decision making Archives - Baggage Reclaim by Natalie Lue

Podcast Ep. 99: Listening To Yourself & Knowing When To Call It

October 13, 2017 By NATALIE Reading Time: 3 Minutes

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In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions I talk about those moments in life where you hear yourself and see something so loud and clear that, even though you don’t know where it’s going to lead, you listen and take action.

I talk about:

>> A close friend who woke up one morning four years ago and knew that she had to end her relationship. She sometimes doubted her choice, especially when the subsequent attempts at online dating proved to be a blowout, but then she did meet the guy who would go on to become her husband.

>> Why having an I started so I’ll finish attitude is bad all round for everyone involved in the decision, not just us.

>> How and why we ignore signs that we’re unhappy including hoping that things will get better or just quite simply being afraid to start over, which can result in us falling out of like with ourselves.

>> The reality that the circumstances in which we originally made a decision can and do change and we have to make the best decision that we can with the information that we have at the time–we have to bet on ourselves.

>> Why we don’t have to hang everything on this one decision because there’s many paths and more up ahead.

>> Why decisions are about commitment including deciding what our intentions and needs are, and how we have to decide with a limited amount of information and do our best to listen to ourselves and bet on us.

>> Two relationships that I ended where it might have initially seemed like these were bad decisions because I wasn’t in a better relationship afterwards, but they were the prelude to starting Baggage Reclaim and meeting Em.

>> Why we’ve got to repeat what works, not what doesn’t and that listening to ourselves takes practice.

>> Why when we’re ready to hear (or see), we’ll hear and it’s the culmination of lots of niggling thoughts giving us the big insight, the big message, but if we keep stalling on making the decisions we need to make (because we’re afraid of making a bigger decision about the next step of our life), life will come along and force us to make the decisions.

>> And…the big decision I’ve made about this being the last episode of the podcast.

Links mentioned

>> Professor Life

>> The right decision doesn’t always feel good

>> Listening to ourselves

>> I Am 40

>> Why we can’t sit on the fence about our decisions

>> Podcast about bereavement and also here

Did you enjoy the show? A little favour…

Over the course of 99 episodes, I’ve tried to encourage listeners to rate the show on iTunes because it’s difficult to be very visible on iTunes if you don’t have a juggernaut behind you, so rating and reviewing the show goes a long way. It takes just a few seconds and you can add a short note if you like. Even though this is the last episode, helping to spread the message of the show still matters, so if you can take a few moments, I’d really appreciate it —how-to guide here.

Thank you!

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Podcast Ep. 87: Jaysus! What’s Up With All The Life Lessons, Professor Life?

July 14, 2017 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

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On this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I delve into the topic of getting out of your own way so that you can heed the lessons that repeat experiences are trying to show you and finally move on. Here’s the gist of what I talk about in the episode:

