Discernment: How to Make Life's Big Decisions

A pro and con list can’t tell you why a choice feels right in your bones. We start with a deceptively simple question: why would two frequent travelers in a small city townhome with three cats decide to get a dog? That “on paper it makes no sense” moment opens the door to a deeper conversation about discernment, the kind that lives in your body, your intuition, and that quiet internal click of rightness you can’t always explain.

I’m joined by Stephanie Peirolo, executive coach and author of The Saint and the Drunk: A Guide to Making the Big Decisions in Your Life. Stephanie breaks discernment into practical signals you can actually use, especially attraction and aversion. We talk about why women are often taught to mistrust a strong “no,” how cultural expectations distort our choices, and why beginning with the words “I want” can feel startlingly hard. Stephanie also shares the spiritual roots of discernment through Saint Ignatius of Loyola, then offers a more inclusive approach inspired by Alcoholics Anonymous and the idea of a Higher Power you define for yourself.

We also get real about what blocks the signal: trauma, grief, shame, perfectionism, and the fear of making a mistake. Stephanie introduces the idea of an “internal community” of voices, including the one we jokingly call Barbara, and how naming those narratives helps you choose with more clarity and self-compassion. If you’re deciding about a relationship, a career pivot, becoming a parent, moving, or any other life crossroads, you’ll leave with a grounded decision-making process you can practice slowly and make your own.
 

You can find Stephanie HERE

https://www.speirolo.com/

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Transcript

Strength, Resistance, And Taking Space

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If we can just get curious, because there are a lot of times where we should honor our resistance. And I think as women, we don't cut ourselves that slack. We don't think, you know what? Maybe the reason I don't want to get out of bed is 100% valid.

Mary 0:17

For centuries, the phrase shrinking violet was used to diminish women, to suggest we were meant to be small and meek. But in nature, violets are anything but weak. They're resilient, beautiful, and essential to the ecosystem. Hi, I'm Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist, and each week I sit down with women who remind us that being compared to a violet isn't an insult. It's a testament to strength, endurance, and the power of taking up space and living by your true nature. If you're ready to stop shrinking and start thriving, you're in the right place.

Getting A Dog Without Logic

Mary 0:52

Hey Violets, welcome to the show. It would seem that my husband and I are getting a dog. We just downsized to a 120-year-old city town home with a barely there yard. We love to travel. We already have three cats. How did we make this decision? Well, discernment. Why does that play a role? Well, because on paper, this decision makes very little sense. Let's pull the thread and unravel this a bit. Discernment. It's actually a word I love. I don't use it much, but it describes a process that I believe is fundamental to a well-lived life. The Latin roots, loosely, mean to sift through options. Charles Sturgeon says discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong, it's knowing the difference between right and almost right. I have nearly always seen the word used in situations where there tends to be a certain level of sophistication and is often touted as a trait of those with well-heeled tastes. Yet from the perspective of today's guest and also in my research, it is a term that is firmly connected to spirituality. This was a surprise to me, but the more I read, the more I could see that it is a fundamental aspect of spiritual practice. As a therapist, the definition that Charles Sturgeon uses seems to be the sweet spot for many of my clients, yet it is a difficult balance to achieve in life decision making. Because I don't think discernment really resides in our brain. I think true 360-degree discernment resides quite firmly in our body and in that nebulous other state of intuition. If we are truly discerning, we're paying attention to the quiet little click of rightness. And that's where getting the dog decision comes in. Because while it might not make sense to someone outside looking in, and we certainly need to make sure we're being objective and rational, because let's face it, puppies often cause rational thought to flee. There is a sense of rightness to this decision that a pro and con list couldn't assess. I'll be interested in if my guest would agree that the getting a dog decision requires discernment, because she's done much more exploration into the topic than my own 15-minute online search, and has applied it both in her own life and in her work with others. I believe we will all walk away from this episode with a deeper knowing of how to find that right path to our own fulfillment. Stephanie Peyro is the author of The Saint and the Drunk, a name that I love, a guide to making the big decisions in your life. She's an executive coach and consultant with a podcast of her own called Bad Boss Brief and a Substack called Fierce Grace. Her writing and storytelling have appeared on The Moth, NPR, and The Guardian. Welcome to No Shrinking Violet Stephanie. Thank you so much for having me. So,

