Indecision is the Cause of all of Emotional Suffering

Should I stay in the relationship? Should I leave the relationship? Should I stay in my job? Should I leave my job? Start a family? Have kids? Maybe I'm not ready for that. Right down to the more micro level which would be something like should I start working on a project or should I stay on the couch? So what we're really going to do is we're going to jump in right now and we're going to take a look kind of underneath the surface level about the dynamics, involvement and decision making and the metaphysics under decision making which is really more the thought processes or the mindsets that are involved in that. And these are the metaphysics under all personal dilemmas and we're going to propose a way to navigate your way out of conflict. So stay with me. Okay so this could be any kind of dilemma we're faced with and I'm just going to give an example here of a situation again this could be about procrastination and a personal project of yours but really all of these kind of no win scenarios have the same metaphysical dynamics at play. But this one here we'll use as an example and it says I have to decide what to do after high school. My dad wants me to go to medical school but I want to learn to be a mechanic as I've always been interested in cars since I was a kid. I have no interest in medicine. So this is a difficult decision here this person faces and I want to do what I'm genuinely interested in. But he won't support me financially in that and I know it will crush him if I don't follow in his footsteps. So already here we're seeing somebody's going to lose this is a win lose scenario or a lose lose scenario and the person here is in the middle of this scenario and what they're faced with is a choice essentially between okay mechanic or should I go study medicine. So what we do with this is we look at first of all you know you can weigh up the pros and cons of each choice typically the thing that keeps us stuck in these kind of dilemmas is an over reliance on the rational brain to figure it out and a complete absence of taking into consideration what's going on emotionally for me. Really we stay up here in the brain, the mind probably too long usually because we say to ourselves well look I don't want to be impulsive with this decision and there's some credibility to that. Impulsiveness is something that comes from a state of unconsciousness. We don't want to be impulsive in our decision making. But likewise if we're indecisive indecisive is the other end of the scale to impulsive and that too comes from a state of unconsciousness. So we want to avoid this impulsivity and this indecisiveness. But typically for most of us because we turn to the mind all the time to try and figure out everything, every little aspect of this dilemma I'm faced with, whatever that might be. It's not impulsiveness that's our problem. We find ourselves stuck in these horrible states of indecisiveness. Someone told me a long time ago that all emotional pain comes from indecision or indecisiveness and I think there's actually a lot of value in that wisdom that that person gave me because I found it time and time again when working with people, even in my own life every time I'm really feeling bad I usually haven't made up my mind about what it is I want. That's a horrible feeling of being indecisive. So these are the two choices that this person is faced with here. And they'll spend a lot of time it could be weeks, it could be months deliberating this, weighing up the pros and cons it's all quite a rational intellectual exercise but this is what we do. We think if I just worry hard enough, I'll figure it out. And that's not actually going to help. It doesn't help actually make a better decision at all. So what you'll notice there if you see that person here depicted, is I've represented them as sort of cut off from their body. They're entirely up here in their mind, in their thinking brain. And that's very very important because really that cuts us off from all intuition that might help us with this decision or something even more important than that which is compassion, which is what I'm going to get onto here. So we'll notice when we're in these kind of no-win scenario dilemmas, we're usually relying up here too much with the mind and not enough on the body. We're cut off from our intuition or our emotion. So in this one we'll find this is usually actually a sort of a split between a persona that we have which is the good choice, the good boy choice or the good girl choice and then there's the bad choice which is the shadow aspect of our psyche. But the good choice, the one that's going to keep dad happy here in this example is well, I do medicine. But what's the emotional reality of this? Well look, if I do medicine I'm going to feel resentment because it's not what I want to do. I'm going to feel empty. And really I'm only doing it for the approval of my dad here. So what we're doing here is we're starting to look at what's the emotional reality of this dilemma I'm faced with here and likewise, we look at the mechanic option for this. It's like, well look, that makes me the bad son. I don't feel isolated. There'll be a lot of disapproval from that option. So clearly neither of these two options are good options. That's why we feel stuck. How can you choose between two really horrible options? It's not easy to do. So the main thing from this is that we're cut off from our body and because we want to avoid that impulsiveness, which is fair enough, we stay too long in this indecisiveness and tolerate this horrible feeling of stuckness. Now what we have to do is when we're in a dilemma like this whatever it may be, like should I quit my job? Should I start a business? Should I stay in the relationship? Leave the relationship? Should I procrastinate? Should