Dear younger me,

You don’t need to have it all together.

Or even pretend that you do.

And you don’t need to feel ashamed because everyone else seems to be coping just fine, while you feel like you never have enough time, energy, or money to get everything done.

And you don’t have to be the exception.

I know you think you do. I know you believe that somehow being ‘perfect’ will make you finally feel good enough.

And I know this because I’ve paid the consequences of all those years spent pretending.

So, please, let that illusion go, because trying to maintain it is draining your joy. And I know that it will eventually drain your health.

And I’ve realised that I can’t choose both.

Because I’ve met a lot of people in the 41 years we’ve now been on this planet, and not a single one of them has actually had it all together.

Not one.

And knowing that has given me permission to admit that I don’t either.

I don’t know what I’m doing a lot of the time.

But I’ve learned to actually be excited about the fact that I don’t know what’s coming next, rather than scared by it.

Because how wonderful it is to not have my life planned out for me!

I know you’re 50/50 Monica/Phoebe, but maybe allow Phoebe to take the reins a bit more.

Tell Monica she can still be in charge of making sure everything is neat and tidy - that’ll keep her happy. But allow Phoebe to be in charge of the fun.

You know she’s in there; let her out more often. She’s desperate to play!

So learn to accept uncertainty.

I’m not saying you have to like it, because I know that’s a big ask. But learning to accept it will get you further than trying to avoid it.

Natalie x

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Share

Dear younger me,

I’ve realised I’ve spent four decades outsourcing my worth.

Four decades chasing approval, acceptance, and assholes.

And I’m done with it.

Subscribe now

I refuse to continue believing that someone else gets to decide whether I am good enough, attractive enough, clever enough, funny enough, kind enough, successful enough, or sexy enough.

As long as someone else gets to place a value on my worth, I’m letting their opinion decide what I believe about myself.

It’s time for that to change.

I’m 41 now, younger me. Hoverboards still don’t exist, and we didn’t end up marrying Shane from Boyzone.

Over those 41 years, I’ve managed to hide the fact I had low self-esteem from most people. Including myself.

But if you looked closely, the signs were there: I stayed in relationships that I knew weren’t good for me, I walked away from people who actually treated me well (because deep down I didn’t believe I deserved it), and I even took out a loan to change my physical appearance because some asshole ridiculed my body so much that I felt compelled to change it.

I refuse to continue abandoning my own needs.

I’m done losing myself. From now on, I’m choosing myself.

Actually, I started choosing myself a little while ago. But I’ve decided to start writing to you, younger me, because I want to reconnect with you.

And because I want to share with you the things I’ve learned over the years. And the lessons I’m still learning.

Sometimes I’ll write to nine-year-old you, sometimes I’ll write to 29-year-old you, and sometimes I’ll write to the you from two weeks ago.

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t think anyone does.

But I do know that since I decided to start valuing myself, rather than allowing someone else to decide my worth, life has started to get better.

Subscribe now

Younger me, today I’m writing to let you know that you will, unfortunately, encounter many people who will believe they have the right to force their opinions on you.

They’ll let you know exactly what they think of your face, your body, your hair, your personality, your clothing, your general way of being.

And you won’t have asked them for any of this.

Oh no, they’ll give you this unsolicited ‘advice’ as though their opinions are the kinds of things people go on quests to obtain.

I know, how generous of them to share their crappy thoughts with you while you were happily just, y’know, getting on with enjoying your life.

When this happens, please don’t absorb what they say.

Don’t allow their words to play on a loop in your mind, becoming louder with each replay.

And definitely don’t seek ways to change yourself to ‘correct’ whatever they’ve identified as a ‘flaw’.

Instead, take a deep breath, and remind yourself that you never asked for their opinion in the first place.

That they don’t get to place a value on your worth.

That their opinion does not define you.

And that their opinion is not a fact. Regardless of whether they act like it is.

Don’t base your decisions on other people’s opinions.

As long as you live in fear of what people think, you will never truly live your life.

You’ll live theirs.

Subscribe now

Instead of running every decision past the will-other-people-approve-ometer, my decisions are now being based on how it will affect my mental health and my nine-year-old self.

Because those are the things that matter to me.

I know you think that if you change yourself, then it will change people’s opinions of you. And in turn, your opinion of yourself.

But it doesn’t work that way.

Each time you change something about yourself to appease an asshole, you’re reinforcing your belief that you aren’t good enough.

So finding the next thing to change will become easier, even without someone pointing it out.

After far too long stuck in this vicious cycle, I’ve learned it wasn’t someone else’s opinion of me I needed to change.
It was my opinion of myself.

So I’ve stopped trying to make other people see my worth.
I’ve started walking away from anyone who makes me feel like I need to prove it.
I’ve started saying no, because I’ve learned that ‘yes’ isn’t the price I have to pay to be considered a good person.
And I’ve now got boundaries in place to protect myself from neglecting what matters.
Sometimes, it feels like those boundaries are made of chocolate and will melt if a hot guy gets too close.
But so far, my boundaries have stayed standing.

Subscribe now

I want to take you with me, younger me.

Because I want to make you happy; I want to show you how good life can get, and I want to make you feel safe.

But mostly, I want to make sure I never again neglect what actually matters to me in favour of what other people want me to be.

Because now that I’ve taken the first step away from placing other people’s opinions on a pedestal, I’m actually building a life I can honestly say I love.

One that feels like mine, rather than someone else’s.

I’ve just still got some stuff to figure out.

The first 40 years were spent trying to get other people to love me. The next 40 will be focused on learning to love myself.

Universe, show me how good things can get!

Natalie x

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Share

I’ve been in a situationship with burnout for the past few years.

No matter how many times I tried to block it, it kept pulling me back in. Like some kind of friends-with-benefits arrangement, except we aren’t really friends and there are absolutely no benefits.

So actually, come to think of it, exactly like a normal friends-with-benefits situation, really.

I’m aware it’s because I’m a perfectionist.

God knows why I used to think being a perfectionist was a good thing; it’s the absolute bane of my life.

I overanalyse.

I overthink.

I overcare.

The latest example of this is what happened a few months ago.

At first, I loved Substack. But after a few months, I found myself comparing my writing, and my experiences, to other people’s.

I began questioning whether what I’d been through was worthy of writing about. And whether I was enough of an ‘expert’ to be writing about it. As though my trauma was being scored against other people’s like it was some grim TV show where the audience gets to vote for who suffered the most.

I was yet again trying to read the room - albeit an online room - to adapt.

Yet again trying to fit in.

Yet again trying to be worthy.

But this time, instead of waiting until burnout had completely consumed me, I stepped away from Substack as soon as I noticed the warning signs of ye olde comparison-worthiness trap. And cleared time for rest.

But it didn’t take long for me to realise that I didn’t actually need more rest. What I thought was a lack of energy was actually a lack of alignment and self-worth.

I’ve been through enough in my life to know that I tend to lean more towards comparison when I don’t feel like my thoughts and actions are aligned. When I feel like I’m not doing what I really want to be doing with my life.

And because I was dealing with the tail end of some pretty serious stuff a few months ago, I wasn’t able to act on the urges I had felt for a while. Calm down, I don’t mean those kinds of urges.

What I’d been feeling was an overwhelming pull to make some changes in my life. And I had been writing about it with genuine excitement.

But because I was spending any free time I had dealing with the cacophony of crap that the Universe had gifted to me, I struggled to see how I could find time to action those desires.

