Hey Kaleigh!

Tag: self care

  • To Anyone Who Has Ever Felt Unsure

    Image from Getty Images

    There is something complicated about having it all together. Not because it adds new stressors, but because poise can be a facade. It is you, your self-doubt, and your goals against the world.

    We live in a fast-moving civilization that constantly progresses us to chase bigger outcomes. We are handed dopamine hits disguised as transformation. But what if you still aren’t quite sure what you want? What if the revitalized act of buying a new retinol became less about “recovery” and more about the excitement of trying something new. 

    This is a love letter to those facing uncertainty. To the planned auto-payment on your car. The natural deodorant with excellent reviews but melted like milk on your armpits at the gym (sorry!). To the lilac-scented candle that fumigates your kitchen after you disgustingly botched a 4-step alfredo recipe and now your kitchen smells like burnt cheese.

    When we over-romanticize too much and fixate on the end result, your life begins to feel less in your control – it becomes living in autopilot. It begins losing your present self in worrying that your future isn’t good enough. It’s falling further and further down the rabbit hole. But it’s not about being complete: it’s about being real.

    For me, my bedtime routine is one of the few times in my day in which I feel in control. We are taught to be perfect – that being human is a defect. But it is perfectly okay to be blemished and a little vain. It is not greedy to selfishly love yourself. You are healing yourself in a way that no influencer ever could.

    So if you’ve ever felt unsure about your career path, your five-year plan, your skin texture, your love life, or what milk you should use please remember that you are not alone. Uncertainty doesn’t mean that you are lost. It means you are paying attention.

    Sometimes, you don’t need a breakthrough. You just need a moment. Lighting a candle. Washing your face. Cleaning alfredo sauce off of your stove while listening to “Unwritten.”

    You don’t owe the world clarity in order to be taken seriously. You don’t need to be perfectly polished to feel powerful.

    Even if all you did today was survive (and scrub alfredo sauce off the stove) that is enough. You are enough.

  • Protecting Your Peace

    Image from iStock

    Protecting your peace means learning to show up for yourself – not by staying small, but by being scared and doing it anyway.

    I still have a lot of the same fears that I did as a child. They sneak up on me.

    But – I also started developing the self-assurance of the loudest, assertive kids who I desperately wanted to be.

    Protecting your peace is not about staying quiet.

    Most of us are afraid of public speaking. I stand at the front of a classroom, yap nonstop, and teach 8th graders without faltering each day – but, I am dreadfully nervous at places like the DMV or when it comes to making a phone call. Part of protecting your peace is acknowledging the things you are afraid of.

    I’m frightened of publishing my writing. Part of that anxiety is the fact that I know people won’t care about my personal essays. I love writing so I am not really scared of it. Instead, I am afraid of contrast – of knowing that some parts of me are unlike others.

    I’m afraid of having hobbies – I’m also concerned that I am not interesting enough. Again, my concern is merely what people think. I’m concerned that I am either too much or not enough. I’m afraid of feeling dull.

    But these simple fears aren’t going to bring me any peace.

    The best way to “protect your peace” isn’t to stay silent or afraid. It is to bashfully conquer those fears at your own sheepish pace while continuing to strive for validation – but, this time on the inside.

    Sometimes I am frightened to walk down the street… because I feel like I don’t look good enough. To walk. As I dread, I don’t have time to awe at the other pedestrians.

    I never learned to ride a bike for the same reason. Then one day, I got embarrassed. And sometime after – about ten years later – I finally did it. It doesn’t matter.

    When I tell others that I like to read, I doubt myself. No one expects me to read Shakespeare for pleasure, but getting lost in a Booktok murder mystery doesn’t feel charming anymore.

    Protecting my peace means letting myself become engrossed in the book, anyway. Because I like it.

    Protecting your peace means reading what you love, walking how you please, and living to impress no one but yourself.

  • Let Them Wonder About You

    Image from Jobeth McElhanon on Pinterest

    There is a quiet kind of power in not having to explain yourself.

    Not everything that happens in your life demands a social media post to justify it. You aren’t indebted to anyone. Sometimes, the most magnetic thing you can do is to leave room for some silence. Hold yourself back, and let them wonder.

    Let them wonder why you controlled the urge to text back immediately.

    Let them wonder why your selfies hit different now.

    Let them wonder why your laugh feels lighter, like you stopped carrying some heavy burden.

    Let them wonder why you’re glowing.

    Reclaim the driver’s seat in your own journey.

    My mom explains everything. She will describe why she bought a certain brand of paper towels like she is trying to sway an apprehensive jury. She will apologize for trying new recipes, even if everyone adores it. I love her more than words can convey, but watching her justify every small choice like someone is going to question her hurts me. I’ve inherited this trait, too.

    It makes me realize how women are taught that being misunderstood is dangerous. That silence equals guilt. That mystery is selfish.

