My family has been living abroad for 3 years. This has been by far the happiest time of my life. Our kids are enrolled at an incredible school and thriving. My husband has managed his business from abroad and flown back and forth for anywhere from 10 days to 3 weeks at a time away from the family, every other month. At the beginning of this school year he told me that we must either return home together as a family at the end of the school year, or we would need to split up. The 12 hour flights are exhausting for him, and he feels he must be present full time in our hometown with his business. I love my husband and made the voluntary decision to agree to the move. I want to keep our family together.

Despite this I am choosing thoughts that make me feel trapped and very depressed by this move, also powerless, especially as it looms just one month away. I know Brooke would say that I DO have a choice, and that I am making the active choice to go with him. I also understand that I am the one hurting myself with my own thinking – my husband is a kind man and he is not hurting me. He is just being himself, and following his path in the world. In choosing to love and stay with him, this decision to return home really was mine. The choice to be upset about it is also mine.

I’ve run so many models on this. As the move gets closer I find myself buffering with food, dessert, work, watching TV, and even cleaning the house. Sitting with my sad emotions feels so painful, and yet I know that I am choosing the exact thoughts that create them. Intellectually I know I can choose less painful thoughts… like “the upcoming move may be surprisingly wonderful for our family” or “my mother is feeling so happy that I am finally coming home”. I guess I need some bridging thoughts though… because I’m having huge trouble believing any “positive” thoughts about moving back. Part of me feels like my family is going to suffer; like going home is either going back to an unhappy past… or to a really unhappy future. It feels like a death to me 🙁 Here is today’s model:

C – Leaving my current home in one month
T – I will never be this happy again
F – Powerless
A – Buffer, try to stay so busy I don’t have time to feel bad, have trouble sleeping, complain to my friends
R – I am already super unhappy, even though we have not moved yet and I am still in the city I love.

Do you have any advice? What does a person do when they don’t really believe any of their possible positive thoughts? Thank you.