The one that was too long for LinkedIn
how the heck am i to tap in to my inner voice when all i can hear are other people's expectations?!
You’re reading The Sunshine Table, a newsletter written by Syd, an NYC-bred Life Coach learning how to melt into life in Amsterdam. Here, I share the challenges and wins of my own journey to joy and fulfillment as a recovering high-achieving people pleaser and perfectionist. You may find comfort, inspiration, and/or community. Welcome 🫶🏻
This is très spontaneous. I planned for it to be a social post, but it was too long and then I thought, who cares that this isn’t the edited, artful writing I usually reserve for my long form Substack posts!? This is freaking IMPORTANT! & it’s so darn real and true.
Oh, the calculus I can fall pray too. Not like math class lol. But the weighing of what I should do now based on what I did or plan to do.
“I should do yoga today because I’m swimming tomorrow.”
“I should eat salad today because I’m eating pizza tomorrow.”
“I should text her tomorrow because I haven’t in a week.”
It’s in this search for balance that I become off balance… constantly making decisions for now based on what was or will be leaves the most important questions out of the equation:
What feels right for *right now*? What am I feeling called to do that I may be resisting or denying, or even burying, because it doesn’t make logical sense or doesn’t align with the way I’ve been told things should be done?
Asking those questions and acting on the answers requires trusting that I innately have a feel for what I need in each moment… what is right for me.
But because I was always so in tune with the expectations and standards I was taught, so in the habit of aligning with those, I never experienced the possibility that I can find a sense of balance by simply tuning in to what my inner voice is telling me in each moment. I had no proof because I’d never done it, so I couldn’t trust that voice. I didn’t believe it.
And when I wasn’t in touch with that inner voice, I looked to the times when I did what I “shouldn’t” have done, maybe viewing it as acting impulsively, and said to myself, “see, I can’t trust my instincts. I ate a whole pizza pie and now I feel like shit.”
But I was confusing the outcome of denying my intuition with acting on my intuition.
When I lived alone in San Francisco, I wanted Friday nights to feel like a celebration of the end of the work week, so I’d open a bottle of wine and order my favorite pizza (shoutout to Pizzeria Delfina!). I’d decide before the pizza arrived that I deserved to have the whole pie, so I’d eat the whole pie, never checking in on whether I felt full before it was finished.
Had I checked in, I might’ve enjoyed it until I felt full and felt grateful for what I enjoyed. I might’ve had one glass of wine, not several.
I might’ve recognized what in hindsight I know I actually wanted: a break from the routine of the work week that felt fun and spontaneous. There were a lot of ways I could’ve achieved that that didn’t leave me feeling sick and hungover.
When I listen to my inner voice, when I clear the noise of what I “should” do based on others’ expectations and how I think things should be done in order to achieve my big picture goal, when I let go and trust that just making the decision that’s right for *now* over and over and over will lead to a balanced life–because that inner voice is so much more in touch with what I need in any given moment than preset expectations and plans–I find that I fall into an effortless sense of balance. An unanxious balance without the overwhelm of calculating what to do now by weighing my options against what I did yesterday and plan to do tomorrow.
This is all so hard to put into words, and harder to grasp without feeling it. It’s the kind of thing I’ve heard or read about in podcasts and books for years and never fully understood but lately it feels like something is clicking.
I don’t know whether it’s the years of daily meditation, my journaling practice, the books I’ve read/am reading, or the convergence of these and more (it’s the last one :) my intuition told me so), but gosh is it freeing.
It’s a kind of self trust I wanted but didn’t understand until now.
It’s a clarity about the expectations and values I took on that aren’t mine.
It’s self-acceptance and love like I’ve never felt.
I wanted all those things. They sounded nice, but I don’t think I knew what they meant. It didn’t matter in that it was good to have those as goals, but my experience is showing me those come as byproducts of over and over checking in with my inner voice and choosing to trust what it’s telling me, even and especially when it’s counter to what I or others expected.
Self acceptance and trust… I’m only understanding them now that I’m feeling them. And for me, they really truly only come by walking the walk, with patience and compassion for how hard the walk is… with weathering the discomfort of breaking from expectations and seeing + feeling how I survive.
I spun my wheels so much willing myself to love and accept myself but I’m finding they flow naturally from presence and turning inward.
And this isn’t to say all the time I’ve spent doing the calculus and trying to achieve balance wasn’t worth it. Doing those things were baby steps, stepping stones, toward feeling the delicious feeling of balance. Because when I was completely out of touch with my inner voice, I couldn’t have even known what balance felt like to detect being in and out of balance.
So it’s like the first step was energy and intention to familiarize myself with the feeling of balance. This required a lot of control and assessment and reflection, especially because doing anything that broke with expectations felt so uncomfortable when it was new and different.
But now that I’m more comfy with breaking from expectations and so familiar with the feeling of balance, I’m able to let go and allow my familiarity with those feelings to be my guide. I can ease up on how hard I have to think, and turn to the feelings–my inner voice–as my compass instead.
Every single baby step matters and there’s no way I could’ve sped up or rushed the process but gosh am I glad I started it.
Reply to this email (or DM me on Insta or LinkedIn) to chat about this experience <3 I’m serious. You aren’t alone. You can find balance, self-love, and self-trust, and it’s not your fault that it feels so hard.