Attraction And Aversion As Clues

Mary 3:43

so many things I'm excited to talk about, but I always start with what I call flashbulb moments because I feel like most of my guests have come to this point talking about what they're doing because there were times in life that kind of stand out in relief. If we look back over our life, there are things where we're like, oh, there was a crossroads that kind of got me to the path that I'm on. Can you think of things in your life that maybe were flashballed moments, even to what is in this current book that we're going to talk about?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

I think a couple of flashball moments. And, you know, one of the things I'm going to just jump ahead to a concept that I talk about in the book. So one of the ways in which I recommend people can listen to kind of their inner promptings is through attraction and aversion. We all know attraction. I want to go live in Italy. I love this idea, this kind of a job. When we are attracted to something, it is usually a guidepost we often recognize. What we don't pay as much attention to is a sense of aversion. I hate this. I hate this with a burning passion. I think, especially as women, we are often told to question our strong sense of aversion to something. And when I think about flashbulb moments, I think about flashbulb moments that had to do with aversion. And so I was working for many years in um advertising and technology, doing business development. So I was in leadership, I was getting deals, I was essentially a salesperson. And I was a woman in pretty male-dominated fields and companies. And I uh wasn't treated really well. And so I made a decision in my late 40s to go back to graduate school and get a degree. And I really used that education as a discernment process. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I knew it wasn't to continue to run advertising agencies. And I, you know, took a while to get through grad school because I was working full-time. And when I did, I got a master's degree in transformational leadership and became really interested in ways in which the kind of negative, destructive, late-stage capitalism workplaces that I had been part of could be better. And that's all I knew. Like, didn't want to do that, was drawn to this. And then it really became for me a sense of how can I help other people be better bosses? How can I make a workplace that is not, you know, so that women coming up behind me can have a better workplace. And so that was really kind of the one of the light bulb moments for me was really to say, I don't want to have to work like this anymore. And you know what? I don't want anybody to have to work like this.

Mary 6:44

Yeah. Well, I'm curious about what you think about what I said about discernment, because I think it's something where there are some words where you get a sense of it, like there's a sense to discernment. And it just feels like when there are these um high-level ads for something like a Rolex, we talk about discernment and almost like you have to say it with this accent. And but also you talk about it in much more concrete terms. And I love that you're bringing in this idea of our socialization as women, because I want to tease that apart more. So, first of all, when you think of discernment, how do you describe that process? Is it aversion and attraction?

