Arva Seddiq

30/07/2025

There is a fine line between baby and toddler, or teenager and adolescent.Each phase is obvious, measured by age, by ability, by development.

But when does womanhood really begin?

Society tells us it’s when we tick all the boxes: accomplished, valuable, contributing. You can tick every box they give you and still feel like a little girl inside.

Like something in your heart, your mindset, the way you feel inside… has been stuck in time, waiting for someone to finally tell you it’s safe to step into womanhood.

You notice it in those moments when you worry about trivial things. When you’re scared to make your own decisions.
When your voice doesn’t come out, even when everything in you screams SPEAK.

When you seek permission to stop, to start,to move. When you do things for admiration or applause from those who raised you. When their approval is still the only sign you’re waiting for to feel valuable and worthy.

And when you don’t get it, you try harder, you push more, you overfunction, with that need inside that just wants to feel seen, worthy of praise, worthy of admiration.

Maybe you do this because you never learned differently. Maybe because the line between adulthood and womanhood is blurry. Or maybe because nobody ever told you: It’s time for you to step into womanhood.
I’ll speak about this on Sunday’s podcast episode.

27/07/2025

New podcast episode is 🆙

This episode explores what happens when we take on every role....friend, fixer, therapist, caregiver, until there’s no room left to just be ourselves. If you’ve ever felt invisible, emotionally overloaded, or unsure where you end and others begin…...

23/07/2025

Over a decade I’ve been away from my city.

For years, I was coming back here trying to show that I didn’t change so I could feel like I still belong.
That I’m the same girl who left this place at 26.

In doing so, I would often shrink myself, silence myself, just so I wouldn’t intimidate the people who only know the old version of me. But during this trip, I really saw that I have changed. And no matter how much I try to hide it, it leaks.People feel it and see it.

And this time, I didn’t feel embarrassed by the change.I felt proud of it.

You see, we often avoid change because change makes us feel like we don’t belong anymore.
When we stop living the version of life that made us feel accepted, we step outside the narrative. We’re no longer the same as everyone around us.
And that space outside the narrative is lonely.

If we don’t build the capacity to hold space in that loneliness, we shrink back because we’re terrified of what it will cost us to own the change.

But if we’re honest, everything is already changing. For better or worse. So why do we expect ourselves to stay the same? Because as long as we don’t change, we don’t challenge the people watching us. We let them stay comfortable in their denial.

As long as you’re just like me,
as long as you don’t challenge me,
we’re good.

But if you rise,
if you bloom,
if you live joyfully, abundantly
then you’re not “good” anymore.
Because now you mirror to me what I haven’t chosen for myself.

So we trade ourselves… one layer at a time
betraying our own fullness and brilliance,
just so nobody feels intimidated by our rising.

Bravery shaped me.The decisions I made in fear brought me both wisdom and confidence. Thousands of kilometers of traveling built my awareness. Seeing different versions of myself across cultures and challenges birthed this version of me, a woman who is no longer afraid to own her change or celebrate it, regardless of who feels uncomfortable.

Once you reach the point where you no longer care how others perceive your becoming, once you start chasing the change within, once you feel that self-betrayal costs more than staying in the narrative…. you become free.

20/07/2025

New podcast episode is up… 💎

There are always those stories we tell ourselves that sound wise…the stories we use to explain why now isn’t the right time, why it’s not that bad yet, why we’re still thinking about it. And as long as those stories exist, we don’t move. This epis...

13/07/2025

New podcast episode is live… 🚀

I used to hand people the remote and then get upset when they pressed the wrong button. This episode is about what happens when we expect others to guess how to treat us, instead of giving them the manual. If you’ve ever felt misunderstood,  ...

07/07/2025

I wrote this text a few times, and while doing it, I had a few of my own breakthroughs.

First I was watering down my words so you don’t feel called out. That alone uncovered trade-off of my life, the one I’ve worked so hard to break: the belief that I’m responsible for everyone’s comfort.

Second, the heaviness in my content. I realized it’s not because life is still heavy, it’s because I’ve been afraid to own the light. Because the moment I say I don’t suffer anymore, I become different. I become the one who no longer normalizes collective suffering among women.

But it is light for me now, and it can be light for you too, if you’re willing to stop lying to yourself about why that light isn’t possible for you. I could give you ten ways to make your life lighter, and you’d give me twenty reasons why none of them will work, because as long as you have excuses, you don’t have to change anything.