    We are trained to narrate everything. To perform. To clear up anything that makes us seem complicated. But some things are just for you. Some chapters are meant to be lived, not illustrated through a live-stream.

    Mystery isn’t coyness. It’s about clarity. It’s about what deserves to be shared, and what doesn’t. It is knowing that your evolution is sacred, and doesn’t require an audience.

    In college, I was bullied out of a sorority that I loved by someone I thought was a friend. Not in that obvious way with locker shoves and “you can’t sit with us.” It started quietly with eye rolls when I spoke, with group meetings that I wasn’t part of, and jokes about my eating disorder. When I made the decision to leave, I started narrating myself constantly. Not in a “woe is me” sense, but I thought if I explained myself enough, I could change the way they saw me. But I couldn’t.

    It took me a while to realize: over-explaining is like reopening a wound. You can’t keep hurting yourself hoping someone finally sees how deep the wound goes.

    Sometimes you outgrow the need to prove you’re okay. You just are. And that implicit, but wholehearted confidence? It invites people to lean in. Dig deeper. Re-read your captions. Explore signs of what has changed.

    Let them.

    Because while they are working at trying to decode your silence, you are busy becoming someone you didn’t expect. 

    Let them wonder.

    You’re not meant to be understood by everyone.

  • To Those Who Have Lost Their Spark

    I hate when someone starts to dim.

    Not because they aren’t good anymore, they are. Sometimes they are sharper than ever. But something has shifted. Their sentences feel hesitant. Their rhythm is off. You can tell they are holding their breath as they are speaking. As if their life has peaked before it has truly begun.

    I once wrote about becoming the wrong version of myself. Losing your spark is what happens when you live that way for too long. You go quiet inside because the version you are performing doesn’t feel like home.

    This is for those who feel like they have gone quiet. Not out loud, but somewhere inside:

    You still show up.

    You still smile.

    You still do the work. You still say the right things. You still nod at the right time.

    But something is quieter now. Not on the outside, but inside where your spark used to live.

    Maybe it’s burnout. Maybe you’re experiencing heartbreak. Maybe it’s the slow destruction of always trying to be everything for everyone.

    Or maybe you’re just tired of explaining yourself.

    I get it. It is a canon event — one of those inevitable turning points. Full of expectations and preconceived notions. The “build your brand” formula. This blueprint can crush even the strongest voices if you let it. You don’t even know what you’re doing until you reread your own work and think: Who am I? Where did I go?

    Either way, your once-bold voice has started whispering. Waiting on the edge, and wondering if it is even welcome anymore.

    It happens gradually, and I just need to say:

    You are not broken.

    You are not dramatic.

    You are not fading.

    You do not have nothing to say.

    You are in a hazy, in-between space. An area where rest looks like withdrawal, and healing looks like a lull. That does not mean you’ve timed out. It makes you human.

    So if this is you somewhere in between animated and exhausted: I hope you find your way back. Not to content. Not to “personal gain.” But to your voice. The one that hums when everyone else sings. The one that sounds like home.

    So give yourself a break, not more pressure. Not deadlines. Stop adding things to your agenda because you feel like you should.

    Because your sparkle isn’t gone, just buried underneath too much strategy. And when you are ready, even if your voice feels shakes, let it speak again. We still want to hear you.

  • Be Someone You Care About

    Image from StockCake

    There are days I treat myself like a second thought. I push through my exhaustion like it’s proof of my strength. I dismiss my needs with a light joke. I scroll until my eyes sting, then doubt myself through my FOMO. I fear my own body, prefer anxiety over joy, dread responding to texts, and call it “self-control” or “being chill” when really I am trying to escape myself.

    Somewhere along the way, I learned how to show up for other people. To check in, remember birthdays, send “let me know if you need anything” texts and mean it. I genuinely care – just not always for myself.

    But here’s what I’m learning (slowly and awkwardly):

    It’s not enough to just be someone.

    You have to be someone you care about.

    Not in a trivial, “treat yourself” kind of way (although that can be valuable too). But in a real, reliable, honest way. The way you would care for a friend who is quietly unraveling. The way you would talk to someone you actually like.

    Ask yourself how you’re really doing, and actually wait for the answer.

    Ask, but don’t interrogate.

    You don’t have to be your best self all the time. But you should be your softest witness. And your most cherished place to land.

    So today, I am practicing.

    Caring for me like I would someone I love.

    And trying to become someone I don’t regularly abandon.

  • Be Yourself: Everyone Else is Taken

    Image from Pexels

    I used to think “being myself” meant being the most likeable version of me.

    The girl who recognized the right references. Who said the right things at the right time. Who could adapt her vibe depending on who was in the room. She wasn’t fake necessarily, just tailored and practiced. Curated. Processed, like an Instagram post that only needed one little fix.

