Friend, I’ve been thinking about something that might just change everything for you.

The beginning of my spiritual journey was hearing the critical voice in my head—and she was bad. She had something to say about literally everything. For the longest time, I thought, “Wow, I’m a really negative person” until I realized that if I could recognize that voice was really critical and negative, maybe that wasn’t actually me. Maybe that was some other aspect.

I didn’t know about shadow work then. I didn’t know about the inner critic. I just knew there was something I could hear that did not like the world around me and had something to say about everything.

Once I could have that recognition and start observing it, I started being able to recognize how often I would buy into feelings and thoughts as though they were truth—when really they were assumption, judgment, and honestly, catty a lot of the time.

The Power of Recognition

That distinction—realizing the voice isn’t me—was the beginning of my spiritual journey. I didn’t have to accept what it was saying as truth. I could accept it as something to consider because of course it was a thought that popped into my head. But then I put myself in the place of choice.

“That was a thought, Seryna. Maybe we could do better.”

“Why do you care so much about that woman’s scrunchie in her hair? What harm is it doing to you?”

I actually spent about a year just observing the voice in my head and finding out so much about myself and what was happening behind the scenes as part of that process.

The One Thing You Need

If I was to think about any trait my clients need to succeed, it doesn’t matter how spiritual you are. It doesn’t matter how educated you are. It doesn’t matter how you even see yourself. If you are willing to do things differently, we can do some beautiful things together.

Willingness is key to everything that you desire because it means you’re open to change. It means you’re open to considering that things could be done differently. It means that you are willing to give yourself permission to flip the script—and that makes everything possible.

Because willingness is so courageous in itself, it becomes this gateway, this portal to speaking up, to claiming what you want, to sharing yourself with the world, to taking the things you’ve learned or the pain you’ve endured and using it purposefully, using it intentionally, and making something good in the world because of it.

When You’re Stuck in Resistance

Even when I am in my most stubborn, committed, resistant places, I will use willingness as my way of transmuting that because I might be pretty dug in about something—let’s use resentment as an example.

I can be pretty committed to my resentment in a moment, but I can be open to the possibility that someday I might feel differently. And just having that is that little tiny crack in the door that lets the light come into this otherwise really sticky, dark place.

Breaking Free from the “Good Girl” Script

The willingness to do things differently levels the playing field. Considering how much women are fed this script of how not enough we are, to say that if you can do this one thing, all things are possible? That’s pretty sweet.

Women are natural caregivers. We want to make sure everyone is taken care of, and oftentimes we do it at our own expense. So at the end of the day, we’re too tired, too burnt out, and we’ve invested our resources taking care of the people we love around us—which is beautiful—but it leaves that one person who’s holding everything together in a deficit.

When you’re viewing yourself this way, where the world depends on you and this is the only way of being able to do things, you’re creating an identity that sometimes is truth, but more often than not, there actually is possibility for other people to pick up the slack, to show up, and to make space for you as well.

Honouring Your Desires, Not Just Your Needs

Even if women can allow themselves to dream into something new or possible or bigger than what they have right now, they will then shame themselves for it. They’ll feel guilty, especially if they’re living what they would consider a beautiful life.

“How dare I desire more? Who am I to desire more?”

That worthiness piece—believing certain things are for other people and feeling ungrateful for desiring something other than what you have—really keeps women stuck.

It’s almost a difference between being given a place in the world and making a place in the world. You’re becoming a conscious creator of your life. You’re not just going on the path that someone else laid out for you. You’re saying:

“This is how I’m going to do things. This is how I’m going to show up in the world. This is the ownership I have of myself, my needs, my desires.”

And needs and desires are so different because one of them is just the baseline, right? And the other is what really fires us up. We deserve both.

We don’t have to walk along that particular path just because it’s the one that’s been well-trodden. We can choose to go out with our machete and bushwhack and just really dig in there until we find the path that actually feels like the one we want to walk.

There is medicine in even the most mundane moments if you’re willing to lean into it. The work that we do is disruptive by nature because it is taking all of these women who have been the social glue and inviting them to stand in their power, to say the things that have gone unsaid, to honour themselves, their needs, and their desires, and to prioritize them.

That shakes things up—and it is brave work that I don’t think women in general give themselves enough credit for.

Are you ready to be shaken up? To find your unshakeable self? It starts with one simple thing: willingness.