The kings and queens of the push through

I tend to work with a lot of high achievers who come to me in midlife in a quandary. They are either burned out, they have lost their motivation or they have lost their inner compass. They are incredibly capable people. Brilliant creatives, leaders and thinkers, the people everyone relies on to get the job done or come up with the solution.

When they come to me there is something fundamental happening underneath, deep in their system, that they can’t solve or workout. They have lost connection with their deepest needs and desires. Their emotions, what they value, what is important to them has become fuzzy. Something is wrong in their world and they cannot put their finger on it. They are overly tired or have lost their zest. This drives them crazy, they feel like a failure because they are so used to solving all the problems. They love solving problems and creating value.

It is a body in freeze.

For many of us, we are still functioning and functional freeze is the nervous system’s quiet survival strategy: a blend of dorsal vagal shutdown with just enough sympathetic activation to keep you moving, performing, achieving.

You look “fine,” you produce, you deliver, you impress people but you have lost connection with your internal world. You’re upright, responsive, competent but you feel dead on the inside. No real vitality, internal pulse or felt sense of self.

Digital Art - Kellie Stirling, People thawing their freeze

For many overachievers, this becomes the air they breathe until their body says No, not any more. Often it happens at midlife.

So how does this overachieving freeze pattern start?

Well most overachievers learned early in their life that there needs were either: inconvenient, ignored, criticised, overwhelming to caregivers, unsafe to express or simply too much.

So they adapted in the only way their system knew how, they turned down the volume on their body and turned up the volume on their mind. They became brilliant, fast processors, high-capacity thinkers. They became the problem-solvers, the responsible ones, the reliable ones.

But brilliance built on freeze has a cost. We stop listening to the signals from our body. We stop listening to the signs of tiredness, of what a NO feels like in our body. We learn to override our basic impulses. It is not coincidence. Is is a pattern.

Productivity culture is built on functional freeze.

We applaud over-functioning and self-sacrifice. We reward output and speed and we celebrate people who “just keep pushing through”. I think a lot of Gen X’ers learned to do this early, because in their teenage years they spent a lot of time on their own and just had to get on with life.

We call this excellent work ethic, resilience or commitment. But what if much of what we call “productivity” is actually a socially-validated freeze response?

I have had so many clients, mid forties to late fifties, post-menopausal, who make a big career change and then come to me saying, I don’t know what is wrong with me, I just feel out of sorts. I get stuff done, I am a doer. Nothing is wrong with any of them. Their body has just simply stopped cooperating with the override. Or guys who come to me and say they know their life has to change, they are on the precipice of existential change but they don’t know where to start.

When you have spent decades powering through the classic, go, go go. Your body has a way of bringing you back into right relationship with it. As we age, our hormonal cocktail starts to change and menopause has a way of stripping down and highlighting our compensatory strategies. The freeze structure that held everything together began to collapse. Remember the developmental challenge of midlife is radical honesty, come back to the truth of who you really are.

Gently and slowly we work together to slow down. My client's nervous system immediately start to show what they have been trying to outrun. The survival strategies that were created as children to stay safe aren’t working anymore. Their body is setting a boundary. The freeze is ready to be thawed.

This is why burnout in midlife spikes.

Women lose hormonal scaffolding that kept them overriding their body. and men hit existential thresholds where achievement can’t fill the inner void. Our careers peak while capacity starts to decline. Many parents carry the emotional and logistical load for teens and ageing parents. and many of us find the nervous system can’t run the childhood strategy anymore.

People think they’re falling apart. But what’s falling apart is the freeze, not the person. Burnout is both exhaustion and it’s the breakdown of the freeze scaffold. Burnout is the point where the body says, “I’m not going to keep doing this.”

Overachievers don’t lose their motivation they lose their override strategy. When the freeze starts to thaw, we start to feel all the things we have been pushing down for years. The anger, fatigue, hunger, sadness, longing, boundaries, desire and our No.

For many overachievers learning what a No feels like in their body can be a big revelation.

Many overachievers are very creative. They have lots of ideas. They get excited by their ideas, creatively, strategically, intellectually their mind is alive. They can get flooded by them too and want to put them all into action. Not doing so feels like a failure. Something I have learned personally that I help my clients with is our freeze makes us believe these ideas have to be acted on.

Every impulse becomes pressure, every spark becomes a project, every inspiration becomes responsibility something we feel we absolutely must do. This is where burnout can accelerate.

One of the most powerful shifts in my own midlife has been learning that you don’t have to act on every idea. You can feel it, sit with it and let it breathe.

Sometimes an idea is complete simply by being witnessed. Sometimes it is enough to journal it, or talk it through with a colleague or friend. Sometimes you just have to write it down and let it sit for a few months.

This is how you slowly retrain your system, that not every idea has to be acted on. You start to rewire your nervous system and you will notice that the compulsion to act will turn into more capacity. The pressure to act can turn into being present, and the need for action will become digestion.

To come out of functional freeze we work slowly, relationally and somatically. We learn to track micro-sensations and small pulses of movement. We learn how to set tiny boundaries, small steps at a time. We learn how to titrate our life. Small changes 1% more each day. We learn to enjoy receiving the co-regulation from our somatic therapists and/or coaches. We start to notice we are slowing down, 1% more each day and then we can recognise that rest isn’t a weakness it is a signal. We start to notice, that we are noticing how we feel and we let our ideas sit and percolate rather than having to act on them.

Most importantly we learn that our value isn’t earned by producing. Value is inherent because you are here, you are alive. Your body is your home, your garden, your temple. It is not a machine.

Your needs matter.

Fawning: why we mirror, merge and self-abandon

Seven years ago, I read Pete Walker’s book on complex PTSD, and it was the first time I truly understood the nervous system response of Fawning. I had known the behaviour as “people pleasing,” but I hadn’t realised until then that fawning was a protective response our body utilises. As I explored it more deeply, I realised it was everywhere and that it was not a personality trait, but a strategy our system uses to keep us safe, particularly in the face of a power-over dynamic.

How many times had I sat in conversations in the workplace where a person was labelled a people pleaser as it if was a personality flaw with no true understanding or curiousity of what was driving it. Let alone acknowledgement that this person does not feel safe. I realised right then that fawning shows up in so many ways. I see it in people who over-function, some organisations are run off the back of employing a workforce who constantly does this. Entire customer service cultures are built on fawning.

Fawning is a nervous system strategy that supports us to stay in connection when we feel unsafe and we are in a double bind; where there are real consequences for us not to fawn. We all do it. Women are a little more predisposed to it because we have lots of estrogen and oxytocin is the neuromodulator of our body. What that means is that bonding and connection helps us regulate and process our lives. It can come up at anytime because it is a strategy your autonomic nervous system uses to keep you safe. If it doesn’t work you go to fight and flight, then freeze. It is a cascade.

Men fawn too, not to soothe, but to belong. Male fawning often looks like “fitting in,” but underneath is the same physiology. In very masculine coded work cultures you see this all the time. Men fawn to avoid being the odd one out. They mute their sensitivity or complexity, mimic bravado or certainty, abandon their authentic relational needs and shape-shift to avoid being shamed.

Digital Art, Kellie Stirling. Woman merged with nature

When we fawn we shapeshift, so we morph into a version of ourselves that feels the most likely to keep us safe. For some people, fawning looks like becoming more of who they are; more charming, smart, generous, funny or adored. For other people it is about being less of who you are; less vocal, creative, smart, self-assured or even able to set boundaries. Fawning shows up sexually, in money situations or, in the constant emotional regulation of other people.

We all know about fight, flight and freeze. The fawning response is different because it is a hybrid of these. The hyperarousal part of fawning encourages us to lean into relationships that are causing us harm so we to appease the person. The flight response, self-abandoning to stay safe. The hypoarousal part, or freeze part, numbs our connection to our needs and desires, so we don’t feel the effects of the harm we are experiencing.

When we fawn, we mirror or merge with someone else’s desires or expectations of us to stay safe. We do this to defuse potential conflict because that is our best chance of maintaining safety. In most of these situations there is a power over relationship. Someone has power over us. When we merge or mirror, whilst it keeps us safe, we forgo our own desires and agency and become overly accommodating of others. We become shapeshifters moulding ourselves to each scenario and person. We abandon ourselves, what we care about, our opinions, desires and what we value.

Fawning is so culturally imbued in our society that we are conditioned from a young age to do it. Think of these statements: “give your uncle a kiss”, “be the better person”, “take the high road’, “be a team player’, “you have to learn to compartmentalise it'‘, “just go with it”. We say these every day and they normalise fawning.

Fawning is a common coping system for people dealing with ongoing relational trauma. It also occurs in larger systems of oppression or marginalisation where we must let go of aspects of ourselves to secure membership or a sense of belonging. Over time fawning becomes a systemic pattern.

Individuals don’t just fawn, systems induce fawning. Some examples I see frequently include: A leader who is dysregulated will have a whole team fawning to avoid triggering them. A family with a narcissistic parent creates children who become emotional caregivers or family systems with rigid hierarchy. Workplaces where vulnerability is punished. Relationships where one partner regulates through dominance.

Fawning is not a personal pathology; it’s a predictable adaptation to power-over cultures. So you can see it is not about being nice, it is a nervous system adaptation to relational power dynamics.

One of the deepest wounds of fawning I have observed is the disconnection from anger. Many fawners cannot feel their anger; not because it isn't there, but because it has been repressed for survival. Anger felt too dangerous, too destabilising, too likely to provoke retaliation or abandonment.

So internally, they learned that their anger was not safe and put them at risk. The thing is their anger doesn’t disappear, it goes underground. Into the unconscious.

Over time, this suppressed anger can turn into resentment, chronic tension because you are constantly bracing, exhaustion or collapse, health issues particularly autoimmune issues and a fierce inner critic who constantly self blames.

Restoring healthy aggression, the energy of our boundaries, clarity, and self-protection is essential. But it must be done slowly. Really slowly. Because letting that much anger thaw all at once can overwhelm the system that originally buried it to stay safe.

How do we stop Fawning?

Well it starts with finding safety in the body. You can’t talk yourself out of a fawn response nor can you mindset your way through it. Your nervous system needs to feel safe in the body to try anything new.

The work looks like being able to notice the early cues the anticipatory smile, the shallow breath, the scanning of the other person’s mood and gently interrupting the impulse to fix or appease. Learning to feel tiny drops of healthy anger in an incredibly titrated, slow and digestible way. Allowing the internal critic to soften, which often happens naturally when anger can finally move outward instead of being turned inward

Learning to stop the fawn process from being pervasive is the process of reclaiming power-within, instead of surviving through power-over dynamics. Our fawning response is wisdom it is not a flaw. It has kept us safe and will continue to do so, when we need it in the moment. Our fawn has kept the peace and helped us to function in environments that could not hold our full aliveness.