Discernment Through Saint And Drunk

SPEAKER_00 7:27

So, discernment has traditionally been associated with spiritual traditions, and it's often been focused on a person making a decision about whether or not to become a priest or a nun or a monk. Right? So vocational discernment is has usually been co-opted for centuries to mean a spiritual practice. The the saint in the title of my book is Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuit order. For those of you that are familiar with Catholic religious orders, the Jesuits are um a long-standing order. And he was a uh mercenary in the 1500s, got injured, and in the process of making his own decision about should he go back to being a soldier or should he become a priest, he developed a process for making a spiritual decision that was called discernment. And he taught it to some of the other men that he was in seminary with when he decided to become a priest, and they thought it was fantastic, and they said, write it down. And so it became something called the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. And I did those exercises. Um, it there's different ways to do it. Mine took nine months. I devoted an hour every day to prayer and meditation. It was a big undertaking, and it taught me how to make decisions in a way that was very um empowering to me. But it was deeply steeped in Catholic tradition. And as I left the Catholic Church, became an executive coach, I realized that my clients were asking me and my friends, how is it that you can make decisions in such a sort of masterful way? And I was like, well, I don't want to tell you the whole Catholic thing because, you know, this is in some cases a professional arena. And so I realized that I needed a lens to take the really valuable work of discernment out of a religious tradition and into a context that was available to more people. And that's where the drunk came from. The drunk is Bill Wilson, who was the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. And in when Alcoholics Anonymous started, it was very Christian. And some early drunks said, uh, excuse me, I'm an atheist or I am not a Christian. Am I supposed to die a drunk, or can I have this spiritual process work for me? And so the early AA folks decided, you know what? Use a higher power. It doesn't have to be any name for the divine. It can be nature, it could be whatever. And so I thought, you know what? If I take the the saint and the traditional old, very Catholic, very sort of like there's a priest who's in charge of everything, you know, framework, put it through that more expansive, hey, make this work for you in whatever way makes sense to you. That could work. And I did have my clients and friends who I did this work with say to me, you need to write that down. That's helpful. And so that was the genesis of the book. And so I feel like I loved your phrase of discernment as a quiet little click of rightness. And I think that the idea is that we, especially as women, have been taught to ignore our inner promptings. And so the way that I think of this is that we all have an internal navigational system, a compass, a GPS, however you want to visualize it. And our access to that has been obscured, often by cultural narratives, sometimes by trauma, you know, the all sorts of things. And so what we're doing is we're reconnecting to an innate ability that we have. So I'm not teaching anybody anything new. What I'm saying is here are some different ways that you can clear out whatever blocks you from your internal compass. And once you know how to use it, then you can use it in any circumstance. So I certainly think a discernment practice can help you decide where do you want to live, what career do you want to pursue, your relationship status, do you want to get divorced? Do you want to get married? Even something like, do you want to get a puppy? And and but the idea is that to get to that quiet click, you have to learn how to quiet the other voices, messages, narratives. And in fact, the entire middle part of my book is about the narratives that often come up for myself and other people that I've worked with in this content because it's such a critical part of discernment, you know, that like saying here's how to listen to that quiet voice. Well, it's not going to help you if you don't also identify how to turn down the interference.

Starting With The Words I Want

Mary 12:30

Yeah. No, it's so intractable, those narratives. And so I want to explore a version, but first I want to talk about attraction because you alluded to when there's that sense of like, I don't want that thing. We tend to kind of push it away. But before we go there, I think when there are things we want to do, like you mentioned, I want to take this trip. I think a lot of women are like, but did I earn it? Do I deserve it? So I feel like even there, we find a reason that we shouldn't do that because we we didn't earn it.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Right. And you know, last year when my my book came out last May, and I did for the book launch event, I did a day-long retreat taking people through the content. And there were two men, one of them was my husband, and then the rest of the room was was women. And it was great because there were women in their 20s all the way through to women in their 80s. And one of the first questions that I talk about in these retreats and trainings is, What are you discerning? And I said, Whatever the question is that you are discerning, it should start with the phrase, I want, because we get to want. And there was this palpable sort of shift of energy in the room. And and some women even articulated, like, well, but I don't, I mean, isn't that selfish? Isn't that I said, you know what? You're not making a decision. You are just articulating the question. And the best place to start is I want. And it was interesting because that exact same energy that you're describing arose, you know, and we're in this like beautiful retreat facility on the Lake Washington, outside of Seattle. It's this just really wonderful, peaceful space, and all of a sudden everybody got really tense. And so it I think it is difficult to start with, I want.

