There is a question, or different versions of the same question, that I get asked more often than people might imagine:
"Do you ever just tell people what they should do?"
Sometimes it is about a relationship. Should I stay or should I leave. Sometimes it is about dating. Do I keep trying with this person or walk away. Sometimes it is about work, a friendship, a move, a decision that feels too big to hold alone.
The words change, but the longing underneath is the same.
Please help me escape the uncertainty.
The question is almost always asked quietly. Sometimes through tears. Sometimes with exhaustion. Sometimes with a hint of embarrassment, as if needing guidance is a failure rather than a deeply human response to being overwhelmed.
I understand it because I have lived it.
I remember sitting with my own therapist during one of the most disorienting seasons of my life, wanting her to simply tell me what to do. I wanted clarity. I wanted relief. I wanted someone wiser and steadier to carry the burden of choice so I could finally rest.
She never did. And I am endlessly grateful for that.
When people ask me now if I will tell them what to do, my answer is honest and grounded in something I believe deeply. I do not give people answers about whether they should stay, leave, pursue, quit, try harder, or walk away. Not because I am withholding. Not because I do not care. But because something essential would be taken from them if I did.
It would be disempowering.
At the heart of this question is not really a request for advice. It is a request for certainty. For safety. For someone to absorb the weight of a decision that feels unbearable to carry alone.
Life has a way of bringing us to the edge of ourselves. Relationships, work, family, friendships, and transitions all activate old wounds, loyalties, fears, and hopes that often have very little to do with the present moment. When things feel overwhelming, it can seem kinder for someone else to decide. But no one else lives inside your body. No one else wakes up in your nervous system after a choice is made.
Esther Perel often speaks about how we are not only searching for happiness, but for meaning, aliveness, and coherence. The real question beneath should I do this or that is often who am I becoming if I choose this path and who am I if I do not.
Those are not questions someone else can answer for you.
I believe there is a deeper knowing inside each of us. It is not always obvious or confident. Sometimes it is buried beneath years of adaptation, people pleasing, survival strategies, and the desire to be approved of or not disappoint anyone. This knowing often has to be excavated slowly and with great care.
Therapy, coaching, and meaningful conversations are not meant to replace your inner compass. They are meant to help you hear it more clearly. They create space for the noise to settle so truth can emerge. The work is less about finding the right answer and more about asking the right questions.
What feels aligned. What feels contracted. What feels familiar but not necessarily true anymore. What are you afraid will happen if you choose what you want.
This process can be uncomfortable, especially when the pain is acute or the stakes feel high. But there is something profoundly stabilizing about arriving at your own truth. When clarity comes from within, it lands differently. It belongs to you. And because it belongs to you, you are far more capable of standing by it.
The role of a therapist, in my view, is not to direct but to accompany. To walk alongside someone as they learn to trust themselves again. To ask questions that open rather than collapse possibilities. To hold steady when someone doubts their own wisdom.
I did not need my therapist to tell me what to do. I needed her to believe that I could find my way. Over time, her trust in me became my trust in myself.
If you find yourself asking someone to just tell you what to do, I want you to know that it makes sense. It does not mean you are lost or incapable. It means you are human and standing at a crossroads.
And I also want you to know this. There is wisdom in you that deserves your patience and attention. It may not shout. It may whisper. It may take time to reveal itself. But it is there.
Be curious with yourself. Slow down. Stay in conversation with your inner life rather than rushing toward an answer. Clarity often comes not from being told, but from being willing to listen.
Sometimes the most meaningful support we can receive is not direction, but presence. Not answers, but space.
That is where we find ourselves. And that is where real choice begins.
