I love it when you find a song that speaks directly to you. I remember the first time I heard Hilary Duff’s song ‘I am’ – I swear the lyrics were written for me. It sums up how I feel most days… I am sure that many of you probably feel the same (if not, then I am as strange as I thought I was):

A perfectly unstoppable mess – that’s who I am. All of these emotions in a single day – no wonder I am so exhausted. Who am I kidding, sometimes I feel all of these emotions in a single hour.

I do however want to teach my daughter that this is normal, that it is OK that she is all of these things. I don’t want her to feel inadequate, useless, weird (although a little weird is a great thing – I think!). I think that boys already get this, which is why I don’t feel I need to teach it to my son. I don’t think they think about these things anywhere near as much as we girls do, if in fact at all!

I am clear that it is my need to be perfect, to have it all together that drives me. I always look at other women (in particular) and think how amazing they are. See – I think toooooooo much don’t I. Even my 12 year old daughter has told me to STOP thinking. She suggested that if that was not possible then I should think about a white or black wall with nothing on it because that is pretty close to nothing. I have tried it but it is incredibly how quickly things fly onto that blank wall – thoughts, opinions, judgements, fear – you name it, they all appear.

So all there is to do now is clean off the wall and start again – blank, nothing – even 5 minutes of nothing would be better than none.