We’ve all heard those words before.
Maybe we’ve even said them ourselves.

But how often do we actually trust that knowing?

Throughout my life, there have been moments where I listened to my inner voice completely.

Buying a one-way ticket overseas.
Walking across British Columbia solo.
Completing Te Araroa before it opened.
Writing my memoir.
Leaving relationships that no longer aligned.
Starting over in unfamiliar places.

No one told me to make those choices.
In fact, many people warned me against them.

But deep down, I knew.

I knew each of those decisions were what I was meant to do.
In those moments, my internal compass couldn’t have been more clear.

But I haven’t always lived in alignment with myself.

Out of Alignment

For many years, I ignored that inner compass in favour of acceptance, expectation and survival.

I ignored it until my inner voice became less than a whisper.
I thought that by doing what I “should do,” I would live a good life.
I thought it would strengthen my relationships.
I thought it would help me to thrive.
I thought I couldn’t trust myself to choose better.

I embraced the role of a people-pleaser as though it was a badge of honour.

It meant I was a peace-keeper.
It meant I was agreeable.
It meant people found me “easy” to be around.

Yet every time I abandoned my inner voice, my life became smaller.

Not safer.
Not fuller.
Smaller.

Because people-pleasing in its very essence disconnects us from ourselves.

Not all at once.
Quietly.
Repeatedly.

Through tiny moments of when we learn to normalise abandoning our inner voice.

We shrink ourselves when we:

• stop moving our bodies because others mock our discipline

• stop journalling because someone made us feel ridiculous for caring deeply

• stay in relationships we know no longer fit

• silence our goals to avoid making others uncomfortable

• ignore our needs because everyone else’s seem louder

• convince ourselves “good enough” is enough

And after enough time, we stop trusting our own voice entirely.

Instead of building a life where we are thriving,
Our lives become the epitome of survival mode.

Moving through our days, doing things out of obligation.

What is necessary.
What will keep our heads above water.
What will help us take another step forward along a path others are directing us to walk.

A path that is not ours.

Not everyone in survival mode is a people-pleaser.
But many people-pleasers are living in survival mode.
Disconnected from their internal compass.

You might also be in a place of survival if you:

• are grieving a death of a loved one

• had a traumatic event

• are healing from a health concern

• entered a new phase of life dramatically different from before (ie: parenthood, new career, house move, etc)

• ended a relationship

Survival is not concerned with alignment.
It is concerned with safety.

Acceptance.
Predictability.
Keeping the peace.
Avoiding rejection.
Making it through the day.

And when people-pleasing becomes your survival strategy, eventually you stop asking:
“What do I want?”

You only ask:
“What will keep everyone else comfortable?”

I’ve lived in that space for far too long.

Deciding to Thrive

When I finally woke up to the realities of my existence
and made the decision that I wanted more out of life —
that I DESERVED more —
what surprised me most was what life looked like after.

Part of me believed that once I stopped surviving — once I healed, recovered and finally allowed myself to exist more fully — life would suddenly feel lighter.

Instead, I felt angry.
Deeply angry.

Not because I was wallowing in regret.
But because I could finally feel the full weight of everything I had been carrying.

Healing didn’t remove the weight.
It simply gave me enough safety to finally feel it.

For years, survival kept me moving forward.

It kept me focused on my next steps and “getting through” what I needed to do.
That movement numbed the weight of everything I had on my shoulders.
But once the constant urgency faded, I could suddenly feel all of it.

The exhaustion.
The pressure.
The grief.
The responsibility.
The years spent abandoning myself just to cope.
The gap between where I stood and the path I knew I was meant to be on.

Prepping for Te Araroa

This reminded me of my time preparing to walk Te Araroa.
We decided to do a multi-day trial hike with our packs fully loaded as a trial.

Up until that point, I had only fantasised about Te Araroa.

Made gear lists.
Packed and repacked my bag.
Prepared endlessly in theory.
But I hadn’t actually carried the weight yet.

That first day on the trail, I tried to ignore how heavy my pack felt.

I told myself I would adjust.
That it wasn’t that bad.
That I was capable of carrying it.

