Permission to Wander
An invitation to loosen your grip, wander off track, and step into a field brimming with curiosity
When I was a teenager, my mother gave me a necklace engraved in tiny script with a quote from Rumi:
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there."
I still wear it today.
For me, it has always been a kind of quiet promise. An invitation to explore, to question, to live fully—and a reminder that no matter where my path led, she would be there. Beyond judgment. Beyond expectation.
That field Rumi speaks of has lived in my imagination for years. Open. Wide. Waiting. It’s a place where nothing has to be proven or defended. A place where you can stretch out your arms, breathe deeply, and move toward what calls you—without needing to know exactly where it will lead.
I think of this image often when working with clients, especially those standing at the edge of something new. So many of us have been taught to imagine the future more like a train ride—one track, one timetable, one destination. You choose a direction early. You stay the course. You make stops at the expected milestones. You perform the role of the "successful traveler”.
But lately, I keep meeting people—thoughtful, seasoned, deeply intelligent people—who quietly say: "I don't know where I'm going anymore."
What they often mean is: The track disappeared. Or the train is no longer headed in the direction I want to go. Or maybe even I finally stepped off, and now I’m not sure what’s next.
But what if the goal isn’t to find another train?
What if the invitation is to step into the field instead?
In coaching, I often describe this moment as the beginning of something new—not because clarity has arrived, but because space has. It’s a threshold moment: tender, disorienting, but alive with possibility. If, that is, we allow ourselves to get curious.*
Children inherently know how to do this. When they feel safe—when they know someone is nearby, watching but not controlling—they feel free to explore. They build imaginary worlds out of sticks and stones. They ask wild, beautiful questions. They play without needing an outcome, and in doing so, they learn faster than we ever could.
Psychologist John Bowlby called this feeling a "secure base”. It’s not protection from every fall. It’s presence. The quiet assurance that someone is near enough for comfort but far enough to allow freedom. It’s the sense that the edges of the world are being held gently—that you can venture out, make mistakes, try something new, and return if needed.
Security in childhood takes many shapes. My son loved experimenting—searching for tadpoles in the local pond, mixing kitchen ingredients to see what would brew, collecting field objects for his makeshift lab at home. My daughter, in contrast, would sit for hours, absorbed in the simple joy of painting, trusting the world to let her be. And for me, it was the pure joy of playing freely at the local pool—the smell of chlorine, the sound of splashing water, the calm of counting underwater flips—always knowing that a watchful parent or lifeguard was nearby.
Different expressions. Same foundation.
We knew we were held.
Adults need this too.
Especially when we’re in transition. Especially when the old story feels too small and the new one hasn’t yet taken form. In those moments, what we need most isn’t strategy or perfection—it’s permission.
Permission to wander.
Permission to wonder.
Permission to not know yet.
This is the kind of space I try to offer in coaching. Not a fixed map. Not a rush toward the “next thing.” But a field—wide, open, soft—a place where curiosity is safe again.
"Real human freedom is our willingness to pause between the events in our lives and the response we choose." Rollo May**
The pause is everything. It’s where imagination sneaks in. It’s where the future starts to reshape itself in ways we couldn’t have scripted. And often, it's where we find our truest strength—not in forging ahead blindly, but in allowing ourselves to wonder what might be possible.
When we pause, when we settle into the open space rather than scrambling for a new track, curiosity becomes our guide.
Imagine yourself there now.
What do you see? What do you feel under your feet?
What scents drift in the air?
Is the field still, or moving?
Is there anyone you’d like to invite into that space with you?
You can't force clarity, any more than you can force a seed to grow. But you can create the conditions for it to emerge—tender, unexpected, alive.
You can loosen your grip on the old tracks. Alter the schedule. Open the map and choose a new destination.
Maybe, just maybe, when you arrive there, you’ll find that someone—or something—you’ve been waiting for has been there all along.
Before you go:
If you could wander into that field today, without urgency or expectation, what small curiosity might you follow first?
A scent?
A memory?
A question you’ve been too busy to ask?
What would it feel like to let wonder lead the way?
*I first explored this idea of playful new beginnings in The Future Tense.)
**If pausing feels difficult right now, you might also find comfort in Finding Clarity Amidst the Noise, where I wrote more about how we find steadiness inside uncertainty.
If you would like to learn more about Narrative Coaching, please visit my website.
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