Balancing Emotions and Logic in Decision Making with Mike Fink

Welcome to the Season and Self Love Podcast. I am your host, Miami Banks, and I am. Thrilled to have you joined me on this transformative journey. You see, every day we dive into a powerful conversation about self discovery, healing and empowerment. This podcast is brought to you by ax Naomi and Elevate Me Self Discovery, where we believe that loving yourself is the first step to live in a fulfilling life. You can expect insightful discussions, practical tips, and inspiring stories. Plus were occasionally welcome special guests who will share their unique perspectives on self love and personal problem So get comfy, grab your favorite beverage, and let's embark on this journey together. Because it's time to embrace the beautiful person that you love. So let's elevate our lives one episode of time. Now, let's get started, Beautiful souls. Well, welcome back to the Season and Self Love Podcast. I'm your host, nine We Banks, and I'm so glad to have you here with me today as we continue our Act of Balancing Life series. This month, we've been exploring how to create balance in different areas of our lives, and today's episode is especially excited because we are focusing on finding balance and clarity in personal decision making. You know, life often throws us choices big and small that can be feel very overwhelming, whether it's making a decision about your career, a relationship, or even your own personal growth. But finding that balance between your emotions and rational thinking is the key to making empowered decisions. Well. Today, today I am enjoyed by the incredible Mike Fink, a renown author, personal development coach, and personalizing decision making and balancing life challenges. Now, you know, Mike has been with us before. He has been with us before, and I open up for him to come back. But before we bring him back, I want to remind you that. We have the free mini ebooks that's available right now on the website. The five several ways to set your intentions are harm on This Life, as well as our twenty one day challenge Life Balance and our ebook. We have another e book on one hundred and two pages of everything that you can possibly have for tools to help you to balance your life. But before we bring Mike back to the state, let's take a quick break. Let's take a quick break, all right, ithagurty God, is not many banks here on this season and supple love podcasts and we'll be right back. What are some commoners that prevent people from heysia? Gurty God? Is not many banks here from the season and supple love podcasts. Yeah, I would say remorse, So shame and guilt is a very divided emotional and. These are one of the many amazing conversations that we have every day Monday and Friday right here in the season and podcasts with Myself Now and we Banks, as well as our resident therapist, doctor Will Washington Washington Welcome. It makes inte come by, our relationship come by a lot of times that's afraid of how people will look at us and so that compassion can't enter. You can hit us all over the season of Some Love Podcasts dot Com with the truth is it? Hey, Hey, Hey, this is dog kind of Mike Mike asks Naomi Bridging the YAP podcast. Come check us out every week and remember I'm no relationship at spirt. I just tell her like I hear from McKinley, get back at hey. Hey, my beautiful people, this is your girl, your host not here other season and self Love and I just want to take a quick moment to share some exciting resources from our series that Act, the Balancing Like are you ready to bring more heart many into your life? Where we have a free mini. E book just for you, five simple ways to set your intentions for a hormount of life. It's perfect for helping you to align your goals with your values. And if you're ready to go a deeper. Dive, check out our one hundred and two page e book slash workbook Balancing Act, a guide to harmonizing your life, loaded with strategies and exercises. Plus, don't miss our twenty one day challenge of living life and Balance. Head over to our website right now and grab you a free mini ebook and start your journey towards a balanced life today. All right, well, welcome back to the season the Cephalo Podcast. I am your host, Famiie Banks, and I am here with mister Mike Finck. Hey Mike, Well, welcome back. I'm super excited to be back. Yes, so this time I think we missed the last time. This time, let's do this. I do this on every show as I want to do a nice little quick sixty second guided meditation before we get in hand because. I know you are talker and you're like yes, and I love it, and I want to make sure I got my pin in. My paper ready, my purpose pin and my purpose paper ready for everything that you have to give today. All right, So, my listeners, right now, you know how we do it. Before we get into the top. Of your hand. Let's just take a moment, just for a nice guid in meditation, all right, All right, wherever you are, if it's safe to do so, I invite you to close your eyes. Ll just simply soften your case, take a deep breath in and I'll slowly excel. All right, Let's do this again. Take a deep breath then, filling your lungs with hair. Now exhale, letting go of any tension or stress. Now as you continue to breathe, I want you to imagine your life as a balance skill. On one side you have your emotions, your heart, and on the other side you have your rational thoughts in your mind. Both are important and both play a role and the decisions that you make. Now in this moment, I want you to visualize your heart in your mind coming into balance. With each breath. I want you to feel yourself becoming more center and more grounded, more in tune with both your emotions and your logic. Now I want you to inhale balance and exhale tension. One more deep breath. Then. Excel out and when you are ready, gently open your eyes and bring your awareness back to the space. Thank you, beautiful people, Thank you again for just joining me in this time. And if you knew here to the Season and Self Love podcast. This is something