If you keep coming up against the same issues, it’s time to recognise an important lesson that you’re missing rather than carrying on as if you know better despite the fact that you’re increasingly feeling the effects of it not working.
The alarm gets louder but the lessons become more painful. Life tries to give us subtle, less painful lessons, and even tries to give us obvious lessons, and if we still keep doing variations of the same thing but expecting different results, things will come crashing down.
If you’re feeling stuck, if variations of the same lesson keep coming up again and again, it’s about acceptance: Where are you not accepting the truth about someone or a situation? Also, where are you accepting less than what you really need, desire and expect?
I know so many people is lies have come what feels like crashing down – job, home, a friendship, family, a relationship. It’s understandable to feel angry, afraid and sad during these times but what we have to be careful of is lamenting the loss of something, a way of life, that we were not only pretty unhappy with, but it doesn’t reflect our truest, happiest adult self and reflects us being stuck and playing it small.
I got talking to someone recently who got made redundant from the job she’d detested for quite some time, plus a friendship of fallen apart, she’d reached a crossroads with her controlling an overbearing mother, and had to make the decision to call time for good with the toxic boyfriend who could neither be faithful or treat her decently, or in fact, leave her alone when they weren’t together. This is undoubtedly a lot for one person to be dealing with but what she hadn’t realised is that she was hating the freedom and opportunity that these experiences were offering her and she was turning her back on some much-needed lessons and so unable to embrace some of the gifts.
It was as if she begrudged having to figure out what she wanted and needed, and so even though she is in a better job where she’s happier plus she’s also in the process of working on a business idea, she was still smarting over the redundancy and to an extent, she was also carrying on as if it was a mistake that she had broken up with this guy, as if he ‘should’ have been the right one even though his behaviour just wasn’t compatible with the type of relationship she wants plus she’s been very unhappy during their on-again, off-again decade together. If she keeps hankering for ‘Mr Right’ to be him, she’s telling herself (and life) that this is what she wants so she’s either going to be back with him again or she’s going to be involved with him in a different package and the fallout will be increasingly painful.
Life keeps serving us up the same lessons until we heed them. When we have a recurring theme of something going on across a number of experiences, we need to pay attention so that we can move on. ‘Professor Life’ as I sometimes call it, puts experiences and lessons in front of you that cause you to answer the thought-provoking questions that these bring up due to the uncomfortable and yes, often negative emotions and destructive thoughts that surface as a result. These feelings and thoughts need to come out but they’re also trying to help you.
Professor Life isn’t trying to make a fool out of you, nor is it saying that you don’t know anything at all—it wants you to heed the lessons so that you can move on from this ‘module’… to an upcoming one in the future.
Professor Life also wants you to engage in critical thinking and to not accept the status quo despite it being your uncomfortable comfort zone. It wants you to get really good at listening to you instead of taking a position like, ‘Well, my family did it this way so I should too [even though they’re miserable and/or that’s not working for me’ or ‘Well, someone said X to/about me when I was 5 so I have to stay this way [even though they were inappropriate/wrong etc’, or even, ‘Well, I told myself Y when I was 5 and so I have to keep using that reasoning otherwise I’m going to look wrong and foolish’.
It’s important for us to recognise that we can’t know what we don’t and didn’t know plus, there are very specific reasons in our past that influence the way that we think and feel today. We did the best that we can but we are also allowed to grow, to wake up some more and start to become cognisant of where we need to adapt and make big shifts in our perspective, particularly around stories, judgements and yes, even the excuses we make.
Instead of kissing our teeth and being like, ‘Oh come on! Why do I have to learn anything?’, when we are ready to move past the anger, irritation, frustration and other emotions that so many of us experience when we feel as if life is wearing down our last nerve, we get into a zone where we’re like, ‘OK life. I see what you’re doing but I’m paying attention. I’ll be graduating from your lesson very soon… and I’ll be open to the next one’, because reality check: we will always be learning in some shape or form. Of course, the more we listen to ourselves is the less painful our lessons need to be because we’ll be chilling out and enjoying life.
Remember that the lesson is something positive, not about you being ‘not good enough’ or something else negative that leaves you feeling rubbish about your options and stuck doing the same thing and expecting a different result or resigned to accepting crumbs.

Here’s the 3 questions to help you understand where you’re stuck:

What are the reoccurring concerns, frustrations etc? So, look for the repeater themes and situations.
Where do you have outstanding decisions as well as fear around moving forward?
What are the thought-provoking questions that are being posed by life?

As mentioned in the episode, there’s a worksheet that you can download–Figuring Out The Lesson(s) That Professor Life’s Trying To Teach You and it includes my Unsent Letter Guide.

Next stop

If you enjoyed the show, please share the episode – every little helps. Email someone who you think this show is relevant to or use the share buttons at the top and bottom of this episode.

Subscribe and/or leave a review on iTunes (how-to guide here)–it really helps in growing the show! If you’re new to podcasts, find out more about what they are and how to subscribe with this handy guide.

Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com. Got a topic you’d love me to cover? Let me know!

Edited 17th July – The post has been updated with the link for the download! Apologies!

Ask yourself: Is there a way that I could love myself AND be in the relationship too?

February 6, 2017 By NATALIE Reading Time: 4 Minutes

One of the issues that becomes very evident when talking to people who are struggling in a relationship or who have been through a series of painful relationships, is that loving themselves and being in a relationship are seen as mutually exclusive. Now sometimes that’s due to the nature of the relationship and so it has issues that are having a knock-on effect on their self-esteem but equally, it can be down to the fact that they tend to give themselves up no matter who they’re with.

Whether we’ve lost ourselves as a direct result of engaging in a relationship or we’re lost because we give ourselves up in the pursuit of love in general, it results in confusion about whether to stay or go because we’re unable to distinguish the relationship from our self-worth and so the relationship is at once a source of external esteem, while at the same time, intertwined with feelings, thoughts and actions that mean that the relationship is closely associated with pain.

