Listen to your voice. Trust your gut.

Lately, I’ve been wondering what all that really means for me. If our bodies truly know, why is it sometimes so difficult to listen? How do we truly listen to our voice and trust our gut? And what happens when you can no longer hear yourself?

These are the things I think about now when I’m on my treadmill, trying really hard to get my two miles in. It’s been bothering me enough that I decided to write about it, simply so I can get it out of my head and, perhaps, because some of it might resonate with you.

I like to believe that we are born very much in touch with ourselves. We know what feels right and what doesn’t, even before our parents and communities begin teaching us right or wrong. But somewhere along the way, life happens. And sometimes, finding our way back to that voice can be quite gruesome. I know because it happened to me when my mother passed away in 2019.

For one, my heart broke, truly, for the first time. I actually heard the sounds of the breaking. It is the moment my body returns to, over and over again whenever I’m grieving my mother: the sound and the feeling.

Secondly, I felt like a rug had been pulled from under my feet. Everything I knew and understood as my world seemed to have vanished in an instant. I noticed much later that she was my grounding, and when she left, I lost that. I didn’t know how to move through the world anymore.

I felt confident most of my life. I thought I knew my way around the world. What I wanted, what I needed, who I was. And to an extent, I did. But all of that crumbled on that day and, to put it simply, I felt… lost. I have been sinking in that loss since then.

With Mom around, I always had someone to call when things fell apart. Even though I lived my independent life, I realized that almost everything I did was guided by her voice, whether she was present or not. The crumbling became so intense, after she was gone, that all I wanted was to hide.

If you knew me before this day, you know I wasn’t the hiding type. I loved life. I lived it fully. I chased everything my heart said to chase and had almost no regrets, stupid decisions and all.

The hiding started with me flying to New York to hide in my friend’s apartment for two weeks after the funeral. I needed that since I hadn’t really had much time until then to process and feel.

Then hiding in my room in darkness, only coming out when I was needed. Sleeping at the foot of my bed, tucked away. Then talking to people became painful. I didn’t have the energy to answer questions or have in-depth conversations about anything. So I hid some more. To make it not so obvious, I started acting happy when I needed to. The bottom line is that I started slowly wiping myself away without knowing.

I started slowly wiping myself away without knowing.

Almost two years into that, my mind started the journey of trying to find me again. There was this strong desire to start everything from where we left off before that day. Happy Sandra. Boss woman Sandra. Fun-loving, confident, beautiful Sandra. Each time I tried, I was faced with the hurt of opening each of those tanks and finding that none of who I used to be was accessible to me anymore.

Mom’s voice was still very present. I was dreaming of her and sometimes hearing her voice in the night. There was even a morning when I heard her calling me out of my bed. It felt so real that I opened the door just to find no one there. It became very clear to me that I was going to have to do this rebuilding on my own, with my own voice, my own instructions, my own understanding of life, and in my own direction. I needed to access my own gut, and it felt empty at best.

I needed to access my own gut, and it felt empty at best.

I started anyhow, with whatever tools were available to me.

I moved back to the U.S. and found a job. I reconnected with my now-husband, moved to Washington, started Mabel Brempong again, got another job, got married, bought our first home.

Slowly, I was rebuilding.

Until I was unexpectedly let go.

Another breaking.

This time, I realized that every bit of confidence I had built to keep me going was hanging around my identity and everything I had accomplished in my career. And now that was taken from me.

So in addition to the grief I was working my way through, I felt like nothing. I was truly left with my voice and long days at home to figure it out.

Of course, I kept applying to jobs, and the continuous rejections emphasized that feeling. Until, after hundreds of applications and nos, everything in me said:

NO MORE.

I can’t continue to do this anymore.

I kept pushing out of guilt. I didn’t want to disappoint my husband, who had been nothing but an anchor through it all.

But then the feeling intensified.

I cannot do this anymore.

I kept pushing. I wanted to feel like somebody.

Then again:

I cannot do this anymore. I need to stop. I kept pushing and even started a new company in that same line of work. I wanted a title attached to my name. What do I say when people ask me what I do? I didn’t want to be the woman in her 30s with nothing to say. All this education, experience, and loans cannot go to nothing.

I cannot keep going anymore. After months of ignoring it, my chronic illness kicked in. All symptoms.

I cannot do this anymore. I need to stop.

Finally, after one last meeting with the business coaches, I told my husband, “I’m really sorry, but I need to close the business. I don’t want to do this anymore.” He hugged me and talked me through it. And for the first time in a very long time, I began the journey of being in tune.

I listened to my gut. Again, I became the girl with no job. No title. No Mom.

I didn’t know which felt worse: all of that, or waking up and seeing absolutely nothing on my calendar and whole days ahead of me with absolutely nothing “important” to do.

I didn’t realize then that I had taken one of the first and most important steps in my life.

I gave my body what it needed… a stop. I rebranded this phase as my “active rest year.” With so much silence in the corners of my brain that used to be filled with everything everyone needed, I was now faced with learning to accept me, listen to me, become me.

And the question I often sit with is this: What does my own voice really sound like?

Thank you for being here. I’ll see you next week, when I’ll share a little more about the ways I’ve been learning to listen to and trust my gut again.

Have a beautiful week.

All my love,S.

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