This is for you in all the moments you feel like you’re being stretched thin.

Every day, you’re just rushing through your to-do list,

toggling from one checkbox to the next until they’re all ticked.

Your days are always ‘busy’.

Looking at your calendar makes you feel heavy

and you never have time to do what you enjoy most anymore.

There’s no longer any empty space and time filling up pockets of your days,

nor any room for you to be freely breathing and freshly puffing.

You have so

many things to do, and all of which you wish to do perfectly.

If this speaks to you, then it’s time you pause.

If this speaks to you, then you were in the exact space I was in just a month ago.

And if this speaks to you, this is what I wish to say to you, which I’m still constantly reminding myself of too.

here goes;

It’s okay to ‘not’.

It’s okay not to be who your parents want you to be, or who you thought your parents might want you be.

I was striving to fit into the mould of the kind of daughter I believed my parents deserved; super girl who brings home lots of money, takes care of their house loan and retirement, capably securing the kind of job they would be proud to boast of to their friends. But in a recent vulnerable conversation, they revealed to me that all those were bonuses, and they never needed nor really ever wanted that of me.

It’s okay not to be who you always thought you should be.

Growing up, I conditioned myself to always have to be the most hardworking bee in the hive. I had to be hardworking, because I had this fuckedup mindset that I’m already ‘less’, so I have to work hard to ‘compensate’ and ‘match up to others’. If I wanted to be appreciated by someone, I had to be the ‘nice one’; tolerant even when I don’t enjoy someone’s presence, accepting people even when they do things that aren’t respectful or kind to me, and being understanding of every single action that my partner does. These ‘standards’ I created for myself have stayed and stuck with me through the years. They’ve become so familiar that it’s hard to let them go. It’s hard to tell myself that these are ‘wrong’, that these standards I kept myself to have to go, and that it’s time to create for myself new standards that serve me.

It’s okay not to do everything,

We get so caught up in playing catchup with those who ‘made it’ in life, thinking that we ought to be hustlin. Owning many commitments. Completing many things in a single day. Clocking in a list of productive tasks every 24 hours. Have work constantly on our minds. We get sucked into the race, my friends. It’s okay not to do everything. You’re not a effective productive factory that looks like a human; you’re a living, feeling human who deserves to honour your own set of priorities.

nor be there for everyone.

You and me, we already have lots on our plate. Adulting is a balancing act of increasing commitments. Our social circle also shifts and grows. We can’t afford to constantly take care and give love to every one, in the same way we could when we were younger. The definition of friendship and love has to adult alongside us too; as much as we should choose only the priorities when it comes to tasks, the same goes for the people we choose to focus on.

And it’s okay to.

It’s okay to only send your energy and attention to where you truly want them to go.

It’s okay to let go of what doesn’t matter as much to you, but matters to someone else.

Parents, societal standards, peers and family, partner. They may have certain dreams for you, goals they would be so happy to see you achieve. That doesn’t mean you have to own them. You don’t have to own those goals and dreams just because it may make them happy. It’s a choice you get to make. Pursue what’s yours, not theirs. If it’s yours at heart, the struggles in the journey you take towards it wouldn’t be as unbearable. If it’s yours at heart, it’ll be a marathon that’s fulfilling and meaningful all on its own.

And most importantly, it’s okay to curate your life. Pick and choose your own set of priorities, and live them out. Live a life coloured in the exact shades and hues you want on your palette, a life that has your heart beating in it not just to survive, but beating for all the love and freedom and fullness you experience simply because you choose you.

Simply because you’re choosing all of what truly matters to you,

and nothing more or less.

In the times where you feel like you are stretched thin,

where you feel like the strings are pulling in too many different directions,

it’s okay to and it’s okay not to.

So, what are your current priorities in your life?

What do you wish to prioritise instead?

If there is a disparity between the first and second question,

then it may be a good time to look at it and ask yourself why it’s different.

Reach out to me if you need, and I’ll be a space for you xx

love,

val