I’ve been thinking about something since last week’s email.

I wrote about realizing that, in trying to become more professional, I had edited out parts of myself that made me feel alive. And of course, I understood why I had done that. I could tell you where the beliefs came from, what they were protecting, and probably trace the whole thing back quite beautifully.

Which is part of the problem.

We can become very, very good at understanding ourselves. We know why we people-please, why we avoid conflict, why we choose unavailable people, why we overwork, why we disappear when we’re scared. We know which parent it came from. We know our attachment style. We have language for the pattern.

And sometimes we still keep doing the exact same thing.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, partly because of the work I’m doing around RIFRA and partly because of a conversation I hosted last week about Freud and psychoanalysis. Insight matters enormously to me. I’m a depth person. I want to know where something came from, what meaning we made, what happened in our early relationships, and what we learned we had to become in order to belong or stay safe.

But I don’t think understanding is the whole thing.

At some point, something has to move from “I know this” to “I live differently because I know this.” That gap fascinates me.

So instead of giving you more things to think about today, I want to invite you to actually try something.

Take a minute and think of one pattern in your life that you understand pretty well already. Not the biggest trauma of your life, just something familiar. Maybe you keep saying yes when you want to say no. Maybe you keep waiting for someone else to choose you. Maybe you overexplain or overapologize, put off the thing you say you want, work when you’re exhausted, or make yourself smaller around certain people.

Once you have one, write down three things:

What do I already know about why I do this?

What does continuing to do it cost me now?

And if I didn’t need to solve the entire pattern, what is one small thing I could do differently this week?

Not the perfect action or the bravest action. Just something that makes the new truth a little more real. Send the email. Don’t send the email. Ask the question. Leave earlier. Rest. Wear the thing. Say no. Say yes. Tell the truth a little more plainly. Book the class. Let somebody help you.

This is the part I keep coming back to: insight can open the door, but eventually we have to walk through it.

If something came up while you were doing this, hit reply and tell me. It can literally be one sentence. I read every response.

With love,

Tanya