Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and I'm your host. And today we will be talking about indecision. This was a big one for me and maybe for some of you as well. So as I was thinking about indecision, I'm kind of laughing a little bit because it can really be a source of suffering. So let me not laugh first. It can really be a source of suffering if I, it can be like a torture chamber inside. Actually now I'm getting back to the place where I wasn't able to handle it. So now I can remember what it was like when I felt pulled to one thing or pulled to one thing and I feel like I can't really decide 'cause I don't wanna make the wrong decision. And it could be for big things or small things. And I would, I had all kinds of coping mechanisms to deal with this moment where I had to make the decision and I, would use these different methods. But I didn't feel comfortable making decisions. And I came up with some tips now to, and I'll, I'll share the tips in a minute, but what is indecision and why do we get into this thing? By the way, indecision in and of itself, like not having a decision now is not necessarily a bad thing. It's the suffering and the self-critical energy that goes on because there's no decision that's the problem. I'm just remembering. I'm laughing now, but it's not funny because I remember it's very hard when you feel the pressure of something needs to be done and I can't seem to get my behind myself. So I'm looking for other people to tell me what to do. I'm looking for other people to give me advice. I'm looking, I did that for so long and it was very, I mean, I, I survived doing that, but I probably was a big burden on the people around me Must have been hard to be around me if I was constantly needing that kind of support. For the sake of this conversation, I started writing down what can you do? What can you do about indecision? Well, first of all, let's acknowledge that not deciding something is not necessarily bad. I haven't decided yet. You hear people say that, right? I haven't decided yet, but I can say I haven't decided yet and not have any negative thoughts about that. Sometimes if we do have that kind of negative thought pattern, I wrote down a bunch of things that we can do and it's funny 'cause normally it would be like a principle, but I guess the principle is to give a directive to the self and the directive could be a bunch of different things. I think it's, it's good to have a lot of tools in the toolbox. Maybe the reason why I suffered so much within indecision is because I didn't have a lot of tools in my toolbox, a lot of self-directive tools in my toolbox. I definitely was hoping that others would be able to regulate me or help me or something. But I learned little by little about self-direction and I, I'm gonna give an example again, because I gave this example before about. Westerns like the Clint Eastwood westerns or you know, I'm sure John Wayne and things like that. But I'm thinking Clint Eastwood, 'cause those are the ones I'm familiar with. But it was all about self-respect and it was all about making your own decisions. A lot of times it was about shootouts and justice and all this, but what about, do I take, do I do the laundry now or do I do it later? I mean. It could be something so simple. And if I get into the habit of being kind of helpless, which is the word I was kind of looking for helpless. You get into this helpless mode, which feels terrible. And so the cure for that is to generate a directive one way or the other. You're directing yourself. So I have a bunch of ideas for directives that I can give myself. So imagine if you're out there and you have indecision and indecision to the point of feeling helpless and feeling out of control. That kind of feeling I'm giving these tips are for you. So the first one is ask someone for their point of view. Don't ask what do you think I should do? Just say, you can say if it was you, what would you do? So in other words, you're keeping your self-respect, but you're taking in another opinion. Well, what do you think about this? If you had to decide, what would you do? I think that's okay because I think it's okay to get other people's opinions. And actually when we built a house that, not this house we're in now, but the house that we were in previously. Was built from a picture I drew on a piece of paper. It was kind of amazing to be able to do that at least once in your life, to be able to have a custom home. And the builder was there and every time it would be a question, I would say, well, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? And he's like, I don't wanna make the decisions to you. I said, you're not making the decisions for me. You're giving me your input because you understand the differences of the things you're talking about and I don't. So in that case, I was taking advantage of the person's expertise, so I wasn't really being indecisive. But that's a tip that's kind of a, a method that you can use at the time of a decision. If somebody is there with expertise, you could say, well, what do you think? Get their opinion. And like I said, I did it so much during the building of this house that the builder was like, I don't wanna tell you, I don't want you to get upset if it's, I said, no, no, I promise you I'm not gonna make you wrong. I'm making the decision. I just wanna hear what you have to say. So one thing is you can ask somebody for their point of view or what would you do? Don't ask, what should I do? These are the things that I use, the methods that I use to give myself a directive to get myself outta that helpless standpoint. So I would not say, what should I do? Because then you're making that person responsible for you. I'm not doing that. Don't do that. Second thing is sleep on it. Say, you know what? I'm not gonna decide this now. I'm gonna decide it later. 