Deciding Without Certainty: Moving Forward When Afraid

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You are never going to get certainty about a decision this big.
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I want to say that first because I think a lot of you are waiting for it.
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You're waiting for the moment that you know, like actually really know, and that what you're about to do will not make everything worse for you and your kids.
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And sadly, I can't give you that.
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Nobody can.
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But you can still make a good decision even without it.
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Even when the outcome is genuinely unknown.
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Even when there is a person in your life working to make things harder for you on purpose.
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So, really, that's what I want to walk through today.
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I want to walk through how to decide when you were never allowed to decide and how to move when fear has you frozen.
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Welcome to this week's episode of Hey Tabby.
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Welcome to Hey Tabby, the podcast where we talk about the hard things out loud with our actual lips.
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We'll cover all kinds of topics across the mental health spectrum, including how it intersects with the Christian faith.
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Nothing is off limits here, and we are not take two verses and call me in the morning.
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I'm Tabitha Westbrook, and I'm a licensed trauma therapist, but I'm not your trauma therapist.
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I'm an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control and how complex trauma impacts our health and well-being.
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Our focus here is knowledge and healing.
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Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever.
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There is hope.
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Now, let's get going.
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So I asked a group of survivors what they would find helpful for me to address on the podcast.
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I mean, my whole point here is I want this to be valuable for the people that listen.
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I got so many great responses, and am I going to answer each of those questions in the next several episodes?
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The first question that I really want to tackle is this one.
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And so I'm going to read it as it was submitted because I really want you to hear the depth of it.
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If you're a survivor, this is going to resonate with you so much.
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And if you're not, I really want you to hear what it's like for survivors.
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So the question is this how do you make big decisions that will impact you and your children for the rest of your lives when you have never been allowed to make even little decisions on a daily basis?
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How do you overcome the paralysis that keeps you frozen in bad spaces because you are terrified that whatever you do will just make the situation worse?
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Goodness, I have heard some variation of that same question more times than I can count.
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And here's the first thing that I want you to hear.
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You're not actually indecisive.
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You were trained out of deciding by the coercive controller.
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And so it's really hard when you are trying to have the right answers.
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It's really hard when you don't know what to do.
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So being indecisive isn't really the issue here.
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Being indecisive is actually totally different than being trained out of being able to decide.
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So if you have spent years with someone who punished you for choosing, your body actually learned something.
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It learned that choice is dangerous.
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Maybe you picked the wrong restaurant and you paid for it for three days.
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Maybe you bought the wrong brand of something, could have been toothpaste, and got a lecture about money.
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Maybe you made plans with a friend without checking first.
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And by checking, I mean like asking permission.
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Um, it's a little bit different, right?
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Like when we're in a healthy relationship, we might check in and say, hey, I'm thinking about doing this.
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Do we have anything going on that I didn't know about?
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Totally different experience.
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This is, I need your permission before I'm allowed to do anything.
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And then you were silenced for a week.
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There are a million small things here.
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And the part that people miss is that it is a million small things, right?
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It's rarely some big dramatic moment that keeps you from being able to decide in the future.
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It's a thousand small corrections or changes until honestly you stop reaching for anything on your own.
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In my practice, we call it death by a thousand paper cuts.
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So now you've got this large decision in front of you and nothing happens.
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You sit down and think it through and your mind goes blank, or your mind starts spinning, or you find yourself doing the dishes instead.
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And I just want to say, first of all, that's not a sign of weakness.
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It's not a sign of being dumb.
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It's honestly your nervous system doing what it was taught to do by your coercive controller.
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And look, I really want to be careful here because there is a version of this conversation that is going to treat your fear and your hesitancy like you're glitching.
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You're not glitching.
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You do not have a glitch.
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You are not broken.
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That is not what is happening here.
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But what really is happening is you are trained to fear this person because that person is genuinely dangerous.
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And this is a whole other podcast, but you know, when people say, well, if you're really a believer, then you just do not fear and all of that stuff.
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And I just want to remind people that fear can be a gift, right?
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We don't want our lives to be run by it.
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But when we are living with someone who is genuinely dangerous, and we know that deep down in our soul, fear is very helpful.
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It keeps you safe in a lot of ways.
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And that fear is accurate because it's real information about a real situation.
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So it's not just like a lack of faith on your part, it's really that there's something going on here.
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So the real problem isn't that you're afraid.
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The problem is that the fear got put in charge.
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And so, what I want to help you do is move from that.
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So, somewhere along the way, your fear stopped being that healthy alarm system and actually became your decision maker.
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And now all of your options are gonna run through that filter before you can even look at that, right?
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You're going to wonder, like, okay, how will this person react?
