What the Little Girl Inside Me Still Needs to Hear

There is a little girl inside me who still needs to hear some things.

She isn't always obvious. Most of the time, I'm just living my adult life. I'm making decisions, taking care of responsibilities, trying to be a good mother, figuring out relationships, dealing with stress, and attempting to make sense of everything I've been through.

But every once in a while, something happens and I can feel her.

She shows up when I start questioning myself. When I'm afraid I've disappointed someone. When I worry that someone is going to leave. When I make a mistake and immediately feel like I've failed as a person. When I become overwhelmed and don't know what to do with everything I'm feeling.

And when she shows up, I've realized that she doesn't always need me to tell her what she did wrong.

Sometimes she just needs me to listen.

You Were Never Too Sensitive

I wish I could go back and tell that little girl that having big feelings didn't make her weak.

You noticed things. You felt things deeply. You cared about what people thought. You were affected by the way people treated you, even when other people didn't seem to understand why it mattered so much.

You weren't imagining your feelings.

You weren't wrong for being hurt.

And you weren't "too sensitive" simply because something affected you.

Maybe you didn't always know how to explain what you were feeling. Maybe you couldn't find the right words. Maybe you reacted in ways that adults didn't understand.

But your feelings were still real.

You deserved someone who could sit with you in those feelings instead of making you feel like you had to justify them.

You Didn't Cause People to Hurt You

There is something I wish I could tell the younger me about the times other people treated her badly:

It wasn't your fault.

You didn't deserve to be bullied because you were quiet.

You didn't deserve to be mocked because you were different.

You didn't deserve to be treated badly because someone else decided you were an easy target.

You didn't have to figure out what you had done to make someone hurt you.

Sometimes people make choices that have nothing to do with your worth.

I wish you had known that.

I wish you could have separated "Someone treated me badly" from "There must be something wrong with me."

Those are not the same thing.

You Don't Have to Be Perfect to Be Loved

You spent a lot of time trying to be good.

Good enough.

Well behaved enough.

Successful enough.

Easy enough.

You learned to pay attention to what other people expected and sometimes forgot to ask yourself what you wanted.

I understand why you did that.

When you're young, being accepted can feel like everything.

But I want you to know something now that I couldn't fully understand then:

You never had to be perfect to deserve love.

You were allowed to make mistakes.

You were allowed to change your mind.

You were allowed to have an opinion.

You were allowed to disappoint someone.

Someone being disappointed with one of your choices didn't mean you had become a disappointment.

Those are two very different things.

You Are Allowed to Say No

I wish someone had taught me earlier that saying no doesn't make you selfish.

You are allowed to have boundaries.

You are allowed to decide that something doesn't feel right.

You are allowed to walk away from people who don't treat you well.

You are allowed to change your mind after saying yes.

You are allowed to protect your peace.

And you don't have to create a ten-page explanation for every boundary you set.

Sometimes "No" is enough.

I know that can feel uncomfortable when you've spent years worrying about how your choices affect everyone else.

But your life belongs to you, too.

You Don't Have to Earn Your Place

There were times when I believed I had to prove myself to deserve to be accepted.

Maybe if I tried harder.

Maybe if I behaved better.

Maybe if I made fewer mistakes.

Maybe if I didn't need so much.

Maybe if I became the person everyone wanted me to be.

But that little girl never needed to earn her place in this world.

Neither do I.

I don't have to perform for people to deserve friendship.

I don't have to make myself smaller to keep someone comfortable.

I don't have to hide every difficult part of myself because I'm afraid someone will leave if they really get to know me.

The right people won't require me to disappear in order to belong.

You Are Allowed to Ask for Help

You don't have to handle everything alone.

I know you learned to keep a lot inside.

Sometimes you didn't know how to explain what was happening. Sometimes you didn't feel understood. Sometimes it seemed easier to stop talking about something than to keep trying to convince someone that it mattered.

But needing help was never a weakness.

Asking someone to listen doesn't make you a burden.

Needing comfort doesn't make you needy.

And admitting that something hurts doesn't mean you aren't strong.

I wish you had known that strength isn't measured by how much pain you can carry without asking anyone to help you carry it.

You Didn't Have to Have It All Figured Out

You were a child.

You weren't supposed to understand everything.

You weren't supposed to know how every relationship would turn out. You weren't supposed to know what adulthood would look like. You weren't supposed to know which choices would change your life.

You were supposed to grow.

To make mistakes.

To discover yourself.

To change your mind.

To learn.

And yes, some of the choices you made later in life didn't turn out the way you hoped.

But that doesn't mean the little girl who became you failed.

It means she grew into a woman who had to learn some lessons the hard way.

And she's still here.

You Deserve to Feel Safe

Maybe this is one of the most important things I could tell you.

You deserve safety.

Not just physical safety, but emotional safety.

You deserve relationships where you don't constantly wonder what mood someone is going to be in.

You deserve conversations where you can express yourself without being afraid of punishment or rejection.

You deserve to make a mistake without believing everything is about to fall apart.