    But somewhere along the way, the performance became exhausting.

    Trying to be chill when I am spiraling. Acting unfazed when I care way too much. Grinning and acting fine when I am actually crumbling inside. And I began to wonder: If I am not even allowing me to be me…who is all this for?

    It is easy to say “be yourself.” It is tough to actually do it. Because what if people don’t like the real you? What if the real you is too much? Or not enough? Or too eccentric, or nutty, or loud, or boring, or soft in places you were told to be hard?

    But here is the thing I am gently learning: being someone else does not protect you from rejection. It just assures you’ll feel alone even when you’re accepted.

    The right people will never ask you to shrink. They won’t flinch when you get real. They won’t back away from your softness. They will take you in. They’ll reflect it back.

    Being yourself isn’t about being impeccable. It is about showing up, blemished and all. It is about reclaiming whole parts of you that you used to hide because someone once made you feel like they were bizarre.

    And maybe it’s not even about becoming anyone new.

    Maybe it is about fully remembering who you were before society told you who to be.

    Because everyone else is already taken. And honestly? You are already incredible as you are.

  • Love What Makes You You

    There was a time when I believed self-love meant writing affirmations on a mirror or reciting mantras until they rang true. And while there may be some benefit to this, I’ve learned that loving yourself isn’t always some glowing montage with soft lighting and background music. Sometimes, it’s learning to sit with the weird, the heavy, the cringe, the complicated parts of yourself, and not awkwardly flinch.

    Loving what makes you you is not always graceful. Sometimes it’s a very inelegant laugh. It’s realizing you overthink texts for too long but send them anyway. It is wearing that outfit that makes you feel powerful, even if no one else “gets” it. It is embracing your obsession with reality TV, your niche hyperfixations, your delicate middle and sharp edges.

    It’s easy to want to flatten yourself into someone less complicated, more polished. Social media easily influences us to manage ourselves as a perfectly curated brand. To pick a single aesthetic and stay with it. But you contain multitudes. You can be someone who cries over that one strand of Zayn’s hair at the 2014 AMAs and still love classic poetry. You can be the kind of person who appreciates a color coded planner by day and a rerun of Gypsy Sisters by night.

    You are allowed to recognize yourself in all of it.

    The truth is, the things we regularly try to downplay or hide — our quirks, our past lapses in judgement, our passions that don’t always make sense to others — are the exact things that make us remarkable. They are what make us rare. And being rare, unique, is so much better than being perfect.

    So here is your gentle reminder: You do not need to diminish your quirks to be loved. You do not need to reduce your edges to be accepted. You are not too much or not enough. You are exactly the right amount of you.

    And you are someone worth loving.

  • Becoming ‘That Girl’ Online Versus Becoming Myself in Real Life

    I know how the algorithm wants me to live. 

    Wake up early, fall asleep with lemon water waiting on my nightstand. Keep an organized journal in perfect handwriting. Sunrise spilling over an immaculately made bed. A matcha latte with perfectly frothed oat milk. Pilates, skincare, soft lighting, neutral tones, color palettes. Becoming that girl.

    Online, that girl feels attainable. You just need the right filters, the right angles, and the right aesthetic props at hand. The digital version of myself can look composed, candid, balanced – even if the photo took 15 tries and I shoved a pile of unfolded clothes out of the frame.

    But real life isn’t nearly as polished.

    Like I wrote in my piece about romanticizing my skincare routine, I’m learning that true self-care isn’t about creating the perfect version of myself – it’s about learning to sit with who I really am.

    In real life, I am still learning how to find myself – and that version is far less attractive.

    Sometimes, becoming myself means sleeping through the alarm sometimes. It means beginning the day with coffee before gratitude journaling because as a teacher I don’t have much time and I can’t think straight without caffeine. It is being ambitious despite feeling anxious, purposeful but also overwhelmed, calculated but also unorganized. It means admitting that balance is not always possible – that sometimes I don’t meditate, and sometimes my skincare routine is just splashing water on my face before bed.

    Online, self love can feel like a performance. Offline, it feels like a process.

    Becoming that girl online is about crafting perfection. Becoming myself in real life is about learning to sit with the imperfections.

    I have spent a lot of time chasing the Kaleigh that looks decent on camera. But recently, I have been trying to find the Kaleigh who feels secure when no one is watching. The Kaleigh who makes time for her friends, even if she doesn’t have a lot of them. The Kaleigh who prioritizes joy, and lets herself rest without guilt. The Kaleigh who knows that not every season needs to be a glow-up.

    I am learning that the most authentic kind of self-improvement doesn’t have to come with a 24-carat aesthetic. Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes it’s honest but inconsistent. Sometimes it’s plainly deciding to be a little bit more transparent with myself than I was yesterday.

    Because becoming that girl may get me likes. But becoming myself is what’s bringing me peace.