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Like, if I do this thing, what are we gonna do?
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Um, if I say this or do this, what is the retaliation gonna be?
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And that's a very reasonable question to ask, but it makes it really hard when that's what you filter everything through.
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And this filter is why nothing feels choosable.
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You're not weighing options, you're predicting a reaction.
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And those aren't really the same thing.
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And this is the thing, right?
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Like, you might be correct on some of those reactions, and we're gonna talk about that, but you're starting off from a predictive stance.
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And so I want to help you just be a little bit mindful of that and start checking in with yourself as we're making decisions.
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So, truly, most decision-making advice assumes something that isn't actually true for you.
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It assumes that if you gather enough information, you'll eventually feel confident.
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And that confidence, honestly, it's not available in your situation.
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And I would rather tell you that truth than let you keep waiting for it, right?
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Or to hear other advice or hear other feedback and say, well, I should be confident by now, right?
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And, you know, around here, we do not like to should on ourselves.
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We try to avoid that.
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We try to look at things a little bit differently.
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But here's why it's not the same for you.
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A coercive controller never makes this easier for you.
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Not if you're fair, not if you're generous, not if you hand over everything they've asked for and then apologize on the way out.
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I have watched clients give up the house, the savings, the schedule, all of it, hoping that it would give them some peace.
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That if I just do this thing, this person will just be reasonable.
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And it doesn't actually do that.
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It doesn't buy peace.
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It just changes what gets used against you next.
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And that's literally heartbreaking, right?
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Like that's terrible.
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And leaving, so when you're out of the coercively controlling relationship, it doesn't automatically calm it down.
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Very often it can escalate.
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This is one of the reasons that we say that, you know, a lot of times it is more dangerous, like right when you leave.
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And we've seen cases that have made the news fairly recently till when I'm recording this, that bears that out.
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But there's a ton of research that shows that 90% of people who have left an abusive or coercively controlling relationship said the abuse got worse after they left and not better.
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And I'm not telling you this to scare you.
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What I'm telling you is because it means that you have to understand the situation that you're in.
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It's really important to understand what is happening for you and why like certain advice isn't gonna work.
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So I want to talk about it in terms of like the conditions you have set for yourself.
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You've decided somewhere along the way, more often than not, that you know, you'll move, you'll take an action, you'll do the thing once you know it won't backfire.
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With the incidence rate of post-separation and post-divorce abuse, that's truly not a condition that can ever be met.
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So that decision never comes, not because something's wrong with you, but because you set the bar in a place that it cannot actually be.
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Like it doesn't work.
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And I know this next part is gonna be hard to hear, but I'm gonna say it anyway because I know you can handle it, right?
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People ask the question, they want to know, right?
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While you're frozen, life doesn't pause.
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Your kids keep getting older, the lease keeps renewing, the pattern keeps on running, the situation is still moving, it's just moving without your input.
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And somebody is still making decisions, it's just not you, or the situation itself is still making a decision.
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So when you refuse to choose, or you can't choose, or you don't choose, right?
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There's a lot of things that can go on here.
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You don't actually avoid the outcome.
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You just hand the outcome to the person who's been making all the choices for you.
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And I want to just say this really clearly.
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I know that freezing feels protective, or it just feels unavoidable, right?
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It feels like you're keeping everyone safe by not rocking the boat.
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But if we look at what it actually produces, it keeps you in the bad space longer, almost every time, truly.
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So the choice was never like decide or stay safe.
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It's decide or let the other coercively controlling party decide.
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And not deciding is not neutral.
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It's just a decision that hands the outcome to somebody else.
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And I know that's really tough.
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And I'm not, I want to be really clear.
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I'm not blaming at all in any way.
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Like this is hard when you're making a decision that says, hey, I know that something could potentially happen to me or to my kids, or, you know, this could really backfire.
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Like that's not lightweight at all.
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And so what I'm not saying is, you know, that you're failing in some way, you're doing it wrong in some way.
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I'm just pointing out that if you don't make a decision, you really are still making a decision.
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And you're not then having the agency and autonomy and voice that you want to have, right?
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So we're gonna talk about how to make these decisions in a practical way here in just a couple minutes.
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So please know that that is coming and that again, in no way am I blaming you for this being hard.
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And I am not also saying don't count the cost, right?
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Like I know from the work that I do from my own story of harm that this is unbelievably difficult.
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So please do not hear me minimizing it because I'm certainly not.
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So, one thing I do want to make sure that I say is that you cannot appease a coercive controller.
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There is no option on your list that is going to make them do the right thing.
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It's just not.
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So if you are able to stop running your choices through how do I keep this person from reacting, then you can give yourself a little more freedom to actually make the choices.
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It also helps you get unstuck.
