Dear 17-Year-Old Me: We’re Going To Be (More Than) Okay.

Read Time: 9 mins

Audio Recording

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Dear Seventeen,

If I could sit with you now – on the closet floor of our childhood bedroom, where we created our own little safety nook – I’d give you the hug you always needed, but never got as a child. The one no one knew how to give you.

And I’d whisper:

You’re not too much. You’re not broken. You’re powerful, but the world just doesn’t know how to name it yet. We’re going to be more than okay - you can’t even imagine it right now, but we’re going to be so freaking happy and filled with love, lightness, and joy.

You thought talking, acting, and being a certain way meant being safe. That if you were pleasing enough, good enough, you’d be loved. But you just couldn’t NOT be you and you were always torn between a world of playing a role and a world where you could just be YOU.

Baby girl – you were never meant to blend in. You were born to break the mold - and SHINE!

You Can Choose To Stop Pretending - And Just Be YOU

I remember the safety nook you built for yourself as a little girl in the height of being bullied in elementary school: lamp plugged in, sheep plush as your backrest, a box of paper scraps where you wrote who was mean to you that day. You were always trying to process, to make sense, to survive. You never told your parents nor your sisters. You felt so alone.

By high school, you’d swung the other way. Zero fucks, all armour. You wore your pain like coolness. You drank, partied, worked, and smiled – anything to avoid being alone with the ache. You weren’t a bitch. You were a girl trying to not get hurt again.

Then grade 12/senior year hit like a storm: the rape, the car accident that robbed you of dance – your one form of release. You spiraled into numbness and survival. You self-harmed. You lost yourself. But you never gave up.

Through it all – you read. You danced. You escaped. But you never truly stopped feeling.

You just got really good at pretending you didn’t.

You Will Choose To Stop Being in Survival Mode

You carried everyone’s emotions on your back and no one ever asked how heavy it was. You weren’t taught how to hold your own emotions, let alone anyone else’s. You weren’t equipped – but you tried anyway.

And now? Now you know how to hold yourself. You’ve learned how to feel again – how to cry, to breathe, to be soft without apologizing for it.

You’re not just surviving anymore. You’re thriving.

You Give Yourself the Love and Safety You Long For

You got the good grades. You worked the jobs. You played the “good girl” role in a world that made it clear: don’t speak too loud, don’t take up too much space, don’t be too much. While feeling like you still weren’t the “good girl”. You didn’t quite fit in anywhere. You didn’t have your own community to lean on. You didn’t belong anywhere.

But you were always too much for the wrong rooms – and that was the gift.You just didn’t know it yet. 

Even when you tried to stay small, you couldn’t. You were born to lead, to speak, to shake shit up. And now? You’re building a business and a life rooted in truth, compassion, and wholeness – not performance.

Self-Love is All You Need

Those boys you tried to save? You weren’t in love – you were reenacting your pain. You needed someone to choose you.

Now, you choose yourself.

You’ve done the work. You still do the work – through therapy, coaching, rituals, movement, self-trust. You parent your kids with more love and self-awareness than you ever received. You hold space for others to rise. You are the woman you so very much needed.

5 Things I’d Tell You Now

1. You do you. Don’t dim your light.

You weren’t meant to blend in – you were born to blaze. Stop contorting to fit into spaces that can’t hold your magic. Stop dimming your light, let your confidence shine to light the way for other women of colour! Do the hard, uncomfortable inner work to heal and know your self-worth. It’s never too late.

2. You don’t have to be perfect to be loved.

Love isn’t a prize for performance. You are enough just by existing. Be aware of perfectionism and learn to recover from it. Love yourself as you are – perfectly imperfect. 

3. You felt everything – but learned to hide it.

You weren’t cold, you’re not actually a robot (despite what others say), you were surviving. Your emotions were never the enemy. Learn about trauma response symptoms and heal your emotional suppression. You’re an empath – and empaths get burnt out.

4. It’s okay to rest. It’s okay to want more.

Busy isn’t a badge. You don’t have to choose between ambition and ease. Fuck the noise of burnout culture. Redefine success for yourself. Redefine success for women, women of colour. 

5. You’re not behind – you’re breaking cycles.

The path you’re on has never been walked before. You are the revolution your lineage prayed for. Generational healing and breaking cycles is a blessing and a curse, a privilege and a burden, but you can do it. You are a heart-centered woman of colour founder on this ongoing self-love journey - you will create a legacy for your kids and generations to come.

Final words for you, baby girl:

You didn’t need to be fixed.You needed to feel seen.You needed someone to say:

“I believe you. I see you. I love you.”

So here I am.

Saying it now.

For you.

For us.

For anyone who’s ever felt like too much.

 💞 Love Yourself First ~ Messy, Loud, and Free