I can still remember it as clearly as if it just happened.
I'd been out of work for much longer than I thought I'd be when I first quit my job (the first, soul-sucking job I took when I moved to LA from Chicago...I quit after 2 months, which I had never done before—it felt equally brave and stupid, and I'm glad I didn't know at the time how hard it would be to find something less spirit-crushing).
I was no longer working as a therapist, because my Illinois license didn't transfer to my new state (or, at least, not feasibly enough to make happen at the time).
My parter was supporting us both, and I kept getting either rejections or silence from my job applications (even though none of those jobs felt super exciting to me).
And I felt completely lost.
So, I started following a bunch of food bloggers on Instagram. I also started cooking and baking more, and I would spend a bunch of concentrated time on the internet perusing things like "What are the optimal combinations of supplements to take, and at what time of day?"
I sensed something building in me. A quiet voice, gently guiding me in the direction of these interests I'd had sort of buried for awhile. I'd long been fascinated by food, nutrition, and the relationship we have with food and our bodies...
...but that wasn't a job for me. I was an out-of-work therapist. A job application reject. We didn't have the money for me to dive into something new. And who knew where it would lead?
And these are the kinds of things I would discuss with my partner, over and over.
On our walks through our neighborhood, I would complain about the feeling of just waiting for a company to tell me I was hire-able. I would lament about living in a state where I couldn't practice therapy, and I'd tell him that I guess I'm just going to be stuck in this spiral forever.
And I'd also tell him about what nutrition thing I'd explored that day, and about the new recipe I wanted to make...
...and about the nutritionist program that a food blogger I followed just graduated from.
I told him about the program, and about how interesting it was to me...and how I knew that it just didn't make sense for me to do anything like that, that I needed to just stay the course and keep applying for jobs I didn't care about.
And the thing I remember most clearly? On our walk one day, he said, "You know, you could do that nutrition program. We can figure it out if that's something you want to do."
It was all I needed.
That moment was the first time I allowed the wall I'd built around the dreams I'd considered "silly" to be cracked open.
It was as though light started shining through those cracks, and my whole body felt warmer. More free.
That permission of sorts was what I needed to finally accept the possibility that things might, one day, feel better than they did.
That perhaps, although plenty of the barriers I faced were legit, not all of them were as firm as I'd believed.
It allowed me the grace to say to myself, "But what if I could?"...a balm for all of the fear and doubt and uncertainty.
It was still scary. But it was also freedom.
Why am I sharing this with you today?
Because even though I didn't actually need permission from my partner to pursue a dream, I had just put up too many walls to be able to see past my tiny little cavern of despair.
His ability to see beyond what I could is what gave me the freedom to start to see it, too. I hope that I could have gotten there on my own, at some point...and also, what would have been the purpose of that? What would I have gained by struggling alone and taking longer to free myself from doubt and fear, without support?
You do not need anyone to give you permission to feel how you hope to feel.
But what is often helpful is having someone outside of yourself to see beyond what you can, to guide you toward your own intuitive knowing that has just been buried for awhile.
Someone to help you cultivate your own sense of freedom, of possibility, and of truly expansive and embodied living.
And even when you can't see the whole journey all at once, there is magic in taking that next right step.
I've been where you are. Even when we might not have had the exact same struggles, I know what it feels like to not feel fully yourself or fully free...to feel disconnected...to feel overcome by doubt, or fear, or a bunch of negative narratives that keep you from your own magic and a more embodied journey.
And I'm here to remind you: you don't need to know how the journey ends in order to take the next step toward what you want.
And you don't have to go it alone.