We’ve all been taught that you are supposed to put your needs before your wants. Eat your vegetables before dessert. Save your money instead of splurging on something frivolous. Finish your homework before indulging in mindless entertainment. The message is clear: discipline first, enjoyment later.
While this is a sensible approach to life, I think as a general rule, we overlook an important part of the equation–the needs of the Soul. In addition to keeping ourselves from overindulging in frivolity, we are also pressured to prioritize external expectations over what truly lights us up. For too long, the conversation has centered around the practicality of living while ignoring the deeper, soul-level needs that bring us alive.
Many of us have passions—things that call to us from such a deep place within that resisting them feels like a persistent inner rotting. Yet, if our yearnings don’t align with the status quo, they’re dismissed as indulgent, ancillary, or impractical. We internalize the message that these soul stirrings are somehow inferior to the stolid work of being productive. We end up relegating what lights us up to hoped-for hobbies, nestled between maybe and someday, occasionally sneezing out bursts of inspiration but never fully owning it. Or worse, we hold passion and purpose at arm’s length, convinced that they belong to someone braver, more deserving—that they were never ours to claim in the first place.
And part of it is because we crave belonging. What we WANT is permission; approval, validation—CERTAINTY, but it’s easy to let what we WANT take precedence over what our Soul NEEDS.
We trade what CALLS TO US for what COMFORTS US, mistaking external affirmation for inner alignment.
But our passions aren’t just indulgences; they are invitations—whispers from a higher order of things —urging us to step fully into who we are meant to be.
As full participants in society—with bills to pay, mouths to feed, subscriptions to entertain, and social media to scroll—it’s easy to let these ego-driven wants to take precedence over the deeper urges of our soul.
I’ve had a tendency to keep my greatest passion at a distance, believing it was meant for the truly dedicated, or the chosen few, of which I had failed to gain entrance. I seemed to be waiting for someone to knock on my door and give me permission to pursue what lights me up. I would look for ways to dabble at it here and there—letting the steam vent off of a pressurized pot—but never accepting it as a calling, never grasping how easily I could just take hold of it, claim it, do it.
In my case, this was my passion for writing.
I’ve always loved to write, yet for years, I convinced myself that the thing I loved most belonged to someone else—to real writers, to those who had found their calling early and followed it with unwavering dedication. (Can we totally ignore the fact that my passion only requires a laptop or a pad of paper, no degree or certification necessary—just a quiet, creative mind and some medium for recording it).
In some strange inverted reasoning, I believed that because it was what I most wanted to do, because it came so naturally to me, that somehow it wasn’t supposed to be an integral part of my life and career… As if, by very proximity, it should be overlooked in favor of something more grinding, more permissible, more common.
Who makes a living writing? Only special people do.
Who gets to do this all the time? The lucky, chosen ones.
I told myself that because I wasn’t as dedicated, skilled, or “favored” as others, I shouldn’t even bother with it. Never mind that dedication, discipline, and skill are things you cultivate, and favor often comes to those who treat the process as the reward—who keep showing up without fixating on the outcome. I convinced myself it was for those special, chosen few and not for me.
Throughout my life, I would write essays that moved my teachers to tears, and I journaled regularly, reading my contemplative entries to friends and lovers (who reads their journal out loud to others?). I’d jot down occasional bursts of poetry or lullabies—songs that I’d sing my children to sleep with. Inspiration even struck me with a children’s story, Grouchy Goose, that I painstakingly edited, illustrated, and published over the course of five hesitant, halting, doubt-filled years.
But to be a writer, to call myself a writer with a capital W, to name it and proclaim it? That dream felt long gone. Like an athlete who never made it to the pros, I felt past my prime—too late for my dream of being a National Geographic journalist slogging through the bogs of Borneo (does Borneo even have bogs?)
So what was the point of dedicating myself to something as “trivial” as writing? Who was I kidding? I’d stick to something safer—something that didn’t require me to risk failure or being ignored.
