Three Steps to Designing a Better Life

Several years ago I did a reading with a woman who enjoyed a pretty good life until her husband cheated on her. To make matters worse, she was pregnant with their first child when it happened.

She decided to stay with him and even to have another child with him. And now that her second child was almost 3, she was on anti-depressants.

When she came to me for a reading she talked openly about how unhappy and depressed she was. She hated her life. But she wouldn’t discuss how unhappy she was in her marriage.

In fact, when she sat down at the beginning of our meeting she said to me, “I just want to warn you not to say anything negative about my husband. He’s my soul mate. I know it. I’ll never leave him.”

I’d heard this before from women who came to me when their lives were in some kind of turmoil. They were desperately unhappy in their marriages and relationships and each time I heard one of them say this I knew what they were really saying. They didn’t see how they could possibly make it on their own and therefore would do everything in their power not to be on their own.

This woman, we’ll call her Petra, was intelligent, well-educated and well-spoken and entirely capable of making good decisions for herself.

But she was not in any way thinking for herself, caring for herself or proactively managing what she wanted out of her life. She was living in a pattern of fear and reaction. She was afraid of being herself and of what penalty that might bring.

Unfortunately she did ask me several questions about her husband during that reading and as I do, I answered them honestly. This didn’t make her happy since I wasn’t able to give her the answers she wanted to hear.

This wasn’t a man or a marriage that would change or get better.

Since our reading together, I’ve checked in on her energetically several times to see if perhaps things changed for her. I hoped that they would. But they haven’t. She’s still a very sad woman who, tragically, has an uncanny ability to hide her depression so that others think she’s actually happy. Ultimately she lives as a depressed and lonely woman with no one to turn to since she’s embarrassed about her situation and thinks no one will understand.

Not only is her thinking a potential prescription for suicide, I think her assumptions are completely wrong. I think almost every woman on the planet could understand her situation and would be happy to lend her whatever support she’d take.

Sadly, it’s not unusual for women to find themselves in this situation.

Before Petra left my company that day I encouraged her to do three things:

Be honest with yourself as to how you feel about your relationship and your life. Don’t exist in some pretend land that tomorrow will be dramatically different just because you want it to be. Chances are that you, like the rest of us, will have to deal with what’s on your plate. And you can.

Don’t make excuses for the other person. Let them be who they are and take some time to see them clearly. If you’re constantly propping them up with excuses, you’ll continually feel betrayed, when truly, they’ve shown you who they are all along.

Be honest with yourself about what you want for your life. Even if you’re not prepared to make any significant changes in your life today, knowing what you want is one of the important first steps.

I’ve seen countless success stories of women who went from barely surviving their daily depression and misery to living the life of their dreams by making energetic changes first.

What did they do? They got accountable for everything in their life, and then got the support and the guidance they needed to create the life they wanted.

Once you have honest awareness and determine your direction, the Guidance and the strength begin to appear.

In times like these, try too to wear geode or drusy whenever you can. The geode is an empowering stone that helps you to connect with the courage to design your life. Can you imagine actually designing your life? It’s an ability that women, particularly women with children or women in crisis, often forget they have.

And yet, regardless of whether you feel you’re empowered to live your dreams or not, every moment of desire, every thought, and every dream is a seed you plant that calls you to do just that.