Are You Sacrificing Your Goals for Your Relationship? This Is Why and What to Do About It.

If you've ever felt like you've lost yourself in your relationship or your marriage, you are not alone. Today I'm going to talk about the second major sign you've lost yourself in your marriage that you maybe haven't even recognized. Okay, we're going. Okay. Three, two, one. We're going foreign. I'm Rebecca Silence. Welcome to the healing is possible experience. I'm a national marriage and family specialist and this show is designed to take you on a journey back to you who doesn't want more internal alignment in a more fully expressed and fully joyful experience of love and of life. I haven't met anyone, but hardly anyone reaches that dream or exceeds it. And this show is here to help you not just meet your dream. And I am here to not just help you meet your dream, but to exceed your expectations of what life and love could be. I'm so grateful you're here. If you're here, please give us a like comment and let us know what your biggest takeaways are. And please go to The Rebecca Silence YouTube channel. Subscribe. Subscribe. Click the notification bell and share this episode and my channel with anyone you believe is needing support with finding themselves with experiencing more aliveness and alignment, especially when it comes to intimacy. So right now we're in a five part series, the five signs. You've lost yourself in your marriage. And you don't have to have watched them all. The first episode was about how do you know you've lost yourself? Number one, you've been focusing on pleasing everyone and anyone but yourself. And I take you through how to get your needs met, how to prioritize you actually being more pleased in love, in life, in marriage. And today what we're talking about is the second sign that you've lost yourself in your marriage, which is your goals are collecting dust. Now, how is that an indication you've lost yourself in your marriage? You're the one, and I say this with so much love and no judgment whatsoever, but you're the one that's back, Bernard. Your dreams, your goals, your priorities that take care of and honor and nurture and nourish you on a soul level. No one can take your dreams from you. Nobody can take your purpose from you. And what we learn and what we see and what we experience so often, especially in marriage, is what happened to who we were, the vibrant, flirty, fun, amazing version of ourselves that we were in the beginning of the relationship. Well, where'd that person go? Well, what if a lot of that vibrance, a lot of that fun, that flirtatious, contagious energy that was so magnetic and attractive to your spouse in the beginning, but also to you. See, in the beginning of our relationship, we like who we are in the relationship. And who we are that we like often is someone that's on a path, that's driven, that's ambitious. We have a vision for who we are and where we want our life to go. And we're unapologetically in the beginning owning that and communicating that. And then somewhere along the way, life has happened. Maybe there are kids, maybe you've just gotten caught up in the day to day grind. Maybe you're someone who's really been putting your energy into supporting your spouse and your partner's dreams and yours have just gotten back burnered. But what I want everyone to understand is the three reasons why we all of a sudden find ourselves in a place where our own goals are collecting dust in the marriage is because we stopped prioritizing our dreams. We stopped giving our goals the focus and the effort and the attention that we were giving those goals and dreams in the beginning of the marriage. I have a client I worked with a couple years ago who got married to an entrepreneur, gave up her career to support him in his mission and in his vision. She became housewife, she took care of the kids, nothing wrong with that. But when she came to me very frustrated that he's ready to file for divorce, she hasn't had a career in over a decade and she gave it all up for him, I had to lovingly challenge it was your choice, even if he asked for it. You made the decision to prioritize being a wife and a mother and to caretaking and nurturing the home and to putting your career on a shelf. There's nothing wrong with that. But let's get honest about what happened. No one has the power to steal your light, to steal your goals, to steal your passion, to steal your dreams. No one has that power. You're willing to engage with the possibility of not putting your energy and effort towards those things. If that's what's happening and what we talked about in the people pleasing episode is the fear that other people won't be able to take and honor the truth of where you're at, what nourishes you, what takes care of you, what honors you, your ability to respect yourself. You're the one saying, I don't know if you can handle it, therefore I'm going to dim it down. My ambition, my truth, my purpose, my vision, my goals, my dreams. If it's happening that your goals and dreams are no longer at the forefront carrying you as your focus, that's a non negotiable priority. I gotta just be honest with you, that's because of choices you're making. That's not because anyone is overpowering you or stealing from you, your ability to have these things. And I want us to be really aware if you've got people in your life that are saying you're too much. I've certainly had that in romances, in past marriages, even in relationships with former mentors, clients, anybody in the you're too much narrative, they're not the final say, they're not preaching gospel. That's not true unless you decide it is. And if someone's saying to you any form of you're too much is triggering, what do I know? You've got an insecurity that it's time to heal. They can't steal your light or your joy or your dreams, whoever they might be. It's you fearing that you fully owning that dream, that goal, that vision would somehow have a negative cost associated with it. That's why you're dimming it down. I don't want you dimming it down. I don't want you dumbing it down. I don't want you lessening your essence and the truth of who you are out of fear. The world or your partner wouldn't be able to handle it another second after this episode. I want us to look at. Wait a minute. I'm the one fueling my goals and dreams. I. I have the right to fuel my goals and dreams no matter what, 100% of the time. That's my only responsibility. Actually, if