The One Question You Need to Ask to Start Life on Your Terms
- May 31, 2021
- 5 min read
Written by: Dr. Joylyn Maniaci, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
My business was killing my marriage. It wasn’t intentional; it was a slow drain. I was struggling hard with all the things that I needed to create and that had. to. be. done. In order to get my coaching business off the ground. I needed to write. I needed to read. I needed to network and increase engagement on social media.
I was stressed because I had so much to do. I had the will to do them, but doing them wasn’t bringing home the bacon, and I was stressed.
I was working my tail off and couldn’t understand why my husband wasn’t more supportive. So, I did what I do and tried to fix the problem by communicating. I tried to be more expressive of my feelings (even though my face is clearer than a 1990s mood ring) and talked about my business more, talked to him even more and tried to get him to talk to me more.
It was a disaster. And it nearly broke us.
“It shouldn’t be this hard,” I kept telling myself.
In my mind, I just needed him to cut me some slack and be more sensitive. But the more I tried to move in that direction, the harder he resisted. The more we argued and the less we laughed.
I knew things could be different, but how? I wanted to be a laid-back, easy-going badass, a kind of surfer chick that laughs easily and doesn’t get bent out of shape about anything. Someone who had a fun relationship and a thriving practice, not me, desperate to be understood and working hard to avoid divorce and failing business.
What the Problem Isn’t…and What It Is
We love answers. We like knowing things. Intellect is prized.
It was humiliating to be a relationship coach and be confused, overwhelmed - to not know and know that I didn’t know yet be no closer to figuring out how to change the situation.
This is common in our personal lives, but also strikes at the heart of business stagnation, plateaus, and disengagement, as well - when things start and then fade and wither, or worse, deteriorate into bitterness, resentment, or total separation (breakup, divorce, dissolution, bankruptcy).
At the heart of the matter is not strategy or technique. It’s something that mindset alone cannot fix. It’s deeper.
So I dug in. I had a coach tell me to review recent sessions I’d had with my clients - the counsel for them is what we need to hear, too.
It worked. I realized after hearing myself say in several different ways, the problem isn’t the problem.
The real problem is REACTION - reacting to the problem—that it exists, that it hurts, and then feeling pity, overwhelm, rejection, etc. We take the external circumstances and internalize them with feelings, a juicy narrative, and then try to pair it with some sort of objective measure to analyze and fix it.
But the real problem is nothing outside, but inside: a lack of direction.
The One Question You Need to Ask to Start Life on Your Terms
Like most people, I knew more about what I didn't want, didn’t like, and wanted to avoid than any clear insight into what I wanted to be, experience, and have. I knew what I wanted my husband to be and do, and I fooled myself into thinking that maybe he was the problem, and if I found someone more supportive that things would be different.
The inevitable result of this thinking is pain and separation and a worsening of the problem— because the problem gets all the attention and focus. We end up getting the opposite of the connection and fulfillment we seek.
But as long as the focus is on something outside of ourselves, what we seek stays out of reach because that someone or something else is out of our control. The solution cannot be at the same level as the problem. Einstein told us that. So, we have to go to a different level to transcend the problem.
Moving Towards the Solution
The direction we have to go is in. And the answer we give is a question to ourselves: HOW DO I WANT TO SHOW UP HERE?
We all have a picture of someone we admire. We all have a version of ourselves that we would like to be. Who is that person? Without insight into this, we have no direction and no motive or motivation to make us move from where we are, so more of the same shows up.
I finally got bored enough with being pathetic and got curious about what easy-going could do for me and what I could do like the “her” I admired. When a bill came that I didn’t have the money yet to pay, I wondered what a badass babe would do. Turns out she didn’t sit stunned in overwhelm or cry out of desperation. She got clear on how many conversations she needed to have, calls to make in order to have the money come in and then dug in. So that’s what I started doing.
When I was hurt by my husband, I wondered how I could respond differently. Badass surfer girl didn’t try harder to be understood or push an issue out of fear it would never get addressed like I had been doing. She got on her mountain bike to give some space and get out of her head, let things air out. (When she returned, he apologized! But, so did she—because she was finally willing to lay down the need to be right because her priority was on being happy together.)
If success is what you seek, know what that actually means to you and then stop wishing or thinking that time will change things, that you need to try harder or achieve something else first, or insisting that it is someone else who has to change.
The solution is you getting curious and getting clarity on YOU - showing up more powerfully AS you, as this version of you you’d like to be. Thinking, saying, doing what she would do is how you become her. Because whenever you feel stuck, there is not enough of YOU, not enough clarity on where it is you would like to go and who you would like to be.
Instead of trying harder and paying more attention to the problem, put the attention on the future you would like to create and then start with the present moment to start creating it:
How would you like to show up here and now?
How would you like to see yourself handle the pickle you’re in?
The One Question You Need to Ask to Start Life on Your Terms
When you move toward the solution – the future you want – things turn around much faster. When you see that YOU are the reason your life is moving in the right direction, your self-esteem skyrockets, and you become unstoppable.
Joylyn Maniaci, Executive Contributor, Brainz Magazine
Dr. Joylyn Maniaci is an expert in communication and relationship dynamics, creatrix and founder of the HAPPINESS clinic. Combining her personal experience of childhood abuse, eating disorders, depression, and suicide with her training in naturopathic medicine, psychology, improv comedy, and more. She developed her Future-Forward Focus coaching technique that makes happiness the marker and measure of success. She has developed innovative coaching programs, such as the 90-Day Relationship Remodel, Venus In Motion, Improv It to Improve It (Marriage Improv). She gets results for individuals, groups, and couples because she keeps the focus on the future and the most important thing in the world (and the relationship with whom all others depend) YOU! This self-described “word nerd” can identify why you feel out of touch and unhappy and give you the tools to be confident in yourself, happy, and know without a doubt that things don’t happen to you. YOU happen to things.
