Latest / Just Julia / You Don’t Have to Choose

Transcript

You Don’t Have to Choose · Just Julia

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed how quickly we decide what kind of woman someone is,
0:04
SPEAKER_00: just by looking at her?
0:06
SPEAKER_00: A blazer means serious.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: A promotion means ambitious.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: A mother is supposed to be responsible, sensible, perhaps a little less interested in herself.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: And then there is another woman,
0:19
SPEAKER_00: the one who meditates,
0:21
SPEAKER_00: talks about energy,
0:22
SPEAKER_00: goes to retreats and perhaps owns an entire wardrobe of white linen.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: But what happens when you are all of those women?
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Or when you are curious about becoming some of them?
0:34
SPEAKER_00: This is the Just Julia podcast.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm Julia and today I want to talk about something I've been questioning lately.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Why we feel we have to choose which parts of ourselves are allowed to exist together.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: A few months ago I found myself looking online at photographs
0:51
SPEAKER_00: of people attending Kundalini sessions.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Flowing clothes, bare feet, beautifully peaceful expressions.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Everyone seemed to know how to look spiritually enlightened.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: And there I was, wondering what on earth I was supposed to wear.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: It is funny, isn't it?
1:09
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't even at the session yet and I was already trying to work out the dress code
1:13
SPEAKER_00: for self-discovery.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Then I had a small moment of rebellion.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: No.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: I was going as myself.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: I didn't need a new costume to become curious about myself.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a small decision.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: It was.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: But it also made me notice how often we think we have to dress for the identity we're entering.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: We know what the professional woman looks like.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: We think we know what a spiritual woman looks like.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: We have an image of the perfect mother,
1:43
SPEAKER_00: the confident woman, the woman who has everything under control.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: And when we don't fit the picture,
1:49
SPEAKER_00: sometimes we wonder whether we're allowed into the room at all.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: I know something about that.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: I've spent years in professional environments where credibility mattered.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: I learned how to present myself, how to communicate, how to be taken seriously.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: I learned to add skills to my CV, to negotiate, to adapt, to keep improving.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: I was proud of that work.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: I still am.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: But here's the question that began to bother me.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Why had I approached my professional development with so much discipline
2:21
SPEAKER_00: and understanding myself with so much less?
2:24
SPEAKER_00: We know how to celebrate the woman who gets another certification.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: We applaud her for becoming a better leader,
2:31
SPEAKER_00: learning a language, moving to another country, building a career.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Those are visible achievements.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: You can write them down.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: You can put dates beside them.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Someone else can validate them.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: But what if she wants to understand why she finds it difficult to receive a compliment?
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Why she says yes when she wants to say no?
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Why she is confident in a meeting and uncertain in a room full of strangers?
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Why she can make decisions involving enormous responsibilities and still struggle
3:01
SPEAKER_00: to trust her own feelings?
3:03
SPEAKER_00: There isn't a neat line for that on LinkedIn.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes,
3:07
SPEAKER_00: when we start exploring those questions through meditation,
3:10
SPEAKER_00: therapy, writing, or practices that sound unfamiliar, people become uncomfortable.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: Meditation is accepted.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: Yoga is accepted.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: But say the word kundalini and suddenly you might get a raised eyebrow.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: I've heard the word woo-woo.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Someone even asked me whether Mindvalley was some kind of cult.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: I understand the skepticism.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Really.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: If you've only seen dramatic videos online of people shaking or crying,
3:37
SPEAKER_00: it's reasonable to have questions.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: I had questions too.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: I still do.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking anyone to accept a spiritual explanation for something they haven't experienced.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not interested in presenting a personal feeling as scientific proof.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Curiosity and critical thinking can sit in the same room.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: What I am asking is simpler.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: Why should curiosity about ourselves require us to abandon the identities we've already built?
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Why can't a sophisticated professional woman explore something she doesn't fully understand?
4:10
SPEAKER_00: Why can't she be rational at work and open-minded in her private life?
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Why can't she have questions without immediately needing to defend them?
4:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't think becoming curious makes me less serious.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: I think it asks me to take another part of my life seriously.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: And something happened during that session in Milan that brought all
4:30
SPEAKER_00: of these questions into focus.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: My actual body was lying on a mat, wearing an eye mask.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: I was not having a dramatic physical experience.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: For part of the time, I was completely still.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: In my mind, I kept repeating words I've been using for months.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Show me.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: Guide me.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Use me.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm listening.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm at your service.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you exactly who I'm speaking to when I say that.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: God, the universe, something bigger than me.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the name matters less to me than the intention.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: What I mean is, I'm willing to listen.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm willing to notice something I haven't noticed before.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: I suppose a part of me hoped for a revelation about the future.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Some clear answer about where my life was going, what I should do, who I was supposed to become.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: But what appeared in my imagination wasn't a vision of my future.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: It was a little girl standing in the corner of a children's birthday party,
5:27
SPEAKER_00: watching the other children play.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: She was three, or four, maybe five.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: And I knew her immediately.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: She was me.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: I could have imagined going up to her and telling her everything would work out.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: I could have told her to be brave, to go and play, to stop worrying.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: I could have listed all the things she would eventually achieve,
5:49
SPEAKER_00: all the places she would go, all the ways she would grow.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: But I didn't.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: I sat beside her, as if to say, I'm here.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: You're safe.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm not leaving.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Being a mother made that moment feel different.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: When I imagined that child, I didn't want to improve her.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to turn her into a more confident version of herself.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: I looked at her almost as I would look at my own child.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: I wanted her to feel safe.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: And afterwards,
6:19
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't stop thinking about how different that response was from the way many
6:23
SPEAKER_00: of us speak to ourselves as adults.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Think about the voice you use with yourself when you make a mistake.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Not a catastrophic mistake.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Something ordinary.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: You walk into a room and suddenly feel awkward.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: You say something in a meeting and spend the next two hours replaying it.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: You post something online and immediately wonder whether you should take it down.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: What do you say to yourself?
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Because I know what my internal voice can sound like.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Come on Julia, you're a grown woman.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: Why are you still worrying about this?
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Apparently somewhere in my head there is a very demanding manager
7:01
SPEAKER_00: who has never approved a day off.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's what surprised me about seeing that little girl at the birthday party.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: My instinct wasn't to give her a motivational speech.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: I didn't tell her that one day she'd live in different countries,
7:15
SPEAKER_00: build a career,
7:16
SPEAKER_00: become a mother, and learn how to walk into a business meeting with confidence.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to sit next to her.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: I keep coming back to that because I don't think I would have responded in quite
7:27
SPEAKER_00: the same way before becoming a mother.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: When my son is frightened,
7:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't stand over him and say,
7:33
SPEAKER_00: well, you've had three years to work on this, we really need to see some progress.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: I want him to know I'm there.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Of course, being kind to a child and being kind to ourselves aren't exactly the same thing.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not suggesting we can solve our adult problems by imagining a hug.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Life is more complicated than that.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: But I did notice the difference between how naturally I could offer compassion
7:57
SPEAKER_00: to him and how quickly I could withhold it from myself.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've noticed something similar.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: You can be incredibly understanding when a friend is struggling.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: You know exactly what to say.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: You tell her she's allowed to be uncertain, that she doesn't need all the answers today.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: You can see the whole person, not just the difficult moment she's having.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: And then it's your turn.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, you're not a person going through something, you're a problem that needs fixing.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: I think capable women can be particularly good at doing this.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: We have so much practice being useful.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: We're the ones who make the plan.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: We find the information.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: We remember what needs doing.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: We work out how to make things happen.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: And I value that part of myself.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to pretend that competence is a bad thing.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: I worked hard to become someone people could rely on.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: But there is a strange moment when a strength becomes a rule.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: You are capable, so you must always cope.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: You are independent, so you shouldn't need anything.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: You are the person with answers, so you shouldn't be the one asking questions.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: Who decided that?
9:05
SPEAKER_00: And more importantly, when did we agree?
9:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember signing that contract.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: This brings me to something else that happened on the mat in Milan.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: At one point, I was lying there with my palms facing up, and I had this thought.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: I give myself permission to receive.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: It's such a simple sentence,
9:27
SPEAKER_00: almost embarrassingly simple,
9:29
SPEAKER_00: but receiving has never come as naturally to me as giving.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: I can help, I can organize, I can make an introduction, offer advice, find a solution.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: I know what to do with that version of myself.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: But let someone give me a compliment, and suddenly I'm negotiating against my own interests.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Someone says, you look beautiful, and I say, no, I look exhausted.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: They say,
9:55
SPEAKER_00: I love your dress,
9:56
SPEAKER_00: and I immediately explain that it was on sale or that it's old or
10:00
SPEAKER_00: that I really should have worn something else.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: Imagine paying someone a compliment and having to defend your position in court.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: I've been trying to stop doing that.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Just say thank you.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: Let the compliment exist.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Don't rush to return it,
10:15
SPEAKER_00: explain it away, or make yourself smaller so nobody thinks you believe it.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: That little exercise has made me notice other things, too.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: When someone offers help, how quickly do I say, no, no, I'm fine?
