“I don’t know” is the answer I get almost every time I ask my mother what she wants to eat.
For many, many years, she was the one fixing dinner, answering that question for everyone else in the house. Now the roles have flipped, and most nights it’s me doing the cooking — but when I ask her what she wants, she still says “I don’t know.” Maybe after a lifetime of being the one who always had the answer, she’s simply worn out from being asked it now. I understand that, and it still gets under my skin every time.
Then, in a session not long ago, a client gave me the exact same three words when I asked what she really wanted to talk about that day. But I could see it in her face — she knew. She just wasn’t ready to open up and say it out loud yet.
And I had to be honest with myself. I’ve said “I don’t know” more times in my life than I can count, about things I actually did know, deep down. It was never a knowledge gap. It was a permission gap — permission to trust what I already knew, to say it out loud, to act on it without waiting for someone else’s approval first.
These days, I catch myself saying it less, because I’m choosing to own what I know instead of hiding behind not knowing.
This isn’t really about my mother, or my client, or me. It’s about you.
Where in your life are you saying “I don’t know” when what’s actually true is “I haven’t given myself permission yet”?
Tell me: what’s one thing you already, deep down, that you’re waiting for permission to act on?
Much joy,
Tawnja