What I hadn’t yet realized was that writing wasn’t trivial at all. It wasn’t just a hobby or something nice to have. I had been finding ways to release the pressure off the pot without acknowledging that I was side-skating around my true needs. Writing, for me, was a deep, stirring NEED of my soul—and recognition, validation, and permission were merely WANTS that I could learn to live without.
But, prior to this realization, I did some beating around the bush.
BACKSTORY MINUTE: I thought I needed credentials—a degree, a license, something to make my passion legitimate. Since I love self-help so much—I got accepted into a masters program to become a therapist. You know, a qualified, bona fide, respectable professional, with the hope of maybe doing some professional writing in the process. But the ROI on the time and money required wasn’t feeling aligned at this stage of my life, so I went back to the drawing board.
Maybe, instead of investing $100K and the next five years into school, I could take a more direct path to helping people. I landed on the idea of becoming a life coach, followed by investing a smaller, but still sizable, part of my livelihood into a business accelerator for coaches. Try as I might, I just couldn’t line up with full-time coaching—that shoe just wasn’t fitting either. I chalked it up to personal failure at the time, but looking back after a few trips around the sun, I now realize that my true passion,—the one that brings me the most meaning and purpose—has always been writing. Over the last three years, it’s clear to me how each detour I took ultimately pointed to the same answer: I am a writer.
It wasn’t until the beginning of 2025 that I had the real epiphany: I can call myself a writer. I can be a writer, and no one can stop me! I don’t even have to be good at it. No one has to read it, appreciate it, or like it! I can still do what lights me up, regardless of the outcome.
Only a few weeks after this epiphany, I was getting a haircut when my hairdresser casually mentioned to another woman in the salon that I had written a book (Grouchy Goose). Crescent Dragonwagon walked over to me and asked me directly if I was a writer. I hesitated for a moment, then said, “Yes.” It was such a powerful moment to step fully into that identity. I didn’t realize I was speaking to a renowned local author who then invited me to check out a poet’s circle in Eureka Springs. I was deeply honored and excited by the opportunity to connect with other writers at various stages of their journeys. That moment didn’t feel like coincidence—it felt like confirmation.
Since embracing my “new year, new you” shift, I’ve been committed to publishing a blog post each week, pouring my thoughts and soul into the process.
I wake up at 4 AM nearly every weekday to dedicate time to these posts, refining them on the weekend for publication. My goal is to publish 52 posts this year—regardless of whether anyone reads or praises them. I love sharing my experiences, ponderings, realizations, and heartbreaks in this space. I now realize it’s what I do, whether it puts a single penny in my pocket or makes for good conversation at a dinner party. I do it because it’s what my soul calls for.
The word “wellness” contains the word “well.” You know the adage—You can’t fill any other wells unless you first fill your own. Think of well-being as having a full WELL within your BEING. It’s from that overflow that we pour into others. And for me, expressing my soul through writing causes my well-being to overflow.
As part of stepping fully into my new identity as a writer, I gave myself permission to a bucket-list experience. I treated myself to a weekend holed up in a cabin and completely devoted to writing. The solitude, the space, and the freedom to pour my creativity into a new book and fully immerse in the process was a little dream come true for me that filled up my well.
Sacred Circles: Sometimes finding what you love involves circling it for years, doubting, delaying, resisting and sometimes even reckoning. But when you finally surrender to it, when you claim it fully, the pieces start to fall into place. The doubt fades, the path becomes clearer, and the momentum builds. You are truly putting your NEEDS before your WANTS. That’s when everything starts to feel like it’s aligned—like the magic is finally happening.
For years, I held myself back from claiming the title of “writer,” believing it belonged to someone more qualified. I tried on other hats, turned over other stones—tooled around, tinkered, toyed—until I finally discovered and owned my truth. And when I did, it felt both inevitable and almost anticlimactic. As if all it really took was a quiet nod of recognition. No grand initiation, just a simple willingness to relax and say “Yes” to the question: “Are you a writer?”
So what lights you up?
Is there something in your life you would secretly love to do more of, but feel like it’s something that is only meant for professionals or the truly dedicated?
How would you approach your passion if you completely released the outcome?
