Hey loves,
What do you need?
I had a beautiful encounter with this question on the coach training I delivered Saturday morning and it was the topic of a conversation I was having with my lovely friend
Tamu Thomas last week.
Many people will try and tell you what you need whether it is well-meaning professionals or well-intentioned loved ones.
Everyone can (and often does) have their opinions, thoughts and recommendations.
Whilst these can be helpful and illuminating we also have to remember that they.are.not.you.
I had something happen in my personal life recently where an extremely well-intentioned person who I love dearly decided to tell me what they thought I should and should not be doing.
Because I am clear on what I need in this season I was able to hear them and then express the edge of where they end and I begin, aka a boundary.
Displaying a deep trust of who I am, where I'm at and the choices I'm making.
After all, everyone else is a bystander to our experience.
Whilst they might love and care deeply for us.
No one else is experiencing it as you are.
No-one else is holding your vision for your life as close as you are.
No-one else is you.
And in those moments of listening to yourself and what you need, you're giving your voice the opportunity to be truly heard.
You might be giving vast attention to how you use your voice publicly and professionally and at the same time neglecting how you are using itt personally. So personally, in fact, that you fail to see what your relationship is with your own voice.
Where you are looking for an external co-sign and the equivalent of the blue tick of verification that you are good enough and that your choices and ways of being are the right ones.
Giving your power away and pouring it into someone else's vision for you and
overly putting your sense of worth into how you think you are perceived by others.
This week it became even clearer to me through being in community with my clients, in conversation with friends and present in my own learning and reflective spaces the importance of the relationship between ‘knowing your needs and using your voice’.
For some of you it will look like…being able to state your needs, for others it might be knowing what you need in this season of life, for others it might be being ok when those needs are actually being met (cos' that can be uncomfortable AF when that's not what you have known), conversely seeing where you are putting your needs on others as an expectation vs an invitation to meet them for yourself.
It's complex, for sure.
A question I come back to is ‘Whose voice are you hearing as you think about you need?’
Maybe there are specific individuals in your life who you can name.
Maybe its also the collective voice which acts as a vessel for squashing you into the good girl narrative, the one who has a check-list of societal expectations and seeks to conform you into corners of all the shoulds, binaries and correct ways of doing life.
And so there's an invitation to tip that balance.
This doesn't mean that you totally disregard the thoughts and opinions of others. It just means that you trust yourself to give rise to a new level of authenticity. One where you can hear openly and then choose fully.
Yes, that works even as a caregiver. Even more so. Because the care you give you must also give to yourself.
Sometimes we require support to hear our own voices. Life is busy, the world is noisy and we are so deeply embedded in the doing we often don't get a helicopter view on how we are being and behaving.
Allowing the fog to clear and the stark reality of what we are dreaming and desiring to be reflected back to us, to be seen, heard and understood in a truly non-judgemental space and to be vocalised and breathed life into.
An opportunity to slow down in order to move forward which is what coaching does so beautifully.
When you know what you need you can give voice to it all. You can build it into the way you want to be in your own life.
Deciding what is real, right and true for you.
Not real, right and true for other people.
Wholehearted living and working.
Wishing you a heart-opening start to the week.
Sending love