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So you stop trying to solve for a variable that you don't control and you just work with what you got.
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So we're gonna take that filter out and we're gonna put a different question in.
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The question that I want you to start asking, if you're comfortable, if you can, is what is the best decision I can make right now with what I actually know?
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So when we look at those big picture life altering, it feels like if I make this decision statement, we're taking this massive chunk of things and we are predicting the future when we can really kind of just narrow it down and make a smaller choice and then make a series of smaller choices as we see what plays out, right?
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And this is where I want to just remind you like that a lot of times the thought process is like, hey, if I'm sloppy, people can get hurt.
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And so what I'm not asking you to do is ignore danger, right?
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If there are safety considerations, and frankly, there usually are, then they stay on your list.
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They're actually part of the decision-making process, right?
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So we're not asking you to get rid of things that are important data points.
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What we're saying is we're just not gonna make them through a prior lens.
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We're gonna make them through a new lens.
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So, what changes here is that safety stops being the only thing on the list and appeasement is coming off entirely.
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We're just gonna go, yep, we can't make them happy anyway, so we're just not even gonna try.
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So we're gonna plan around real risk.
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That's an important strategy, but we're not gonna worry as much about keeping someone calm that we can't do anyway.
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Let's be real.
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If we could have done that, things would be different, right?
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Absolutely.
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So before we kind of dive in here, I want to just talk a little bit about something.
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I want to pause for a minute because there's something underneath everything here that we are talking about.
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On the surface for you, everything is going right.
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Work, family responsibilities, it all seems handled, but underneath something feels really off.
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You have thoughts that will not quiet down, or a heavy sadness that you just can't explain.
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There's a sense of being overwhelmed by things that should not feel as hard.
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Most people never connect those feelings to trauma.
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They just keep pushing through, wondering what is wrong with them.
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We have walked with thousands of people at this point who felt lost and were looking for hope.
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And we understand how confusing it is when your life looks fine, but what you feel inside does not match.
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Real healing takes more than just talking about your experiences.
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At the journey in the process, we help you deal with what is underneath and heal it.
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We target the mind, the body, and the spirit, and we get to the root of your anxiety, your depression, your overwhelm instead of merely managing symptoms.
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This is how you actually become a cycle breaker.
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When you heal what's held you back, you change what gets passed forward.
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Your past no longer defines you and it no longer decides your future.
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We offer trauma counseling and coaching so you don't just survive, but you start truly living.
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If that sounds like something that you need today, reach out for your free 15-minute consultation.
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We would love to hear from you and we would love to walk with you.
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All right, let's get back to this conversation.
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All right, so what do we put in place instead of paralysis?
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What do we do?
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Well, we're not going to be impulsive.
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That's for one thing.
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What we're going to do is we're going to add strategy.
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So let me tell you what I mean by that.
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One, strategies thought out.
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Strategic doesn't always mean fast.
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It does not mean that you blow up your life on a Tuesday because you finally had enough, right?
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So this is not just getting to the end of your rope and losing your tacos, basically.
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You're allowed to think, you're allowed to take a week, right?
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Now, I know some decisions need to be made faster than that, but there are ways to again slice that down.
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So if you're not ready to make a decision, one thing you can do is say, hey, thanks for that.
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I need some time to think about it.
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I'll get back to you in a week.
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And then you get back to them in a week, right?
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And that gives you a week to make a decision.
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So if you have to respond more quickly, which a lot of times there's court order in place that says you have to respond within a certain time frame, that is a response.
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It's a response to say, hey, I need some time to think about it.
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I'll get back with you.
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Right.
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And again, please know nothing what I am saying is legal advice.
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If you have a court order in place, it is always a good idea to run things by your attorney as you're thinking in terms of strategy.
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It's worthy of the cost that you spend if you're able to do it to be able to get that feedback before you make a choice.
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So these are all suggestions, they are ideas, but you need to apply it to your context for safety purposes.
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All right, two, then you use the data that you have, not the data you wish you had, right?
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You're not going to have all the information.
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You're going to have some.
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So you work with some.
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You write down.
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And I am a big fan of actually writing things down because it helps us process in a way that thinking doesn't always, especially when our minds feel mushy because the decision is feeling heavy or we're feeling anxious about it.
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We know that Broca's language area, which is in our think-thinky parts up here, kind of goes offline when we are struggling and when we're activated.
00:19:28.619 --> 00:19:37.579
So writing it down actually helps us stay online and keeps our brain walking in wise mind where we can still feel and we can still think together.
00:19:38.059 --> 00:19:41.339
So write down what you actually know to be true.
00:19:41.579 --> 00:19:46.940
And then look at how much of your list are things you know and how much you're guessing, right?
