EP5: When A Big Move Feels Wrong At 2 A.M. with Amy Schmidt

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Hey, hey, it's Amy Schmidt.
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I'm back.
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And this is the Right Size Life.
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I'm so excited you're here.
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Okay, first and foremost, thank you, thank you, thank you.
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I cannot tell you how cool it is to get emails.
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Thank you for being patient on the response time on the emails.
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I do give myself like 48 hours at least to get back to you, but I will get back to you.
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Although I think some of them might go into spam.
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I look at my spam every so often, but I have a filter thing on there or whatever that just like goes and cleans it.
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It's like Pac-Man.
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It just like eats them all up, takes them away.
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Um, so hopefully I'm responding to everybody in a timely manner.
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I also am thankful for those DMs.
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I think that's what you say.
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Mm-hmm.
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I think it's DMs, like you're sliding into my DMs.
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Now, that may be completely inappropriate.
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Please don't turn off the show.
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Maybe I'm not supposed to say sliding into your DMs.
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But anyway, when you're leaving me a message on Instagram, thank you because it means so much to me.
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It means that people are listening and it's resonating.
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And I got one of the coolest messages this week from Sarah in Seattle.
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And she said that she has been sharing my podcast with all of her friends.
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And I am so thankful for that.
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So thank you, thank you so much, Sarah.
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I appreciate that.
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And if anybody listening would just share, I would appreciate it.
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And also, just one more request.
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Um, you know what?
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Those reviews are humongo.
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Like, I don't like asking for reviews because it sounds like I'm like pitching myself and hey, you got to review it and say it's good and blah, blah, blah.
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But I have to tell you, in the podcast world, it means everything.
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Like my first podcast, Fearlessly Facing 50, that came out in 2020, I didn't know what the heck I was doing.
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I mean, going from books on Tape Girl to basically recording, editing, everything myself of a podcast.
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I had no idea what I was doing.
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And I really missed the boat, I think, on asking for reviews.
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Um, it still made it in the top.
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Like I was so proud of that.
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And I want this right size life to go to the top.
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I want everybody to listen to it.
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I want people to start using these strategies and theories and simplify their life a bit.
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So, review, review, review, review, please.
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I know it takes time.
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I get it.
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Totally takes time.
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It does.
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I and the fearless edit right there.
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I'm always telling you to set your timers.
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Maybe set your timers for five minutes and try to click your way through to leave a review for the right size life.
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I can't tell you how much that would mean to me.
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So, anyway, that being said, leave a review, share with your friends.
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So appreciate it.
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Today's episode, okay, is for the woman who made a brave decision with her whole heart, with everything she had, and is now lying awake at 2 a.m.
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wondering if she got it wrong.
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Okay, this one is for her.
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This one is for you.
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All right.
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So we made this decision together, all right?
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Uh, my husband and I.
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We've been married almost 34 years.
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We made the decision together.
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The road trip, the four states, the conversations at the kitchen table and in the car and on the long walks, when we talked our way through all of it, like we'd done the work.
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We'd been honest with each other, and in the end, we had chosen.
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Okay.
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We totally chose.
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Like when we sold our house in two days, our family home in Connecticut, that we had been there for a while.
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You know, we moved a lot.
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We had moved, we lived in Connecticut twice, two different cities, but in between those, bookended, um, was Germany.
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So, I mean, crazy, but we sold our house in Connecticut in two days.
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Yes, our realtor was a rock star, Carla Martog.
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She's amazing.
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If you're in Richfield and need to sell a home, she's amazing.
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But I mean, it was like this was happening so fast.
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And there was no plan.
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There was no relocation plan.
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There was no like comedy, somebody coming in and packing up all my stuff while I'm sipping a mimosa.
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I mean, it was not happening that way.
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This was happening very, very differently.
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And we did.
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We didn't know what the next looked like, but we knew kind of what we wanted, our goals, our vision for our life at this stage what we wanted.
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Okay, so we chose Florida.
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Florida.
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A different kind of life, right-sized, intentional in ours.
