Ep 56: Permission to Make a Different Decision
For a long time, I believed that keeping my word meant never changing my mind.
But over the years, I realized something important.
Sometimes we make decisions with the information we have at the time. Then life changes, or we change. We gather new experiences, new wisdom, and new data, and the decision that once felt aligned may no longer fit.
In this episode, I'm sharing why I finally changed the name of this podcast from Because I've Healed to Because I'm Healing, and why that small change represents something much bigger.
We talk about people-pleasing, keeping promises, making choices out of obligation rather than alignment, and why giving yourself permission to make a different decision isn't being unreliable. It's honoring who you are now.
If you've been holding onto a career, relationship, responsibility, identity, or role simply because you've always done it, this episode is your reminder that you're allowed to choose again.
Sometimes healing isn't staying committed to an old decision.
Sometimes healing is trusting yourself enough to make a new one.
Chapters
(00:00) - Embracing Change: The Need for Permission
(10:00) - The Power of Decision-Making and Self-Permission
(18:03) - Redefining Roles and Responsibilities in Life
Key Takeaways
Healing is an ongoing process, not a destination.
You are allowed to make a different decision when you have new information.
Keeping your word should never require abandoning yourself.
People-pleasing often disguises itself as commitment.
Your body can become a trustworthy guide in decision-making.
Roles that once served you may eventually become too heavy to carry.
Choosing yourself is not selfish; it prevents burnout.
Sometimes changing course isn't changing your mind; it's honoring who you've become.
Your life today deserves decisions made with today's wisdom, not yesterday's circumstances.
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Asha (00:01.132)
You know what? This episode is gonna be short and sweet because I just don't think there's much to it. Let me get right into it. This episode is about giving yourself permission to make a change when a change is needed. Now that probably sounds super obvious, but there have been so many times in my life where I've needed to make a change and I haven't done it because I didn't want to be wishy washy or I wanted to be true to my word or I didn't want to.
Disappoint somebody else, or even times where I didn't even realize that a change was possible to make. This episode is inspired today because I have been talking about for a couple years now, actually, changing the podcast name from because I've healed to because I'm healing. I recognized very early on in my very early episodes that yeah, healed, you can heal from some things, but healing is also a process that you'll probably
be engaged in for the rest of your life until you decide that you're just done and you don't want to do it anymore. Because you can make progress, some things won't bother you anymore, but some things you're always gonna have to work through. And also life is dynamic. So it's not like you're gonna be in a situation where you're not triggered or bothered. If you engage with people, which most of us do, there's always a chance to be hurt, to have a misunderstanding. That's just the dynamics of being in relationship with people. So if
you are feeling like, my God, I'm still in this process. I want you to know that that is normal because healing is rarely ever completely done. There are things that come up in different layers when you're ready to address them. There are new situations that trigger a deeper level of understanding and a deeper level of thought or feeling about a previous situation. So we're always works in progress and that's beautiful. So the podcast
This is what I'm really getting to. The podcast is changing from because I've healed to because I'm healing. And that's because it's a more accurate description of what is going on. And it just is more true, more authentic, more genuine. I don't want you to ever feel like I am not keeping it real with you. So why did this even make me talk about permission to change? Well, in the beginning, when I named the podcast, I was so excited about it.
Asha (02:28.29)
And then I thought, ooh, I need to change the form of the word from healed to healing. And then I kind of felt like, my God, but I just put all this stuff out that it's because I've healed, do I have to change a URL? Is it gonna not work somewhere? Is it this, that, and the other thing? And I just kind of left it because I thought, geez, I spent this time coming up with this name. How could I change my mind? So I just left it. It didn't really bother me, but it's come up a couple times over the last couple years.
And then in a recent episode, I'd mentioned the name change again, still didn't get around to it. And then this morning I was chatting with my VA. Shout out to Sassy, who has been a game changer and lifesaver. And she said, look, I did a mock-up of the new podcast title. And you know what? When I read it, I didn't even notice that it had changed from healing to healed. And I thought, that's because it just feels right. That and maybe I was a little bit sleepy and didn't read it correctly, but
It also felt right like it didn't stick out as no, that's not accurate. And she said, okay, well, I can update it. I you know what, let me just let me actually record an episode about it because sometimes we just need permission to make changes. So that's about the podcast title. But I also have had several incidents in my life where I have made one decision and I have been scared or hesitant to actually do something different.
For me, it part of it came from really wanting to keep my word. I've mentioned my relationship with my father. My parents didn't have a great relationship when I was growing up. But one of the things that my dad would do is he would be late for everything. Super late. As an adult, I realized that he had ADHD and had poor time management skills and often had the intention of being places on time, but would show up.
One, two, two and a half hours late. And as a child, that's traumatizing because you're waiting and waiting and waiting, and you start to develop this belief that maybe you're not worth it, you're not important enough, whatever you use to fill in the gap, right? So at some point in adulthood, I made a promise to myself that I was going to do what I said I was going to do. I was going to keep my word.