It is profoundly healing for us to notice our fawn patterns (and to continue to be able to notice them in the moment) and gently let them loosen their grip. Over time it becomes a survival strategy we have access to, not our default mode of functioning. When you start to let go of it you are not losing the nice aspect of yourself, you are becoming more You.

Lying in the Dark

One of the things I find most interesting is that we are all, on some level, afraid of the dark. I don’t mean the literal dark, like the night. I mean we are afraid of dark emotionality, dark times, dark moods, that dark place we go when we our life is changing dramatically, death. We are afraid of all that dark.

What I find so striking is that the dark isn’t foreign to us. It’s the first home we ever had. Before we had language, consciousness and identity, we were held in a warm, fluid, completely dark womb.

For nine months, the dark was our sanctuary. We were nourished, protected, and completely connected without ever seeing a thing. We didn’t need sight to feel safe, or light to orient. Our bodies knew how to rest and grow in the dark.

Isn’t it ironic that we spend the rest of our lives fearing the very place we began?

Popular culture treats the dark as something dangerous or disorienting, a space where we lose ourselves. But from a somatic perspective, the dark is often where we find ourselves again. Because the dark asks nothing of us. It doesn’t demand performance, productivity, clarity, or answers.

The dark invites us to rest, to slow into ourselves and just be.

The dark womb is an archetype of profound safety, not because it is soft and easy, but because it strips away everything that is unnecessary. In the dark, we are not seen for what we do. We are held for who we are.

Maybe that’s the deeper truth; the dark isn’t here to frighten us, it’s here to return us to ourselves.

There are seasons in life when everything familiar falls away. Not by choice or spiritual aspiration but because life itself becomes a burning ground. My cancer journey was one of those seasons.

I remember feeling stripped bare, not just physically, but emotionally and existentially. It wasn’t simply the fear or the medical complexity. It was the sense of being dismantled at every layer. The parts of me that used to hold me together stopped working. My usual ways of coping fell away. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide inside myself. In fact, I found the best place to be was in the present. I must admit that it felt like being dropped into the dark womb of the world and strangely, or maybe not that strangely at all, that’s exactly where the healing began.

We all have experiences in life where we feel like everything is being burned down and we are going to fall into our own dark hole. You don’t need to have cancer to experience this. Midlife, menopause, divorce, grief, trauma healing, big career transitions, or sometimes all the above at the same time. The thing is they all bring us to the same threshold.

That threshold is a place where you realise you can no longer be who you were, you feel rudderless, but if you can stick with it you have this deep sense of knowing that you are being carved into who you truly are. You are becoming yourself.

While this process can feel brutal, it’s also profoundly sacred.

Sometimes life breaks us open so the truth can finally be felt. Sometimes life drags us into the dark so we can be remade. Sometimes life strips us bare so we can emerge more honest, more embodied, and more deeply alive.

When we come through the other side of these big life transitions, we often notice that yes we are still here, but we are not the same person we were before. We will never be that person again.

There will be parts of you that survive and are the same, there are parts that are gone and there are new parts of you that are being birthed.

During my treatment I spent my days resting and I read a lot. I came across Meggan Watterson’s Divine Feminine Cards (which are great by the way) and within them I found the archetype of the Black Madonna. I would shuffle the cards and many times she would just drop out.

The Black Madonna, archetypally, represents the power we all have to emerge from dark times transformed. Jungian Analyst, Marion Woodman believes that the Black Madonna represents a new awareness or consciousness toward out bodies. She represents the wisdom we can only gain when we go through the painful fires of transformation.

The Black Madonna is not the soft, glowing mother of the light. She is the fierce mother of the dark.

She is the one who meets us in our descent, not to pull us out, but to sit with us in the shadow until something true emerges. She is the archetype of the underworld, the womb, the ashes, the grief that breaks us open.

By connecting with this energy I can tell you that I felt spiritually held; not by something that promised rescue, but by something that promised presence.

The Black Madonna taught me that the dark is not a punishment. It’s a crucible. A crucible is what alchemists used to melt down metals to turn them into gold. The dark and our grief that often comes with it, are a crucible, a container that holds us.

So what burned away for me? Well a few things, a compulsion to hold everything together and the pressure I put upon myself to be endlessly available, a need to make other people comfortable and identity shaped by survival rather than by my soul. What emerged and was born was a quieter and steadier self with clarity about what actually matters, a deeper respect for the wisdom of my body and its profound capacity to heal, an acceptance in the fragility of life whilst at the same time being able to hold a deep trust in life.

The darkness, the feeling of burning down or being stripped bare, it wasn’t destruction it was actually refinement.

If you are in your own dark season right now, feeling like you are burning down, or you are lying down in a hole and can’t move, I want you to know this. What is burning down or being stripped away was never meant to be there.

Like the Black Madonna, the dark can hold you whilst you let go of whatever you need to. It is not to rush you or rescue you, but to support you and witness your becoming.

Because sometimes the most loving thing life can do to us is strip us bare so we can finally see ourselves clearly.

Belonging everywhere, nowhere and to ourselves

If you have ever wondered ‘where do I belong?’, you are not alone. I see it come up in coaching work all the time. Every big transition in life stirs that questions within us. It is our body and our psyches way of recalibrating. Making space for the next version of you to emerge.

The tender questioning of where we belong isn’t a flaw, it is part of being a human. Each transition asks us to find a new version of ourselves. It is a basic survival needs of humans to feel that we belong. We humans are mammals and we are wired for connection.

We spend so much of our lives searching for belonging; in relationships in communities and at work. Sometimes we find it. There are moments when belonging wraps itself around us so softly we barely notice it. Sometimes it slips through our fingers. The truest home we will ever know is the one we carry with us: our body. My body is the house that I live in. The place I return to when everything else feels uncertain, the memory and echo of every place I have ever been and seen, live within it.

Every version of me that once searched for home lives in my body.

There are moments when the world opens to us, when we feel connected to a person, a landscape, a shared purpose. These moments are luminous. We feel the pulse of life running through us, the sense that we’re part of something greater.

It’s easy to think, this is belonging. It is, for a time. But belonging to the world is fluid, it changes, shifts, and evolves as we do.

Then there are the seasons when we don’t fit anywhere. We grow and we change constantly. The old roles don’t suit us, the conversations feel thin, the places that once felt like home start to feel foreign.

That ache of displacement can stir a deep questioning, Who am I now? Where do I belong?
It is here that imposter syndrome often arises, whispering, I’m not enough. I don’t belong here.
But imposter syndrome isn’t proof of inadequacy. It’s a symptom of disconnection from self-belonging, a signal that we’ve drifted from our inner home and started measuring our worth through someone else’s eyes. It is not surprising to me that many people experience this at work, particularly when they are promoted to a new role, because we are constantly judged by external frameworks in organisations. Like show dogs who constantly have to jump through hoops to please. Few people feel like they can be themselves at work. If you do feel that, you are one of the lucky people.

When we come home to ourselves, the landscape changes. We remember that we belong, first and foremost, to ourselves, to the body we inhabit. We reconnect with our own heartbeat, our breath, our quiet sense of deep inner knowing.

Belonging to yourself is not about isolation; it’s about full bodied integrity. It’s the grounded sense that, no matter where you are, you can meet life from a place of wholeness. It is the warmth in your chest when you tell your truth, the grounded spine when you say no, the quiet smile when you know that you don’t need to prove a thing. You no longer need to perform or prove. The voice of imposter syndrome softens because you no longer outsource your worth.

Somatically, this is felt. A softening in the shoulders. A deepening of breath. A quiet, anchored presence that says: I am here. I am enough. I am mine.

In midlife something shifts for most of us. A new north star begins to emerge.

Midlife often unravels the old anchors. The identities that once defined us, parent, partner, professional, caretaker, begin to dissolve or shift. Our compass spins. The ground beneath us feels less certain. It is less about fitting in and more about who you are becoming.

But this loss is not emptiness; it is space. It’s the fertile ground where the new north star begins to form; one that reflects not who we were told to be, but who we truly are.

To find that star, we have to do the healing work: to meet the parts of ourselves were left behind, to grieve what’s ending, to feel the sensations of transformation moving through our body. This is where somatic work becomes essential.

Through the interoceptive lens, through noticing what’s happening inside, we begin to meet our emerging self not as an idea, but as a lived experience. We reconnect with our wholeness, with all the parts of us that are ready to come home.

We belong everywhere and nowhere and ultimately, within. Belonging is not something we earn or find; it’s something we remember.

The work of midlife, and really of a lifetime, is to come home, to feel safe inside your own skin, to live from the quiet strength of belonging to yourself. From that place, connection flows naturally. You can meet life, love, and change with openness, because your roots are within you.

So pause.
Breathe.
Feel the house you live in.
Let your body remind you. You already belong.

Things I have learned about meeting my edges

Edges we all have them. Some whisper slowly and some flatten us in a moment. A few years ago, a friend said to me, you meet your edges with grace. At the time I must admit I was perplexed by the comment. Mainly because like many people, when I hit my limits and edges I struggle. Edges arrive in many forms, a conversation that stirs something deeply uncomfortable, a season of uncertainty, a devastating illness or a body that whispers enough. So I have been reflecting on this comment this year and I thought I would write about it.

I used to think edges were something to overcome. Now I see them as initiations, thresholds where life invites me to grow a new layer of being. I view them as portals not problems. I have come to understand that every edge , whether burnout, grief, conflict, or uncertainty, is a threshold moment. I don’t try to cross it quickly. I tend the threshold until my whole being is ready to step through. I take my time (where I can), and on the other side, I always emerge with a new layer of wisdom that I quietly weave back into my life, my relationships and my work.

I have always viewed my edges and limits from a perspective of curiousity not control. When something feels uncomfortable, in my body, a relationship, or a system, my first instinct isn’t to fix it. I listen to it with my five senses. I try and get close enough to sense what wisdom it’s carrying. Through years of embodiment and somatic practice, I have trained my nervous system to stay present with discomfort until it reveals the deeper pattern beneath it. This has not been easy, it is very hard work.

Connecting with my body has taught me when to rest, when to deepen and when to let go and shed. There is regenerative intelligence in going slower, what looks like retreat can often be fertile integration. My Winter season has taught me to trust the stillness. Spring, to let new growth emerge without forcing it. The tides, always the tides, to remind me that contraction and expansion belong to the same dance.

