“I Might Make the Wrong Choice”: Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People Facing Relationship Overwhelm

Todd: [00:00:00] If you want to get an in-depth experience of doing the work of Byron Katie over one weekend, I highly recommend the virtual retreats that I offer these four times a year, and they’re a way to do a concentrated experience of doing the work. We meet together on Zoom. We do some work together. We an, we work in terms of questions together and then we break out into separate breakout rooms and we one-on-one do the work with each other and then we come back together and discuss, and this going back and forth between individual work and then group work and questions.

If you do this over the period of a whole weekend, it can be a very deepening experience. So it starts on a Friday, starts at 4:00 PM Pacific time, and then it ends at 3:00 PM Pacific time on Sunday. And these sessions are two hour sessions with one hour break, and they go around the clock from Friday, all the way through till Sunday.

So it works for all time [00:01:00] zones and it’s a great way to go a little deeper in the work. So I encourage you to check it out, go to the work as meditation.com, and then go to virtual retreats.

Client: And I don’t know how to work on that. I have been doing worksheets on here and I have been doing worksheets. Also, I am aware with a motive like of being happy with her as well. So I have been doing everything and. And I have the thought maybe that I have to decide something or I have to make the right choice or welcome to Wiggle Room, 

Todd: a podcast where we start with stress and look for ways to turn it around, and we use something called the work of Byron Katie, if you’re not familiar with this is a way to question your stressful thoughts.

Now, this may seem strange. What do you mean question? My stressful thoughts? But it’s literally that. Take [00:02:00] your thoughts. Put them on paper and question them. It’s very simple, but it can be extremely powerfully life changing. When you do it, what it does is it turns your perspective inside out and upside down, and often you start to see things that you wouldn’t see if you were just locked into your basic police belief system.

I’m Todd Smith and on the program today. We’ll be listening to the recording as always, of the most recent open session. And in that session, someone starts out with kind of a question, how do I do the work on the thought? The debate of should I stay or should I go, should I stay in this relationship?

Should I move on? And it’s a kind of a quandary. I. And the question is, how do I do the work on that? So we get into that first, and then we do the work on a related thought called or [00:03:00] would be, I might make the wrong choice, and the pressure that brings on. So listen to that whole discussion and inquiry.

And then after that I will be reading a, an article from my website called The Happiness Equation. So let’s dive in. We’re getting into the work of Byron Katie together, and it’s just a simple way to question things and to challenge yourself to see things from a different point of view. As always, I’m sharing the unedited recording of the open session so you can hear exactly how the whole thing develops.

It’s not prerecorded and edited, but just simply presented as us human beings doing the work together and thinking together.

Client: Hi Todd. I have some questions if everybody’s okay. Sure. Yeah. So I am there is [00:04:00] something going on for a long time with my girlfriend, so I have been thinking about taking a decision leave her or to stay with her. So it keeps coming. It keeps coming, like the doubts, and I don’t know how to work on that.

I have been doing worksheets on her and I have been doing worksheets also. I am aware with a motive like of being happy with her as well. So I have been doing everything and I have the thought maybe that I have to decide something or I have to make the right choice or I don’t know.

It’s quite stressful for me. This.

Take it. I don’t know. 

Todd: Yeah, so that’s exactly a good starting place. There is I have to decide or I have to make the right choice. That would be the first place I would start to do the work on it because that thought gives the extra [00:05:00] pressure that I have to make a right choice. I have to it’s a stressful.

Thought on top of making a decision. And then one thing that I keep in mind, just conceptually is for me, the work and making decisions are two separate things. I keep them separate. I do the work to gain more on attachment, more freedom, more openness to all points of view. But. Just because I do the work on something doesn’t mean that I have to now decide based on what I found in the work.

The work is for my internal experience, but decision making is for my external, what I decide to do, and I might decide, yeah, I want to stay or I don’t want to stay based on just my own common sense and my own desire. As a human being and that having those separate for me makes a big difference. If I [00:06:00] try to do the work to try to figure out what’s the right thing to do or make the right decision, it gets very confusing.

Because the work wasn’t designed for that. The work is designed to have me question anything I’m attached to, and I will start to become less attached. Even to my own ideas of what I think I want to do, and I can end up spinning myself and getting confused by doing that. So the work is, I will do the work on, for example, you could do the work on your girlfriend and gain more less stress about her.