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And then almost immediately after we settled in, Tim got an opportunity that he couldn't pass up, a really, really good one.
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And he is so freaking smart.
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Like, I was like, Are you kidding me?
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Yes, like, yes, with all caps and like six exclamation points.
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I've never said no, never.
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That's why we move so much.
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I never said no.
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I always said yes.
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And for these uh reasons, I mean, he is amazing, and this is amazing for him.
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So he got a really great opportunity, and it really was the kind of yes to say without much deliberation, really, honestly.
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But this new arrangement meant that he would have an apartment back in the Northeast that we just left, that we literally just left.
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And he'd be away pretty much Monday through Thursday every week, home on Fridays.
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Woohoo! Friday pizza night, you know, Friday fish fry.
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All right, we'll plan for it.
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Monday through Thursday, every week.
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Like I had lived this with the little kids.
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Like I had.
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I mean, he always traveled.
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And my friends that are listening right now, you know, my girl gals, my crew, and every city that I lived in.
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It was like, okay, Monday night, where are we having dinner?
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Okay, whose house are we making dinner at?
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Tuesday night.
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All right, what are we doing?
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So, I mean, I live this.
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I had a husband who had a corporate lifestyle that traveled all the time.
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And that was okay, but now, okay, kids are grown.
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It's you and me, babe.
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Like, this is our time.
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And now you're gone.
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Wow.
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Wow.
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Okay, in Florida, I have one of my besties that lives in Florida, and like she's like still three hours away.
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And I knew we weren't gonna move to that part of Florida.
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It didn't make sense for us.
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It's wonderful, it's beautiful, it's all those things, but where he needs to be and what he needs to do, we chose the west coast of Florida.
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Florida, okay?
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I was gonna be in Florida.
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I really thought that Florida was like, I don't know, you had to be old.
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I I did.
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I really did.
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I like I said at the beginning, we talked about this.
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We went through four states.
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We looked in the Carolinas, we looked in Georgia, we we took like, I think six weeks, something like that, and navigated all of this because we knew we needed a spot.
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And here I was now, alone in a new city, a new state, a new home, a condo, a new version of our life for four days out of every seven.
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Okay, now some of you might be saying, Oh my gosh, Amy, that is like heaven.
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Like, you don't have to clean up your clothes, you really don't have to make dinner.
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You can just like, you are like just out there having a good time by yourself.
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Yeah, yeah, there's some of that, but that novelty will wears off pretty quick, you know.
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I mean, it wears off pretty quick.
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So I was alone for four days out of every seven.
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Okay, I'm gonna be honest with you.
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Those early weeks.
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I think, I think this will actually be useful because I want you to know what those early weeks actually felt like.
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Because I think the honest version is the only version that's useful.
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It wasn't one hard moment.
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It wasn't like a dramatic breakdown.
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It was something slower and in some ways more relentless, I think, than that.
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It was accumulation.
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It was cooking dinner for one in a kitchen that still felt unfamiliar.
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Okay.
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And and I have a whole nother podcast episode coming on about this whole condo renovation and good grief.
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Buckle up for it because it was something, and I bet a lot of you will it'll resonate.
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But anyway, it was it was not easy.
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It was anything but easy.
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And the kitchen was there and it felt unfamiliar because it was all new.
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Setting one place at the table, I can remember pulling open the drawer and like taking out my little gray um placemat because of right sizing, you know, I got rid of like 25,000 other placemats.
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So now I have two types.
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I have white and gray.
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So, or blue and gray.
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So I took out a gray one.
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But it was literally setting one place at the table where two were supposed to be, you know, the specific quiet of an evening with no one to turn to.
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And the way silence sounds different in a new place, like a stranger's silence, where you don't know the floors, like when you're walking, or the pipes, or that particular sound, that means everything is fine, you know?
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Like I didn't know that.
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And in that quiet, one question kept finding me.
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And it found me all the time.
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Did we make the right decision?
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Did we make the right decision?
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Not in a panicked way, in that quiet, persistent 2 a.m.