00:19:47.099 --> 00:19:53.740
Because you might write it down and think it's true and then read through it and be like, no, I'm making this up, or I'm guessing about this, or I'm not quite sure.
00:19:53.899 --> 00:19:54.700
And that's great.
00:19:54.779 --> 00:20:01.259
You can always line through those things that are guesses, or you can get more data to determine whether or not they're accurate.
00:20:01.819 --> 00:20:04.299
Then three, we're gonna break it into parts.
00:20:04.460 --> 00:20:08.940
So this is the piece that I find is most helpful for people that I work with.
00:20:09.180 --> 00:20:13.740
The reason such big decisions feel impossible is because you look at it all at once.
00:20:13.899 --> 00:20:22.220
And so if you're looking at a giant ball of yarn and trying to figure out how you're gonna get to the center of it, starting with one thread is really helpful.
00:20:22.460 --> 00:20:32.220
So housing and money and school and custody and what your mother will say and what your church might say and what your life might look like in five years is like massive.
00:20:32.460 --> 00:20:40.700
And nobody can really just like make decisions that take all of that into account because it's not one decision, it's like a million.
00:20:40.940 --> 00:20:44.379
So we want to take it apart and find the next piece.
00:20:44.619 --> 00:20:49.099
Oftentimes you'll hear me say to my clients, let's do the next best thing.
00:20:49.259 --> 00:20:56.059
That's not the next right thing or the next perfect thing, it's the next best thing in the situation that they are in.
00:20:56.299 --> 00:21:01.099
So we're gonna take it apart, we're gonna find the next piece, and maybe the next piece is to leave.
00:21:01.339 --> 00:21:10.700
Maybe the next piece is opening your own bank account or sitting down with an attorney for a consultation or telling one safe person about what's been happening, right?
00:21:11.099 --> 00:21:17.099
One piece at a time, or reaching out to an advocate if you have one and saying, here's what I'm thinking about doing.
00:21:17.180 --> 00:21:18.619
Will you help me walk through it?
00:21:18.859 --> 00:21:21.019
So you just take one piece at a time.
00:21:21.180 --> 00:21:27.259
And that's how decisions that are big get made ultimately, even in a corporate setting, right?
00:21:27.339 --> 00:21:32.220
Like very rarely do corporations make one massive decision.
00:21:32.299 --> 00:21:36.299
It's a series of small decisions to get to a bigger decision.
00:21:36.539 --> 00:21:44.619
And so we want you to break it down into those smaller parts where you can and make the tinier decisions that will lead to the big decision.
00:21:44.779 --> 00:21:48.059
So you don't have to do the whole enchilada all at once.
00:21:48.379 --> 00:21:50.379
Our fourth step is not borrowing trouble.
00:21:50.460 --> 00:21:55.579
And this is an old Southern saying for worrying about something that hasn't happened yet.
00:21:55.899 --> 00:22:01.659
So there is a difference between preparing for a real risk and rehearsing a disaster that has not happened.
00:22:01.819 --> 00:22:05.579
If you've listened to this podcast, you've heard me say that I am an Eneagram 6.
00:22:05.740 --> 00:22:08.379
So I am loyal and prepared for the zombie apocalypse.
00:22:08.539 --> 00:22:12.779
So I totally get preparing for disaster that hasn't happened.
00:22:13.019 --> 00:22:19.259
And part of my own work has been to dial that down a little bit and to learn how to prepare differently.
00:22:19.339 --> 00:22:26.220
So I am coming at you with what I really have to do in my own life here a lot of times.
00:22:26.460 --> 00:22:28.859
So preparing sounds a little bit like this.
00:22:29.099 --> 00:22:32.539
Okay, this person has taken money out of the bank account before.
00:22:32.700 --> 00:22:36.619
So I'm gonna document the accounts if I can do that safely, right?
00:22:36.940 --> 00:22:38.460
That's gonna be based on evidence.
00:22:38.539 --> 00:22:39.579
That's a piece of strategy.
00:22:39.659 --> 00:22:41.740
Again, talk to an attorney if you need to.
00:22:41.899 --> 00:22:43.740
But borrowing trouble sounds like this.
00:22:43.899 --> 00:22:49.659
If I do this, he'll take the kids and I'll never see them again, and I'll end up with nothing, and everyone will believe him.
00:22:50.139 --> 00:22:51.259
Oh, it's heavy.
00:22:51.339 --> 00:22:52.139
That's a lot.
00:22:52.299 --> 00:22:52.940
That's a movie.
00:22:53.099 --> 00:22:54.859
That's a movie your fear is playing out.
00:22:55.099 --> 00:22:56.700
Now, could that be true?