The person/relationship that’s seen as the sole source of our happiness paradoxically becomes the sole source of our pain.

It is possible for us to be in a relationship and love ourselves at the same time.

It’s in this kind of relationship where we can have love for another without diminishing ourselves in the process, where we experience love that flows and grows between two people rather than it being about one party having something we want to ‘get’ or ‘earn’ from them or it being called love because it’s what we associate anxiety, angst, precariousness, worthlessness, uncertainty, turmoil and other such feelings that become the norm in a relationship where we don’t feel good about ourselves.

Fear of sacrifice, fear of commitment

April 27, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Over the last few months, I’ve been meeting readers at my workshops and there’s a really strong theme coming through: Sure, there are fears about not being “good enough” or even being cheated on or hurt, that are stumbling blocks that direct them into unhealthy and frustrating partnerings, but actually, many are on some level nervous and sometimes deeply afraid of sacrifice.

Now, it’s not that they’re ‘selfish’ and afraid of compromise—if anything, they tend to compromise themselves in their relationships—but more that they conflate relationships as a whole with unhealthy sacrifice.

Let’s clarify what sacrifice is in a relationship:

Every decision has trade-offs. If you decide to be in a committed relationship, the trade-off is that you go from feeling as if you have umpteen options or that there’s the possibility of a different partner, to co-creating a relationship.

To make a commitment requires you to make the decision even though you don’t know how it’s going to pan out or know every itty bitty detail of what it’s going to entail, hence the need for due diligence.

While it’s understandable to have moments of twitchiness because you’re human and will probably grapple with fear of uncertainty at times or maybe low self-confidence that causes you to self-doubt, especially if you’re a perfectionist (you will want everything to happen right now rather than being vulnerable and showing up), putting a lot of your energy into questioning a decision you’ve already made or conducting yourself (privately and also with your partner) in a way that isn’t congruent with the decision you claim to have made, is a recipe for pain and frustration. It’s ‘un-deciding’ and that brings out a whole different set of thinking and behaviour to when you are living up to your commitment.

Every relationship will require that both parties, not just one, makes sacrifices for the greater good of the relationship.

Podcast Ep.28: Are You Open or Closed?, Life Plans, ‘Overreacting’

March 18, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 3 Minutes

It’s time for this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions podcast! Before I get into that, if you attempted to download last week’s tip sheet on Saturday, my email provider had a technical issue. Most people have been contacted but there were some emails that didn’t come through so if you are one of them and you’re like, Where the hell is my download?, let me know and I’ll get it rectified pronto.

Here’s what I cover in episode 28:

Life plans. Why we might be resistant to looking at the big picture, the usefulness of working out your short-, medium- and long-term goals, and how author Michael Hyatt who originally inspired me to start working out my own life plan, suggests that we create a life plan. | Download Creating Your Personal Life Plan by Michael Hyatt-Thanks to Mary Jane for the tip! | Find out the backstory to me thinking about life plans in episode 27 | Thanks to Elgie for sharing ‘mise-en-place’

Are you emotionally available? I explain emotional unavailability and the key fears behind it plus I share ten questions you can ask you to help you not only understand whether you are emotionally available but also to aid you you in identifying the area where you can be more available. | Download “10 Key Questions To Open Up Your Awareness About Your Emotional Availability” | Check out this post, Do you want to be with an emotionally available person? Be emotionally available YOURSELF

It’s not fair when people shame us for not wanting to be friends yet | Sometimes we need time and space to grieve before we can be in that space where we can be friends with an ex or where we can feel as if we’ve dealt with something. It’s a real encroachment of our boundaries when the person who has hurt us tries to shame us for not being at that place yet, even going so far as to remind us that, for instance, all of their other exes remain friends with them.

Listener Question – Nicole wants to know where to draw the line with setting boundaries and issuing ultimatums. | Check out these posts, ‘Boundaries–Stop Asking For Permission’ and ‘Why Explaining and Re-Explaining Disrespect Is Like Saying, I’m Open To Negotiating On My Boundaries’ | 30-Day Project: Embrace Healthy Boundaries

What Nat Learned This Week: I’ve had a few hypnotherapy sessions to help increase my awareness of why certain things were particularly triggering for me and it reminded me about when people tell me that they overreacted to something. I explain why there’s a basis for the overreaction and that yeah, there’s been a misfire of the energy but that you’re not going crazy if you overreacted.

