It can be hard when we’re feeling low to pick ourselves back up and show up for ourselves. I have spent the past three months watching my mental health begin to drain, and although I’ve long known that the only person who can really pick me up is myself, old habits die hard and there’s always that tiniest bit of me waiting for a hero or heroine to show up and meet my needs exactly how I need them to be met.

But the truth is, although we may have many champions fighting our side, the responsibility of our own being ultimately has to lie with us as the protagonists of our own lives. And so today I find enough strength to acknowledge my feelings but to also show up as my own caped crusader (and yes, I am actually wearing a cape). I still have my difficulties, I still wear my sadness, but today my hero has arrived once more and she does not wear the face of another; she wears my own face.

Sometimes…often…I can get sick of having to show up for myself. It is a delicate balance to allow oneself to feel what they feel – to be vulnerable – and yet not indulge in the negativity. When you are nobody’s number one except your own, you have to double your efforts in finding ways to let your inner hero do its work. You have to let your hero catch you and to lift you back up again, even though at the very same time the part of you that you are supporting is hurting. And you also must not let the hero pacify to the point of suppressing the parts of you that feel the pain. There is always a fine balance to be met, and because all of these aspects of self sits within, it is not truly possible to compartmentalise them. At a point, the hero and the pained self meet.

But that meeting point is where the act of being one’s own hero can really be transformational. Only you really know what you need and how this need can be met. Of course sometimes when we feel lost we feel we have no clue of what we need at all, but the answer is always there if we look hard enough, dare to acknowledge what is knocking at our door, or simply allow time for the answer to emerge.

Today I am not entirely sure what precisely troubles me. Many things. And the answers are not the type so easily sought. They are emerging gradually though. And in the meantime I will sit here in my cape, my inner hero accompanying my pained self so that she is not so very alone. I will show up for myself, because I matter and I deserve a hero’s efforts to help me along my journey.