I'm Natalie Lou and you're listening to the Baggage Reclaim sessions.

Hello hello, hello guys. How are you all doing?

I am feeling excited and nervous. I'm excited because I know that what I'm about to talk about is like, it's important. I know that something will change for me when I'm really honest

about what I have been going through. And at the same time I'm nervous. And I think that that's more, not because I think that anybody is going to judge me,

or maybe somebody will. But more so because when you talk about maybe your innermost

thoughts and feelings, you know, that's really vulnerable, but it's got to be done.

The funny thing is, is even before I put it out there that this,

that the podcast was going to come back even before I

recorded the episode I knew I was going to have to talk about this and actually I've known that it's important for me to do this for quite some time,

and that it shares a lot of parallels with how I originally started out.

Thirteen years ago, at this time 13 years ago,

I was experiencing an awakening.

I didn't know that I was.

I mean, I think actually, I think I knew I was experiencing something I just wouldn't have called it an awakening then

I didn't know that you know about a month later that well baggage reclaim would become something. Yes, baggage reclaim didn't exist

13 years ago when I was going through what I was going through. At the time I taught openly about my struggles on my then personal blog.

I talked about my struggles with this sort of sense of abandonment,

not liking and loving myself, being in unavailable relationship after unavailable relationship after unavailable

relationships, settling for less than what I need, like just not being me and about how me having that blog and expressing how I was feeling or what I was going through, even if it was purely for comedy.

I suddenly made me notice certain things about myself.

And when I shared my experiences at that time. I thought I was weird. Like I thought I was

weird for always going out with Mr Unavailability. I was for going out with

...