Leave a comment or post on Facebook and please do subscribe. If you know someone who would enjoy it, please help spread the word. It all helps! Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com. If there’s a topic you’d love me to talk about, let me know! Nat xxx

Podcast Ep.21: The Early Stages of Dating Is Guesswork, Do I, Don’t I? Decisions, Decisions!

January 30, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 3 Minutes

GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN EVENT IN LONDON It’s been a fun and illuminating week. Last Saturday I attended Gabrielle Bernstein’s workshop where I enjoyed a funny, heartwarming day learning about how to get out of your own way. I also bumped into a few readers while I was there– I love it when people say hello and share their stories of how they discovered Baggage Reclaim. What are the chances as well that not only would I find myself sitting directly behind a reader but that I was also sitting near the Irish contingent? Em immediately knew I’d been around them without me telling him because my the brogue in my accent was much stronger than usual. I also bumped into another reader a writing workshop I attended. It’s a small world!

Right–it’s time for this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions podcast!

Here’s what I cover in episode 21:

Don’t write off the year if it hasn’t started off on the right footing Many of us start the year all gung-ho and full of promise talking about how it’s a, “New year, new me” but then something comes along to knock us or we lose momentum or yes, we do something that represents the habits we need and want to break, and then we write off our possibilities for change. I explain why it doesn’t have to be this way and how to get to a more realistic perspective and attitude.

Why do we struggle to make and stick to our decisions? I explain the components of decisions and what we need to ensure that we do in order to make authentic decisions that we’re not going to be mired in regret in the future. I also explain the blocks to healthy decisions including wanting to make perfect decisions, playing Columbo collecting info but not reaching a conclusion, and fear of uncertainty–What if I commit to this person and we have a great time but then our relationship breaks down in 2031? | More posts on decision-making— About Sitting On the Fence | There’s No Such Thing As a Decision-Free Lifestyle | Change Doesn’t Come Without Change | The Right Decision Doesn’t Always Feel Good | Can You Make (& Stick) To A Decision?

The early stages of dating is guesswork What happens when you treat guesses like facts and predictions for your future with somebody? Big problems. I explain why we need to recognise that a lot from seeing someone on a site or app or meeting them somewhere, to going on some dates, it’s guesswork and if we can recognise this then we will be less attached to rigid ideas and snap judgements as well as less attached to predicted outcomes.

Listener Question – What do you do when two different partners claim that sexual attraction was the reason why they don’t want a relationship with me? I help Stephanie pick her way through this messy situation including what this experience is truly here to do for her.

What Nat Learned This Week: I attended a writers workshop and noticed inner resistance coming up when doing certain exercises centered around planning.

Podcast Ep.18: When Sarcasm Backfires, Letting Go of ‘Woundedness’, No Shortcuts To Putting in the Time For You

January 9, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 2 Minutes

If being hard on yourself worked it would have worked by now

via ProjectHappiness.org

It’s time for a new episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions podcast!

Here’s what I cover in episode 18:

When sarcasm backfires: Sometimes our dry humour doesn’t go down too well, leaving a person feeling that we’re mocking them, feeling superior, or trying to put them down. That’s what happened to me on the date that sparked my blogging journey plus so many of us get into hot water when we don’t gauge our audience or know when to quit with sarky comments.

Letting go of our ‘woundedness’: When someone does us wrong, we have pretty good idea of how we feel that they should react and can become entrenched in our position of being the victim of their wrongdoing. I offer up some suggestions for gaining perspective, which helps us to let go, which also helps us to feel less chained to past events.

The practice of self-esteem needs consistent effort: I explain why self-esteem driven habits of thinking and behaviour that are built up over time do more for us than an occasional attempt at being nice to us. Check out the 100 Days of Baggage Reclaim: The Self-Esteem Project, that I mention.

Listener Question – How do I go about having an equal relationship next time? After divorce from an arranged marriage, this week’s listener needs a little guidance on finding her feet, recovering her self-esteem and moving on to a healthier relationship.

What Nat Learned This Week: I’ve spent so much time thinking about going for a run that I could have gone for a run ten times over! I share how I named all of the so-called obstacles to me going out (e.g. my sports bra squeezing my boobs a bit too much…) until I’d run out of excuses because I’d fixed them all, and so I had to hit the road.

