Hi!! Are you signed up for my annual free summit The Love Alignment Experience?? We start Sept 8!! For now, thanks for being here! With Love is a newsletter meant to inspire, uplift, and connect, all in the name of love. The very best ways to support my work right now are to subscribe and share these positive messages and helpful healing tools! And even better, order a copy of my new book “Choose Your Self” - out now!! Click here to order.
Let’s expand on our conversation from last week about making big new choices.
Particularly the bit about whether we’re making the right or wrong choice. You know, the bit where most of us get stuck and camp out in purgatory forevermore.
Most of us - and I’m including myself here - want to see how it all plays out. We want assurance that our decision will lead to the best possible outcome.
And if you’re anything like me and have a strongly ingrained sense of justice, you believe you’re owed this certainty, and that everything should be fair.
For so much of my early life, I was convinced we lived in a logical “A + B = C” world. That if I studied enough, I’d get good grades. That if I got the good degree, I’d get the good job. That if I did what I was told, I’d be loved. I thought like was supposed to be formulaic and if you just made the right choices, you’d get the predictably positive outcomes.
Imagine my adolescent shock and horror when I learned that actions don’t guarantee outcomes. That we can try with all our might, and things just don’t go according to plan. That things simply fall apart, even when you work hard to do everything right.
Yeah, my perfectionistic (masking deeply rooted anxiety) self hated that. I wanted control, because duh, control feels safer.
But here’s the thing…
We can control whether we choose school A or school B, and maybe we’re deciding based on factors like what we’ll major in or where the campus is or how big the class sizes are. But what we can’t control is who we’ll become friends with on campus, who we’ll meet, or where life will lead us once we’re there.
»We can control which job offer we accept, weighing the pros and cons and the salary and benefits package and how long the commute is. But we can’t predict whether this job will actually lead us closer to our life’s purpose or further away from it. We can’t predict with 100% certainty whether we’ll love it or hate it there.
»We can decide that we want to move, but we can’t really control how the process unfolds (as much as we wish we could).
»We can get on the dating apps and go on the date, but we can’t control whether or not the person we share a meal with will be our soulmate or not.
…seeing a trend?
And this right here is why so many people struggle with indecision. If our choices don’t have guaranteed outcomes, then HOW on earth are the cautious/worrisome/overthinkers among us supposed to choose??
When you’re really overcome by decision paralysis, you’ll often find yourself in a pattern of procrastination. You’ll always find some valid reason to delay making a choice, and avoid the discomfort of not knowing how it will pan out.
But if you do this long enough, you’ll find that you’re not really living. Because a life spent treading in place out of fear of diving into the deep end is fine, but it’s not what you came here for.
You’re here to feel your way through the dark a bit while you find what lights you up. You’re here to mess it up sometimes so you can learn. And that inherently implies being willing to be in the unknown.
You can’t know for sure what all your choices will lead to. But you can control who you become in the process of your life unfolding. You can pivot, and make new choices, and discover new desires you had no clue even existed. You can meet people who help elevate you into a bigger, braver version of yourself.
If I was still living as the version of me who tried so hard to control every outcome, I can guarantee you I wouldn’t be living the life I’m living (and loving) right now. I’d be stuck in a perpetual pattern of burnout, chronic illness, and feelings of unworthiness. I’d constantly be worried about the house of cards crashing down around me and not knowing if I could survive it.
But instead, somewhere along the way I chose to be someone who trusts in the unknown. Someone who trusts her intuition. Someone who’s willing to bet on herself and take risks with no guarantee.
I became, in essence, my Core Self.
You see, in the realm of parts work (the main modality that I offer my clients), we have our Core Self, and then we have a whole bunch of parts who show up and try to manage things.
They don’t try to run the show to intentionally self-sabotage (well, sometimes they do). They try to run things because as some younger age, that’s how they learned to get by. And we operate in their fears, limiting beliefs, and protective mechanisms so long that we eventually just come to identify with them. We think the parts are who we are. But they’re not…
They’re parts of the whole inner system, and they often carry valid desires, needs, and wounds from past experiences. But who we really are is the Core Self. The ever-present, unshakable, authentic, loving and empowered version of us - that’s who we really are. That’s the version that needs to get back in the driver’s seat of our lives. Because little kids (which is essentially what our parts are) aren’t meant to drive. When they do, chaos often ensues.
When I got my Core Self back in the driver’s seat, I realized most of the fears I was being driven by weren’t as scary as they felt. They’d be scary to a little kid with no support and resources, of course. But to my wise, adult self, they were actually much more manageable than I realized.
The uncertainty might still be there sometimes, but the Core Self has the gift of self-trust (aka knowing that no matter what happens, I’ll be able to handle it and be okay).
For example:
I’m moving in 10 days. Not very far, only about 20 minutes from where I currently live. But I’m moving into my very first house, and it definitely feels like an up-level. It’s already stretching me in ways that feel slightly uncomfy. I don’t know for sure how everything will unfold in this new chapter.
What I do know is that I let my Core Self make this decision, so I know it can’t be the wrong one. And knowing that deep in my bones is such a liberating feeling - one that younger me was desperate for. All it took was a little inner work and a lot of consistency to get there.
If you could use a little more Core Self energy and a lot of self-trust, keep reading to learn about some of my favorite practices.
But for now, let’s try something together:
Place a hand gently over your chest and rub some small circles as you take 3 deep breaths.
Acknowledge to yourself that being uncomfortable with the unknown is a 100% normal human feeling and there’s nothing wrong with you
3. Admit to yourself that you have desire(s) that will necessitate that you build a relationship with uncertainty…and that you are worth the discomfort it takes to make your dreams come true.
with so much love,
Megs
The 2025 Love Alignment Experience:
My free annual summit is coming up in less than ONE WEEK (you definitely don’t want to miss this lineup of speakers), followed by my highly-praised 12-week transformational group program Awaken Love. Save your spot in the summit now!
Core Self Course:
If you’re looking for more guidance on how to do this work, this course is for you! Click here to access the Core Self course, which includes 4 modules to help you meet your parts and get your Core Self in the driver’s seat, plus bonus access to my somatic practices course, AND my brand new Emotitations (guided meditations to help you process your emotions) bundle.