EP5 Are you compromising or settling?

If there’s a voice inside you that questions your happiness, listen to it.

My hairstylist is everything. I mean, everything he says about hair is pretty much gospel and he’s never done my hair wrong. I met him 20 years ago and instantly fell in love. I can sit in his chair, take a deep breath and he just knows. He gets my hair, me, my vibe… he’s so gifted, incredibly talented and always always always delivers. When I was younger, I was at his salon every couple of months… you know, keepin’ up with that young-and-free lifestyle. I got older, got married, we moved, had kids, then moved again and I lost touch. I went to several different stylists during that time, all for various reasons – one was budget-friendly; one offered me the high-end glam experience that I needed at the time; and the other was in the middle of those, but close to my office. They were all great for various reasons, but after those seasons changed, I stayed with one simply because it was convenient – it was close-by, inexpensive and I liked the stylist as a person. I wasn’t in-love with the haircuts or the experience, but I stayed because it was easy.

Isn’t it strange how things eventually click? I remember that first hair appointment back with my guy – it was everything I remembered it to be. I wasn’t worried at all about my hair, we talked and laughed and caught all the way up, and I just kept thinking how good it felt to be back in his chair and I knew I made a rockstar choice coming back to him.

It took me forever to finally make that appointment with him, though. I felt so bad when I would think about leaving my stylist at the time… it felt disloyal to leave. And mean. Hurtful, even. But I wasn’t excited when I’d make the appointments and wasn’t happy with the results, either. The voice inside was –and had been-questioning my happiness… or my choice to stay, rather. But, like we do, I ignored it.

There’s a difference between settling and compromising.  A compromise is making a choice to accept something in order to achieve a positive outcome. It’s accepting less of one thing in return for more of another. Settling is making do with less while also neglecting yourself and/or your needs. When you settle, your happiness is at stake.

I think it’s funny how life teaches me things. I’m a deep-thinker, but I have a major thing for the vainer things in life like stylish clothes, good hair, spray tans and collagen. It’s like the voice inside was teaching me this lesson where it knew I would listen.

When my husband and I moved, we were also planning to start a family, so all the extra pennies went into savings. At that time, I compromised my stylist in order to save money. After my husband graduated grad school, I went into major self-care mode and moved to a big, swanky salon downtown. I compromised the extra money in order to take care of myself. In both of these situations, my needs were being met and I consciously made the choice to compromise. They were healthy choices and my happiness wasn’t at stake. In fact, I felt good about both decisions.

We settle for less than we deserve because of self-esteem issues or insecurities—and sometimes, we don’t even realize we’re settling. We settle because it’s comfortable and easy. We settle because we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or make anyone mad. We want peace so we don’t speak up, but not speaking up actually causes the opposite. Settling, or not speaking up when you need to, because you want to keep the peace, will only make you and everyone else around you suffer. If you want peace, you have to speak up. You have to get messy. You have to do the work. It’s kinda like how you feel after you clean your house or make your bed or mow the lawn – nobody wants to do those things, but we do them and by doing them we create peaceful energy in our home. We do the work in order to have peace.

Do you get into not-great relationship after not-great relationship? Perhaps you’d rather be with someone—anyone—rather than be on your own. Are you jealous of successful people? Think about your irritation or negativity toward successful people. If you’re pursuing life with everything you’ve got, if you’re in alignment with who you are, you’ll be excited to celebrate the success of others.

There came a certain point with my hair appointments where I just found my guy and made the appointment. I’d wrestled long enough and was tired of my hair and I finally got to a place where I was ready to do the right thing. I know this seems like a small thing to talk about, especially with the current state of the world, but the ripple effect of standing up for what you want and what you deserve, choosing to not settle is still powerful…. And one thing we can control right now. I stood up for myself and what was important to me and acknowledged that I really wanted a good haircut and a good experience and made the choice to move toward those things. Shortly after I made the appointment, I felt peaceful and good and that feedback in my body let me know I made the right choice.

