Why I’m starting this blog

Photo by Cathryn Lavery on Unsplash

I was never one who was good at following things through. Give me a work deadline - and I will honour it. But when it comes to my personal stuff, there are many things I started and never finished. There are many things I’ve said I would start doing but never did.

And you know what? As I write this, sitting in my bed on a random Tuesday night, a part of me hopes this will not be another one of those things I just don’t get down to doing.

Like, for example, for years now I’ve tried to get myself to drink more water  - so far this has not happened even though I logically know it’s good for me on so many levels. Oh, and how many book ideas I’ve had that remained sporadic paragraphs scattered across various Word documents?

 So how will this be different?

This is me pushing ‘me’ like never before. And the reason is - because I know in every fibre of my being that if I don’t at least try: this will be my biggest regret in life. And as I inch towards the mid-40s, there is no time to waste.

Why Woman Unclouded?

So you might ask: why Woman Unclouded?

For the past years I’ve wanted to do something meaningful with my life. I always knew that this would involve writing in some form  – mainly because years of being a journalist showed me how powerful words can be. How they can give people a voice. Help people connect and feel they’re not alone. Help people make sense of things.

As cliché as it may sound, having my daughter turned up the dial of this internal urge to write something – something I can share and with which I can, hopefully, make some form of a difference. This urge, this feeling, started brewing inside me. I had no clue what to do. But slowly, very slowly, something started taking shape. And the key driver of this was my realising one thing – I’m not special.

I don’t mean it in the “insecure” sense (although I have battled, and I’m still battling, with many insecurities). Realising that I’m not special was liberating. And, for me, it all started with pregnancy.

“I was not special. Amazing! Because it meant I was not alone.”

That’s when an avalanche of strange thoughts and feelings started flooding my mind. Some thoughts shocked me to the core. How on earth were certain things even crossing my mind? Was I losing my mind? Just to put you in the picture, I spent most of my pregnancy thinking something would fall on me or crash into me. So, for example, if I was walking under a crane, I’d imagine it falling on me and mentally rehearse the ninja style manoeuvre I’d have to do to “save the baby”. As selfless as this may sound on paper, it was driving me insane.

Until I started talking about these feelings. And I realised I was not alone. 

Neither was I alone when my daughter was born and I cried for three days. I was not alone when, a few months after giving birth, stuff that never bothered me before suddenly became a big deal.  I spoke to other women, women I trust, about this and they were going through, or had gone through, the exact same thing. I was not special. Amazing! Because it meant I was not alone.

I’m not special, isn’t it amazing!

I started thinking back to all the other things in my life, pre-motherhood, that made me feel so bad. I’m talking about the stuff that made me feel ashamed to be ‘me’.

Then, as I started considering venturing into the world of freelance, came another level of realisation – there’s so much I don’t know. Stuff that looks so complicated that the very thought of trying to understand it is the perfect excuse to fuel procrastination. Like, for example, how on earth does the whole VAT thing work?

“I wanted to create content that helps uncloud women’s hearts and minds.”

Again, I spoke to my woman friends. Some had shared the same struggles in the past and they could guide me through their experience.

It started becoming clearer and clearer. I now knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to create a space where women can share experience, insight and information. A platform that provides emotional and rational content that helps support women grow – by lifting the haze created by insecurity, self doubt, feeling alone, feeling overwhelmed and feeling that you’re not understanding. I wanted to create content that helps uncloud women’s hearts and minds. (You can read more in the About page).

And this is how the idea of Woman Unclouded was born.

So here I am. I’m putting myself out there.  I’m sure that along the way there are going to be encouraging remarks and comments that will threaten to break me. But I hope to keep going and I hope to see things grow. I have so much to figure out still. But I’m not alone.

All I have left to say for now is, welcome to Woman Unclouded – driven by my belief that I am not special.

Because we are.