Mary 14:26

Yeah, we have such a narrow lane. And you're, I really believe, and I say this all the time in different ways, when we're young, we know what we want. And then it either is we're told it's weird or like selfish, that's a big one, or it's not, you're not being good, like that's not a good thing. And so I feel like the guardrails on us, especially as women, get tighter and tighter. But I'm curious about this aversion. Can you give an example of what might be a time when we sense I don't want that thing? But then do you feel like we talk ourselves into it, doing it anyway?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

I mean, I think there's I think there's one point that I want to get to first, which is this idea of like we know what we want when we're children. One of the exercises that I have in the book is to go back to your childhood and write down the things that you loved or talk to people who were around when you were a child. So one of the examples that I use is my daughter is a uh RN, she's worked in ICUs, she's um, you know, a very skilled nurse. And when she was like, I don't know, seven or eight, she wanted the Gray's Anatomy, anatomy textbook, right? Not the TV show. That's what she asked for. And she was in elementary school. And of course, I gave it to her. So when she decided she wanted to be a nurse, I was not surprised at all. And so the idea of looking back to your hobbies, your interests, what you were fascinated with when you were a child can be a great sort of guide. The example of a version that I use, and again, it's funny because I get a lot of comments from people when I'm doing this in a retreat setting.

When Aversion Is Vital Data

SPEAKER_00 16:06

I use the example of a woman who is trying to decide whether or not she wants to have a child because her partner has said he wants a child. And if she doesn't want to have a baby, he's gonna end the relationship. So very high stakes. And she goes, this woman, let's call her Amy. Amy goes to visit her sister, who has just had her second child. And I go through the attraction response, which is, you know, oh, this baby's so cute and the baby smell and all of that. But then I also talk honestly about the aversion response when Amy walks in and smells like poopy diapers and the toddler that hasn't had a bath in three days and looks at her sister's body and thinks, oh my God, she had a C-section. They cut her open. And how, and she has a strong visceral sense of aversion. And as soon, you know, she helps her sister, does all the things, and as soon as she leaves, she goes home, puts on her running shoes, and runs for five miles. And I said, that is an aversion response that is really valuable information. That if her body, if her senses, if everything in her recoils at the idea of carrying and giving birth to a child, she should honor that. And oh my goodness, did people react? They got so they got so anxious about, well, she shouldn't make a decision now, if she really loved it. Like there were all these cultural narratives came swooping in. And all I was saying was, this woman in this circumstance should trust her intense, clear, unambiguous, visceral reaction and use that as important information in her decision-making process. And it was so interesting to watch the resistance to that by this mostly female audience when I brought up that example. But that's that's what aversion is. And you're right, we're and this was, you know, we're often told, but of course, if you're a woman, you want to fill in the blank, right? Get married, have children, have a home, et cetera, et cetera. And those may or may not be true for us.

Mary 18:23

Yeah, and that's a big one, I think, having a child, because we are told that's really why we're here, you know, is that's one of our roles. And as someone who hasn't had children, I do remember an experience with my first husband where I thought I was pregnant. And when I found out I wasn't, the first feeling I had was relief. And I'm like, well, that's telling you something, you know, and and I think those are the things that you're saying, like we sort of dismiss them, like, well, I shouldn't be feeling that because that's not what my role is as a female or as a whatever. Right. And yeah, so I think that's very valid. Um, and I also have a theory that those people who have had children and maybe did it for the reasons we're talking about, this is a culturally acceptable path for you, they might be also some that have the strongest opinions because it touches something deep of like, oh, I felt that and I, and we might not even be conscious of it. But, you know, we it parents are, oh, it's great, kids are the best thing, and I think they are wonderful, but they're not always wonderful, you know. So uh, yeah, there's always two sides to decision making.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Right.

Mary 19:33

Yeah.

