, even though it feels nerve wracking, I've decided I'm gonna feel those things and I'm gonna do it anyway.
The third reason why we second guess ourselves is because we're, our brain is trying to keep us safe. And because it's trying [00:20:00] to keep us in things that are familiar, you start to feel like every decision is a high stakes decision because you cannot afford to get it wrong. 'cause you're not safe. And so I could think of so many examples whether it was, even though I was the breadwinner and Nathan was a stay at home dad after he died, I just started putting as much as possible into savings.
I was had already paid off almost all of our debt, and I was just stacking as much as I could into savings because I just kept thinking if something happens to my job, we're gonna be homeless here. People like, that's what's going on in the brain. It's not oh, if I got a, if I lost my job, that would be bad and I'll have to find a new one.
It's no, if I lost my job, we're all going under bankrupt. Homeless on the street, my kids' lives will be ruined. Like everything is magnified when [00:21:00] you're in that first season of. Grief. And so the result is because those things keep us second guessing, what happens? We keep spinning, we keep delaying and staying stuck and not doing anything different suddenly feels safer.
Then if we were to decide and we decided wrong, I'm gonna say that again 'cause I really want it to sink in, because you're second guessing your decision, you spin, you delay, and all of a sudden staying, staying stuck, staying where you are right now feels safer than making a decision where you might choose wrong.
All right.
A Personal Story: Learning to Love My Curly Hair
---
I'm gonna share with you a story about my hair, and if you've not seen my picture or seen me on video, you may not know I have very curly naturally hair and the [00:22:00] reason that I'm sharing this story is gonna make sense once I get to the end. So hang with me. Don't zone out. But I get tons of compliments on my hair. It's curly. It most of the time, looks nice, and I get just random compliments whenever I go somewhere. People will always comment on my hair but it wasn't always that way.
I hated my hair. Hated my hair for most of my life growing up, it's difficult to deal with. Nearly impossible to run a brush through. I didn't know how to style it, so it was always frizzy and poofy and felt too soft if you're a woman, especially if you have curly hair, it gets soft and puffy and just doesn't look good, right?
I even cut it one time up to my chin and I literally looked like a mushroom head because it like poofed out at the top, but not in a pretty way, like in a, [00:23:00] that girl's got a really skinny neck way and she looks weird. Okay? And even in my adult life in my twenties and even in my early thirties, I just struggled with my hair.
I would have to wash it every day, take a pic in the shower with me. My hair also was pretty long. It was down below my shoulder blades, most of my adult life. Once it grew back out from the mushroom experience. But I would take a pic in the shower and have to be in the shower every day, like picking out the tangles of my hair.
It, I'm tender headed, which makes it all wor it's just awful. It really has been a struggle with curly hair. And as I was growing up, YouTube wasn't really a thing. Internet was barely a thing and so my resources were very limited. I did pick up a book on French braiding one time from the library and I learned how to French braid and because I have curly hair, it always looked bumpy and lumpy.
And so I [00:24:00] just really felt like I hated my hair. I wanted to give up on it. I wanted to cut it short, whatever. As the internet comes out, social media comes out as I am. Really wanting to enhance my professional appearance. We'll say and decide that I'm sick of being sick and tired of my hair. I'm scrolling through Facebook and I found this class this course that you could buy for $97.
And in the course, you know this guy, he was a curly hair stylist. He had curly hair and he had lots of pictures of other curly hair whose hair looked like mine. There's lots of different types of curly hair, but. These other women, there were lots of people that had curly hair that looked like mine. And I felt confident oh, he knows what he's doing.
And so they, there was a course, it was like $97 and it came with a Facebook group where people could [00:25:00] post pictures of their hair and get feedback from other people about what they could do differently. And so for me. I hesitated at first because I'm like who spends money to learn how to fix their hair?
