A Letter to My Younger Self: It's not your fault...

Certainty only comes when you decide to trust yourself

Feb 19, 2025

Inspired by the social media trend ‘coffee with my younger self’ I wrote this post to the me in my mid-20s working crazy long hours in marketing agencies in London… perhaps you had a similar experience? I had to dig deep to unearth these old pics before we had phones that did everything…

Dear Younger Me,

It’s sometime mid 2008, I’m writing to you from 2025.

First up- hair advice… let it go curly and stop straightening it every damn day- it actually looks better and takes way less time. Forget those cruel kids at school who always called it ‘frizzy’ - they had no idea.

Next- let’s talk about work - how you always feel like you’re never enough. It’s not your fault that the first job you land in London you end up with a sick-note manager who is away more than he is present. Your insights and work is valuable, you are just in environments and around people that don’t recognise that.

I know right now you believe that keeping different parts of yourself separate— your corporate self from your spiritual self, your compassion from your ambition - basically keeping your real self out of the equation— will make life easier.

You tell yourself that blending them would be too risky. That people won’t take you seriously if they see the real you. That keeping things compartmentalised is the smart thing to do.

It’s not.

And one day, you’re going to realise how much time you wasted playing small just to make other people feel better, trying to fit in.

I see you, endlessly searching. Signing up for every course, reading every book, hoping someone else has the key to your success, your confidence, your ability to finally feel like you’ve arrived.

But here’s the truth: You already have everything you need.

All those courses? They won’t teach you anything you don’t already know deep down. They might give you structure, but they won’t give you certainty—because certainty only comes when you decide to trust yourself.

And trust? That’s a choice, not a destination.

You Either Trust Yourself or You Don’t—There’s No In-Between

I know you like to analyse everything, picking apart every insight, questioning what’s real, trying to find proof before you commit to believing in anything—especially yourself.

But you’re wasting so much energy on the wrong thing.

If you’re going to use intuitive tools, go all in. Stop picking and choosing based on what feels “safe” or what fits neatly into the version of yourself that the world expects. You’re only sabotaging yourself by keeping one foot in, one foot out.

And let me tell you something—when you finally do go all in, when you stop filtering and second-guessing and just own what you know to be true, everything will shift.

Because people trust you to the exact extent that you trust yourself.

When you show up with doubt, they feel it.

When you show up with certainty, they follow.

Stop waiting for someone else to validate what you already know.

Embracing the denim mini skirt circa 2010

In Mexico in 2006 - probably in the best shape of my life but I didn’t see that.

You Did Nothing Wrong

You’re going to spend years thinking you’re the problem.

That if you were just a little less awkward, a little more confident, a little better at playing the game, maybe they would have treated you differently. Maybe they wouldn’t have talked over you in meetings. Maybe you wouldn’t have felt so invisible in rooms full of men who barely acknowledged you were there. Don’t even get me started on the ‘size 0’ boy body trends being pushed onto you…

You’ll spend so much energy masking—hiding the way your mind works, second-guessing every word before you say it, trying to fit into a system that was never designed for you.

But listen to me: You did nothing wrong.

The world we grew up in taught millennial women to shrink. The ‘90s and early 2000s fed us a steady diet of self-doubt, making sure we never felt quite enough.

Too quiet. Too uncertain. Too sensitive. Too much.

And when we entered the workplace, we carried that conditioning with us—questioning ourselves in ways our male colleagues never did, internalising every dismissive comment, every time we held back instead of speaking up, every moment we let someone else’s confidence override our own knowing.

But that was never on us.

That was on them.

And now? It’s time to take ourselves back.

The sign from the universe to wake up…

Something that speeds up the process for you is getting diagnosed with Bowel Cancer… firstly don’t worry, it works out OK. Secondly, it acts as a real wake up call to unleash the real me… FINALLY!!

In that moment you found out you had cancer, every excuse you ever made, every fear that held you back, every way you diluted yourself to fit into spaces that never deserved you—it all falls away.

Because suddenly, you understand just how short life really is.

And once you see that clearly, you can’t unsee it.

So I’m telling you now, before you get to that point: Stop waiting.

Stop waiting for permission.

Stop waiting for proof.

Stop waiting for the perfect moment to finally be all in on who you really are.

(By the way, you get through the treatment and it’s all OK - the chemo isn’t actually as bad as you’d imagined, and the whole thing makes you evolve as a person, in a similar but different way that becoming a Mother did in 2017).

From 2006 in a club in Southampton. Spoiler: he turns out to be the one

You Chose to Be Here for This Moment—Let’s Own It

I know you feel it—the shift happening in the world.

The systems we grew up in are breaking down. Especially 2016 onwards. The values we were taught to follow are crumbling. The transition won’t be smooth, but it’s happening. And deep down, you know this isn’t an accident.

We came here for this.

We are here, right now, at this point in history, because we are meant to be part of this change.

The only question is: Are you going to step into your power, or are you going to keep hiding behind old fears?

You have an intuitive gift - everything you find out through extensive study of your Astrology, Human Design, Numerology, Gene Keys (all the things!) just affirms this, and now you can give this gift to others as well.

No one needs to give you permission apart from yourself

This is your moment.

Trust Yourself, and embrace your gifts - they are not ‘mainstream’ nor were they meant to be.