Self Belonging Studio

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Self Belonging Studio

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09/03/2026

One year of trying and generally failing to take a good photo together 😂

A year ago, my upstairs team got very insistent that it was time for me to have a cat again. I’ve always been my best self with a cat bestie and always feels like there’s a part of me missing when I don’t.

I even had “get a cat day” marked in my calendar but on that day I ended up flying back from NZ from my Grandma’s funeral. One week later, I was at RSPCA NSW not knowing who I would find there but that she was waiting for me. She’d been there 5 months and was grieving her elderly dad who had passed away. I cried on the floor of the shelter, grieving my grandma and in gratitude for the love I knew was awaiting both of us. We renamed her Andarna (from Fourth Wing) and she has proved every bit like her namesake 😆🐉

It turned out the urgency wasn’t for her, it was for me. Less than 3 months later (how long it takes for cats to warm up to a new home) I was bed bound with crippling autistic burnout and a 6 month road of recovery ahead. She was and has been by my side every day and night (whether I like it or not!).

She snuggled clients in session, tolerates the children, and not-so-secretly loves her Dad best (he shares his dinner!).

The smoochiest darling wirh the most unfortunate lack of photogenics - we love you grumpy face and sass and all x

08/15/2026

Earlier this week I did something I’ve never done before, and held a self-celebration 🥳

While I’m queen of the birthday month, this was something extra special. It was a reflection of my health and healing journey, my latest burnout ashes to rising story, and the subsequent creation of something so divinely guided and magical to me that I KNEW (aka my upstairs team told me to) that I needed to do this launch differently.

I’ve usually been too wrecked to enjoy my book launches and community events, but this one I put everything I’ve learnt into practice and it was one of the most calm and connected moments I’ve experienced - so much to share on this - later!

I had my family and a few of my close friends come to my home, enjoy some nibbles my mum made, obsess over the florals my friend Karina and I put together from local markets, and Dad took some lovely photos because the op-shop gods gifted me this amazing outfit! I wrote each guest a thank you card and that in itself was such a healing practice.

I got to share my gratitude, my self reflection and my dream for the newly launched Self Belonging Studio (yes I did a PowerPoint presentation and it was beautiful.)

I can honestly say this was one of the most vulnerable things I’ve done (and I’ve published, twice!), and one of the most powerful signals I could send to my nervous system about how much I am loved, supported and celebrated. Turns out when you tell the right people that things are a Big Deal TM to you and what makes you feel celebrated, they are delighted to do so with you!

My gratitude is still flowing, even as I now gently recover from the good stress and life resumes. Thank you all for being here!

Anna 💜

08/11/2026

LOADING….

08/09/2026

Something NEW is coming this Wednesday and I’m sooooo excited to share it with you!
I’ll be over here mainlining matchas and making excited squeeeeee sounds until then - see you soon! X

07/29/2026

Obsessed with moments of reflection on my morning walks, literally and metaphorically. I love how there’s some parts of reality that the reflections don’t quite capture, and how the reflection makes a whole new picture out of a mid-point in between.

I feel like being truly present with our aliveness requires a vantage of both: to see the details, the nuance the pesky details of life that can cloud our vision if we only look at them. And, to see a bigger picture made from all the pieces to create a new kind of whole, but often missing the how and the what of things.

Pausing to enjoy this view enough to want to share its splendour with you seems like a worthwhile reverence of the way life, in turn, is always reflecting us back to ourselves 🩵

07/23/2026

Having my own kids was never on my agenda (so grateful other people had my kids for me!), but this season of life feels like what I imagine the postpartum period to be when people say “it takes a village.”

I’m birthing new work, a new practice and my new self all at the same time. I’m deeply in love with what I’m creating. It’s a privilege and a gift. And, I can’t do it alone.

My family are still supporting me financially.
My mum brings me meals and snacks.
My partner is cleaning, adjusting, making the plans.
My friends are loving me from a little further away, and, I know they’re right there.
My coach is showing me the ropes of a new kind of existence.
My clients are so kindly honouring the rhythm that works for me to be able ro show up for them.
My cat is still both my great joy and a cuddle menace.

My success in creating a life that is feeling for the first time truly and completely mine is directly proportional to the support I am given, AND am willing to receive. This receptiveness has been a huge lesson that I still find stretchy in many ways.

Leaving the cocoon and returning to the world has been a wild little ride, and with uni starting next week I expect it to be a bit bumpy (and I’m so excited to get my nerd on again 🤓 ).

What I no longer expect is for myself to pretend to be ok throughout this next season. Pretend I have it all figured out. Hide how I’m feeling and coping. And that, among the many other lessons I’ve learned, makes all the difference.

Grateful for all the words of great encouragement (said in Rocky’s voice) and for everyone whose path is travelling along side mine. I see you and us growing and learning the new ways together 💜

07/12/2026

This is not a humble brag post.
It’s a soft-won, I am here post.

7 months ago, in the throes of my fourth seizure relapse of the year and severe autistic burnout, I honestly didn’t know if I’d be able to return to work, let alone work I love with that fire-in-my-soul kind of feeling.

In some ways I didn’t return at all. Because something entirely new had to be created.

There is nothing hard-won to be found around here. I had to abandon what had become too hard. The more I go through this journey, the less it becomes a hero’s one: it’s not about conquering, overcoming, or having to become someone new. It’s not about proving, earning, success or salvation.

My stories are living-with and living-from ones.
They’re about seasonality and needs being known and met, and patience while dreaming. They’re about remembering and restoring my connection to myself, and how I rewove my life to be something new and different from those threads instead, to make something that for the first time feels truly, resonantly mine.

Returning to my clinic and my wonderful clients this week was a privilege, a joy, and a wonderful win. While rebuilding capacity and functionality are precursors to it, what I’m celebrating most is finding my way back to my Self and this work as an expression of that. Some days it’s a few written words and others it’s a full day of clients.
And I finally get that both of those are just as valuable as each other when acceptance and expression are the measures I choose.

So thank you to everyone who joined me this week! Thank you for your belief in me and yourself to do this deep and transformative work.

Thank you to my family and my love for meeting me every step of the way on this journey. For your support and care and tolerance of my nerdy deep dives into everything I’ve learned along the way - it’s been so much!

Think you to the people reading my posts and articles and letting them lift you in some small way.

Yours in happily tired gratitude and inspiration,

Anna x

07/08/2026

New over on Substack, a personal share of one of those ‘aha!’ healing moments where all the dots weave themselves into a story too beautiful not to be written and shared.

Join me in a ponderous wander through some seemingly seperate self-parts that when presented together show the complexity of how adaptation (masking) develops, builds and centralises into identity over time. And, the gentleness needed to begin the unmasking process.

Just for fun, also enjoy some snaps from over the years!

New FREE Substack subscribers also get access to my newly recorded audio chapter Gifts of the Liminal - link in bio to grab that too 💕

Address

San Jose, CA

Telephone

0276208085

Website

https://selfbelongingstudio.com.au/

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