“I’m in a funk today, wondering what I really want”
I plucked these words out of a post in my JoyRide group and have been marinating on them the last little while. It’s something that we tell ourselves a lot, this sort of thing, but in my experience, it’s very rarely true.
If we are really honest with ourselves; if we remove the gallivanting perfection gremlins and the righteous overtures of the itty bitty sh*tty committee (you know, the little voices in your head that tell you what you can and can’t do), I think we absolutely *do* know what we want, it’s just that we think we can’t have it, that we shouldn’t want it, or we aren’t quite sure how to make it happen, which are entirely different questions.
But let’s suppose you are right and you absolute have no idea what you want, here are some firelighter thoughts to kick start your proverbial kindling…
- Bets on your really, really tired. I know this is boring to talk about but honestly, if we want an injection to invoke a lack of curiosity, it’s exhaustion. And believe you me, most people that I have the honour of working with could use a good sleep. If the idea of having a month off just to rest is one of the sexiest things you can think of, you are ticking this box.
No tired person knows what they want because the only thing they want is for no one to bother them and to go to bed. Which means ‘sleep’ needs to be high up (erm, the first thing) on your list.
- You’re not being entirely honest with yourself. Not knowing what you want is rare. If you drop down to the depths of your magical insides, I have a sneaky suspicion you really do know.
Is it that you *don’t know* or is that *thing* (gosh, we’re being cryptic here) is prefaced by “I can’t” or “I shouldn’t”? Because those, my friends, are you good mates (jokes. They aren’t your mates at all) talking and honestly? They are super boring.
So even if you don’t act on it yet, it’s a profound act of self-care to tell yourself the truth about what you want. You don’t have to share it- but at least be honest with yourself.
- Follow the threads that spark conversations in your mind of “oh that’s cool!” or “I would love to do that!”. Those are your glimmers. It doesn’t mean that they are necessarily your life calling, but they alert you to your interests with an energy that flows from the inside out, rather than the outside in. This is the opposite of push energy- the one that we reserve for grinding and is ultimately exhausting.
This is the energy that is the beginning of what we understand as flow.
- It may be that your stuck in indecision and/ or judging the outcomes of the actions you do take towards what you want (or have taken in the past) harshly. Both pull the brain into a sympathetic cycle and see us spin round on ourselves. Choose something and act on it. We need tangible experience to see what to do next.
Don’t judge yourself with good or bad, right or wrong. It makes no sense to your brain, who is just considering how far the action took them from their original intention. Keep going. Let yourself learn.
And if you still don’t know what you want, take a moment to get intimate with the resistance. What really is it I’m feeling here? Fear? Sadness? Frustration? Get specific.
There’s a sparkle in there somewhere, even if we can’t quite see it yet.
