As a counsellor, people sometimes assume that I have everything figured out.

The truth is, I don't.

Like many of us, I have an inner critic. Although it's much quieter than it once was, it's still there. Occasionally, it catches me off guard, whispering old stories that I've carried for far longer than I care to admit.

For me, those stories began many years ago.

I can remember becoming painfully aware of my body as a teenager. Looking in the mirror and never quite liking what I saw. Comparing myself to other girls. Believing that if I could only change the way I looked, perhaps I would finally feel enough.

Years passed, but the voice remained.

It changed its focus, but never its message.

It told me I wasn't clever enough. That I wasn't intelligent enough. That everyone else seemed more capable, more confident and somehow more deserving than I was.

Then there was another loss that brought its own painful narrative.

Not becoming a mother.

That was a grief I never imagined I would have to carry. Alongside that grief came another cruel whisper from my inner critic...

"You've failed.

When my mum died, I was 46 years old. By society’s standards, I was a grown woman, supposedly emotionally equipped to cope with loss. People assumed I would be sad, of course — but also that I would get on with it. That I would grieve, adjust, and move forward in some neat, acceptable timeline.

Six years later, at 52, I can honestly say the pain is still there. Not every moment, not every day — but deeply, unmistakably there.

What no one tells you is that losing your mum isn’t just losing a person. It’s losing your anchor. Your history. Your safety net. The one who knew you before you even knew yourself. The person who loved you in a way no one else ever can.

As children, we expect our parents to protect us. As adults, we often forget how much emotional security they still give us — until it’s suddenly gone.

Anxiety: The Childhood Stories We Still Carry

For much of my life, anxiety felt like it came out of nowhere. It showed up in my racing thoughts, my tight chest, my need to plan everything, my fear that something—anything—might go wrong. I used to think it was just “how I am.”

But over time, I started to realise something:
my anxiety wasn’t born in adulthood.
It was shaped in childhood.

And maybe yours was too.

When We’re Young, We Write the First Draft of Our Story

As children, we don’t have explanations—only interpretations. We don’t understand our parents’ stress, or the chaos around us, or the silence that fills a room. We don’t know about mental health, money problems, emotional wounds, or generational trauma.

We only know how things feel.

And so, we make meaning the only way a child can:

• If someone we loved was distant, we thought we weren’t lovable.

• If conflict erupted around us, we thought it was our job to keep the peace.

• If we grew up in uncertainty, we learned to predict everything to stay safe.

• If adults were unpredictable, we learned to scan every mood, every tone, every shift in the room.

We didn’t have the full picture, so we filled in the blanks with the pieces we had.
Those early meanings became beliefs.
And those beliefs became the blueprint for how we moved through the world.

What I’ve learned—slowly, sometimes painfully—is that anxiety doesn’t come from weakness or brokenness. It comes from a younger version of us who tried to make sense of things they weren’t old enough to understand.

My own anxiety often sounds like:

• “You need to be prepared.”

• “You might upset someone.”

• “You’re not doing enough.”

• “You should have seen that coming.”

For years, I treated these thoughts like annoying alarms.
Now I see them as messages from an inner child who never stopped trying to keep me safe.

Maybe your anxiety is that child too—still holding the interpretations they made long before you had the words to challenge them.

Rewriting the Old Stories

One of the most healing realisations I ever had was this:

You can’t blame your child self for getting something wrong when no one ever gave them the tools to get it right.

Today, you’re allowed to give yourself what you didn’t have back then:

• A clearer perspective

• A calmer environment

• A gentler voice

• A sense of safety

When anxiety shows up, instead of asking “What’s wrong with me?” try asking, “What old belief is being activated right now?”
Often, the fear you feel in the present is connected to a story that was written long ago—one that no longer fits who you are or the life you live now.

Understanding the connection between childhood interpretations and adult anxiety isn’t about blaming the past. It’s about honouring it—and yourself. You survived with the best interpretation you could have made at the time. Now, as an adult, you get to decide which stories still serve you and which ones you’re ready to rewrite.
And that is where healing begins: not by fighting anxiety, but by listening to it. Not by shaming the child you were, but by finally giving them the safety they always deserved.

“This time of year, can be beautiful, but it can also highlight the absences we carry. I wrote a few words for anyone navigating Christmas while childless not by choice and without a partner. If this season feels heavier than it looks from the outside, this piece is for you.”

Christmas has a way of shining a bright light on the spaces in our lives we wish were filled. For those who are childless not by choice, and without a partner to share the season with, it can feel like an ache wrapped in tinsel. It’s a time when joy is expected, family is assumed, and love seems to be happening everywhere except in the quiet corners where we sit.

There’s a grief that comes with dreams unmet—of stockings that were never hung, of traditions that never got the chance to begin, of a hand that isn’t there to hold. And although this grief may be invisible to others, it is deeply, unmistakably real.

Yet there is also strength in making it through days that were never designed with your life in mind. There is courage in creating your own meaning, your own rituals, your own small sources of light. Even in the loneliness, there can be moments of gentleness—warm tea, soft music, a message from a friend, a reminder that your worth isn’t measured by what society expects you to have.

This season may be heavy, but you are not alone in carrying that weight. And your story—exactly as it is—is still full of value, hope, and quiet resilience.