Episode 66: Getting Comfortable With The Unknown

s Sara 00:04

Empowered people make informed decisions that lead to living a life without regret. This is Sara khaki and Shawna woods from Atlanta divorce law group. And this is the happily ever after divorce podcast. Welcome to the happily ever after divorce podcast I’m attorney Sara khaki with Atlanta divorce law group, and I’m joined by our Managing Partner Shawna woods. Shawna, I’m so excited about this topic today, I feel like my and your life, if we had a legacy, if we had something that we’re going to write on our tombstone, this would be it, and it’s getting comfortable with the unknown.

s Shawna 00:42

That would be deep in our tombstone,

s Sara 00:43

that would be the tombstone. So let me back up, I’ll kind of talk about myself for a second. And I want you to tell why this should be on your tombstone as well, gotcha. My parents as listeners of the show have heard before, But here’s for anybody that hasn’t listened to us before. I parents migrated from Iran, from a very comfortable upper class life when I was three, because Iran was being bombed by Saddam at the time. And the Iranian Revolution had changed the culture of the country, and changed the freedom of how you could live in the country. And even though my parents had good paying jobs and all the comforts of their life, and I want to make this very clear their home had had the house had not been taken away from them, their jobs had not been stripped away from them. They had, nobody had gone to jail. And they were still living that same life, as they were before the revolution. But some serious freedoms were taken away, my mom now had to wear cover her hair to go to school, to teach at the school, she was teaching, the government was a completely different form of government that they did not
agree with.

And they could, and there was also a draft going on where they were drafting young teenager, teenage boys to go fight in the war against Iraq. So with all this being what my dad could see, he said, I am going to give up this comfortable knowing that I know and migrate this family as refugees to the unknown. Because they did it again for us, when we were teenagers, they took us from Sweden to America, again, leaving something that was known and moving us to the unknown, which was moving to the United States. And it was with this leap of faith that even though I know the current place I’m in nothing is really truly given my every day is not given this idea that I am living in the know or I know what to expect is a false sense of reality. And there are so many other families in Iran that didn’t leave because things just hadn’t gotten bad enough yet, things hadn’t got uncomfortable enough yet to give up the known, and move towards something that was unknown. But that’s where the biggest opportunity for growth is.

That’s where the biggest opportunity for a profit in your life quality is, is when you’re willing to give up this false sense of reality of I’d rather keep the current status
quo because at least I’m dealing with the devil I know versus devil, I don’t know. And if you can get rid of that false belief and accept the reality that you don’t know anything you don’t know, tomorrow COVID could strike and everything could shut down. That became very clear to everybody. During World War Two. That came very clear that one day you were living in Europe peacefully and happy the next day, people were getting taken away to concentration camps.

You don’t know what the next day is, that could be a, God forbid an accident. So this false sense of reality of trying to gather up as much information so that you can say I know, instead of giving that up and saying I am going to be comfortable with the unknown and be comfortable with being uncomfortable. That’s my life’s legacy that has led me to I feel for the most part live a very fulfilling life where I can take chances and I can create and build based on visions of towards desire versus fear of losing something that I’m so scared of letting go because I think that this is a known, right? I’m willing to sigh from a place of I don’t these things are things I want to get rid of in my life and move towards things I do want and not hold on to anything dysfunctional, because I don’t have my father gave me this life lesson through the
moves he made in our life. Shawna you’ve had very similar, not the same story but in a different way. You’ve lived in the uncomfortable a lot in order and It’s your life. And

s Shawna 05:00

I relate to your dad a lot in that scenario because you had to go, great, you had to go into the unknown. That wasn’t your choice, that was your family’s choice for you. And I really do admire your dad for making that. Because, Gosh, whata leap of faith, right? Oh, my goodness, your whole world. I mean, not not just a religion, not just one congregation, not just one town, your entire world had to get left behind. And braving into, I don’t know what’s going to happen when we get there. And it’s an amazing story. And I’ve always admired your story, mine is different. I grew up basically in a cult like religion. And one thing about those type of things is they’re very comforting.

When you’re in the middle of it, right? They can be very this is your world, if this happens, they do this, we are expecting this to happen. So this is how you act. If you want to get in good with God, here’s what you do. Right? It was very outlined for me. And part of that is extremely comforting that you also for me, is I wasn’t happy with the known, the known was not a benefit to me, it was not going to be beneficial to me in my lifetime, it was going to keep me very pigeonhole to this one little area of the world, this one mindset of the world. And choosing to leave at 15 was a huge choice and a huge leap of faith, basically, because everybody I knew was taught and most of them did, to then, for lack of a better term shun me, yeah, right. I lost everybody. My mother is, you know, told me you were dead to me, you know, when I left the religion. Now, those things change over time, but jumping into the unknown. It’s so very scary sometimes. But a lot of times it comes from that place of necessity, like your family, right? They saw the writing on the wall, they saw that this is not something I want to be involved in, nor did they want it for you. Nor did I want it for my own Sara, right, right, because I left the religion at 15 and was kind of floundering around you know as you do in your teenage years. And when I ended up having my daughter at 18.