So, after stepping away from Substack and a few other things, I realised rest wasn’t going to fix how I was feeling. I needed to actually bring more of the things into my life that make me feel like, well - me.

And the past few months have been wonderful!

I’m prioritising the things that light up my spark. And showing myself that I matter.

In doing so, I’m actually finding it easier to manage the aforementioned serious things. Because they’re no longer clouding every single thought.

So I’ve decided to start writing my Substack posts to my younger self, because I’ve realised that the main thing I still want to work on is loving myself. And allowing myself to do things just because I want to. And just because I can.

I’ve spent the past few months doing exactly that, but I’ve overthought whether I’m good enough, or whether I’m even ‘allowed’ to do most of those things.

So from now on, when I have a decision to make, I’m no longer going to ask whether it’s productive or whether people will approve. I’m going to ask what’s best for my mental health and my nine-year-old self.

Because when I ask that, I know I will choose fun.

I will choose joy.

I will choose myself.

I’ll be back tomorrow with the first of my letters to my younger self. And right now, I have a feeling she’d be proud of what I’m doing.

I can’t explain how good it feels to say that!

Thank you so much for your patience, for still being here, and for allowing me the space to figure this out.

Natalie x

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Share

Last week, I wrote about stepping back a little on here as I was experiencing the warning signs of burnout. Something I’ve been through many times in my life.

I’ve been doing really well, and it’s actually been great for me to see that I do in fact know how to recover from burnout (or at least borderline burnout) pretty damn well. I guess when you sit the same ‘class’ enough times, you eventually become an expert at it.

I’m feeling significantly better, and life actually feels great again!

But because I still haven’t yet replied to the comments on last week’s post, that’s a sign to me that although I’m feeling less overwhelmed and exhausted, I clearly still need some more time to recover fully.

Lately I’ve felt like you’ve been getting a diluted version of me - posting once a week and then scurrying away again. And that’s not how I want to show up on here.

So I’m reluctantly taking some time off until I feel like I can give you the undiluted version of me again.

Another reason I’m doing it is because I can’t honestly write about loving yourself if my own actions aren’t truly reflective of that. So I’m practising what I preach. And in doing so, I’m giving you permission to put yourself first too. To take some time off if you need it.

You weren’t just put on this planet to repeatedly cycle in and out of burnout. You are allowed to rest.

Thank you so much for your well wishes and patience. I’ll be back soon.

Natalie x

I didn’t come this far to only come this far.
I realised last week that I was heading back towards burnout.
The very thing my body seems to be magnetically pulled towards since hitting rock bottom a few years ago.
It’s like burnout is the bar of chocolate in the cupboard, and my body is the momentarily unattended toddler.
And right now, there’s definitely chocolate all over that toddler’s mouth.
But I managed to catch myself just in time to stop the whole bar from being eaten.

So now I’m back in the place I’ve found myself too many times over the past few years.
The rebuild.
I’m definitely getting better at preventing myself from hitting full burnout.
I vowed never to end up there again.
But the moment I stop paying attention to what I’m feeling, thinking, and doing, it’s easy to slip backwards.
And I guess I underestimated just how much I had been asking of myself in recent weeks.
So I’m reminding myself: I didn’t come this far to only come this far.

I refuse to continue being led by the belief that I need to do more, know more, be more.
It’s time to realise that I don’t always have to push harder.
Sometimes the best thing is to stop trying to push at all.
I didn’t create this account just to watch myself deteriorate in real time.

For 40 years, I forced myself to do things out of obligation.
But I’m not doing that anymore.
Actually, I’m not doing that ever again.

When I first started writing on Substack, it wasn’t out of obligation.
It was because I wanted to take what I’ve been through and turn it into a positive by using my experience to help someone else.
But since the algorithm changed to focus more on notes, my chronically ill body has struggled to keep up.
Everyone around me seemed to publish more notes in one day than I managed to publish in one week.
And that familiar feeling that I wasn’t doing it right - that I wasn’t good enough - began to kick in.

But, just like I’m getting better at noticing the warning signs of burnout, I’m also far better at spotting when those feelings of comparison and inadequacy turn up.
And the truth is that I don’t want to be like everyone else.
I’ve tried that route through life.
And it led me to anxiety, OCD, depression, burnout and rock bottom.
A bingo card I have no desire to fill ever again.

So I’m doing things differently on here from now on.
I’ll continue to publish an article every Tuesday, because I love doing that.
And I’ll still write notes, but only when it feels right.
Because I can’t write about choosing yourself if I’m abandoning my health.
I made the mistake before of assuming that I’d recovered from burnout, like it would never bother me again.
But if I don’t change my ways, it will continue to haunt me.
So I need to give myself permission not to return to the habits that created burnout in the first place.

So I’m choosing myself.
I’m choosing my health.
I might start posting more notes at some point.
Because I’ve learned something else: I am allowed to change my mind.
Any time.

But for now, this is what feels right for me.
For my body.
Time for me to go look at a tree and look at the sea.
Time for me to allow myself to just be.

Natalie x

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Share

Stop chasing approval, acceptance, and assholes. Start creating a life you truly love.

I thought I’d know I was fully healed once my inner voice finally shut up.

You know the one I’m talking about: the voice that says that nobody likes you when you walk into a room full of people, that you’re a terrible person when you try to set boundaries, and that everyone knows you’re no good at what you’re doing at work.

My inner critic dictated pretty much everything I did for the first 40 years of my life.

I’d second-guess (and third-guess) almost every decision I made, trying to avoid the dreaded input from my inner critic. Not that it ever worked.

No matter how much I altered my behaviour to pre-empt what the inner critic was going to say, I’d still end up listening to a crappy loop of insults from it later that day.

A few years ago, after hitting rock bottom with both my physical and mental health, I realised that I needed to learn how to shut that voice up if I was going to stand any chance of dragging myself out of the hell I’d landed in.

I didn’t know exactly how to heal from the things that had sent me to rock bottom, but I did know that I had to stop being an asshole to myself.

We’re told that if we put in the work - therapy, journaling, meditation, drinking the milk from a mountain unicorn - then we’ll emerge on the other side free from our inner critics.

But I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, it doesn’t work that way. Actually, maybe I’m not sorry to tell you, as I wish someone had told me years ago, because it would’ve saved me years of thinking I had failed at healing because I could still hear my inner critic.

I wrote a post recently about treating your inner critic like a noisy neighbour. And I want you to know a truth that you might not have been told before:

Almost every time I talk to someone new - or even someone I’ve known for years, my inner critic pipes up that they secretly hate me and only met up with me out of sympathy…or to gather gossip to spread about me.

I have no logical reason to believe that’s true, but when did logic ever get in the way of an inner critic’s message? It’s like a bloody tabloid, running with whatever loosely pulled together story it can create, knowing its audience will believe whatever it says.

I’ve also written about my struggles with Imposter Syndrome - which was something I felt immense shame about for years. But now I know that when my inner critic decides to start going on, I don’t have to believe it.

And, just like autocorrect, you don’t have to accept its suggestions.

You might think you haven’t progressed because you still hear from your inner critic.
But actually, the fact that you’re even able to identify it as your inner critic is progress.
At one point, you identified that voice as an absolute speaker of truth.
And if you’re anything like I was, there’s no way you would’ve ever doubted anything it said.
It controlled your actions and left you unsure of what you even wanted from life.
Yet, here you are actually recognising it as the inner critic.
That’s huge!

