You know that feeling when you’re pulled in different directions but don’t know which direction is right for you? This choice is at the root of creativity and healthy relationships. How we navigate moments by making choices adds up to a life. Our degree of courage to accept who we are and act in truth ripples out to shape society.

Do I do what I know to be the right thing for me, even when doing so risks a relationship or closes a door on an opportunity? What if I choose myself, but no other door opens and I’m stuck in this place alone?

In my work as a writing coach and editor, I’ve witnessed many times the very real struggle humans with a mission go through to bring forth the best creation they’re capable of, fighting against habitual false scripts to locate the calm center and the gift only they can birth into the world. In my relationships with family, friends, and lovers, I’ve learned firsthand the benefits of standing up for myself, and felt the grief echo when I’ve left myself behind.

Claiming a voice as a creator, as a person, requires a willingness to sort through the inner dialog that arises when we’re confronted with situations that ring the alarm of a boundary breach. Someone close to you wants you to do a particular thing but you’re not feeling it. Or they want you to agree with them, but you really don’t. Or the force of compliance we call society pushes you to not do something you need to do to be yourself. A part of you inside dies at the prospect. What conversation goes on in your mind at these important choice points?

For a long time, I remained in a relationship that required a constant compromise of who I was. I knew that if I fully committed to honoring my own needs, the relationship would have to end. That went on for years, until the self-reclamation work I’d tasked myself to do accrued enough to pop me up into fresh air and blue sky and I found the courage to leave. By then, after more than a decade in that relationship, my choice upended a bunch of other people’s lives. But I needed to act on what I knew for certain and close the gaps within myself to become whole.

This challenge of choosing ourselves under pressure is ancient and timeless, but also newly real for each of us, every day. Sometimes every minute.

What can we do when we can’t find our own voice, or when we know our own voice, but the fear of speaking or creating or living from that place terrifies us? Whether we choose ourselves or not, we do choose, consciously or unconsciously. In a conflicted situation, where do we find the freedom to choose consciously to become or to remain true?

I’m not saying they’re always easy, but these two rally points can make all the difference in building wholeness muscles and finding allies:

Call on Your Inner Artisan

Artisans make things by hand, risking in the physical realm of creation. They not only experiment to learn their craft, but build mastery over time, project by project.

When we feel the discomfort of contradictory signals and divided directions, a part of us knows what our own right path is. We might try to avoid knowing. But when we search past the bluster, we know. Discomfort in a conflicted situation can come from disavowing our own knowing. It’s not that we don’t know what we want to do; it’s that it’s scary to consider taking action on what we know, on what the calm voice inside knows.

Using artisan energy, we make a decision to take action on what we know. The action might be to stop doing something. The action might be to do something tiny. Maybe we type out what’s true in a secret, password-protected file. Maybe we don’t do that thing we know isn’t healthy, just for one day at first. We also absolutely consider our safety before and as we take action. Sturdy apron and face shield in place and check the surroundings before turning on the machine. The risk is calculated. We act to practice letting go of the false self, not to harm our mental or physical health.

But we do practice—in real life, in real time, so we can get better at the craft of living true in the material world. Calculate the risk. Safety protocols in place. Do the thing. Notice the results. Adjust the process. Practice again.

Enlist Tailored Support

Even when we’re trying to stand on our own, be our own person, brave a genuine shout into a void, help is available. But it shouldn’t be just any help. Enlisting tailored support means looking for and finding someone or a group of someones whose goal matches yours: helping you get out of your own way so you can tune your receiver to hear the song inside and take action from there. We might find that support in a group with a specific purpose; in a book or program; with a teacher, mentor, or counselor; in a big-hearted friend. Different situations could mean finding different tailored support. The bottom line is dialing in support that promotes self-connection.

Artisan energy helps with finding tailored support. Try this group. Woops. Wrong! But now try that one. Oh yeah. That could work.

During the compromised relationship I mentioned above, I turned my back on my own voice for so long I didn’t grasp the seriousness of the effects for a long time. Even after the relationship ended and I found a better path, the effects continued. It’s years later now, and the repercussions of giving up my voice still arise to surprise me, like on a recent evening as I experimented with sketchbook journaling.

Sitting on the floor at my living room coffee table, I played with developing a hobby separate from my work. Music and headphones on, and without putting much thought into it, I drew four black squares in the middle of a blank page, then drew four rectangles beneath the squares, because why not? Then I picked up a pencil and began to draw, curious to see what would come through. Here’s the result:

The text, which I wrote after I finished the drawings, ends with this thought: “It wasn’t until I pulled back to look at the whole that I realized my design is one in which throats, necks, and thyroids, larynxs, voices are missing in the gaps. What does it mean?”

It means I am still learning to speak up, to practice making a noise of my own, to build my muscle of showing up with my insides on my outsides. (Even if I spell larynxes wrong.)

“Being seen is a form of power.”
—Lauren Sapala

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Alice Archer is the author of the literary romance novels Everyday History and The Infinite Onion. You can subscribe to her newsletter to receive a free story, notification of new articles and books, and more. She also writes nonfiction for quiet people as author Grace Kerina.

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