I’ve discovered that when I meet an edge, the first thing that matters is slowing down. My mind wants to sprint ahead, but my body asks for stillness. If I can pause long enough to feel what’s happening underneath the surface, the contraction, the ache, the flicker of fear, something shifts. The edge becomes less like a wall, and more like a doorway.

Meeting my edges has taught me that they reveal what’s ready to be integrated. They show me the places I’ve outgrown my old ways of being. They ask for tenderness, not toughness. Sometimes the most courageous act is to soften, to stay present, to breathe until my system remembers that it’s safe to expand again. I don’t do this on my own, I ask for help to hold the container so my body can do what it needs to do.

I have come to understand that meeting your edges in relationship is so much easier than doing it on your own. Healing and growth happen in relationship. I don’t isolate when I reach a threshold, I lean into a trusted circle, my friends, my health providers, my husband, or nature itself as co-regulators. I have learned that building a circle of support around you is one of the most constructive things you can do to live well. I allow others to witness me in the process, those people I have secure connection with are the most supportive to my nervous system. There is something about being seen that can turn fear into belonging.

I definitely meet my edges somatically, not conceptually. Well to be fair, I might start reading about something that is coming up just to get more context and understanding, but I know that path through, is through the body. I’ve come to learn how to locate tension, grief, or fear in my body and to feel it as sensation rather than make it a story. Because our body records every experience of our lives and that tension or emotion is my body’s story. I let my body lead the dialogue: sometimes through stillness, sometimes through tears, sometimes through movement or sometimes just be being in nature. Those edges of mine then becomes a living conversation between my nervous system and my consciousness.

I try to meet my edges in rhythm with nature. There is something incredibly healing about learning about our inner seasons, that brings us back into right relationship with our internal rhythms. I don’t push for transformation, I let it compost. I have noticed both within myself and with my clients, that going slow is more effective, nuanced and has more depth than pushing fast.

Connecting with my body has taught me when to rest, when to deepen and when to let go and shed. There is regenerative intelligence in going slower, what looks like retreat can often be fertile integration. My Winter season has taught me to trust the stillness. Spring, to let new growth emerge without forcing it. The tides, always the tides, to remind me that contraction and expansion belong to the same dance.

Perhaps most of all, I’ve learned that every edge is a form of love, life calling me deeper into myself,
asking if I’m willing to be even more fully alive.

What edge is alive for you right now? Take a moment to feel it in your body.
What might it be inviting you to see, soften, or grow into?

Edges are not walls, they are doorways. Today, notice one edge you’re facing.
Slow down, breathe, and feel what wisdom it might hold if you pause long enough to meet it.

Menopause, coming home to the body's wisdom

It is world menopause awareness month, and like I do every year, I am going to write about it and focus on it for a few weeks. I coach clients through many different life transitions, and menopause wrapped into our broader midlife transition, is the most challenging many people experience. That is because for many of us, our body is going through such a profound shift and biological rewiring, that most of us cannot push through it.

Which is annoying for many because if you are a Gen Xer, you learned to be the Queen of the push through.

Much of the conversation around menopause today is about managing symptoms; balancing hormones, finding the right supplement, or seeking a medical fix for what feels uncomfortable. While these supports can be helpful, they only touch the surface of what this transition is truly inviting us into.

Menopause is not a medical condition to be managed. It’s a profound biological and emotional reorientation; a call to come home to the body’s wisdom after decades of living in our heads, pushing through, and taking care of everyone else.

For many of the women I work with, mostly Gen X women, this transition feels like hitting a wall. For those of us who grew up in the 1960s and 70s, a time when emotional awareness simply wasn’t part of family life, we are suddenly faced with a bucket load of previously ignored feelings and we cannot seem to stop them anymore. We never learned how to safely experience them in the first place. Major things happened in our families and in our communities when we were growing up, and often, no one talked about them. We spent our teenage years roaming the streets after school, hanging out with friends, figuring life out on our own. There was freedom in that, but also a quiet loneliness. We learned early on that to cope, we had to hold it together and we had to do that on our own or learn from each other.

I don’t know about you but I have never met a teenager with a regulated nervous system; its more about co-dysregulation that co-regulation. Which is not surprising given the hormonal shifts and brain rewiring going on in their bodies. Guess what? Our bodies are doing the same thing but in the opposite direction, preparing us for the next stage of life.

As a result, many of us became women who are both hyper-independent and who have incredibly high standards. We are for the most part, competent, capable, and relentlessly self-sufficient. We learned to fix things, to keep going, to never need too much. Somewhere along the way, we equated worthiness with being in control.

But menopause calls all of that into question.

The body begins to speak in new ways through heat, sleeplessness, tears, irritability, or sudden waves of emotion that can feel both foreign and inconvenient. These aren’t problems to be solved; they are signals from the body, asking for attention, softness, and presence.

In my work, I see how powerful it is when women learn to be with what’s happening rather than fight against it. When we slow down and notice the sensations moving through us, the tightness, the bracing, the pulsing, the warmth, the ache, we start to rebuild a relationship of trust with our own body. Over time, this presence helps us gently accept what arises and to fully inhabit our experience.

Many people find at this time in life they have to go back and educated themselves on many things about their body, particularly the impact of changes to our sex hormones, on the hormonal cocktail within our body. It is not just about estrogen and progesterone, there is also insulin, ghrelin, leptin and cortisol levels that are impact by these shifts. They impact both our metabolic health and also our emotional health because our endocrine system is the deepest system in our body and all our body systems work together.

As women learn about their changing body they become more comfortable in their it; they often notice that their relationships shift too. When we’re no longer fighting or fleeing from our own discomfort, we stop projecting it outward. There’s less reactivity with our partners, our kids, our colleagues. There’s more space for connection, empathy, and repair.

There is often a bit of work to do here because most of us did not have our emotional lives fostered as children and teenagers. Combine that with a good whack of cultural shame about having feelings, about women’s menstruality, about being a good girl and not rocking the boat, there is a lot of unpack.

Menopause will show you where you need to focus your attention because it will bring it up front and centre for you to pay attention to. If you don’t attend to it, it will just hang around until you do. So that anger and resentment that has reared its head. That is your body’s wisdom asking you to learn to hold healthy aggression in your body. We need to have anger, it protects our boundaries, it keeps us safe and it fuels our passions.

This is one of the quiet gifts of menopause: it brings us back into relationship, first with ourselves, and then with others.

But this process isn’t easy for our generation. We were raised to keep moving, to stay strong, to fix. Softening, resting, and receiving can feel unnatural, even wrong. Yet that’s precisely what this life stage is asking of us. It’s a somatic initiation, a shift from doing to being, from control to surrender, from self-criticism to self-compassion.

When we begin to trust the body’s wisdom, menopause becomes less about loss and more about liberation. It’s an opportunity to unlearn the old patterns that kept us safe but small, and to step into a more grounded, embodied form of power. One that no longer relies on effort, but on presence.

Menopause isn’t the end of vitality. It’s the beginning of living from a deeper, wiser rhythm, one that the body has known all along. It is a gentle reminder to pause, breathe and notice what your body is telling you.

The power of midlife initiation

Our culture, driven by the cosmetics industry, has created a very distorted, narrow narrative around women, ageing and menopause. One the one hand we are subjected to endless anti-ageing advertising that equates youth with worth, desirability and visibility. On the other side there is a one size fits all mainstream solution, given to women when they reach perimenopause or menopause that HRT will solve all their problems and you can carry on as if nothing has changed.

All of this ignore a deeper truth; menopause is not a problem to fix. It is a profound transition physiologically, psychological and spiritually. In many cultures, it has been seen as an initiation into wisdom and power. Our western productivity focused culture, dismisses that and is focused on keeping women youthful and functional rather than moving through this transition with dignity, agency and choice.

What is frustrating for me about this is it creates many big losses and maladaptive issues. The two biggest I see are:

• They don’t get the holistic support they need to actually learn to listen to their body, honour its new rhythms and integrate changes and,

• For society in general, we miss out on the leadership, wisdom and creativity once women aren’t hormonally geared toward reproduction and are able and free to channel that energy somewhere else.

When women step into this new season of life, they expand into their social and relational power. This is the stage of eldership, where wisdom, creativity, and leadership can flourish.

I am not saying HRT is wrong, it can be super supportive when you are going through this transition which takes years, but it shouldn’t be the only story. Midlife offers an invitation to step into a new way of being with our body and with life itself, rather than staying locked in the old story.

Menopause, when not pathologised, is often a time when childhood and ancestral trauma comes to the surface, because the body is less able and willing to keep these patterns locked down. Hormonal changes will drive changes in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) so layers of freeze stuck in the ANS can come up strongly. It is your body telling you it cannot carry this anymore.

I do a lot of work helping women reclaim healthy aggression and what I find is that we are so culturally conditioned to suppress our anger, which is suppressing our life force energy, our boundaries and our right to take up space. So doing this work to reclaim our aggression is deeply countercultural. Because what the cultural script tells women is quiet down, look young, stay useful in ways we deem okay (appearance, productivity and caretaking). The deep truth about menopause is it asks us to reclaim all of this. It is inviting us to reclaim our vitality in a different form, one that is fierce, wise, protective and deeply relational.

In modern society we see a loss of interdependence in modern family systems. In many cultures, grandmothers were never ‘done’ after menopause. They became pivotal in holding the community web, through storytelling, wisdom keeping, guiding younger adults, offering support to children without being a primary caregiver. Our isolated nuclear family model is what contributes heavily to burning women out, not the fact that they are ageing.

So the cultural story becomes ‘you are no longer fertile you are less valuable’. When actually the truth is the opposite. This is the time in life when women expand their social and relational roles, if the culture allows it. Throughout my career I have seen many women thrive once they entered midlife, either in new business ventures, in community work, in advocacy work. They really are in their prime.

So this life stage is not just about personal healing, it is about cultural repair.

Midlife is this pivot point: either a woman breaks free from the old narratives and survival patterns, or she risks staying trapped in victimhood, silence, or suppression. When a whole generation of women stays trapped, society loses out on the wisdom, leadership, and fierce love that could be shaping our communities, workplaces, and systems.

At a peace summit in Vancouver in 2009 the Dalai Lama said ‘the world will be saved by the western women’. Well I think its women globally actually. If women embrace this midlife initiation, they don’t just heal themselves, they begin to model a different way of being in power. A power that is relational, embodied, self-authored, and deeply interconnected into the web of life around them.

When a woman can step through her midlife transition with the right support, they don’t just attend to their own healing and personal growth, they become catalysts for cultural change. Connecting to their voice, their presence, expanding their capacity to step into and become their personal power, ripples out into families, workplaces and communities.