You can listen to this podcast below. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe on Soundcloud , iTunes, Stitcher or via a podcast app on whatever device you use. If you’re new to podcasts, find out more about what they are and how to subscribe with this handy guide.

Leave a comment or post on Facebook and please do subscribe. If you know someone who would enjoy it, please help spread the word. It all helps! Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com. If there’s a topic you’d love me to talk about, let me know! Nat xxx

Podcast Ep.15: Doubting Your Right To Not Be OK With Disrespect, Over-Gifting & Overspending, I Need Time To Process!

December 12, 2015 By NATALIE Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Of course the person who's disrespecting you thinks that it's OK! They're OK wiht being shady and they want you to be so that they don't have to get uncomfortable and see themselves clearly. It’s time for a new episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions podcast.

Here’s what I cover in episode 15:

It’s OK to not be OK with being disrespected: Indecision over boundary lines can cause us to accept the unacceptable. We consider doing something about it but then wonder if we’re being “rude” or whether another person would be OK with it. Next thing, we’re in deep pain and sitting around for hours at time waiting on someone to show up or staying in a relationship long past its sell-by-date. | Embrace Healthy Boundaries is the 30-day project that I refer to at the end of the segment.

Are you over-gifting or overspending?: There’s a lot of people out there right now who are stressed out to the hilt over giving and receiving gifts. I talk about the importance of examining the origins of our over-gifting and overspending habits because we’re often trying to cover up feelings of low self-worth and/or trying to prove something and even make up for a bad past experience.

The connection between having a short-term mentality and commitment issues: If we struggle to delay gratification, committing whether it’s in the form of making a decision or taking our time to show up in a relationship, is going to be problematic.

Listener Question – What do you do when you’ve been on one or a few dates with somebody and you’re just not that interested? Several listeners wrote in for this one. It seems that letting go of someone that we’re not interested in, is ‘complicated’ (not really!).

What Nat Learned This Week: I’m totally OK with taking my time to wrap my head around what I feel about something that’s happened even though some people prefer that I (or others), hurry the hell up and ‘move on’.

Stop letting fear of uncertainty hijack your happiness

March 17, 2015 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

One of the things that many of us grownups struggle with is uncertainty. We can find it difficult to not know exactly what’s going to happen next. We want to be able to move through life with the confidence that comes with knowing that something is definite. If we had our way, we’d be happy 100% of the time and not experience loss, disappointment, conflict, criticism, or rejection. We forget that life ebbs and flows and that we learn what ‘up’ is because we also learn what ‘down’ is. We have to learn how to navigate these so that we can enjoy and maximise those ups and gradually recover from those downs.

What many of us are looking for though, are ironclad guarantees or at the very least, a crystal ball to let us know whether or not we should bother. These would remove the uncertainty that comes with being vulnerable. We wouldn’t have to think or respond.

We can find decision-making scary and some of us are allergic to commitment, simply because it requires us to decide to be or do something without knowing exactly what’s going to happen next.

So we might, for instance, have to commit to following through with our desire to start a business and while we’ll have our idea and plan, we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen from end to end and we don’t have a play by play list of what we’re going to be and do. Instead, we have to make the decision, commit, and then invest our energy towards that commitment instead of looking for reasons to back out or question it.

Same goes for relationships. Before the point where we’re going to commit to something longer term and start talking ‘forever’, we have to give getting to know a person through the discovery phase of dating and then a relationship, a shot. We don’t know how it’s going to pan out hence why it’s a wise idea to do some due diligence, not so that we can avoid anything we find remotely unfavourable but more so that if and when we decide to give a relationship a go and commit, we’re making the commitment with the best of the knowledge that we have at the time rather than doing it without self-knowledge, self-awareness, and a healthy dose of reality about the person in question.

When I hear people talking about ‘casual dating’ – Seriously, what else can we water down? – I realise that what people who are afraid of commitment and vulnerability are looking for, are guarantees.

“I need to know that they’re ‘the one’ before I dare to invest myself emotionally.”

“I need to know that they’re perfect and will basically be exactly as I imagine forever and ever, before I’ll commit.”