I again, I still knew a very small world, right? Very, very tiny world, the religion I grew up in and had not really believed in education, they didn’t believe in higher education, especially for women. So my going into a higher education college, not as you know, law school, was this huge leap, right. And when I say that there are vast worlds between where I am now and where I was raised. It’s almost as if I’m driving back hundreds of years in time to look at me back that. So how does that turn into? How does that affect us? And how can we help others when we’ve had to walk into the unknown and breathe it? Right? And just accept it and figure out along the way, what’s going on? Because we’re not getting our normal cues. We’re not getting our normal, you know, I see very simple, you know, example, I see red, therefore, my car must stop, right? That’s not going on in our world anymore. So we’ve had to come to the reality that worlds can change in an instant. Yeah.

And a lot of times, that’s what our clients are going through. But they don’t, they’re so desperately looking for that one answer, right? That one thing, well, what happens next, right? A lot of things can happen next. And it’s all going to be dependent upon your choices. And your attitude. Right. Attitude affects so much of being comfortable with the unknown. What would you say was your poignant moment of knowing that you were comfortable in the unknown?

s Sara 09:28

When we came to United States in the summer of 96, to visit family, we literally had packed for a two week vacation, planning to go back to Sweden back to back home. And my parents sat me and my brother down and said, Hey, listen, all the family around here is asking us to stay and there’s a business opportunity. We can invest it to get a visa to stay here for at least a year. Would you guys what do you guys Think. And without blinking. I was like, Yes, 100%.

And it made it and then I mean, I was leaving behind the home I grew up with in Sweden, I was leaving behind all these childhood friends that I had been with since kindergarten, a room full of Barbies and toys, I was 13 at that age, so like, my, I can think of my bike, like things that like at that age really matter a lot to you, my best friends all across the street. And there was something so instinctually clear to me that I knew from a young age like I was I wanted to go foreign education, I wanted to get a degree in law, or were medicine or something. And it was just so clear to me that this was the country where there was no limits, there was truly no limits on how far I could go. And I had such an ambitious appetite even at a young age. And, you know, when you have that kind of an appetite coming from a smaller community, which I grew up in Sweden, I came from a very, very small town was pretty much a village, I always felt a little like, I felt a little bit like that movie Big Fish where I’m like, man, like my ambition is quite large for this place. And when I came to America, I was like, Oh, my God, like, where’s my is my ambition even big enough for this place? Right? And that that just drew me in right away. And when they sat us down and said, How do you guys feel about not returning back home and not going, you know, to your next go to seventh grade back home with your friends. But okay. And it kind of like surprised me, it still surprises me. And I’ve done I’ve made those decisions multiple times in my life where Hisham has to be the one that says like, hey, like, you know, hold on, do you want to do this? Like it was the same thing.

When I wanted to start a divorce law firm, I had a social security firm that was reputable. And, you know, I was known in the community as had being a social security disability attorney as a social security firm. And when the idea popped that, man, I really have a desire for a family law firm. And for so many business reasons, this makes sense. Like, go like there was, there was nothing that I needed to say like, Oh, what about all these other factors? They showed up, and I have to handle them. And you know, I talked about David Nagel before, what he teaches is, the decision comes first, then you don’t need to know the how you don’t need to know what next? What do I need to do next until you make a decision? So you know, if you ask somebody like David Nagel of his caliber of thinking, you know, should I? Should I sell my home? And what what do you want? Yeah, I don’t know yet. Because I first need to know, if I want a home somewhere else you say, you don’t need to know. You don’t need to know, should I go buy that car? Well, I don’t What do you think? Well, I don’t know if I can afford that car. You don’t need to know if you can afford that car, you first need to make a decision? Do you want that car? Then? The How comes next of how will you afford that car? And I think it’s the same thing with being comfortable with the unknown, you first have to have clarity on your decision, which comes from a place of like, what is your true desire? And then you can make a decision, then you can figure out the how but you have no business not wanting to know that how my dad did not need to know you did
not need to know. How will you and your children? How will you and your child and your case here, you and Sarah, survive? If this religious group shunned you out? You didn’t know that you didn’t know that answer, you made a decision that I will figure it out, the decision had to come first.

