I Have Been a Thousand Different Women.
There’s a poem I keep coming back to called I Have Been a Thousand Different Women by Emory Hall. If you don’t know it, I’ve shared it below:
Make peace
with all the women
you once were.
Lay flowers
at their feet.
Offer them incense
and honey
and forgiveness.
Honor them
and give them your silence.
Listen.
Bless them
and let them be.
For they are the bones
of the temple
you sit in now.
For they are
the rivers
of wisdom
leading you toward
the sea.
Every time I read it, I feel a wave of calm… a reminder to pause and honour every version of myself—the messy, the strong, the uncertain, and everything in between. Because all of those women, every single one of them, played a role in shaping who I am today.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we hold ourselves—our past selves, our present selves, and the women we’ve been at different points in our lives. So often, we carry the weight of old expectations or cling to the stories of who we think we should have been. Or we get stuck comparing ourselves to others, like there’s some universal standard we’re all supposed to meet.
But here’s the thing: there is no one right way to be. We’re all just figuring it out as we go, evolving and learning along the way.
What if we let go of the need to be perfect? What if we stopped picking ourselves apart and, instead, took a moment to celebrate the full, complex beings we already are? What if we extended that same grace to the people in our lives—our partners, children, friends, and families—allowing them the space to grow and change, too?
Let’s ask ourselves some honest questions:
Thinking of the women you’ve been in the past. What parts of yourself are you ready to let go of? Can you offer kindness and forgiveness to those past versions, even the ones you struggle to embrace?
Look at the people in your life. How have you shown up for them? What do you want to acknowledge or celebrate about the way you’ve supported and cared for them?
Celebrate what makes you, you. Maybe it’s your resilience, your creativity, your kindness, or your ability to keep going when things feel hard. What strengths can you hold in gratitude right now?
What’s holding you back? What patterns, guilt, or old stories are you ready to release? What no longer serves the person you’re becoming?
The answers to these questions can help us remember that every version of us matters, even the ones we’d rather forget. Each one has played a part in bringing us to where we are today.
I hope you can take a moment to reflect on your journey. Honour the women you’ve been, the people who walk alongside you, and the wisdom you’ve gained along the way. You don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of love, growth, and peace.
You—the whole, imperfect, amazing you—deserves to be celebrated. Honour the women you were before you became who you are today—they’re the reason you’re here.
With love
xx