00:22:56.940 --> 00:22:58.779
Yes, it could.
00:22:59.980 --> 00:23:02.859
However, we aren't going to look at it like that.
00:23:03.019 --> 00:23:11.099
We're gonna say, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna put other things in place where I can to keep that movie from being a reality, right?
00:23:11.579 --> 00:23:18.779
So even if the thought is built on something real and potential danger, we don't want to run ahead of the evidence here.
00:23:18.940 --> 00:23:25.819
Again, we're gonna take these small pieces and make those decisions toward the bigger decision, right?
00:23:26.299 --> 00:23:32.220
Fear is really good at making predictions and very bad at labeling them as predictions.
00:23:32.379 --> 00:23:33.819
It feels like truth.
00:23:34.139 --> 00:23:39.659
So when you find yourself asking that and doing that, ask yourself one question.
00:23:39.899 --> 00:23:41.899
What do I actually have evidence for?
00:23:42.059 --> 00:23:47.740
And this is a great place to go back to that piece of paper and look at it, right?
00:23:47.899 --> 00:23:51.579
And so if I think this will be the outcome, let me look at it.
00:23:51.659 --> 00:23:53.740
What data do I have that says it might be?
00:23:53.819 --> 00:23:55.500
And it might be, right?
00:23:55.659 --> 00:23:58.859
And then what can I do to maybe mitigate that outcome?
00:23:59.099 --> 00:24:04.539
And realistically, the more regulated you are when you make a choice, the better that choice is.
00:24:04.859 --> 00:24:12.299
And if you're not sure how to keep your insides from going upside down, really encourage you to connect up with a therapist or a coach.
00:24:12.859 --> 00:24:15.259
That can really walk you through that.
00:24:15.500 --> 00:24:20.299
That is a skill that is learned, and it's a really important skill.
00:24:20.539 --> 00:24:24.940
But when your nervous system is in full alarm, your thinking narrows down for survival.
00:24:25.019 --> 00:24:26.859
And that is appropriate, right?
00:24:27.019 --> 00:24:31.500
So we want to help you not be in that place of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
00:24:31.740 --> 00:24:35.180
In that state, you can see two options, and they're both generally bad.
00:24:35.259 --> 00:24:39.659
And look, I'm not telling you that your choices are going to be amazing.
00:24:39.899 --> 00:24:48.700
Like a lot of times we talk about for victims of coercive control, you are choosing the least bad choice of the choices that you've got.
00:24:48.940 --> 00:24:50.059
And I hate that.
00:24:50.220 --> 00:24:51.899
I hate that that is part of it.
00:24:52.139 --> 00:24:54.299
But it is unfortunately part of it.
00:24:54.539 --> 00:25:04.299
And so we want you to at least make the best choice you can based on the data that you have and not from a dysregulated state whenever possible, right?
00:25:04.619 --> 00:25:08.059
And that is totally not always going to be the case.
00:25:08.139 --> 00:25:11.740
You're going to have to work through things, but we want it to be more the case than not.
00:25:11.819 --> 00:25:16.220
And the more you practice, the better it will become.
00:25:16.379 --> 00:25:19.259
I'm not going to say easier because it's not always easier.
00:25:19.819 --> 00:25:25.659
So good decisions really come from a body that has settled enough to see more than two options.
00:25:25.980 --> 00:25:36.379
So before you sit down with the decision, do whatever you can to get regulated a longer exhale than an inhale, your feet on the floor, a walk, cold water on your face, whatever works for you.
00:25:36.539 --> 00:25:40.059
And this might be something you have to explore so you know what works for you.
00:25:40.299 --> 00:25:43.019
Again, you're like, I don't know, I never got to decide anything.
00:25:43.259 --> 00:25:49.420
So now you get to learn what might work for you, what might help your body come to a state of calm.
00:25:49.980 --> 00:25:59.579
You don't have to be perfectly calm, by the way, because like that's ridiculous, but you need to be less activated than you were so that you can see a wider view.
00:25:59.899 --> 00:26:06.700
And this is also why, if you have any say in the timing, you don't have to make that big call in the middle of an incident.
00:26:06.859 --> 00:26:08.299
This is when you can push it off.
00:26:08.460 --> 00:26:12.940
You can make it later on when your body has a chance to settle.
00:26:13.339 --> 00:26:17.420
All right, so I'm gonna come back to the first half of our question because it really matters.
00:26:17.659 --> 00:26:21.259
This person said they've never even been allowed to make little decisions.
00:26:21.420 --> 00:26:23.500
And decision making is a muscle.
00:26:23.659 --> 00:26:25.420
Yours was not allowed to develop.
00:26:25.659 --> 00:26:27.980
The good thing is that is also not permanent.
