What if, instead of immediately trying to fill the empty spaces inside us, we stayed long enough to discover what they were asking for?
What would happen if you stopped reaching outside yourself every time something inside you hurt? Not forever. Just long enough to hear what was underneath all the reaching.
I have been thinking about this question a lot. Because there are so many ways we reach.
For love. For attention. For achievement. For money. For recognition. For invitations. For another accomplishment.
For someone to tell us we’re beautiful. Successful. Wanted. Needed. Important. Chosen.
Sometimes we reach for another person. Sometimes another job. Sometimes another purchase. Sometimes another goal.
Sometimes we become obsessed with improving ourselves because even healing can become another way of saying: Maybe when I become better, I will finally feel worthy.
And perhaps none of these things are inherently wrong.
I want love. I want success. I want financial security. I want beautiful things and extraordinary experiences. I want to accomplish things that matter to me.
The question isn’t whether we should want anything outside ourselves.
The question is: What are we asking those things to give us?
What Are You Actually Seeking?
There is a difference between wanting love and needing another person to prove you are lovable.
There is a difference between wanting success and needing achievement to prove you matter.
There is a difference between enjoying recognition and requiring other people’s approval to believe in yourself.
There is a difference between wanting financial security and believing your bank account determines whether you are safe inside yourself.
There is a difference between wanting belonging and shrinking yourself so someone will let you stay.
Those distinctions can be difficult to see while we’re inside them. Sometimes the thing we think we’re seeking isn’t actually the thing we’re seeking.
Maybe you don’t need another accomplishment.
Maybe you need to believe you’re worthy when you’re doing absolutely nothing.
Maybe you don’t need another person to choose you.
Maybe you need to stop abandoning yourself whenever someone else doesn’t.
Maybe you don’t need everyone to understand you.
Maybe you need to trust yourself enough to tolerate being misunderstood.
Maybe you don’t need another invitation.
Maybe you need to stop standing outside rooms that have repeatedly shown you they were never yours.
Sometimes what we’re looking for outside ourselves is evidence of something we haven’t yet learned how to give ourselves.
What If You Stopped Reaching?
Imagine giving yourself time. Time without dating. Time without ambition. Time and space in which your primary relationship was with yourself.
Noticing every time you reached for something simply because you didn’t want to feel what was happening inside you.
Asking: What am I actually seeking right now?
When loneliness arrives, you don’t immediately make it disappear.
You sit beside it long enough to understand it.
When you feel rejected, you don’t immediately search for someone else to validate you.
You notice what rejection awakens inside you.
When someone leaves, you don’t chase them to avoid confronting the abandoned part of yourself.
You turn toward that part.
When you feel unworthy, you don’t immediately accomplish something impressive so you can feel valuable again.
You ask where you learned that worth had to be earned in the first place.
Imagine what you might discover.
You Meet the Parts You Were Avoiding
When we stop constantly soothing ourselves externally, eventually we meet ourselves.
The lonely part.
The scared part.
The abandoned part.
The angry part.
The part that desperately wants to be chosen.
The part that worries there won’t be enough.
The part that believes everyone eventually leaves.
The part that learned being useful was safer than having needs.
The part that believes love has to be earned.
The part that became independent because depending on someone once hurt too much.
These aren’t shameful parts. They’re human ones.
And I think many of us spend extraordinary amounts of energy arranging our lives so we never have to sit alone with them.
But what if we did?
Not to wallow. Not to become obsessed with our wounds. To finally stop leaving ourselves alone with them.
Cancer Gave Me Time, But It Wasn’t the Same Thing
In some ways, I did step outside ordinary life for nearly two years.
My relationship with mortality was established.
My understanding of time was forever altered.
My entire lens on life was dismantled and rebuilt.
Cancer accelerated lessons I may otherwise have taken decades to understand. If ever.
But when I returned to life, I realized something: There was still work waiting for me.
Cancer had shown me how precious my life was.
Now I had to decide how I wanted to live it. That’s a completely different assignment.
You Stop Begging for Scraps
Something happens when you spend enough time learning how to be with yourself.
Your standards change. Not because you become arrogant. Because desperation begins leaving the room.
You stop needing every person to stay.
You stop needing every opportunity to work.
You stop convincing yourself that almost is enough.
You stop calling inconsistency potential.
You stop mistaking being tolerated for being valued.
You stop shrinking so other people don’t feel threatened by your size.
And this extends far beyond romantic relationships.
You stop accepting scraps of friendship.
Scraps of respect.
Scraps of opportunity.
Scraps of belonging.
Scraps of your own potential.
Because once you’ve spent enough time becoming someone you can rely on, losing something outside yourself doesn’t automatically mean losing yourself.
Then a Different Question Appears
Eventually, the question stops being: Will they choose me?
And becomes: Do I choose this?
Do I want this relationship?
Do I want this friendship?
Do I want this job?
Do I want to be in this room?
Do I actually admire these people?
Does this opportunity belong to the life I’m building?
Does this version of success still interest me?
Does this life feel big enough for who I am becoming?
That last question: realizing you’ve outgrown the size of the life you once believed would satisfy you.
What If You’ve Been Playing Small?
There was a point in my life when I was constantly imagining what was next..Somewhere along the way, I became more focused on maintaining than expanding.
More focused on what was happening around me than what I wanted to create next.
I watched other people move while forgetting that I had always been someone who moved.
And perhaps part of this chapter of my life is remembering that.
Your Life Gets to Get Bigger
The purpose of turning inward isn’t to stay there forever. We go inward so that when we return to the world, we meet it differently.
We stop asking it to complete us. We stop begging it to approve of us.
We stop contorting ourselves to remain connected to people, places and identities we’ve already outgrown.
We stop confusing familiarity with alignment.
And then we can want things again. Not from emptiness. From fullness.
Not: Please choose me.
But: Does this deserve a place in my life?
Not: Please tell me I’m enough.
But: I know who I am. What do I want to create from here?
That’s one of the most powerful things that can happen when you stop looking outside yourself.
Eventually, you look outward again.
But this time, you’re not searching for yourself.
You’re deciding where you want to go.