Asha (04:45.442)
And it felt like a really noble thing. And it was also a way to distance myself from some of the pain that I had experienced. And it was an intentional thought about not repeating the same patterns. There was also another time where I was around a lot of people and I realized that a lot of people say that they're going to do things and don't. I think this kind of was the catalyst of my solo travel error, if I remember era, if I remember.
Correctly, where we would be thinking about group trips, and some people would say yes, some people would say no. You all know how hard it is to organize a group, particularly out of the country. And I again I made a promise to myself that I was going to do the things that I said that I wanted to do. If I said I wanted to go to Mexico City, I was gonna go to Mexico City. If I said I wanted to go to Kenya, I was gonna go to Kenya. I was going to put the date on the calendar, buy the plane ticket, and then figure out how I was gonna make it happen. And
I did that because I was noticing that there are a lot of people who talk about what they're going to do and they don't actually do it. And I did not want to be one of those people. God bless you if you are one of those people. But for me, I didn't want to be one of those people. I used to read all these chicken soup for the soul books when I was a kid and and learned about suffering.
self-reflection early on and had all these stories and people at the end of their lives would say or who had been through traumatic events, near-death experiences, would always say that they never regretted the things that they did. They only regretted the chances that they did not take. They regretted the things that they did not do. And so very early in life, probably in my 20s, I said I was going to do everything that I wanted, that I said that I was going to do. So that was a second kind of commitment to keeping my word.
Then at some point, I realized that I was keeping my word even when I wanted to change my mind. And that had me feeling like I was stuck. But I was so tied to, but I said I was gonna do this thing. I made a promise to myself, I want to do it. I don't want to be one of those people who ends up being a liar by default or who ends up being someone whose word you can't trust. I didn't want to do that.
Asha (07:07.244)
And then at some point I realized wait a minute, I actually have more information about this situation now, and I don't want to do it. And part of that came with my intuitive development and with learning that, and really understanding that as you move, you begin to collect more data. And just because you made a decision in the beginning that felt right or that you thought was right.
You made that on the information that was available to you at that time. And then now fast forward whatever time frame, an hour, a week, two weeks, a year, two years, and you have more information. And now you can make an im a decision based on the information that you have now. And sometimes you're gonna want to make the same decision, and sometimes you're not gonna wanna make the same decision. But this was really hard for me because I had made these promises and
I am a people pleaser in recovery. I didn't want to disappoint anybody. So if I said that I was going to do something, I wanted to be able to do it. But I what I realized it was creating this conflict in me because I didn't want to do some of these things anymore that I said that I was going to do, but I also didn't want to be someone whose word you couldn't trust and someone who didn't do those things. And I had this internal conflict until I gave myself permission to make a change because I had new information. And that evolved into.
Allowing myself to make a change just because I want to make a change. I didn't need permission anymore. I didn't need a reason outside of myself that trusting what I was feeling in my body was enough. If I say I'm gonna go to lunch with some friends, and then I wake up and I don't feel great or just know that I need time at home, I am now giving myself permission to tell those folks no and to say and I can be apologetic, I can be very sorry.
That I might be disappointing them or that I'm not meeting up with them. And I can also have the desire to meet up with them, but also recognize that what I need in that moment is something different, and that I can choose what I need for myself because my number one priority has to be me. Particularly if you are responsible for other people and the kind of healing work that I do, or because you're a parent, or because you're a caregiver.
Asha (09:30.912)
Or something else that requires you to take care of other people, you have to put yourself first. You just have to. Because you will burn out, you will give everything away, and you'll be left standing there like a skeleton, wondering what the heck happened. So you have to give yourself permission to make a change. You have to give yourself permission to change your mind. One of the things that is helpful around this, because I still sometimes feel like, I don't want to be wishy-washy. I don't want to disappoint people.
is to understand how you make decisions. Sometimes I need a little bit more time to let it sink in. Sometimes I just need to tap into my body to understand how I feel. And sometimes I can make a decision that feels right in the moment. And I just have to accept that two weeks later it actually doesn't feel like the right decision anymore. And that's okay. That's totally okay. Now this I'm talking about with
Words and promises to people, promises to yourself, but I also want to give you permission to change careers, to leave a relationship, to change your gym, to change the role you play in your family, to make any kind of change that you need to that is no longer serving you because the thing that you're doing is no longer serving you. We often, we're talking about this right now in Reset the roles that we play.
And the responsibilities that we carry. I carried a responsibility that was unspoken but also very visible. As an attorney in the Bay Area, I knew that every time I stepped into a courtroom, I was challenging people's stereotypes of what attorneys look like. And it was particularly fun when my clients were white because they would assume that the client was the attorney and I was the defendant, of course.