I be productive? Whatever it is. We have to start seeing both of these options as occurring within the same mindset. Or the same level of consciousness. Einstein said that you can't solve the problem at the level of consciousness. That problem was created. You have to find an alternative level of consciousness or an alternative mindset if you're really going to see this differently and break out of this feeling of being stuck. So first thing we have to do is realize both of these choices actually make me feel bad. Something's up here. Something's off with this. Constantly turning to my mind to solve this issue. Now if we do see that, what we're going to realize is, well what's the payoff for me? Staying stuck in this dilemma. Really what it's allowing us to do if we stay up here trying to solve it and worry harder is that it's going to keep us out of our body because if we really go in to our bodies here, we're going to find what really needs attention in this whole thing and it's three primary emotions. It's feeling alone, it's feeling defective and vulnerable. If you've seen any of my other content, I always really focus in on this defective story I talk about. Essentially, we find ourselves in this split mind, this indecisiveness because in the body itself, we carry traumas or we carry this felt sense that there's something wrong with me. Guilt, people would call this emotion sometimes. It's just a feeling that there's something wrong with me. And really if we're in this indecisiveness, we're not going to be... I ask a lot of people, do you feel guilt from time to time? And they say, oh no, I don't feel any guilt at all. But then again, from time to time they will realize, actually I feel really bad about myself. This defectiveness or this guilt is very unconscious. And really until that guilt or that defective story is really met and resolved or given something that it needs, which we'll get on to, we're going to find ourselves again and again just week after week, month after month, deliberating about which choice is the right choice. I need to worry harder. So we're looking for an alternative to this. These are the metaphysics that are going on underneath the surface with all this indecisiveness. So what we're realizing is the payoff here for this is that I don't get to... I don't have to go in and deal with the underlying emotions that I have. So what do we do with this? Now this is a big kind of a... this is a kind of a... an affront to our ego, what I'm going to say here. But when we're in these decisions and we're trying to figure out the right move, the first thing to do is to realize there is no right choice or wrong choice. There is no good choice or bad choice. See that's why we stay in the mind so much about these decisions is that we think there's a right choice or a good choice that if we just worry hard enough again or overthink and analyze that we'll find it. What if there was no good choice or right choice? That's what I'm trying to pose here. And that is one of the things that makes us say, look I could... maybe it's not that I need to stay here and figure this out. Maybe it doesn't need to be figured out. Because no matter what I do I feel bad anyway. There's no right choice, there's no wrong choice, there's no good choice, there's no bad choice. Realize that the choice is designed to make you feel stuck. This is allowing us to stay up here and it's allowing us to stay out of the body which is where our emotions are stored. Our felt. The other thing is it keeps us away from what needs our compassion. So really if we go into the body more we will find we'll come into contact with feelings of vulnerability. With feeling that there's something wrong with me or defective. Or feeling alone is the big one. The defective story is closer to the surface. Really it is those emotions that we're experiencing as we are deliberating on these things that needs our compassion. So what I'm going to show you here now is what do we do with this? What does it look like when we start to come out of this indecisiveness and start to find self compassion for what we're dealing with emotionally underneath this difficult decision. Really the thing that one of the attachments in this example for instance would be in that persona there. I'm going to be the good son if I do what dad tells me to do. That's the thing we're deeply attached to. So we're going to start really questioning some of this but we're going to look at the metaphysics of it also. So that it can be applied across the board to different scenarios. So if we look again here this is the person in this scenario remember they're in their mind. That's where our indecision is experienced. We're detached from our emotional body and we're thinking here okay there's the mechanic and there's should I do medicine? We're noticing already now when we're starting to heal this you notice the two choices there have actually come closer together. That's because ultimately when you start to really heal this heal the underlying emotions that are involved the funny thing is there's no right choice, there's no wrong choice there's no good choice or bad choice you actually start to see them both as kind of the same. They're not actually as different as I originally thought they were going to be. So they're kind of melding into one choice. Almost as if it doesn't matter what I choose. That's how you know you're on the right path. So what we're going to do here because we're disembodied and you can see there we have to start that line that's cutting us off from our emotional body the first thing that has to be solved. We have to start going into okay it's okay if I start to admit to myself I feel horrible right now and it's that feeling horrible inside it's that defective story that there's something wrong with me that needs our close attention, it needs