My therapist sat quietly, watching me process all of the things I knew that I knew but didn’t want to see. I’ve been sitting on her sofa (on and off) for well over a decade now. At the beginning of our time together I was in a real quarter life crisis. The inability to know what I wanted had started to pile up. Turns out, letting others decide for you is not actually a plan. The habit of not trusting myself was learned long before I arrived earth side.
Her guidance does the thing it’s supposed to - it leads me back to my inner wisdom. She has the experience, the tools and the education to inform my process but she never does it for me. In fact, sometimes she lets me sit in it - painfully - on the sofa, holding the pillow and shaking my head. This can happen with a great deal of trust because we have history. The characters, stories and themes are familiar. I know the patterns of my life that I continue to heal.
She has been my witness.
As time wears on, I have let go of the idealism of my 20’s, the setbacks of my 30’s and now, in my 40’s accepting what author Kate Bowler says, “there is no cure for being human, life is a chronic condition.”
““There is no cure for being human, life is a chronic condition.””
This should come as GOOD NEWS!
We aren’t aiming to climb the pyramid of perfection. We aren’t supposed to be winning at anything. We are simply returning home - to ourselves - every damn day. In the words of psychotherapist Phil Stutz, we never escape pain, uncertainty and constant work. To which the late Joan Rivers would have replied, “I wish I could tell you it gets better. It doesn’t get better, you get better.”
I believe this - I preach this, but it hits different when my own therapist looks at with me deep compassion and says, “No one has your answers Shea.”
She then went on to provide evidence:
“Remember when … “
You discovered your own melanoma, tumor and health diagnosis.
You left that toxic relationship long before it destroyed you.
You set boundaries with family before anyone else would.
You guided the company in a profitable direction.
You moved when it was time to go.
You spoke the truth when it wasn’t popular.
The answers you need do not exist outside of yourself and they are not here. They are within. Others may provide wisdom, questions or even gentle reminders of who you are, but none of them have your answer.
Do yourself a favor and sit in the silence of your own knowing. Ask the questions you want to be asked. Listen to your answers. Incrementally you’ll build confidence.
Try it out:
Start by looking back on when you knew the answer and acted on it. What happened? If you didn’t act, what were the consequences?
What about now? Look at the decisions in front of you and classify them by importance. Start with the easiest (the one with the least amount of consequences) and practice acting on them.
Check in with yourself to confirm how it felt - did your internal knowing align with reality? How did your body respond?
Dabble with bigger unknowns and ask your very small committee 1-3 people to weigh in before you act. This helps me immensely when it’s something big or out of my scope of experience. It also helps me gain confidence in myself as I experiment with new choices.
Trust yourself regardless. We are allowed to change our mind, recalibrate and ask for grace from others. It’s brave to be the one knowing, deciding and acting accordingly. It’s equally as brave to say, “I made a mistake.” (definition of mistake: noun : an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong. verb : be wrong about)
Be kind to yourself my friend. Knowing what you want is an inside job. There are no answers here, only within. I’m with Joan Rivers on this one. We do get better and I’d like to be your witness.
Shea