But so many people get themselves stuck in the how. And I need to know all the next 10 steps of what will I do next? Not saying that you shouldn’t figure that out. But I’m saying that you The decision comes first. And once you’ve made the decision now you’ve opened up your thinking to actually figure out the how but you’re not in a place to figure out the How do you make the decision, because you’ve kind of haven’t given your mind the maturity yet to open up to the solution. And to your points are We are not saying that you should never make plans that you should never set step goals to your ultimate goal, right? We’re talking about being
comfortable with the unknown is comfortable with the idea that you don’t know what’s going to happen next. So even the greatest laid plans maybe Nothing tomorrow, right? And knowing what you want for yourself and for your family, whether it was like was Sarah when she got
here and was like, I see all this opportunity this is for me. Or like with my story where I see no opportunity right here, I need to leave. Right? Right, whatever is pushing you towards this unknown.

Listen to it, you need to listen to yourself deep inside to say, am I going to be happy if I stay here versus am I going to be happy with being able to live in the unknown, a lot of people can’t live in the unknown. But the truth of the matter is, we’re all living in the unknown, absolute. That’s the truth. That’s the truth. And that is every day. And I think that we are fortunate enough to live in a country where we’re not aware of that, yeah, we live in such a stable country. And I know a lot of people right now feel like Oh, my God, the country’s falling apart, and everything’s going to crap. Let me tell you, by all objective standards and measures of world history, the country has not is not falling apart. This is this, you can compare to any country that’s far has fallen apart in history, and that these are not the initial signs. Somebody who comes from a country that fell apart, this country is not falling apart. But this country, nobody day to day has really changed today from four years ago, from eight years ago, really in a very dramatic way where their foundational rights or a ability to feed their children or ability to go to school or have electricity or not worry about, you know, bombs falling on their head or being taken away in some concentration camp or mass genocide, nobody is affected in that way right now. So nobody’s actual day to day in an extreme way is being impacted in this country where they can feel this idea of you are in the unknown, you our everyday living in the unknown, the next minute is not promised, the next hour is not promised, the current status quo is not promised. I do think there’s people in other parts of the country that live in such a tumultuous environment, that they already know this. So we have this privilege here, where we don’t we believe in the status quo, but the status quo was false, it doesn’t really exist. Right? Not even all the cells in your body look the same today, as they do tomorrow. They even change,

s Shawna 17:37

unfortunately

s Sara 17:38

unfortunately. So I think we have to exercise a higher level of awareness in our decision making and our thinking, be higher level thinkers, when we’re in such a privileged environment where we’re not actually physically seeing the changes day to day.

s Shawna 17:56

And I think it comes with one of the biggest thing that a person can give to themselves is knowing that no matter what comes, you can overcome it. Right? You think that oh, you know, if I didn’t have my job, it’s my last my house if all my possessions were gone, and the stock market changed in lost all of my wealth, that you wouldn’t be able to survive. And instead of looking that, as I just lost everything, you could and should be looking at it as let’s clean this slate and start again

s Sara 18:35

100%. And I think what you just touched upon is the meaning you attach to events, the meaning you attach to conflict, right? You can very easily look at anything like during COVID. I think there was a lot of businesses that saw it as Oh, my God, like the sky is falling, it’s done. We got to shut down within two weeks. Fortunately, we were in we were in a place and surrounded by a team that our thought process was, wow, more people need us and not just divorce clients. More other small businesses need us our community needs us. We are attorneys who have access to information and have people’s trust, how can we actually use that to help more people, it’s about the meaning you attach to these events and how you develop that and I think one of the most valuable things that you just hit on is overcoming the unknown over and over again just builds back that self confidence muscle we’ve talked about the more opportunities you have to expose yourself to something that makes you uncomfortable and overcoming that your that self confidence muscle becomes so much stronger but if you’ve lived a long life and have never really put yourself in anything in any uncomfortable situation, you have to always know all the facts know all the data Probably even scarier and scarier monster to overcome the unknown.

s Shawna 20:04

And I do think that there’s a artist. I believe it’s masa Hyde. And it’s, there’s a landscape and it says that barn burned down. Now I can see the moon hmm. And he was one of the philosophies I’ve kind of lived by, yes, there’s something dramatic may just happen and it really can hurt and it can be heartfelt in the ways I lost something that I really didn’t want to lose. It could be a marriage, it could be custody of your children, it could be a loved one. But finding the beauty in that loss is going to allow you to be comfortable in the unknown.

s Sara 20:47

Yes.

Because you can see the cost benefit of everything, anything you give up, or somethingthat you also can gain from that. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the happily ever after divorce podcast. If you’d like to learn more, go to Atlantadivorcelawgroup.com forward slash resources