Embrace Your Knowing

When reading Glennon Doyle’s book, Untamed, I came across a concept that she calls her “Knowing.” She described a moment in her life after she discovered her husband had cheated on her, when she was absolutely overwhelmed and looking outside of herself for an answer to what she should do in her situation. After scouring the internet for advice on what to do when your husband cheats, she realized that she had just trusted the internet with one of the most important and intimate decisions of her life. Her realization of how ridiculous, impersonal, and disempowering that act was sparked a realization in me. I couldn’t help but compare her desire for advice and validation to the way I’ve behaved in my own life. While I read about her realization that she’d constantly looked to other people to tell her what was best for her, I realized that I’ve done the exact same thing. 

Classic Literature shelves at The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles

I don’t know if it’s a result of being an overachieving child who thrived on the validation of my superiors or because I am someone who deeply trusts and respects my parents and their opinions on nearly everything, but I have always looked to others to decide what is best for me. It’s always been my first instinct to run my ideas about things by other people. I didn’t just do this on occasion. No, I did this for nearly every decision in my life - what hobbies I should pick up, the people I should go on dates with, the books I should read, the movies I should watch, hell, even what college to go to or what jobs to apply for. I’d ask my friends or mom or sister if my outfits were cute, if the restaurants I wanted to go to sounded good, if the text message I was sending my crush was a good idea. 

I wanted other people’s advice about everything and my guess is that most of you have done the same, at least for some of the things in your life. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with getting a second opinion, I realized when reading Glennon Doyle’s book that I completely depended on the opinions and validation of others to make me feel as though I was doing the “right” thing. Rather than look deep inside and listen to myself to make decisions, I looked outward to people I know or, like in Glennon’s case, to strangers on the internet. When doing this, it becomes almost inevitable that you’ll start to lose yourself. I know I started to lose myself for a while.

However, reading Untamed was a revolutionary experience. I finally had an answer to what I’d been missing for so long. I realized why I felt so lost and confused and as if I was basically just treading water in my life, staying afloat but not really going anywhere. More importantly, I knew what I had to do to stop feeling that way. It wasn’t that I’d just transfer my desire for validation onto Glennon and live my life the way she does. It was that I had to stop looking outside of myself entirely. That simple realization flipped a switch in me. I had to get reacquainted with who I am at my core and listen to the girl deep inside me that I’d been ignoring for so long. 

While Glennon shut herself up in her closet for days on end, forcing herself to be alone with her thoughts and listen intently to what her Knowing was trying to tell her, I realized that my own Knowing wasn’t actually buried that deep. Though I’d mostly ignored it for years, my intuition had broken through often enough that it wasn’t something I had to wake from any sort of deep hibernation, but rouse from a little cat nap. 

Instead, my Knowing has been giving me clues about what I wanted and needed for as long as I can remember. The clues I’d been largely ignoring lie in the way my heart picks up when I’m surrounded by books. Or when I read a particularly moving passage and get chills all over my body. My Knowing is telling me something when my hand instinctively reaches for an epic fantasy novel or pauses it’s scrolling on Netflix, even for a fraction of a second, over certain films and shows. My Knowing speaks to me when my chest tightens uncomfortably when I’m asked to work on a project that I know adds no value to the world or, in some cases, actively causes harm. My Knowing practically screams at me when I eat a delicious, wholesome, homemade meal or curl up with a good book and tea and rest for a while. It gives me clues when my heart swells while I’m on a call with my best friends or sharing a laugh with my family. My Knowing is inside me telling me this, this, this, more of this, please or alternatively, this isn’t meant for us. After reading Untamed, I began trusting my body’s instincts, my inner self, and the guidance they were giving me.  

This all came to a head when I was on a video call with my best friends recently. I should preface this by saying that I’m beyond lucky to have the most supportive, empowering, loving friends ever, who constantly push me toward my happiest, most empowered self. We often share our hopes and dreams with each other, offering advice and support when we can. On this particular call, one of my friends asked where each of us would like to be in five or ten years’ time. Unlike the many times I’d heard this question in my life, she wasn’t asking for a life plan of accomplishments or deadlines placed on us by society. Instead, she was asking what we’d genuinely like our lives to look like, no holds barred. She was asking what we truly wanted, deep down. My first instinct was to list those deadlines and accomplishments most people list when asked that kind of question - I want to get a Masters and PhD in x amount of years, I’d like to be able to afford a decent apartment and maybe find a loving and supportive long-term partner, etc. I felt good about my answer at first. It was both ambitious and reasonable, something I genuinely wanted, and it felt like the “right” thing to say. But then my friends shared their answers.

What they shared with me were visions of lives filled with joy, community, personal and professional fulfillment, and pure contentment. They offered up an idea of a future that was truly an ideal, where I’d offered up a vague idea of what I thought was an impressive life plan. Something clicked in me at that moment, and my Knowing went from whispering concrete suggestions to me, suggestions like getting graduate degrees from schools in the UK, which is genuinely something I want to do, to screaming at me to accept the vision of my life that’s always been lurking inside me, deep down.

When they finished sharing their idyllic futures, I asked them if I could amend my answer. Of course, they obliged, eager to hear my true answer, and I replied simply, “I’m going to be a motherfucking best-selling author.” That’s it. That’s the dream. That’s been the dream since I was 8 years old, reading books like Harry Potter and The Magic Treehouse for the first time, having my soul set on fire with the beauty of imaginary worlds. That’s been the dream since I entered my first Young Authors contest and got to hold a physical book I’d written. Of course, other things are encompassed in that dream - the in-home library where I’ll do most of my writing and continue to gain inspiration, traveling the world for research or book tours, giving guest lectures and talks at colleges and libraries, writing or consulting on scripts for my novels to be turned into films or TV shows, being able to write from anywhere in the world which will give me the ability to spend time with the people I love who are scattered over the globe, the meetings with editors and publishers to help make my writing the best it can be, the list goes on. Every single one of those things sets my whole body buzzing with excitement.

After that conversation, my Knowing and I have become closer than ever. I know what it feels like when my inner self is trying to get through to me and point me in a certain direction. I know to listen to those subtle clues and feelings, which helps me to build the most enjoyable, authentic life possible for myself. 

Now that we’re heading into 2022, it seems like the perfect time to commit to embracing my Knowing full time. Sure, I might slip up and make mistakes, falling into old patterns of looking for outside validation of my decisions from time to time, but after all I’ve learned through this recent discovery, I know I won’t be able to ignore my Knowing for long, nor would I ever want to. I encourage all of you to pay extra close attention to when you’re looking to others, rather than yourself, for guidance on what decisions you should make, big or small. I implore you to look inward instead, get acquainted with your Knowing, your intuition, your inner self, and trust that feeling deep inside of you that directs you where you truly ought to go. It’ll take practice, especially if you’ve been ignoring it for most of your life, but I promise you, the work is totally worth it.