You deserve people who don't make you question whether you are worthy of being loved.

And when someone else's behavior makes you feel unsafe, you are allowed to pay attention to that feeling.

You don't have to convince yourself that something is okay simply because you wish it were.

Your Feelings Don't Make You a Burden

There are still times when I worry that my emotions are too much.

Too much thinking.

Too much feeling.

Too much questioning.

Too much needing reassurance.

Too much everything.

But I'm trying to look at that little girl differently now.

Instead of asking, Why are you like this?

I'm trying to ask, What are you trying to tell me?

Maybe the fear is telling me I need reassurance.

Maybe the anger is telling me a boundary has been crossed.

Maybe the sadness is telling me something mattered.

Maybe the exhaustion is telling me I have been carrying too much.

My feelings don't have to control me in order for me to listen to them.

They can give me information without being in charge of every decision.

You Are Not Responsible for Everyone Else's Happiness

You learned to pay attention to other people's emotions.

Sometimes you still do.

You can walk into a room and immediately notice when something feels different. You can hear a change in someone's voice. You can sense tension.

But you don't have to fix everything you notice.

Someone else can be angry without it automatically being your responsibility.

Someone else can be disappointed without you having to abandon yourself to make them feel better.

Someone else can have a bad day without you deciding that you caused it.

You can care about people without carrying every emotion they experience.

That's something I'm still practicing.

You Are Still Worth Loving When You Make Mistakes

This one might be the hardest.

There have been choices I wish I could make differently. Relationships I wish I had handled differently. Moments when I didn't show up as the person I wanted to be.

I can't change those things.

But I can stop using them as evidence against myself forever.

The little girl inside me needs to know that mistakes aren't permanent sentences.

You can apologize.

You can learn.

You can change.

You can do better.

And you can still love yourself while you're becoming better.

I don't want to teach myself that the only way to deserve love is to never mess up.

That's not love.

That's perfectionism wearing a disguise.

You Are Not Behind

There are times when I look at my life and wonder whether I should be further along.

Maybe I should have figured things out sooner.

Maybe I should have made better choices.

Maybe I should be more confident.

Maybe I should have healed already.

But healing doesn't work on a schedule.

Life doesn't come with one timeline that everyone has to follow.

Some lessons take longer because they are connected to things that happened much earlier.

Some wounds don't become visible until years later.

And sometimes we don't even understand what we are carrying until we're finally in a place where we feel safe enough to look at it.

So, little girl, you aren't behind.

You're growing.

And so am I.

I See You Now

I wish I could go back and protect you from every painful thing.

I wish I could erase the moments that made you question yourself.

I wish I could give you every answer before you needed it.

But I can't.

What I can do is stop pretending you weren't affected by what happened.

I can stop criticizing you for the ways you learned to survive.

I can stop expecting you to know then what I know now.

And I can start giving you the things you still need.

Patience.

Understanding.

Protection.

Boundaries.

Compassion.

Permission to rest.

Permission to make mistakes.

Permission to be yourself.

Permission to take up space.

Permission to be loved without earning it.

You Don't Have to Carry the Past Alone Anymore

Little girl, I know there are things you still don't understand.

There are memories that still hurt.

There are questions that may never have perfect answers.

There are parts of your story that still make you wonder how everything became what it became.

But you don't have to carry those things the way you once did.

You have me now.

And I am finally learning how to listen.

When you're scared, I'll try to remind you that you're safe in this moment.

When you're ashamed, I'll remind you that you are more than your mistakes.

When you're lonely, I'll remind you that being alone doesn't mean you're unwanted.

When you're overwhelmed, I'll help you slow down.

When you're hurting, I won't automatically tell you to get over it.

And when you make a mistake, I won't throw you away.

I'm still learning how to do all of this.

Sometimes I'll get it wrong.

Sometimes I'll fall back into old patterns and have to find my way back.

But I'm here.

And I'm not leaving you.

Maybe This Is What Healing Looks Like

Maybe healing isn't about finally becoming someone who never gets triggered, never gets afraid, never feels insecure, and never struggles.

Maybe sometimes healing looks like responding differently when those feelings show up.

Maybe it means becoming the voice inside my own head that I needed when I was younger.

A voice that says:

You are safe.

You are loved.

You matter.

You are allowed to have feelings.

You are allowed to make mistakes.

You don't have to be perfect.

You don't have to make everyone happy.

You don't have to earn your worth.

You don't have to become someone else to deserve love.

And you don't have to face everything alone.

That little girl is still a part of me.

I don't need to erase her.

I don't need to be embarrassed by her.

I don't need to wish she had been different.

I can carry her forward.

I can protect her now.

I can give her the understanding she didn't always have.

And maybe most importantly, I can remind her that the story didn't end with the things that happened to her.

It kept going.

It became my story.

And now I get to decide what happens next.

My past is a chapter, not the whole story.

And to the little girl inside me who spent so much time wondering if she was enough:

You were always enough. You just needed someone to remind you.

Now, I'm going to keep reminding you.