What do you need, and how will you get it?

What do you need, and how will you get it?

These are two of my favourite questions. They’re deceptively simple, and deceptively powerful.

What do I need?

Off the top of my head, without thinking about it, I need adventure! I need to get out of the house and move my body, dancing barefoot under trees and stars.

I need to experience something super unexpected and strange that I could not have predicted, like the time I was in the Czech Republic and stepped off the bus in a small town to find people in period dress sword fighting in the streets and stalls selling honey mead on street corners, wondering for a while if I’d somehow gotten on a magic bus and gone back in time.

I need a good solid dose of the surreal because I’m happiest when the world is delightfully weird.

And I need to make more art.

(as a side note - I was expecting answers like ‘more support’ and ‘more sleep’. I love that what I actually need is less ‘practical’ and feels more ‘me’. There’s more life in the real answers. And I’d never have known if I hadn’t started writing this post and asked myself the questions in a structured kind of way. The moral of this side note - find ways to create spaces for you to surprise yourself).

Back to the questions - how will I get these things?

The first one and the last one are easy - I’ll leave the house, go hiking in the trees, walk down to the beach at twilight and spin in circles on the sand. I’ll make more art - half my room is covered in paper and sketch books and markers and pencils and paint. It’s fairly straightforward to mix some of those things together and call the end result art.

Experiencing super unexpected and strange is harder to plan for. For that - I have to trust that the surreal knows where I am, and it always finds me when I'm open to it but least expecting it.

Most recently it's shown up in the form of a new therapist I’m working with - she’s pure magic and our sessions are very strange and roam from experiencing the bottom of my feet to echo chambers in Egypt to imagining enormous regal cats in the corners of my room, and I come out of them feeling like I've reconnected with the soul of my existence.

This was going to be a serious post about serious things, and it’s gotten odd and I approve.

What do I need, and how will I get it?

I love these questions because of who I am when I ask them.

If I’m asking these questions, I’m taking ownership of where I’m at. I’m seeing that what I’m experiencing or how I’m feeling isn’t quite what I want to be experiencing or feeling, and I’m thinking about what needs to change and how I might make that change.

If I’m asking these questions, I’m claiming worth - by asking, I’m implying I’m worthy of having what I need, and I’m thinking about how to give it to myself. And by doing this, I’m building more and more trust with myself - I show myself that I take myself seriously and notice when I need tending to and make that care a priority.

If I’m asking these questions, I’m coming from an empowered place - it’s hard to be both a victim AND figuring out how to get my needs met.

If I’m asking these questions, and I keep asking them, I’m going to have a very surreal and interesting life, filled with interesting people and art and beauty and magic and truth, and I can’t think of anything better.

What do you need? How will you get it?

Let’s work together and help you find some answers :) It’s a lot of fun, and maybe you’ll end up somewhere completely unexpected but better than anywhere you could have planned.

Send me a message if you’re curious and let’s talk about what’s possible.

Here’s to strange and delightful surprises, and living a life that’s uniquely weird.