When was the last time you asked yourself what you need?
I ask women this question quite a lot:
What do you need right now?
And do you know what I hear surprisingly often?
"I don't know."
Not because they don't have needs.
Not because they don't care about themselves.
But because they've spent so long focusing on everyone and everything else that they've stopped checking in with themselves altogether.
Maybe you recognise it.
You know exactly what your children need.
You know what's happening at work.
You know what still needs sorting in the house.
You know who you need to call back, what needs booking and what needs doing tomorrow.
You're carrying all of that information all of the time.
But if someone asked:
What do you need right now?
Would you know?
I think many women become so used to looking after everyone else that their own needs become background noise.
Not intentionally.
It just happens slowly.
You put yourself last for long enough and eventually you stop asking yourself the question altogether.
You become so busy coping that you forget to check in.
And the thing is, this isn't always about needing something big.
Sometimes what we need is surprisingly simple.
Perhaps you need:
ten minutes without someone asking something of you
an early night
a proper conversation
a walk on your own
some quiet
reassurance
support
permission to slow down
Or maybe you simply need someone to ask how you are and genuinely wait for the answer.
The difficult part is that when we've ignored our own needs for a long time, we can start to feel disconnected from ourselves.
We feel overwhelmed.
We feel mentally overloaded.
We feel exhausted.
And yet we can't always explain why.
Because somewhere along the way, we've stopped listening to ourselves.
If you're recognising yourself in this, I want you to know something.
You haven't failed.
You haven't got life wrong.
And there's nothing wrong with you.
Perhaps you've simply become very good at looking after everyone else.
So maybe today isn't about fixing anything.
Maybe it's simply an opportunity to pause and become curious.
Ask yourself:
What do I need right now?
What have I been putting off because everyone else feels more important?
If my needs mattered just as much as everyone else's, what would I give myself today?
You don't have to have all the answers.
Sometimes reconnection starts with something much smaller.
Sometimes it starts with asking yourself a question that you've not asked for a very long time:
What do I need?
And if this felt familiar, please know you're not the only one and you don't have to keep carrying everything alone.
Jx