Episode 20: What Felt Impossible Actually Saved Me

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Today, we're going to be talking about things that have felt impossible. I know, in my own journey, there's been so many things along the way that felt like there is no way I can do this. I don't know how to do it, I don't want to do it. It feels like there's not going to be a good outcome and it feels like it's impossible to learn what to do or how to do it. I sat in so many counseling sessions where I thought, I don't know how to do what he is telling me to do. I don't know what it even means to set a boundary. I don't know how to follow through with those boundaries. And I don't even know what I want. I don't know how to stay and I don't know how to leave. Everything that was presented in front of me felt impossible.

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What I learned as I took the tools that were given, and I practiced, and I tried and I failed, and I started over and I got back up every single time was that what felt impossible, actually is what saved me. Why? Because everything I learned brought me new awareness. It gave me a new added strength. It gave me those feelings inside of empowerment that I can take care of myself. That it's okay, if I respect myself enough to say no. To say this is not okay anymore. I know that I let you treat me this way so far. I know that there's been so many years of codependent behaviors, and that I have done this same dance over and over. That I allowed these things to happen by not saying no or standing up. But not anymore.

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Learning to do what we need, learning to take action, learning to see clear and accepting our reality helps us in gaining the strength so that we can do the impossible. I did not want divorce. That was an impossible thing to even think about. I've said this before. But if somebody would have told me that you're going to end up divorced, I would have said absolutely no way. There is no possible way that that's going to be my life. Because I'm going to try so hard that there'd be no way that I would ever be divorced. Yet here. I was five years ago facing that same exact thing. I was listening to a live zoom call this morning of a person that does really well in business.

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She is so loving and kind and inclusive that she just reminds me of someone that is on my side and on my team. And she talks a lot about working and living through the heart and not our brain. Anyway, today's subject she was talking about once impossible now easy. Her name is Fabienne Frederickson, if you are interested. But she said once impossible now easy. So she talked about what have you done that you've thought impossible? What have you done from the beginning of your life that you didn't think you could do that felt absolutely impossible? She started out by saying she couldn't write her name. And she just thought there was no way she was going to be able to learn. So her dad took a yellow marker and wrote out her name. And then handed her a black marker and said, I want you to trace over the yellow letters.

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She did and all of a sudden, I can write my name. I can do it now. Something that she couldn't do she now could. She then goes on to say I thought I would never learn to tie my shoe. yet. Eventually I learned. What is it in your life that you thought was impossible? Yet, you accomplished it. And now it's actually easy. What kinds of things have you done? Have you done things for school or talents or work? Are you an entrepreneur? All of us have these things that we've done that we we don't think about. Yet when we're faced with hard things that we feel impossible we don't give ourselves enough credit. We think there is no possible way. We can't accomplish this. We can't be successful. We're never going to learn this. There's no way out. I don't know how to do it.

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I get a lot of questions about navigating divorce. People who are thinking about that might be their next challenge that they face. They want to know how I overcame the financial burden of being single. And they wanted to know how I navigate through kids and co parenting. Those are really heavy burdens that lie upon a woman's shoulder. We feel stressed about those two things in particular, a lot of the time. I'm not actually going to go into those specifics right this minute. But what I want to talk about is the things that are impossible, and how we get to feeling like we can accomplish them. You can even take out a paper and maybe write some notes or ideas as we go along.

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But if you start with what is happening for you today, like right now what is on your plate that you feel like is holding you back, or you feel like you can't accomplish or you don't know how to be successful? Whether it's work, whether it's the trials that you face, or whether it's your own goals that are not being accomplished, or insecurities that are getting in your way that you feel like you are not capable enough. So you can start with some of those things that are more current. And then as you write the things that you are not successfully accomplishing right now, that's when you start going back and you look at your life of what have you actually done? What really good things have you done in your life that you have accomplished, that have been good or great, or you felt like, wow, I just did something cool, or I succeeded at this?