But then separately you can decide, okay, do I really want to be in this relationship? Yes or no, and decide based on your own ideas, not just on the work. So the work helps in making decisions because it cuts down the noise a little bit. It cuts down the anger a little bit. It cuts down the feeling stuck a little bit.

And when I’m less [00:07:00] stuck, I can often make better decisions. But I don’t use the turnarounds to tell me where to go, or I don’t try to set up the work and try to figure out what is my decision. And that’s what works for me. So I keep those separate. So I would say the first thing I would do is I have to decide, I have to make the right choice.

That would be a great one. To do the work on. And of course, you can continue working on any stressful situations with your girlfriend, any judge, your neighbor worksheet on, she’d said this and it makes me angry. Those are straight worksheets for getting less stressed around people like her.

But whether you decide to stay with her or not that’s irrelevant. I don’t have to stay with someone even though I do the work on them. That’s that’s important to know. Okay. 

Client: Also, I think I have a strong fear of making the wrong choice. So I’m really afraid. Yeah, I’m really afraid to choose because I think I might make the wrong choice.

[00:08:00] So that’s another story maybe. Okay. 

Todd: Yeah. So if you want, we can do the work on that. If you want to do that here, we can do that. Yes. Okay. So you might make a wrong choice. Is that true?

Yes. And can you absolutely know that it’s true? You might make the wrong choice.

Client: No.

Todd: Okay. So how do you react when you’re thinking about should I stay? Should I go? And you’re making this, you’re in the process of making the decision and you have this thought in the background. I might make the wrong choice. How do you react? 

Client: I get blocked. [00:09:00] I get freeze with fear and. I start to get doubtful and stress and it feels like my head keeps spinning and I am like, oh my God, what do I have to do?

And I just get angry at my mind at everything.

It feels really stressful and really confusing, and I get really scared and I start to think about past choices and how I regret, and then I blame myself and it becomes very complicated. 

Todd: Very complicated. Yeah. [00:10:00] That’s the effect of this thought I might make the wrong choice. The tension and the worry and the thinking about it so much, and then the remembering of what happened in the past, like you can feel the contraction.

That’s the effect of this thought I might make the wrong choice. So imagine that you didn’t have the thought that you might make the wrong choice. Who would you be? Still making the same decision, still going through the same process of decision making. Without the thought, I might make the wrong choice.

Client: I see. I will give myself more space to breathe, to feel to ask my, I will ask my, ask myself [00:11:00] what do I feel? How do I feel about this? I feel less rush.

I’m not in a rush. I feel like that, 

Todd: yeah. It’s very clear. So again, now we see another effect of this thought. When you believe that you might make the wrong choice, you’re rushed, you have to do it, and do it quickly, and do it right, and all the pressure, but without the thought, more space, starting to listen to what do I want, not trying to avoid something terrible that could happen.

This, is this thought I might make the wrong choice? Is trying to not do it wrong. Trying to avoid that. But [00:12:00] without the thought, there’s nothing about avoiding anything. Then it’s okay, what is the situation? What is here? What do I like? What do I don’t like? What, and I’m looking at it in a more objective way and a more easy way.

Client: It feels more like I ask myself, what’s going on? What’s going on? What is really going on? Yeah, I can ask myself that what is really going on in the real world? 

Todd: Yeah, that’s it. So this thought, I might make the wrong choice, takes all of that away. It’s just like you have to now focus, hurry, do it right?

And you don’t even know how it’s like but without it, it’s breathing room and ability to listen to myself and to notice what’s actually going on and to see if it’s a fit for me or not. 

Client: It feels like I come back to [00:13:00] reality, like I come back. Spaceship,

welcome back home. Really it like I was not aware of the real world.

Todd: That’s the power of a thought. It like it hypnotizes us. The thought I might make a wrong decision. I’m just like, I can only see you might make a wrong thought, wrong decision, wrong choice. I might, and it’s like the mind is so there that it’s like on the spaceship, it’s gone and without it, oh, I’m back here and I can see with my own eyes what’s actually the reality.

