“YOU’RE OVER SENSITIVE!”

When someone I loved so profoundly looked at my tears with anger and spoke those words, it felt like something broke inside me.

At that moment I believed it. There was something wrong with me.

Self love is sometimes hard to find. You have to wade through the voices you’ve been overpowered by to find your own and then your voice might have spent so long believing untruths or feeling uncertain, that it speaks with lies as well. The road is long, and it’s bumpy, it’s difficult and tear-stained, doubts wait behind every turn, and the world sometimes seems to line up the crap just to knock you off course… but you don’t give up.

Eventually, something changes, it starts to feel… good, a light begins to flicker inside you. A week passes, and while tidying up, you drop a glass, but instead of cursing at yourself, you think how beautiful the glass is as it sparkles on the floor, and then you clean it up. As you clean, you feel a warmth near your sternum, deep inside your body.

Two days later you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, and instead of your hand reaching to your stomach, where your layers keep you warm, you smile. As you walk out of the door, the warmth in the bottom of your chest appears again.

 

That warmth; that light, it grows every time that you are kind to you.

 

Last week in my life…

I was finishing my last potting in the greenhouse, and feeling ready for a cup of tea, when I scooped some earth out of a pot and found a little seedling buried and upside down. Sadness trickled through me, and tears fell as I scooped her up.

“Was she dead?”

“Did she grow the wrong way?”

“Was she suffocated?”

“Was she hurt?”

“Does she know I’m here?”

As I cried, I picked up a small pot, grabbed some earth and replanted her. As I did I felt a glow of warmth wash from my head to my toes, and I recognised that gorgeous feeling of self love, reminding me that

I

Am

Fucking

Beautiful.

 

 

I smile when I say

“I love that I felt so much empathy for a little seedling.

I love that I cried without inhibition.

I love that as the tears fell, I was already replanting, mending and healing her.

I love that I call my little seedling ‘her’.”

 

But those words also spark energy and anger from my gut, which then end in my voice;

“My empathy does NOT make me over-sensitive.

My sensitivity does NOT make me weak.

 

I once lay in a hospital bed alone and without tears, while a doctor pushed a biopsy needle into my neck. A week later after they cut the lumps out, I awoke from my anaesthetic unable to move half of my face.

I am strong.

I am independent.

I am undeterred.

 

I’ve heard the words “Sorry, there’s no heartbeat” as the scanner pushed into my belly and my heart shattered. Four babies died in my womb, and I survived.

I am courageous.

I am resilient.

I am all-knowing.

 

I’ve held my mum’s hand as the doctor said the words Alzheimer’s, and her tear-filled eyes never left the floor. I have been her mother, daughter, carer, cook, cleaner and comedian ever since.

I am loyal.

I am unyielding.

I am resolute.

 

I’ve walked 100km in 24 hours on my own, through an SAS training ground. I chose it, I planned it, I did it completely alone, and I raised thousands of pounds.

I am driven. 

I am powerful.

I am unflinching.

 

I’ve jumped from a plane, even though the fear was blood draining. When I landed, my body went into shock, yet when I was able to climb into my car alone and exhausted, pride and joy pumped through my veins.

I am brave.

I am audacious.

I am unstoppable.

 

I’ve swum 512 lengths in one day and didn’t pass out when the chlorine tried to poison me and my legs buckled underneath me.

I am daring.

I am big-thinking.

I am inspired.

 

I’ve cried at a seedling that nearly lost its life, and yes, I saw it as a life.

I am beautiful.

I am gentle.

I am soft.”

 

My anger has disappeared, and laughter takes its place as I remember those words “You’re oversensitive.”

 

 “Oversensitive fuck what?”

 

There is NOTHING wrong with me, and there is nothing wrong with you, so please, grab your crown with one hand and your sword with the other and scream it from the top of your lungs.

“I am fucking beautiful to my very soul.”