That's a little bit crazy, right? Who does that? But then I thought about all the hours that I've been frustrated with my hair. All the times that I had a really important meeting or photos that were getting taken or a hot date I was going on with my husband. And I would be crying because I could not get my hair to cooperate and it looked limp or puffy, or I just hated it so much.
And I'm like okay, it's 97 bucks. I'm gonna pay it and we'll see what happens. So I paid for the course, I watched the videos. I joined the Facebook group. I was like stalking everyone and. In the course, there was no particular product you had to buy. They just taught you about the different types of product, the [00:26:00] different ways to apply it in your hair, and just encouraged you to try to be consistent.
Whatever method you chose, whatever types of products you chose to be consistent in the time that you applied it, because you have to learn over time. A lot of styling, curly hair is about feel. Does it feel like seaweed? Does it feel dry and crunchy? Like it's very bizarre. I know if you don't have curly hair, you do not understand, most likely and think I'm crazy.
But styling curly hair, it's like a chef. Tasting food. You have a recipe that you follow, but you also taste it and adjust the recipe. The same with curly hair. You have the recipe, but you gotta style it by feel. You gotta do some experiments. Some people even kept journals of this is what I did, this is how I did it.
This is the result. This is how I score my hair. Okay. Getting curly hair to be consistent is very difficult. I can style it the same [00:27:00] way five different days and get five different results. So it really comes down to being a combination of an art and a science. But as I went through the course, as I watched and learned what other people were doing in the Facebook group is I started to experiment and try things differently and just figure out when I liked the way it turned out, what it looked like.
I started to get more and more consistent. I started to learn okay, when I am washing the shampoo outta my hair and I put conditioner in, here's how I know I have enough in. If I'm putting gel in, here's how I know I have enough in my hair feels this way, and if it doesn't, I'm missing something. I'm gonna dry it.
Not all the way, I'm gonna dry it to a certain point and then scrunch out any parts that still feel a little bit crunchy, like it is very detailed process. Okay? But now I really don't even think about it at all. I wash my hair a few times a week. I style it, and it's [00:28:00] easy for me. I'm very confident. I don't worry about it.
It's very rare that I would be so frustrated with my hair. It would bring me to tears, and I think about not what that $97 cost me. Oh, I had to spend a hundred dollars to learn about my hair, but I thought about all of the heartache. That has saved me all the hours I've spent frustrated with my hair that I've spent in angst because I had something important, didn't look nice, and I didn't like my pictures, and I felt like it was just ruined.
And so now when people compliment my hair or I meet other people, one of the things I'll say to me is oh, I have curly hair, but my hair would never do that. And I will tell them like, yeah, my hair didn't use to do this either, but I actually bought this course. It taught me a lot. I learned how to style my hair, and now it looks this way.
And people will chuckle. They're like, you, what a course on how to style your hair? And I'm [00:29:00] like, yeah, but listen, I've spent years hating my hair and now I love my hair. It costs me $97 and a few hours and months of experimenting to get it just right. But now I actually don't mind my hair. I actually style it.
I like how it looks most of the time, and I feel pretty confident with that.
The Value of Investing in Yourself
---
And it's amazing to me how many people are like, oh, I would never spend money for that. I would never experiment with my hair like, like this is just my hair. This is just how it's gonna have to be. And so the same scenario is true for people who choose not to get help with grief, with rebuilding life, with having a transformative experience that changes how you view your life.
You're like, oh, I can never pay for that. Like I, I couldn't pay for coaching, I couldn't pay for [00:30:00] the academy. I wouldn't do that. That's a lot, that's a lot of money. That's a I don't know it, it wouldn't be worth it to me, but I just sit there and I think your life isn't worth a $3,000 program.
Being able to wake up and feel confident in your own skin and feeling alive and having something that excites you and allows you to feel a sense of purpose and meaning, that's not worth $3,000. Being able to know how to rebuild your social circle and make friends and surround yourself with people who truly care about you and who want to include you in things that they're doing that's not worth $3,000.
