*PUBLISHED as 'Tired of Being Tired, Sick of Being Sad' by Azia To *now on amazon*
This is the book I wish I had when I was 12, 13, 14 and growing up until I was 20. It's the stuff I wish I told my high school self.
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This is how I feel - these a...
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I started writing again to heal myself – but I realized this therapy session had enough room to fit a few more friends.
Including you.
If I wrote for me – I wouldn't have posted my story online. I wrote because I knew girls were growing up with false narratives about women like I had.
That women were either damsels in distress or mean girls.
These false perceptions shaped us and warped our perceptions of women and how to treat them – we grew up seeing women as worthless, dirty and replaceable.
So, I thought I was too.
It was taking notice and bringing attention to the small papercuts I faced every single day; thinking in retrospect; looking back until I started to move forward.
I began talking about my experience, conversation lifted my thoughts off the ground and those thoughts spun into ideas and suddenly, I found myself in the eye of a hurricane; everything was spinning around me but rather than getting caught up in the storm, I stood in the middle of it all and could see why things happened and how I could react to them better.
I want you to see what I now see; that life is about tearing the most exquisite things down only to mend them back stronger, it's seeing pain as a process of healing; failure as a part of success, it's understanding that the pillars of strong women were once the cracked bones of little girls; it's accepting you can't control what breaks you but you can control how you react to it;
That healing is not about happiness; it is about completeness.
It's being angry, it's grieving, it's disappointment, it's feeling lost, it's finding joy, it's getting excited, it's choosing to exist across the entire spectrum of emotion and being okay with that.
Healing is what it means to be human.
Finding this sense of completeness is ultimately choosing to love yourself and build confidence, despite the setbacks and delays – knowing who you are and feeling RIGHT in your own skin is powerful, and once knowing this feeling, it's even more powerful to be able to SHARE this confidence and encourage others to see the best and potential in themselves;
That's when I knew the Sad Girl Clapback was more than an online diary;
It's about writing a new narrative for women;
It's creating an inclusive community through conversation, collaboration, and inspiring emotional resilience;
It's knowing that we will continue to make mistakes because are human and knowing we will have flashes of brilliance that prove we are divine too.
It's believing we don't have to be stuck in any story; that we have the power to change where we want to go and who we want to be;
It's hurting, healing, loving – it's living through the growing pains until we reach completeness.
My friend Elin and I made a SadGirlClapback Instagram account – join our family; we're following every else back!
Follow us at: sadgirlclapback
Just like this story, we're planning to make the instagram account explode with lots of positive, raw, and encouraging words & pleasing graphics to help you on this journey.
Let's rewrite this narrative of women together.
Women are more than these stock characters – what does being a woman mean to you?
Tell me in the comments below and be sure to use the hashtag #whatsyourclapback in your comment! I've shared so much about me and I'd LOVE to hear about you :)
Tag a strong woman you know to share what being a woman means to her! :)
