What Fits Today

I was talking on the phone with a client. She kept calling herself a minimalist. I felt like the name was a burden for her. There was tension in her voice when she said the word. I got the sense she was holding it out as her identifying card, but it didn't fit her.

I said that some people like to live with less, others with more. There's no right way to live. The main thing to ask yourself is, "What do I need?" Often our needs are lost in how we think we should live. We pick up beliefs along the way in our life. But it helps to come back to right now. We do that by asking "What do I need in this moment? What don't I need? What do I have in my life that is hurting me?"

My client started to cry. It shook her up to think that something she identified strongly with was not true for her. I said that our needs change daily. Maybe wanting to be a minimalist served her in the past, but today she needs something different. It's okay to let go of what doesn't fit. It opens us up to become aware of what we need now.