Introducing the PEACE Decision Protocol
---
So I wanna share with you a decision protocol that my coach Betsy created and that she taught me in order to help people make [00:31:00] decisions. And the acronym for this protocol amazingly, is peace, P-E-A-C-E. And so for my friends who like acronyms, you're gonna love this. Okay? So how can we make a decision from a place of peace and not a place of fear when we make decisions out of fear?
It's from a place of lack, from a place of scarcity, from a place of, oh, I'm gonna decide wrong and my whole life's just gonna go down the drain. A place of peace doesn't mean that you have everything figured out. You know exactly what it's gonna look like, but you are at peace that this is the decision you're gonna make and that you wanna move forward with.
And as things pop up that you might not know how to solve or that you weren't expecting, that you feel grounded in the ability that you will [00:32:00] figure it out. You don't have to have all the answers. Okay?
Breaking Down the PEACE Acronym
---
The decision protocol called Peace, P-E-A-C-E-P, in our Peace decision protocol stands for priority. So as you are trying to make a decision, and I'm just gonna use the Academy as an example, okay?
As you're trying to make a decision from a place of peace, and you're thinking about the academy, is this your priority? Are you your own priority right now? And if you're not, my heart hurts for you, but I, I. Can acknowledge that you've decided that No, I'm not a priority right now, or yes, I am a priority right now.
The E stands for Explore. Explore Options. I always encourage people, I know that my one-on-one coaching program and the Brave Widow Academy isn't for [00:33:00] everyone. It's not. I've been very upfront about that. But the E in this acronym is to explore options. So if it isn't this, what is it going to be? And don't say nothing, because if you're just waiting, you're just gonna keep waiting.
Nothing is going to change for you. So if it isn't the Academy, what is it? Explore other options that are out there for you. A is alignment. Alignment of the Holy Spirit with your priority. So if you are the priority, if rebuilding your life is a priority, does that fill in alignment between that priority and what you believe?
The Holy Spirit or what God wants you to focus on and do. The C in our acronym stands for control, relinquish control of the outcome. Be still listen for guidance, for [00:34:00] direction, for that urge in your heart that says, this is for me, or this is the decision that I need to make. And recognize that even though we may feel in control at times, if nothing else, this experience of being a widow allows us to know we're really not in control of anything, just not.
So relinquish control E, the last E in our acronym is to execute. It's to make the decision. So in our PEACE acronym, we have P Priority E. Explore options, a Alignment between the Holy Spirit and your Priority C. Control. Relinquish it and E Execute or make the decision.
Here's what I want you to hear from me.
Embracing Discomfort and Taking Action
---
It's okay for you to [00:35:00] want more, for you to want connection, purpose, coaching a life that you can enjoy. It doesn't mean you are betraying your person. It doesn't mean that you're moving on, that you forgot about them or that you are being selfish for putting yourself as a priority.
This isn't being selfish. It is being alive.
I also want you to hear that it's okay not to feel confident. You can feel at peace without feeling a hundred percent confident.
Real-Life Coaching Examples
---
So let me give you a couple examples. I just coached someone last week on this, and we were talking back and forth. I gave some suggestions for what she could do, and her response to me was, you're right.
I think I need to do this. I just need to wait. I just need [00:36:00] to get comfortable with it. And once I get comfortable with it, then I'll do it. And my immediate response was, or you could decide that you're going to feel uncomfortable and you're just gonna do it anyway. Why do you have to wait to feel comfortable?
And she was like, oh man. And I said, this is why I love coaching. Because we tell ourselves things like, oh, I'll do that when I feel comfortable. Oh, I'll do that when I feel confident. Oh, I'll wait. And then after I wait this period of time, then I'll feel ready. But here's the thing. In most of our life we may not ever feel ready.
