There’s a question that doesn’t get asked very often—but when it does, it tends to stop you in your tracks:
When did you stop feeling like yourself?
I can actually trace it back more clearly than I expected.
For me, it was during COVID.
Like a lot of people, I started working from home. And at first, it felt temporary—so nothing really changed.
Prefer to listen?
But then days turned into weeks… and weeks into months.
And somewhere in there, I stopped doing the little things that used to make me feel like me.
I stopped doing my hair.
I stopped getting my nails done.
I stopped putting thought into what I wore—because honestly… what was the point?
No one was really seeing me.
And it wasn’t a big, dramatic shift.
It was subtle. Gradual.
Until one day, that version of me—the one who felt put together, polished, and confident—felt… kind of far away.
Not gone.
Just… not showing up anymore.
And the truth is, I got used to it.
That’s the part that’s easy to miss.
Because it doesn’t feel like you’ve lost yourself.
It just starts to feel like this is who you are now.
You become the person who chooses what’s easy.
What’s comfortable.
What gets the job done.
And on the surface, everything is fine.
But if you really pay attention, there are moments where something feels slightly… off.
Standing in your closet.
Getting ready for something you used to enjoy.
Catching your reflection and feeling more neutral than anything else.
Put together, maybe.
Appropriate.
But not quite you.
And it’s not big enough to sound the alarm over.
So you don’t.
You just keep moving.
But here’s what I’ve come to realize:
That feeling has very little to do with your clothes.
It has everything to do with recognition.
That moment where you look at yourself and think,
“There I am.”
And for a lot of us, that connection didn’t disappear all at once.
It faded through small decisions.
Choosing easy instead of intentional.
Practical instead of personal.
Saving things for “later” instead of living in them now.
Not because we didn’t care—
but because life got full, and we adjusted.
And then something shifted for me.
I started showing up again in a different way—and honestly, it happened because of Park Lane.
I had a reason to get on camera.
A reason to actually get ready.
A reason to put a little more thought into how I was showing up.
And I noticed something almost immediately.
On the days I took the time—
when I got dressed, did my hair, and actually put on my jewelry instead of skipping it—
I felt different.
Not just “more put together.”
More present.
More confident.
More like myself again.
And it surprised me how much that mattered.
Because it wasn’t about who else was seeing me.
It was about how I was seeing myself.
That quiet shift changed the way I carried myself through the rest of the day.
How I showed up in conversations.
How I engaged.
How I felt in my own life.
And it made me realize something I hadn’t fully seen before:
Feeling like yourself again doesn’t come from changing everything.
It comes from choosing yourself again—in small, intentional ways.
Wearing something you’ve been saving.
Taking a few extra minutes, even when you don’t “have to.”
Adding the piece that pulls everything together and makes you feel finished.
Not for anyone else.
But because of how it makes you feel.
Because confidence isn’t built in big, dramatic transformations.
It’s built in those everyday moments
where you stop defaulting…
and start deciding.
Where you stop asking, “What’s easiest?”
and start asking, “What feels like me?”
And then—this is the important part—you actually choose it.
Again and again.
So maybe the better question isn’t just,
“When did you stop feeling like yourself?”
Maybe it’s this:
When are you ready to start showing up as her again?
Not all at once.
Not perfectly.
Just one small decision at a time.
