To the woman who survived everything except being seen
Why some women can survive heartbreak, trauma, and endings… but still freeze when it’s time to press record.
To the woman who has been through hell and came back with wisdom. But you get a knot in your throat when you try to share it.
You’re the woman whose friends hear your breakthroughs and say, “Girl, you need to share this.”
“When are you gonna start your podcast?”
“Your YouTube channel?”
“You should really be talking about this.”
They can see how far you’ve come.
They’ve watched you survive heartbreak, grief, endings, trauma, disappointment, and somehow still come back wiser... deeper.
You made it through all five breakups in one piece.
But for some reason, going live on Facebook brings a knot to your throat and causes your whole body to freeze.
And when you look back over your life and realize everything you’ve already survived, sometimes it frustrates you that you still can’t just press record.
And I get it because I’ve been there too.
It used to take me five hours to make one 10-minute video.
And for a long time, I thought being harder on myself would somehow speed up the process.
Like if I just pushed myself more, judged myself, forced myself, eventually I would stop being scared.
But honestly, it just created more of a rupture in my relationship with myself.
The real work started when I stopped trying to fight myself through visibility.
It started with learning how to...
Stay in my body.
Stay connected to myself even when fear, vulnerability, and old wounds were coming up and telling me to run away.
That’s the work that slowly changed things for me.
Visibility didn’t suddenly become easy overnight.
But over time it became easier because I was rebuilding trust and safety inside my body instead of constantly trying to override it.
Much love,
Essence