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What are those things? And that's the list that you start going on like she did, where she talked about writing her name, or tying her shoe. So as you go through all those things, you start recognizing that, okay, I can accomplish it, I just don't know how I don't have the tools, knowledge or education. I need someone to trace it for me. I need someone to offer me the know how. And to show me how to change my thinking or add to my thinking so that I can do this specific task. Now, of course, with trauma, the trial feels super overwhelming, because there's added emotions to it. But that doesn't mean that we can't do the same thing. That doesn't mean we can accomplish these things.

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Trauma brings a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety, a lot of chaos and a lot of unknown. So sorting through that is hard, it is difficult. But it is not impossible. It's actually quite possible, especially with the helping hands of people around us. Having good therapists that can walk us through this that are specialized in trauma, in addiction, in abuse, whatever it is that your personal circumstances is important. You know, I'm a huge advocate of therapy. Having things to read or listen to, that feels like it adds goodness to your plate, and doesn't add chaos. If you feel chaos, when you're listening to something, even if it's something that I'm giving you, if you feel overwhelmed, it might be because you have a lot of trauma right now. And so my suggestions might feel too much today.

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That's okay. Just breathe, take a break. Apply the tools that you do know that you can handle right now to keep yourself safe, to keep yourself in a good place mentally, and emotionally. Do those things and then come back to the things that are going to add to your healing and start incorporating those things. So I'll share with you a few pieces of my life. You already know that I didn't share my experience with anybody at all. Nobody knew what I was going through. Nobody knew that I was married to someone struggling with addiction. Nobody knew of the trauma that I had been through. So when I was asked to go to 12 step meetings for partners of addicts, I was really in over my head. I felt like I don't know what to do here. I don't even know what to say.

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Do I even want to say something? What if I know somebody? What if they see me? What if then they know about me and my husband and what he's done? It felt impossible to share my story. I had never done it before. I didn't know how. So I walked into that meeting and I sat in the circle. And I listened as the women went around saying their name. Hi, I'm Roxanne. Everybody says hi, hi, Roxanne. And then they start sharing. So this week, I've had a really hard time with trusting or with with triggers or whatever they wanted to talk about. And they went along and I started feeling hope. I started feeling like, I'm not the only one. Somebody understands me. Somebody gets it exactly. I could hear myself in some of their stories.

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Some of the things that they said or that they were sad about, or that they really love their husband, I felt those things. And before I thought, How am I supposed to tell people that my husband has done these things, yet, I still love him. They'll think I'm crazy. And here I was in this room, with all these other people that were like me. That was like, someone handing me the marker and saying, trace this. So I started to mirror what they were doing, what they were saying, Hi, I'm Roxanne. And I'm here because I found out that my husband struggles with addiction. And I began to start sharing my story. And even to the point where I would even get really emotional. I would let the tears come out, and I would let the pain come out. Yet, the hope was always alongside because I was there because I wanted healing. And by doing that, it's like I let go, and the wall started coming down.

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I started noticing that I do not have to do this alone. There are plenty of people and tools and resources. If I would open up, be honest, and share. Something that felt impossible became possible. And it changed my life. It saved me from doing this alone. It saved me from thinking that I was the only one that had a husband that was doing these things, that was choosing these things, that was hurting their spouse. How empowering is that? How wonderful is that, and amazing to know, you're not the only one. That was a huge gift. As I went along, I started going to counseling and learning that I had to learn to let go of what his recovery looked like.

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I could not manage if he went to meetings, if he did his workbook, if he attended his counseling. I couldn't manage if he acted out looking at pornography meeting up with anybody online. I couldn't be the one that was in control of that. I thought there was no way I could survive that. How would I live in that house If I didn't know what was going on? If I wasn't watching and monitoring and looking and being a detective, how would I keep myself safe if I wasn't on high alert? Well, what I found and what I was being taught was being on high alert was making me crazy. And it was adding to the issues I was having. It was adding to the trauma, adding to the triggers. And I couldn't work on my own healing, because I was too worried about his healing and what he was doing.