I want to be free and fulfilled in this lifetime and it's a decision. And when you're prioritizing your goals and dreams again, you're going to get a lot of information. You're going to get a lot of information about who's with you, who's on board, who's supportive, who's and who's not. But this doesn't mean anything's wrong with you. And this doesn't mean anything's wrong with your goal or with your dream. It's information. And there's not one bit of information you can't handle or that you can't navigate in leadership sourcing from knowing who you are in this season and knowing where your life is going next, AKA in the direction of your goals and dreams. No more playing it safe and playing it small and back burnering your dreams and expecting people to respect you and expecting fulfillment. It ain't gonna happen. So number one reason why we're back burnering our dreams is we're thinking that someone took it from us. That's a myth. That's not true. We had our priorities a little wonky because we wanted to nurture someone else's dreams and we wanted to be a quote unquote good partner, showing up well, doing it right at the expense of our dreams. Okay, if you just saw that, confetti, I am cracking up. I do not know what setting is on my computer. Earlier I was in a podcast interview and balloons just showed up. Now, confetti, I'm gonna have to check the settings, but yes, yes, I think God, the universe is just saying, no more blaming our lack of prioritizing and nurturing our own dreams on anybody else. And I don't want you blaming yourself either. I want you taking responsibility. So that's the second point here today. How and why did we stop paying attention to our dreams to the point where now they're collecting dust? We stop taking responsibility for them? We're looking at external forces as evidence that it is okay or not to pursue our goals and dreams instead of taking full responsibility, saying, I'm the one in charge of the vision, I'm the one in charge of the mission. I'm the one in charge of my own soul fulfillment. And it is just so not true that I can nurture my partner and their dreams or my own. I can have independence and freedom and fulfillment or marriage and family or a successful experience of team relationship, friends, hold up. It's your responsibility to own your goals, to own your dreams, to own your wants, to get back to that place of being the vibrant you that's following your truth and following your path. And we're all modeled that following our truth and following our path comes with limitations. I've never met a client. I've never met a friend. I've never met an acquaintance or a person in general that wasn't taught. You can have this or that. Be careful what you wish for. Your dreams have limitations. Your life has limitations. Your ambition should have limitations. What version of this were you taught? Journal about it? What message had me give myself permission to put my goals and dreams on a shelf? What messaging did I hear that I bought hook, line and sinker? That I'm still giving power today and I've let that be the reason why my goals and dreams are collecting dust on a shelf. It's your responsibility to prioritize actualizing what you want to create and you are a creator and you are so capable. And no spouse, no relationship status, no parenting status, no life circumstance is more powerful then your ability to go, wait a minute. This dream goal, want, whatever you want to call it, it's been collecting dust long enough. I've got to get, I've got to own. I've got to take responsibility for I'm the one that put it on the shelf. Therefore, here's the good news. I have within me what it takes to take it off the shelf, to take it back. I had a dream of being a published author. Oh, sorry, Buddha. This is Buddha. Buddha's been with me from the beginning of this book. Being a dream to its actualization and the day this show today is going live is the anniversary of coming Back to life's publication. Today, Coming Back to Life turns one. This episode is really important to me because I don't want us putting our goals and dreams on a shelf. I want us taking responsibility for them, nurturing our goals and dreams, parenting ourselves in the way we need to be parented so that we cross the finish line. This has been a lifelong dream being a published author. It happened. And there were so many moments and seasons and chapters and versions of myself that kept putting this dream on a shelf as it just collected dust. I had loyalty to my role as business owner, wife, mother, friend, family member. The list could go on. That had me giving myself permission to wait until I didn't anymore, until I said, no, I'm gonna take this dream off the shelf and I'm going to give my energy, my focus, my time, and my attention to this dream until it's done. And then it happened. I got a major publishing deal. The book Coming Back to Life came to life, and today the book is one years old. And no one had the power to stop me from creating this dream. I had a mentor at one point call me and say, you're not a writer. What are you doing? You have no business writing. Who am I going to be? In that moment, I had people telling me all of the statistics about how hard it is to get a publishing deal, an agent. Four years it took from the time I took my dream back off the shelf and ran with it to the point where the book was published. Now the book's won. Happy birthday. You're unstoppable when you're the one that is unwilling and unavailable to put your own dream on a shelf and let it collect dust. And there's never a good reason to put your dream on A shelf and to let it collect dust. Let this book be an example. Let this book remind you that you are powerful and capable and have what it takes to make that dream a reality. And know now I'm married, so I can't story is the truth. Now I'm a parent, so I can't story. It's just not true. I wanted to be a parent that modeled for my kids. I can have more because I am devoted to being a wife and mother and an entrepreneur and a woman in her power, not less. I want to model. There's no dream you can't actualize. If you're committed, if you're willing to move through the internal insecurities and fears and places where you want external validation instead of knowing how to internally validate yourself. I want to model. This is a life worth living because I called the shots. I designed it. I stayed in the driver's seat. That's what I want to do. As a parent, as