So don’t panic if your inner critic hasn’t shut up.

Because that’s when life will open up for you.

Some days it might be harder to ignore your inner critic - I get those days too. A lot!

Just keep reminding yourself that you don’t have to agree with whatever it’s saying.

And don’t let it back in the driving seat.

Natalie x

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Share

Stop chasing approval, acceptance, and assholes. Start creating a life you truly love.

I don’t believe anyone who says they were once a people-pleaser but now never struggles to set or uphold boundaries.

I’ve been working on setting boundaries for the past few years, and although it’s getting easier, I don’t believe I’ll ever honestly be able to say that I never even slightly second-guess setting some of the boundaries.

Is that because I’m just not as good at it as they are? Maybe.

But I think it’s just that I’m not telling you a load of BS. Because I don’t want you to feel like you’ve failed if you still overthink a boundary after setting it.

I still have to remind myself I’m not a terrible person almost every time I say ‘no’.

Sometimes it’s just evidence that you’ve spent too long abandoning your own wants and needs. So the thought of putting yourself first makes you feel like a terrible person.

Yes, setting and upholding boundaries does gradually get easier. But not because you become some powerhouse who’s suddenly immune to guilt; it gets easier because you become more used to working through that feeling in the knowledge that it will pass.

Boundaries don’t become easier because you no longer feel discomfort; they become easier because you get better at moving through it.

Setting boundaries and saying no is a ‘muscle’ you can strengthen. But just like all muscles, it might be capable of more on one day than on another.

And just like all muscles, some things are more challenging for it. So, for example, setting boundaries with certain people might be easier than with others.

I’ve noticed that general advice online teaches us how to set boundaries with the people in our lives who are assholes.

But you’re not always setting boundaries with assholes.
Sometimes you’re setting boundaries with people you actually care about.
Sometimes you’re setting boundaries with yourself.
And that can feel impossible at first.
Because the thought of upsetting someone you care about feels awful.
But here’s the good part:
You don’t have to become ‘perfect’ at setting boundaries.
You just have to keep reminding yourself that your needs matter too.
Keep saying it until you eventually start to believe it.
And keep choosing yourself.
Even when it’s difficult.
Even when your heart is racing.
Even when you know you’ll replay the conversation for hours afterwards.
Even when the guilt feels overwhelming.

Although it seems easier not to set boundaries, the truth is that it’s not easier in the long run.

I’m still scared when I set or uphold some of my boundaries. But I do it because I learned the hard way what happens when I don’t.

And I hate to be the one to say it, but you need to set boundaries with yourself too.

How can you possibly expect to feel better about yourself when you’re constantly putting yourself down? It’s time to stop doing that. You know it is. It hasn’t helped in all the years you’ve been doing it. Let’s leave that crap in the past

I know, it’s hard after years of being that way. I’m not foolish enough to assume that just saying “be nice to yourself” while I sprinkle fairy dust over your head will change the relationship you’ve had with yourself for decades. (If only!)

But you can catch yourself mid-way through the self-hate talk.

That’s what I’ve been working on for a long time. But remember not to get angry when you do catch yourself mid-way through a self-hate session. The whole point is to stop the self-judgement, not add to it.

Calmly, or at least as calmly as you can, remind yourself: We don’t do that anymore.

Will it fix it overnight? Of course not! But even just noticing that you’re doing it is progress.

When you start setting and upholding boundaries, anxiety will convince you it’s safer to go back to how things were.

But when those thoughts pop up, take a few deep breaths and remind yourself why you decided to start undoing people-pleasing patterns in the first place. Those unnerving feelings will pass. I know it feels like they won’t, but when your mind spirals into overthinking, keep pulling yourself back to what is factually true in that moment (not whatever scenario your mind has chosen to be its ‘scene of the day’).

Keep choosing not to abandon yourself.

Take it from someone who had to learn the hard way: If you don’t set boundaries, eventually your body will.

Every boundary I’ve set has created a little more room for the things and people I actually want in my life:
More energy.
More time.
More peace.
More joy.
More space to rediscover who I am outside of trying to keep everyone else happy.

And I’m only just getting started.

What’s one small boundary you can set with yourself or someone else this week?

Natalie x

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Share

Stop chasing approval, acceptance, and assholes. Start creating a life you truly love.

I spent years terrified of saying no. Instead of treating it like any other word, I had come to fear it like Harry Potter characters fear saying Voldemort.

I’d locked that word away for decades. The whole time believing that some day, I would magically reach a stage in my life where saying it wouldn’t feel so scary because I’d eventually get more comfortable with the idea of standing up for myself.

But the opposite happened: the longer I went without saying no, the more intimidating that word became. Especially because I had spent decades unintentionally teaching assholes that I wouldn’t ever stand up for myself or put my needs above their wants.

People-pleasing is a difficult corner to break free from when you’ve spent decades backing yourself into it.

Subscribe now

There’s a societal belief that we’ll all care less about people’s opinions as we get older. But I know many older people who still have insecurities and people-please their way through life.

I don’t believe that loving yourself comes with age; I believe it comes with deciding to start treating yourself like you already do.

I know it’s much more complicated than that when you’ve spent years struggling to set any kind of boundaries (believe me - I know), but setting them is worth the struggle. And I wish I had done it sooner.

If you want to get better at saying no, you need to start actually saying it.

I know that’s not what you want to hear. And honestly, I wish I could tell you some secret magic spell that would make us all more confident at setting boundaries before we actually start having to set them. But unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Every time you avoid saying no, you’re reinforcing the belief that doing so is something to be afraid of.
And every time you give a resentful yes, you’re teaching yourself that your needs matter less.

Subscribe now

I hated it when I first began stepping away from people-pleasing.

I had thought I’d feel liberated, like when a bird soars through the sky. But actually, I felt more like a bird when it’s standing in the middle of the road and a car comes towards it.

Instead of spending my days floating through life, free from expectations and demands, like I’d thought I would, I spent my days overthinking, convinced that I had singlehandedly ruined someone’s day, or even life, because I had chosen to say no.

I’d replay the conversation in my head for hours, wondering whether I’d said ‘no’ softly enough. And I hadn’t even gone in hard using ‘no’ as a full sentence; I’d added a gentle explanation to it.

That’s the kind of no I’d recommend you start with, by the way, because even after years of undoing my people-pleasing patterns and getting more comfortable saying no, I still feel intimidated at the thought of using ‘no’ as a full sentence.

I’ve done it, but it very much felt like I was slapping the person across the face. Although no is just a word like any other, its ability to flood us with guilt and remorse genuinely astounds me.

That’s the most frustrating truth about setting boundaries: To become comfortable saying no, you have to first go through feeling uncomfortable. You have to strengthen that ‘muscle’. And you can only do that by putting yourself in the situation you’ve been avoiding.

I know it’s terrifying. It took me ages to build up the courage to start setting boundaries. But, as scary as it is, believe me - it’s worth it.

You can’t build the life you truly want while repeatedly checking whether it’s the life other people want for you.

Next time you struggle to say no, remember this:

If you spend your life trying to avoid disappointing others, you will inevitably disappoint yourself.

So let’s get you closer to saying no. I know it’s scary, and I know you feel safer avoiding that word. But the way to get better at saying no is to start saying it. One tiny step at a time, if needed. Small steps still get you closer to where you want to be.

What’s one small thing you could say no to this week?

Natalie x

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

Stop chasing approval, acceptance, and assholes. Start creating a life you truly love.