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I really believed that if he stopped doing this, and he healed himself, that then I would be okay. And I know we've talked about that before. We have to do our own healing. Just because we didn't cause the damage. We still have to heal from what happened to us. Somebody caused us to have an experience. And because of that, our emotional state of being our mental state is in disarray. We have to fix that. We have to get the help we need. Just like going to a doctor, if we were injured, we have to get the help we need for an emotional injury. That was hard to hear. And it felt impossible for me to accomplish changing myself without knowing if he was changing himself. As my counselor taught me how to let go and how to work on my own personal things that were hindering me, I became more aware.

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I became closer to my own self and my intuition. I was able to feel it better because I wasn't in a state of panic at all times. So as I would learn things about myself as I let them go, as my counselor taught me how to set a boundary and hold a boundary, and how it made me feel safe and peaceful when I did do it. And when I did accomplish it. And when I did keep the consequence, even though it was hard and scary. When he showed me how it gave me freedom and how Wow, having boundaries actually makes me happier. It turned what felt impossible, into what saved me. As I was gaining my own sanity back. As I was living, grounded and peaceful instead of high end chaos and emotional intensity. Where I was on complete high alert at all times. Nothing was really getting done there.

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Except I thought by me controlling the situation and me knowing every little detail that that kept me safe. But that's just a lie I would tell myself just keeping control. But living grounded and in a peaceful state gave me that ability to say those things that I I've said that you've heard me say, Do you remember when I shared that story with you how I had no evidence that he was doing anything but my intuition told me. God told me he is not telling the truth. And as he professed his innocence, and he was saying, You're crazy, and don't call me a liar, because I'm sober and you're crazy, and your inspirations are off and you need medication; as he was saying that, I could calmly Look at him and say, I am sorry, I do not believe you. This is what needs to happen. I can only do that, because I went through what felt impossible. And I learned, I took the tools. I did the homework, so that I could trust my own self.

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Because I was grounded I could hear. I could hear my own intuition. I could hear the spirit, I could hear God. And I knew that I could trust those feelings and thoughts. Had I not been willing to let go of being the detective, had not been been able to stop trying to look in his phone or look in his drawers, look in his computer, and only do those things, when God said, Hey, now is the time. You need something right now to help you, then I did. But it came from a different place. I was more peaceful. And I felt like I was I was guarded. And I felt like I wasn't doing it alone. There was a moment that I had, it was coming to the end and I was feeling like, wow, this really might end in divorce. I couldn't believe it. But I also couldn't go through another discovery day.

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I couldn't go through finding out a completely new level of his secret life. Because what I had learned up to that point was so much. And I know that addiction is progressive. And I know that if you're not getting help, you're continuing in it. And you need something even more to give yourself the high. So as I knew what the road was, and I knew where we had started way back, and even before we were married, where he had started in his addiction, and where we were currently at, I knew that I could not handle another traumatic event. I didn't need to I didn't want to. I didn't feel like it was fair. Up to that point. As I had asked God, Hey, can I just be done with this? And there were a few times he said, No, not yet. I was kind of mad. I was like, Are you kidding me?

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How can you not let me go from all of this. But it was because I was still in a place of not knowing. I needed to learn more. What he was doing was he wasn't telling me that he wanted me to stay in abuse. He wasn't telling me that I deserve to be with somebody that wasn't treating me right. What he was saying was keep learning, keep growing, so that if this happens, and if this is ends up being the right thing, you will be prepared. So that things that do feel impossible won't be. So that you will know how to navigate finances, you will know how to navigate being a single parent. All those things he was teaching me and training me to be okay to be stronger than I was. So at times he asked me to stay. But when it was evident that I had done my work, and that I continued to heal and recover and look for truth. And my husband wasn't doing those same things. He told me it was time.

