The Smallest Just Right Step
Have you ever had the feeling of not being seen, of people reading you wrong, of your intentions not landing.
The internal sensation that’s like a quiet whispering or a persistent niggle. One that you get very good at pushing into a cupboard because it feels uncomfortable to feel. You can sense it in the pit of your stomach, like a fluttering of butterfly wings but in the humdrum of life it becomes easy to discount. It gets pushed aside with ideas like “Maybe I’m making too much of this, it’s not important, others have it much worse” or the opposite, “others have it all worked out”.
It’s the thing that in quiet moments your mind continually goes back to. It has the feeling of something that is waiting in the wings, waiting for you to see it and offer it a moment of your precious attention.
The urgency to fix this unknown sensation has us keeping busy, trying to stay two steps ahead. The inner voice that tells us that it’s too messy to sort out. It’s like the imaginary monster under the bed, or the snake you believe you see in the corner. Like it’s too monumental a task to even stop for a moment and turn around to take a look. This feeling is very common, we might even say very human!
And in this hurry, in this urgency, we forget that Rome wasn’t built in a day and that everything starts with the first step. This step, which is so hard to take, when inside we are frightened to even try.
Writing this, I wonder when life became so serious and scary that having a go seems like putting it all on the red of a roulette wheel!
So I wonder what a small step might look like. Taking the Goldilocks analogy, a step that is not too big, not too small, but just right. I think the “just right’ is different for each and every one of us and it is this ‘just right’ that we might need to spend time with. With a spirit of curiosity, with a dash of interest and with an attitude of ‘for me, not for anyone else’, and the possibility that the whisper isn’t a threat but an invitation.
But being human and a social creature it’s understandable that we like to take these steps with the support of our tribe. For ourselves indeed, but not on our own.
Perhaps the “just right” step is allowing someone to walk alongside you as you turn toward that whisper. Therapy offers a space where you don’t have to keep pushing things into the cupboard or pretending the monster under the bed isn’t there. It is a place of steady curiosity, where what feels too big can be approached gently and at your pace. If something in you recognises that quiet nudge, you don’t have to face it alone. Reaching out could be the first small, courageous step.
If that quiet whisper is asking for your attention, you’re welcome to reach out. We can begin by simply noticing it together.