Think about when you got married, when you had your first baby, when you maybe got a promotion at work, did you feel a hundred percent. Comfortable, confident, and ready. Probably not. You probably just went [00:37:00] for it, even though you might've been scared or nervous or unsure. And that's okay. We still can decide from a place of peace without having to feel comfortable.
I think a lot about people in the workspace who quit one job and they go to work for another company, or maybe they work for the same company and they resign from one role and they're gonna move into another role. There's always this period of time between when they resigned and before they start the new job where they go through a period of doubt.
What if I made the wrong decision? What if this new position is actually. Horrible. What if I don't like the person I'm working for? What if they go through a layoff and I get let go, and I look back and I'm like, oh, I shouldn't have left that last company. I should have stayed there. I, but instead I took the leap.
There's always this period of doubt, [00:38:00] and oftentimes when I would hire someone in a leadership role who had a long notice period, or a long wait period, it might be 30 days, it might be 60 days. I try to stay in contact with them throughout the whole process, whether it was texting or calling once a week, it was chatting on the phone to see how they're feeling.
I reminded them often Hey, just so you know, as we're going through periods of change, there's gonna be a lot of doubt that comes up and you're gonna be second guessing yourself oh, am I making the right decision? And that's normal. And often what would happen is people would make a decision.
They would have this period of doubt where they're like, oh, I shouldn't have done this. Should I have done this? Is this right thing? I don't know. And then after their first day in the new position, they feel relief. They're like, whew, yeah, I feel good. I'm glad I made that decision. So even in something non-G grief related, like changing [00:39:00] positions or changing companies, you can have that period of doubt and that period of second guessing yourself and you can decide you're gonna continue forward.
Anyway,
I had another client that I've been working with. Over the past couple of weeks on waiting until the timing is right to buy a new house. And as we were talking, she said I think I need to wait two years. And she listed her reason. And I said okay, I understand the reason that you feel, or you think that you need to wait two years, but what if you didn't?
What if you did it in one year? What would happen? Let's talk about it. And as we talked through it, she started to light up a little bit and she was like, you know what? I didn't think about this that way, or I didn't consider that this was a possibility. Like I just had it in my mind. I would have to wait two years, but I can see [00:40:00] now it might make the most sense for me to do it in one year.
And ultimately whatever she ends up deciding will continue to coach through that. And it's okay. It's her decision to make. But one of the beautiful things about being in a coaching container is that things that we think are facts or truth, or I have to wait two years, I have to do this, I have to do that, is that you have someone like me who's saying, but is that true?
Do you have to wait for that? Do you have to wait to feel comfortable? Could you just do it anyway? And all of a sudden, some options that you thought were not available to you suddenly become available to you. I have another widow. I know I told you I have lots of people I'm working with on buying and selling houses, and that is a very personal decision, right?
And a big decision because one of the things that maybe we don't even consciously [00:41:00] think about, it's just subconsciously in our mind, is that where we are living is the last place on earth that we lived with Our person, maybe even the last place they were alive was in our home. And so it can bring up a lot of emotions and uncertainty and anxiety as we think about, can I really leave this place?
I had another widow who she was really struggling with wanting to move, not wanting to move, not wanting to move, and someone told her the reason you feel this way is because you have not like had moments where you looked around the house and you're like, this is my last Christmas, this is my last Easter.
This is my last summer here. And so you're just not ready. You're just rushing into this decision. You're just not ready to say goodbye to the house. You should wait a year and then once [00:42:00] that year is up, you're gonna feel ready to do this. And I push back. That person's entitled to their opinion. But I also believe client that you get to just decide.
You get to decide that you're ready, that you want to do this. Even if you don't feel ready, even if you're nervous, even if you have no idea, like you love your house and you can't even imagine finding a different house that you would love more, that would be more convenient. That would be better. Like you can't even imagine what that looks like, but you could decide that you're going to look, that you're gonna keep your eyes open, that you're gonna pray about it.
