• What if the baby gets sick and I’m back at work full-time?
• What if my son won’t stop crying when I’m at the gym?
• What if we need the money for something else and I’ve spent it on this training?
• What if take this job (take this class, take this volunteer opportunity, take this vacation) and I’m unhappier after spending all this time, effort, money than I am right now?
The what ifs can be like an avalanche of heavy rocks in your way.
But what if you didn’t have to move them all?
What if your what ifs were just stories your brain was telling you to keep you safe (but stuck)?
There’s a part of our brain that author and life coach Martha Beck calls your lizard. The lizard feeds on the stress hormones of your primitive brain, telling story after story, all filled with what ifs.
All of the stories your lizard tells have horribly ever after endings.
“The entire purpose of your reptile brain is to continually broadcast survival fears – alarm reactions that keep animals alive in the wild,” writes Martha Beck in her book, Steering by Starlight. “That makes sense if we’re hiding in a cave somewhere, but when we’re home in bed, our imaginations can fixate on catastrophes that are so vague and hard to ward off that they fill us with anxiety that has no clear action.”
It’s easy to believe the worse case scenarios and stay home, stay stuck, stay unhappy, stay hidden in our cave – but at least you know you're safe, right?
But staying safe isn’t always sound advice.
And your lizard’s what if stories may never, ever happen.
The first step to getting unstuck is to shine the light on the what ifs that are blocking your path and out them for what they are (scare tactics), so you can keep going.
At The Well-Crafted Mom's mini-retreats this month, you’ll discover how to not get stuck in your lizard’s stories. And we’ll decorate mason jar lanterns (a simple project using glue and glass beads) so you’ll have a pretty little reminder of how to shine the light on what's keeping you from moving forward on the path to your happily ever after.
Only six spots left for August! Register here.