Stop Asking Everyone What You Should Do - Letter #5

The body knows. The crowd is just louder.

At the end of Letter #4, I asked, "What are you using to numb, distract, delay, or avoid the thing your body already knows?" There are many answers. None are right and none are wrong. For many of us, one answer can land hard, and you're not even aware you're doing it: outsourcing the decision to other people.

A note before we go further. This letter is about everyday life choices. The career move. The unconventional purchase. The creative leap. The boundary you keep softening. The dream you keep filing away. It is not about crisis. If you are navigating abuse, addiction, a controlling relationship, financial harm, or any situation where your safety is genuinely at stake, please lean on the right professionals, support systems, and trusted people in your life. That is not outsourcing. That is wisdom. The Override Letters are about reclaiming the quieter, slower self-trust most of us have buried under everyday noise. Not the kind of decision that needs a lifeline.

One of the fastest ways to disconnect from yourself is to continually ask other people what you should do.

Advice is interesting because most people give it through the lens of their own fears, limitations, conditioning, and lived experience. Rarely yours.

The moment you begin considering something outside the norm, you will immediately meet resistance.

"Are you sure?"  "That sounds risky."  "I would never do that." "What if it doesn't work?"  "Why would you leave something stable?"  "Are you crazy?"

Most people are not trying to hurt you. Many genuinely believe they are protecting you. But protection and alignment are not always the same thing. There is a difference between gathering information and handing your inner authority away.

Early in my life, I had a rare opportunity to buy a small condo in downtown Key West for $200,000. Some of the closest people to me thought I was out of my mind and warned me I would lose money and never get it back.

Their fear almost became my fear, but something within me knew. They had never been there (a few hadn't even heard of it until I moved there). They didn't know the real estate market was through the roof. They didn't know the condo I was renting, and now buying, was in Old Town, only a couple of blocks from the much-desired Duval Street. They spoke from what they knew.

At that time, my parents were buying a good-sized home on the outskirts of Lake George, NY for under $140K. So naturally, the math didn't math when you compared those apples to oranges.

...and I bought the condo.

Did I lose my ass as warned? Not quite. Two years later, I sold it for three times what I paid, which set me up for my next real estate purchase in a different state. That one also produced about $175K upon sale, two years after that.

The lesson was not about real estate. It was about what happens when you go quiet long enough to hear yourself, and surrender to becoming the authority of your own life.

That does not mean every instinct is automatically a green light. It does not mean you stop learning, researching, listening, or using common sense. It means you stop assuming someone else automatically knows what is best for your path.

Experts can inform you. Family can support you. Friends can offer perspective. But eventually, the noise has to quiet down enough for you to hear yourself clearly. And when I am seeking counsel, my guides will be the ones who have already walked the path I am trying to walk...not those offering opinions from the sidelines of paths they have never walked.

The more disconnected people are from their own inner authority, the more uncomfortable they become watching someone else trust theirs. People will project their fears onto your life if you allow them to.

When my husband and I decided to turn our second home into a short-term rental, we were selective about who we consulted. Not out of secrecy, but out of hard-won wisdom. Most of the people we could have asked had never walked that path themselves, and from the sidelines many would say, "I could never," or, "That is risky." Both are valid statements, but neither was helping us build something successful. That home has been a short-term rental for over 13 years, and since then we've added a waterfront house a few minutes away.

So when you ask others for advice, or when you're looking to bounce ideas off of them, ask yourself: is their perspective rooted in fear, assumption, or limitation? Or is it rooted in lived experience?

Now, I'd be foolish not to expose the other side of this coin. Maybe you are able to guard your mind from the onslaught of opinions, and you want to embark anyway. But you still shrink, because there is someone in particular you are afraid of seeing you.

Who are you afraid of seeing you?

Many people embarking on something big or unconventional may go small, because there are usually one to three of the closest people in their life that they are afraid of being fully seen by. A parent. A spouse. An in-law. A sibling. The fear is rarely abstract. It has a face. Disappointment. Pushback. Financial worry. The whispered concern that you've lost it. Conversations behind your back.

When I was first considering being seen in music, the voice in my head said, "They will think I'm in a state of depression. They will think I'm unqualified to do this. They will be against the financial aspect of this." And "they" had names. Real ones. Specific people in my head whose opinions I was rehearsing before I'd even taken a step. The noisy roommate had collected them all. And I was wrong about every one of them.

That's the trap. The voice telling you to stay safe, stay small, and stay put isn't always coming from inside you. Sometimes it's the accumulated noise of everyone else's unlived fears, poured into your ear at exactly the moment you were about to do something brave. Or the accumulated fear of who might be watching.

Soon, we're going to look at what's happening when fear rises at the exact edge of growth. That moment where you stop, turn around, and retreat to safety. We are about to name it precisely.

For now, sit with this:

·Whose voice have you been listening to more than your own?

·Who are the one to three people you are most afraid of seeing this version of you?

·What would you choose if you could hear yourself clearly?

Ready to hear yourself clearly?

This letter named the noise. The opinions you've been rehearsing. The faces you've been afraid of. The voices that aren't yours.

The Override Session is a one-on-one space designed to quiet the outside noise long enough for you to hear what your own inner authority has been trying to tell you all along. The road gets clearer when you don't walk it alone. You already know if this is for you.

'Til next time,

Your Fellow Traveler, Patty

Keep on walking with me... no noise, no overwhelm, just occasional reflections for the road. Subscribe and I'll ping you when the next letter is published.

A gentle note for the road: The Override Letters are created for reflection, self-awareness, clarity, and reconnecting with yourself. This space is not meant to replace therapy, medical care, crisis support, or professional guidance, and is not intended as a resource for addiction, abuse, crisis intervention, or big "T" trauma work. Please honor your nervous system and seek the right support when deeper care is needed.