When did “What do you want?” become such a difficult question?
You’ve spent years factoring everybody else into your decisions. Your partner, your children, your parents, your work, what needs doing, what people expect from you and how they might feel about whatever you decide.
And somewhere along the way, you stopped being quite so sure what you wanted.
Maybe you’ve even reached the point where you’re wondering: Who am I when I’m not being who everybody else needs me to be?
Maybe it isn't another boundaries problem
You might already know about people pleasing and boundaries. You might have been to therapy, read the books, done the journalling and become extremely good at understanding why you do what you do.
But knowing you’re allowed to say no doesn’t necessarily make it easier when somebody you love is disappointed by your answer. And knowing you should put yourself first doesn’t tell you what you actually want.
Because when you’ve spent years being the reliable one, the responsible one, the one who copes, the one who looks after everyone else or simply the person everybody expects you to be, those roles can become part of how you understand yourself.
Eventually, the question isn’t just How do I set better boundaries?
It’s Who am I when I’m not being who everybody else needs me to be?
Find yourself again
You don’t need to become a whole new woman.
My work is about figuring out who you are when you’ve spent so long being who everybody else needs you to be that you’re no longer entirely sure what belongs to you.
What do you actually want? What do you like? Which parts of your life still fit, and which ones are there because they made sense for somebody you used to be or somebody you thought you were supposed to be?
Finding yourself again doesn’t mean you stop caring about the people you love or blow up a perfectly decent life in the name of authenticity. It means you start including yourself in it.
Ways into the work
Start wherever makes sense to you.
There isn’t one correct place to begin.
Who Am I Without the Roles?
When you've spent years being the mum, partner, daughter, employee, carer, strong one or reliable one, it can be difficult to know where the roles end and you begin.
On Your Terms Podcast
Real conversations with ordinary women about losing themselves, what made them realise something needed to change, what they did differently and what they're still figuring out.
The Permission Project
For when you've done plenty of thinking and understanding, but want somewhere to start figuring out what you want and practice making choices that include you too.
The Permission Project
You can understand yourself really well and still not know how to live differently
You can know that your needs matter. You can know that you're allowed to change your mind, want something different or make a decision someone else doesn't understand.
Actually doing it can be another matter entirely.
The Permission Project is a monthly membership where you can start experimenting with what happens when you include yourself in your own life. Not by trying to reinvent yourself over night, but through ordinary choices that help you figure out what you want, what feels right for you and what happens when you trust yourself enought to act on it.
There's no enormous curricullum to work through and you can't fall behind. You can take part as much or as little as you want without turning finding yourself into another bloddy thing you have to do properly.
The permission project isn't currently open but you can join the waiting list and I'll let you know when it is.
Hi, I'm Haley.
I'm an Identity and Authenticity Educator, and I know what it's like to reach adulthood and realise you're not entirely sure how much of the life you're living was actually chosen by you.
I joined the Royal Air Force because it was what my dad wanted me to do. I stayed for 11 years out of obligation, and when I was medically discharged I suddenly had to start again at almost 30 without the role that had shaped my entire adult life.
And I didn't know who I was.
I didn't know what I wanted, what came next or how to be myself when the roles I'd spent years living were no longer there.
That experience is a big part of why I'm interested in the question underneath all of this: who are you when you stop being who everyone else needs you to be?
The aim isn't to become someone new. It's to become more you.