But by the time we reached camp that night, I knew immediately:
if I had any chance of becoming the person I needed to be to walk Te Araroa, I would have to let some of the weight go.

My pack was too heavy.

And deep down, I already knew exactly what didn’t belong there.
But there was nothing I could do about it in that moment.

I still had days left on the trail.
Days of carrying weight I no longer wanted.

It felt torturing.

And I think coming out of survival mode can feel exactly like that.

You finally become conscious of how much you’ve been carrying.
You recognise what no longer belongs in your life.

But Rebuilding Takes Time.

So for a while, you continue walking forward while still carrying weight you no longer want.

Maybe you left a relationship where you had spent years shrinking yourself, only to discover the realities of rebuilding life still remained.

Maybe you’ve moved to a more aligned community, but find yourself feeling alone because you haven’t yet found your place in it.

Maybe you’ve done the work to shift your mindset around money, but still are looking at a bank account that doesn’t reflect the abundance you now are open to.

Maybe you allowed yourself to dream big of what you want for your life, but your day-to-day still demands survival-level output.

That’s confronting.
It’s angering.

Because once you reconnect with yourself -- your internal compass -- it feels absurd to continue living in a place that feels disconnected from your truth.

Survival mode can do more than numb the weight of what you carry.
It can also numb the emotions that come with it.

Survive first.
Feel later.

If you are a person like me, you may be someone who has become good at pushing aside emotions in favour of doing what is necessary to get through the situation.

People-pleasers can be exceptional at this -- they’ve trained themselves to put their emotional needs last.

I always processed the emotional weight afterwards.
Never during.

There is never room to collapse in the middle of survival.

But what works in an emergency becomes confronting when your entire life has been built around survival and you finally decide to step out of it.

All the emotions that you’ve withheld from feeling because of the circumstances, people-pleasing or otherwise come washing over you like a wave.

And when you do the hard work to heal from that, it’s easy to expect life to immediately shift alongside your emotional progress.

But healing is not the same thing as rebuilding.

Healing helps you hear yourself again.
Rebuilding requires you to start making choices that honour what you hear.

Start walking towards the path you’re meant to be on.
And that takes time.

Because the life you built in self-abandonment is no longer one you want.
But you are yet to unload the weight of everything you have been carrying because it takes time to get to a place where you can.

And so the anger comes.

Not because you are broken.
Not because you are failing.

But because you can finally see the distance between the life you survived…
and the life you actually want to live.

People-pleasing has always been a survival tactic.
Not a personality trait.

Survival teaches us how to endure life.
But trusting ourselves again is what brings us back to life.

We’ve all heard those words, but it’s not often we genuinely take them to heart.

I recently saw a clip for Facing the Giants (2006) where a football player was pushed beyond what he thought he could do.

If you haven’t seen the movie, the character, Coach Grant Taylor takes one of his football players, Brock, and blindfolds him. Then he has him down on the ground in a pushup position and has a second teammate lay on his back. All 160 pounds of him. Then Coach Taylor has Brock move forward across the football field, continuously telling him to give his best.

Don’t worry about how far he has gone. It’s just a number.
Don’t worry about how tired his arms are. Push further anyway.

At the beginning, Brock was thinking he could only do 30 yards in distance.
While blindfolded, he did 100 yards.

The coach finished the exercise by drilling into his head that if he ignored everything around him and just focused on giving it his all, he could go much further.
It’s a powerful scene about giving your best and left me wondering how often I have truly given my best.

How often had I been so immersed in the moment of giving it my all that I could genuinely look back over the day and say “I gave my best today?”

It’s not often.
And I don’t think I’m alone in that.

I think most of us operate at less than our best.
We do what is necessary to get through the day and then leave the rest for later.
Not because we are not capable of more.
But because autopilot is our default setting —
and discomfort, distraction, and expectation try to keep us there.

We talk about our “best life.”
Our “best self.”
Our “best year.”

But people rarely talk about what it actually looks like to GIVE our best.
And often, what we call our “best” still falls short of our true capacity.

We can do more than we think we can.

