06/12/2025
My friend asked me a question last week that I still can’t answer.
We were sitting at my kitchen table, half-drunk cups of tea between us.
I’d been venting about work feeling heavy, the kids barely calling these days, and this gnawing sense that I should be “further along” by now.
The safe stuff.
The stuff that sounds true but isn’t the truth.
She was listening, nodding gently, until she suddenly tilted her head and said:
“Hey… can I ask you something?”
I smiled, thinking she was about to tease me for my terrible attempt at meditation or the fact I’d eaten cereal for dinner again.
“Sure,” I said.
She took a breath.
“When was the last time you felt like yourself?”
I opened my mouth.
And… nothing.
Not “I went for a walk last week.”
Not “when the kids were little.”
Not “on that holiday five years ago.”
Myself.
A version of me that wasn’t exhausted or stretched thin or trying to hold everything together, so nobody saw the hairline cracks.
I couldn’t remember.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
She nodded, like she’d already guessed.
I thought about that question for days.
At 3:12 AM when my mind was rehearsing conversations that never happened and catastrophes that probably never will.
In the car, after snapping at a driver who wasn’t even doing anything wrong.
In Woolies staring at yoghurt, suddenly realising I had no idea what I even liked anymore.
I’d been so many things to so many people for so many years.
But me?
She felt like a ghost I kept trying to catch in the corner of my eye.
I’d survived so much.
I’d held entire households together.
I’d swallowed my feelings, softened my edges, said “I’m fine” even when my insides were screaming.
And somehow, despite all the reading, the therapy, the podcasts, the journaling, the trying…
I still felt like a stranger in my own life.
Later that week, my friend texted me:
“Can I share something with you? Something that helped me?”
I almost didn’t open it.
I was tired of trying things that gave me hope for 3 days and then made me feel like a failure again.
But she’s one of those friends who doesn’t send fluff or fixes.
So, I opened it.
“It’s a coach,” she wrote.
“A women’s midlife coach. I’ve been working with her for a few months. And if I’m honest… she’s the reason I can breathe again. She doesn’t do that fluffy self-care stuff. She helps you figure out why you keep abandoning yourself and how to stop.”
I stared at the message.
Another coach?
Another thing I’d start with good intentions and fall apart on?
“What makes her different?” I typed.
A few bubbles appeared.
“She helps you get underneath everything. Like the patterns you don’t even know you’re living in. The people-pleasing. The resentment. The exhaustion you pretend isn’t exhaustion. She helps you clean it up at the root — not band-aid it.”
Root.
That word hit me right in the chest.
Because I knew my problem wasn’t motivation, discipline, or mindset hacks.
It was the quiet, unspoken truth:
I’d been running on survival mode for so long I didn’t know how to not be in survival mode.
“She helped me find me again,” my friend wrote. “And honestly… I think she’s who you’ve been looking for.”
Something in me cracked open.
Not in a dramatic, cinematic way.
More like a soft exhale I didn’t know I’d been holding for years.
So, I clicked on the link.
There was a photo of a woman — warm eyes, grounded presence, the kind of person you instinctively feel safe exhaling around.
Her words felt like someone finally speaking to me, not at me.
She was describing me.
Burnt out, stretched thin, holding everything but myself.
I booked a call.
I almost cancelled it.
I told myself I was being ridiculous.
That I should sort myself out on my own.
That other women coped, so why couldn’t I?
But something in me — the tiny whisper of the woman I used to be — said:
“Just try. You’ve carried enough alone.”
So, I didn’t cancel.
And in that one conversation, this coach — this stranger — reflected back a version of me I hadn’t seen in decades:
A woman who was tired, yes.
But also wise.
And brave.
And ready.
She said, “You’re not broken. You’re just operating from patterns that were never yours to carry. We can clean that up. You’re closer to yourself than you think.”
I cried. Not the ugly sobbing kind.
The quiet kind where tears fall before you realise you’re crying.
And I swear that moment alone was worth everything.
That was eight years ago.
I’m not “fixed.”
I’m not perfect.
But I’m no longer disappearing inside my own life.
I speak up now.
I rest without guilt (most days).
I make decisions from clarity, not fear.
My relationships feel healthier because I feel healthier.
And I’m finally — finally — becoming someone I recognise.
And someone my kids can look at and say, “Mum… you’re happy.”
So if you’re reading this and something inside you whispered, “This is me”…
I want you to know the truth:
You don’t need to keep holding it all together.
You don’t need to wait until you break.
You don’t need to figure it out alone in the dark at 3 AM.
There’s a way back to yourself.
And you don’t have to walk it by yourself.
The work that saved me became the work I now do.
After finding the coach who helped me come home to myself, I trained, studied, learned everything I could…
and became a coach for midlife women just like me.
Women who lost themselves while holding everyone else.�
Women who survived so much but still feel stuck.�
Women who want to feel grounded, confident, clear — not just functional.
Now, I’m the coach I desperately needed back then.
The one who helps you unpack the patterns,
untangle the survival wiring,
and rediscover the woman underneath the roles, responsibilities, and years of self-sacrifice.
If the kids are grown and you suddenly have space but no roadmap…�
If you’re tired of being tired…�
If you want to feel like you again…
And something inside you is curious, hopeful, or quietly saying “maybe this is the moment”…
Reach out.
Start a conversation with me.�
No pressure. No performance.�
Just truth, support, and a path back to yourself.
I became a coach to guide women through the very journey I walked.�
And if you’re ready, I’d be honoured to walk beside you too.
