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How do you make a hard decision, and feel good about it?

It's easy to get caught up in the things you think you "should" be doing and end up designing a life on someone else's terms.

As someone who has completely reinvented her career three times over, I understand the guts it takes to untether yourself from relational,  cultural, and societal expectations so you can choose your authentic path.

Still, there's been one spot where I've been tethered for nearly 20 years:  the decision not to have children.

As a Midwestern Catholic girl,  making this choice felt shameful. Like I was turning my back on all women everywhere, choosing not to enjoy the full fruits of the experience I'm meant to have. I have long felt like something is wrong with me for not desiring to go that route with my life.

This shame kept me in limbo. While knowing I was making a decision that was aligned for me, I held a low grade fever of potential regret. Maybe, someday, I'll regret this. 

And so, while I knew the right choice, and was continuing to make that choice day-to-day, I kept the door cracked open. Until now. And sure, I'm 40 and the time clock is ticking, which certainly is a forcing mechanism, but my husband and I have finally made the very solid decision that kids are 100% off the table, now and forever. 

Guess what I feel? 

F-R-E-E.

There was so much internal struggle on this choice, and once I made it, I feel absolute freedom, and peace. The shame I felt around it is gone, because I know the freedom it brought me.

You see, the feelings in your body don't lie, and I know to trust this feeling of freedom in my own body. 

This is the way to peace with your hard decisions. Follow your aligned sensations in your body. What are the feelings that bring you peace? This is where you find authentic alignment, and the world need your truth more than it needs you do things you feel like you "should" be doing.

In this episode, I walk you through a very simple exercise to help you align with those feelings so you can begin to make choices from that place.

Listen to this episode to hear:

• How shame around my decision not to have children made me question my worth as a woman 
• The ways we can be shamed by our aligned choices, even if no one is directly saying to you that what you're doing is wrong
• A short somatic breath practice you can activate when faced with a hard a choice

This is a Thursday Thread episode where I pull a thread from the previous episode featuring Anna K Morris: How to intentionally craft a life you love

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Music created and produced by Matt Bollenbach