“What do I truly want?”
When was the last time you asked yourself that question?
I caught up with an old colleague last week, we were talking about her own experiences of change, and she said “I just took all the parts I wanted and focused on that.”
It sounded simple.
The conversation took me back to eighteen months ago when I was in despair, lost and completely unaware of my true wants.
Immersed in my professional identity, I was thrown off when it no longer felt right. As panic set in, it took numerous anxiety attacks and physical discomfort to force me to confront what was really going on.
How had the seemingly simple question of ‘what do I want’ become so hard? I’d spent so long following the lead of others around me and doing what I thought I should; who was I before I became who the world wanted me to be?
We spend all of our time, energy, words, and money creating a flurry, trying not to know, making sure that the snow doesn’t settle so we never have to face the fiery truth inside us - solid and unmoving. Glennon Doyle
Over the years, I had become buried in other people’s expectations, using precious energy to fulfil other people’s dreams, trying to squeeze into structures that I did not fit in.
I lost myself in the magnitude of demand from everyone else, feeling depleted and exhausted at the end of each day, only to do it all over again.
When we continue in this state of exhaustion, the magic of our uniqueness and our dreams become inconsequential.
It becomes easier to create a flurry around us to avoid the discomfort of not knowing, of our truths not being told, of not owning what we truly want or what we love.
Who is the soul beneath all of these roles? Glennon Doyle
Asking myself that question eighteen months ago felt awkward, uncomfortable, and painful. But it was a necessary process to re-discover who I was at the root of my being, to embrace my full self and trust the person I was before I had become who the world wanted me to be.
It’s when you give your power to the outside world that you lose your connection to your inner sense of knowing, and your life starts spiralling downward. Anita Moorjani
I wrote this in my journal a year ago:
"It's the day before my 36th birthday. Sitting in the mountains of Colombia, surrounded by wildflowers, rolling hills to my left, dense jungle to my right; love and gratitude in my heart.
How I feel in this moment, compared to how I felt this time last year is like night and day. This time last year, I could not get out of bed, I was unable to make sense of my life or what was happening to me, spiralling into depression.
I thought that day on my 35th birthday was the worst day of my life. Now I realise it was the most transformative. It woke me up.
I'm determined to dedicate myself to preventing others from reaching the depths of despair I once experienced, and instead, empower them to transform their lives for the better. I want to offer some sort of space for people to re-discover the life they are meant to live. To not have to go through a physical or mental breakdown before having the courage to make a change."
What do you truly want?
What do you want to experience in this lifetime?
Not what you think you should want, or what others expect of you. But your authentic aspiration; could you take one step towards it today?
You don't need to have all the answers right now. New paths will reveal themselves if you have the courage to get started. James Clear
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