that we do every day Monday through Friday, as we help guide ourselves before ground ourselves before. We get into the top of your hand. And again we have Mike think Mike Fink is not only a brilliant artist, a coat and a personal development expert who helps people to navigate life challenges by making clear and balance decisions. And again we've had him here before, Yes, and we kind of got up in the topic and we couldn't get it all the way because it was so much to learn, so much to learn. Again, welcome back, Mike, Thank. You so much, Leaomi. So we have plenty of things to discuss for part number two. Yeah, part number two all right, So. Let's talk about why balance is so important in decision making. You know, often we think of balance, and we think of work balance or manage our time, but there's so much more to it. And could you tell us why is balanced so crucial when it comes to making personal decisions? You know, that's a great question, and I think it also depends on how you define balance, right, So I'm going to give you two angles on that one. The first one is that balance means or can mean, that you make a decision that you feel good about on all levels, right, Because sometiimes we know that we need to make a decision, but we know it logically, and we have all this emotional resistance, right, and maybe all our friends around ourselves. But Naomi and Mike, why don't you do it? It's so obvious to other people. We may even give with them logically, but we have this emotional resistance or this intuition or knowing voice that says, you know what, I'm not sure. And when you find yourself out of balance between your head, your heart, and your gut, well, this is when you are stuck in decision, in the status quo. And if somehow you manage or you're being pushed to make a decision, you will always be in second guessing and fear of regret because you're out of balance. Makes yes, yes, it does, you know, because the thing is that many of us struggle with that, with that tug of war between you know. The thing is is I am a liberal and so I am the scale. And one of the things that they say about ourly resigns that we are very indecisible. I don't agree with that totally. But I understand, so we see and understand exactly what I mean. And I love the way that you say about the logical. We are more emotional than we are logical. So how do we begin to balance these two sides when making those decisions? That's that's another great question. So let me do a quick recap for your listeners in case that are listening to this episode. We have without having listened to the first episode. So basically, the thing is that we make so many life decisions. I think there was a study that showed that on food alone, we are making two hundred and twenty seven decisions decisions per day. But most of those decisions are actually put salt on my eggs or not right. But we're used to making decisions what am I going to work today? Which you know route am I going to take to get to work or whatever that is. And we think that we are good at decision making, and for the most part, we are because those are small decisions, right. The reality, though, is that there are a few decisions in life that have to do maybe with relationships. You know, I know you're talking is like part of the seasons of self love about betrayal. If you have been betrayed, then what do you do about your relationship? You keep on staying, you try to heal it, do you try to fix it? Or do you move on? But there are also other decisions I have to do, maybe with your work, with your career. Maybe you are unhappy in your current job and you hate it, but you are so afraid that if you quit it, maybe you will lose your benefits or you know what the future holds, or what if you cannot make it and so on, Or maybe you are afraid of moving to a different city or state or starting in your relationship. And those decisions are really decisions that have an overwhelming or disproportionate effect in our lives because once we make then they affect us for the long term and on many many fronts, and they can also affect other people around us and so on, and quite often those decisions are quite complex, meaning there's a lot of things to consider, and they are also very high cost of failure. So last time, and I'm going to describe for you all your listeners. I have here like a brain mock up, and basically we don't have just one brain. We have three brains. And people who are listening can think about the brain as an ice cream gone that has three scoops on top of it. And the first scoop is the primal brain, the old brain, the emotional brain, the primal brain. Have you heard those term before, yes, So I'm going to get back to this one because this part of the brain is in charge of our survival. Then we have the emotional brain, well, it's in charge of our emotions. And then finally we have the real brain on top of it, which is the part that is in charge of logic, of reasoning, of language. And quite often we are cutting those situations where we don't know what to do. So we have two problems. The first one is we don't have clarity because even logically we're not sure what to do. But then there's a second problem, which is even if we were to get clarity, then how do we find that balance that we're talking about at the beginning between our head, are heart and our guts? Right? You know, I specialized in healthing women considering divorce make the right decision in thirty days or less. And I cannot count the number of women who tell me, you know, my therapist thinks I should divorce, but my marriage councilor thinks I should divorce. But and the butt comes from the fact that they may agree logically, but there is not there's no balance between the heart and the god. So in the last episode I shared you know some things that you can do, and the first thing that you can do to get clarity, because clarity is the thing that will lead you to certainty, is to first of all, find out all the pieces of the puzzle right, because you cannot solve the puzzle if you don't have all the pieces right exactly. Step