So that’s the power of a thought. It’s not that thoughts are powerful in a way, but somehow when we believe them, we become locked onto them. Like it’s like a hypnosis, I think it’s almost the same thing.

Okay. [00:14:00] So we see the effect of the thought. It’s very clear from your answers. So how would you turn the thought around? I might make the wrong choice, 

Client: I 

Todd: might. 

Client: I might make the right choice. 

Todd: I might make the right choice. So let’s play with that. Can you make any sense of that in your situation?

Client: I feel like, I don’t know. I. I don’t know if, I don’t know if I can know what is a right choice or a wrong choice. I 

Todd: love it. I love it. That is an example right there. How can I know for sure absolutely that this is the right choice and this is the wrong choice? That’s a story in my head. So if there, if it’s not ever possible to really know for sure, then how can I [00:15:00] make a wrong choice?

I can just as easily say, how can I make a right choice? They’re both like, it doesn’t make sense. I just make a choice. Yes.

And then I can figure out when I make the choice why that was the right one

afterwards. I don’t know what’s right or wrong future, but once I make a choice, then let’s, since I’m here anyway, let’s find out why it’s right. In other words, a lot of times we have things backwards. We think I have to make the right choice and then I’ll be happy. But it could be I just have to make a choice and then see why it’s the right choice and then be happy, because either one could be right.[00:16:00] 

It’s like that story out there that people believe that there’s one right person for me and I have to get that one person and be the my soulmate and have to be that’s the right person. If I missed that one, I messed up. I ruined my life. It’s terrible. But what if any person could be your soulmate? We are cut from the same soul in a way.

So what if any person could be perfect for me if I can only see it that way? If I can find the ways that it can be perfect, it suddenly makes it strange to even think about right choice or wrong choice. And I’m not saying you have to marry anyone, but it’s, I’m just breaking the idea that there has to be one and it’s, if it’s not that one, it’s the wrong choice.[00:17:00] 

Client: Yes. Yes. I can see that. 

Todd: Especially over the 

Client: feeling of, yeah. Go ahead and wrong it. It becomes then right or wrong when I blame myself or I am at peace with myself, so I might make the right choice if I’m at peace with myself in that. So if I don’t blame myself or if I.

Todd: That’s the right choice.

That’s the, that’s a choice I can have a choice over. Because if I blame myself, then it’s painful. So that’s like the wrong choice in a way. It doesn’t have to do with the person. 

Client: It’s like whatever I choose, if I am at peace with myself I will be the right choice. Like it’ll be the right choice.

Todd: Exactly. 

Client: Exactly. Yep. If I tell myself that I don’t know how to choose or I am a [00:18:00] wrong chooser, or I always do the same bad thing, like it’s always come coming to blame myself. So it would be, that would be the wrong choice. I think 

Todd: that would be the wrong choice. Yeah. 

Client: Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: So from this point of view, there is no, other than what I, other than blaming myself, there’s no wrong choice.

And even blaming myself is not really a wrong choice because it will just show me where I’m off. It will show me the stress, and then it will remind me, oh, you’re thinking is going off again. And from there, I will find my way back to peace again. So in a way, I can’t even make a wrong choice that way. I.

But let’s say talking about with your girlfriend how is it possible [00:19:00] that yeah. Can you find right choice, the possibility of right choice? Either way, stay or go.

Client: I think not for now. Maybe [00:20:00] I cannot see it. Okay. I cannot feel it.

Todd: And then there’s nothing that you have to report. Yeah. We’re just looking and seeing what we see. But this thought, again, it’s not about making a decision, right? We’re not doing the work to make a decision. We’re just making, doing the work so that there’s no, there’s not so much pressure when you’re making the decision, and then you can take as much time as you need.

I remember figuring it out that I can have as much time as I want to decide something. It could be days, it could be weeks, could be months, could be years, and. I still don’t know, right? So if I don’t know, then where does that leave me? I’m okay with not knowing until I do,

and then that’s the right choice for now.[00:21:00] 

So I might make a right choice. All depends on how you look at it.

Okay, so thank you. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your question. Thank you. Something that I think almost everyone wrestles with at some point, the making of a decision, and there’s two ways to make a decision. One is very stressful and the other, and a lot of pressure. The other way is peaceful and relaxed.

