She saw the shoes in the window.
Bright red. Not burgundy. Not wine. Not the tasteful shade of red that could almost pass for a neutral if you wore it with the right pants.
Red.
The kind of red that entered a room before you did.
She stopped. Then kept walking. She had absolutely nowhere to wear red shoes like that. Three stores later, she was still thinking about them. This annoyed her.
She had come to the shopping center because she needed a birthday gift for a friend and a new white blouse for herself. She had already found the gift. The blouse was proving more difficult, but she was committed to the mission.
What drew you to healthcare originally?
For as long as I can remember I’ve been interested in teeth. I didn’t play house as a child, I played dentist. Growing up I knew a woman who was a Dental Hygienist and she worked 3 days a week and had a family. I liked that flexibility as I also wanted to eventually have a family.
She had no idea where she was going. That was unusual. She was good at know where she was going.
She made reservations. Checked directions. Looked at reviews. Knew what time things opened and approximately how long it would take to get there. She wasn’t obsessive about it. At least she didn’t think she was. She just liked having a plan.
But on this particular Saturday morning, she had none.
She had driven about forty minutes out of town to visit a little shop someone had mentioned weeks earlier. It turned out to be closed. Normally that would have irritated her. Forty minutes there. Forty minutes back. Nothing accomplished. A wasted morning.
She almost said no. Actually, she had already started to. “I don’t really…” Then she stopped. Her friend was looking at her across the table, waiting.
It wasn’t an outrageous suggestion. No one was asking her to jump out of an airplane, move to another country, or do anything remotely worthy of the expression on her face.
Her friend had simply asked if she wanted to take a beginner pottery class with her.
Pottery.
She knew absolutely nothing about pottery. She wasn’t artistic. At least she didn’t think she was. She had never been particularly good at making things with her hands, and she could already picture herself sitting at a wheel while everyone else created beautiful bowls and she produced something resembling a lopsided ashtray.
She wasn’t looking for anything in particular.
She had stopped at the grocery store on her way home because she was out of coffee and needed a few things for dinner. It was the same store she had visited for years. She knew exactly where everything was. Without thinking, she pushed her cart down the familiar aisles, reached for the same brands, and followed the same path she always had.
The she found herself standing in front of an entire wall of pasta sauce.
A few days ago, someone shared a video with me of a young valedictorian named Kyle Martin standing at a graduation podium.
He had accomplished exactly what he set out to accomplish. He had worked relentlessly, earned extraordinary grades, and reached the top of his class. When he learned that he had been named valedictorian, the feeling was everything he imagined it would be.
For about fifteen seconds.
Then came the sixteenth second.
She would have replayed the conversation in her mind before it even happened, carefully choosing words that might help everyone understand why she made the decision she did. She wanted people to see what she saw. To know what she knew. To understand why this mattered so much to her. Not because she needed to be right. Because she wanted to be understood.
Known for bridging evidence-based healthcare with a deeply human approach to healing and well-being, Dr. Campbell has become a respected voice in leadership, authenticity, and transformational growth. Throughout her career, she has been guided by a belief that healing extends beyond the treatment of symptoms and includes honoring the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions of the human experience.
She smiled politely when someone said, “I miss the old you.”
For just a moment, she almost answered, “I don’t.” Not because she was angry. Not because she regretted the woman she used to be. But because she had finally realized something that had taken years to understand.
The woman they missed had spent much of her life making sure everyone else was comfortable. The woman standing here now was finally learning to make room for herself.
One of the things I’ve noticed about women is how often we explain ourselves. We explain why we can’t make it to dinner. We explain why we said no to another commitment. We explain why we’re changing careers, slowing down, starting over, setting a boundary, leaving a role, or choosing something different.
Sometimes we explain before anyone has even asked.
It’s almost as though we’ve been conditioned to believe that every meaningful change requires a well-prepared defense. We gather evidence. We build our case. We make sure everyone understands that our decision is reasonable, responsible, and justified. Only then do we allow ourselves to move forward.
She was looking for permission to trust her own.
Most women don’t arrive at life’s crossroads because they lack information. By the time they reach a significant decision, they’ve usually done the research. They’ve weighed the options. They’ve considered the impact on the people they love. They’ve imagined every possible outcome and replayed the decision from more angles than anyone else ever will.
The issue is rarely preparation. It’s trust.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard a woman say, “I just want to get back to myself.”
Sometimes she says it quietly, almost as if she’s admitting something she hasn’t even allowed herself to think before. Other times she laughs when she says it, trying to soften the weight of the words. But no matter how it’s expressed, the feeling underneath is remarkably similar.
Somewhere along the way, she believes she lost herself.