Trying to keep everyone else happy is the reason you aren’t.

Everyone knows they can rely on you to be there for them, but can you rely on yourself?

You’ve been people-pleasing and self-sacrificing for so long that overwhelm and exhaustion have become your natural state.

You feel so anxious about saying ‘no’ that any time you do manage to say it, you immediately follow up with a lengthy speech, trying desperately to explain and apologise away your guilt.

But your worth does not hinge on your ability to never say ‘no’.

I get it: For 40 years, I’ve said ‘yes’ when I desperately wished I dared to say ‘no’; I’ve said ‘no worries’ while hiding that there were in fact hundreds of worries, and I’ve said ‘I don’t mind’ when what I really wanted to do was scream.

There have been moments where the people-pleasing has slipped, and I’ve actually just lived my life, and on occasion even stood up for myself - usually feeling guilty for doing so. But mostly, I’ve been fixated on ‘keeping the peace’.

Oh, that wonderful phrase that ruins our lives.

We push down our true feelings, never speaking our minds when some asshole has upset us. All because we’re taught to ‘keep the peace’. Even though, most of the time, the people whose peace we were keeping (because of that dumbass phrase) never once hesitated to let us know their true feelings.

It was never your peace you were keeping.

And even though people-pleasing has made us feel as bad as the time I fell off a hedge and landed in a stinging nettle bush, it’s become a comfort blanket. One that makes us itch and leaves us in hives, but a comfort blanket nonetheless.

When you’ve spent a lifetime reinforcing the belief that your safety depends on people liking you, the thought of doing something as seemingly simple as saying ‘no’ feels terrifying. It doesn’t just feel uncomfortable; it feels unsafe.

The truth is that you could lie on the floor for someone to walk over you, and they’d still say that you weren’t lying flat enough.

This is where boundaries come in. But how the hell do you start setting boundaries when you’ve spent your life intentionally having none?!

Small steps - tiny steps.

Because the first thing you’ll realise when you start setting boundaries is who was benefiting from you not having any. And oh boy, they won’t like it. So go in easy - not for them, but for you.

It will feel even more uncomfortable than when your sock slides down inside your shoe. But it will get easier.

Starting today, take a moment before responding to any requests. Stop the ‘yes reflex’ before it flies out of your mouth, and assess whether saying ‘yes’ in that moment will secretly make you resent the person asking. Because if it will, the answer has to be ‘no’.

It’s time to realise that being a people-pleaser isn’t a good thing when you are never one of the people you’re trying to please. And a resentful ‘yes’ isn’t a real ‘yes’ anyway.

I know it’s scary changing the way you’ve always been. But if you’re not happy, it’s time for that change.

You don’t need to become a boundary badass overnight, flinging out ‘no’s’ like Oprah gives away cars. Just take it one small step at a time.

And when that inner voice pipes up, saying that nobody will like you if you stop doing everything for them, remind yourself that the only people who will actually have a problem with it are the people who have benefited from you abandoning yourself.

If someone doesn’t like you for saying ‘no’, you will eventually be okay with it. But if you don’t like yourself, you’ll keep looking for approval in all the wrong places. (She says as though she hasn’t spent four decades doing exactly that.)

It’s time to stop putting yourself last. It’s time to stop making yourself resentful.

What’s one small thing you’re doing today to take a step away from people-pleasing? Set an intention in the comments to move your own needs from the back burner to the front one.

Natalie x

You people-please to keep the peace,
Abandoning your wants and needs.
Because you learned that’s what to do,
Ignoring how your energy bleeds.
You’ve swallowed your words for decades,
Being whoever they needed you to be.
But starting right now, you’re speaking up,
Saying ‘no’ so you can finally be free.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

Stop chasing approval, acceptance, and assholes.
Start creating a life you truly love.

I’ve realised my inner critic is just like my old neighbour. It starts making a load of noise as I’m drifting off to sleep, wakes me up again at 2am, and only shuts up when I’ve finally managed to ignore it.

For the record, I never even bothered trying to stand my ground with my neighbour. I literally moved out just to get away from them.

But I refuse to do that with my inner critic. Mainly because moving out isn’t actually possible.

Our inner critics seem to take great pleasure in ruining our days - and nights. For most of us, they’re responsible for far more sleepless nights than we ever had in our partying days.

And although some people will say the inner critic helps us to become our best selves by pushing us, I think it’s much simpler than that: the inner critic is an asshole.

I’d argue that the inner critic has ruined more goals and ambitions than it’s helped any of us achieve.

But if you start seeing your inner critic as a noisy neighbour, you might find it easier not to care so much about what it’s saying.

Learn from my mistake: Don’t try fighting with your inner critic.

Just like a noisy neighbour, the inner critic loves it when you pick a fight. You think standing up for yourself will make it back down, but it actually does the opposite. Don’t feed its fire. It will get louder.

But also don’t start turning on yourself and agreeing with everything it says. I know you do it - I’ve done it too. Oh, so many times.

Instead, just remind yourself that your neighbour is being noisy again, but they will eventually tire themselves out and shut up.

You’ll obviously still hear the noise, but you don’t have to truly listen to it. And you definitely don’t have to believe what you hear. (She says, knowing she used to listen to every word her inner critic said like she was going to be quizzed on it later.)

Give your inner critic’s ‘advice’ abuse the same amount of attention you’d give to your ex if they came back and tried to explain their way through all the lies: total disinterest.

Just like my old neighbour, your inner critic might not go completely silent. But you can change how you feel about it, so you don’t absorb the noise and spend days replaying what was said.

Stop treating your inner critic like a peer when it’s actually just a prat.

Natalie x

Dear Inner Critic:
You’ve screwed up the things I wanted,
My hopes, my dreams and my goals.
I refuse to take your ‘advice’ anymore,
I’m done listening to assholes.

Leave a comment

Subscribe for free, or help keep this space going as a paid subscriber for just £5 a month. Your support means everything to me.

Subscribe now

Share

Stop chasing approval, acceptance, and assholes. Start creating a life you truly love.

I refuse to believe that I have to earn rest anymore. Hustle culture can kiss my arse.

We’re sold the lie that if we’re not spending every waking hour making money, we’re not trying hard enough.

Firstly, that’s not true. You shouldn’t believe that any more than you should’ve believed your ex’s lies. (I say this as someone who fell for every single lie. But we learn, oh boy, do we learn.)

Secondly, hustle culture is built on the foundation that the only productive thing is making money. But the truth is that if you’re exhausted (as, let’s face it, most of us are), the most productive thing you can actually do isn’t push yourself to do more; it’s to take a break.

You know when sports players have a break in a match, so they can refuel and give their bodies a chance to recover? Think of it like that.

If they didn’t take that break, they wouldn’t be performing at their optimum level for the rest of the match. They need to take a break, and so do you. Not to be confused with Ross and Rachel’s break. We all know that wasn’t exactly productive for their relationship.

Whether you’re choosing to rest by lying on the sofa and watching a movie (ice cream optional, but encouraged), spending time with good people, or doing a hobby, it very much counts as productive.

You don’t need to monetise those hobbies either. You can just enjoy them. I know, what a novel idea!

Hustle culture will say there’s no point in having a hobby if you’re not monetising it, but again, that’s not true. Hustle culture is an asshole. And while it’s great that some people do build careers from their passions, you definitely don’t need to feel pressure to do that.

There is a very fine line between making a career out of something you love, and a career destroying something you love. You do not have to monetise your time for it to be considered worthy.