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kind of way, the kind of question that doesn't need to be loud to be devastating.
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It just sits there in the stillness, patient and insistent, waiting for you to give it your full attention.
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And I had a lot of stillness, a lot of quiet time to give it.
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I didn't fight it.
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I I'd learned by then that, you know, fighting fear only makes it louder, right?
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I talk about that all the time.
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You gotta just embrace it, right?
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You have to embrace fear because once you get through it, you know what's on the other side.
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Awesomeness.
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So I didn't want to fight the fear to make it louder, really.
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Instead, one evening, somewhere in those first weeks, I sat down and I wrote.
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And for those of you that know me, I write.
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I write all the time.
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I have always written.
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I used to have this hello diary, hello kitten diary that had a little key with it that I would write down all the time.
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I was a little boy crazy, would write everything I liked about Paul Melkovich, if he's listening or his wife's listening, uh, everything I liked about Joel Walshog.
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Oh my gosh.
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And then I'd lock it up and put it away.
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But so I've always been a writer.
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I didn't write in in an organized way at all.
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I didn't have a plan.
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I just opened a notebook and I started putting down what was it actually in my head, like stream of consciousness.
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All of it.
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Every question I kept circling, every fear I hadn't been willing to say out loud, everything I was worried about that felt too small to mention and too large to keep carrying.
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I wrote it until I emptied the loop.
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Like until everything that had been spinning in my head was sitting on pages in front of me instead.
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Honestly, pages.
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And I'm a lefty.
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So I mean, I had like a whole like, you know, if you have those notebooks, oh, it's smears, and oh, life of a lefty.
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Anyway, I digress.
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Something shifted.
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Because here is what I learned that night when I closed the loop, and what I want you to hear.
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Fear in your body is formless.
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Fear in your body is formless.
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It can grow to fill whatever room you're in, whatever quiet you have, whatever 2 a.m.
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is asking of you.
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Fear on a page is just a list of sentences.
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And sentences, unlike feelings, can be examined.
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Okay?
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I know.
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I am really, I think I'm getting smarter.
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I think I'm getting smarter as I'm getting older.
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I don't know.
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I that's as I said that it sounded quite profound.
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So, you know what?
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I am getting smarter.
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That's like a fine line, better with age.
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But I looked at what I had written and I asked something different.
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Is any of this actually true right now?
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Or am I telling myself a story about what might happen?
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The answer, when I was honest, was that almost none of it was currently true.
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The decision hadn't been wrong.
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We didn't make the wrong decision.
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The distance wasn't permanent.
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You know, I mean, okay, he's gonna be gone.
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It's for temporary for all my friends that got the calls of me like being like, when is this gonna end?
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I miss him so much.
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And they'll be like, okay, well, just embrace it.
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Like there's an ending.
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Okay.
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The distance wasn't permanent.
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What I was afraid of wasn't the present.
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It was a projected future that didn't exist yet and might never exist at all.
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I know.
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Profound.
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That's the framework I want to give you today.
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I call it signal, story, and choice.
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Okay?
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SSC.
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Signal, story, and choice.
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Three steps.
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That's it.
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Step one.
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All right.
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I would do the drum roll, but if you've listened to my past episodes, you know I am not technically savvy enough.
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Now I probably could figure it out, but anyway, drum roll for step one, which is signal.
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Fear is almost always a signal, not a verdict.
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It points to something that matters, a decision that feels uncertain, right?
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A change that doesn't yet have the comfort of familiarity around it.
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In my case, fear was pointing to real loneliness and real uncertainty.
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Both of those things were true.
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Fear wasn't lying about them.
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Ask yourself this.
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What is fear actually pointing to?
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What is real in what it's showing me?
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Okay?
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That's the signal part of this.
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I know.
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This is this is a heavy episode.
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Okay, if you gotta like take a little sip of wine or get up, move your arms around, get your legs around, you can do it because now we're moving on to step two.
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It's story.
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And this is a big one.
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This is where your fear quietly takes over.