What if we were to give our best for the day?
How would it change things?

The way we speak to people.
The way we move our bodies.
The conversations we avoid.
The habits we justify.
The attention we give our goals.

Things might still look flawed and imperfect.
But our days would be filled with powerful and intentional choices that align with who we are at our core.

When I was walking Te Araroa

There were times where I had to push myself beyond what I thought I was capable of.
And up until now, that was the story I told myself.
There were many days when my feet continued walking beyond what our goal was for that day —
when circumstances led me to believe we couldn’t stop now.

Weather.
Mountain climbs.
No camp spots.
Needing to make up kilometres.

Whatever it was, I attributed the need to keep going to something outside my control.
But now, I consider whether those moments were me giving it my all.

When I didn’t think I could take another step, I continued moving my feet forward.
When I didn’t think I could climb another mountain, I did so anyway.
When I didn’t think I could endure another minute of bad weather, I pushed on just the same.

I did that.

Not the weather.
Not the circumstances.
Not anyone’s expectations of anyone around me.

Me.

I may not have been blindfolded, but I do remember those nights when I crawled into my sleeping bag knowing with a deep satisfaction that I had given my day my everything.
I felt the most sore, tired and spent during those moments than any other.
But I also felt the most alive and connected with myself and my own capacity.
And there was something more satisfying about that than the knowledge of reaching any finishline or goal post.

What does this all mean?

This isn’t about hustle culture, being a “girl boss” or working ourselves to the bone.
This is about being intentional with our actions.

Our words.
Our thoughts.
Our time.

If we were to take each moment of our day and truly give it everything we had — what would change?
What wouldn’t?
How would our day look at the end of it?

Because deep down, most of us already know.
We know the moments we gave our best.
And we know the moments we didn’t.

But instead of sitting with that discomfort honestly, we rush to explain it away.

We justify.
We minimise.
We reassure ourselves that “it’s okay.”

And sometimes it IS '“okay.”
Rest is okay.
Slowing down is okay.
Being human is okay.

But there’s a difference between genuinely needing rest and using comfort to avoid confronting the gap between the life we want and the choices we’re making.

What we call “good enough” has very little to do with our true capacity.
More often, it reflects the level that keeps us accepted.

Especially when we’ve spent years upholding everyone else’s expectations.

I am willing to bet that for many of us, life would shift quite dramatically.
Suddenly the excuses we’ve been hanging onto for so long would fall away.
Immediately we would realise what we’ve been holding off doing.

The goals we haven’t progressed towards.
The conversations we haven’t had.
The relationships we’ve stayed in that no longer reflect who we are.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg

We haven’t even gotten to what things might shift if we did it blindfolded.
If you are someone who has the habit of moving through life as a people-pleaser —
it’s so easy to get caught up in what everyone else perceives as the best way forward.
Our notion of what our “best” is is purely based on other people’s opinions, thoughts and values.

What if we were to blindfold ourselves?

Try it right now.
Close your eyes.
Have a moment for yourself.
Remove the noise for a moment.

Other people’s timelines.
Other people’s expectations.
Other people’s opinions about what your life should look like.

Then ask yourself:
what would giving your best actually look like right now?

Where you become more present in the choices you make every day.
Where other people’s expectations stop defining your life.
Where you stop treating the 30-yard line as the finish.

Because when I look back on the moments I felt most alive — whether on Te Araroa or elsewhere — it was rarely because life was easy.

It was because I was fully in it.
Fully committed.
Fully present.

Not halfway in.
Not negotiating with myself.
Not waiting for a better time.
Not worrying about what others thought, believed or wanted for me.

Just taking the next step with everything I had.

Maybe “doing your best” isn’t about perfection.
Maybe it’s about no longer abandoning yourself in your own life.

It wasn’t.
It was worse than I had thought.

In the last few months my weight had crept back up to a place I thought I had been done with.

I had said goodbye to that number.
I thought it was in my review mirror.
I never expected to see it on the scale again.

But there it was.
There was no avoiding it.

My heart sunk.