Being an adult already involves ticking a lot of boxes every single day (or at least trying to tick those boxes). Your hobbies are meant to provide you with an escape from all of that, and to rejuvenate you from the busy-ness of modern life.

‘Busy’ has somehow become a marker of worth. Is it only a matter of time before ‘busy’ becomes a green flag on a Tinder bio? Up there with GSOH (Good Sense of Humour) and ‘loves animals’. Because ‘busy’, if what we’re told is true, means that person is good enough, right?

What busy really means, if personal experience has taught me anything, is that they’re heading straight towards burnout. And we’re indirectly being told to aim for that?! Is it any wonder we all feel drained?

Hustle culture will keep telling you how to spend your time. But you can choose not to listen, and to instead believe that you are enough as you are. Block hustle culture out like you blocked your ex.

You don’t need to earn rest, you don’t need to strive to be worthy, and you don’t need to make money from your time for it to be considered productive.

Rest is productive.

Natalie x

Leave a comment

Subscribe for free, or become a paid subscriber for just £5 a month. I’d love for you to join me.

Subscribe now

Stop chasing approval, acceptance, and assholes. Start creating a life you truly love.

When did enjoying your life become something to be ashamed of? Why is it considered ‘cringe’ to be seen having fun?

As children, we used to frolic without a care in the world. But, somewhere around our teen years, we learned it was uncool to - well, enjoy our lives. And now, as adults, that belief is perpetuated by social media posts telling us to be ‘chill’, nonchalant and to have ‘cool person’ energy (whatever that is).

For the record, I’m not chill, I’m very much pro-chalant (yes, I know that’s not a real word), and my energy typically resembles a Border Collie whose owner has just returned home. So yeah, I have a real issue with the whole ‘cringe’ thing.

Subscribe now

Last week, I wrote about feeling the desire to move on from years spent healing to finally living my life again. And, true to my word, I’ve embraced that this week. I’ve gone on beach walks, spent more time with loved ones, and taken myself to the cinema. I’ve also been twirling more on my walks - yes, I love a good twirl.

A few days ago though, I realised when I finished twirling that a man was close enough to have seen the whole thing. My initial reaction was embarrassment. But instead of allowing anxiety or shame to consume me, I chose to focus on the joy I’d just felt while twirling. So I smiled, said good morning, and continued my walk.

We worry so much about what people will think of us, but it doesn’t truly matter. What matters is what we think of ourselves.

And I know that in years to come, I won’t regret seizing a moment of joy. I might, however, regret missing out on those moments because I was afraid of what someone might think.

When you’ve spent years healing, the thought of bringing joy back into your life can feel both exciting and terrifying. Joy feels alien after years of just focusing on getting through. And that’s without the worry of other people’s opinions that you’re maybe doing something out of the norm… like being playful. What if they think I look silly? What if I feel silly?

I get it - being seen for who you actually are is scary. Allowing yourself to truly let go is scary. But let’s get this clear: it is not ‘cringe’ to enjoy your life. If you have gone through something and you’re finally starting to find moments of joy again, cherish that. Every moment of it. Don’t hold back because of what someone might think.

Subscribe now

Whenever you’re hiding your enjoyment, you’re not fully living in that moment. You’re in your head, analysing every move before you even make it.

You’re only half experiencing the moment because the other half is wrapped up in what someone else might be thinking. But the truth is that most of the time, they aren’t judging you. They’re busy worrying whether someone is judging them.

When you fully commit to a moment of unbridled joy, you give other people permission to do the same.

Think of a flash mob: when the first dancer starts, it’s breaking the norm of that moment. They’re dancing while everyone around them is sitting down or walking along. As more dancers join in, the joy spreads and people go from wondering what’s happening to beginning to enjoy it.

Finally, people who weren’t even involved start bopping along from the side-lines, shifting the energy so that the new norm in that moment becomes dancing. And all because one person made the first move, deciding to choose joy.

I know you’re scared of letting go, of being seen, of having fun the ‘wrong’ way - because we’ve been taught there’s a cool way to have fun, and an uncool way. But just for a moment, allow yourself not to care about that. To just do something that makes you smile, even if just for a second (like when I twirl).

It doesn’t have to be something big - it could be a little shimmy in the kitchen, a twirl tucked away in a corner where nobody can see it, or just choosing not to hide a smile when it wants to break free. Those small moments count too. In fact, those small moments add up.

It doesn’t matter if it makes sense to anyone else; what matters is how it makes you feel.

I know it can feel dangerous to allow yourself to live in a joyous moment. Especially after years of healing, when you might not yet feel that you deserve joy. But you are worthy of feeling joy. You always have been, and you always will be. You might not believe it yet, but it’s true.

Natalie x

Subscribe for free, or choose a paid subscription to support my writing.

Subscribe now

Share this to help someone else frolic through life.

Share

And if you’d like to support my work with a small tip, it would mean the world to me.

Leave a tip (a little support)

Stop chasing approval, acceptance, and assholes. Start creating a life you truly love.

“Once I’ve fully healed, I’ll be able to get back to living my life.” That’s the lie I’ve told myself for the past five years. And I’m calling myself out, because something needs to change.

Mainly because I’ve realised that ‘healed’ isn’t a clear enough goal. If I’m not careful, I could end up postponing living my life for, well, the rest of my life.

Subscribe now

A few years ago, I hit rock bottom. My whole life fell apart and I had no idea who I even was anymore, let alone what I wanted.

Since dragging myself out of rock bottom, I’ve felt like I’m stuck in some kind of waiting room. Although I want to feel joy because I’ve managed to escape hell, I keep holding back.

I’ve written before about how perfectionism kept me stuck believing that I needed ‘one more thing’. And it’s become clear to me that perfectionism has latched on to healing as its latest target - like a seagull eyeing up the next person to poop on.

Over the past few years, I’ve slowly been doing more of the things that make me feel like myself again, but if I’m honest with you - and with myself, I’m still not really living my life. Not in the way I want to.

I’m not unhappy. I actually feel more like myself than I have in ages, because I’m finally being the real me with everyone. I’m no longer being pushed around by people-pleasing and perfectionism, and after going to hell and back, I am finally in a good place. But I still feel like something is… off.

I almost feel bored. Which is ridiculous because my to-do list has more rollovers than the Euromillions!

So I’ve come to the conclusion that what I need right now isn’t more healing in the traditional sense. I need to focus on the part of healing that’s less spoken about: learning how to live again.

Subscribe now

Nobody tells you that when you become focused on healing, your personality almost disappears. You become a healing hermit. You meditate and journal every day, analysing your life more than Carrie Bradshaw analysed her relationships. But somehow, although you feel better overall, you just don’t feel like you anymore.

I’m thankful that healing has enabled me to break free from the parts of myself that I no longer want to carry through life. The parts I had been dragging along like excess baggage, because I didn’t know how to open up the bag and empty it out.

But once I finally figured out how to empty the bag, I somehow forgot to keep the things I actually wanted in it. My personality being the main one.

I guess it comes down to this: I miss me.

But I’m not on a mission to find myself; I already feel like I’ve done that through years of healing. I’m on a mission to fall in love with myself and my life.

When you’ve experienced trauma, it becomes a default setting to focus on just getting through. The thought of actually enjoying life feels like a luxury reserved for others.

But you haven’t spent all this time healing just to be able to handle trauma. You’ve done it so you can handle joy. So that when you feel joy, you don’t back away, afraid because it feels so totally unfamiliar, and even scary.

