Hey Kaleigh!

Tag: healing

  • Let “No” Stand Alone

    Image from Pexels

    This is my reflection on boundaries and discomfort.

    There is something daunting about saying “no.” I am not referring to the anxiety that is already building or the bruxism I have had since my teens. I mean the blooming feeling that’s almost impossible to sit with. The budding fear.

    Saying “no” brings me more than just anxiety. It brings curiosity. It brings the urge to over-explain, even if I am not being questioned. To hand out a neatly prepared excuse so no one will think I’m mean or selfish or difficult. It brings the generous reflex to make myself small so someone else can remain comfortable.

    Saying “no” feels like slamming a door.

    I’ve spent years accepting that my boundaries will always require justification. That saying “no” needed to be cushioned with apologies. Somewhere along the way, I learned that being agreeable felt safer than being honest. That my esteem came from how accessible I was.

    But saying “no” is not rude. It is not defiant. It is not a rebellion against kindness.

    Saying “no” is information.

    “No” is dignity.

    “No” is choosing not to defy myself for the sake of being liked by others.

    The unsettling feeling doesn’t mean I did something wrong; it means I am doing something right. It means I am resisting old patterns that taught me love was conditional and approval was something I needed to chase.

    I am learning that “no” does not need a reason. I am learning that setting boundaries is scary, but not scarier than the resentment of always saying “yes.” I am learning that every time I ache for a quiet “no,” I feel the relief of a more honest “yes.”

    And maybe the most alleviating thing I can do is let “no” stand alone.

  • Pop Culture Messed With My Sense of Self

    Image from iStock

    I am sincerely learning how to really show up for myself. It’s not by cramping yourself into areas you don’t fit into, but by generously giving yourself love when you cage yourself in.

    I have a suitcase full of fears today. More than I ever had as a child. This bag of fears sneaks up on me.

    Still, I initiated extensive self-help. This work hasn’t made me confident.

    Social media has made me insecure.

    I am guarded, but I am not careful with details. I try to stand without being finicky, tell drawn-out stories, and teach 8th graders explanations to questions I am still interpreting. Still, I am terribly afraid of driving and making the first move. The tough part of living in this age is constantly making access to your true self bulletproof, whether it is the strategic “no filter” filter or proofreading and second guessing the caption too many times.

    Pop culture taught me that identity is something to be performed. That if you create the right routines, the right lighting, the right character, you will find the finished version of you. It convinced me to measure my life in “eras” rather than focusing on the big picture. To reinvent myself when I feel tired instead of resting. I learned that I am only confident if I am loud, sexy, and feminine. And I am constantly falling behind.

    So I tried to become the girls on my screen who always seem so sure of who they are. The girls with the morning routines that feel holy, interests that look well on camera, clean-girl opinions. And somewhere along the way, I mixed up being perceived with being known.

    What’s ironic is that the more self-aware I became, the more fragile I began to feel. Once you begin to pay attention, you notice every little crack. Each hesitation. The place where you’re still waiting for somebody’s permission. Pop culture never readies you for the slow, unglamorous part.

    I think that is what scares me about myself. I am afraid of making declarations. It’s like I am saying, this is what matters to me now, without knowing if it will still matter to me in a year. I’m afraid of being wrong. Of being too sincere in a world that gives fake niceties. Of loving something so much only to embarrassingly lose it later.

    And yet, there are pieces of me that I still hold on to. 

    I still write. I still teach. I still speak loudly about what I’m still learning.

    Perhaps pop culture didn’t ruin my sense of self. Maybe it just hid it. Maybe all of the uncertainty and anxiety is part of the undoing. Like a necessary pause before I choose myself again.

    For now, that feels like enough.

  • Becoming the Person I Already Am

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    When I was a child, I chose pink as my favorite color and never looked back.

    And now, twenty years later, no one questions it. They just accept it. I accept it too, without thinking. But sometimes I wonder how often we move through life on autopilot. 

    Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for yourself is to pause. To soften. To sit with yourself long enough to ask the questions you’ve been avoiding.

    Ask yourself why you feel the need to overexplain.

    Ask yourself what brings you joy.

    Tenderly, let yourself hear the answers.

    And do not worry if you change a little each day. I worry about myself more often than I admit. Sometimes I think I’m too timid, too mousy, too afraid of being misread.

    Then comes the guilt. The feeling that sweating over your small crisis is immature.

    But some messes just show that a room is lived in, not neglected.

    You don’t have to be mysterious. You don’t have to speak in riddles. You are allowed to share what feels right and keep what feels tender. You are free to have your own boundaries.

    When I was in college, I tried so hard to balance who I was and who I wanted to be. Not in some dramatic identity crisis. It was questioning what I could and couldn’t share. When I felt ashamed, I constantly challenged the validity of my emotions.

    Eventually, I learned that self-interrogation doesn’t lead to clarity. It just builds noise. And once you stop performing the character you’ve been playing for years, there’s this strange, open silence. It’s like stepping into an empty room and hearing your own breathing for the first time.

    I think that’s the weirdest part of growing up: understanding there is no singular real you ready to be uncovered. No grand prize after years of quietly curating the perfect you. There is just the you who exists in the now, the you who is still being formed.

    The real you shows up in the thoughtful choices you make when no one is watching. In the things you gravitate toward without thinking. In the hobbies you keep coming back to, even when you convince yourself it is silly. In the way you exhale around the people who make you feel seen.

    You are not a performance. You are not an aesthetic. You are more than the pink-loving child or the adult who keeps answering out of habit. 

    And here is the truth: you do not need to find “her.” You already are her. She is the person you have been quietly growing into.

  • Don’t Waste Time Becoming The Wrong Version of You

    There’s a version of me I spent years trying to grow into.

    She was always a little more polished. A  little more free. A little more “cool girl in the corner” than I ever was.

    She didn’t cry watching SPCA commercials.

    She didn’t double text.

    She knew how to carve her eyebrows and always said “thank you” instead of “sorry.”

    She was every Pinterest mood board I’ve ever saved, all vanilla girl aesthetic and emotional modesty.

    But she wasn’t me.

    I think we all do this. We frame ourselves out of what we think will be loved. We stitch ourselves together with bits of admiration from strangers, Vogue covers, characters in movies who never seem to need anyone. We go over our personalities like scripts. We examine our softness so we can be more palatable. More preferential.

    And then one day, you look up and realize: 

    You don’t even like the girl you became.

    … 

    I have learned that becoming isn’t always progress. Sometimes it’s performance. Sometimes it’s angst, disguised as glow serum and curated playlists.

    And while reinvention can be healing, becoming the false version of you – the one built from pressure, not authenticity – is utterly exhausting. You will spend all your energy trying to maintain a self that was never viable in the first place.

    So now, I’m doing this instead:

    Becoming the version of me that cries when something upsets her. Who is clingy sometimes and calm sometimes and genuine all the time. Who absolutely needs people. Who completely forgives herself. Who has roots, not just polish.

    The realest version of me may not be the most admired, but she is the one I can absolutely live with. 

    And that matters more.