What Do You Actually Want?

What’s one thing you wish more women were honest with themselves about? 

I woke up with that question on my mind this morning. No clue where it came from, but in true me fashion, I sat my ass down and journaled about it. And what came out of me is something I think might help you. (And you better take something away from it, because I had to fight for my life trying to read my own handwriting afterward so I could type it all out for you. LOL.)

Okay. Enjoy.

I wish more women were more honest with themselves about what they truly wanted for themselves out of life. Not what other people want for you, not what’s expected of you as a woman — what you want for you. 

My job is to sit with women every day, hear them out, help them sort through whatever it is they sought me out for at the time — dating, relationships, navigating womanhood, figuring themselves out after a breakup, trying to rebuild their confidence after years of letting people walk all over them, all of it. And then from there, guide them back to themselves somehow through the middle of all that noise.

I love my job. Genuinely. I feel really honoured to be able to work with women in this way. I’ve been doing this for over a decade now, which means I’ve heard hundreds of stories, sat through tears, nervous laughs, hard truths, “I’ve never told anyone this before” moments, and those long pauses women make right before they finally admit the thing they’ve been working overtime trying not to admit to themselves.

So because of that, I hear a lot of the same stories. Different names and circumstances, yes, but the same kind of stories nonetheless. And it always makes me think to myself, man… I really wish more women were more honest with themselves about what they truly wanted for themselves out of life.

You know, it’s like from the day we pop out of our momma’s wombs, we’re handed a script for how we’re supposed to live as women. Society’s script. And by the time we reach adulthood, most of us have followed it for so long that it almost starts feeling like law. A really shitty law that is meant to keep us in the middle of the most exhausting tug of war game ever, and the rules keep changing depending on who’s judging you that day.

Be pretty, but don’t look like you’re trying too hard. It should give “effortlessly pretty”. Be ambitious, but not so ambitious that people start calling you intimidating. Be independent, but still make men feel needed. Fill your own cup first, but don’t be full of yourself. Love yourself out loud, but also be quiet about it when you’re around people who don’t love themselves. Have boundaries, but also make sure to accommodate everyone’s feelings around you. Speak up for yourself, but also don’t talk back. Be your own woman, but also let the man in your life lead. Get married and have kids, but also have a career and keep a clean home, cook dinner every night, and tend to all your husbands wants, needs, and fantasies. 

Girl. Exhausting. I know.

But at some point, in the middle of all that, you really do have to take a beat and ask yourself, “Actually… what do I want for myself? Who do I want to be for me?” 

I’m talking about outside of everybody else’s expectations. Outside of social media, outside of what men want from you, what your family hoped for you, and what would make other people proud. I mean really sit with yourself and ask: “If I could build my life from the ground up, write my own script… what would it actually look like for me?”

I can’t tell you how many women I’ve sat with, and three to four sessions in it dawns on them that they don’t even actually want the life they were conditioned to chase, or want to be the woman they were conditioned to be. It’s the validation that comes with it that they want. The feeling of being accepted, approved of, or seen as “good enough.” And those are two completely different things.

I think about this a lot when it comes to dating and relationships. So many women have spent their whole lives trying to get validation from men, to the point where they’ve never taken the time to explore themselves outside of men. They don’t know what genuinely lights them up, or what kind of work would actually make them feel good to do, or even what kind of environment makes them happiest. They don’t know who they are outside of this gawt damn shitty-ass script. A script that was intentionally written to keep us disconnected from ourselves and tied to men. 

I’m not saying relationships don’t matter - of course they do and they’re part of our lives. Love, real love (not the toxic shit people call love) but genuine, pure love is beautiful. Healing even. Real partnership is so beautiful. But the problem is we were taught to make it our entire lives. To build our entire identity around whether or not we’re wanted, picked, married, texted back, prioritized, proposed to, or kissed on the forehead by a man.

Every day I want to scream at the top of my lungs “Y’all, WAKE UP! You are letting yourself be robbed of your own autonomy, sense of self, control over your own life as a woman. Please, wake up!” 

And as I’m writing this I’m realizing that yes, I guess I actually do that in many different ways. My podcast, social media, client work, this blog. But sometimes I think it feels like there are more women who want to stay plugged into the things that control them, than there are who are willing to pull that plug. You know? 

It saddens me because there are so many ways to exist as a woman, and I truly believe with my entire spirit that if more women were just honest with themselves about what they truly wanted out of life, we’d see less women struggling, burnt out, trying to survive… and more women actually living their best lives. 

Food for thought (deep thought). Just make sure you finish your plate so you can go be great. 

XO,

Cynthia

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