GET UP AND BEGIN AGAIN AND AGAIN.

Many years ago, I was a blogger and writer. I was featured in Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Vice, Channel 4 and was only growing in success. My original blog ‘Sex, Shopping and Chocolate’ was reaching millions back in 2013 and 2014 which was still the very early days of influence and blogging.

In 2014, I had an experience with an international newspaper which impacted me so deeply that I withdrew from writing entirely. I participated in a group feature curated by a journalist I had worked with multiple times and trusted. The editor above her took my image and my words, and added a headline that that was so disingenuous and, frankly, slanderous to who I am.

I was much younger then and I didn’t have the support or depth of understanding that I do now to see what really happened inside of me during this event. I would handle it VERY differently today.

Instead, I chose to retreat, stop writing entirely, and I started to focus on a “career”.

This career was - in traditional ways - successful and lucrative. I wouldn’t change that in any way, but what I see now is that during that time I locked away a part of my self-expression, my creativity, my vibrancy, and my courage.

I played it much safer.

I hid behind a career.

I supported others’ in their goals and ambitious.

I celebrated others’ creativity and expression.

Whilst boldly hiding mine.

In the last few years, I’ve been doing the work to reconnect with this part of myself. And so. Here we are again.

Writing.

Sharing.

Thank you for being here.

And a special thank you if you’ve been here all along.