Go Where You’re Needed

A Reflection on Emotional Growth, Vulnerability, and Self-Sovereignty

Roughly five years ago, I found myself in deep contemplation about which direction to take. My job had grown unfulfilling—the more clearly I saw people for who they were, the more apparent it became that margins mattered more than meaning. The corn had become more important than the farmer who planted it.

I entered a season of stillness—not idle, but reflective. During one of those quiet moments, I spoke with my building’s leasing agent. She listened patiently, then offered that deceptively simple advice. “I’m not the most intelligent person you might know, but I can tell you one thing—go where you’re needed. The rest will figure itself out.”

That became my compass, my path of least resistance.
But even the wisest directions must be tested by the terrain.

Reclaiming What Was Buried 🧱 

I soon embarked on a journey—not to become someone new, but to reclaim what had long been buried beneath expectation, conditioning, and inherited belief. I wanted to learn how to identify and articulate my emotions. I wanted to understand what was driving my decisions—my attachments—and whether they were born of need or love, habit or truth.

My aim was not to live void of emotion, but to act with clarity rather than compulsion.

As I leaned in, I started to see just how deeply wounded people are—how shame, guilt, unspoken expectations, disappointment, and childhood trauma can fracture our ability to communicate with one another, and with ourselves.

When Belief Systems Begin to Fracture 🌀

The irony is, I once detested Friedrich Nietzsche’s work—his irreverence, his declarations, his relentless tearing down of moral absolutes. It grated against my Christian conditioning, against the frameworks that taught me doubt was disobedience and suffering had to mean something redemptive.

But where do you turn when life becomes existential?
When the scripts you were handed stop working—when faith no longer soothes, when purpose becomes a question mark instead of an anchor?

You begin to search.
You revisit the thinkers you once dismissed—not as threats, but as mirrors.

And in Nietzsche, I found an uncomfortable kind of clarity. He didn’t offer answers so much as the challenge to ask better questions—to own your choices, your identity, your suffering, and to build meaning not from inheritance, but from intention.

What once felt like arrogance, I now see as invitation—a call to self-overcoming, not as rebellion, but as responsibility.

Faith, Revisited 🙏 ✝️

Please, don’t misunderstand me.
I haven’t abandoned my Christian faith or upbringing. In fact, I’ve grown to deepen them. Philosophy didn’t replace belief—it illuminated it.

I now understand the full weight and wonder of the Cross, not just as a symbol of sacrifice, but as a mirror of humanity. I see Christ’s journey with new eyes—His compassion, His confidence, His weariness, His wisdom, and, yes, His isolation and loneliness. The deeper I went into myself, the more clearly I could see Him—not only as Divine, but as profoundly human.

Attachment, Explained 🤝 

To truly grow, I had to understand the mechanics of attachment.
Were my closest relationships reciprocal—or roles I kept playing out of habit, obligation, or fear of abandonment?

Here, John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth gave me language for what I was feeling—how early caregiving shaped my emotional reflexes, how anxious or avoidant attachments could masquerade as love but were often rooted in unspoken wounds.

Embracing the Unknown 🌫️

It was Søren Kierkegaard who reminded me that existential anxiety is not a flaw, but a signal that we’re on the cusp of meaning-making. His leap of faith was never about blind belief—but about the courage to step into uncertainty, guided only by our subjective truth.

Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is walk away from what no longer feeds us, even when everything in us is begging to stay.

As I shed those illusions, Brené Brown’s work grounded me. She offered tools for navigating shame and guilt, and a gentle but firm reminder: vulnerability is not weakness—it’s the birthplace of connection and courage.

And I needed courage.
Not just to show up for others, but to show up honestly for myself.

Knowing When to Leave 🧭

My leasing agent’s advice—go where you’re needed—resonated deeply as I stood at yet another crossroads. But I’ve since learned that not every place you’re needed is a place you’re meant to remain.

Presence matters.
But so does presence with yourself.

Some spaces will never yield change, no matter how much you invest.
Acceptance, I’ve found, is not surrender—it’s sovereignty.

This journey has given me a clearer awareness of what is—and a gentler openness to what could be. I’ve learned to see the pieces that form the whole, to honor the truths I once avoided, and to hold space for contradiction. I’ve come to embody the paradox of being both wounded and wise, both seeking and rooted.

Reflection: Mirrors & Meaning 🪞

It’s one thing to walk away from what no longer serves you.
It’s another to confront what still lives inside you.

That’s where the deeper work begins.

After the movement, the stillness returns—and with it, the mirror.
The real mirror.
The one that doesn’t reflect your image but your patterns, your truths, your silent agreements.

And in that stillness, I realized:
The journey inward was never about perfection.
It was always about presence.

In the end, this journey—like all honest ones—has been as much about reflection as it has been about direction.

I used to think clarity came from answers.
Now I see it’s shaped by the courage to ask better questions—to stand in front of the mirror and not flinch.

Because mirrors don’t lie—but they don’t interpret either.
They simply reflect what is.

And what we see there can be terrifying, liberating, humbling.

In People Hate Mirrors, I wrote about how our discomfort with honesty often reveals our discomfort with ourselves. How projection becomes easier than presence. But to grow—emotionally, spiritually, relationally—we must be willing to see ourselves seeing 👁️‍🗨️.

To trace the origin of our reactions,
To understand the difference between what we want and what we need,
And to stop blaming the mirror for what it reveals.

Coming Home🕊️ 

Going where you’re needed may begin externally—but eventually, that calling always turns inward.
It invites us to meet ourselves not as we wish we were, but as we truly are.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the most sacred space we can create:
A place where our reflections are not edited, but embraced.
A kingdom not built for others to approve of, but for us to return to—

Where the mirror no longer judges,
It simply witnesses