And once you do find that, that you're gonna walk through all the volatility, all the memories, all the, my kids are raised here. I've been here, I have another widow I [00:43:00] haven't even mentioned yet, who's been in her home for probably close to 30 years now. 20 something years, right? The kids are raised here, the family grew up here.
This is a family home, and I'm considering leaving all of that behind. That's a lot of bittersweet emotions. But you could decide that you're gonna walk through that instead of being the result of your feelings, being the like, oh, I feel bad and I raised my kids here, and we have all these memories.
I should just stay. I should just stay. No, you can have all these feelings and decide you're gonna do something different anyway. Here's the thing that I want you to take away from today's episode. You cannot wait until you feel ready. You may never feel ready. You are not going to just wake up confident.
One day you decide, and then [00:44:00] you build confidence through doing.
The Journey to Confidence
---
I work with several other coaches in the coaching space and they see what I've done with Brave Widow and they see the podcasts I've done and they see the live events and the trainings and the courses and all of that. And they're like, yeah, but I can't do that.
I don't have all that stuff. I don't have all these podcasts. I don't have all these courses. I don't like, I don't have anything that I can send to someone. I'm like, I didn't have it either. I didn't have it either. Yeah, but you get on the podcast, you on these trainings, you're so confident. You just, it's just easy for you.
And I'm like, no, it's easy now. Yeah, it is easy now because I went through a year of really hard, I went through a year of publishing a podcast and seven people listened to it, like seven fans.
I don't even know if they listened to the whole episode. I went through webinars and live events and zero zero people would show up [00:45:00] and I would do it anyway, and I would coach my little heart out and teach and record and upload. I would do it when people had no clue you're doing this coaching thing for widows what do you do?
Do y'all just sit around and cry the whole time? Like, how does this work? When people didn't understand, when people couldn't fathom how I left a job as a senior vice president overseeing thousands of employees to take a totally different career path. When people didn't understand it, people were upset about it.
I decided. This was my calling. This was the path. This was what I wanted to do. I just decided to do it. And it was hard and it was awkward and it was weird and it was very vulnerable. And for the longest time, maybe the first year even, for me to be able to say the words, I'm a life coach. I just wanted to throw up life [00:46:00] coach.
That's not a real job. And sometimes I still wonder, it's an amazing job. How can this be real? How can this be my life every day? It's amazing. But I didn't post on my LinkedIn. I didn't post on my personal Facebook page. 'cause I didn't want people to know, 'cause I wasn't confident. I didn't know, is this thing gonna work out or not?
Am I gonna be able to help people or not? I wasn't sure, but I decided anyway. And where the confidence came from. Is in over 160 podcast episodes is in hours and hours of teaching content online, of doing lives. Where my last live, we had over 7,000 people. Yeah, I can do a live with 7,000 people because I learned how to do it when there was zero people or when there was one person or five people.
I'm confident now because I decided and I did the hard thing and I didn't let my brain talk me. I didn't let me talk [00:47:00] myself out of it, which I wanted to do. I didn't quit all the times I wanted to quit. My coach, Betsy, will tell you so many times where I'm like, what am I doing wrong? It's not working.
It's not working. And she would just say, success is inevitable. Just keep doing what you're doing. Keep being consistent. So now, yeah, I am confident. But two and a half, almost three years ago, I was very not confident, but I decided to do it. I decided to be consistent. I decided to keep investing in myself and to keep learning and growing and becoming better at what I was trying to learn how to do.
And I still continue that to this day and the amount of time I've been able to grow to build a life that I love to do things every day that I enjoy doing, and to manage my emotions through that, to manage through the big [00:48:00] things that we experience in grief. I've been able to do all of that in a shortened amount of time because I decided to invest in myself because I decided to hire coaches or to join mastermind programs and to get routine feedback from people of what I could do different or better, or just be consistent with. If you are a one-on-one coaching client or if you are part of the academy, you are going to stop spinning. You will stop delaying decisions. You will stop getting caught up in all of the mind drama because I coach you through it and how to get out of it, and you will actually start living again.