10:29
SPEAKER_00: When somebody wants to take care of something for me, do I let them?
10:33
SPEAKER_00: And when I do need support,
10:35
SPEAKER_00: why can asking for it feel so much more uncomfortable than offering it?
10:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's one universal explanation.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's habit.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's pride.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we really have learned, through experience, that it's easier to do things ourselves.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we're simply exhausted and don't know how to put that into words.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: But I wonder if there's also something about identity.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: If I'm always the strong one, what happens when I'm not?
11:04
SPEAKER_00: If I'm the woman who manages everything, who am I when I let somebody else take over?
11:10
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting, isn't it?
11:11
SPEAKER_00: How quickly a practical question becomes a question about who we're allowed to be.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Motherhood has made that even more visible to me.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: I love being a mother.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: And I also know how easily a mother's own interests can be pushed
11:25
SPEAKER_00: to some imaginary future date.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: I'll do it when things calm down.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: I'll take that class when there's more time.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: I'll get back to writing or dancing or traveling or whatever it is
11:36
SPEAKER_00: when everybody else is sorted.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: But life doesn't send an email saying, congratulations, everybody is now sorted.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: You may resume being a person.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: There is always something.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want my son to grow up believing that loving someone means disappearing
11:52
SPEAKER_00: into their needs.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: I want him to see a mother who loves him enormously and who is still curious about
11:58
SPEAKER_00: the world,
11:59
SPEAKER_00: who has interests,
12:00
SPEAKER_00: ambitions,
12:01
SPEAKER_00: friendships, ideas,
12:03
SPEAKER_00: questions, who sometimes tries something new and isn't particularly good at it.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Because I think children notice what we live, not only what we tell them.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the thing you're curious about isn't Kundalini.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want to take a dance class,
12:17
SPEAKER_00: write something,
12:18
SPEAKER_00: learn to sing,
12:19
SPEAKER_00: change direction professionally,
12:21
SPEAKER_00: or finally have a conversation you've been avoiding.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't even know what you want yet.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: That's allowed too.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: I just don't want us to confuse responsibility with self-erasure.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want us to mistake receiving help for failing at independence.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: We can be capable and still need care.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: We can love our families and still have an inner life that belongs to us,
12:46
SPEAKER_00: and we can be brave without being cruel to the parts of ourselves
12:49
SPEAKER_00: that are frightened.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: There's another memory from that day I haven't told you yet,
12:54
SPEAKER_00: and I think it changes the story a little,
12:56
SPEAKER_00: because not everything we discover about our younger selves has to begin with fear.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Towards the end of the session,
13:03
SPEAKER_00: we were asked to remember a time in childhood when we had been really happy.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: And I found myself back in my parents' living room in Brazil.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: I used to spend hours making little worlds for my Barbies.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Not just dressing them up, building everything around them.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: The kitchen, the furniture, the clothes.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: I could arrange and rearrange those tiny spaces for an entire afternoon.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: I can still remember how absorbed I was.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: And I love that this was the memory that came to me.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: Because there was no audience, no outcome, no career benefit.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't trying to be impressive.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: I was doing something because I loved doing it.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Then the instructor asked us to imagine receiving a letter from that child,
13:47
SPEAKER_00: addressed to the woman we are today.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Mine had one word.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Love.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to make that sound more mystical than it was.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: This was a guided exercise, and the letter existed in my imagination.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: But the feeling it brought up was real to me.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: It was a kind of affection for the little girl who could lose herself
14:07
SPEAKER_00: in creating something, and for the woman who sometimes forgets how to do that.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: And I realized something that I hadn't expected.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: When we talk about getting to know ourselves,
14:18
SPEAKER_00: we're often looking for the wound,
14:20
SPEAKER_00: the difficult memory, the insecurity, the thing that needs to be healed.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: But what about the joy?
14:27
SPEAKER_00: What about the parts of us that were there before we learned to evaluate everything?
14:31
SPEAKER_00: I keep thinking about that little girl arranging her Barbie furniture.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: She wasn't asking whether she could turn it into a business.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: She wasn't worried about whether it was a productive use of her afternoon.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: She didn't have a five-year strategy for the Barbie kitchen.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: She was just interested.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And now, as an adult, I find that quite moving.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Because it's so easy to start measuring every new interest against
14:56
SPEAKER_00: the life you've already built.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Will I be good at this?
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Does it make sense?
15:00
SPEAKER_00: What will people think?
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Is it worth the time?