I can't tell you how many times I would check in at criminal court in the attorney line and the sheriff's deputy in his full gear would come over to me and tell me that I was in the wrong line. I could not be there. And I said, I'm checking in. And I would deliberately speak in a way that would make him challenge his assumptions. I didn't just give him an out by saying, I'm an attorney. I would make him realize that he was making an assumption about me and that he was wrong.
Asha (11:55.048)
I carried an unwritten, unstated, but certainly well understood responsibility or maybe honor but role-playing weight that as a black attorney, particularly in criminal court, I was challenging stereotypes and I was reshaping people's ideas about who an attorney could be and who a defendant was supposed to be. When I decided that I didn't want to.
litigate anymore. I didn't want to be in court anymore. I definitely thought about the small number of black attorneys that exist in the United States in general and what that would mean if there was one less. And that wasn't a role that somebody stated and put on me. But it is very clear when you are a person of color in these professional settings that you represent more than just you. There is a pride, there's an honor, but there's also a pressure
That comes along with it. And when I didn't want to play that role anymore, I didn't want to be in court anymore. I didn't really want to practice law anymore. It was one of my considerations. Well, if I stop doing this, what is that going to mean for black people in the justice system? How is me stepping out going to change or lessen or increase the impact of black folks in the justice system? Now, this may sound
big and large and like it has nothing individually to do with me, but it does. And I'm guessing if you're a person of color listening to this podcast, that you probably have some role in that as well. You probably have a similar kind of understanding or thought process. Whether you are the first gen college student, first gen graduate student, first gen attorney, first gen business owner, first gen whatever in your life, if you are the child of immigrant parents,
If you are the oldest daughter, the oldest son, if you are somebody who has chosen a path that has been not walked by someone previously in your family, or that is not highly populated by people who look like you and have an ex a similar experience to you, then you feel this unspoken but definitely clear pressure.
Asha (14:21.292)
Because you are a representative of more than just yourself. And when you get ready to make a change, that consciously or subconsciously plays a role in your decision making. But again, I'm here to tell you that it's okay to change your mind. I was hesitating to say change your mind because there's one that you can change your mind. Sure, you can decide that this isn't for you anymore or that you don't want to do it anymore. But also you can decide that your time is done.
And that's a little bit different than changing your mind. I think that there is power in deciding that this is done. Changing your mind to me almost maybe this is my thing. It almost feels like wishy-washy. I don't know. I want to say floja, like in Spanish, where it's like just like like no grounding, just kind of I don't even have the words to say it in English, like besides wishy-washy. And I don't want to be that person. I'm not wishy-washy. But when I think about I'm changing or I'm making a different decision.
Because I have different data. I'm making a different decision because things have changed in my life. I'm making a different decision because things have changed in my body. I'm making a different decision because I'm going down a different route. That feels very empowering. So I just wanted to share this with you today. Where in your life are you ready to make a different decision? Maybe it's changed your mind.
But maybe make a different decision feels more empowering and you can land on that. Where are you still playing a role? Handling a responsibility, taking on something that you no longer want to do. And maybe you haven't really thought that you have the ability to make a different decision. There are people that I am working with who are always the fixers in their family.
And a few of them in reset are ready to move abroad. And they are really sitting with how their role in the family is going to change when they're no longer in proximity to their family members because their role is going to change. And they definitely feel bad about it. And so I am challenging them gently, lovingly, to think about themselves as making a different decision, choosing to step out of that role.
Asha (16:41.688)
That maybe at one point was very necessary and maybe felt good and felt purposeful, but now it feels like it's draining and it's not actually helping, it doesn't feel good, it's not what they want to do. What would it be like? What could possibly happen when they make a different decision? How are they gonna feel then? And how are they gonna be able to show up more when they're able to do it? Because now they're less resentful, they have more energy.
My friend was telling me the other day, she moved to Portugal. Her mom is in her 90s, and she said she sees her mom now more that she has been in Portugal and her mom is in LA than when they lived in the same city. Because now she is more intentional about spending time with her mom. Now, when they get together, they get together for three or four weeks at a time. She's staying at her mom's house, whereas when they were in the same city,
They might see each other once every couple of weeks, but there was always like, I gotta go run and do this, I gotta do that. And there was this, you know, we take it for granted that they'll always be there, they're just right around the corner. But actually making the decision to move to Portugal, which has been great for her and her circumstances and situation, it has actually brought her and her mother closer together because now they spend more quality time together.
So I feel like I'm a little bit all over the place with this podcast, but I just wanted to give you permission to make a different decision, permission to change your mind. And I wanted to tell you that I have given myself permission to change the name of this podcast, and we're actually doing it now from because I'm "Because I've Healed" to "Because I'm Healing." So ta-da! Here it is. All right, I will see you all next week. Love you, love you, love you. Can't wait to chat with you soon. Ciao, ciao.