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I had an experience where I had the papers drawn up. And I was waiting for God to just tell me when I should give them to them. And I was going to a friend's their child was getting married and I was going to their wedding. And as I sat at this wedding, of all these family members and this beautiful day, I was in this surreal place of I'm sitting in this wedding, and any day now mine is ending. And I became super emotional as I drove home. And just thinking this is crazy. Here I was sitting in this beautiful ceremony and knowing that God values marriage, yet he's asking me to break mine. And so I had this tearful, heartfelt conversation as I drove home, just saying how is this possible?

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You're asking me to end a marriage when I just watched one and how beautiful it was. He began showing me as if a screen passing in front of my face, these little instant clips of my life. He started way back before we got married and then six months into marriage when I first found pornography, and year after year, these little clips of these scenarios. And he started saying to me he wasn't keeping his vows and Covenants here or here or here or here or here. He has not kept his promises. He has not been a faithful spouse. So you are not giving up anything that would have been valued or recognized in heaven anyway. Both people have to keep their promises and their responsibilities.

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They have to do the work. That was so life changing for me in that moment. What it did was it said to me, that I was not responsible for making sure that this marriage worked. It wasn't my job, to stay with someone that didn't want the same thing. It wasn't my responsibility to do all of the work for both of us when somebody else wasn't on the same page as me. God was telling me that it was time to let go. And he supported that decision. I wouldn't have thought that years ago. I would have thought no way. He wants us to stay together. He would want us to stay with each other for all eternity. And things would be right when we're in heaven. But things are only right in heaven if we do the work now.

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And in my situation, we were not doing the same kind of work. But it reminded me of that my relationship with God is so individual, and he cares about me personally. He doesn't just care about a marriage making it. He cares about individual people progressing, doing what they need to do to come closer to him, so that he can offer them peace and happiness. So choosing divorce, which once felt so impossible, actually saved my life. It saved me because it gave me new light, new awareness, new hope, a stronger relationship with God and with myself. I learned how to trust my own feelings, my gut instinct, my insight and my inspiration.

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I learned that God doesn't ask me to do anything that he doesn't know the outcome already, or that he doesn't feel will benefit me for my learning and growth. That learning and growth has a hard path sometimes.I had to walk through some really hard things learning so that I could get to the freedom. For those of you who have asked me what divorce looks like, and how you navigate the fears of making enough money, or raising your kids. How do you go about doing that? You start by doing all the other things first. You start by gaining the strength in the daily actions of what you need to do personally to heal and recover and to become stronger. As you do that, the other things don't feel so big and overwhelming. They don't feel impossible.

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What feels more impossible is staying in a situation of abuse. As you grow stronger, you no longer want to be around somebody or something that causes you harm. You don't want to put yourself in harm's way. If that concept is causing you stress and anxiety, that just means you're not quite ready to do that. And that's okay. You don't need to be ready yet. And hopefully your person or the relationship you're trying to work on and heal,l will also work with you; so you will be working together. That's the whole goal is to heal and recover together. But we can't make somebody do something that they don't want to do. So we have to let go, we cannot control.

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We have to come from a place of love for ourselves and other people and let God do his work. He works on them, and you work on you with him. And as you do that your eyes will be open to what it is you need to do. Now remember what we talked about previously, in another episode, how you don't have to do or learn all of it at once. Remember, you're not going to figure out all of it. You're not going to figure out exactly how it looks. Or if it's going to end up working out in the end. Or if you're going to have to make a different decision. You are only going to learn one thing at a time. You're going to take something that sparks you. As you're listening to this as you read as you attend therapy, the things that you need to learn right now the work that you need to work on for yourself will hit you.

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It'll speak to your heart and your soul. And it will be like, oh, whoa, that's what I need to do. You take those individual things, and you start adding them to your life. Now at first those things feel impossible. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to add this particular thing into my life. And so you have to practice it. You have to make a conscious effort every day to remember Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm going to do this specific thing. And you have to think about it. It takes effort. It's not innate to you yet. It's not something that naturally happens. You have to learn how to do it. But as you keep going what once felt Impossible is now easy. It becomes second nature.