Maybe you don’t need more meditation. Maybe you need to remember how it feels to have fun. To do things just because you want to. Not because it’s productive or part of your personal growth. Just because it makes you feel alive! And because it teaches your nervous system that it’s safe to feel joy.

Healing isn’t supposed to shrink your life; it’s supposed to give it back to you.

We just got caught up in the idea that we couldn’t start living again until we were ready. But you might never truly feel ready. So this is your permission slip: You are allowed to have fun, even if you don’t feel fully healed yet.

I’ll always keep up my meditation and journaling because, to be blunt, it saved my life. And having regular check-ins with myself in this way will ensure I never again stray from the path I actually want to remain on.

But it’s time to create the life I want.

I’ve spent enough time analysing my life; it’s time to start living it.

Natalie x

Subscribe for free, or choose a paid subscription to support my writing.

Subscribe now

If this found you at the right moment, maybe it will help someone else too.

Share

And if you’d like to support my work, it would mean the world to me.

Leave a tip (a little support)

I was an asshole to myself in the name of healing. A few years ago, after hitting rock bottom and eventually managing to drag myself through it, I started trying to figure out how to fully heal after going to hell and back.

It didn’t even cross my mind to give myself a chance to get over the horrendous things my mind and body had just been through. That would’ve made far too much sense!

I laid it all out like a gym program - how many times I’d meditate each day and how long for, how often I’d go for walks, how much I’d journal. I had it all figured out. What could possibly go wrong?

The problem was that I had somehow forgotten to factor into my healing plan the fact that I was, y’know, healing. And although the planning part of me loves having strict structure (Monica Geller, eat your heart out), the healing version of me didn’t want that - she wanted gentleness, compassion and rest. Not a piece of paper that felt like it was barking orders like a drill sergeant every time I looked at it.

Subscribe now

Unable to understand my feelings at that point, I ignored the subtle signs. Instead of asking myself what I actually needed, I began setting alarms on my phone to ensure I’d remember to do all of the things on my healing harassing schedule. Until my body eventually screamed at me. Terrified of heading back to rock bottom again, I finally listened.

We think healing is like learning a carefully choreographed dance routine: as long as we learn all the separate parts of the routine, we’ll eventually put them together and, tah-dah, we’ll be healed. But it’s actually more like being thrown into a moshpit when you didn’t even want to go to the gig and don’t know the song - it’s chaotic, confusing, and impossible to control.

Your nervous system doesn’t care if you’re following steps 1-20 on a healing checklist. In fact, your nervous system would prefer if you just calmed the f*ck down.

Subscribe now

We’re so busy trying to do everything perfectly because we believe that if we can do all the meditation and journaling, then we’ll heal faster and better.

But it’s not a race - there’s not some magical number of meditation minutes that grants healing, as though the quicker you get there, the sooner things will feel better.

Cramming as much as possible into your already overwhelmingly full to-do list in an effort to heal makes about as much sense as when I used to accidentally overpluck my eyebrows in the 90’s and try to fix it by plucking them even more.

So take some of the pressure off and allow yourself to be imperfect while you’re healing…and afterwards! Self-compassion will help you far more than self-hatred ever will.

And all the meditation minutes in the world won’t cancel out you being an asshole to yourself.

You don’t have to do your best; I finally started to heal when I stopped trying to.

Natalie x

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Buy me a coffee (leave me a tip)

Share

I used to think perfectionism would help me achieve my goals. Now I can see it’s been the very thing holding me back.

In school, I remember being told to list perfectionism as one of my key skills on my CV, and in that moment, I felt so proud. I didn’t really know what perfectionism was, but I knew I had always tried to do my best in everything, and my teacher had clearly noticed! In my mind, the heavenly chorus music played in that moment.

But the problem I hadn’t yet realised was that for some reason, I felt forced to do everything perfectly. Ev-er-y-thing!

It took me decades to figure out this wasn’t good for me. And years more to realise why I even was that way. And once my eyes had been opened, I could see that perfectionism was getting in the way of what I wanted to do, and who I wanted to be.

It’s universally recognised that perfection is the absolute best thing we can aim for. So how could being a perfectionist possibly be a bad thing?

But when you see perfection as the only acceptable outcome, it actually keeps you playing small. It stops you from growing beyond the walls of your comfort zone.

You won’t try that new thing unless you know you’ll be good at it, you won’t send that text unless you know there’s absolutely no chance it could be misinterpreted, and you won’t apply for that job unless you’re certain you tick every damn box they’re looking for. I know because this has been me for the first 40 years of my life!

Terrified of failure, criticism and judgement, I thought that perfectionism was keeping me safe. But it was actually keeping me small - and I was still judging myself the whole time anyway!

Perfectionism isn’t a choice, and it’s certainly not a gift: it’s a bully. And one way to make a bully stop is to stand up to them.

We often don’t even realise the control it has over us - we just know that we absolutely must not do anything wrong. Which leads to us being nervous about doing pretty much anything.

When your worth is tied to never making a mistake, doing nothing feels safer than potentially doing the wrong thing.

So we end up stuck in a perfectionism pause, which varies in length from minutes to years! We don’t even realise how we got there, but we know that at least we can’t possibly do anything wrong if we do absolutely nothing. I say this as a serial stuck-ee (I’m aware that’s not a word, but I’m trying to not do things perfectly).

Although perfectionism will tell you that the only way out of the pause is to keep improving yourself until you’re closer to being perfect, that is not true. The actual way out of the perfectionism pause is to make a decision and go with it.

But perfectionists are desperate to know what the right decision is before we make it, because we need to know we won’t make a mistake.

Somewhere along the way, you learnt that if what you do isn’t good enough, then neither are you. But in case nobody has ever told you this: failing does not make you a failure.

You don’t always have to make the right decision - please consider this your permission slip to ‘unpause’ yourself. Because as long as you’re afraid of making the wrong move, you won’t make a move at all. And that is how perfectionism keeps you from living the life you long to live.

Just think what would have happened to Elphaba (Wicked) if she’d been a perfectionist: she would have wanted to rise up and sing that belter of a song while blazing her own trail, but instead she’d have spent days overthinking whether it was the right decision, until she eventually talked herself out of it.

See this as your Defying Gravity moment. Next time perfectionism tries to push you around, push back…while belting out a show tune, if you wish.

Perfectionism will chase you like you’ve run out of a shop without paying, because when you’ve spent your whole life equating perfection with safety, anything less than that feels like a risk.

But it’s a risk worth taking because it will finally allow you to live the life you’ve been holding back from.

Natalie x

Subscribe now

Your support enables me to continue doing this.

Buy me a coffee / Leave me a tip

Leave a comment

Some of my biggest decisions have been made by other people, and I’ve only just realised this. They haven’t told me what to do, per se. But their words have taken up residence in my mind for long enough that I’ve acted on what they’ve said…often long after they said it.

One example of this is that I used to be addicted to tanning. I used sunbeds every day, laid in the sun whenever possible, and sometimes even applied fake tan on top.

Then we went into lockdown a few years ago, and I realised that I didn’t actually care about being tanned. I cared about people seeing me without a tan. When the pressure to show up a certain way was removed (because we literally couldn’t leave our homes) I discovered that I didn’t actually care whether I had a tan or not!