But once you strip away excuses, what’s left is agency, and that’s terrifying, because once you see agency, you see responsibility. And once you see responsibility, you have to act on it. That means difficult conversations, choices, boundaries.

And that brings you right back to the beginning of this text…standing in the discomfort of being different. Not bonding through suffering.

Staying where you are carries a slow discomfort that chips away at your soul day by day. Choosing differently brings temporary discomfort, but on the other side of that, it becomes easier.

It becomes a blooming marriage, a real partnership built on mutual respect and support. Motherhood that isn’t heavy and full of guilt, but anchored in leadership and overflow. And from that place, your identity finally gets space to breathe.

Your voice becomes valued, your boundaries come from love, not collapse, and because of that they’re respected.
Your life becomes full, and from that fullness, you give more not less.

Which discomfort do you want to feel?

The one that destroys you slowly or the one that’s hard at first because you’re doing something you’ve never done, but gives you everything you’ve been wishing for in the long term?

You choose.

06/07/2025

New podcast episode is live ❤️

In this episode, I share how I rebuilt my confidence from scratch: writing in a second language, starting a podcast when no one was listening, and refusing to wait  before starting. If you’ve ever felt like you’re not “naturally confident,” t...

30/06/2025

As far as I remember, I always carried a deep confusion inside me. Whenever something happened and I felt hurt by someone’s actions, or I reacted strongly, I would question whether I was allowed to feel that way. Was I too sensitive? Was I reacting from trauma? Or was what they did actually not okay? I could never fully tell. That question lived inside me for years.

This internal conflict made me shrink. It made me doubt myself, feel guilty, ashamed, and constantly confused. I started my personal development journey convinced that the problem was me, that I was the one who had to fix the way I see things, the way I feel, the way I respond. I thought my trauma made me overreact, and that the safest thing to do was to keep quiet and manage my emotions.

I still remember the night something cracked open. I was curled up on the bed crying, and I kept repeating the words: “Your truth is valid regardless, but the meaning you assign to it can be different.” I sat with that sentence over and over. Does that mean I had the right to feel what I felt? Does it mean I’m not responsible for making everyone comfortable? Does it mean I can trust my signal without turning it into a story about being wrong or broken?

Something clicked. It felt like the missing piece. After that, I started seeing it everywhere… in every woman, in every room. How we shrink our truth to stay likable. How we silence what we know because we’re scared it will make someone else uncomfortable. How we stay in roles that feel safe… endlessly patient, endlessly kind… because standing in what we really feel is terrifying.

We make it logical. We tell ourselves we’re just tired, it’s not a big deal, it will pass. But the truth doesn’t pass. It piles up. It lives in the small trade-offs. The ones where we think, “If I do what I need to do, they might not like it. I might break the peace. I might lose the connection.” So we stay quiet, and we keep performing harmony.

And then one day, she shows up. The version of us who is angry.m, screaming, exploding. Because nobody took her seriously when she was calm. Nobody heard her when she whispered. Now she roars and suddenly everyone listens. But instead of relief, she feels guilt. Shame for how it came out. Guilt for the noise she made just to be taken seriously.

It’s a loop so many women live in. In their marriage, in business, in parenting, in friendship, even in how they care for themselves. Underneath all of it is a silent agreement: I’m responsible for keeping this room peaceful, even if I lose myself to do it.

I watched it and I lived it. And then I found the way out. I found a frequency that honors her and honors others. One that doesn’t hurt people, but doesn’t betray her either. A frequency of dignity. Where she stands upright, leads herself clearly, and takes herself seriously. And something powerful happens when she does. People start taking her seriously too. She doesn’t have to scream anymore. Because she no longer abandons herself to keep the peace.

This post came from that place. From dignity. And maybe, if you’re still reading, you’ve seen it too. Maybe you always knew you were right. You just didn’t have words for it…… until now.

29/06/2025

New podcast is live. This one will hit every woman who’s been holding it all alone.

You don’t wake up resentful. You become resentful one trade-off at a time. In this episode, I break down what resentment actually is, why it builds without words, and how we keep trading our truth for temporary peace—until we can’t anymore. I...

23/06/2025

Yesterday, my cat got a silvervine stick.I had no idea what it was, and for the first time, I witnessed an animal’s full-body reaction to it…pure joy, rolling, rubbing, making sounds I’ve never heard from her. It was hilarious and kind of magical.