This is the work of midlife: not just healing ourselves, but reshaping the world through connection with the deep essence of who we really are and the authority of who we are becoming.

The soul of sensuality - awakening the beauty within through pleasure and presence

Most of us do not enjoy sitting with uncomfortable feelings, we tend to try and escape them. At midlife, many of us experience a lot of discomfort because a lot of our old patterns and habits that no longer serve us, come into the forefront to be dealt with and healed. The body has such a unique capacity for healing and as we age and grow through our life stages, it gives us many opportunities to heal our childhood adaptive strategies to come home to our core self.

Midlife is huge transition for most people. As our bodies start to age and we enter perimenopause, things start to shift and what once worked for us no longer works. Whether it is the way we exercise, what we eat, our arousal patterns, our behavioural coping strategies, everything seems to be thrown up in the air. What most people report is a sense of confusion and betrayal by their body.

More than ever, as you enter this stage, you need to learn how to meet and be present with the feelings and emotions you are experiencing and give space for them to be expressed. This can be challenging, particularly when many people grew up in environments where they were not able to express their emotions, so their management strategies are all about repressing and squashing down said emotions.

Our sensuality, can be a beautiful bridge of support for you to connect with your pleasure, and that pleasure can be wonderfully supportive in regulating your nervous system (which drives you behavioural responses), restoring trust in your body and repairing any past wounding around sexuality.

Artist unknown

In fact, reclaiming your sensuality can be one of the most supportive practices you can use to reconnect your body and restore a sense of awe, reverence and wonder for it. Sensuality is about being alive and present to your senses - taste, smell, touch/feeling, sight and hearing. This makes it a safe and accessible starting point for women feeling disconnected from their body. And yes, it is also a doorway to your sexuality because sensual practices are like portals to embodiment and presence, which naturally open the door to pleasure and the body feeling safe again.

When we are able to connect with pleasure and what feels safe inside our body, we lay the foundations for deeper sexual awakening and expression, because sensuality practices can be a rehearsal space for women to explore their bodies and remember and/or learn what feel good without any pressure.

For many people sexuality can be extremely complicated. It carries the weight of cultural conditioning, expectation and often pain. Before we dive deep into exploring our sexuality, which can feel like an enormous burden, sensuality offers us a gentler path.

Sensuality is the art and practice of being alive to our senses. Its the visual feast of the mountains, streams and lakes, the taste of ripe fruit of your tongue, the feeling of the sun on your face, the texture of silk against your skin and the smell of your favourite meal. Unlike sexuality, their is no overhanging expectation of performance, outcomes or anyone else’s involvement. It is quite simply, you and your body in deep connection.

Through our sensual practices we return to our body as home. We learn to connect with our body again and trust it one small breath at a time, one sensation at a time. When we learn and connect with what feels safe and pleasurable within us, the doorway to our sexuality can open naturally without any force or agendas. Sensuality becomes the practice to connect with ourselves and experience intimacy; with ourselves, with life and when we are ready, with another.

A huge part of trauma healing work I do through somatic experiencing is about connecting people with their sensuality through the use of the language of the Felt Sense. Sensuality practices are not just physical practices they open, through the ability to focus on our internal experience, our felt sense which is the language of our nervous system.

When we use this approach, we bypass the logical mind which often drives many women to approach pleasure practices with an underpinning drive of shame (I should be able to do this). The nervous system doesn’t shift through thinking so we can’t think ourselves to safety. When we use the language of the felt sense we drop into sensation; the warmth of my belly, the softening of my jaw. We bypass corticol control and connect with the truth of the body.

Each time we feel, notice and observe or savour we are witnessing our bodies story instead of ignoring it or overriding it. This transforms sensuality into not just a pleasure practice but also to deep belonging, to oneself and to life.

How do we practice the felt sense of sensuality?

Notice one sensation - maybe the warmth of your hands, or tingles in your feet. Stay with it, without judgement. Notice what happens in your body.

What are some simple sensual practices you can try?

• Applying oil or moisturiser to your skin, slowly and intentionally,

• Pausing to smell flowers in a garden and noticing when you smell that flower, how you feel,

• Moving your body to music in a free flowing way - not following a dance routine or sequence,

• Savouring the smells and tastes of healthy food,

• Laying still and gently placing one hand on your womb and one on your heart, noticing your breath and feeling warmth expand in your body.

Sensuality is not an indulgence, it is a remembering. Pleasure is our birthright, our bodies are designed brilliantly to feel, to savour, to awaken. Our sensuality is a pathway to our personal agency and power, not through striving and pushing ourselves but through softening and slowing down, to being present to each day of our life, moment by moment.

If you would like to practice some feminine embodiment practice, I have a complimentary mini course on my website that may be supportive of your sensual learning.

Co-regulation, sharing joy, awe and wonder

My husband and I go for a walk most days. It’s our rhythm — a way to move our bodies and catch up on the day. Yesterday, something unexpected caught our eye. Tucked along the top of a fence were a handful of tiny plastic ducks, placed as if they'd just wandered into the world on their own. There was no sign, no explanation. Just… ducks.

We both smiled, paused, and shared that kind of gentle, wide-eyed delight you get when something small pierces through the ordinary — wonder, joy, amusement. We giggled and wondered who might have placed them there. There are several schools in the area and we thought maybe one of the high school students. We wondered, is it art? Is it a puzzle? Or, did someone do it just for their own delight? And as we walked on, I noticed: I felt better. Not just because of the ducks, but because of how we felt together.

You see, you could have easily missed these tiny ducks they were as big as an Australian 5 cent coin. If you were caught in your head thinking about some problem, or looking elsewhere, looking at your phone, you would never have seen them. I will admit my husband saw them first, I was looking at some trees wondering when winter will end and when might the leaves start to arrive. As we started looking together, we saw 8 little ducks along two streets over an 800 metre stretch.

That moment we experienced together was co-regulation.

Co-regulation is more than a feel-good moment — it’s a biological necessity. Our nervous systems are constantly scanning the environment and people around us for cues of safety or threat (neuroception). When we feel safe with someone, our ventral vagal system activates — this is the branch of the parasympathetic nervous system responsible for connection, calm, and social engagement.

Co-regulation is the process by which our nervous systems connect and attune to one another, helping each other return to a state of balance, calm, or connection; especially after stress or activation. It’s something we are wired for, from birth. In infancy, we rely on caregivers to regulate our nervous system through touch, voice, gaze, and presence. As adults, we continue to rely on co-regulation in our relationships, though we often forget just how powerful it is.

At its heart, co-regulation is:

• Relational regulation: one person’s regulated state helping another feel safe, grounded, or more connected.

• Non-verbal: eye contact, tone, facial expression, body language, even silence can co-regulate.

• Mutual: it’s not about fixing, it’s about being with.

• Built on safety: when we feel safe with someone, our nervous system can soften and settle.

Co-regulation matters to the nervous system because it is foundational to nervous system health supporting vagal tone, heart rate variability and overall resilience. It supports our emotional well-being because when we share these tiny moments of joy, we feel less alone and more supported, seen and understood. It fosters trust and attunement, between partners, within families, friendships and teams, Co-regulation is supportive of trauma healing. Remember Trauma occurs when we experience too much, too fast, too soon or too little for too long. Healing happens in safe relationships when we can go slowly together. It is fair to say that without co-regulation our nervous system could end up in a constant state of vigilance or shutdown. With co-regulation we slow down, we are more present and we expand our capacity to feel joy, grief, pleasure and connection.

How do we find these moments for co-regulation?

Well every day offers us opportunities of ‘moments of tiny joys’.

We often think co-regulation has to be deep, profound or emotional. It can be, and, it can also be simple and playful too. What matters is the shared presence and the ability to attune to each others experience.

When I was going through cancer treatment five years ago, I decided I wanted to practice orienting to pleasure and what feels good to support my nervous system. You see I knew that small moments of pleasure are very healing for the nervous system. So I used to go for a small walk twice a day. This was during the pandemic, so often I would see my neighbours and we would stop and chat from a small distance; remember we had to social distance, and my immune system was smashed from chemotherapy, so I really had to mind how close I got to people. But what I really attuned to was admiring people’s gardens and the plants and flowers. You see I love gardens. My husband and I really looked forward to these small walks because they helped both of us in our own way and we could appreciate the moments of tiny joy in what was a really tough time for us.

““Being awestruck dwarfs us, humbles us, makes us aware we are part of a universe unfathomably larger than ourselves… Wonder makes us stop and ask questions about the world… whether spectacular or mundane.””

— Phospherescence - Julia Baird

What are some practice ideas for you to find little moments of co-regulation with another person?

Walking rituals: Regular, low-stress time in movement and nature together.

Noticing beauty: Make it a shared game to find one “small wonder” each day — something delightful, surprising, or tender.

Name the moment: Saying aloud, “That’s so sweet!” or “That made me smile” helps anchor the moment and co-regulate more deeply.

Touch points: Eye contact, a hand squeeze, a shared laugh — they reinforce safety in subtle, nervous-system-friendly ways.

You can build a micro-ritual around this — one that supports connection even during stress or busyness.

So here is your invitation to think about what brings you shared delight, awe and wonder?

What are the small and unexpected things that bring you joy?

When was the last time you felt a quiet togetherness in a moment of delight?

Is there someone you could begin a small ritual of ‘tiny moments of joy’ with?

Remember, co-regulation doesn’t require words, big feelings or problem solving. It begins with another.

Healing our abandonment wounds

Many of us have abandonment wounds. They are deeply imprinted in the nervous system, often at a very young age. When our early emotional needs weren’t met—when we lacked attunement, presence, or consistent caregiving—an abandonment wound can take root deep within us.

There are many reasons this happens, sometimes it is a really stressed or depressed parent, a parent who is extremely unwell themselves, and unable to connect and attune to us. Sometimes it is circumstance. I have worked with many people who were premature babies who spent their first few weeks in a humidity crib, so didn’t get the touch from their parents in those first few weeks to soothe their tiny nervous system. Even though one of their parents were most likely there with them all the time, sitting by them, they were separated by a little wall.

This is how deeply wired we are for connection and co-regulation when we are tiny. Our nervous system learns through regulation from our parents and caregivers.

Abandonment wounds are not always obvious. Sometimes they show up not as a gaping wound, but as a subtle hum of anxiety in our relationships. A feeling of being "too much" or "not enough." A belief that love must be earned, not received freely.

To avoid the unbearable terror of disconnection, many of us learned to fawn. We became hyper-attuned to the emotional landscape of others. We learned to appease, to over-function, to say yes when we meant no. We self-abandoned in hopes of staying connected.