You will make decisions whether you wanna date, you want a different career, you wanna move, you wanna form friendships, you will learn how to trust yourself again.
Brave Widow Academy Overview
---
So if today's episode has resonated with you, [00:49:00] and if you're tired of living in the land of, I don't know, or I need time, I need more time to make a decision, then join the Brave Widow Academy. These are the types of things that we do every single day, every single week, we are going to rebuild your confidence, rebuild your clarity, and your ability to connect with other people.
Pre-enrollment is open right now. You can go to brave widow.com to enroll and listen. If this is a, feels like a really big decision for you and you want someone to walk side by side with you to help you decide, you can always go to brave widow.com and schedule a consult. I'll help. You identify where you are now in the seasons of grief, exactly the way that I would work with you inside of the academy and what life can look like on the other side.[00:50:00]
It's free. Go to brave widow.com and schedule a consult and I'll be happy to do that for you. I invite you to imagine how different your life could be if you made decisions with confidence instead of guessing. That is what's possible when you do the work, and I would love to help you get there. Let me tell you a little bit about the Academy in case you wanna learn more about what to expect, what's in there, why am I making this such a big deal? The Academy is a six month coaching program where we meet every week on Mondays from 12 to 2:00 PM Central Time. We record all of the calls, so if for some reason you can't come live or you miss that day, the videos are recorded as well as it's uploaded to a private podcast.
So if you're like me and you're a replay king or queen and you like to listen on the go, you're also gonna [00:51:00] have access to everything audio, podcast style, which is awesome. And then I have a curriculum that I walk you through the Four Seasons of Grief. So we have our Chaos to Calm blueprint.
Things like our self-trust system, things like the connection protocol to build relationships, but I walk you through the curriculum every single week so that you can have one clear takeaway of what you are gonna focus on that week in order to grow. And maybe it's needing to heal your heart. Maybe it's growing your sense of confidence.
Maybe it's going out and meeting new people. Whatever that is, you can easily have one takeaway. Now, this is not a typical group coaching program. This is a very on high touch. Feels weird to say like high touch. Concierge white glove type of experience. So you're not gonna be in a [00:52:00] sea of other people and not ever get the chance to be coached on our group calls.
You also have the ability, I have a way for you to communicate with me every single week so I know exactly where you are. I know what wins you've experienced. I know what you're struggling with, I know where you are in the things that we're working through. And I will give you personal, private, individual feedback.
So it's very similar also to one-on-one coaching where you're gonna get personalized feedback so that you don't ever feel lost, you don't feel confused, you know exactly what to be focused on. And I'm there for really unlimited support throughout the program. Now if you also want more routine one-on-one calls with me, you can upgrade to one-on-one coaching for that six month period.[00:53:00]
So if you join this round only, this round, only of the academy. Okay. This round only, it is July 21st when I'm recording this. The next round of Brave Widow Academy starts August 11th on Monday. So if you join this round, only you become a founding member. Now, I have only had founding members of Brave Widow, founding members of the Mastermind that we did previously, and then now founding members of the academy.
So if you're a founding member, you lock in some pretty amazing things. You're gonna get some special swag that no one else is gonna be receiving. You get to maintain what I call alumni pricing on all of our events, classes, courses, and things that we do. And I'm very generous with alumni pricing and discounts.
You also will get an [00:54:00] invite to what I call the inner circle, so you get to have a voice that helps shape the future of Brave Widow. For example, I was talking with one of my one-on-one coaching clients about a workbook that we did at the first of the year for planning out your year for 2025. And as we were talking, we came up with this idea of being able to have a workbook for the length of the program.