00:26:28.220 --> 00:26:29.420
That can be changed.
00:26:29.579 --> 00:26:34.220
You can build it back the way that you would build any muscle at all with small reps.
00:26:34.460 --> 00:26:44.700
So choose what you eat for lunch, choose what you wear, and choose it because you like it, not because it will draw a comment or because it feels safer or whatever, right?
00:26:44.779 --> 00:26:46.460
So choose it because you like it.
00:26:46.619 --> 00:26:50.220
Choose the music in the car, choose what you want to do with 20 free minutes.
00:26:50.299 --> 00:26:52.940
And for some of us, we're going, what are 23 minutes?
00:26:53.019 --> 00:26:54.059
I don't know her.
00:26:54.460 --> 00:26:56.700
And yet we can still find them, right?
00:26:56.779 --> 00:27:00.619
So if you have 20 free minutes, you get to decide what you do with them.
00:27:00.859 --> 00:27:11.420
And here's what often like surprises people because the point isn't like eating a sandwich that you like, the point is finding out what you prefer because you genuinely may not know.
00:27:11.659 --> 00:27:11.899
Right?
00:27:11.980 --> 00:27:14.859
That's one of the things that coercive control takes from you.
00:27:15.099 --> 00:27:20.859
After a while, you stop registering your own preferences because they never mattered and it hurt less to stop having them.
00:27:21.099 --> 00:27:22.220
So there's that.
00:27:22.379 --> 00:27:28.059
So when someone asks what you want for dinner, check inside and you're like, there's nothing there.
00:27:28.139 --> 00:27:28.859
What do I do?
00:27:29.099 --> 00:27:34.619
So you start checking again and it comes back slowly and you try different things, but it does come back.
00:27:34.779 --> 00:27:37.819
And so sometimes they're gonna be like, I don't know, I want chicken salad for dinner.
00:27:37.899 --> 00:27:45.420
And then you're gonna make the chicken salad and you're gonna be like, Yeah, no, I really wanted, you know, a steak or whatever it is, right?
00:27:45.500 --> 00:27:52.859
But that gives you data, it gives you more information, and every small choice gives you a little bit more capacity to make the larger ones.
00:27:52.940 --> 00:27:54.619
And that's not a metaphor, right?
00:27:54.779 --> 00:28:04.220
A woman who's been choosing her own lunch for three months walks into the big decision a bit differently than the woman who hasn't chosen anything at all in the last nine years, right?
00:28:04.859 --> 00:28:07.980
So I do want to just encourage you.
00:28:08.139 --> 00:28:16.859
It may seem so fruitless to make those tiny choices, but it really does help build that muscle and grow you in that.
00:28:17.019 --> 00:28:29.980
And so you want to make those tiny, less impactful, less consequential choices about chicken salad for dinner, then you know that's gonna help you expand when you're making a bigger choice that has a little more emotion to it.
00:28:30.299 --> 00:28:35.019
So now I want to tackle the piece of that question, but what if I make it worse?
00:28:35.259 --> 00:28:40.619
And I want to answer the objection because I know someone's watching this and hearing just be brave and do it anyway.
00:28:40.700 --> 00:28:43.180
And I want to make sure I'm really, really clear here.
00:28:43.339 --> 00:28:44.619
That's not what I'm saying.
00:28:44.779 --> 00:28:46.299
Here is what I am saying.
00:28:46.539 --> 00:28:50.539
The standard advice is to heal first, get stable, then decide.
00:28:50.700 --> 00:29:01.339
That advice is fine for most people who are not part of coercive control and have never had that experience, but it falls apart when someone's actively invested and you never feeling stable enough to decide.
00:29:01.579 --> 00:29:03.579
If you wait for that, you'll wait forever.
00:29:03.740 --> 00:29:05.099
And that's the design, right?
00:29:05.180 --> 00:29:06.859
Like they are trying to harm you.
00:29:07.019 --> 00:29:08.220
That's how this works.
00:29:08.460 --> 00:29:09.899
So you want to do both at once.
00:29:10.059 --> 00:29:13.980
You want to build capacity and you wanna make decisions in the same season.
00:29:14.220 --> 00:29:15.500
It is definitely harder.
00:29:15.659 --> 00:29:17.899
It is also the actual situation that you're in.
00:29:17.980 --> 00:29:22.379
So, what I'm not gonna do is minimize it and go some pie in the sky below me for you.
00:29:22.539 --> 00:29:25.019
I'm gonna say we're gonna do this both at the same time.
00:29:25.180 --> 00:29:26.299
That's how it's gonna happen.
00:29:26.460 --> 00:29:28.220
And it's hard, yes.