Finding Guidance Through Multiple Channels

Mary 19:34

So when you talk about like a body feeling, it how do we I think it's sometimes hard to describe? I don't know if the word is intuition or, you know, it people often say, and I think I might have even used this phrase in my introduction, it doesn't make sense. And so sense to me is a cognitive process. And I have never been a pro-con list maker. I'm a gut decision maker. What kind of role do you think that plays in this?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Well, in my framework, there's a couple of different avenues, and and I use slightly different language for it. So when I talk about, I talk about the genius of the body, which is that sort of somatic wisdom, which is, you know, it it can represent a lot of different things, right? And so that is that is a channel. So a lot of times aversion comes through the genius of the body, right? We feel that like the ick, right? We feel that in our body. Um, longing and attraction can also come through our bodies. There are other people, I mean, one of the things, I'm a very embodied person. And so a lot of times I will access emotions when I'm exercising. I swim. A lot of times I get in the pool in one frame of mind, I get out of the pool in a different emotional experience. I have like wept in, you know, the gym showers many times because something is coming out of my body through the rhythmic movement of swimming. And so I think that there are people that have that channel open to them. There are also people who do not have that channel open to them because of trauma, chronic illness, chronic pain. That's also very valid. That's why we have multiple channels, right? Then there is another channel, which is um the imagination. A lot of people get guidance through their own imagination, what they find themselves daydreaming through, and also art, the way other people explore and articulate their imagination. So if I'm working with an executive coaching client who is a woman in her 40s, who's trying to discern what she wants to do with her 50s and 60s, if she tells me that every book she's read and the last five movies she's Watched are about a woman who goes to Italy and refurbishes a villa in Tuscany. I might say to her on your next vacation, why don't you go to Tuscany? She is being drawn to her channel is imagination art, right? You know, that thing where every song on the radio seems to speak to you in some way, or your Spotify list is very geared towards one particular experience. That is another channel. And then I think there's also a channel, what you talk about is intuition, I think can go into a couple of places. For some people, intuition is a felt embodied experience. It's experience as the genius of the body. But there's also what I write about in the book as an intuitive thought. Right. So people, for people who have any kind of a spiritual practice, uh, particularly any spiritual practice that involves uh meditation or prayer or something that kind of shifts your brain into a different space, there can be a sense of knowing or awareness that when it's happened to you enough times, you identify. Right. So in in the Christian tradition, they talk about the still small voice of God, which sounds a lot like your quiet little click of rightness. Right. And certainly in the in the Buddhist practice of meditation, there's a lot of really kind of skillful ways of identifying and and seeing what is arising for you and working with that. And so I think that each person that's listening to this is gonna have probably one of the things that I just mentioned is gonna resonate for them, right? They might be like, oh, genius of the body, no way. The chronic pain I'm in, not my channel, but I totally get the intuitive thought, right? Or someone who's always been, maybe was a dancer as a child, is gonna be like, I get that embodied feeling. I understand that like my intuition and wisdom is sitting right in my gut, right? Or or in my in my throat. And they might have that sort of draw to it. So the idea is that we each have different channels. It's identifying and then sort of practicing and working with the one that most resonates for us at a particular season in our life.

Mary 24:19

Yeah. And

Trauma Narratives And Self Compassion

Mary 24:21

what I'm thinking of as you're as you're talking this through, as a therapist, I'm thinking, because you mentioned trauma. I think a lot of times in people I've worked with, especially women, trauma has been something that is creating static in whatever channel. It's like an unprocessed trauma. Do you feel like the role of trauma is sometimes to educate or to help? Or do you ever feel like it creates a stuckness in the process of discerning?