All right, so anyone else have a question or want to do the work[00:22:00] 

or anything related to what we were just talking about? I.

I am just thinking, yeah, go ahead, Marika. 

Client 2: I was I was thinking it’s interesting to see how when Jose was doing his work, how my mind went to yes, it’s all true and still I want to make the right decision. 

Todd: How strong that is. Still believing it, right? Yeah. I wanna make the wrong decision because the belief is there’s a good and there’s a bad, there’s a good [00:23:00] decision, there’s a bad decision, and it’s all dependent on that.

On the outside, if I make this decision, I’ll be happy. If I make this decision, I will be unhappy and I want to be happy. So good, bad, good, bad. Who would you be without the story of good, bad, who would you be without the idea of right, wrong. That’s really where this is pointing. 

Client 2: Yeah. To me it feels like a way of having control or so about the world.

Yeah, 

Todd: exactly. I saw it, I saw the right decision. I acted on it. Therefore, I get the benefit of it, so I’m in control. Whereas when I don’t know, I don’t know. There’s no control there. But the question is, do I need control in order to be [00:24:00] happy?

I might think so, but. I’ve experienced it the other way I can surrender and be just as happy as being in control.

If I give myself fully to whatever decision ended up being made, then where’s the problem? Because in the end, there’s no perfection in this world. There’s no perfection. Yeah. So what is, I was just 

Client 2: gonna say, it also has to do with perfectionism. 

Todd: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t wanna make a mistake but there’s no perfection.

Okay, you say you picked the right person to be your partner. That person is not a perfect person. There’s going to be things that you like about them, things you don’t like [00:25:00] about them. There’s gonna be different times when they get annoying or when they bring up trigger. You bring your stressful thoughts up to the front, even if you choose quote unquote, the right person.

And if you choose the quote unquote wrong person, they’re going to do the same thing. In a way, what’s the difference? Maybe you have a few more stressful stories in the beginning of the stress of the wrong person. But if you do your work, you may find that you’re very comfortable there and actually grateful for the learning that they provide because they push your buttons after a while, you don’t have any buttons because they’ve pushed them all and you’ve worked them all.

There’s nothing left. So it’s a story. It’s a story. I have to have this. Perfect. Yeah. I want to have the perfect marriage. What if marriage was perfect? However, it [00:26:00] comes perfect for me.

We’re buying into the story of the movies and the books that we read. Perfect. Sure. Everything looks perfect from the at the beginning, but you ask anyone who’s been married for 50 years, they’ll tell you it wasn’t perfect, but I’m so glad I’m with them. Or something like that. Maybe they still don’t want to be with them.

But even the honeymoon phase of what it lasts a few years at best, few people managed to keep it stoked or something, but it’s a rare thing. But that’s just a kind of a high, as opposed to. Living with somebody and just being with somebody, being oneself and not having to have this perfect Hollywood marriage.[00:27:00] 

So I have to make a right decision. Is it true? Only in my mind.

Yep. Because what is that story Keeping alive? It’s keeping alive. The idea that I am a like perfect person in a way. It’s what we all try to be. I want to be perfect. I want to be great and then therefore I have to have a great partner. I have to have a great job. I have to grow up a great children.

I have to great, everything has to be great, but it’s all just me trying to be something. More than I am, like trying to be perfect. When perfect doesn’t exactly exist other than everything’s perfect the way it is. It sounds like a lot of words, and it is, the way to that is keep questioning your thoughts.

Keep questioning your thoughts, that’s all. And then no matter where you are, it’s [00:28:00] perfect,

loving what is that’s. Where this points, and if I don’t, I have the work and if I don’t feel like it, then I have the emotions to keep checking back with me to see if I’m still interested in maybe questioning some of my thoughts. If you would like to participate in open sessions like the one we heard just now.

Then go to the work as meditation.com and go to the open sessions page. There. You’ll find out how they work. You have to sign a release because these are open. But if you’re willing to, it can be a great way to. Ask your questions, bring something stressful to work on or just be with us. We have seven spots every week that you can join in on, and I’m, I welcome you to just come and listen as well.[00:29:00] 

In fact, to encourage you, I have a I offer a coupon, $50 coupon towards anything on my website to you. Every time you get. Come to 10 sessions, so I just keep track and I’ll send you an email and if you get to 10, then you’ll get a coupon. So while you’re at the work as meditation.com, I also encourage you to look at private sessions.