number two was really about once you understand what is important to you, and by all the pieces of the puzzle in terms of the personal relationship, I meant what is important to you in your ideal relationship, what is important to you and your ideal mate in your ideal spouse, and most people have a number of things such as you know, maybe they want somebody who is good looking or affectionate, or a good communicator or a good listener, or who likes to travel, who likes hard rock music, or who writes classical music. I mean, it is so subjective. Every single person has a set of things that is important to them and for most people, as far as the relationship is concerned, is twenty to thirty things, which may sound like a lot. But if that's the case, that means that you are not considering all the necessary pieces. Because really, when you sit down and take the time to write down and think that's the number that that you know it is true for most people. So you need to gather all the pieces of the puzzle. The second step, though, was once you have this beginning of clarity because you know what's important to you, is like, okay, now that I know what's important to you. And by the way, this could be true for a job. What is important to meet my job? Is it commute time? Is it distance? Is it salary? Is it growth opportunities? Is it teamwork? Is it time? Flexibility? This is true also for high bring an employee. What you want the employee do they need to have initiativele that they need to follow procedures or and so on. It's thrue for buying a house. So this finding balance for decisions supplies across so many life areas. But it is important to understand what is relevant and valuable to you, but also in which order, because otherwise most people are cut into the pros and cons. Talked about betrayal, and I had this client. Her name was Felicia. Her husband had betrayed her several times, even though he had been into you know, some sex edition support groups supposedly, but even after that, he had betrayed her and she was devastated. But he was such an amazing death and going between the well on one side, he cheated on me, but he's an amazing that being bound, it was this endless loop between the pros and cons. So that's why you need to have all the pieces of the puzzle. But then the next step was to really understand what is more important versus less important, because otherwise you don't know you know where to go first. Once you have this ranking of what's more important versus as important, and it's not that easy to do, but it is necessary, especially when you have so many variables twenty to thirty. The next thing is to understand what is essential versus optional, because otherwise you don't know what you can and cannot compromise on. You know, first of all, does that make sense so far out of me? It might? Yes, it does? It does? It does? It is? So this distinction between essential and optional me is not obvious when you hear it, and yet so many people ignore it. And that's one of the reasons why doing marriage counseling quite often is putting the card, sorry, the card before the horse, because if you don't know what you can compromise on, then you don't know what to work on specifically, and maybe you will go you'll work on some things that your spouse is willing to make efforts on, and then you find yourself in the worst situation than before because now they have taken the time, they have put in effort, they have made changes. But if they didn't make those changes on the real neial movers, you're still unhappy. But now you have the added guilta of wow, he made those changes, he made efforts, and if I still feel like letting go it's worse. So if you need to understand what is central versus optional, and you know this is where we left it last time, I'm going to give you also another quick story about this client that I had, Stacy. Her husband was super messy. He always left the dishes in the sink and the laundry on the floor, and she kept nagging him because she was unhappy in the relationship and the most obvious shoes in terms of why she wasn't happy was around her in her environment. He's messy, he did things around and she kept nagging him. But when she finally understood not only all the things that were important to her, but what was more important versus as important, what was essential versus of it turned out that having a tidy husband was value number twenty one out of twenty two. It was not only optionally, it was the second last. And that was a huge moment for her because she realized, Okay, you know, I've been spending so much time, effort, and aggravation on something that didn't matter that much. I can take care of the house. And then she was able to identify the real points of leverage to make her relationship work, and in her specific case, she was able to save the relationship. So this is a quick summary of where we talked last time in terms of how to really get clarity and also certainty, because once you know, okay, all the things that are important to you in what order are importance, what's essential versus optional, then you can determine, well, does my spouse or does this job offer, or does this house or whatever option considering how does it work? We got to the essential ones and you can start looking, well, are most of my essentials fulfilled? If so, what about the top five? Are they fulfilled or not? And I remember this client she had been in a relationship. Overall, her husband fulfilled seventy percent of the things that were important to her. But it's not how many things are being fulfilled, it's which ones. And when she went through that process, she realized that, yes, he fulfills almost, not almost all, but seventy percent, but really it's a lot of the optional ones and four out of the top five are missing. So when she realized that, it was like, oh my gosh, you know it's never going to work, and now I know why. So that's when you have logical clarity. But let me go back to the brain, because this is about the balance that we talked about at the beginning of the call. Once