Sit with yourself

Hello Everyone! Welcome to On This Walk, a reflection on the winding journey of life in all its realness. We explore intimate, meaningful conversations surrounding pressing life questions, strolling through both the tension points and choice points that can move us closer to our deeper, authentic lives.?

Beginning with a compassionate exploration of our inner landscape, we seek to bring this essence and these gifts into our lives, relationships, and work, creating a life that feels aligned and authentic inside and out.?

Let’s go On This Walk together.

Recently on the On This Walk podcast, I met with Reggie Walker, a former NFL athlete and the founder of the Personal Mastery School—a program that helps individuals find themselves, their purpose, and create a plan for their life.?

Reggie and I covered a lot—forgiveness, mental health, embracing ourselves, and more. But today I want to talk about something that came up in the very beginning of our conversation.

Reggie had an enviable football career that many people would give anything for. So it can be difficult to understand why someone in his position would choose to walk away while he was still young. When you spend your whole life working toward something, how can you admit to yourself, much less everyone else, that it isn’t what you want anymore?

How do you begin to discover what you want as opposed to what you’ve been conditioned to believe that you have wanted?

The first thing Reggie said was, “I really sat with myself.”?

This resonated. I’ve said before—silence and stillness were the two most terrifying words in my vocabulary for a long time. People will jump through all kinds of hoops to avoid being alone with themselves. Reggie was brave enough to take years to sit with himself until he got the answers he needed. That’s much easier said than done, but it is needed if you wish to figure out what you really want and where your happiness comes from.

For Reggie, professional football was his outlet for dealing with his inner challenges, but when we focus all of our energy on a physical manifestation of whatever is going on inside, we aren’t doing the necessary work of getting to the root of the problem. Reggie said that after his second year in the NFL, he knew it wasn’t for him. But as he put it, “When it came down to what actually made me happy and what I actually wanted to do, I had no idea, which at that time kinda scared the hell outta me.”

That’s part of what makes sitting with yourself so scary: What happens if you ask yourself those questions and learn that you don’t have the answers? What if you have the answers, but they aren’t what you want or expected to hear? You won’t know until you try it, and you can’t pursue what makes you happy if you don’t take the time to figure it out.

Sitting with yourself is the first step.?

The second step is asking deeper questions:?

Where does my happiness rise from?

What matters most to me??

What connects me to my peace?

Based on these, what feels in alignment for me to continue, for me to stop, for me to start?

We don’t tend to take the time to ask ourselves these questions, let alone dig into and work with the answers over time. A lot of the things that initially come up are more surface level. Some people might give a simple response, like money. This is why it’s important to dig deeper. Sure, we all want money. But why? What need does that seem to fulfill? Maybe what we really need is security, or a guarantee that we can protect our loved ones by having enough money to comfortably pay for food and shelter. It’s only after continued questioning that we get to the root of what we need.

I encourage you to continue peeling back those layers with curiosity, patience, and persistence. What makes me happy? Why? What is it about the qualities of the experiences that make me happy? Who am I in those moments? What am I tapping into that makes me feel more centered, more at peace??

The third step, coming up with the answers and acting on them, is an entirely new challenge. But it’s all part of the journey to a happier, healthier life. For Reggie, this led him away from everything he thought he wanted, only to land in a place of healing, happiness, and peace.

Your challenge for the week:

Take the first step. You don’t need to change your life entirely, quit your job, or make any major pivots. Just sit with yourself. You may be surprised at what happens when you take a moment to listen. Nobody knows what makes you happy better than you.?

Until we go On This Walk again, be well.

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Want to go deeper into your winding path? You can join the intimate and deep conversations we are having at onthiswalk.com or listen to my podcast on your favorite podcast app