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And because we have to make such an effort in remembering, that's why we can't take on too much. That's why we're not supposed to know everything all at the same time. You might even need to make yourself a note or a list that says, Every day, I'm going to work on this. If your goal is to not check up on and search for something in your husband's recovery, or non recovery, if that's your goal, to not do that right now, unless prompted, you may have to have a note that reminds you; that you reread over and over throughout the day, so that you don't fall into the same old patterns that you had been doing. Remember, you're trying to heal you. You're trying to do things that keep your mind and heart safe, so that you become grounded. And so that you can hear what truth is and what you need to do. So that you're able to take the action steps that you need.

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Remember, we're healing you. Were working on you. And by doing that, if your partner works on himself, then you can grow together. But right now, we're taking you from a place of I don't know what to do to getting your life back. Is that where you are? Is that what you want? Do you want to feel free? Do you want to feel safe and grounded? and peaceful? Do you want to be able to trust your own mind and body? Do you want to be able to trust God, what he's telling you? It takes time and effort. And it takes us learning how to do the impossible. So when you think there is no way that this is absolutely too much for me to handle, there is no way I can figure this out, there is no way I can stay and there is no way I can leave. None of this works. None of it feels right. Look over the other lists, the one where you wrote the things you have accomplished. The ones that once were impossible, but now are easy. Look over that list.

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Remind yourself that nothing is impossible we just haven't learned how to do it yet. But once we do, we're going to feel so good. And it's going to become just like tying our shoes. So easy. It won't even be hard. It won't take effort to remember the boundaries you have set for yourself. It won't take any thought really. It will just become a natural response, to set boundaries, to hold consequences, to work on your own healing, all the things that you aspire to have, will become just part of your daily life where you won't be consumed by them. In the middle of healing everything is consuming; the work that has to be done, navigating through your emotions and trying to gain some emotional stability, the therapy that it takes the heartache, the grief, the trauma, the betrayal, the infidelity, managing the lies, manipulation, deceit.

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All of that is so much. Because it's something that we haven't really done before, and it's kind of just all of us that in there, at least in that magnitude, we don't know how to handle it yet. But that's okay. We don't need to. So as we commit to one thing at a time, we will learn, we will grow we will develop and we will continually gain little tiny drops of peace along the way. A reprieve like where we're at, I finally learned something that feels so good. It was it's an incredible feeling when we finally grasped something that we haven't done before. As you do that, you will take hold of it and then you can just keep adding, adding adding. Until one day, you're like, Okay, I think I'm really feeling good. It doesn't make the choices easier. It doesn't mean that staying is easy or going is easier. None of it's easy. It's all difficult.

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But as we learn, and we turn things that are impossible into things that we can manage, everything changes. And you'll start seeing Wow, all of these hard things, all of these things that I never knew I was even capable of, they have all saved my life. All of those things will change you for the better. This week, I want you to work on that list. I want you to work on the list of what is ahead of you, what is hindering you right now that you don't know how to do that feel impossible, and then start writing the things that you have accomplished already in your life that are now easy. So you can continue to look back at the difference and remind yourself that it is possible. And every time your mind and your body want to tell you this is impossible. I want you to say to yourself, what if it is possible? What if it is possible for me to know what the answers are? What if it is possible that I reach healing and peace? What if it is possible that I can make enough money to support my children? What if it is possible that if I have to choose divorce, it will actually be better for me?

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As we start putting those phrases in front of the impossible things and making things possible, we start seeing different. We start seeing our capability and we start seeing that we actually do have the drive and the fight in this to accomplish all these things. We just don't know how, when we haven't learned yet. So do that this week, work on it, and then take whatever it is that you feel is your next step and add that particular piece to your life. Thanks for joining me every week. This was our 20th episode. I'm so glad you guys are here with me each week. I love all your messages so continue to send them to me. If you want individual sessions, shoot me an email and I will send you the information for my programs. See you next time.