Hi, my name is Michaela and I am so excited to finally share my story and this project with you!
Let’s start from the beginning. I’m your tried and true, born in the middle of America, girl turned woman with a dream so big it felt unrealistic. I grew up in a story book household with a family that seemingly had it all. In my teenage years that story turned to horror as my father was overcome by alcoholism that eventually lead to his death. My whole world turned upside down as I was faced with adulthood, added responsibilities and sadness that would be my first big life altering experience.
I guess one might say that above all odds I left my home and traveled to New York when I was 19 years old to chase my dream. I started my schooling upstate and completed it in New York City where I would remain for another 10 years. In those ten years I fought my way into the fashion and photography industry by scrubbing a lot of toilets at 7am and absorbing a lot of verbal abuse. My hard work paid off as I launched my own company in 2011, met the love of my life and became a new mom.
Looking back at my story it’s almost humbling to see how all the many twists and turns led me to here. Yet, and I’m sure most of you can relate, I often find myself feeling like I’m not quite good enough, that it will be better when… fill in the blank. I keep going through the motions, climbing the ladder, achieving successes and quickly moving on to the next thing but in doing so for so many years I became more and more aware that I was being very mean to myself. My inner voice had become quite the bully.
Selfkind began the day I finally decided to recognize my negative voice, slow my pace down, learned to set boundaries without giving everything up and began to make time to celebrate my current place in space and time. When faced with these changes I suddenly became aware of how much work I had to do and of my fear of embracing my own human experience. I wanted to document my realization and create resources to help me change my own inner dialogue as I continued to explore and evolve as a human.
It is my hope now to not only document my own journey but to create a community of like-minded women who can help support one another through career, relationship, motherhood and life in general. I want to create a space where it’s okay to feel okay, to think you’re doing well and that isn’t so full of always wanting more or not feeling good enough.
As my passion project and an exploration of my own life it is my goal to build a community of like-minded women who are looking for support and tools on how to treat themselves better too. I decided to start a blog and create resources to help myself along my own self kindness journey a journey that has only just begun and that I hope to walk alongside you on.
I encourage you to join me in my self-kindness journey by following along here, joining my Facebook group or following along on Instagram. Welcome to selfkind.