Welcome to my podcast. Happily, even After. I’m life coach, jen. I’m passionate about helping people recover from betrayal. I rode the intense emotional roller coaster and felt stuck and traumatized for years. It’s the reason I became a trauma-informed certified life coach who helps people like you navigate their post-betrayal world. I have the tools, processes and knowledge to help you not only heal from the betrayal but create a healthy future. Today we begin to help you live happily even after. Hey friends, welcome to today’s podcast.
For some reason, I like to share with you why I come up with topics. I do, but I was getting coached by my coach, for whatever reason, wherever my life is today. I just really thought that was really powerful and so I just have been thinking about this concept of re-deciding your life. Do you know that you can do that? I think a lot of us, most people, we live very unconsciously. We just, you know, every day kind of feels the same. We’re not really, we’re not in our conscious mind, which is good, right, like that’s exhausting. If you’re always like consciously thinking that’s really exhausting, so that’s okay that if you aren’t right. But every now and again I just want to challenge you and I’m going to talk about some things that we could re-decide. Now, some of you hate making decisions, so you’re like this sounds terrible. I want to make a decision and never have to make the decision again. Right, but I’m just going to challenge you. It’s good to be uncomfortable sometimes. Many people also don’t like change, so they’re like why would I re-decide where I live, or something like that. I never want to move out of this house, but I just am going to challenge you. Change can give you progress and there is a lot of positive things. If you want to live an amazing, fulfilled life, like sometimes, we need to change some things. Right, you might not know what those things are, but if you want to ask your spouse, they might help you out. Or your kids, they’re, for sure, going to help you and tell you what you need to change. But the most important person for you to go in is go inward and say what is it that I don’t really like about myself or what that I’m not doing or what you are doing. And it’s not to be critical or judge yourself or to make yourself feel bad, but like just re-deciding. Do you want to do it this way anymore? And I think you can create so much more possibility in your life when you just take a moment, a day or whatever, and decide like, do I want to do this anymore.
So I was on a walk with my friends, my girls, my diamond dolls that I love, and I was talking about this and my friend was telling her about the show I just watched. It was called the Perfect Couple. I’m like, oh, you’ve got to go watch this. And she’s like, oh, it’s just so hard, I don’t have a TV in my bedroom. And I was like, wait, what, why? And she’s like I don’t know. And she’s like, well, wait a second.
I think I know because she’s divorced, like I am, and so I watch TV, probably from 11 at night till one in the morning, sometimes later, sometimes sooner, but that’s when I watch TV. I used to, when I had little kids, watch it, like when I folded clothes and did things like that, and maybe I still do occasionally. But that’s like my time that I watch a good show, whatever that show is. I’ve never watched so much TV in my life since I got divorced and I’m okay with that. But I was like, why don’t you have a TV? I’m just curious. And she said because her former spouse used to watch boxing or like things she hated, and like he would stay up all night watching this and she felt like he was choosing the TV over her. So I get that right. But she’s not married anymore. She’s been divorced for five years and she also grew up in a home where it wasn’t good to have a TV in your room. You weren’t allowed and I was like, oh, that’s interesting. I said you know, I actually didn’t allow my kids to have TVs in their room either. So I get that I wasn’t allowed to have a TV in my room. No-transcript, maybe three that were fuzzy, but anyway. So I just was like it’s interesting, what if you read?
I just kind of talked to her about re-deciding, like do you want to still do that, not have a TV? And for me, when I moved after I got divorced, my kids were mostly adults and I just was like everyone’s getting a TV and some people are like, oh, but then you never spend time as a family and you’re not gathering. Well, I did choose in the family room area. I actually don’t have a TV. That’s where the one place in our house almost that we don’t have a TV. We have lots of other TVs and honestly I don’t.
It’s not like I find my kids in their room watching TV, but I just decided like I don’t need to have that rule anymore or I don’t think it’s wrong, or put some moral you know morality onto the TV and it’s just something to consider. It’s something you might be like that’s silly, like why am I going to decide if I want a TV? But maybe you’re like no, I need to take the TV out of my bedroom. That could be another decision, right, maybe you need more quality time with your spouse, whatever. But guess what you get to decide. You’re the adult. You don’t have to do what you think your parents think you should do or what you think was right 20 years ago or whatever. You can decide about things like this. This is a bizarre one. That’s why I’m just giving you lighthearted ones.
But I have always made baked potatoes with the tinfoil on. I put tinfoil on a baked potato and poke holes in it and bake the baked potatoes. Now I rarely cook, slash make baked potatoes. But my friend, she’s like no, those are the worst type of baked potatoes, that’s not a good baked potato. She just made like 60 for her son’s football team and she’s like no, I read that’s actually the wrong way to do baked potatoes. I’m like wait, we’ve been as a society making baked potatoes wrong for all these years and like no one’s told us this. Like you’re supposed to wrap them in tinfoil if you’re going camping. But I’m never going camping. And so she’s like no, this is how you should do it. But I thought it was so interesting that we somehow get caught up in like oh no, this is the way that grandma did it, this is the way we’ve done it all of our lives and we never even think about it. But she looked at a recipe and realized no, that’s the worst way to make a baked potato.
Anyways, I just want you to consider things in your life that you do this way and be willing to experiment. Maybe try making them with tinfoil and then without and see which one you like better, because maybe you’d never know until you try, right Then so many of us we make all of you know even Christmas traditions. I know I’ve talked about those before Like should you get Christmas pajamas? And if you don’t like, you’re going to ruin your Christmas, like really crazy things like this. But there are a lot of you that are holding on tightly really crazy things like this. But there are a lot of you that are holding on tightly to these beliefs and things that you have to do them this way and you like, almost like you know you have to go to your family’s house every Sunday for dinner or something, and then you know your mom’s going to be upset if you can’t make it, if you’re late, or someone else, and there’s lots of drama in families.