our awareness it needs to be felt it needs real, real compassion and awareness that's the first thing we start to do we start to come out of the right, wrong, good and bad and just come to terms with the fact I really need to support myself even get some support from other people because I do not feel good right now so we start to come into the body more and more we're getting in touch with our emotions and now because of that we're given that compassion to the emotional body we start to feel greater peace, less conflict inside ourselves because that's really what's missing with this and once that's in place what we will find is both options which before seemed really bad start to seem okay both options seem okay so in this case it could be okay what if I become a mechanic well when we're in, when we start to deal with the emotional body we're automatically in this what I call the compassionate mind, it's a different mindset entirely and all the indecision goes away when we're in this mindset so the option to be a mechanic for instance would look like look I don't control my father's emotions if I choose to be a mechanic and he gets upset at that I don't have any control over his feelings a lot of personal freedom in that choice you could also see that option as okay I used to think that the mechanic would make me the bad son, well a good son is actually someone who expresses themselves honestly, so that puts you in the good son category another thing to think about would maybe your father in this scenario is quite restricted or he's got this tyrannical need for responsibility and maybe he laid aside a few of his own dreams when he was younger so your choice in this scenario to do what you feel drawn to authentically might be something that really inspires him maybe even if his initial reaction is that he disagrees with the choice really maybe you're inspiring him also you'll enjoy yourself so that's another positive, so this option if we're really dealing with the emotions and processing and feeling and healing is that we'll start to see that option as good the other option which is to do medicine which we really had an attachment to approval in that we're going to start to realise, actually the only approval I need here is self approval self approval for everything I'm feeling inside my body and you might get some insights when you start to do that and you're in this compassionate mindset, you'll start to realise if I do medicine it won't make my father happy that's not true either and maybe you start thinking to yourself things like if I do medicine, I'll do it for my own reasons if I do it at all because it won't make my father happy if I do medicine, that's kind of a delusion we get caught up in again it's this idea that I can control other people's emotions I don't, other people are fully responsible for their own feelings you could come to insights like I can still pursue my interest in cars if I do medicine I can't predict the future, maybe doing medicine would actually be a really great thing because we can predict the future, who knows you'll also realise if I do this option, there's more chance I'll be supported that's a good thing in my life maybe I could combine the two options maybe I could put my I don't know how exactly, but quite often when we're in the compassionate mind we can find weird solutions to these issues like maybe you continue, you do medicine, you continue with your passion in cars maybe you consult on car safety issues or something I'm just thinking off the top of my head with that but the point is, both of these options now, we start to see them as we're open to both it's almost as if you know, you could toss a coin and you don't even matter, it doesn't matter anymore there is no right option, there's no wrong option, there's no good option there's no bad option, they're both fine but this comes true getting out of the mind stopping this thing of I have to worry harder here to figure this out, this is all about first of all, going in and allowing ourselves to feel these difficult emotions that come from indecision, again all emotional pain comes from indecision so I would say okay let's get out of this indecision into the body and then see if I can contact some compassion so when we're in this mindset I want you to see this as an entirely different mindset to the split mind of indecision, and this is really what we're looking for here is, again if there's a defective story, we start to give compassion to that, it's what Carl Rogers would call unconditional positive regard the choice we make here is not whether I want to be a mechanic or I want to do medicine the real choice the conscious choice is, am I going to support myself no matter what or am I going to only give myself support conditionally conditionally on whether I meet standards maybe I'm a good son whether I get approval from dad whoever it may be so guys, I hope that was a useful little take on that this applies for every decision we come in contact with when we're having that indecisiveness should I stay on the couch should I go and do some work on the project again, that's not the real option the real option is, am I going to start supporting myself rather than holding myself hostage to these maybe self-imposed standards that I have for myself sometimes can I give myself support and encouragement if I do get off the couch and go work on the project can I give myself permission to sit on the couch and not crucify myself can I get in touch with my body more and more and start to just really bring more attention and awareness and feeling down into what's going on inside my body because these decisions are really the thing that need our attention most of all so guys, I hope that was useful and any questions, maybe leave them below, as always thanks for joining me and I will see you in the next video bye