SPEAKER_00 24:52

You know, it's interesting because I mean, I'm certainly not a therapist, right? But I have experienced trauma. And I feel like, you know, again, what are the stories we tell ourselves about the pain we have experienced? Because narrative is important, right? And I have an aversion reaction to the idea of trauma teaching us something. Okay. Because there is a real strong um tradition in Christianity and even in some like kind of 12-step recovery circles, that there is a divine being who is teaching us lessons by having bad things happen to us. And I have seen many people be really damaged by that idea, like it must be God's will. You know, and and as I write about, I um I lost a son. He was 19 years old when he died. And a lot of the sort of narratives that people tried to put on me about his death in a spiritual context were not helpful, right? And anyone who has lost a loved one who has had someone say to them at the funeral or church, well, he's in a better place, or this must be God's will. We all like that is never helpful, right? And so the idea that there is some universe energy, what like I've heard people say, like, well, she has so many bad things happen to her, she must be attracting them in some way. There are so many negative narratives around trauma that for me, what I try to start with is sometimes bad things happen to people, right? I'm not, I didn't make it happen, I didn't ask for it. Even if I participated in some way, then I like so I don't need to add to that by having some sort of self-blame, right? And but at the same time, I think honoring trauma and recognizing that a lot of us are damaged by trauma and we don't necessarily have to fix it. So, like one of the things that I say in my book a lot is I tell people, use this book however you want to. Skip to the chapter that is interesting to you, avoid chapters that make you feel uncomfortable. Put the book on a shelf for six months if it doesn't resonate with you. And I feel like it's the same thing with trauma. Like, if this is too much for you, don't go there right now. And obviously, with the the I'm I hope clear understanding that, you know, I have experienced trauma and spent a lot of time with a really fantastic therapist working through it. I think if you've had trauma, you should definitely try to avail yourself of whatever mental health care you can access, which is not always easy for everybody. But I think also recognizing it's okay to not dig. You can make a very intentional decision-making process and never and just avoid the whole trauma part, right? Like I have a whole chapter for people who are going through a season of grief because a lot of times, you know, we lose someone and we have to make decisions right away when we're not coming from sort of our most grounded place. You can do that. And so I think it, and again, I realized I just went in a couple of different directions, but I feel like the kind of central thing for all of us who have dealt with trauma is to start with self-compassion and gentleness and really just examine what narratives I'm carrying about trauma.

Mary 28:29

Yeah. Well, and you brought up when you talked about your experience where you spent an hour a day. That is something that I think a lot of us are very uncomfortable with. We want a quick solution. And so I think when there is trauma, I think sometimes we can mistake the reaction to what happened as a version when really that's sort of what I'm saying. Like, is that getting in the way? So let me give you an example. Like, if someone had really awful parents and it makes them not want to be a parent. But if they really are curious,

Slow Practice And Honoring Resistance

Mary 29:07

sit with that and also take the time. They might find, well, that's a that's a smoke screen. Like, that's not the real aversion, but being curious about that. I don't know if I'm getting too deep with that, but that whole idea of I think we're very uncomfortable when we don't have an answer and being being more um like you took the time. You took the time to like let the process happen. And a lot of time, which some people I think aren't willing. It's like, this is too uncomfortable. This is what I think I'm gonna do. I don't even know what my question is, but that's those are the thoughts that occurred to me with this process that it it's not this quick thing.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

