Be Walking with Nicky

What I am tired of being able to do.

Come for a walk. Today, I want to talk about the things we’re tired of being good at. Available, agreeable, useful, and endlessly giving. We’re taught to listen to every voice asking something from us. But when generosity becomes an invitation to be emptied, maybe we need to be asking, who benefits from me never saying no?

There are some things you don’t realize you’re carrying until you put them down. I’ve spent a lot of my life listening to people at work, in friendships, in families, in rooms where people said one thing while their face was saying something completely different. And I’ve always been interested in that gap,

the space between what we say and what we actually mean. I think I’ve become slightly obsessed with the story we tell ourselves. Not because stories are bad. The problem is sometimes we forget they’re just stories. You can tell yourself, I’m just tired. I’m just busy. This is how relationships are. I’m not really ambitious.

I don’t really know what I want. It’s too late. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. And sometimes, I’m fine is the most complicated sentence in the room. I used to have a dog called Brutus. He was a part of my life in the ordinary ways animals become parts of our lives.

You don’t necessarily notice all the times when they’re living around them. The sitting on the feet, the lying around, the walking, the noise, the scratches, the ridiculous little routines, their presence, and then one day, they’re gone. And suddenly, the ordinary becomes so precious.

You miss that little tail wagging and the sound of the bark that comes only for you when you’re just coming through the door. There’s an empty space where he might have been. Grief has a way of editing your memory. And it takes things you thought were insignificant and puts them in bold.

Something you didn’t know you would miss until you did. I think people are a bit like that too. We don’t always notice ourselves while we’re living. Some of us become parents. Some of us have partners. We get promotions. Maybe we’re carers. Some of us Like to be reliable, while others prefer to be difficult. The strong one.

The one who can cope. And somewhere underneath all those different roles, still just a person. Sometimes that person starts asking questions. Questions you don’t necessarily say out loud. Like, what if I don’t want this anymore? I want more. I’m not actually happy. What if the version of me everyone knows isn’t the whole me? What if I’ve changed?

Who am I when nobody needs anything from me? Those questions can be uncomfortable. Because once you hear them, it’s difficult to pretend you didn’t. And that’s where my interest in coaching comes from. Not having all the answers. Actually quite the opposite. I don’t think most people need another person telling them what to do.

There’s loads of advice you can drown in. You’ve got books, podcasts, TikToks, Instagram, experts. Everybody seems to have an answer but you. Sometimes we just need somewhere to think. Somewhere to say the thing we haven’t been saying. And then ask, is that actually true? That’s what I mean when I talk about creating room. Not escaping your life.

Not becoming completely different from who you are. Just having enough space to hear yourself underneath all that noise. Sometimes you need to meet the person you’ve been leaving behind. I think there’s something interesting about this particular point in life that I’m in. This stage for me is about having enough history to know what certain choices cost.

Enough life left to make certain ones. And that’s what I’m interested in exploring. Identity. Work. Money. Creativity. The things we inherit. The things we repeat. And the things we finally decide to question. The strange, wasabi, beautiful business of becoming yourself. So that’s what this podcast is about. Not me telling you who to become.

Not me handling you or giving you a perfect five step life plan. I’m not about that life. I think you should be asking, what do I already know? The things we don’t say out loud. Maybe you don’t need to become better at anything. Maybe it’s what’s draining you. Maybe you need permission to stop. Take what you thought on your next walk and decide and notice which voice is yours and which ones you’ve been carrying.