So not only could you journal, like where you've started, where you've come, but also all of the things that you've accomplished above and beyond your goals. That was one of her points of feedback was I set these goals at the first of the year, but I've accomplished more than that. And so having a structured way of reviewing the goals that I set of documenting the things that I've accomplished, plus things that I did that I wasn't even planning on doing just six months ago, I would like a way of [00:55:00] like just memorializing that.
And so that's gonna be part of what we do going forward. You also will have early access. So I already have the Brave Widow systems out there. If you love content, you love watching videos, you love listening to content, it's out there. There's no obligation to do that early, but if you just can't wait and wanna get your hands on it, you can.
You also have early access to a private chat group and some audio drops and behind the scenes things that I'm not doing anywhere else. Okay.
Exclusive Bonuses and Enrollment Details
---
You also, if you join this round only, I don't know if I'm gonna offer these bonuses in the future, like legitimately, seriously. I don't know. I'm still deciding.
You will have private one-on-one support throughout this program. Now, we may not have routine calls unless you upgrade to one-on-one coaching, but you'll have private messaging app access to me. So 24 7. [00:56:00] You can send me a message, written, verbal video, however you wanna do it. And I respond Monday through Friday to that messaging.
I normally charge $300 a month just for the messaging app access. So I have included it in here at no additional cost. I also have some bonuses that are going away. They're disappearing because I want you to decide. I want you to take action. I want you to step forward into the version of you who creates the life that you want to live.
So to do that, I have tried to make this offer as juicy and as irresistible as possible so that the only reason why you would decide not to do this program or to do the academy is because you decide not to do it. It's not because the value wasn't there. It's not because the offer wasn't good enough or that you [00:57:00] needed time to think about it.
It's just because you decided you choose not to do it. Okay, so some of the bonuses that are going away in one week, so on the 28th at midnight, these bonuses go away. So if you pre-enroll for the academy, you will get an extra group calls throughout the month for pre-enrollment students only. So think of this like open office hours, open coaching, anything you might want help with, you might want feedback on.
Anything you might be struggling with that you want coaching on. These are open office hour calls that only pre-enrollment students will have access to. You also will get three bonus one-on-one coaching calls with me throughout the program if you enroll before the 28th. So you can schedule those one-on-one coaching calls at any point during the program.
I recommend at the beginning, the middle, and the end. But hey, through your three calls, [00:58:00] you can schedule 'em anytime or you can message me and I'll schedule them for you. You also get a chance to win a VIP day with me, and the drawing will actually happen on our first day on August 11th, but we will work together to schedule a time that works best for you.
A VIP day is three to four hours of a private, one-on-one coaching session where there are many things that we can work on, but I am going to customize it and tailor it to specifically what would be the most helpful for you. So a chance to when a VIP day with me that also disappears on the 28th, and then one bonus that disappears on August 4th is an extra month of sessions.
I shared with you, this is a six month coaching program. If you join before August 4th, it actually becomes a seven month coaching program. So a whole extra month of sessions by signing up [00:59:00] early. All right, if you wanna sign up for the academy, the time to do it is during pre-enrollment. That's honestly the best bonuses that I've never offered this many bonuses before.
So the best time to join is now as soon as you're hearing this. And if you are hearing this after we've already kicked off the academy, if you still go to brave widow.com, you'll see a place where you can join the wait list. And again, I don't know. That you're gonna have access to these same bonuses. I will probably do one bonus or something to get people to join, but I guarantee nothing with what bonuses might be available to you at that time.
I reward people who take action. And one of the ways to do that is by pre-enroll now. So to pre-enroll you go to bravewidow.com. And also if you want to pre-enroll, but you just need to understand a little bit more about the academy, you want a little [01:00:00] more handholding, a little more space and time to think about it.
You can also schedule that free consult with me by going to bravewidow.com.
The Brave Widow Academy is open now, and it's where I help widows just like you move from surviving to living with a proven path coaching and a community of other widows who get it. If you're ready to take the next step, go to brave widow.com/academy to join us. I'll see you on the inside.