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Once the signal arrives, your mind creates a story to explain it, right?
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This must mean we were wrong.
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The story that I was creating, this must mean we're wrong.
00:14:00.159 --> 00:14:01.200
This must mean it won't work.
00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:03.519
This must mean something is coming apart.
00:14:04.559 --> 00:14:06.559
The story isn't the truth.
00:14:06.799 --> 00:14:07.840
It's not the truth.
00:14:07.919 --> 00:14:09.039
It's an interpretation.
00:14:09.200 --> 00:14:13.600
And if you don't stop to examine it, it becomes indistinguishable.
00:14:14.159 --> 00:14:15.600
Indistinguishable.
00:14:15.919 --> 00:14:17.759
Okay, hard time with that word.
00:14:17.919 --> 00:14:21.200
I was thinking it before my mind could say it indistinguishable from fact.
00:14:21.360 --> 00:14:21.679
Okay?
00:14:21.919 --> 00:14:25.279
It becomes indistinguishable from fact.
00:14:26.799 --> 00:14:29.759
Here's what I want you to ask yourself around story.
00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:33.759
What story am I telling about what this means?
00:14:34.960 --> 00:14:41.200
Is that story a fact or a fear wearing a costume of certainty?
00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:43.919
Ask yourself that.
00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:47.200
What story am I telling about what this means?
00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:52.000
And is that story a fact or a fear wearing the costume of certainty?
00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:54.159
That's step two.
00:14:54.879 --> 00:14:56.960
Step three, drum roll.
00:14:58.159 --> 00:14:58.720
Choice.
00:14:59.200 --> 00:15:04.320
So we went through step one, signal, step two, story, step three is choice.
00:15:04.639 --> 00:15:09.440
Fear can inform you, but it doesn't get to decide for you.
00:15:09.679 --> 00:15:14.480
Once you've named the signal and examined the story, you still have a choice.
00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:19.360
You can let fear pull you back towards what's familiar for sure.
00:15:19.679 --> 00:15:21.840
I mean, I'm raising my hand on that one.
00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:22.720
That happens.
00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:24.879
That happens for sure.
00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:32.240
Or you can acknowledge it fully, honestly, without rushing past it, and choose to move forward anyway.
00:15:32.799 --> 00:15:39.519
Not because you're no longer afraid, but because you trust what you know more, then you trust what you fear.
00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:45.519
You trust what you know more, then you trust what you fear.
00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:49.200
Alright, so for choice, here's your question.
00:15:49.440 --> 00:15:54.799
Ask yourself, what do I actually know as distinct from what I fear?
00:15:57.919 --> 00:16:03.279
And what would I choose if I let what I know lead?
00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:05.279
I don't know.
00:16:05.519 --> 00:16:06.799
It's big, isn't it?
00:16:07.039 --> 00:16:08.799
It's big, it's it's heavy.
00:16:09.039 --> 00:16:09.840
But you know what?
00:16:09.919 --> 00:16:13.039
It's so important to go through these three steps.
00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:14.240
It is.
00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:16.720
Because the goal isn't to eliminate fear.
00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:27.919
Fear isn't the enemy, it's the part of the everyday, every real decision, every genuine change, every life that is actually being lived rather than just safely maintained.
00:16:28.720 --> 00:16:31.600
The goal is to change your relationship with it.
00:16:31.759 --> 00:16:34.559
Don't eliminate fear, just change your relationship with it.
00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:38.480
To move from reacting, right, to responding.
00:16:38.799 --> 00:16:41.919
To understand that fear can exist alongside clarity.
00:16:42.080 --> 00:16:43.039
It really can.
00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:47.360
That scared and right can live in the same moment.
00:16:49.279 --> 00:16:53.200
In the same body, at the same time.
00:16:53.759 --> 00:16:55.840
I know that now because I lived it.
00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:57.360
Four days a week.
00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:04.400
Alone in a city, I was still learning, riding my way through the fear until I could see it clearly enough to choose.
00:17:05.839 --> 00:17:07.920
Hard and wrong are not the same.