Private sessions are a way of doing the work one-on-one with me, you can do this on Zoom is usually what we do, but the nice thing about it is that you’re not in a more public setting and you can go into more private issues if you’re at all nervous or anything like that. It’s a great way to get the experience of doing the work one-on-one with me just on your own.

So go to the work as meditation.com, and then private sessions. Next, I’m going to read one of my newsletter articles called The Happiness Equation.[00:30:00] 

Happiness can be found by eating the fruit or by moving away from the tree, the Happiness Equation. It’s easy to forget that there are two ways to find happiness. Most of the time we focus on just one approach. Try to fulfill your desires. This is so normal for all of us that we don’t even stop to think about it.

If you wanna be happy, find out what you want and go get it. There’s nothing more to it than that. And there are tons of proof of how this simple idea works, but why then are so many of us unhappy? Because the simple approach is not always so simple. In fact, there are a lot of exceptions to this rule, but exceptions always point to something bigger, a bigger rule.

Let’s look for that more all encompassing point of view together where go and get your happiness breaks down. The idea of finding out what it is you want and then going and [00:31:00] getting it is great, but there are a few things that can trip you up on this course. First of all, I don’t always know what I want, so I may never even get started on the path of action then.

Just because I know what I want doesn’t mean I can get it. It might take hard work, luck, help from others, or a very long time to fulfill a desire. There may be internal obstacles too. Beliefs like I can’t do it, and the rest. Finally, when I do get what I want, it might turn out not to be what I actually wanted after all.

In other words, if my happiness is dependent on achieving something, then my happiness is tenuous. If I don’t achieve what I want, then my quest for happiness can become a source of unhappiness. Is it possible to be happy even on the way to getting what I want? In my experience, yes, because [00:32:00] getting what I want is not the only way to be happy.

It’s equally possible to be happy without getting what I want, as long as I’m not attached to my desire. Think about it. Who would you be if you weren’t attached to getting what you wanted? For me, it feels free. It feels peaceful, it feels restful. I would even go as far as to say it feels happy. I. That is because happiness is our natural state.

It doesn’t come from getting what we want. It just gets enlivened when we get what we want. But happiness is there anyway. If you can notice it. It’s just more subtle. It’s not fireworks with oohs and ahs. It feels more like contentment, easiness, and normalness. What if we considered normalness to be happiness?

It’s a different idea than we’re used to. Then there would be no need to beef it up with fireworks. We [00:33:00] could if we wanted to, but we wouldn’t need to. The baseline itself would be fine. Here’s my happiness equation. Happiness can be had by two different means. First, I can find a way to get what I want. If I succeed, I’ll be happy.

Or second, I can enjoy what I have. Both ways lead equally well to happiness. So the equation is getting what I want equals wanting what I have. If I see these two as equal, then I can be happy in any situation. If I’m able to get what I want, I’ll obviously be happy, but if I can’t get what I want or if it’s going to take a long time to get what I want, then I can still be happy as long as I can be content with what I have.

The big question is how to be content with what you have. This little equation sounds simple, but is it practical? How in [00:34:00] the world does one become content with whatever one has? It’s a tall order, actually, but there’s an elegant solution to the problem. It’s called the work of Byron Katie, take any stressful situation.

It is stressful because some desire is not being fulfilled. The attachment to fulfilling the desire causes the stress, question the desire, and the atta. If you question the desire, the attachment naturally tends to fade and even disappear. As the attachment comes, becomes less or goes away, happiness comes back even without fulfilling the desire.

The work is all about culturing the ability to love what is and to want what I have. With this tool in your pocket, you can chase your wildest dreams without getting stressed, because if you fail, you know you didn’t need it anyway. You already have everything you need. [00:35:00] In this way. The wins and losses of life become much less emotionally significant.

Ironically, with less attachment action is often more effective anyway. So if you ever get hung up on some attachment, do the work of Byron Katie or do the work every day and culture a habit of holding all desires loosely. It can mean the difference between happiness and suffering.