you get the logical clarity with your rational brain in terms of now I know all those things, what's essential, exceptional, and so on, it's not enough because you need to communicate this certainty to the other parts of your brain. Because let's go back to directing in part of your brain, the old brain that's the one in charge of your survival. And whenever you have a decision to make where it getting it wrong could be so costly, your brain says, hey, hold your horses went in doubt, wait it out, because as long as you don't make a decision, you cannot be blamed for anything. But if you make a decision, first of all, in general in life and you are making significant changes, it gets worse before it gets better, right, I mean, think about renovating a bathroom. First you have to do what Terry Diamond create dust. It gets messy before you can rebuild it and create something better. So you know that it's gonna get worse before it gets better. Possibly, so if you don't have the certainty it's gonna get better, your old brain says, hey, hold your horses. No no, no, no no, even though right now it sucks. But the devil that you know is better than the devil that you don't. So you need to address this part of your brain because it's the gatekeeper of the decision. Now, that part of your brain was formed five hundred million years ago. The emotional part of your brain, the one on top of it, the second scoop of ice cream, was formed two hundred million years ago. And the rational brain, the one in charge of logic, of reasoning of language, was formed two to three million years ago. And I'm mentioning this not just because I'm giving you a piece of trivia so you can we're in a trivial pursuit, but because what it means is that your primal brain and emotional rain were formed before we developed language as human beings. Now, listen to this. It's huge because it means that your primal brain and emotional and brain onlomy do not understand words. Let me repeat that they do not understand language. They do not understand words. And how do most people try to get to a decision, Whether it's with therapy, whether it's with marriage counsel, and whether it's talking with their friends. What is it they talk right, They use words, So that's why they don't find the balance between the logic and the heart and the God. So the next step is, if that is true, then how can we communicate with the parts of our brain who are in charge of our decision so we can get them on board and find the balance that we want between our head, our heart, and our gout. Rather than me giving you the answer I'm going to find, I'm going to help you find the answer, Naomi, as well as your listener. So let me guide you through a thought experiment. I know you have a daughter, she's twelve years old, and I would assume that if you were to find out that your daughter was being physically abused at school, physically you bullied by another children, another child at school, you would be upset. Correct. Yes, Okay, Now let's take this and I'm going to present you that same exact piece of information, but I'm going to use four different ways to give you that information. So way number one, a person comes to you and says, you know what they just tell you, Naomi, your twelve year old daughter is being bullied at school. You would be upset. Correct? Yes, Now, let's try a different way. A person comes and tells you that your twelve year old daughter is being bullied at school. But this time, you know what the other child who is physically abusing your daughter looks like. I know what the other child looks like. You say, I know what the other child looks like. When you know what the other child looks like, are you less upset, equally upset or more upset? Oh, I'm still upset? Is is it any more or less? I'm just upset? Okay, you're set, But for you it's just just not just as upset. Interesting. Let me give it a third scenario. A person comes, They don't tell you anything, but they show you pictures that they have taken of your daughter being physically bullied by this other child. Now, in terms of upset, are you just as upset, equally upset, or more upset when it's those pictures, I'll tasted? Okay, so apposed to mean that's a different level, And let's try worth the way you go, You drive to school like you probably gotta do this afternoon, You get up the car and you witness you see it with your own eyes, your daughter being physically bullied by another child. How upset. Are you less equally or even more? Even more? But but this is the thing I'm trying to figure out. Why did I wait four times to hear it before I didn't go in there and do something that is where I'm man like the first time I wouldn't have been four times. I get it. I get it, and that's that makes sense. I love your sense of humor. So okay, now here's the question though, because I gave you the exact same piece of information. It was the same thing your daughter is being bullied at school, but there was somehow you know, you're upset, upset and you're pissed, and then you're like really upset. There was increase in the level of emotion that you were perceiving. It was the same exact piece of information. The difference between just a person telling you person telling you and knowing what the other child looked like seeing pictures and witnessing with your own eyes, what was your ability to visualize to see? So that means that your primal brain, your old brain, and your emotional brains, they don't understand words. What they do understand is images. You feel it when you see it. And last time I was teasing. I was saying, I'm going to answer today the question why when you see a movie. When you watch a movie where you already know logically that it has a happy ending, but yet during the movie, when you see all the struggles and the fights, you're you're still feeling anxious, right, and yet logically you know it. And that's the answer. So I have those two metaphors. You know, for women, I talk about the notebook. You know that Noah and Ali will get together and live happily ever after, But until that