a woman, as a leader, as a wife, as a friend, as a family member. I could go on and on. Your dream got put on the shelf by you, and you can take it down. And here's the good news. If it got put on a shelf, that's okay. Just don't leave it there. It doesn't make you wrong or bad. I'll be honest. All the years my dream of being a published author stayed on the shelf and collected dust. There were years I was preparing to write the story. It was actually still in motion. This is my story of using trauma to my advantage, of learning how to be more alive in the face of my life being threatened on multiple occasions. This is my heart on a platter for you in the hopes of my story connecting you with yours. The conversation about our past and our trauma being something to survive and win in spite of. I think it's a disempowering narrative. So I wanted a narrative that said, hold on. There's no trauma you can't use to your advantage. There's no part of your past. There's no heartbreak. There's no version of you that's less powerful because of all of that. It makes you more, and it can bring you more alive, and it can help you create your comeback story and come back to life. What if no one and nothing can steal your power or your goals or your dreams or your joy? What if the only way any of that gets stolen is you being the one that said, I'm going to put it on a shelf right now? And if you did that's okay, but let's take it off the shelf. Pick one dream. Pick one. Don't overwhelm yourself and don't think you have to light a match and blow everything up so that you can now pursue your dream. Just be unavailable to shelf it and let it collect dust. Take responsibility for it. Give yourself permission to block out time to create again and I promise you'll be more fulfilled. The third point I want to make about how on earth your dream got put on a shelf is so many of you. You don't want to outshine those you love. So because of that, you're willing to shelf your dream so that other people aren't uncomfortable, so that other people don't criticize, so that other people give you a negative reaction. If you can relate to this, I really want you to let what I'm saying simmer. Part of why your dream is on a shelf is because you don't want to outshine. And I want you to understand that until you shine as bright as you can live fully expressed, pursue and create and actualize one goal and dream after another one while you know that you can still have marriage and family and everything else you want, having your dreams and goals does not have to come at an expense. You just don't want to outshine. But you shining brightly, you fully expressed you fully alive. That models that possibility for every life you touch. Until I said I'm gonna raise my hand and I am going to. After being diagnosed with cancer and giving a 5% chance to live at 34 while I was pregnant, my life is mine for the rest of my life. I'm gonna shine. I'm gonna shine. I'm gonna shine. And if you need sunglasses, go ahead and get them. And if it's too much, if this light is too bright and it's not your vibe, that's okay. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm just gonna keep living fully me. We stop being fully who we are because we don't want to outshine. We don't want to over complicate other people's lives by showing them how ambitious they could be because they're seeing how ambitious we are. Please don't be afraid to outshine. Just shine. That's the only way to connect to what's real around you, to connect to what's real in you about you gives you now the opportunity to see clearly what's real in front of you. Find your supporters. Find what keeps your momentum going. Find a way to decide to break through through your self Inflicted limitations that were modeled to you that don't have to be your truth. Go get that dream. Go make it real. Go make it yours. And then pick another one. That's freedom. That's fulfillment. Your goals should not and do not have to collect dust. I have one more announcement. Coming back to life's first birthday. So my team and I, we are offering an incredible opportunity for you to reclaim and rediscover you, your dreams and the pursuit of the life you've been imagining. Later this month. More to come soon. But just teasing out thanks to this book's birthday, we've got a really special opportunity for you. And all I'll share in addition, right now is you might want to block your calendar. The week of October 23rd, you might want to block out all right, this week, Rebecca's got something really special planned. Because I do. If you haven't already read the book, get it on audible, order it anywhere books are sold. But you can also go right to rebeccasilence.com to order it. And please, please declare in the comments or with someone you love after watching this episode. What dream are you taking off the shelf? No one took it away from you. No one put it on the shelf. And no one has the power to say you pursuing your dream is too much. You in a way that stops you go. We need you creating that dream. It's medicine for people who need you creating it. Your dream is medicine for humanity. One more time. Your dream is medicine for humanity. I love you, I honor you. I see you. I want you creating your dream. This is just one of mine that became real. It's in my hands. I can smell it. What I'll leave you with is the blurb from the end of the book. Dear life, our journey has been fabulous at times and tragic at times. But without you, I'd be nothing. With you, I've lived, loved, fallen, risen and met myself, my purpose and so many beautiful people. You've brought me family. Together we've created joy. This life is ours for the long game. I'll never be alone because we are in every moment together from this moment forward. I hear you now. I see you now. I respect you now. I honor you now. This life has been magnificent for me only because you've been with me. Every breath, every struggle has been worth it. Every choice brought lessons and wisdom. Every moment you continue to teach and guide me. I choose you now like you've only always chosen me. Love Rebecca Again. If you haven't, subscribe to the Rebecca Silence YouTube channel. Share this episode with anyone you know that needs this message to take their dream off a shelf and go create and pursue it. Thank you for being here. Healing isn't promised, but it's possible. And your dreams are meant to be actualized. I love you. Thank you for being with us today. See you soon.