You Must Decide
I want to share a foundational principle for anyone seeking to improve their lives: You must make choices. If you’re human, you know what it’s like to feel stuck between two equally difficult choices. We can feel paralyzed, hopeless, and unsure of how to move forward. Patrick Carnes, addiction recovery expert and author of the workbook Recovery Zone, notes that our inability to decide is really about our inability to grieve the things we are letting go. He writes:
“Any time that you decide something, you give something up. Decisions become paralyzing because of our unwillingness to sustain the grief. The word decision - like the word incision - comes from the Latin to cut. Basically, to decide is to cut something away.”
If you are dissatisfied in some area of your life and want movement, you must make choices and allow yourself to feel the grief.
For people in addiction recovery, a common choice tension is 1) Keep their behaviors hidden or 2) Learn how to be open and honest. Both have pain points. If they keep their behaviors hidden, they will continue to hurt themselves and others and may lose many things that are most dear to them. On the other hand, if they learn how to be open and honest, they will have to confront parts of their life that will be difficult to look at. And there is no guarantee that there won’t be personal, relational, or career consequences after they start to tell the truth.
There is pain either way. However, one path involves healing, and that is the path we must choose over and over again
When I decided to start my private practice, I had no idea how to run a business. I knew I was good at counseling, but I did not understand things like web design, marketing, accounting, etc. I had a choice to make: 1) pay about $5,000 to enroll in an online program specifically designed to help therapists build their business, or 2) figure it out all on my own with limited time and resources. If I paid the $5,000, it was going on a credit card, and I had no guarantee of the program working. This felt like a big risk at the time. Would I end up swamped with debt? On the flip side, if I tried to figure out things independently, it could take me years to figure out what I might learn in a focused program. Initially, I felt paralyzed, asking myself, “Which was the ‘right’ choice”? That was the wrong question to ask. I eventually came back to my therapy roots and asked myself some better questions:
“What are my values”? and “Who do I want to be”?
That much was clear to me: I wanted to be someone who takes reasonable risks. I wanted to provide for my family. I wanted to help people heal and thrive. I wanted to build a business. I wanted to learn how to trust other people and utilize a team. I didn’t want to be controlled by my fears. I wanted to understand a need, assess the situation, and then take action. Finally, I wanted to surrender what I could not control and trust that I could always start again.
My values helped me understand which choices aligned with what I wanted. This helped me accept the costs and uncertainties. So, I signed up for the course. Seven years later, I am in private practice, continuing to dream and grow my business. Every time I venture into something new, it requires a cost of some kind. It always feels uncomfortable, but I’m getting much better at allowing the fear and grief to just be with me as I take action.
Think about your life. If you are feeling stuck, it is likely that you are avoiding a decision. To get unstuck, return to your values, remember who you want to be, and then make a choice. Finally, allow yourself to FEEL THE GRIEF of your decision.
Happy to be in your corner,
Tom Page, LCPC
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