My sweet friend Katie and I were chatting recently about how intimidating the question "Who am I?" can be for women on a healing journey. Katie pondered aloud that maybe we are asking the wrong question.
Rather than asking ourselves who we are, Katie suggested, we should ask ourselves, "What do I want?" Not "What do my kids, my partner, or my parents want?" Not "What does my boss or collaborator or friend want?" But simply "What do I want in my life and for my life?" To get to those big questions, Katie suggests, we need to start asking ourselves what we want in each and every moment throughout each hour of the day. In a world where our default is to nurture and prioritize the wants of others, Katie's ideas remind us how sacred it is to allow ourselves the space and permission to ask ourselves what we want, and then sit in the silence to hear the answers that can only come from within.
When we ask ourselves what we want, the answer needs to come to us as a full-bodied yes before we know that it is the answer we are seeking. We can always find an answer to the question "What do I want?" We just need to create the time and the space to tap into it.