Have you ever found yourself in a situation where someone demands an answer, and instead of responding, you freeze? Your thoughts scatter, your voice seems to disappear, and all you can manage is silence. This happens to me, especially when the question feels personal or pressing. 

Recently, it happened again, and instead of brushing it off, I got curious. I started exploring what was happening inside me, allowing myself to feel the discomfort and move through the emotions instead of pushing them away.

What I discovered was profound: it wasn’t about the question at all. It was about the story I’ve carried for so long—a story rooted in my childhood.

When I was young, the message was clear: hurry up. Hurry up and decide. Hurry up and speak. Hurry up and know what you want. And when I couldn’t “hurry up,” the narrative shifted to “What’s wrong with you?”

That sense of urgency—the constant pressure to be quick, decisive, and compliant—was imposed on me. It wasn’t mine, but over time, I absorbed it as though it was. I began to believe that something must be wrong with me if I needed time to reflect, process, and feel my way toward the right answer. And so, I learned to fake it. To offer quick responses, even if they didn’t feel true to me.

But as I sat with this memory, I realized something life-changing: there was never anything wrong with me. The need to “hurry up” was not my own. It was a product of others’ expectations, their discomfort with my pace, and their inability to meet me where I was.

What I see now is that I am someone who values intentionality. I need time to reflect before answering. I want to connect with what truly matters to me. And that’s okay. It always was. The pressure to respond quickly, to produce an answer on demand, was never about me.

I suspect this might resonate with you. How many of us have been conditioned to believe that our natural ways of being are somehow wrong? That our need for space, reflection, or quiet is a flaw rather than a strength?

We live in a culture that values doing over being, speed over thoughtfulness, and reaction over intention. But that culture doesn’t define us. It doesn’t own us.

The truth is, there is nothing wrong with me—and there’s nothing wrong with you. The world may not always be patient with us, but we can learn to be patient with ourselves. We can reclaim the space we need to listen to our inner wisdom.

Now, when someone demands an answer I don’t have or am not prepared to say at the moment, I’m learning to pause and say, “I need time.” I can even say, “What I want is for you to stop asking me what I want.” It’s liberating to recognize that I don’t have to conform to the world’s timeline. I can honor my own.

So now, I ask you:

What are you holding onto that makes you think something is wrong with you? Where did that belief come from?

Why do you think that is?

Here’s the truth: You are not wrong. You’ve never been wrong. Maybe, like me, you’ve been navigating a world that didn’t know how to meet you where you were. Maybe the expectations placed on you never aligned with your truth. And maybe now is the time to let those old patterns go.

Give yourself the space to pause, reflect, and listen. Because the wisdom you’ve been searching for has been within you all along. You don’t need to hurry. You just need to be. And that, my friend, is more than enough.

With love