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Am I too old to start?
15:06
SPEAKER_00: We become experts at finding sensible reasons not to begin.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying practical questions don't matter.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: Of course they do.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: We have responsibilities, financial realities, people who depend on us.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe in pretending those things disappear because we have a dream.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: But I also don't want practicality to become the automatic answer to every possibility.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between considering the consequences and never giving an idea
15:34
SPEAKER_00: a chance to breathe.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: I think this is one reason that starting Just Julia has mattered so much to me.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: For years, I knew how to introduce myself through my professional experience.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: I knew the industries I'd worked in, the countries, the responsibilities, the skills.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: I could explain the value I brought to a business.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: And I still can.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: That experience is mine.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm proud of it.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: But writing has asked me a very different question.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: What do I think when nobody has asked me for a business opinion?
16:05
SPEAKER_00: What stories have I carried around for years without telling anyone?
16:09
SPEAKER_00: What would I say if I didn't need to sound like the most competent person in the room?
16:14
SPEAKER_00: That's surprisingly uncomfortable.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: And also a little addictive.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Because once you start noticing how many parts of yourself you've edited
16:23
SPEAKER_00: to fit different rooms, you begin wondering what else you've left out.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: The woman who is curious about spirituality.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: The woman who wants to feel sensual.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: The woman who has serious professional opinions.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: The woman who loves being a mother and sometimes wants an afternoon entirely to herself.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: The woman who is confident about some things and embarrassingly nervous about others.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to choose one and make the rest disappear.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to present this as some grand transformation
16:53
SPEAKER_00: where I've suddenly figured everything out.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: I haven't.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: I still question myself.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: I still wonder what other people will think.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: I still have days when I would much rather stay inside the version of myself
17:05
SPEAKER_00: that I know how to perform.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: There is something very comfortable about being experienced.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: You know the rules.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: You know how to behave.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: You know which parts of yourself people expect to see.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: Being a beginner takes that away.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Which is probably why it can be so good for us.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: My first Kundalini experience was at Mindvalley University in Tallinn.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: It was physically intense, unlike the quieter experience I later had in Milan.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Not long after Tallinn, I began writing Just Julia.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Did one cause the other?
17:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: And I don't need to invent a dramatic explanation to make the timing meaningful.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the experience made me more willing to listen to myself.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I was already ready to write.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm comfortable leaving that question open.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: That is something I want to protect in this podcast.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: The freedom to be curious without pretending certainty.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: I can tell you what an experience meant to me without telling you what it must mean for you.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: I can be interested in spirituality without claiming every spiritual idea is true.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: I can respect science
18:13
SPEAKER_00: without pretending it already explains every private feeling I've ever had.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And I can change my mind.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I hope I do change my mind about some things.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, what would be the point of remaining curious?
18:27
SPEAKER_00: I wonder what this brings up for you.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: Not whether you should attend a Kundalini session, that's not what I'm asking.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering whether there's a part of yourself that doesn't quite fit
18:36
SPEAKER_00: the identity people know you for.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Something you've dismissed with a little laugh before anyone else had the chance to question it.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: Something you want to try, but you can already hear yourself saying, that's not really me.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: How do you know?
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it isn't.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you'll try it and discover you don't enjoy it at all.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Fine, that's useful information too.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: But maybe you haven't given yourself the opportunity to find out.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps the question isn't, what kind of woman am I supposed to become?
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it's, what else might be true about me?
19:09
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to throw away the life you've built to ask that question.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to stop being ambitious to become more reflective.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to stop being rational to explore something unfamiliar.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to love your family any less to make room for your own curiosity.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: And you certainly don't have to become fearless before you begin.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: I think about that little girl at the birthday party.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: And I think about the girl on the living room floor happily building a tiny world.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: One was unsure of where she belonged.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: The other wasn't thinking about belonging at all.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Both were me.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: And both deserve a place in the story of who I am.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to turn the first girl into the second.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: I want to know them both.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: And then I want to make choices as the woman I am now.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: So here's something you might try this week.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Think of one thing you were curious about before you started asking
20:07
SPEAKER_00: whether it was useful, respectable, or appropriate for the woman you've become.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to turn it into a project.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to post about it.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: You don't even have to be good at it.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Just see what happens when you let yourself be interested.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for spending this time with me.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: This is the Just Julia podcast,
20:25
SPEAKER_00: and if you'd like to read the essay behind today's conversation,
20:28
SPEAKER_00: it's called I'm Not Becoming Woo Woo, I'm Becoming Curious on my Substack.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: I'll talk to you soon.