What your restlessness is telling you

On paper, your life may look fine. Good, even. And yet there is a restlessness you can’t quite explain — a sense, on a Sunday evening or in the car park before work, that something is missing.

Many of the women I work with feel guilty about this. I should be grateful. Other people have real problems.

I want to offer you another way of seeing it.

Restlessness is not ingratitude

You can be thankful for your life and still be outgrowing parts of it. Both are true at once. A plant that has filled its pot is not ungrateful for the pot.

That unsettled feeling is often the first sign that your vision is trying to get your attention. It deserves curiosity, not shame.

Two kinds of signal

When I sit with a client, we listen for two things:

• Discontent — what you can no longer tolerate. The meeting that drains you. The role you have outgrown. The way you put yourself last.
• Longing — what you quietly ache for. More meaning. More rest. A piece of work that is truly yours.

Discontent tells you what to move away from. Longing tells you what to move towards. You need both to find your direction.

Try this tonight

Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left, write “What I’ve had enough of.” On the right, “What I long for.” Give yourself ten honest minutes.

Then read it back, slowly, as if a dear friend had written it. What would you want for her?

Talk it through on a Clarity Call