'cause what happens is sometimes when there's a decision that we start to feel the pressure of making the decision, I need to do it now. I need to do it now. I need to do it now. Sometimes you can do it now and it's fine, but sometimes maybe it's not the right time to make that decision. Sometimes you need more information. In those cases, you could say, you know what? I'm gonna really forget about this now because I obviously don't know, and I'm gonna wait and wait till tomorrow and see how I feel about it. Give myself some breathing room around the situation. One other thing about this, sometimes that feeling of I have to do it. I have to decide, I have to make the decision, I have to figure out what to do, can be very strong. In those cases. I feel like there was one time. Wow. I'm telling on myself here, but there was one time where I was so frustrated with the computer, and I'm sure you all can relate to this. This wasn't working. That wasn't working, and I was getting frustrated and I said, you know what? I'm gonna throw this computer in the lake. Why did I say that to myself? I had to do something to reassert my authority. Think of Clint Eastwood, right? Like who's the one with the most self-respect? I'm not gonna let a computer bring me down. I'm not gonna let this decision bring me down either. So guess what? Nope. And I'm gonna wait and I'll wait till tomorrow. See if that works. Another one. I can decide not to decide, period. You know what? I'm not gonna make this decision. I'm gonna let it sit there. I'm not gonna do it. All of these things that I'm talking about right now will reestablish my own authority over the situation, or over myself, actually reestablish my authority. I'm being directive with myself because I don't wanna feel helpless. So I'm gonna decide, you know what? I'm not gonna make that decision. That's it. And then let's see if the world blows up. Let's see if something bad happens. The next one, pick one. Take whatever consequences comes. So this is another way to be powerful in this situation. You're back and forth. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do anymore. You know what? I'm just gonna pick this one and whatever happens, happens, and I'll handle it. So in other words, you get behind yourself and go for it and see what happens. In those cases, maybe that would be a decision where both things seem like they're okay. There's not a clear right and wrong choice, or better or worse choice where both choices seem okay. In that case, just choose one and take the consequences, see what happens as a result of that choice. The next one is do what's best for you. And the one after that is do what's best for others. So do what's best for you, means that. Not selfish, but you're taking your own feelings into consideration and you're doing what's best for you. Ultimately, we're not responsible for anyone else, and as adults we have the freedom to say yes and to say no to things and to set boundaries and say, no, I'm not gonna do that. Or, yes, I'm gonna do that. We don't have to be run or ruled by our life. Everything can be changed or renegotiated or we can do that. So do what's best for you is a choice. I can say, I'm not sure what the best thing is, but I know that this choice is gonna be hard for me to manage and this choice is gonna be much easier for me in terms of logistics or managing it. So I'm gonna pick this one 'cause it's gonna be easier. Great. Then you're out of that indecision. Another one is, like I said, do what's right for the other person or do what's right for something else, or do what's right for the mission of the company. But in those cases, make sure you're taking your own feelings into consideration. Do not, betray your own feelings. This is a tough one because sometimes we're not sure where our feelings are. And I'll give an example of this at work. There's some changes at work and there's a little bit of uncertainty as to what's gonna happen. This is happening right now. There's a little uncertainty right now. That's what's happening. One of the things that I do when there's uncertainty is I try to think about all the possibilities and how I'm gonna handle it. And again, that kind of directive energy. And I'm thinking, well, if this happens, I'll do this. And if this happens, I'll this, and I'm not gonna leave the job and I'm gonna need the healthcare. So that means I'm staying in the job and the family's gonna support me, and that's it. And that's what's gonna happen. But what I wasn't in touch with until today, so this is brand new. I wasn't in touch with was my real feelings about it. What did I really want to happen because I was so much reacting and responding and trying to protect myself from the parts that were out of my control. Finally, I got to my actual heart and I said, this is what I really want to happen, and so I've been aggregating my energy around that, and when I'm do meditation tomorrow morning, I'm gonna spend some time on that, my real feelings and my real heart. So what does that have to do with decision making? Well, the situation will shift and I'm gonna have to decide what to do. I pretty much decided that I'm not leaving the job, but at least I gave myself the opening or the space to acknowledge my actual feelings. Life is not only about resisting fear or, trying to make something happen, it's also about feeling my feelings and knowing who I am. So I did have a chance, and my husband, I'm very fortunate to have a very good husband. He acknowledged it like he said, yeah, we, we want that too. Like me and him and my son. So it felt like a family. The family was. Validating me as well. How beautiful. Right? So it kind of wraps this up 'cause I was saying in the beginning how growing up I didn't feel in touch with my feelings. And so now getting in touch with my feelings, I am able to acknowledge them even though it might not be part of the decision making, but I'm at least making it, I'm aware of it, so. Do what's best for others, do what you have to do. Do your duty, but take your own feelings into consideration. So I wrote down here, indecision is a storm of insecurity. It needs directive energy or self-care, or defiant energy. Like, I'm not gonna let this beat me. I'm gonna throw it in the lake. Right? You do whatever you have to do to establish your, your self sovereignty, your power back. Then finally, inspiration. Inspiration might also be a way for you to decide, maybe I'm inspired by this thing. Maybe I wanna give my more energy towards it, so I'll leave it there. I hope that that gave a little bit to think about. I know that indecision was a great source of suffering for me for a while there because I had that self-critical voice or self-critical thinking, and also that helpless feeling. That's not a good combination. So learning how to add that directive energy, that kind of self-respect that western kind of thing, like I'm standing here, that's it. And then using those tips, it's not just one thing. There's a whole bunch of things that I can use to break me outta that, that state. Into a more stable self-respect and a decision or no decision. So I'll leave it there. Remember, our slogan is Heal, empower, and Serve. And until next time, take care.