Fawning is a survival strategy. It’s what our nervous system chose when fight, flight, or freeze didn’t feel safe or available. While it helped us survive, it often keeps us from truly living—because it asks us to leave ourselves behind.

Healing the abandonment wound isn’t about blaming our caregivers—it’s about reclaiming the parts of us that learned love meant losing ourselves.

Attunement is largely body based; eye contact, mirroring through action and language and most importantly, we attune through touch. These are all essential in establishing secure attachment. When these components are missing our nervous system learns to perceive that we will be left on our own.

Art - Giulia Rosa

For female nervous systems, which are more finely tuned to social engagement because we have lots of estrogen, which creates oxytocin, wiring us for connection and bonding - this perceived abandonment can often be felt more intensely. So we fawn to establish connection.

When we fawn, when we please, appease, over-function, we abandon our own needs. We stop asking for what we want, because we know our needs won’t be met. We hyper-attune or hyper-socialise to stay connected and receive the sense of love, safety and belonging that we all need at a very foundational level just so we can function.

Healing self abandonment begins when we learn not to abandon our selves. When we learn to feel our big sensations and emotions and stay in our body, expanding capacity inside of us to be with what what life throws our way. When we learn to self-soothe and have our little strategies to come back to our zone of resilience. This establishes a sense of safety and trust within ourselves and then we learn to trust others.

It starts with learning how to stay with ourselves. To feel what we couldn’t feel then. To expand our capacity to be with emotion and sensation—including the terror that once overwhelmed our small bodies.

Very slowly, as we learn to stay, something beautiful happens; we begin to trust that we will no longer abandon ourselves and that safety, the safety of self-attunement, becomes the foundation for all our relationships.

Why the feminine is the change maker - part 2

Last week I started this conversation about why the feminine energy in our culture tends to be the instigator of change. I know this is not always true but I do find that many women whether by choice or force of life events, tend to explore themselves deeply and the fact that we have this deep inner knowing which I talked about in last week’s blog which means we tend to read the ‘tea leaves’ and know when it’s time for change.

Anecdotally, when I think about all the training and professional development I have done over the years, there has always been a much higher percentage of female participants than male participants and so we notice this and we talk about it. You could complain about it and say men don’t do the hard work, but I don’t think this is entirely true because I have lots of male clients and friends who have committed to exploring themselves, but to be honest it is usually after something going really wrong in their lives. Maybe it is that it is women who are the instigators of change in relationships, in families, in cultures. Many studies of couples on relationships and marriages consistently show that around 70% of divorces are instigated by women.

There are many ways we can explore why this happens and I always love taking a Jungian lens on what is actually happening because it always explores the shadow side of everything which I find super interesting. If we look through a Jungian lens, It is always the masculine within the feminine that changes first. In Jungian parlance, the animus (the inner masculine in a woman) seeks direction, clarity, and forward motion. When a woman begins her transformation (say, through grief, menopause, creativity, or awakening), it’s often her inner masculine that reorients first, perhaps by finding new values, boundaries, or purpose. Once that internal alignment shifts, her outer relationships must also adjust. How I notice this in clients is they cannot pretend to be anything other than their authentic selves anymore and this often causes friction in different relationships in their lives as this authentic self in them is emerging. Things can be a bit wobbly for a while as she finds comfort with meeting these new parts of self.

And yes, often this catalyses change in the masculine partner or in the wider system. But not always right away. Sometimes the feminine awakens and moves first, and the masculine (whether internal or external) resists or lags—until it feels safe or necessary to catch up. That friction can either break the container or refine it.

Digital image - Womb in the Sky, Kellie Stirling

Why does the feminine change first?

In the simplest form, we are the ones who can create life and give birth to that. Even beyond biological birth, the feminine is the archetypal womb—the container that holds, gestates, dissolves, and re-emerges. This role isn’t limited to women, but in most systems, it is the feminine energy that initiates the deep work: the descent, the death, the regeneration. Women, especially at midlife, often step into this initiatory role on behalf of their families, partnerships, and communities.

It’s like we become the crucible in which the old dies and the new is born. Let’s look at it from a few different perspectives:

• Biologically: Our hormonal cycles force us into regular encounters with change. Life transitions like menstruation, pregnancy, birth, perimenopause, and menopause demand transformation. For example, every month when we have menstrual cycles, we are moving through a cycle of change, a cycle of birth, death, rebirth metaphorically speaking that is experienced in an embodied way with our menstrual cycles.

• Emotionally: The feminine is finely attuned to relational field dynamics because we have lots of estrogen which helps creates oxytocin. Our nervous system is regulated by oxytocin which acts as a neuro-modulator. Neuro-modulators fine tune and shape how our nervous system reacts to stimuli over time. So we become more relationally attuned and attuned to social safety. We feel what’s missing, what’s breaking down, or what wants to emerge sooner. So oxytocin plays an enormous role in regulating arousal, stress responses and healing.

• Spiritual/Archetypal: The feminine holds the wisdom of the underworld. We know how to descend and return with insight. That’s where true alchemy happens.

So when it comes to relationships, often, when a woman begins to change, it upsets the systemic homeostasis of the relationship. If she holds the relational field (as is often the case), any shift she makes is deeply felt by the other. This can either provoke resistance or invite the partner to evolve too. Sometimes both. In this sense, women often become the alchemical fire that either transforms or reveals what’s no longer sustainable.

Why the feminine are the change makers - part 1

I have been doing a bit of work with a biodynamic cranio osteopath on my pelvis. I have had pelvic issues for years, predominantly starting with a car accident as a kid, and things just go layered upon it. I have worked with different body workers over the years and I have to say it is in a pretty good state now. If you aren’t familiar with this modality it is a lot of neuro-affective touch work, and the body in all its wisdom and intelligence, reorganises, because it knows how to heal. It is very similar to the touch work we do sometimes in somatic experiencing.

My osteopath and I have big chats when I am on the table. Last session she asked me “do you think it is trauma that causes all the autoimmune issues in women”. (if you don’t know the stats, something like 80% of autoimmune condition sufferers are female bodies). I said sometimes, but I think it is because as women we carry so much of the relational field and after a while that takes an enormous toll on a woman’s body if there is not enough sharing of the load going on in the family system or she does not have a good circle of support around her. After a period of time the body screams whether it be relational rupture, physical pain or discomfort, illness. It tells us, things need to change now!

So let’s talk about that because there is a price we pay for holding the relational field.

Why do we hold the relational field and how does it prime us to lead change?

Well some of it is biological, some is cultural and some is archetypal.

Biologically and neurologically we are wired for connection. Our estrogen creates the oxytocin that drives us to connect and attune to our children.

Women’s bodies are literally designed to attune:

• Oxytocin, the bonding hormone, is more prevalent in women. It surges during intimacy, birth, breastfeeding—but also during conversation and emotional connection.

• Our mirror neuron systems, which help us sense and empathise with others' emotions, tend to be more active.

• From a nervous system lens, many women are socialised (and biologically primed) to track relational dynamics, often before we even understand we’re doing it.

The social conditioning is strong. From a young age, girls are typically taught to; caretake others’ feelings, keep the peace, maintain connection and be “good,” agreeable, relationally aware. We are socialised to value harmony over truth.

On a deeper level, the feminine principle (not just in women, but especially expressed through them) is associated with; holding, containing, gestating, weaving the web between things

So the relational field—that unseen space between people where emotion, meaning, energy, and nervous system cues travel—is often carried by the feminine. Not because it’s our duty, but because we feel it first, and most acutely.

Women tend to track what's happening in the in-between. This might look like noticing when something feels “off” even if nothing is said, adjusting ourselves to keep harmony, carrying the emotional labour of a relationship or family.

While this conditioning can be limiting, it also hones an early sensitivity to emotional tone, unspoken tensions, and disconnection. We’re trained, often unconsciously, to sense and hold the relational space around us. My neighbour always said to me, ‘if mum is okay the whole family functions well. If she is not the cracks start to occur’. We are the emotional anchor in the family system.

From a more archetypal or somatic-mystic view, the womb is not just a biological organ but a relational centre; a place where life is created, held, and nourished. Even for women who do not have a physical womb, the energetic imprint always remains. The womb and ovaries have a incredibly strong energetic imprint, so even if you have an hysterectomy, the energetic imprint never leaves you.

This womb-space can sense the field like a tuning fork. It picks up resonance and dissonance, and often prompts us to move toward repair, connection, or withdrawal. So even beyond personality, trauma history, or conditioning—there is an embodied deep knowing that many women carry. A sense of what’s happening in the space between.

The big challenge.

Many women hold the relational field at the expense of themselves.

We track everyone else’s nervous systems, needs, moods—and forget our own. We become hyper-attuned, hyper-responsible, and depleted. This is where somatic reclamation, reconnecting with our body, becomes essential. Learning the skills to come back to your body so you can hear it when it is speaking to you. We learn to track ourselves first, then engage from a resourced place. This is what transforms holding the relational field from a burden into a gift.

It is this gift, that tells us when change is needed.

Women don’t hold the relational field because we ‘should’, we hold it because we are tuned to life, to connection, to what moves between. To coherence in the field, to what is working well and what is not working well.

Midlife, when the cost and payment becomes due.

In midlife, the body begins to speak more loudly. Years of holding the field—of tracking, softening, absorbing—can begin to show up as: chronic fatigue, autoimmune conditions, thyroid dysfunction, mystery symptoms, emotional exhaustion and uproar or a sense of grief no one can name.

Many women reach a point where their bodies refuse to keep playing the role. Where the cost of emotional labor has accumulated and the body keeps the score. Not because we are broken. But because we are done.

I often wonder if all of these health issues in midlife or the tough perimenopause journey experienced by some midlife women are the body’s way of saying:

“You’ve spent a lifetime turning against yourself to preserve connection. Now I’m turning inward to get your attention.”

It’s not our fault. But it is our invitation—to begin again, from the inside out

But we’re also being called now to hold it differently; not by abandoning ourselves, but by anchoring into our bodies, our knowing, our rhythm.

That is where true healing begins, not just for us, but for the whole field we’re in.

The healing path isn’t about abandoning our relational gifts. It’s about reclaiming ourselves as part of the field we’re so attuned to.

It’s about learning to: track our own nervous systems first, let others hold space for us, to feel safe saying no, set boundaries without guilt and recognising that we are not here to carry it all alone

This is where deep nervous system healing and somatic work become essential. They help us untangle the pattern of self-abandonment woven into our care.

We were never meant to carry it all.

