“Check with your doctor…”

This week I have been struck by how (unknowingly) dependent I have been on the opinions of my care providers. I like to think of myself as a pretty independent woman, and yet I’ve noticed that I keep thinking that I need to check with my midwife on things I already know.

My example for this week:

At GCM we are blessed with a wonderful retired midwife whose opinion I trust more than any doctor. She recommends a few supplements from time to time, and I decided to pick them up after she made some personal recommendations to me. I noticed that my first instinct was to jot down a note to ask my midwife if she approved. The more I thought about it, the more odd that I realized my thinking was. I knew my midwife would leave it up to me – she’s not the type to force her opinion. She will give me her thoughts if I ask for them, but it is not that I need her permission to do something.

I’m not sure how I got into a habit of not thinking for myself, because that is one of the last ways that I’d ever want to be described. It has happened though. Somehow I lost trust in myself and decided that I needed validation from “experts”. When I ask questions, I usually get responses that I already know, and yet I somehow have been desiring the comfort that comes from hearing my own thoughts coming at me from a more respected source. How bizarre!

Really… there is something very wrong.