00:29:28.539 --> 00:29:32.460
And just one more thing, because I know this is where people get tangled up.
00:29:32.700 --> 00:29:35.899
A good decision and a good outcome are two different things.
00:29:36.139 --> 00:29:39.259
We cannot control outcomes all the time, right?
00:29:39.339 --> 00:29:44.379
We're gonna do our best, we're gonna try to mitigate things, but we cannot always control the outcome, which is awful.
00:29:44.539 --> 00:29:45.579
It is so hard.
00:29:45.819 --> 00:29:52.539
But you can make an excellent decision and still watch it go badly because there's another person involved who's choosing to make it go badly.
00:29:52.700 --> 00:29:59.659
That's not evidence that you decided wrong, that's evidence that you don't control your coercive controller and that you never did, right?
00:29:59.740 --> 00:30:04.059
That's the thing you've been trying to do and it was never available to you because they don't care.
00:30:04.700 --> 00:30:09.980
So the way that you can look at this is did I think this decision through?
00:30:10.139 --> 00:30:11.259
Did I use what I knew?
00:30:11.420 --> 00:30:13.420
Was I as regulated as I could be in the moment?
00:30:13.500 --> 00:30:18.139
And did I stay off of just using fear predictions as my decider?
00:30:18.460 --> 00:30:21.659
And if the answer is yes, you decided very well.
00:30:21.899 --> 00:30:26.539
And what the course of controller does next is up to them and is their decision.
00:30:26.779 --> 00:30:29.579
So a good decision and a good outcome are two different things.
00:30:29.659 --> 00:30:31.819
And I want you to judge yourself on the decision.
00:30:31.899 --> 00:30:34.059
And I hear some of you saying, what about my kids?
00:30:34.220 --> 00:30:36.539
Like, you have no idea, what about my kids?
00:30:36.859 --> 00:30:40.460
And I hear you, I hear you.
00:30:40.700 --> 00:30:51.019
One of the best things that we can do for our children is be genuine and be as stable as possible because that derails the narrative of the coercive controller outright.
00:30:51.339 --> 00:30:54.460
I can't promise that they're not going to try to weaponize your children.
00:30:54.539 --> 00:30:56.139
I've seen that way too many times.
00:30:56.299 --> 00:31:06.539
But what I can say is that I see better outcomes when the survivor is able to stay regulated to the best of their ability and be that solid person.
00:31:06.779 --> 00:31:11.339
Coercive controllers genuinely always show themselves at some point.
00:31:11.659 --> 00:31:13.659
Um, I can't make a guarantee on that.
00:31:13.740 --> 00:31:15.259
I would love to, but I can't.
00:31:15.420 --> 00:31:27.019
But generally speaking, I've seen way better outcomes when you are steadfast, when you are steady and doing the best that you can and being genuine and honest to the best of your ability.
00:31:27.180 --> 00:31:28.700
I've seen better outcomes there.
00:31:28.859 --> 00:31:30.619
We just can't control all of them.
00:31:30.940 --> 00:31:35.740
But we can make the best decision available to us in a very hard situation.
00:31:36.299 --> 00:31:42.539
And so again, it starts with just making little decisions, you know, one by one.
00:31:42.700 --> 00:31:43.819
What am I gonna eat for dinner?
00:31:43.899 --> 00:31:44.700
What am I gonna wear?
00:31:44.859 --> 00:31:50.379
What is this little thing here, this little thing there, this one piece of this big decision that I can make?
00:31:50.700 --> 00:31:54.700
And honestly, at the end of the day, we have to leave some things in the hand of God.
00:31:54.779 --> 00:32:02.379
And that is really hard because what we want to do as parents who are protective parents is protect our children, right?
00:32:02.700 --> 00:32:03.259
For sure.
00:32:03.420 --> 00:32:04.700
So I'm not minimizing that.
00:32:04.859 --> 00:32:15.019
I am saying that we are walking down a hard road the best that we can, and that we are going to learn how to make some decisions to the best of our ability, and then we're gonna trust God for the rest to the best of our ability.
00:32:15.099 --> 00:32:18.299
And it's not gonna be perfect, but it's gonna be the best we can do.
00:32:18.539 --> 00:32:20.859
And that sounds terrible, but it's really not.
00:32:21.019 --> 00:32:23.980
It does get easier over time, right?
00:32:24.139 --> 00:32:26.619
Especially as kids get older, things can get easier.
00:32:26.779 --> 00:32:29.420
And look, trauma work is grief work.
00:32:29.500 --> 00:32:33.899
There's grief all throughout complex trauma and coercive control.
00:32:33.980 --> 00:32:35.019
There really is.