And I do think that is one of the challenges about a discernment process is that this is not something you're gonna do in an afternoon. Now, once you get good at it, you can do it much more quickly. Like I can make a discernment process in more rapidly because I've been studying discernment for 30 years, right? So I mean, and and so there can be a shorthand, but I think the idea too is like this is for really important decisions, right? Sometimes decisions, or that you want to build that skill so that you can make decisions for yourself. And so I think there's a I think it's it's a blend, right? So like I find meditation to be really helpful, but when I started meditation, it was so hard for me to sit still that I used like I would just do it for three minutes. And I was like, I could probably hold my breath for three minutes. I can certainly sit still for three minutes, but I think it's again an idea of being creative, right? So, like, you know, for for people that I work with who cannot sit still to meditate, I'm like, let's try walking meditation, let's try a moving meditation, you know, like if you love to ride your bike, just don't use headphones, don't just just ride your bike, right? Like there's like the idea of getting creative, because I do think there is a kind of um perfectionism that comes up for a lot of us, certainly for me. And I feel like if I am going to do something that is for my benefit, I must do it perfectly, right? And I think it is it is useful to do a half-assed job. And that's a good place to start. And and so I think there's a I think there's something in between, right? Like there's no way that most people are gonna be able to spend an hour a day doing anything, right? But breaking it down. So in the the in my book, I have short chapters with little journal prompts at the end. And you know, so for someone to say every Saturday after I, you know, when I take the kids to soccer practice, I'm gonna sit in the car for a half an hour and I'm gonna write in my little notebook whatever question seems interesting to me, right? Could somebody do a half an hour a week, a half an hour a month? Right. The idea of saying, like, because I think there is something to be said for incremental slow practice of anything, right? And that we think that it doesn't count if we do it slowly, but this is the whole point of this is tune into your internal promptings. And if your spirit is at a place where, you know what, 15 minutes a month is all I can handle, then honor that. You know, there's a there's another concept that I talk about, which is honoring resistance. And it kind of goes back to one of the things you were saying of like, how do you know if something is aversion or you know, just just a negative narrative, or maybe somebody really puts off tasks, they're big procrastinators, how do you know the difference? And what I talk about is honoring resistance and getting curious about the resistance, right? So if you are really feeling like you want to start an exercise program and you just can't get out of bed, is that because you are, you know, where's the resistance? Right? Where is the resistance? And instead of judging it, just get curious about it, right? There might be a narrative there which is you know what, my spouse has been after me for the last five years to lose some weight, and I don't want to participate in that. So I'm not gonna get up and exercise to lose weight for my spouse. 100% validate, go with that, you know, or it may be like, I think I'm too old and I'm never gonna get in shape, in which case then it might be like, hey, could we just walk around the block today? Right. And so I think it's again, if we can just get curious, because there are a lot of times where we should honor our resistance. And I think as women, we don't cut ourselves that slack. We don't think, you know what, maybe the reason I don't want to get out of bed is 100% valid and I should lie in bed. Right.

Mary 34:05

Because we first think I'm being lazy. Right. Yeah. So

Fear Of Mistakes And Inner Voices

Mary 34:10

what I think gets in the way of a lot of people trying to make any type of decision is the fear of making a mistake. So they just stay stuck because we don't they don't know the path. Is that built into how you talk about this in your book? Like this fear of if I do something, because I like that you said just it's basically you said just start. Like it can be messy, it can be half done, it can be whatever, just get the momentum. But what how what's the role of that, of this fear of making a mistake?

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Well, it's it it comes to play for sure, right? And I think the idea is that once you have confidence in your discernment process, you can feel more confident in making a decision, even if it turns out later to need to be a decision you make again. Right. And so again, there's a notion of like one of the I you keep talking about relationships, but I think it's a uh something a lot of us as women participate in, right? So I could see someone doing a very intentional discernment process to decide whether or not to marry this person at this time. And they are married for five years, they have a good, solid relationship, and then he has an affair and leaves her for somebody else. Was that marriage a mistake? Right? If if she made a discernment process that that was, you know, because we're told a marriage that ends is a marriage that has no value, but that's not actually true. That's a narrative. The idea that you learned and grew and changed with someone and and showed the capacity to have a loving marriage is independent of his decision to end that marriage in in his with his own choices, right? Doesn't mean you don't grieve, it doesn't mean you're not sad, it doesn't mean it was a bad mistake, right? Or a bad decision or a mistake. And so I think that's part of it is recognizing you make a decision, it's the right decision for you at the time, and then circumstances change. And of course, a lot of times this fear of getting things wrong comes down to wanting to control things that are outside of our control. Oh, yeah, right. Like in that case, that woman's husband decided to have an affair. You can't control what people are gonna do, right? That's that was his choice. He made that choice as a you know competent adult. And you can't stop people from, you know, becoming alcoholics or getting sick or dying, or you know, there's just a bunch of stuff that's out of our control. I think the other thing is to recognize and again get curious as to why you fear mistakes. So one of the concepts that I talk about is this idea of an internal community, right? And and you are, I'm sure, familiar with like internal family systems, it's this idea that like inside of us are sort of other voices, right? But the way that I think of an internal community is the idea of like, you know, a group of people who are getting together in let's imagine like an AA meeting or a you know therapy group. And there are a bunch of different personalities and experiences, but imagine them in your head, right? So in my head, I have a member of my inner community who is afraid of everything, who is constantly shrieking that there is going to be some horrible, awful peril, right? Can I talk to her and understand? Like, I know there was peril in the past, but I think we're okay in the grocery store today. So maybe you could sit down and let somebody else come up. And what's useful to me is to recognize that some of those members of the internal community had a purpose, but they're not helpful now, right? Like some of my friends and I, and I've even used this with clients. We talk about a member of our internal community who we named Barbara. I don't know how she got to be called Barbara, who's very negative. This is never gonna work. This is, and we just say thanks for sharing, Barbara. You can sit down now. And that notion of like, who is your Barbara? Who in your internal community is saying to you, if you fail, your life will end? That a mistake is the worst thing that can happen to you. Right. A lot of people who deal with trauma find that they are really prone to shame, I think. I mean, you know, the the notion of like, who's who carries the the torch of shame in your internal community? And and what do you think is gonna happen if you fail? And so a lot of this is just getting curious, right? In whatever way that works for you about, okay, so that's interesting, rather than shutting it down, like, oh, okay, shame spiral person. Why are we what you know, kind of what's behind that?