point, you see the struggles and you and you and you have all those negative emotions. Why because even though you know it logically with the rational part of your brain, your emotional brain, your crimeal brain, don't feel it until they see it, you know. The other example for guys is if you watch Rocky the movie and you see you know that he's going to win in the end, but when he's being pummeled at the beginning of the movie by Ivan Dragon, he's bleeding, you feel bad. You feel it when you see it. So this is the way to communicate. Once you have certainty, you need to use a visual language to communicate that to the other parts of your brain to have balance. Does that make sense so far? Yes, it does, it does. It makes sense. It makes sense. Okay, Now it sounds obvious when I say it, and yet nobody talks about it. You know, when we go to therapy, it's all talk therapy. When we go to mergicans, we keep on talking because yes, we have that ability to be rational, but we also have those more primitive parts of the brain. Now, there's another thing that I want to point out in terms of the power of visual which is I mentioned a bit earlier that whenever you are considering all the pieces of the puzzle, you need to consider between twenty to thirty variables. And there's another advantage of using the visual language to make an assessment of your entire relationship or of your options, whether it's quitting your job or finding a new job, or buying the house or whatever that is. And I'm going to lead you again through another thought experiment. So let's imagine that I take you to a cocktail party. There's lots of people, and before getting inside a room, you know that there are other people at the center of the room having an animated conversation. They talk to one another. But before getting too that room, I blindfold you, and I say, you know, Noomi, I'm going to take you blindfolded. You can only hear what's going on, and I'm going to take you to the center of the room, and you're going to have to tell me to quote unquote, try to guess or tell me, to the best of your ability, how many people exactly are in the center of the room having a conversation. So if you are blindfolded, being only able to listen all the people, you know, talking back and forth and maybe moving inside of the center of the room, how long do you think it would take you to come up with a non string terms of how many people exactly are speaking in the center of the room. There's at least five, between five and. Ten, between five and ten, you know. Walking in, First of all, I have to remove certain walls that I have up. Let's let's get that straight with the blind folt walking in. But now I have to listen. Now, I truly have to focus on listening, listening, and I have a thing of feeling of that I can feel, you know, people as well, So as I'm sitting, as I'm standing in the middle of the room, and just witnessing and witnessing through my ears. So this is where I have to tap in more into. That than that my visual. So now I'm strengthening this sense rather than this sense. Yeah, and how long do you think by using just your ears, how long do you think you would take you to get to come to a good estimate of how many people are talking in the room? Well? Oh, my god, about ten or fifteen minutes? It would take minutes, right, yeah, it's ten or fifteen, but for sure minutes, we agree on that. And how certain would do you be of your answer? Would you be one hundred percent certain? Or would there be some room for error? Ill? It will be some room for error. Absolutely. Okay, So let's try a different scenario. Now, I take you. Let's we go back. You're outside of the room. You know that it's a cockail party. You know that there are a number of people talking inside in the center of the room between five and ten. This time, I put your plugs in your ear so you cannot hear anything that you have your eyes open. I take you inside the room. How long does it take you to know exactly how many people are in the center of the room? As soon as I walk in the door right. Seconds, right, I mean even if he's one, two, three, four. But how certain are you are your. Answer, I'm very certain lest they had under the table, You're very certain. And you do this in seconds. So this is another advantage of using visual communication. So the reason this is relevant is because in the process for decision making that I have developed that I call the decoding grid, you take all the logical information that we have talked about earlier, in terms of all the pieces of the puzzle, the twenty two to thirty things that are important do you you rank them, you distinguish between what's the session, what's upstional. But then you use that as a visual map to assess your spouse, or to assess your job, or to assess a house. And you start you know, you may have the twenty two thirty things listed, and you have a color contrast between the essential versus the optional, so you have like a darker yellow background for the essentials, and you know that this is the area where you should focus your effort because the optional, by definition is it's optional, right, right, And then you start assessing each value at a time. You know, for example, if one of the things is I want somebody who's physically affectionate. Is my spouse physically affectionate. If it's a yes, you put a green mark. If it's a kind of it's a blue mark. If it's a no, it's a red mark. And you go like that, value by value, and suddenly you have this visual map where you can immediately understand and assess a lot of variables at once. Right, because you can as a part a visual it can consider many variables at once, and immediately you get a sense of your relationship. Is it more in the red zone or is it more in the blue zone or the green zone? Right? You have this sense where you not only understand it logically, but also emotion on a god level, like, wow, now I can see why even though my partner has a lot of things going on for them, you know it's not working because most of the green is in the optional that there's a lot of red in the