Curious, I jumped on Google.Silvervine, it turns out, is a plant, similar to catnip but more potent, that creates a euphoric response in cats,a natural high.

And as I watched her, I thought…how amazing would it be if we had something like that too?Something we could sniff or touch or do, and suddenly be in love with life, bursting with energy and joy. And then I thought of beauty.

You know those women who create beauty from everything, maybe you’re one of them?
The kind who brings care and intention into every detail.Plate isn’t just a plate, it represents her. Vase isn’t just decoration it’s evidence of her alignment. She turns everyday moments into rituals.Her cup of tea comes with a wooden spoon for honey and cookies on the side.

I always admired those women, and deep down, I always wanted to be like that.

But I grew up practical. If the plate holds food, it’s enough. If the mug fits enough tea, it’s fine.Nothing had to be beautiful, just useful.

But yesterday, watching my cat roll around in bliss, I wondered…maybe our silvervine stick is beauty.Maybe our life force returns when we start creating beauty around us.

But of course, it’s not that simple, there are layers of permission buried underneath.

Can you spend on the mug you loves, just because? Can you release the voice that says, “better use that money for the kids”?
Can you wear the pretty dress, even at home, even if it gets stained?
Can you lift your head from obligation and say, “I choose beauty, ritual. I choose me.”

You see everything begins and ends within.

What we allow ourselves to want, to need, to dream, to claim is all a matter of whether we decide we’re allowed.

When you declare your belonging to yourself so loud, your love for life so loud, that you create magic in everything around you… just because you want to that becomes your silvervine stick.

22/06/2025

New podcast episode is live 🚀

We all have an inner voice, but some of us are being bullied by ours. In this episode, I talk about the quiet ways we disrespect ourselves.If you’d never speak to someone you love like that, why is it okay when it comes from you?

20/06/2025

My mother told me I was a good girl when I was little. I never went far from the house without telling her. I was always playing around, going up and down the street carrying a small suitcase with Mickey Mouse pictures on it, full of cut-up paper that I pretended was money. She says children would listen to me. She would send me to the grocery store, I would carry the money, and the other children would carry the groceries. I think that split for me began in my teenage years, when I wanted to do things my own way. I stopped being the good girl and started looking for my voice.

If I pull a parallel between my childhood and adulthood, I can see a clear blueprint of my life. Most people think you go into personal development because your life is collapsing. But for me, it wasn’t like that. I had struggles, like most women, setting boundaries, overfunctioning, overperforming. But underneath all of that, something felt off. I didn’t just want to fix things I wanted to understand why they were this way in the first place. Why we accept it, why we normalize it. I didn’t want to live life on autopilot, repeating what I saw around me.

Once I looked at the blueprint of my life, I could clearly see how I was mixing roles. I pulled a straight line between how I behaved as a child and how I was showing up now in motherhood, marriage, friendship, and family. The patterns were almost copy-paste.

As a child, I was bossy with other kids so in adulthood, I took over and led in places where I didn’t need to. I was praised for being the good girl so I kept performing perfection to avoid conflict.

My childhood games were centered around proving I mattered being the capable one, the good one, the one who always knew what to do. I followed all the rules so I kept choosing safety, even when I knew it was costing me.

Even though we all perform “adult” roles, the truth is most of us are still behaving like children. We remember what it felt like to be told we made a mistake, so now we attack anyone who challenges us. We remember what it meant when someone saw our flaws, so we hide and avoid accountability. We remember being rejected when we said no, so we stay good and agreeable no matter the cost.

Building awareness around this is powerful… but also terrifying. Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. You can’t keep blaming everyone else, you can’t hide behind your behavior and pretend it’s just how life is, because now you know.
And even if you go back to your old patterns, there’s a split inside you, the part that whispers: You knew better… and you still chose the safest option.

Once you understand the blueprint of your life, you’ll see that the majority of the roles you’re playing, you’re playing them wrong. You’re mixing roles.

We become friends to our child when we should be their parent.
We become mothers to our husband when we should be equal partners.
We become sisters to our friends when we should just be friends.
We become little girls around our aging parents when we should be adult daughters.

And once you see this, you realize it’s time we grow up and start playing the roles we’re meant to, not the ones frozen in us since childhood.

Could you be brave enough to write out the blueprint of your own life?To see where you’ve been mixing roles and where your responsibility really begins?