by She Emerges

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Let Yourself In

One of the things I have recognized recently in my coaching work, and in my quest for really trying to pinpoint the segment of women I feel most compelled or called to work with, is that many more women than I would have ever expected have a hard time letting themselves in.

What do I mean by that?

I mean, many woman have stopped letting themselves in, even to themselves. It's one thing to have difficulty letting others into your space, your heart, your head…your soul, but I never realized I would come across so many women that don't even let themselves in. It crushes me every time I ask a woman a question about what they think, or how they feel, and their only reply is "I don't know."

My guess is that they do know, but they have so many thoughts they just don't know which one to pick... as though speaking out loud one of the many thoughts swimming around in their head will automatically disqualify, negate or wipe out every other option they had to choose from. That's not how it is.

I would much rather have a woman I am working with spew out a hundred "possibilities" than to answer "I don't know."

We don't have to be sure, we only have to be willing to honestly look at what it is that is coming up for us, even if that means going through the possibilities one by one. We do ourselves such a disservice by saying "I don't know." Where and why did we ever learn to restrict our thoughts, knowledge or feelings? Who was it that convinced us it was better to say I don't know? Did we learn it in school, where everything seemed to have only one correct answer? Did we automatically assign the "rules" of organized education to questions about our own life? Did we somehow come to believe that it was better to say I don't know than to possibly get a question wrong? Did we learn that there are no do overs, and if you didn't get it right the first time, there was no going back?

So, how can we change this? 

Connection is the key. We must make time to spend with ourselves, time without external opinions. We need to create time and space alone so we can start to disentangle our thoughts and opinions from those of others. Once we allow ourselves time to listen to, and really hear, what we have to say without the influence of others, we will start to see that we have known all along. By surrendering to our inner most truths, our confidence will grow. We will not be second guessing because it will be the voice we knew we should have always been listening to.