This moment was mind-blowing for me: I had gone out of my way for two decades to keep up a tanning addiction that, it turns out, wasn’t even slightly important to me. All because of some repeated comments when I was younger that I was “so pale I looked ill”.

It was like that moment in Aladdin when the Emperor realises Jafar has been hypnotising him. I say this in full faith that you’re as into Disney as I am (if not, just visualise a total asshole with a walking stick that has the power to hypnotise people into doing what he wants them to do…and then go and watch Aladdin, because it’s iconic).

Throughout our lives, other people’s opinions get forced upon us. I can think of multiple examples of comments that still live within my mind like unwelcome tenants. They seem to live in the same part of my brain that randomly replays songs stuck on a loop for hours at a time. But anyway…

We’re told that people’s opinions only have the power to hurt us if we let them. But I think that implies that it’s somehow our fault if those words hurt us - that it’s our responsibility to develop a thick skin, rather than the other person’s responsibility to, y’know, not be a dickhead to people.

You can’t, unfortunately, erase the pain those opinions have already caused, but you can choose not to let them make your decisions for you anymore.

Every time you avoid doing something because you’re worried what other people will say, you are living your life for them. Every time you choose not to wear something because you’re afraid people will make negative comments on your outfit, you’re letting them make that decision for you. I say this having done both of these things many times. But now I try my best to no longer let other people’s thoughts become my own.

I’m also more selective with the people I allow in my life: if someone is repeatedly planting thoughts of doubt that feed (or create) insecurities, then they don’t deserve a place in your life. I’m not talking about occasional differences of opinion; I mean people who have repeatedly shown you that they don’t value (or respect) you. And yes, this can absolutely apply to ‘family’ too.

We are allowed to choose what (and who) shapes us. And I want to be surrounded by supportive people who share my values. Because those people aren’t likely to leave you sifting through every conversation, deciding which thoughts it’s safe for you to allow inside your mind.

I’ve spent too many years being pushed around by other people’s opinions.

It’s time to change which thoughts get to sit in the driver’s seat.

Natalie x

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Everything I share on here will remain free, but if you’d like to support my writing by upgrading to become a paid subscriber for £5 a month, it would mean the world to me. My Substack is reader-supported - your support enables me to continue doing this.

Or if you’d like to support my writing by leaving me a small tip, you can do so here:

Buy me a coffee (leave me a tip)

Share

Growing up in the 90’s was great! We had no smartphones, funky fashion, and music that I honestly think was unbeatable (hey, it’s just my opinion). But the 90’s weren’t exactly a great decade for promoting self-love. Neither were the 2000’s. Come to think of it, has there ever been a good time for self-love? But anyway…

Subscribe now

I remember some magazines convinced me that anything over a UK size 6 was practically obese. I should’ve known better really, because the same magazines also told me that eyebrows should be plucked off completely and drawn back on with one skinny black pencil line. But I was too busy trying to climb out of my inflatable chair without getting Push Pop stuck to it to second-guess anything I read.

My eyebrows have, thankfully, all grown back now.

It’s no surprise though that I, like many others, developed a warped belief that self-esteem came from physical appearance. And that there was only one acceptable physical appearance for women: as skinny as physically possible, but somehow with ginormous boobs. All fat had to be sent directly to the boobs, as though we could set up ‘closed road' diversion signage inside our bodies!

So, like the good little people pleaser that I was (with super low self-esteem), I did as I was told. I spent wasted time, energy and money trying to be just like the women I was told I should look like. And *drumroll* it didn’t change how I felt about myself.

There was a slight confidence boost initially, but that faded quicker than my old Tamagotchi’s health status. And if I’m completely honest, my self-esteem actually felt even lower than before.

Subscribe now

Looking back, I guess it’s because I wasn’t being at all true to myself - I had completely abandoned what I wanted (or, to be more accurate, I didn’t even take the time to consider what I actually wanted) in pursuit of ticking the box that society deemed an acceptable appearance for a woman.

If I could turn back time, I wouldn’t waste any money on changing my appearance. I’d use that money to pay for therapy instead, to figure out why I didn’t feel good enough in the first place. Because I now know with absolute certainty that self-esteem doesn’t come from seeking perfection, or someone else’s approval; it comes from within.

Changing yourself to fit in isn’t the answer. Learning to love who you are, is.

And that starts with working through the blocks in your mind that are stopping you from loving yourself. Maybe you grew up having to shrink your personality because people said you were too loud; or maybe you were forced to mould yourself to fit in with others because the people who stood out got picked on; or maybe an ex belittled your body so much that you developed an insecurity. Or maybe it’s something else.

Whatever the reason, I want you to know that you are good as you are. You don’t need to hide your true self. You don’t need to shrink yourself, physically or emotionally.

Subscribe now

Self-esteem takes time to build, but being harsh on yourself and echoing the negative messaging you’ve heard from others won’t help. So try to catch yourself when you’re doing that.

You might not feel comfortable being your own cheerleader straight away - it takes time. But even if you just acknowledge when you’re being self-critical, that’s a great first step towards breaking that pattern.

Unless you have some kind of magical Disney-esque potion, it’s unlikely you’ll manage to break that pattern overnight. But, as someone who has finally learned to actually like herself, I came up with a mindset shift that really helped me:

Maybe you don’t have to love yourself yet…maybe you just start by not hating yourself.

Natalie x

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Everything I share on here will remain free, but if you’d like to support my writing by upgrading to become a paid subscriber for £5 a month, it would mean the world to me. Your support enables me to continue writing on Substack.

Or if you’d like to support my writing by leaving me a small tip, you can do so here:

Buy me a coffee (leave me a tip)

Share

I haven’t always cared what people thought about my appearance. It began in my late teens, when people started making their opinions about my body abundantly clear. One ex even ridiculed my boobs every time we were intimate! I know, what a gentleman. And one friend made me feel so insecure about another part of my body that I no longer talk to her.

So I began to internalise the societal pressure that my body should always look ‘perfect’. Up until that point, I had thought my body was a thing with which I moved through the world, and that the most important thing was to look after it. But no, how foolish of me to assume that. My body, it seemed, was in fact a ‘not-quite-good-enough’ piece of art, with an open comments section.

Subscribe now

As women, we are given a strict set of rules throughout life. And if we don’t follow those rules, we are labelled as difficult, frigid, ugly - anything but just, y’know, living her life for herself. I know - how dare she?!

I’ve realised that the set of rules constantly changes though. So even if we try to keep up with them, we will be doing something wrong before we know it:

In the 2000’s, the worst thing a woman could have was a ‘fat ass’.
In the 2010’s, the worst thing a woman could have was a ‘flat ass’.
In the 2020’s, the worst thing a woman could have is a face that ages.
Not forgetting, of course, the constant undercurrent throughout those decades that another one of the worst things a woman could have is cellulite.
And that if they do, they are, without doubt, ‘failing at life’.

Subscribe now

I’m not saying I’m immune to these trends: I have, admittedly, fallen prey to every single one. But over the past few years, I’ve finally started taking back some control of my own life. And I now question whether I actually agree with these trends. Spoiler alert: I don’t.

‘The perfect body’ is a myth. It doesn’t exist! And that’s because the definition of a perfect body is constantly changing. And although I used to chase those trends like Carrie Bradshaw chased Big, I now let them float past me while I choose myself instead. Definitely embracing more Samantha energy now - accepting myself as I am and learning to feel proud of everything that makes me, well, me.

