I was thinking recently about buffets.
Stay with me.
You know when you go to one of those enormous hotel breakfast buffets with absolutely everything imaginable?
Pastries. Fruit. Eggs. Pancakes. Weird fish things. Tiny sausages. Twenty-seven juices for some reason.
Oh I love those...
Anyway, imagine if, before you even walk in, somebody says:
“You’re not allowed carbs, sugar, dairy, joy, pleasure, rest, or anything expensive.”
Well then… what you choose from the buffet is obviously going to be shaped by those limitations.
And that’s fine if those are genuinely your choices.
But what’s interesting is that you’ll never actually know what you would have wanted if all the options had been available to you.
And I think many of us do this internally all the time.
We ask ourselves:
“What do I want?”
But unconsciously we’ve already removed half the options.
Too selfish.
Too unrealistic.
Too inconvenient.
Too expensive.
Too much.
Too irresponsible.
Too embarrassing.
Too late.
So then we only choose from the tiny socially acceptable corner of the buffet and wonder why life sometimes feels a little flat.
Or why we feel restless and disconnected from ourselves.
Now obviously I’m not suggesting we all quit our jobs tomorrow and move to a Greek island to become ceramicists.
Although I suspect you might have perked up and got a dreamy look in your eye when I said that.
Come back. I'm trying to make a point here.
What I am saying is that sometimes there’s something surprisingly healing about simply letting yourself see the full range of possibilities inside your own mind.
Not because you’ll necessarily choose them.
But because you get to know yourself better.
You get information.
You realise:
“Oh… part of me is craving rest.”
“Oh… part of me misses creativity.”
“Oh… part of me wants more beauty.”
“Oh… part of me is tired of being the responsible one all the time.”
And suddenly your longings stop being ridiculous and start becoming meaningful.
This month inside The Portal of Permission we’ve been exploring this idea very gently together and it’s been fascinating watching people realise how many options they quietly removed from their lives before they’d even allowed themselves to think.
No pressure.
No dramatic life changes.
Just slowly becoming more honest with themselves.
And honestly, that changes a lot.
Come join us. Click HERE to find out more.
If you loved yourself, what possibilities might you allow back onto the buffet of your life?
