Conducting the Post-Mortem

This episode talks about what a relationship post-mortem is and how to successfully conduct one that will leave you better. 

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Transcript

0:15

Hey, my friends, I've talked on here about how I've started options trading again, and honestly, my friends, it is not going well. I can't seem to get the timings right, and I'm just really sucking at it right now. And something my options mentor said, struck me. She said, Do you know why your trades aren't going well? Something she says she does when things go wrong is she goes back and analyzes why it went wrong. What did she miss? And she said that this is what has made her the skillful trader that she is-- the ability to learn from the mistakes. I have not been doing that. I have no idea where I'm going wrong, but now I know I need to find out. I need to learn from my mistakes so I don't keep making them over and over again. This is a concept that I think is really valuable in the context of toxic relationship recovery as well. I think it is so important to do a post mortem on those toxic relationships. Not on the other person. We'll never know why someone abuses, and that's not something that is inside of our control. It's not something we can learn from or change. There's nothing you could ever do that would earn you abuse, but we have to be able to evaluate our own actions in that relationship. We might not be responsible for the abusive actions made by others, but we are responsible for our own actions in that relationship. We have to understand why we stayed in that relationship, why we overlooked the early red flags. We have to learn from that. When I did my own post mortem on my abusive marriage, I came to see the reasons that I stayed were very fear based. I didn't believe I had the ability to survive on my own. I didn't think anyone else would ever love me. When I overlooked the red flags early on, I did so because I didn't think I could get anyone better. I thought it was either this or be alone, and I was afraid of being alone. I thought being alone was the worst thing. I thought I was tainted from an earlier sexual assault and that maybe I didn't deserve better. I didn't value myself. I had very low self esteem. All of these things contributed to me staying in a relationship that ought not to have been stayed in. But when I go back and understand the why, I can learn where I went wrong. And this is not victim blaming, because I didn't deserve to be abused, nobody does. But in order to truly recover, you have to take responsibility for what you are responsible for and that is your own actions, your own beliefs. It is in taking responsibility for those that I was able to see and understand what I needed to change in myself. It let me learn from that relationship. Even the most painful of experiences can become an asset once you extract the lesson from them. And this was no different. It showed me what I needed to address within myself, both in order to heal from that relationship, but also to be sure I would never be in another relationship like that one again. Because if I can change the beliefs that I held that contributed to me staying in a bad relationship, if I no longer hold those beliefs, I won't stay in bad relationships anymore. That's why I'm not afraid of being in another abusive relationship, because I don't believe those things anymore that made me stay in one. I know being alone is not the worst thing. I know that I am absolutely capable of surviving and even thriving on my own, and I know that I am not difficult to love, and I can absolutely find someone different who will love me. You have to do your own post mortem. Find out what your reasons were, and then address those reasons. This is the work. This is the healing. I did this also when I got laid off a few years back. It was an incredibly traumatic experience, and I was terrified of losing my home because I was without income. And when I did the post-mortem on that experience, I found that I can't control if I am laid off or not. This is not something that I can necessarily prevent. It's not even about whether I deserve it or not. Sometimes companies cut back. I can't control that, but what I do have control over is how dependent I am on a job. It was at that time that I realized that the insecurity I felt wasn't the company that let me go's fault. It was mine for depending solely on that company. Now, I have several streams of income at all times because I never want to put myself in that position again. I learned from the experience. I turned that painful experience into an asset. Even the most painful experiences, sometimes especially the most painful experiences, have value that can be extracted from them. We can learn from them. I would strongly encourage you to do a post mortem on your toxic relationship. Come to really, truly understand why you stayed in that relationship, why you overlooked the things you did early on, why you made the excuses that you did, and learn from it. The driving whys behind those things will become your blueprint for healing. Your blueprint for healing, my friends, your exact personalized blueprint. The one caution that I think is extremely important here is that there is no learning where there is judgment. If you are judging yourself and being hard on yourself for not knowing then what you know now, you will not learn anything. Judgment and learning cannot coexist. The point of the post mortem isn't to blame or criticize yourself. And I would advise you to wait to conduct one until you can look at your actions and the reasons why without judgment, when you can go in with curiosity and a true desire to understand the why. Because in order for the postmortem to be successful, you will have honest with yourself. And it's really hard to be honest with yourself while you're judging yourself. It can be nearly impossible. You have to first forgive yourself for not knowing the lesson while you were learning it. Anything else is counterproductive. When you do, this is when you step out of being a victim. What happened in the past is not longer something that happened TO you, it becomes an experience, albeit painful, that you learned from. It puts you back in a position of power. This is what healing is. You can become a stronger version of yourself because of the lessons learned. I would never have chosen this path for myself. I would have never chosen this to be my journey. I don't believe any of us would. But it is my right to extract the value from every experience I have, including the painful ones. I believe every experience can turn into an asset once you extract and apply the lessons contained within them. And so this is what I would encourage you to do, my friends, get yourself to a place where you can look back without judgment and conduct that post mortem. Extract the value from those painful experiences, get your blueprint of what in you needs healing, and start healing that.This will set you free, my friends. And if you want help on any step of this, you can use the link in the show notes to book a session with me. All right, my friends, until next time be well.