We are capable of holding so much but we were not meant to hold all of the emotional dysregulation of others, all of the unspoken weight of a relationship. Nor were we meant to hold all of the relational field of a family, the workplace, the world - at the cost and detriment of our own health.

This is a huge price to pay and our midlife transition is the initiation into change we need to let some or all of it go. When this initiation happens it causes change in all the relational fields we are in.

So if you are finding ourself, exhausted or unravelling at midlife, you are not failing, your are awakening. Your body is asking you to step out of the role of ‘holding all the relational energy’ return to yourself.

I work with women who are ready to listen to what their bodies are saying, to come home to their own rhythm, needs, and truth.

Part 2, coming next week…..

The Siren, the Queen Bee and the Journey back to Self

It was my birthday last week, I had a really great week. As I move further into my fifties I have to say I love this time in life so much. I remember one of my coach colleagues, who is ten years older than me, saying to me about 5 years ago, “Oh the fifties are the best”. I have to say that so far, I whole heartedly agree. There is something really great about not having your life run by estrogen and knowing yourself so well - and being more than happy to explore the deep and dark places when they come up. It is liberating. This is the thing about midlife, we talk about it being empowering and it definitely is. But it is more than that. It is liberation. It is not reinvention but remembering.

Midlife is the moment we stop performing. We descent, we grieve. And, we rise knowing who we are.

Over the weekend, I watched the Netflix series Sirens. I went in expecting dark comedy and fantasy. It was all that but there was also a lot of the cultural underbelly on display. And yes, there were nods to the mythical Sirens—those seductive, powerful figures feared for luring men to their doom—and to Persephone, who descends to the underworld and rises as Queen.

But what stayed with me was something more subtle. More familiar.

The story centred around women who contort themselves—twist their truth, their instincts, their bodies, their very being—to belong. And what shook me was how often I see this in the real world, especially in the women I work with. I see it on social media all the the time. I find it bizarre that there is a whole fashion trend of people dressing in a way that makes them look wealthy. The whole anti-ageing story crafted by the skincare industry; it is really insane. Why does a 65 year old woman have to have skin the looks like a 25 year old’s?

After watching, I turned to my husband and said something about how heartbreaking it was, but also how powerful it is to have a television show that cleverly shows us the mirror on the collective unconscious. He looked at me and said, “This is your work. You help people come back to their authentic selves, their essence.”

He was right.

So many of the people I work with—especially women in midlife—come to me having spent years (even decades) twisting themselves into shapes they were told would bring them love, safety, or acceptance. They’ve played the roles: the good daughter, the accommodating partner, the high-achieving professional, the one who keeps the peace. But beneath all that performance is often a profound grief: the grief of self-abandonment.

That shows up in many different ways, it can be anger, deep sadness and grief, and also a deep searching for something different or more.

Mythology offers us maps for these kinds of journeys. The Siren is often seen as dangerous, but perhaps she’s just a woman who refused to stay quiet. And Persephone? She was taken underground, but she didn’t just return—she rose transformed, a ruler in her own right. Stripped of her ego and connected to her core self.

There’s another layer to the story that cut even deeper. One of the central characters—the so-called “queen bee”—is replaced. (sorry for the spoiler if you haven’t watched it yet) She’s ousted by a younger, much less confident version of herself. At first, we’re led to believe, the Queen Bee is the villain; she was behaving pretty badly. Then we think the younger replacement maybe is, but we soon see the truth. It was her billionaire ex-husband, who represents the culture of patriarchy, who had the real power all along. A cultural narrative, that builds women up, shapes them to a particular taste, then discards them when it gets bored or their behaviour no longer suits.

And what struck me most is this:
She had contorted herself to make him/them happy.
She had shaped her power around what he wanted, not what was true for her.

I see this in so many women in midlife. They realise, often with some pain, that the power they thought was theirs… wasn’t. It was bestowed—by a relationship, a career, a title, a system. It could be taken away. And often, it is. They don’t know who they are without it.

That’s the heartbreak. But it’s also the turning point.

Because when a woman realises she’s been performing power rather than embodying it, she can begin a different journey. One that doesn’t require contortion. One that descends into grief, yes—but also into truth. Into agency. Into the kind of power that can’t be stripped away. She becomes authoring and starts to write her own story.

These stories speak to the deeper truth: that reclaiming your voice, your instincts, your knowing, often requires going into the underworld of your own psyche. It means feeling the grief of the parts you've left behind. It means listening to the song of the Siren—not the one the world fears, but the one that sings from within your own bones.

This is the kind of healing work I guide people through. It’s somatic. It’s slow. It’s deep. We listen to the body, not just the mind. We notice the nervous system patterns shaped by a lifetime of contorting. And over time, a different kind of belonging emerges—one that doesn’t require performance, one that comes from being rooted in your own truth.

The journey isn't linear. Like Persephone, we may descend many times in our lives. But each time, we bring back more of ourselves. And eventually, we stop contorting to fit the world—and start shaping a world that fits us.

It’s not about becoming someone new. It’s about remembering who you are when you stop performing. When you stop shaping yourself around what others want and start listening to your own body, your own knowing, your own nervous system.

If you're in that moment of reckoning…
If you're realising the version of power you held was conditional…
If you’re longing to come back to the essence of who you are—
I’d love to walk with you.

If this resonates with you—if you feel like you’ve been contorting for too long, or if you’re longing to find your way back to your own voice and centre—I’d love to support you. I offer one-on-one coaching and somatic work for women navigating life transitions, grief, and the reclamation of self. You can learn more about working with me or reach out to talk about coaching.

Your real power is not out there.
It’s in you.
And it’s waiting to be reclaimed.

Your journey home to yourself is sacred. You don’t have to do it alone.

The energetics of betrayal

Betrayal is one of the deepest wounds a human can carry — not just because of what happened, but because of the energetic imprint it leaves behind.

When betrayal comes early, it doesn't just teach the mind something — it teaches the body, the heart, and the nervous system. When the betrayal has come from our caregivers the very people who were supposed to love us, keep us safe, and foster our sense of belonging in the world, it teaches that connection isn’t safe, that trusting others is dangerous and that perhaps maybe, trusting myself is dangerous.

The very parts of us that long for closeness are forced to adapt. They learn to duck, weave, armour up, or disappear. They do whatever it takes to avoid feeling that devastating rupture again.

The Energetic Imprint of Early Betrayal

Betrayal creates a deep rupture in the fabric of trust and it doesn’t go away. For many people, the pain of betrayal doesn’t start in adult relationships. It begins much earlier, in the formative years of childhood or adolescence, when someone they relied on — a parent, caregiver, or close friend — didn’t show up in a way that felt safe or consistent.

When betrayal happens early, it etches a kind of template into the nervous system. One that says: “People can’t be trusted.” Or “I have to protect myself because no one else will.” These imprints often live just beneath the surface subtly shaping how we engage, withdraw, or defend ourselves in relationships.

In human terms, that energetic scar can show up as:

• Hypervigilance, constantly scanning for signs of disloyalty or danger.

• Emotional ducking and weaving , avoiding directness for fear of being hurt.

• Self-sabotage, abandoning ourselves or others before they can abandon us.

• Self-betrayal , silencing our needs and instincts in an effort to stay “safe.”

• Avoidance of connection, having relationships that are light or transactional to avoid getting hurt.

• Constant fawning an over-functioning to stay safe within relationships, over attaching, ignoring our own boundaries to avoid further harm.

At a body level, betrayal activates the primal fear of annihilation: "If the people I'm attached to hurt or abandon me, I might not survive." Many people with this wound feel misunderstood and lonely in relationships.

Early friendships and our first lessons in trust

While early caregiver betrayal leaves a profound mark, it's important to recognise that peer relationships — especially in late childhood and early adolescence — can also create powerful energetic imprints.

Many years ago, I was at a Trauma conference lead by Bessel van der Kolk. We were talking about how tween years developmentally, are important when it comes to relationships because they are the first experience we have with betrayal. He explained that the 9–12 year-old stage for kids and girls in particular, is a crucial time for learning about trust, loyalty, honesty, and boundaries. During this time, friendships often become intense and emotionally charged. Young people are testing the waters of emotional intimacy, authority, and social belonging outside of their families for the first time.

He said, ‘12 year old girls are the meanest people on the planet’, we all giggled because we could all relate at some level. This is not because they are inherently cruel, but because they are instinctively testing how far loyalty stretches, what betrayal feels like, and where their own boundaries begin and end.

These early friendship betrayals — being excluded, gossiped about, shamed, or losing a "best friend", can leave scars just as deep as familial betrayals. You may be thinking is there any way we can prevent this? Developmentally, these early close friendships give tweens practice for navigating their first intimate relationships in their teenage years. What is important as parents, is that we offer containment for our teenagers during these years so they are able to process these emotional experiences in a healthy way and they do this through our co-regulation. When you parent teenagers, you will find that what they need is a lot of containment to help them feel all the big feelings they are having which are often overwhelming because of their hormonal surges.

When they don’t receive that co-regulation and containment, they are left out on a limb to navigate this on their own and their nervous system will most likely be quite overwhelmed by this. They may develop unhealthy adaptive strategies to cope and what they will learn is that trust can be dangerous, speaking the truth gets you abandoned and ignored, and your vulnerability can be used against you.

For many women especially, these early relational wounds create an energetic template that later influences teenage romances, adult friendships, and even professional relationships.

Unless tended to, these imprints can quietly guide our choices, our trust levels, and our capacity for authentic connection, long into adulthood.

What happens when betrayal wounds show up at work?

Betrayal doesn’t just haunt our intimate relationships — it shows up everyday in our professional lives too. Most organisations lack any psychological safety and one of the reasons for this (there are many more) is that many people carry an unconscious expectation that colleagues, bosses, or teams will betray them.

As a result, they hold back: not speaking up in meetings, withholding ideas, disengaging from group dynamics, or interpreting neutral interactions through a lens of mistrust. Some may skip meetings or avoid collaborative projects altogether — not out of laziness, but because their nervous system is protecting them from what it perceives as a relational threat. The workplace becomes a battleground of unhealed childhood and teenage wounds, silently shaping how we show up or don’t.

What is the impact of our younger parts taking the lead in our adult relationships?

When betrayal wounds go unhealed, younger parts of ourselves — child parts, teenage parts — often step in to lead adult relationships.

These parts don’t have the skills for mature communication. They know how to survive, but not how to thrive. They know how to protect, but not how to open.

So we might find ourselves communicating indirectly, lashing out, withdrawing without explanation, testing others unconsciously, or assuming we’ll be misunderstood before we’ve even spoken. Our inner child has no place running our adult relationships and when it dominates our behaviour and decisions it often leads to poor choices and outcomes.

