The Day I Finally Stopped Saying “I’m Fine”

Recently, I created a song around a message that had been growing inside me for a very long time.

The song is called “I Hear You Now”.

For years, I kept saying:
“I’m fine.”
“I’m okay.”
“I’ll rest later.”

And like so many people, I learned to keep going no matter what my body was trying to tell me.

This is the first time in my life that I’ve been on long-term sick leave. Apart from maternity leave and the occasional sick day, I have always worked. Constantly. Relentlessly. You could say I became a workaholic without even realising it.

Not because of money.

But because I always felt the need to prove something.

To prove I was strong.
Capable.
Reliable.
That I could handle everything.

I worked even when I wasn’t well.
Even when I should have been resting.

After my surgery in January, I only took one week off before returning to work. During chemotherapy, I carried on working through pain, exhaustion, brain fog, and the countless side effects that treatment brings.

And somehow… I still kept pushing myself.

Then something shifted.

A friend asked me a question that stayed in my mind for days:

“Are you choosing money over yourself?”

And for the first time, I truly stopped and listened.

I still have chemotherapy and radiotherapy ahead of me. My body is exhausted. For so long, I placed everyone and everything before myself, even work.

But I’m beginning to understand that rest is not weakness.
Slowing down is not failure.

And my body is not working against me.

It has been trying to speak to me all along.

This song is about finally hearing that voice.
About returning to myself without needing to prove anything anymore.

More rest.
More softness.
More presence.

Less pressure.
Less performance.

Just learning how to be human again.

And maybe this is something many of us are quietly learning right now.

To stop abandoning ourselves just to keep everything going.
To stop measuring our worth through productivity.
To stop waiting for permission to rest.

Sometimes healing begins the moment we finally listen.

🤍

🎧 Watch “I Hear You Now” here: