Dear Self (aka 12-year-old me), the world will often try to tell you who to be, how to feel, and what is and isn't worth your time. You'll spend years trying to fit in, only to realise mental peace isn't something to be found. It's something to protect at all costs.

What you'll find below isn't a list of rules. It's a letter from your future self. The woman who's 38 and: 

• Is sprouting grey hair at the sides of her temples.
• Is onto her third business after realising the first two weren't 'the One'.
• Has achieved by society's standards, but who knows more is unfolding.
• Is still a tragic Buffy: The Vampire Slayer fan (yes, I took my Buffy hoodie to Amsterdam in 2023).

If you're self-aware enough, you never really know where you're going in life. How can you when there are so many uncertainties at play? What you'll find below is a list of 10 truths that aim to guide you at your lowest points and ultimately, protect your mental peace regardless of the chaos that surrounds you. You can't buy lived experience, but you can read about my experience over the last 38 years of walking in your shoes. Here's my advice distilled into 10 truths.

Your intuition is your compass

You won't always have the self-trust to follow your intuition, but over time, you'll experience what happens when you ignore your inner knowing. Taking a left when the world wants you to turn right won't be easy, but living a lie serves no one in the long run. 

Silence is not a weakness; it's sacred

You'll learn you're a woman of few words at times. It'll irritate you that most of the world wants to fill every moment with noise of some kind. The older you get, the more you'll understand there's no need to explain or justify yourself. 

It's okay to outgrow people, places, and versions of yourself

You'll feel so much unnecessary guilt over your lifetime simply by following your heart. The people you opt out of. The jobs and roles you'll leave. The dreams you realise are no longer yours. It's scary to think you'll lose some people along the way, but you'll learn (the hard way, unfortunately) that genuine people are few and far between.

You're allowed to be both soft and strong

You'll let your walls down when surrounded by the right people. Being strong all the time is exhausting. You can cry and still be courageous. You can make tough choices and grieve the decisions you know are best. You'll use laughter as a coping mechanism. You'll have moments when you question everything and other times when you know you're exactly on the right path.

You can start over as many times as you need to

Your business will make you feel like a failure over and over. Remember that nothing in life is ever wasted. You'll never feel like enough people are reading your writing. You'll find your community eventually, and often through random chance encounters. You'll make peace with being an old soul. 

Mental peace cannot stem from control

There will be times when your anxiety takes over. You'll spend lots of time and money trying to 'fix' or improve certain traits or perceived inabilities that society tells you are required for 'success'. You'll come to realise the path to getting out of your own way is to let go of trying to control outcomes and realise you'll be okay regardless of what happens.

Sometimes, protecting your mental peace looks like disappearing for a while

You love being alone, and there's nothing wrong with you because of that. You'll grow tired of following society's script for anything that doesn't make you happy. You need more space and reflection time than most people. Silence, solitude, and stepping back are not avoidance—they're essential. 

You can't think your way into healing. Healing is a feeling

At around 30, your body will force you to stop and listen to what's going on inside. Suppressed feelings don't disappear; they wait for permission to be released. If they aren't released, they'll bleed into every area of your life. Finding embodied processing—a body-based approach to working with trauma—will be a game changer. You'll discover a whole new world, summed up perfectly by Dr Russell Kennedy below. If you're struggling with anxiety, I highly recommend his book, The Anxiety Prescription. Healing won't be easy, but it'll be worth it.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is nothing

Let people learn their lessons. You'll get frustrated when people don't listen, but it's not your job to convince people of what you know to be true. They are on their own journey, as are you.

You are enough, just as you are

You don't need to achieve anything to be enough. There will be many days you question your worth. You'll often fixate on your purpose. You will come to realise you're an all-or-nothing person. Obsessions will come and go organically. The world doesn't get to decide what makes you enough or worthy.

Dear Self, you're in the process of becoming and you'll never arrive (I borrowed that latter realisation from Brené  Brown). Life will test you. No one comes out unscathed. You'll earn wrinkles and scars. You'll discover that peace often involves the quiet choice to come back to yourself again and again, no matter how far you've wandered. And trust me, you will wander off over and over again. And that's okay.

Whatever happens, protect your peace like it's oxygen.