Understanding why an ex is spreading misinformation about you (or building a case against you to break up)

August 25, 2014 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Breakups, even expected and mutual ones, often feel like a kick a teeth, but a breakup feels like a mugging when it comes to light that our ex has been in effect, poisoning the waters by saying things about us that are not true or are certainly exaggerated.

Why would somebody who we shared a relationship with and who we believe that we were loving to, choose to spread misinformation designed to discredit us?

There’s a common misconception that breakups only happen to ‘bad’ people or where something terrible happened, which is akin to suggesting that breakups are an emergency measure reserved for the most horrific of relationship illnesses, when in reality, you could be The Nicest Most Fabulous Person Ever TM and short of only ever being in and staying in one relationship, you’re going to be broken up with and do the breaking. That is of course unless you’re one of those people who always gets in there first, but that’s the subject of another post.

Because of that misconception as well as another – we have to have ‘legitimate’ reasons about the other party before we can break – some people do the dishonourable thing and the moment that they feel in over their head, or the moment that they suspect or decide that they want out, rather than be a grownup and say so, they look to build a case around it, which is similar to deciding that a suspect is guilty with no evidence and then looking for ways to fit a preconceived agenda and conclusion around them. It’s shitty and lazy.

A person who is looking to make a strong case for an exit will manage their way out of it by looking for reasons to justify the decision that they’ve already made, a decision I might add that they’re free to make without having to drag your name through the mud. That’s why I hear from people who feel so damned confused, betrayed and blindsided because they realise that they were in effect set up to fail. This type of ex doesn’t give you a heads up as to what is going through their minds because they have already decided.

When this person shares their reasons with you or you hear it through the grapevine, you struggle to reconcile this version of them with the person you thought they were or the relationship experiences that you had. And of course you want to almost shout this at somebody but you don’t want to look as if you’re losing your marbles or ‘shrill’.

Commitment: If they can’t show up for the basics, they won’t be able to show up for the long haul

June 13, 2014 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

So many people who feel twitchy about commitment say stuff like, “Natalie, it’s too much to expect somebody to know if they want to commit in the early stages of the a relationship”, which is the same as saying, “It’s too much to expect a person to make any decisions no matter how basic, in the early stages of a relationship.” A bit of probing and it becomes clear that that they’re twitchy about commitment because they associate the term with forever. Personally, I’d be damn scared of dating and being emotionally honest if I thought that me saying, “I like you. Let’s spend more time getting to know each other”, was going to be taken as an iron-clad forever agreement.

Commitment is a decision and we make decisions in all areas of our life and without even being conscious about half of the ones that we’re making – we use habits to take care of a lot of our decision making, sometimes too much so.

In terms of dating and relationships, when it comes to commitment, we phase it in – something I’ve written about before. At its most basic level, commitment is about showing up and then choosing and re-choosing to keep showing up to the relationship in a committed (decided at that level) capacity. If the person you’re with cannot show up for and with the basics, they’re not someone that you should be strapping yourself to for the long haul.

No matter whether we’ve just been introduced via a dating site or just met (stage 0), whether we’re dating (stage 1), whether we’re in a relationship (stage 2), whether we’re evolving into something more long-term (stage 3), or whether we’ve made a level of commitment that says that we’re in this for good (stage 4), all of these require us to show up.

This past Monday marked our two-year wedding anniversary – incidentally, after two years of being blanked, my father called and apologised but we’ll save that one for another day. One of the things I know with absolute certainty is that I can’t decide that I don’t feel like showing up to my marriage tomorrow. I can’t decide to emotionally check out or start shopping around. Well actually I could but in doing so, I would be making a decision that takes me in the opposite direction of commitment.

If I’d had a problem with showing up in the previous stages, that in itself would have indicated that we shouldn’t have been making another level of commitment through marriage.

I see relationships and the phases of commitment in a similar fashion to children learning to read. Here in England, they have different reading levels (by colour) and as the kids move up the levels, they enhance their literacy skills. Somebody who is on yellow – a preschooler – won’t have the same literacy level as someone who is a few levels along.

When we go from stage 0 and move along, we are becoming emotionally and relationship literate about each other, or at least we hope we are if we’re both working together.

Problems arise for instance, when we take stage 4 declarations seriously from someone who we’ve only been introduced to via a dating site (stage 0) or when we have ‘forever’ feelings and expectations for that person. This is Fast Forwarding and Future Faking. It also shows a lack of comprehension for what a relationship takes – action with time and experience.