I've always been the one who could hear what people weren't quite saying.

Friends and strangers would find in me a safe space to share what was deepest inside them. There has always been an aura of creating space for people. Not judgement, helping them see different versions of themselves and different perspectives. I have never been afraid of asking the questions. Of sitting in silence. Of listening to the underlying feeling - the layer under the layers.

I never thought of it as work. It was just how I was.

My mum noticed it before I did. We'd be out somewhere, and a stranger would end up telling me something they probably hadn't told many people. "I don't get why people always come to you," she'd say. "They just somehow feel drawn to you."

I held space for friends, for my team, for strangers on a plane. But turning that same honesty and compassion toward my own life scared me. So instead, I tried not to feel it. I numbed it. I achieved my worthiness through others, saw myself through their eyes.

I said yes to everyone else - just going with what they wanted, because I actually didn't know what I wanted. I built a life I was supposed to be grateful for, because that was the life you were supposed to want.

That feeling followed me for years. I was too scared to be honest with myself. To actually feel what was underneath it.

So I became hard on myself instead. Pushing myself to every limit. Criticising every part of me. Trying to numb myself each time I came close to being truthful - because I knew that once I started being honest, everything would change.

Everything changed.