If you have spent your life reading everyone else's needs — anticipating them, meeting them, shrinking your own so you wouldn't be a burden — you may have arrived at a place where you can no longer hear your own. This is not a flaw in you. It is a survival strategy that once kept you safe. In homes where love was conditional, or where you were bullied, harassed, or hurt, learning to disappear your own needs was intelligent. It kept you alive. But you are no longer in that situation, and the strategy that protected you is now the wall between you and your own life. What follows is a gentle, guided practice. You will travel through your body, your heart, your mind, your relationships, your soul, and finally — the needs you were never allowed to want. You do not have to act on anything you discover. You just have to let yourself know. Knowing is the first act of coming home.