Three Thoughts at a Time
Updated: Sep 29
I've been thinking a lot lately about those three thoughts my sweet stranger used to ask me for.
Three thoughts. Such a simple thing. Two little words, really. But somehow, they became so much more than that to me. For the longest time, it was part of our routine. He would ask, and I would stop whatever I was doing and actually think about what was going through my mind. Sometimes my thoughts were deep. Sometimes they were ridiculous. Sometimes they were things I probably wouldn't have admitted out loud to anyone else but they were mine. Looking back, I realize how important that was. Funny enough, after we parted ways, I stopped asking myself for my three thoughts. I don't even think I consciously decided to stop. I just did. Maybe because it reminded me too much of him. Actually, there's no maybe about it. It did.
Those words belonged to a part of my life that still hurt to touch. Asking myself for three thoughts would immediately take me back to those conversations, and before I knew it, I would find myself spiraling down that familiar dark hole again—missing him, questioning things, replaying conversations, wondering what was real, what wasn't, and why some people can leave such a permanent mark on your heart even when they were never meant to stay. And frankly, I got tired of climbing out of that hole. So I stopped going near it. But somewhere along the way, I realized something. By avoiding those three thoughts because they reminded me of him, I was also giving up something that had become incredibly important to me. Because maybe the greatest gift hidden inside those conversations wasn't simply that someone wanted to know what I was thinking.
It was that, for the first time in a very long time, I started asking myself what I was thinking. What do I feel? What do I want? What matters to me today? What am I afraid of? What made me smile? What hurt? What am I pretending doesn't hurt? What do I need? Maybe that's one of the ways we lose ourselves. Not all at once. We lose ourselves quietly. We stop checking in with the woman staring back at us in the mirror. We become so busy being wives, mothers, daughters, grandmothers, business owners, caretakers, fixers, problem-solvers and everything everyone else needs us to be that somewhere along the way, we stop asking ourselves one very simple question: What about me? Not selfishly. Honestly. What am I feeling and maybe even more importantly—why have I convinced myself that my feelings need permission to exist? That realization is what inspired me to create something I wish I had years ago.
A journal for women. A place to write your three thoughts. No rules. No judgment. No guilt. No worrying about whether your feelings are reasonable, appropriate, pretty, positive or acceptable to somebody else. Just honesty because one of the biggest things I have learned during this journey is this: Get it out of your head. Write it down. The anger. The sadness. The resentment. The fear. The confusion. The ridiculous thought you don't want to admit you had. The dream you're scared to say out loud. The thing you miss. The person you miss. The thing you're grateful for. The thing you're finally ready to let go of. Put it on paper and then close the damn book. You don't have to sit there and analyze every word. You don't have to solve your entire life that night. You don't have to beat yourself up because you're still feeling something you thought you should have gotten over by now. Sometimes you simply need somewhere safe to put it. Then maybe a week from now, a month from now, or even a year from now, you can go back and read those words and you might be surprised.
You may realize something that once consumed you doesn't hurt quite as much anymore. You may notice that the woman writing those words has changed. Maybe she's stronger. Maybe she has more boundaries. Maybe she finally stopped apologizing for wanting peace. Maybe she finally understands that healing doesn't always mean forgetting. Sometimes healing simply means remembering without allowing the memory to control you. I think that is what Three Thoughts has become for me. Something that began with someone else became something I needed to give back to myself. My sweet stranger may have been the person who first asked me the question.
But the question belongs to me now and maybe that is part of this journey too—learning that the beautiful things people awaken inside of us don't have to disappear simply because they do. We get to keep the lessons. We get to keep the growth. We get to keep the parts of ourselves they helped us discover.
So I'm asking myself again. What are my three thoughts today? And this time, I'm listening to the answers. I hope other women will learn to listen to theirs too because your thoughts matter. Your feelings matter. Your story matters and sometimes loving yourself begins with something as simple as giving yourself a quiet place to tell the truth.
Three thoughts at a time.
The journal is finally here. "Three Thoughts: A Journal for Finding Your Way Back to Yourself" — a place to write your own three thoughts — is available now on Amazon.
If this found you at the right time, subscribe — Samantha writes every couple of weeks.
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