I immediately felt shame and my brain in effort to rid myself of that emotion, it immediately ran through a list of options I could cling to as my reasoning for why the scale was displaying that number.

Stress.
House move.
Solo parenting.
Tight budget.
Taking time to “build capacity.”

I ran through each of them in my head, my brain cheering me on as I released my shame and started collecting reasons why life had “done this to me.”

As I sat with that feeling, a nagging thought reminded me: I am responsible for my own life.

Life doesn’t happen TO us.

We might not be responsible for the weather or other people’s behaviour, but we are 100% responsible for the life we live.

It doesn’t matter what that life is, each day we wake up and we have a choice.

We can choose to remain the same or choose to grow.
We can choose to tolerate the behaviour of others or choose to have healthy boundaries.
We can choose to remain in a career that is less than our potential, or choose to carve out our own path.

Our life is a series of choices that have led us to where we are today.

Where we stand today.

As I reflected on that, I started to let go of my reasoning for the weight gain.
One by one, each excuse slipped from my grasp and I was left with the truth.

I had made choices that led me to that number on the scale.
Not overnight, but slowly. Repeatedly. Quietly.
Through the meals I justified, the movement I postponed, the routines I failed to rebuild after moving house.

I had made all those choices.

And it’s not to beat myself down about it, but just to reflect and be honest with myself.

It was only me that walked the path that led me here.

Walking Solo

Over the years many people have commented about how wonderful it was that I found someone to walk Te Araroa with me. That at least I wasn’t alone. That I had someone to share the adventure -- the ups and downs with.

It was great. And I wouldn’t change it for the world. Alex became my rock as we walked 3,000 km together. There were moments when it was uncertain we would be able to finish together, but we got there. And it is something that both of us will share for the rest of our lives.

But at the end of the day, it was only my feet that brought me to Bluff.

Alex may have walked beside me, but it was me alone that made the journey.
Alex may have shared the load of gear we had to carry, but I was the only one putting on my pack every day and choosing to withstand the weight of it.

So is the same in our own journeys.

Taking Responsibility

It’s so easy to find blame in the things or people around us to explain why our lives are the way they are.

Some people even have a knack for that becoming their entire personality.

I like to think of them as the “yeah, but” people.

Those that look at every solution and path forward with a “yeah but” response to explain why they can’t move forward.

At some point, we have to stop explaining why we’re stuck and start acknowledging the role our choices play in keeping us there.

It doesn’t matter what challenges we face in life or what parts of ourselves we are discontent with.

We had the power to make choices that led us there.
We also have the power to make choices to lead us somewhere new.

Crossing the River

There was one day on Te Araroa where we had to cross a fierce river.

It wasn’t particularly far to get across, but it was deep and the water was roaring in our ears it was so powerful.

Fortunately, there were large boulders we could use to rock-hop our way across. But I was impatient at trying to find a suitable path and thought I would just take a chance and reach for the closest boulder to where I stood.

And reach I did. I reached with my arms until my hands clung to the cool rock.

I then gathered up my strength to push my feet from the shore and jump onto the boulder.

But nothing happened.

What I didn’t factor in was my backpack.

Because I was stretched nearly horizontal with my hands on the rock and my feet on the river’s edge, my large backpack was positioned securely in the middle of all that on my back. The weight of it pushed down and it resulted in me planking across a raging river with no conceivable way to get out of my position. I couldn’t jump forward and I couldn’t push myself back.

I was stuck.

I could have blamed the boulder for being too far.
I could have blamed the river for being too fierce.
I could have blamed my backpack for being too heavy.
I could have blamed life for this “happening to me.”

But none of that was true. I was in that position purely from my own choices.

Did it suck? Sure did.
Did I feel embarassment and shame? Of course.

I spent the remainder of the day being the butt of jokes for river crossings.

I had to own it.
I had to face the reality that I did that.
I had to find a way to accept it and even find the humour in it.

Our Life is Ours Alone

Whatever we chose in life, it is only us that is responsible. Other people might play a factor. Life might throw us curve balls.

Trauma, grief, loss and abuse are not something we cause. But remaining powerless within those states of being and life circumstances is what keeps us stuck.