Poor communication is not just a skill gap; it's often a symptom of an unhealed betrayal wound.

How betrayal wounds shape who we draw in

One of the most painful patterns is that unhealed betrayal often pulls us toward people who cannot meet us, as friends, lovers or partners, unless they’ve done their own deep healing work.

Without realising it, we may magnetise:

• People who are unavailable, distracted, or unreliable.

• People who cannot understand or hold our unspoken pain.

• People who, energetically, mirror the early betrayals we experienced.

It's as if the energetic wound keeps echoing outward, unconsciously seeking resolution, while simultaneously protecting itself from getting too close. This will keep happening until we do our own healing, the pattern tends to repeat.

What most people find when they do the healing work on these relational wounds, is that they charge they felt when connecting with people who couldn’t meet their needs goes away. They start being attracted to a different type of person.

Image- Kellie Stirling

Healing the energetics of betrayal

Healing betrayal isn’t about telling yourself to "just trust people" again. It's about repairing the energetic fractures in your system, slowly, gently, consistently.

Here’s how it often begins:

1. Rebuilding Trust with Yourself

Betrayal healing involves learning to stay with yourself rather than abandoning your truth to stay safe. Tiny, consistent acts of self-loyalty rebuild trust from the inside out. Keeping promises to yourself. Honouring your needs. Setting boundaries by learning what a Yes, No and Maybe feels like in your body and then learning to listen to that in your body will help to build this skills. Each act sends a signal to your system: I am safe with myself now.

2. Listening to the Younger Parts

Instead of shaming the child or teenage parts for their survival strategies, we acknowledge them and we listen to them. We learn how to reparent them. We show up as the adult they needed but didn't have.

3. Creating Repair Experiences

In safe, steady relationships — whether with a friend, therapist, coach, or partner — you practice staying present through small ruptures and repairs. Many of us haven’t learn how to have a repair conversation when we have a relational rupture. This is an incredibly important relating skill to learn and it is something our children learn through our role modelling of it. Each moment of being seen, heard, and stayed-with, rewires the nervous system’s expectation that betrayal is inevitable.

4. Tending the Nervous System

Betrayal activates primal states of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Through somatic practices — grounding, orienting, gentle self-touch, breathwork — we teach the body that it is no longer trapped in the past.

Healing betrayal is like tending a storm-battered tree. We don't expect it to "get over" the damage overnight. This is slow, long and steady work. We nurture its roots, protect its tender branches, and trust that over time, it will grow stronger — not despite the scars, but through them.

Building a new kind of loyalty to yourself

When we heal the energetic imprints of betrayal — whether they originated from family or early friendships — we become fiercely loyal to ourselves. Not in a hardened, guarded, self-centred way, but in a rooted, emotionally mature, self-authoring way.

From there, we begin to choose relationships differently. We communicate more cleanly. We are able to ask for our desires and we learn to recognise when someone cannot meet us — and we no longer abandon ourselves trying to make them.

And most importantly, we remember: Betrayal does not define us.

The way we choose to heal, love, and live — that’s what shapes who we become.

If you need some support with betrayal wounds so that you can thrive in your relationships, come talk to me about relationship coaching or somatic experiencing.

Ghosting and silent treatment; miscommunication and the avoidance of deep intimacy

Ghosting and ‘the silent treatment’ are often framed as problems of miscommunication, or, poor communication skills. We often tell ourselves that the person simply didn’t know what to say, or how to say it, or that life got in the way. But at there core, ghosting and silent treatment are not just about a lack of words. They are about a deep avoidance of intimacy. This occurs in both intimate and platonic relationships.

For many, the ability to engage in honest, clear communication is not just a matter of willpower; it is a reflection of their nervous system’s capacity to hold emotional intensity. When someone disappears—leaves a conversation dangling, ignores a message, or cuts off connection without explanation—it’s rarely about us. It’s about their own inner world and the deep-seated discomfort they have with relational transparency. It is about not having the spaciousness inside of them, to express exactly how they are feeling.

The more we understand this, the more we can make empowered choices about who we invite into our most intimate spaces—and the more clearly we can recognise when someone’s silence is not just avoidance, but a form of emotional withdrawal known as the silent treatment. Like ghosting, the silent treatment is not a neutral act. It can activate deep wounding and confusion in the person on the receiving end, while giving the illusion of control to the one withdrawing. The truth is, the person is not doing this to get control of the situation, they are doing it to try and get some regulation back into their nervous system. They are overwhelmed by the emotions they are feeling and terrified of deep relational intimacy because they did not have the experiencing growing up where they could talk about their feelings openly and honestly.

They are using silence as a tool to resource themselves.

The Nervous System and Relational Avoidance

Our ability to communicate with honesty and clarity is deeply tied to our nervous system’s regulation. If someone has never developed the capacity to stay present with the discomfort that arises in difficult conversations, their body perceives deep intimacy as a threat. Their system does not register open-hearted honesty as safe.

For people who ghost, or struggle with direct communication, disappearing may feel like the only way to avoid overwhelm. It is not a conscious, malicious act—it is a survival response. Their nervous system is simply not equipped to navigate the vulnerability required for clear, honest communication.

It can hard to be the receiver of this. Silent treatment in a relationship can be very hard to receive, and many people who are on the end of it often feel very lonely in their relationship. They feel very misattuned to and very misunderstood because they are not receiving the mirroring or reflection of their experience back from the other person.

Image - Stockcake

Deep Intimacy Requires Capacity

Clear, open communication is not just a skill—it is an embodied experience. It requires us to feel the full range of emotions that arise when we are seen, when we express our truth, and when we hold space for another person’s truth in return. It means being with the discomfort of hurting someone’s feelings, of disappointing someone, of witnessing another’s emotional response without shutting down or fleeing.

But not everyone has built the capacity to stay present in these moments. Many have never been taught how to regulate their nervous system in the face of emotional intensity. They may have grown up in environments where difficult conversations led to conflict, abandonment, or emotional withdrawal. In these cases, avoidance becomes the learned response. Or maybe they grew up with parents who struggled to acknowledge their own emotions and learned that to express them was messy and unruly, so they would never have been able to be with their kids emotional expression. So the kids learn, we are safe and will receive love if we are very good children who do what we are told and do not complain. Over time, big emotions start to feel unsafe, so we push them away.

Some of us become masters of this and use our enormous willpower to push them down. Others soothe with food, alcohol and maybe drugs just to stay regulated. At some point, typically big life transitions, our body starts to push what has been repressed and ignored back up. This often shows up as conflict in relationships, physical health issues or the person feeling very lost and discombobulated and not knowing what is going on within themselves.

Reframing Ghosting, Silent Treatment and Miscommunication

When we experience ghosting, silent treatment or confusing miscommunication, it’s easy to take it personally. We might feel rejected, unworthy, or left in a state of anxious uncertainty. But understanding ghosting as a nervous system response can shift the way we hold these experiences. It allows us to see that this behaviour is not about us, but about another person’s limitations in holding intimacy.

This does not mean we excuse the behaviour. We can hold compassion for someone’s struggles while also recognising that a healthy, reciprocal relationship requires both people to be capable of presence, honesty, and emotional responsibility.

These behaviours are often rooted in avoidant attachment. When closeness feels threatening, the nervous system chooses distance over connection. Avoidant attachment creates a belief system (often unconscious) that says “If I get too close, I will lose myself’ or, ‘If I express my truth, it won’t be safe’ or maybe ‘If you need too much, I will disappoint you'“.

Moving Toward Conscious Communication

If we want to cultivate relationships rooted in trust and depth, we need to surround ourselves with people who have the capacity to hold both their own emotions and ours. We also need to deepen our own ability to stay present in the face of discomfort.

This means:

• Strengthening our own nervous system regulation so that we can engage in honest conversations without collapse or reactivity.

• Choosing relationships where both people are committed to staying in connection, even when it’s hard.

• Recognising when someone’s avoidance is a sign that they simply do not have the capacity for the depth we seek.

• Honouring our own worth, by not chasing people who are not available for honest, clear communication.

Ultimately, ghosting and silent treatment are not about miscommunication or poor communication —they are about an inability to stay in connection when things get emotionally complex. That inability is rooted in the nervous system’s struggle to feel emotions and feelings that allow us to hold and be present to deep intimacy that we can experience with another person when we have the capacity to be with their feelings. To listen to them, to see them and be able to stay with what they are feeling.

The more we understand this, the more we can make empowered choices about who we invite into our most intimate spaces.

If you would like to expand your capacity for deep intimacy in your relationships come talk to me about relationship coaching.

The fear response, a double edged sword

Fear is a master of disguise. It doesn’t always show up as a racing heart or sweaty palms; sometimes, it speaks in the language of logic, whispering that we’re “not ready yet.” It convinces us to set arbitrary deadlines, create endless prerequisites, or delay action under the guise of preparation. But if we look deeper, we often find that fear is at the root of our hesitation, quietly orchestrating our self-sabotage.

At its core, fear is a survival mechanism, designed to keep us safe from danger. But in modern life, fear doesn’t just react to physical threats—it responds to uncertainty, failure, judgment, and change. Our nervous system doesn’t distinguish between the fear of a tiger and the fear of speaking our truth, starting a business, or pursuing an intimate relationship. It just registers the discomfort and sounds the alarm.

This alarm triggers one of four responses: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Each of these can subtly shape our choices in ways we don’t always recognise and we create adaptive strategies to push through and avoid our feelings. Here are some examples:

• Fight: We overcompensate, push too hard, and exhaust ourselves with perfectionism.

• Flight: We distract ourselves with busyness, convincing ourselves we’re productive while avoiding the real work.

• Freeze: We get stuck in analysis paralysis, endlessly researching or seeking validation.

• Fawn: We over-prioritize others’ needs and expectations, losing sight of our own desires.

Fear as self sabotage

One of fear’s trickiest tactics is its ability to masquerade as prudence. We tell ourselves we’ll launch the business once we get one more certification, we’ll write the book when life is less hectic, or we’ll pursue love when we feel more secure in ourselves. These milestones often feel responsible and logical, but in reality, they are fear-driven delays.

Self-sabotage isn’t always about overt destruction; sometimes, it’s simply about waiting too long. The longer we delay, the more distant our desires feel. And the more distant they feel, the easier it becomes to believe they weren’t meant for us in the first place.