I thought about how my stylist might feel if I left – what she would think of me, think of herself – and I made the choice that was best for me even if she felt those things. Sometimes this opportunity shows up in smaller things like hair appointments or choosing what you want for dinner on a date and sometimes they show up bigger, like in friendships or significant relationships and the more choices we make to not settle, the more space we get to take up in the world. And y’all - we deserve to take up space in the world. We’re supposed to take up space here.

Empaths have a special place in this world. I’m one and have had to learn and work really hard to create boundaries with other people and their feelings. Saying no is much easier to do today than it was five years ago, but carrying and holding other people’s feelings and burdens is still a part of my life. It’s the blessing and curse of being an empath, and standing up for ourselves in the face of other people’s emotions takes some getting used to. But like I’ve said before, the more we do the work, the easier the work becomes.

Making smaller choices to not settle raises us up to make the bigger ones. It gives us purpose. If you’ve been practicing not settling in the little things like hair cuts and shoes and dinners, then when it’s time to buy that house, or have that conversation or marry that person or even move to a different city—you’ll have the muscle memory required to make the right choice for you and/or your family.

By not listening to my want and need for an all-around amazing haircut, one that I know I deserve, I caused the part of my story that says “I’m not allowed to have what I want” to keep playing. I kept feeding it. The stories we tell ourselves keep us down or lift us up and they’re running and working whether we acknowledge them or not.

Tell yourself it’s ok to want more and then expect more. Decide what needs to be a healthy compromise and notice where you’re settling. Pay attention to your mind and your thoughts. We’re all really smart and if we stop and take a minute to listen to our inner voice he or she will lead us in the right direction. The more you listen and the more you trust her, the more she’ll talk. And we need her to talk.

Ask yourself some questions: is my life improving? Am I stagnant? Am I making progress toward my goals? Am I happy? Am I in a season of rest or am I settling? Or how’s the level of chaos around me? And by chaos I mean healthy chaos. People can get real vocal and chatty when we start standing up for ourselves, when we change our behavior, and especially when we set boundaries. If there’s noise around you, ask yourself if it’s healthy or unhealthy and make changes accordingly.

Just because people around you are chatty doesn’t mean we’re bad or wrong. It can make it harder to navigate and stay the course, but we’re never wrong when we stand up for ourselves. And remember the keeping the peace part? This is the work I’m talking about… it may not feel peaceful when you start making these choices and definitely not while you’re in the thick of it, but if you stay the course you’ll find your peace.

Ask yourself if this – whatever it is – is what you really want. Look around, be kind to yourself, release any judgement you have about your choice, and just notice what you see…

Sometimes we wallow and complain instead of going after what we want and what we need. We blame others, find excuses and continue this unfortunate dance (and some of us do this for years) that doesn’t serve us in any way. We stay small and live a terribly boring life. Have you been around someone like this? Do you like being around people who complain, make excuses for everything in their life and drain your energy or people who are authentic, alive, sometimes messy, but proactively working to live a good life?

Accepting our lives as they are and forgiving ourselves for settling are two powerful steps toward living the life you want and deserve. When we’re connected with ourselves, we get the gift of connecting with others. And like Brené Brown says, “We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.”

I settled for a lot of things in my life and for a really long time. I didn’t know I was settling and some of it was conditioning from my childhood, but I couldn’t change until I started listening and until I started noticing… I noticed my mood, my energy level, my place and satisfaction in life…

I used to watch other people—people I admired or people who had an energy and zest for life, people who were wildly successful and I’d watch what they did, how they behaved, how they interacted with the world and I’d quietly make notes in my heart and pray I’d be like them one day.

 I love this quote by Jim Carey:

“So many of us choose our paths in life out of fear disguised as practicality.”

So, stop settling and start living. Do you love your life or are you tolerating your life? Stop doing meaningless activities and pursuing material things. Change stylists, buy the better food, ask for that raise, wear your hair how YOU want to wear it and for the love of all things, wear that top you’ve been too afraid to wear, but you know you feel really good in.

Grab a-hold of your worth and engage life in a way that produces results. Pay attention to your inner voice and remember, you’re worthy because you’re alive. Your worthy because you have air in your lungs and a beautiful beating heart.

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