But why does it feel like I’m committing the ultimate rebellious act to simply decide to like my body? Surely it should feel like the most ‘normal’ thing in the world! But it doesn’t - it feels like when Chandler and Monica were sneaking around behind everyone’s backs…even though they weren’t doing anything wrong. I’ll continue though, because learning to accept my body the way it is has brought me far more self-love than the decades spent changing it ever did.

And as the goal posts for the ‘perfect body’ keep moving anyway, I feel like it makes more sense to stop running towards them, and step out of the race I never wanted to be in. I’d much rather sit on the sideline with a hot chocolate.

My body may never be ‘perfect’, but now it’s mine. Not society’s.

Natalie x

Create a life you love - free from chasing approval, acceptance, and assholes.

Until recently, I thought I needed to be a therapist before I could say anything that might be useful on here. I’d convinced myself that lived experience didn’t qualify me to help anyone. But it turns out that was just my perfectionism, yet again trying to convince me I needed ‘one more thing’.

So, starting today, I’m opening the paid subscriber section on my Substack.

Everything I share on here will remain free, but if you’d like to support my writing, you can become a paid subscriber for £5 a month.

All of my articles will be focused on the lessons I’ve learned after 40 years of chasing approval, acceptance, and assholes. I’ll cover perfectionism, people-pleasing, self-love, body acceptance, rediscovering joy, and how to start living life on your own terms, rather than waiting for permission or approval.

If that resonates with you, click upgrade to become a paid subscriber. I’d love for you to join me on this journey!

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Share

If you’d like to support my writing by leaving me a small tip, you can do so here (thank you so so much):

Leave a one-off tip

A few years ago, I did something I never thought I’d do: I lost hope. I lost who I was. I couldn’t see a way forward. I’d always been naturally optimistic, but after going through some physical health complications, my mental health had also taken a knock (to be honest, multiple knocks batterings).

And after being told that my physical health issues were unlikely to get better than they were at the time, my mental health finally collapsed. I had also spent decades ignoring what I now know was Complex PTSD. And basically, my mind and body had finally had enough of my sh*t.

Our bodies will do that - they’ll subtly hint at us for ages that we need to pay attention to something. But if we don’t listen, those hints eventually end up feeling like a not-so-subtle slap across the face…with a chair. Then we’re forced to sit up and pay attention.

Everything I’d spent years pushing down finally came spilling out - like I’d spent my life packing a suitcase way beyond its capacity, and the zip had finally broken. I was forced to face it all…because it was no longer neatly packed away, and I knew there was no way I was going to be able to cram it all back into the metaphorical suitcase.

I was a health and wellbeing journalist at the time that my mental health spiralled. Which made it even harder to admit I wasn’t coping. I’d always cared about my mental health, and very much ‘practiced what I preached’.

The problem was that I didn’t realise just how much trauma I was carrying, and my main coping tools had suddenly been taken from me. For many years, exercise and singing were my ‘therapy’, but the physical health struggles I was facing at the time made it impossible for me to do any exercise. And my vocal fold was paralysed, so I could barely talk, let alone sing.

So, although I thought my mental health had been carefully constructed like a medieval fortress, it turned out that it was, in fact, built like a game of Jenga. And someone removed a brick near the bottom of the tower. So it didn’t just wobble; it collapsed.

The result: I hit rock bottom. And ‘rock bottom’ is not a term I use lightly. My life had fallen to pieces, and I couldn’t see a way of getting it back.

But after much struggling and soul searching, I realised that maybe I didn’t actually want my old life back. Maybe I wanted to leave some of the things from it in the past.

Rock bottom looks different for everyone, and when I say I’m thankful for it, I certainly don’t mean I’d rush back. I wouldn’t give it 10/10 on TripAdvisor, and I’d steer clear if the option to return was ever offered. I’m definitely not thankful for the immense pain it caused, but I needed to learn the lessons it taught me.

At the time, there was absolutely no way I would’ve believed I’d ever be at all grateful for that hell. But years later, I can see that I was given a chance to rebuild myself - slowly, intentionally, considering whether each thing I reintroduced to my life was something I actually wanted back in it.

Would it have been easier without the life-altering rock bottom hit? Of course! But I can’t undo what’s happened, so I’m choosing to see it as a positive thing because it taught me a lot about myself and about what I truly value. And because choosing this mindset enables me to move forward, rather than giving it the power to hold me back any more than it already has.

One of the main things I’ve taken from what happened is the importance of checking in with myself regularly, to ensure I’m on the path I actually want to be on. And to have multiple ‘tools’ in my ‘therapy box’, rather than just two things - exercise and singing.

I’ve learned what really matters to me. And who really matters. I’ve learned to trust my intuition. To listen to my body. To set and uphold boundaries.

And I’ve learned that resilience doesn’t mean you have to gracefully make your way through something. You are just as resilient if you drag yourself through it.

Natalie x

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

If you’d like to support my writing by leaving me a small tip, you can do so here (thank you so so much):

Virtual tip jar

I grew up being told to “save things for best”. This was mainly because my mum didn’t have much money, and wanted to make sure I didn’t wreck my pretty dresses while climbing trees.

But it’s a message I internalised to mean that everything has to be saved “for best”. And that I somehow had to be certain that the moment I eventually chose would be worthy of that title. Hello perfectionism!

Waiting for the right moment is often just perfectionism in disguise. At least, it is for me.

We spend our lives waiting for the perfect moment to wear the dress, start the hobby, or even use that nice new notebook. As an avid notebook buyer, I get it - we can’t just use that notebook; it has to be saved for something worthy of its pages! But every time we force ourselves to wait for the perfect moment, we’re allowing perfectionism to turn everyday life into a waiting room, when life is actually the main room.

Subscribe now

When you’ve spent decades saving things “for best”, it can be difficult to shake off that mindset. I remember when my son was 11, I saved up to buy him some personalised Converse for Christmas (he chose exactly what design and laces he wanted on their website). When he opened them, I told my son, like my mum had told me, to save them “for best”. He only got to wear them twice before he outgrew them.

You’d think I learned a valuable life lesson right then and there. But nope, I had to have that lesson thrown in my face plenty more times before it finally sank in. Kind of like how Tom never learned that Jerry would always outsmart him - and kept returning for more.

What I’ve (finally) learned is that the real reason we feel the need to wait for the perfect moment isn’t necessarily about time; it’s about permission. We need permission to stop waiting for the perfect moment, or waiting for when things calm down. We need permission, basically, to potentially make a mistake and do things imperfectly.

Like in school, when you had to put your hand up to use the bathroom - we feel we need to be given the nod.

Subscribe now

But repeatedly waiting stops us from actually living our lives. Especially when you have perfectionism: the goalposts keep moving! So if you’re still waiting for the nod, consider this it.

I’m not waiting any longer. I recently decided that one simple step I can take is to actually start wearing the clothes I’ve spent years keeping “for best”.

And despite the fact I’m terrified of being judged each time I do so, I now wear sequins in Aldi, because why the heck not? Although writing this makes me wish I shopped in Sainsbury’s, because ‘Sequins in Sainsbury’s’ sounds like a 90’s song, and that makes me far happier than it probably should.

So wear the damn dress, use the nice notebook and do whatever it is you’re putting off. Push past perfectionism like it’s a controlling ex. And when those thoughts pop up saying you should wait or save something “for best”, just think SEQUINS IN SAINSBURY’S! Then do the thing!

Natalie x

Leave a comment

If you’d like to support my writing by leaving me a small tip, you can do so here:

Support my writing