00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:09.920
Hard and wrong are not the same thing.
00:17:10.160 --> 00:17:12.559
New and uncomfortable are not the same thing.
00:17:12.799 --> 00:17:15.920
Scared and mistaken are not the same thing.
00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:20.559
Okay, so your assignment before our next episode.
00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:22.880
Find a notebook or a journal.
00:17:23.119 --> 00:17:24.079
Whatever it is.
00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:25.039
Not your phone.
00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:25.759
Not your phone.
00:17:25.839 --> 00:17:27.359
Don't put this in the notes in your phone.
00:17:27.519 --> 00:17:29.519
This is too big for notes in your phone.
00:17:29.759 --> 00:17:30.799
Find a notebook.
00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:34.400
Give yourself 20 uninterrupted minutes, okay?
00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:41.519
20 interrupted minutes and write down every fear, worry, and worst case scenario that has been running in the background of your life lately.
00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:42.319
Whew.
00:17:42.640 --> 00:17:43.200
Alright?
00:17:43.680 --> 00:17:44.480
Write it down.
00:17:45.200 --> 00:17:45.839
Write it down.
00:17:45.920 --> 00:17:46.720
Don't edit it.
00:17:47.279 --> 00:17:48.480
Don't soften it.
00:17:49.359 --> 00:17:50.799
Just empty the loop.
00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:54.559
And then read it back slowly.
00:17:56.079 --> 00:17:56.880
Slowly.
00:17:57.119 --> 00:17:59.599
For each thing you wrote, ask this question.
00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:05.680
Is this happening right now, or is this a story about what might happen?
00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:09.759
For each thing.
00:18:10.319 --> 00:18:14.000
Is this happening right now, or is this a story about what might happen?
00:18:14.799 --> 00:18:15.839
Then on a fresh page.
00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:17.920
Write what you actually know.
00:18:18.559 --> 00:18:24.160
Your history, your evidence, the times you've been scared before, and found your footing.
00:18:24.559 --> 00:18:25.759
As we most often do.
00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:31.119
Let the facts have equal space on the page, as the fears.
00:18:32.079 --> 00:18:34.160
You don't have to resolve anything.
00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:36.799
You just have to see clearly.
00:18:37.039 --> 00:18:41.839
And clarity, as you know by now, is always where the right sizing begins.
00:18:42.079 --> 00:18:42.880
Clarity.
00:18:43.359 --> 00:18:44.160
Focus.
00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:47.680
Gosh, there was a lot in this episode, wasn't there?
00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:52.079
Like, as I was talking, my mind is looping.
00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:54.000
Definitely looping.
00:18:54.319 --> 00:18:56.480
Not loopy, but looping.
00:18:56.960 --> 00:19:04.240
And I am going to go and write down these three things right now, too, because I have a few things that are going on.
00:19:04.720 --> 00:19:07.920
So I need to find the signal and the story and the choice.
00:19:08.079 --> 00:19:09.279
So I'm right there with you.
00:19:09.519 --> 00:19:11.039
I'm right there with ya.
00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:13.119
So you know what?
00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:15.519
Think about these things.
00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:24.160
If you haven't listened to the episode about the fearless edit or about the NPN, go back and listen because there's a lot of value in those.
00:19:24.319 --> 00:19:26.799
So together we are right sizing our lives, right?
00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:34.160
We are right sizing our lives mentally, emotionally, physically, step by step for the season that you're in.
00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:35.839
Gosh, I love this stuff.
00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:37.759
And man, I love all you guys.
00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:38.240
I do.
00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:38.960
I love it.
00:19:39.119 --> 00:19:43.680
This brings me so much joy and just fills my heart.
00:19:43.839 --> 00:19:45.839
So anyway, until next time.
00:19:46.079 --> 00:19:48.400
All right, you can all say it with me as I sign off.
00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:51.279
Go forth and live yours.
00:19:51.839 --> 00:19:52.160
All right.
00:19:52.559 --> 00:19:53.279
See you soon.