Our choices on how we handle life challenges are what define our lives and who we are. And if we know that we are meant for something bigger than the life we are currently living, then it is up to us to make choices that lead us down that path for more.

Because no one else can walk it but ourselves.

If that feels lonely or isolating, it doesn’t have to be.

Think of all the people out there in the world that have been through the same circumstances as you. Think of those that might have walked challenges worse than yours with less resources than you have and still made it to the other side.

Don’t for a second think you are alone or that the path ahead of you can’t be walked.

It’s a path for a reason.
Someone else has walked it before you.

It’s just up to you to take the next step.

Moving Forward

For me, that meant opening up my app that tracks my food intake and put today’s weight down on record.

It means recommiting to a calorie deficit that I know I can maintain -- I just need to do it.
It means carving out time to move my body that is non-negotiable on my schedule.

I know I will reach my goals.
I also know that I will do this a lot quicker and easier the more I stand strong in my power to make my own decisions regardless of what life throws at me.

Because taking responsibility reminds me that my life is shaped by the choices I make next.

Doing has given me a sense of purpose.
A sense of direction.
A sense that I’m moving forward.

But when doing becomes survival — it stops being growth.

It becomes a way of avoiding stillness.

There are seasons in life where the most important thing you can do…
is less.

To step back from constant output.
To let go of the pressure to keep moving.
To create space for something deeper to happen.

Not externally.

Internally.

We don’t talk about this enough.

We celebrate momentum.
We celebrate action.
We celebrate pushing forward.

But we don’t talk about what happens after long periods of instability.

After trauma.
After constant change.
After years of being in environments where you had to stay alert just to function.

Recently, I moved house.

It was my 12th move in 16 years.
My 9th community.

And for the first time, something felt different.

There was no underlying sense that this was temporary.
No expectation that I would need to leave again.
No quiet planning for the next move.

Just… stillness.

And that’s when it hit me.

I’ve never actually had the chance to settle.

Not fully.
Not in a way that allowed my body to relax and trust that I could stay.

That realisation didn’t feel peaceful.

It felt exhausting.

Because the moment I stopped — everything I had been holding together underneath surfaced.

The constant alertness.
The low-level tension.
The years of adapting, adjusting, rebuilding.

All of it.

From the outside, it looked like I had slowed down.

My to-do lists paused.
My projects stopped.
My output dropped.

But that wasn’t laziness.

That was my nervous system finally coming out of survival mode.

For weeks, my life has been simple:
Sleep. Eat. Fresh air. Repeat.

No optimisation.
No pushing.
No pressure to “get back on track.”

Just recovery.

And I wrestled with that.

Because when you’re used to measuring your life by what you produce,
stillness feels like failure.

Even when it’s exactly what you need.

However, what I’ve come to realise is:
Not all progress looks like movement.

Some of it looks like grounding.
Some of it looks like creating safety.
Some of it looks like doing less so you can build the capacity to do more — sustainably.

I saw this clearly when I walked Te Araroa.

We didn’t just wake up able to walk 3,000 kilometres.
We had to build that capacity.

And rest days were part of that process.

Not a break from progress —
but what made progress possible.

At the beginning, we needed them often.
Our bodies weren’t used to the load.
Our systems weren’t adapted to the demand.

Over time, we needed fewer.

But we never eliminated them completely.

Because without recovery, there is no endurance.

Life works the same way.

If you’ve been in a season of constant change…
of survival…
of rebuilding…

Then slowing down isn’t a step backwards.

It’s a recalibration.

Don’t rush yourself out of that.
Don’t force momentum before your foundation is stable.
Don’t measure your progress by someone else’s timeline.

Take the time to:

Sleep.
Eat well.
Get outside.
Reconnect.
Reflect.

Rebuild from the inside out.

Because when you do start moving again —
you won’t just be continuing where you left off.

You’ll be operating from a completely different level of capacity.

And that changes everything.

If this resonated with you, you’ll probably find the next pieces helpful as well.
I’ll be writing more about this as I continue settling into this next chapter.