This morning I woke up feeling flat.

Not "I need another coffee" flat.

Not "I didn't sleep well" flat.

The kind of flat where everything feels heavier than it did yesterday.

The kind where you feel like crying and you don't even know why.

Nothing had happened.

Nobody had upset me.

There was no crisis.

Yet there I was, wondering why I felt like this..

I looked at my business and wondered if anyone would ever buy my products.

I looked at successful brands and wondered if I was wasting my time.

I thought about my job and felt unmotivated.

I thought about my wedding and found myself comparing my nearly 50-year-old, menopause-changed body to bridal models who look like they've never eaten a carb in their lives.

By 8am, I had managed to question my entire future before I'd even finished breakfast.

 Sound familiar?

I think many of us have these days.

 The days where we feel like we should have everything under control.

The days where we tell ourselves we're being silly.

The days where we think we need to "snap out of it."

But maybe we don't.

Maybe some days aren't meant to be fixed.

Maybe some days are simply meant to be felt.

The truth is, life can be wonderful and overwhelming at the same time.

You can be grateful and exhausted.

Hopeful and uncertain.

Confident and insecure..

Being human is complicated like that.

What I realised today is that my feelings were not facts.

Feeling overwhelmed didn't mean my dreams weren't possible.

Feeling emotional didn't mean I was failing.

Feeling uncertain didn't mean I was on the wrong path.

It simply meant I was having a hard day.

And hard days happen.

One thing that struck me today was how often we compare our beginning to someone else's middle.

Or their ending.

I found myself looking at successful businesses and wondering if I would ever get there.

 But then I remembered something important.

I'm at the beginning of my story. Of course my business doesn't look like a company that's been growing for years.

Of course my body doesn't look like a 20 year old in a wedding dress.

Of course my confidence isn't perfect.

Of course I don't have everything figured out.

Nobody does in Chapter One.

The problem is that social media rarely shows us Chapter One.

It shows us Chapter Twenty.

The polished version.

The successful version.

The version that makes us feel like we're behind.

But we're not behind.

We're simply still growing.

And growth doesn't always look beautiful.

Sometimes growth looks like showing up when you're tired.

Sometimes growth looks like crying.

Sometimes growth looks like resting.

Sometimes growth looks like doing the bare minimum and calling that enough.

Today wasn't a productive day.

It wasn't a breakthrough day.

It wasn't a "look how much I achieved" day.

It was simply a day where I needed kindness.

And perhaps that's what this blog is really about.

A reminder that you don't have to earn kindness.

You don't have to earn rest.

You don't have to earn your worth.

 And you certainly don't have to have everything together all the time.

So if today is one of those days for you too, I hope you know this:

You are not failing.

You are not falling behind.

You are not the only one who feels this way.

Some days are for blooming.

Some days are for resting.

Both are part of growing.

And some days it's okay to hide under the doona and cry.

It's okay to let the tears come.

It's okay to stop trying to be strong for everyone else.

It's okay to feel your emotions instead of pushing them away.

Sometimes that's exactly what we need.

Not a solution.

Not a productivity hack.

Not another thing to add to our to-do list.

Just a little space to feel what we're feeling.

And then, more often than not, we wake up the next day feeling a little lighter.

A little clearer.

A little more like ourselves again.

Wondering what brought that on.

Maybe nothing at all.

Maybe we were simply tired.

Maybe we'd been carrying too much for too long.

Maybe our hearts and minds just needed us to slow down for a moment.

Whatever the reason, those days do not define us.

They are simply part of being human.

Part of growing.

Part of blooming.