essential. You can see this as a glance and you feel it and it makes sense. You have this balance between your head, your heart, and your God. So this is really relevant because I remember working with his client her name, well it's obvious and protecting her privacy, so I'm going to say that her name was Kim, but she had been married for twenty five years, and she had been struggling with the decision whether to divorce or not for many many years, but more intensely for the previous three years because she had had an affair. She had met another man. Now I didn't judge her. You know my father that we always make the best possible choices when we make them. Otherwise we make different choices. So she had made possible choice, and she was in the situation where she had met this other man who had left his wife was waiting for Kim to divorce her husband. But she didn't want necessarily to divorce her husband. She wasn't sure. Maybe she could save the relationship. Her son was growing up. He knew about the affair, but he was asking Kim to make a decision because he couldn't take line to his dad anymore. So she was in this possible situation for three years, and she just knew that whatever decision she would make, she hurt people, either her husband or this the men. And she was completely lost. So I help her understand or gather all the pieces of the puzzle, determine what was more important versus as important, distinguish what was essential versus optional, and then we created this visual man and when she had a look at it, it turned out that there were twenty six things that were important to her in her ideal partner and fourteen that were essential. But when she as when she assessed her husband, out of fourteen things, well, ten were not being fulfilled. Ten hour of fourteen essential values were not being fulfilled. And when she saw that, she really understood why she had been so unhappy with her husband and why she would never be able to fix the relationship because asking your husband to change significantly on ten fronts, he would die what I call a personality transplant. Right. And there was such a huge relieve for her because she was able to assess and make a decision about her marriage based only on the merits of her marriage, not on the fact that she had met another person. Right. That makes sense, yeah, time, Yeah, So when she saw that, it was like really an eye opener. And then the next logical question was, Okay, now we know that your husband is not a good match. And it wasn't that he was a bad person, he was simply not a good fit. The next logical question is well, what about this other guy? Is see a good fit or not? And when we assessed it visually, it turned that all all the essentials and all the options, I think there was only one which was in the option where they were all green except for one he was a near perfect match. And then we put those two side by side, and when she saw it, it was like a slap in the face. It was so obvious to her when she saw it visually, like a lot of right in here and all green in here. Is like, yeah, it's obvious. Now I know. I feel so much better in this other relationship and why my relationship with that heart will never work. But she couldn't come to that conclusion beforehand because there was no balance between her head, her heart, and her gut. But by aligning the logic, meaning using logical tools for certainty, law and clarity, and then presenting that information in a visual way that all parts of her brain could understand, then she had that balance. And you know, she had always been afraid of confrontation. But she took one week to kind of digest all the answers, and one week later she talked to her husband. She was calm, she was composed, She explained gently to him that she had realized that relationship would never work. He was very distraught. He would try to suaite her, but because she knew that the relationship could never work, she was able to avoid them trying to save the relationship and spending more time, more effort, more energy on something that would maybe have given him false hopes, only to be crushed later. And she just left him and went to live with the other with the other men to they after. So that's the power of how balanced in your personal decisions. So I know I've talked a lot. No mean, I've shared a lot. But does that make sense? No? It does? It? Does it? It makes total sense. I guess as you were talking, I was saying because you said and she it was a lot of green that the other man had. And then there was this, you know, maybe a few of one red and that red. Was that red optional or was that red essential? There was so much dread even most of the optionals were red. But the most important part was like ten out of fourteen essentials were red. There are only four things that were important to her that were being fulfilled. Now was top one and top two? Which is the new man not the husband, sorry for the new man. She was green all of it, and I think it was like one optional that was not fulfilled, and it actually wasn't, not even not a fulfilled. She said, I need more information because she hadn't lived with him fully right, So he was a green and all fronts and there was an orange, which orange means like, I need to find out more information before I can make a definite assessment. Does that answer a question? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, And you know you think, well, isn't that obvious way, it's a perfect match, And yet it isn't because we are when we don't know how to make sense of our emotions, of our thinking, we cannot explain what we feel. It's all jumbled like the rubicube. You know. Yes, we have all the pieces within ourselves, but when they're jumbled, they're completely out of sequence. You need to put them in the proper sequence to make sense of them. And also another question that may come up as well, was it to wish well thinking on her part that this other man was all green? And the answer is no, because the way you gather all the pieces of the puzzle is completely detached from any relationship. You just think about your ideal spouse partner in a way that's detached. You define precisely whether how to know when value is being fulfilled or not, so that then you can come back and get to the truth the matter in a detached way. So it was truly a great match for her, and she wasn't able to understand that until she saw that with you know, she understood it and she saw it with her eyes, so that there was this balance between head, heart and gout, you know, logic, emotions and intuition. Okay, all right. This is I want to do this really really fast. Yes, I'm gonna pause and then I'm gonna come right back. Just pause for a moment on this one, really quick. Yes, all right, Mike. So I love everything that you were just saying. And I know you talked a lot about essential irrational. You talked a lot about that, and you even you know, talked about the emotional part. But one thing is that I know a lot of us and I know a lot of our. Listeners, is that we tend to make decisions based off emotional as you just with your last client that you just spoke about that you truly had to like break it down for her with the essentials and the optional. So explain some audience, how that essential and optional? How does that compare to emotional interrational? So it's a good question, and you know, in a way, yes, we tend to make decisions on So I'm going to answer your first point based on emotions. At the same time, though, there are some specific situations where we may feel some emotions, but because we cannot explain them logically, we tend to shut them under the rug. And then you know, we make a decision because we think it's the logical thing to do. And I'm saying this because there are a number of women that told me I knew before my wedding that there was something off, but I couldn't explain it. And that means that they didn't pay attention to their emotions. Their emotions were all over the place, but they just went logically thinking, oh, you know, it's gonna just be fined later. Why because they couldn't explain it. And since calling off a wedding is such a big decision with such a high cost, unless you certainty you you you know you both made that lightly. So yes, in general, if it's maybe buying a pair of shoes or or some other item that we like. You know, the emotions can come and drive our decision. But for those kinds of big decisions that are that are very cost if we get it wrong quite often, it's you need to have really this balance between the logical and the emotional. So now your question about the essential versus the oational and rational versus emotional. In a way, they are two separate things, meaning that understanding what is essential versus optional gives you a logical understanding of how to make a good decision. If you see that this person fulfills all my optionals, but I really don't care much about those and none of my essentials. Well, logically, now you can make sense of why you have had these conflicted emotions and why you'd be better off going forward with with leaving because it's never going to work. But at the same time, it also helps you understand and makes sense of your emotions. Yes, you know, if that person had been a monster, it had been like read everywhere, even though I will say I work with some women where it's read everywhere, But because they cannot explain it logically, they're still stock because they're still afraid of making a bad decision. But usually being able to articulate. Ah, now I get it. You know, there were some moments that were good because those things were fulfilled, but at the end of the day, they're not the most important ones. So knowing that the essential ones are missing, it enables me to make a decision that I understand logically, and that now also makes sense to me emotionally when I see it, when I see that the essential area is read versus the optional area. Right, Does that answer your question? Yeah? A little, a little, because I guess I want to go. I guess I'm messing where the emotional is at, the emotional aspect of it. Does that make sense? So tell me more and then I'll give you an answer. When you say essential and when you say what is essential and optional? Right? And So I wanted a comparison to essential. And optional versus emotional and rational And as you said about a lot of times, is that you try to make sense to make it rational, you know for it. So compare that with optional, Compare that with essential. So what we have essential things that we need that will make our relationship work to go? Would that be irrational? So it's the optional be the emotional aspect of that and how do we balance that? Okay, so it's a different way of looking at it. You have some things that are essential to you and you want to understand them rationally and emotionally. Okay, there you go there, And you have. Things that are optional to you want to understand them rationally and emotionally. All right, you want you know rationally and emotionally is the way you understand things. And central versus optionals is the aria is where you want to get that understanding. Because answer your. Question, yes it does, yes, yes, yes it does, Yes it does. Good Yes is such a good question. Yeah, yes it does. Yes, yes it does, it does, it does. And I guess the. Whole thing is just truly helping people, not only women but men too, just to find a balance in life. And that's finding their clarity and knowing what their balance is, you know, using your tools and what you have. I think even amazing that when you talk about your clients, when you talk about your different and I remember Stacy from the last time, Stacy from the last time with that with the husband and you know, in the dirtiness and stuff like that, but the one that you share today with the lady that been married for twenty something years, and I'm gonna tell you, as you were speaking emotionally, I was connecting with her story because I heard you say that her son was the one who was giving her the option was given tell you you need to make a decision on my And I'm like, wait, what the son is? You understand what I'm saying. So I guess it's like, at what point for the woman? And I'm trying not to be. Judging at all, but I guess this is where you go into where you're searching for your self love, where you were opt to have your son life for you for three years and not have the courage to say, Okay, let me set my butt down and figure out what is going on with me because I'm bringing too many different pieces into this puzzle that is unwarranted. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it will say something on me. It's not that she didn't want to get an answer. She desperately wanted to get an answer. She had been looking for an answer for three years. It wasn't like, oh, you know, I realized I am having so many people involved in the situation doesn't work, including my son or the other. She realized that it was not. There was a terrible situation on many fronts, but she didn't have the tools to come to a clear answer because she could have flipped the coin at the end of the day. Instead, I'm going to just go with the coin. But you have never been satisfied with that. And she would have suffered because since her decision would make other people suffer no matter what, if she didn't understand why she made the decision in a way that she would feel at peace, she would always have regrets. So she simply didn't have the tools. And quite often when we don't know what to do and there's a lot of pain involved, it's a human thing. It's you know again, the primal brain is the fight or flight response, but there's also the freeze response. Yeah, and we go into avoidance mode because we think, you know what, I think about it Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I'll think of all thinking about It's not that we don't mean it, it's just that we're so afraid. And if you don't have the tools, we keep spinning our wheels indefinitely. Thank you, thank you for that. I had to give you that. I had to give you that because we are very emotional creatures. So definitely when you were saying, I said, you know, I know they were going to be listeners and realize she was just being stuff. She was just being stingy, she was just being. That, and I wanted you to kind of break it down like that so they can see it in that term and that you know, for that. So again, Mike, thank you. It's it's always good with you. You know, it is you you Yeah, really seriously, Yeah, it is again, Mike, thank you so much for just sharing your wisdom with us today. If there are any last words that you have for our listeners, where can they find you at? Again, if this is the first time listening you know to you here today, please share that with our audience. So I always say, if you want to get absolute clarity, go to get Absolute clarity dot com. A's the three words get absolute clarity dot com. There you will find more about what I do. You'll find my book because I've written a book about It's called The Divorce Decision Decoded. I'm on a live mission to share this process with the world. It will open your eyes. And also, you know, some people are able to do something with a book, but a lot of people may not be able to finish the book or have the wherewithal to put in an application. So this is where you can find have some additional resources, or even decide to look more into how you can work with me. But whatever you do, do not stay in the status. Go, do not stay stuck. Look for an answer. I think I have a great tool. But even if you look for other tools, please you need to do something because if you are under the illusion like oh yeah, you know, I'll find a way to make a decision by myself. If you could have you have already done it. So it means you need some additional tool, you need some extra help, you need something, so go and get it. One way you can do that is get absolute clarity dot com. Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you again, Mike, Thank you again for just sharing your wisdom and with us today. And I know my listeners are. Walking away with some incredible tools for finding balance and making empowered decisions. To all of you that are listening, I encourage you to start implementing the personal balance framework that Mike mentioned to Also, you take some time to identify your core values and see how they can help guide your decision. And remember it's okay to take a step back and pause when life feels so overwhelming and balance your journey. Balance is a journey and it is not a destination. It is not again. If you want to learn more about Mike's work, be sure to check out his book, Divorce Decisions Decoded and visit his website get Absolute clarity dot com. It's full of resources to help you to make clear, confident decisions in every area of your life. And also, again, my beautiful people here at the Season and Self I hope that you found that today's discussion has been so helpful for you that you are feeling more confident in your ability to balance both your emotions and your rational thoughts. Would make an important positions So the next time, we will be diving more and deeper into the active balances in this series this month, So be sure to join us and remember practice self love, take it one step at a time, and keep balancing all beautiful parts of your life. Don't forget to rate, subscribe, review us on this podcast, share it, take care, have a good one. I thank you for joining us on this journey of discovering and empowerment here at the Season and Self Love Podcast. Remember embracing self love is a continuous journey and we're so glad to have you with us. So if you enjoy today's episode, please leave us a review and don't forget to join our community on Facebook self Love connect with like minded individuals who are also on their self love journey. Now, if you have any questions or topics that you'd like for us to explore, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at Seasonosseelflove at gmail dot com and let your voice be heard. So until the next time, take a moment for yourself today and remember you are worthy of love, joy, and all the beautiful things that life has to offer. A goo