The Voice I Can't Seem to Unhear.

I keep finding myself wondering how it is that so many women, myself included, get so good at being the version of the person they have been told to be: the professional, the parent, the partner. The version of themselves they have been told they should become, and that would ultimately bring them happiness and fulfillment.

And then something strange seems to happen.

They arrive at what might be considered the “payoff.” They are established professionally, through the most intensive parenting years, perhaps partnered or decoupled. And at that very moment, many report feeling most lost. The version of who they have become feels both entirely familiar and also almost unrecognizable.

Is it perimenopause? The approach of empty nesting? The result of years of attention divided between the needs of others—kids, clients, partners, community members—leaving little room to actually be present in the lives they have built? Many report feeling lonely, exhausted, resentful, dissatisfied, or disconnected, but not entirely sure why.

Or maybe things have started to crumble. Marriages shift. Health issues emerge. Economic stress builds. Kids struggle. And suddenly what once felt solid begins to reveal a more unsteady foundation.

I have some hunches as to what the clients I sit with are describing when they describe feeling “lost,” as it is something I experience myself. It’s a feeling of disorientation. On the surface, life may look more or less the same. Same challenges, same frustrations, same compromises. But somehow they seem to sit differently.

I am less willing to soften the hard edges, bite my tongue, or pretend that this is where I would have chosen to be if my attendance were not required. There is a murmuring in the background that at once feels as though it was always there, and as though I have never heard it before. And now that I can hear it, I can’t seem to unhear it.

I’ve begun a bit of a secret love affair with this voice because I have come to regard it as the voice of a version of myself who is demanding to be rediscovered. She’s no longer willing to step aside while I spend four nights a week driving to club soccer. She’s done smiling through the sixth Zoom meeting of the day when all she wants is to have a conversation with someone about something REAL. She’s ready to scream at the next Instagram ad that tries to sell her a GLP-1, a blue-light mask, or a supplement to help her libido.

I’ve found myself treating this voice as an inconvenient disruption or distraction. A yearning to be starved into submission. An indication that I need to make a radical change to something, or sometimes it feels like to everything.

More recently, I’ve begun to try a different approach.

What if there is something here that is both deeply connected to who I am and covered over by everything I’ve convinced myself I’ve had to become? What if it isn’t telling me to dismantle, but actually asking me to expand? What if it is giving me critical information about what that expansion might look like if this voice were able to take the lead for the first time in what feels like forever?

What I am beginning to appreciate is that it is nearly impossible to hear this voice in a life filled with noisy distractions and constant calls for my attention unless I actively and intentionally choose to create, protect, and make myself available to these moments of presence. And perhaps even more difficult, to make myself vulnerable enough to stay there once I find them.

Perhaps you have encountered a version of this voice in your own life. It may feel inconvenient, irritating, or threatening. If so, that may be even more reason to lean in and pay attention to the messages it has to share.

Rather than pushing it away or grasping tightly and blowing up the life you’ve built, perhaps start by creating a little space. Five minutes of silence. A couple of pages of journaling. A conversation with a close friend.

And perhaps consider joining me on this journey as we invite these voices into our awareness and pay attention to the messages they carry.