But just really get clear and read aside. Do you want to do that anymore? Is that what you want to do? And like your reasons, what are you making these stories mean about you and your family? Because we all have stories running all the time in our head and we don’t even know it. Right, but become aware, consider is it helpful anymore for you to have this type of car, like some people are. Like nope, in our family we only have Fords or whatever. Like I think I had a grandpa that was like that, or you know a certain American-made car. Well, you know, you might have to branch out from that. You might decide like no, I want a different car. Right, I have a Tesla and I think my grandpa would be like what you plug your car in. You know he probably that would be foreign to him, that would be feel weird. He might feel uncomfortable driving a car like that, but I love it. So I’m just going to give you some things to think about.
I think re-deciding in your life, like obviously you don’t have to do this every year, but especially when there’s big changes in your life. For me, divorce, I made lots of new decisions and re-decided a lot of things for myself, but getting married could be one a time. Every time you have a baby, right, your family changes. This could really help a lot of marriages, right, if you like. Okay, after the third kid okay, maybe we need to re-decide responsibilities in the home kid. Okay, maybe we need to re-decide responsibilities in the home, things like that. And so it would be a great thing to do as a couple, or if you’re single, or even with your kids, like re-deciding how you want certain days to look. Like I’m really trying to, a couple times a week, eat dinner with my kids. It’s not, that’s not a me problem, that’s fine, you know, hey guys, do you guys want to attempt to be home at this time and let’s have dinner? Of course, they’re all for it. It’s just having to plan and really thinking about it. But I think, wouldn’t it be amazing I always think like maybe can’t go in the past, but doing you know, re-deciding things in your marriage.
Maybe once a year, every five years, take a weekend and discuss things that are going well in your marriage or things that might need to change, and deciding them together, instead of focusing, well, what is everyone else doing? What does my mom say I should do? What does my dad? Because I think even as adults, we get caught up in what other people think about us and what other people are doing. Well, no one in my family has a TV in their bedroom. What are they going to say about us? Right, and that’s a really trivial thing. But just put it on a larger scale of whatever you’re dealing with, whatever you’re thinking, I think when people have a job change or they want to change their career, it’s a great time to re-decide how you want to do things, how you want to spend your money, your budget, when you graduate. My daughter just graduated with her degree. Like she it’s kind of coming to a time like want to decide what does she want to do for her career. Deciding that and doing it on purpose.
When I got divorced, I originally thought I was going to stay in the home that I was living in, and then I quickly decided absolutely not, I cannot live here. It was too big, it was a lot of upkeep and maintenance and I just needed a fresh start. And so I decided didn’t ask anyone’s permission I decided I’m going to sell the house and I’m going to move and I love where I live, but also the beach, the ocean is calling me. I’m like someday I think I’m going to redecide to move to a beach. I don’t know, maybe I won’t move there full time. I don’t know, maybe I won’t move there full time. Haven’t gotten there yet, but it just seems magical to me, although with the hurricanes that have been coming through, that terrifies me. So but consider, like you get to decide whatever you want where you live. Do you like living, you know, two houses down from your parents or no? Maybe you want to move across the town and to a different state. Even Like you get to decide that Kind of car you drive.
Clothes I like clothes a lot and I have a lot of clothes in my closet that really served me well and I liked them, but I have been. Really I try. If I try it on and I don’t like it, I just immediately get rid of it. I’m like donate it, because I’m kind of re-deciding what my style is. Who am I at my age, in my situation? Does it look good? Do I feel good in it? And so you could re-decide lots of things.
Now this might stress you out, especially if you’re very adverse to change and decision-making. So I’m not saying take your entire life and re-decide it. Maybe just take one area of your life, one thing, and honestly it could really like make you feel like you have a, not a new life, but like just a little more excitement or just something different, and it could help you release something that maybe you were doing something for someone else for all those years, especially those that are divorced. You know lots of things we do for our spouse and that’s okay. But now that you’re single, you can decide what you want to do, who you want to be, what time you want to go to bed, if you want to do the dishes at night before you go to bed or in the morning. You know all those things you can decide.
There isn’t a right or wrong way of doing life. It just has to be, gets to be your way. I think that’s very empowering. It’s very, it can be very exciting. I’m not trying to make you overwhelmed, so if it feels overwhelming, just you know you don’t need to. Maybe you’re not ready for this right.
But with all aspects, with religion, how do you do you want to go to church every Sunday, do you? What do you want to do? What? How involved do you want to be in your kids’ school activities? Do you want to volunteer or do you not want to volunteer? But when you make the choice, don’t make it mean like you’re doing it wrong or you should do something. We never should shit ourselves right. It’s just unhelpful in our progress in our healing.
So I, just for me, I’m going to sit down. Maybe I should have done that before I did the podcast, but I’m going to just re-decide, like certain things, like maybe I, you know, don’t want to do this or I do want to do that. I think it’s just something to get your brain thinking like what in your life are you loving and what are you not loving? And guess what. You can choose something different. Hopefully this was helpful.
I am so grateful for each of you for listening to this podcast. I’d love for you to leave me a review, because that’s how people find me and that’s how the algorithm helps people know that people are interested in this podcast and it can be helpful for people if you know anyone in your life that’s been betrayed or is dealing with divorce. So please leave a review. I’d love that and I appreciate each of you. Thanks so much for listening and I will talk to you next week. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at hello at lifecoachjenwith1ncom. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Happily Even After Coach, let’s work together to create your happily even after.
