As a child, I didn’t have much choice.
I was expected to do what my parents told me to do.
Their decisions were the decisions.
Their feelings mattered.
Their rules were to be followed.
I learned early not to question the people who were supposed to know better.
But somewhere along the way, I carried that lesson into adulthood.
I still listened too much to the advice of other people.
Doctors.
Experts.
People I believed knew more than I did.
These past few years have brought that pattern into sharp focus.
I have listened to doctor after doctor give me direction, hoping that the next treatment, the next procedure, or the next answer would finally bring relief.
Some were wonderful doctors.
I don’t believe they were careless or didn’t want to help me.
But I’ve come to realize that no one person can always see the whole picture.
They see what they have been trained to see.
They have their knowledge, their experience, and their perspective.
But I am the one living inside this body.
I am the one who feels what is happening.
And somewhere along the way, I began to understand that I have another source of wisdom.
My intuition.
It took me many years to even recognize that I had one.
It took even longer to trust it.
Perhaps that is because trusting my intuition requires something I wasn’t taught as a child.
Trusting myself.
Listening to that quiet voice inside me.
Paying attention when something doesn’t feel right.
Allowing myself to ask questions.
And giving myself permission to say, “I don’t know if this is right for me.”
I don’t have to reject the wisdom of others to honor my own.
I can listen.
I can learn.
I can consider advice.
And then I can go inside myself and ask,
What do I know?
What does my body tell me?
What feels right?
Maybe this is another part of becoming the safe place for the little girl inside me.
She spent so many years being told what to think, what to feel, and what to do.
Now I want her to know that she has a voice.
And I am finally learning to listen.
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