Mary 39:20

Yeah. And I think that that is very valuable in also it lightens it a little bit. It's not like, oh, there's this barrage in my head. It's like, let's tease it apart and let's add a little bit of humor because we're gonna name these people, we're gonna talk to them, we're gonna say, go sit over there, Barbara. We've heard from you. Let's hear from the rest of the room. So I think that is helpful too. And I think what you've written and the work you do, I think is really important, especially from sitting in the chair I'm in with clients, because they do get so mired in the narratives and the worry about mistakes and you know, or the revisiting of I thought I knew before and I made a quote mistake. I I don't believe in mistakes, I believe in decisions made at the time based on what you knew.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

And then later they didn't work out, and then having some compassion for your past self who made that decision, you know, with the best, with the best of intentions. And you know, it's funny when I say to I've used this concept of thanks for sharing, Barbara, with friends, with relatives, clients, all ages, all genders, all races and cultures, no one has ever said, I don't understand what you mean by a negative voice in my head that says terrible things to me. Never. Everyone understands that. So I think that's part of it too, is that a lot of times, especially if we are not in a position where we have intimate friendships or, you know, family and friends around us that we can be vulnerable with. If we just look at social media feeds and whatever, like the idea that all of us experience negative narratives or fear or whatever, sometimes we compare our insides to other people's outsides without recognizing, you know, when you like me see enough of other people's insides, you're like, oh, we're not everybody has that, you know, those kind of more challenging, vulnerable, wounded spaces. And there's a sort of relief in that. Yeah, for sure.

Mary 41:26

Well, what a great

Where To Find Stephanie And Share

Mary 41:28

conversation. I so appreciate you sharing all this. So remind us of the name of your book, where people can find you.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Um, the name of my book is The Saint and the Drunk, a guide to making the big decisions in your life. It is a regular book. You can get it, you know, any any place online. It's also an audio book, which just came out. I recorded it myself. And uh, and then um you can find out more about me and some of the services I offer. I also offer now executive coaching and personal coaching for people that are going through this process at spayrolo.com. That's in the show notes. And as you mentioned, I've got a podcast called The Bad Boss Brief that I do with my friend Eugenus Robinson. And then also my uh Substack, which is called Fierce Grace. And they're all Spay Rolo wherever you go, and you can find out more. And I'd love to hear from you about this work and questions that come up for you. Great.

Mary 42:22

And like she said, I'll put it in the show notes because her name is not spelled phonetically, as you would think. So we'll have that there. So thank you so much, Stephanie, for being here. Thank you so much for having me, Mary. It was a delight to talk to you. And I want to thank everyone for listening. One of the best parts of this podcast is you. If you have thoughts on today's episode, go to the show description and click on send us a text. If you choose to leave a voice text, you might just hear your own voice when I share it in a future episode. And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.