I have been thinking about the woman who has built a good life.
Not a perfect life.
A good one.
She has accomplished things she once hoped for. She has grown. Learned. Worked. Loved. Raised people. Led people. Built things. Survived things.
She has a lot to be grateful for.
And she is.
But every now and then, another thought shows up:
Is this all the life I get to experience?
That question can make a woman uncomfortable.
Because we have been taught to believe that wanting more means we are dissatisfied with what we already have.
I do not believe that.
You can love your life and still want to experience more of it.
You can be grateful for what you built and curious about who you are becoming.
You can love your family and want something that belongs only to you.
You can be successful and still realize that success has not given every part of you room to breathe.
Nothing has to be wrong for something new to be calling you.
Sometimes the next chapter does not begin because your life falls apart.
Sometimes it begins because you wake up.
You start noticing things.
You want to travel again.
Create again.
Laugh more.
Build something different.
Experience deeper relationships.
Have more room.
Do something simply because you want to know what it feels like.
You begin wondering what another version of your life could look like.
And then almost immediately, responsibility walks into the conversation.
How would I do that?
When would I have time?
What would everybody else think?
Can I afford it?
Who would take care of everything?
Is that realistic?
Maybe later.
And just like that, possibility gets reduced to what your current life can accommodate.
I think we need to talk about that.
What do you actually want?
That sounds like such a simple question.
Until you ask a woman who has spent years being responsible for other people.
She knows what her family needs.
She knows what needs to happen at work.
She knows the next deadline.
She knows what everybody is expecting.
She can tell you what needs fixing, paying, scheduling, buying, planning, and solving.
But ask:
What do you want?
And sometimes there is silence.
Not because there is nothing inside her.
She just has not had to consult that part of herself in a long time.
Responsibility can become so loud that desire becomes background noise.
So I am not asking you what your next five-year goal is.
I am asking something much more personal.
What would you like to experience?
What would make you feel more alive?
What would you try if everything did not have to be productive?
Where would you go?
What would you learn?
What would you create?
Who would you become?
What would you put back into your life?
Those questions matter.
Because desire gives us information about the woman.
Then we have to talk about capacity
This is where the conversation gets interesting.
You can know what you want and still not have room for it.
That does not automatically mean the desire is unrealistic.
Your capacity may already be committed.
Your time.
Attention.
Emotional energy.
Decision-making.
Physical energy.
Mental space.
Maybe almost everything available to you is already assigned.
So when something new tries to enter your life, your first response is:
“I cannot take on anything else.”
And you may be absolutely right.
But what if the answer is not to forget what you want?
What if the answer is to examine what is already consuming the space you would need to experience it?
That is different.
Because I am not interested in helping women pile beautiful dreams on top of overloaded lives.
That is not expansion.
That is more weight.
Before we add more, sometimes we need to restore room.
Some things you stopped wanting because they became inconvenient
This one may sting a little.
There are things you once wanted that you may have convinced yourself you no longer care about because wanting them required something.
A conversation.
A boundary.
A change.
Money.
Time.
Help.
Permission.
Disappointing somebody.
Doing something differently than you have always done it.
So eventually it became easier to say:
“I’m good.”
“I don’t really care anymore.”
“It’s not that important.”
“Maybe one day.”
But I wonder how much of that was true.
And how much was adaptation.
Sometimes the woman does not need someone to give her a new dream.
She needs enough room to hear the desires she has been talking herself out of.
Restoration is not only about recovering from what hurt you
This is where my own thinking about restoration keeps expanding.
Restoration can absolutely involve repairing what has been depleted, disrupted, silenced, or damaged.
But restoration is not only about getting you out of something.
It is also about preparing you for what becomes possible next.
More life may require more capacity.
More leadership may require different systems.
More intimacy may require greater presence.
More freedom may require different boundaries.
A larger future may require you to stop organizing your entire life around survival, obligation, or what everybody else has grown accustomed to receiving from you.
That is why I do not want to simply ask:
“What do you want next?”
I also want to ask:
What needs to be restored so you can actually live it?
That question takes us somewhere.
Maybe it is your energy.
Your voice.
Your imagination.
Your confidence.
Your rhythms.
Your ability to receive.
Your relationship with your body.
Your willingness to disappoint people.
Your capacity to make decisions based on what is true now instead of what was required of you ten years ago.
Maybe it is something else entirely.
But before we add more to your life, we need to make sure there is a woman present enough to experience it.
There is still more of you to meet
I think this is one of the gifts of midlife.
You know more now.
You have survived enough to know survival is not the goal.
You have accomplished enough to know achievement cannot answer every question.
You have lived enough life to recognize that time matters.
And maybe you are finally old enough to stop building your entire life around who everybody else needed you to be.
There is still more of you to meet.
That thought excites me.
Not because the woman you have been is inadequate.
She got you here.
But she may not be the final version.
So this week, I want you to resist the urge to immediately turn possibility into a plan.
Just notice what wakes up.
Ask yourself:
What do I want to experience in the life I still get to live?
And then ask:
Do I currently have room for it?
If the answer is no, do not kill the desire.
That may simply show you where restoration needs to begin.
Dr. Anita McDaniel
The Restorationist
Restore the woman. Rebuild her system. Release her future.