The first bite reserved for you.
Hello.
So, this is the first blog post. Ever.
Although I love to write, I have never been interested, nor courageous enough to take action when it comes to starting up my own blog. The furthest I leapt was to open up another Instagram account aside from my main profile (which goes by the handle @pohdrops, you should check it out. My writing style there is slightly different, and gives you a pretty good sense of how my journey from my secondary school days, up into my 20s was for me).
So, starting up this online space excites me.
And scares me, both at once. Sometimes, as one.
This is my very first post, and no. It is not going to be about my story (that will be here, right over at my “here’s who I am" page). Nor will it be a fancy, dreamy painting of what this could be. All I know is that all the subsequent articles that are going to be flowing out from my fingertips, will be written with the loudest intention to have this be your safe space.
And this post? Is meant to lift you over into this space of mine in a way that is gentle yet firm.
It’s meant to unpack for you what I mean when I say I wish for this online space of mine to be your safe space too. I’ll explain how my articles are going to be structured, so that you can navigate yourself from article to article based on what you need most. It’s important to me that you spend more time on the articles that would best serve you. Oh, and WHY am I this passionate about the creation of this safe space? You’ll find the answer below too.
I’ll also put out some ground rules I wish for you to follow. These ground rules are less for me, more for you. These will be what I will insist for you to remind yourself of, always, before reading any of my articles. Doing so will best ensure that my words will meet you where you’re at, and you will be able to receive in full value what my words could possibly carve out for you.
What do I mean by a “safe space”?
A space where you can feel safe.
(Kidding. That’s as useful as the dictionary definition of “meaningful” being, “to have meaning”.)
To me, a safe space looks like this.
This would be a platform where you come to when you wish to take a pause. Find a few minutes of peace for yourself. Seek some perspectives and insights from my experiences. And most importantly, this is where you can come to when you are overwhelmed, lost and confused with what life threw at you,
and you wish to just… be.
This is where you can be anything you are;
be it happy or sad. Excitedly in love, or devastatingly heartbroken. Eagerly embarking on a new pursuit, or flooded with confusion over the uncertainty of your career. Feeling like you are in absolute control over your life, or anxiously panicking because you feel completely out of control.
Whatever it is for you, this space is where you can come to for what you may need. As the world spins through each minute, we spin into new days, new months, New Years. We spin into life’s brightest moments and darkest tunnels. We spin into the peaks of our careers or love life, and also sometimes straight down into the wallows. Things happen. And as the world fills up with more traumatic news, our personal lives also fill up with new and strange experiences too. Our personal lives unfold in ways that are new and unexpected for us, and each flap releases a pocket of challenges in emotional, mental and physical forms.
We often get so caught up with trying to do more, work more, be more in order to skilfully catch all these stones being thrown at us from all directions, that we fail to give ourselves enough space to breathe and address. We only realise we haven’t sufficiently addressed what’s within our hearts and minds, when we start to break down. Being and building our safe spaces empowers us to take care of ourselves.
To have that space where we can release intense, pent-up emotions, and then unpack them in a way that’s healthy.
To have that space where where we can snuggle in to rest, recharge, and then make sense of what’s going on for ourselves before going back out to be with the issue at hand again. And these spaces can be in the form of music, cafes, nature, people etc.
We are humans first and foremost. And our definitions of what it means to be human have become so unclean and ‘productive’.
And I’m saying this even for myself.
So the guiding vision I own for this online space is to empower you to be and create your safe spaces.
I want you to eventually to create your own safe space.
To be your own safe space, and to be one for someone else too.
Simply because I think a safe space is the rock foundation of how you show up in all other areas of your life.
And the articles I write will be words that remind you of how valid you and your emotions are, of how worthy you are as a person beyond all those layers of self-condemnation we have grown to wear upon our hearts.
How my articles are going to be structured.
Ground rules to follow, as you read through my words.
These are perspectives, not instructions.
Not everything, only some things.
If you do feel offended, take it as an opportunity to understand your own triggers. Because all my articles will never be written with any intention to offend, you’re honestly not that important for me to spend energy on offending.
Reach out to me, ask me, I’ll love to listen. (but, I can’t promise I’ll talk. I still have my boundaries.)
fadf
I used to wonder if my main focus is on mental health.
To be honest, I’m still not too sure, but I do know that mental health doesn’t sit quite right with me too. It fits into the picture of what I wish to create, but it isn’t sufficient to capture all of which I wish to create. I’m not yet 100% clear. But what I do know, is that I am good at creating and being safe spaces for people I’m willing to be for. What I do know, is that as easy as it is for me to create and be a safe space,
it is important to me too.
We need safe. It’s so important to be our own, and in times when we cannot be our own, we have people who can and are willing to be our ‘safe space’.