00:32:35.259 --> 00:32:48.460
And so what I will also invite you to do is lament and allow yourself to feel that grief as you walk through some of these things because you know, avoiding it doesn't help anyway, realistically.
00:32:48.619 --> 00:32:51.980
And I know that doesn't sound very positive, but I want to be realistic.
00:32:52.139 --> 00:33:01.420
I know that you can make good decisions, I know that you can make sound decisions, and I know that you can walk forward with as much autonomy as humanly possible.
00:33:01.819 --> 00:33:03.740
We just don't get to always control the outcome.
00:33:03.819 --> 00:33:06.299
So I also want to be real about that as well.
00:33:07.099 --> 00:33:18.220
So as we kind of come to a close here, I want to invite you to slow down and, you know, take a deep breath because I know this has been a heavy episode.
00:33:18.619 --> 00:33:26.460
To the person that gave me this question and to everybody who's watching and sitting in the same place, I just want to remind you that you are not broken.
00:33:26.700 --> 00:33:29.180
You are trained to not be able to decide.
00:33:29.420 --> 00:33:31.659
And this training can be undone.
00:33:32.220 --> 00:33:36.059
You're probably not going to feel real confident when you first make a decision.
00:33:36.220 --> 00:33:39.659
And I want to take that off your list of requirements right now as well.
00:33:39.980 --> 00:33:44.859
Confidence isn't the thing that comes before the decision sometimes when we're learning.
00:33:45.019 --> 00:33:49.579
It's honestly what comes after, and it builds from the evidence of your choosing.
00:33:49.740 --> 00:33:53.099
In clinical terms, we call it building mastery, right?
00:33:53.180 --> 00:33:54.940
So we build the skill.
00:33:55.339 --> 00:33:58.379
The goal here isn't perfect choice because there isn't one.
00:33:58.460 --> 00:34:03.019
And looking for it as part of the decision making is going to keep you stuck.
00:34:03.259 --> 00:34:10.539
The goal is making the best choice available to you, made as clearly as you can make it in the time you actually have.
00:34:10.860 --> 00:34:12.059
And that's going to be enough.
00:34:12.139 --> 00:34:14.780
And we trust God with the outcomes to the best of our ability.
00:34:14.940 --> 00:34:25.019
And again, this is where great therapy, great community, great coaching can really help you build that resilience and the tolerance for uncertainty.
00:34:25.260 --> 00:34:27.579
And that is part of this piece.
00:34:27.820 --> 00:34:32.460
And you can do that even now, even scared, even not knowing outcomes.
00:34:32.700 --> 00:34:38.220
You just take the next little slice and the next little slice after that until you get all the way through.
00:34:39.180 --> 00:34:39.740
All right.
00:34:40.059 --> 00:34:46.700
If this is where you are right now, I just want to invite you to take a breath, to take care of yourself in this.
00:34:46.780 --> 00:34:49.420
You might need to go for a walk, you might need to breathe.
00:34:49.659 --> 00:34:56.460
And if you are noticing, like, Kate, I need a little help with this, we would love for you to reach out to the journey in the process.
00:34:56.619 --> 00:34:59.340
We'd be happy to help you through counseling or coaching.
00:34:59.500 --> 00:35:03.340
Or if we're not the right fit for you, help you find the right fit for you.
00:35:03.820 --> 00:35:06.619
If you have a question like this, please send it in.
00:35:06.700 --> 00:35:08.059
I do want to answer questions.
00:35:08.139 --> 00:35:13.740
I read all of them, and some of them become episodes just like this one and some of our future ones.
00:35:14.059 --> 00:35:18.619
I want to thank you so much for joining me on this week's episode of Hey Tabby.
00:35:18.940 --> 00:35:28.460
If you found it helpful, please send it to a friend that could also use the help, or a pastor that needs to understand more, or a people helper that needs to understand more.
00:35:28.860 --> 00:35:33.260
And if you would please consider rating it and subscribing.
00:35:33.420 --> 00:35:45.180
So if you can rate it on your favorite platform, whether that is giving me a like over here on YouTube or rating it on your favorite podcast platform and subscribing to the channel, I would be really appreciative.
00:35:45.340 --> 00:35:49.019
It really does help people find us and to find goodness.
00:35:49.340 --> 00:35:54.380
Again, thanks for being here with us on Hey Tabby, and I'll see you again next time.
00:35:56.619 --> 00:36:00.460
Thanks for joining me for today's episode of Hey Tabby.
00:36:00.619 --> 00:36:09.420
If you're looking for a resource that I mentioned in the show and you want to check out the show notes, head on over to tabithawestbrook.com forward slash hey tabby.
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That's H E Y T A C I, and you can grab it there.
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I look forward to seeing you next time.