What do you want?

If you could have whatever you wanted in your heart of hearts, what would it be? How would life look and feel? Where would you live? What would change? If you aren’t used to asking yourself those questions, then maybe now - at the beginning of a new year - is a good time to start. This is a talk about why it might be hard for you to think about what you want, because maybe you stopped doing that somewhere along the way, or maybe it was ingrained in you to think it was selfish to consider your own desires. Girls and women in our culture are taught to be caretakers, to be nurturers, to be helpful - which is not a line of thinking that lends itself to prioritizing your own needs and wants. You might approach choices with a list of what’s good for everyone around you, putting yourself at the bottom of the pile, or you might avoid confrontation, take the path of least resistance to keep the peace, or sacrifice what’s good for you in an effort to manage other people’s feelings. Does it ever get to be your turn?