It happens in the smallest of moments. Slowly at first, one tiny sacrifice at a time, until one day you wake up and realize that you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror. You don’t feel happy in the life you’re supposed to be grateful for. You don’t feel a sense of purpose or passion in your day. You’re simply going through the motions of life on autopilot. Every day becomes another version of the last.
Maybe it started when you had kids and began catering to their every need, forgetting entirely about your own. Or perhaps it started in your relationship, always willing to do what your partner wants, but never speaking up for what you want. Maybe you were even younger, carrying the weight of keeping the peace in your home, before you could even keep the peace within yourself. Maybe you lost yourself in the dream, only to realize that it wasn’t really your dream at all. Or like most women, maybe you don’t know when it started at all, but you can feel it. The deep void of emptiness. The yearning for a life different than this. The knowing that there is more, so much more, but the uncertainty that you will ever find it drowning out the knowing of what could be.
When did your life become so full of everything and everyone else that there was no room left for you?
When did you start treating your own happiness like something that could wait?
When was the last time you did something simply because it made you happy?
What if by simply following your joy, you could find your way home?
You owe it to yourself to try. You owe it to her. To the woman within you who used to dream, explore, laugh, create, and believe that anything was possible. The woman who wanted to paint, to write, to teach, to cook, to speak. To the woman who spent hours imaging her dream life in full detail and bright vivid color. Whose journals were full of notes, the pages filled with something magical. Who was spontaneous, courageous and brave. To the woman who has walked along beside you this whole time, begging you to remember. Who has nudged you with the reminders that life has made you ignore. You owe it to her.
So, follow your joy. Do more of what lights you up. Take the class. Launch the idea. Try the thing. Set the goals. Book the trip. Say the words. Dream bigger. You’re not too old. It’s not too late. You’re not out of time. You’re simply finding your way back, and sometimes that journey takes time.
Because maybe it’s not that you're unhappy with your life. Maybe you're just missing yourself in it.
But she's still there.
Perhaps it's time you start making room for her again.
Love, Stacey
Stacey Foley, PCC, CMMT
Women’s Life Empowerment Coach | Speaker | Writer