Ignoring our fears

Sometimes we develop adaptive strategies to ignore our fears and push through. This becomes problematic when we learn to ignore the limits of our own bodies and keep on pushing through. Some of us, to have more courage, learn to ignore our fears and push through (I used to do this a lot). The problem with this is that we are ignoring our bodies risk assessment system, our autonomic nervous system, and that ultimately can cause us to get run down, ill or so stressed that our focuses narrows so much we find it hard to function with the complexity of life. So I am not saying learn to push through your fears, I have saying learn to understand them and listen to them, what they feel like in your body. Learn to discern between levels of fear.

Making decisions from a survival state versus coherence and feeling safe

The state we are in when we make decisions matters. When we make choices from a place of survival mode—driven by fear, anxiety, or urgency—our nervous system is dysregulated. In this state, we tend to react rather than respond. Our thinking becomes narrow, focused on short-term relief rather than long-term impact. This can lead to reactive decision-making, avoidance of necessary risks, and choices that feel safe in the moment but create more complexity down the line.

On the other hand, when we make decisions from a state of coherence—where our nervous system is regulated, and we feel safe—our thinking is more expansive. We can be truly strategic, discerning, and appropriately prudent. We’re able to see the bigger picture, weigh options without urgency clouding our judgment, and engage with complexity without feeling overwhelmed.

This is why when we cultivate nervous system regulation—through practices like breathwork, grounding, or simply slowing down—we tend to make more sustainable, wise decisions. The more we develop the ability to recognise when we’re making decisions from fear in survival mode versus from a regulated state, the better we can lead ourselves and others.

“Courage does not always roar, sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow”

Mary Ann Radmacher

So how do we break free from fear’s grip and step toward what we truly want?

1. Recognise Fear’s Voice – Become aware of when fear is masquerading as logic, caution, or endless preparation. Notice when you’re setting unnecessary milestones that delay action.

2. Slow Down and Regulate – Instead of reacting from fear, pause. Use breathwork, grounding techniques, or somatic practices to settle your nervous system so you can make choices from a place of clarity rather than reactivity.

3. Make Micro-Moves – Fear thrives in the enormity of big leaps, but it loses power when we take small, consistent actions. Instead of waiting for the perfect moment, take one small step today. This goes for those of you having to make harder choices at work in your leadership role. Small iterative changes help people to adjust and accept change rather than big sweeping changes that often put people into their survival response and usually result in them trying to avoid the changes.

4. Reframe Fear as a Companion – Fear will never fully disappear, but it doesn’t have to lead. Instead of resisting it, acknowledge it: “Hello fear I see you, and I know you’re trying to protect me. But I choose to move forward anyway.”

5. Commit to Your Desire – If something truly calls to you, trust that desire. Your nervous system might resist, but deep down, your body knows what it longs for. Trust that wisdom.

In our big life transitions we often go through periods of review and reflection. The biggest regrets aren’t usually failures—they are the things we never tried, the dreams we postponed, and the desires we denied. They are often the relationships we didn’t foster or pay attention to. Fear will always try to keep us safe, but safety isn’t the same as fulfilment. The good news? We can choose differently.

What have you been delaying that your heart is calling you toward? What if you took one small step today? Because the truth is, you’re already ready.

Healing Our Trauma: Reclaiming Our Connection with Nature

For me, there is nothing better than walking barefoot in the sand on the beach, then having a dip in the sea. I love floating in sea water and the rocking that comes with floating on top of waves as they ebb and flow. It is highly restorative. It grounds me and brings me back into my body. I can feel my nervous system coming into my zone of resilience.

In the quiet of a forest, the crash of ocean waves, or the vast openness of a starlit sky, many of us feel something stir within—a longing, a recognition, a sense of home, a feeling of belonging. But for many, that connection feels distant, as if nature is something separate from us rather than a living web in which we belong.

Much of this disconnection stems not just from modern life but from unhealed trauma—both personal and collective. Our nervous systems, shaped by past wounds, can keep us in states of hypervigilance or numbness, making it difficult to truly be present with the natural world. However, as we heal, something shifts. We begin to experience nature not just as scenery but as an extension of ourselves, rich with wisdom and reciprocity.

So how does trauma disconnect us from nature?

When we experience trauma, our nervous system adapts to keep us safe. If safety was scarce, our body may have learned to stay on high alert, scanning for danger even in peaceful settings. If overwhelming experiences left us feeling powerless, we may have learned to disconnect, numbing ourselves to sensations—including the subtle, grounding presence of nature.

Maybe you are thinking but I haven’t really experienced trauma why do I feel disconnected from my body. Well, modern life is very challenging and often it is the micro-aggressions of daily life that overwhelm us and this stacks up in our nervous system. All of these moments of overwhelm sometimes hit us when we least expect it and we experience pain, illness or relational rupture.

Many of us also carry inherited trauma, passed down through generations. Our ancestors may have lived through displacement, war, colonisation, or environmental destruction, severing their relationship with the land. That rupture doesn’t just exist in history books—it lives in our bodies, shaping how we relate to the earth. The study of epigenetics has explained this to us, so we can see how this unhealed trauma is passed down through generations in both cell expression but also in the attachment system in each of us, that is formed through the maternal bond between an baby and their caregivers.

In modern life, this disconnection manifests in subtle ways as we project our internal disconnection outwards and this shapes how we relate to ourselves, others, the world and life itself. We may find it hard to slow down enough to notice the intricate beauty of a leaf, the rhythmic cycles of the seasons, or the deep nourishment that comes from being immersed in nature. We are stuck on the hamster wheel of flight and fight. Instead of feeling like we belong to the land, we often treat it as a resource to be extracted and used, a background to our human-centered world.

How does healing our trauma restore our sense of belonging within us and also to something greater than us?

The good news is that healing our trauma—whether through somatic work, deep nervous system repair, or ancestral healing—opens the door to a profound reconnection with nature. As we learn to regulate our nervous system, we develop the capacity to be present, to notice, and to receive. The very same skills that allow us to process and release trauma—slowing down, attuning to our sensations, and cultivating safety—are the ones that allow us to feel at home in the natural world.

When we heal, we begin to:

Feel the land as alive – Instead of seeing nature as an object, we start to sense its intelligence, its rhythms, and its ability to communicate. We might begin to feel the energy of trees, the presence of the wind, or the way a particular landscape holds us.

Move beyond fear and control – Trauma often teaches us to control our environment for safety. As we heal, we can interact with nature in a more reciprocal way—learning from it rather than trying to dominate it. When we feel safe in our own bodies, we can soften into a sense of safety in the world.

Trust the body’s belonging – Nature is not something we visit; it is something we are. As we learn to listen to and trust our body and appreciate its deep wisdom, we also learn to trust the wisdom of the earth. We develop a deep understanding of the rhythms of nature and the rhythms in our body. Our understanding of one pattern helps us see this replicated through our own body and other systems we interact within.

Feel the cycles of life more deeply – Instead of fearing endings and beginnings, we start to embrace the cycles of nature as part of us. We see death, decay, rebirth, and renewal not just in the world around us but in our own emotional and spiritual journeys.

Increased self-awareness and environmental awareness - When we tend to our inner landscapes, we become more attuned to the landscapes around us.

Healing give us a new way of relating to each other and a new way of orienting ourselves in the world.

As we heal, we begin to walk through the world differently. We no longer see ourselves as separate from nature but as part of an ongoing conversation with it. We listen more deeply, honour its gifts, and recognise that the earth, like us, holds both wounds and the capacity for regeneration.

Our personal healing ripples outward. When we feel connected to the land, we are more likely to protect it, not from a place of fear or guilt but from love and reverence. Our actions shift from extraction to reciprocity, from dominance to stewardship.

Healing trauma is not just personal work—it is planetary work. As we reconnect with ourselves, we reconnect with the earth. And as we learn to belong to our own bodies, we remember that we have always belonged to the web of life.

Digital Art - Kellie Stirling

What if healing is not just about feeling better, but about remembering our place in the great unfolding story of the earth?

Perhaps the most radical thing we can do is to slow down, place our hands on the earth, and listen.

Healing happens in community and when we connect with something bigger than us. There are many ways we can look at nature and draw a comparison with our body and its innate intelligence and understanding of how to heal.

Just as nature moves through seasons of growth, rest, decay, and renewal, our nervous system cycles through activation, integration, and restoration. Honouring these natural rhythms supports long-term well-being. Here are some other comparisons that might deepen you understanding of both our body and nature’s capacity to generate healing and growth through the building of virtuous cycles and coherence.

Roots & Grounding – Trees grow strong by sending their roots deep into the earth. Similarly, we cultivate resilience by grounding ourselves in connection—whether to our breath, body, relationships, or a sense of purpose.

Storms & Emotional Intensity – A thunderstorm may feel chaotic, but it brings necessary rain and clears the air. Intense emotions may feel overwhelming, but when we allow them to move through us, they can bring clarity and transformation. Emotions like natures storms pass through us when we let them be expressed. When we allow ourselves to feel emotions fully, we become more open to experiencing the depth of nature.

Ebb & Flow of the Ocean – The tides rise and fall in a constant dance with the moon, just as our emotions and energy levels naturally fluctuate. Trying to force constant calmness is like trying to stop the ocean’s waves—it’s unnatural.

Symbiosis & Co-Regulation – Ecosystems thrive through interdependence; plants, animals, fungi, and microbes all support each other. Likewise, humans regulate best in connection—our nervous systems co-regulate through relationships, just as trees share nutrients through their roots.

Fire & Transformation – I have always been fascinated by the dual nature of fire. It can be a force for regeneration and a force of destruction. Wildfires, though destructive, create space for new growth by clearing out the old. In our nervous system, moments of challenge or breakdown can lead to profound transformation when we move through them with support.

Where do we start?

Of course you can start with the simple connections you can make with nature around you. Even if it is taking a walk on the grass in your bare feet start there. Do it with a friend or your partner, take a walk together. Trauma occurs in the absence of a compassionate witness, so healing happens in the connection with one and in the presence of community. We are wired for social connection, we are not meant to do life on on our own.

Shame and our bodies

Shame has a huge influence over how we perceive and see our bodies. Many people have been strongly influenced culturally to compare our bodies to others, particularly those others we see in the media and popular culture. These are impossible standards to live up to, particularly when we know that technology allows manipulation of photographic images. What we are looking at is not reality.
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So much of what we believe about ourselves, when it comes to body image, comes from outside of ourselves. It comes from our family and larger society. From a very young age we internalise messaging about what we are supposed to eat, how we are supposed to look, who we are supposed to be, who we should love, what we should be able to do.

Our body is centred in all of this.
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Notice there are a lot of should and supposed to be there.

When you look around the world, what is considered healthy and acceptable, changes culturally. Although this has morphed and blended with social media.

Image - Mohammed Nohasi

I was a teenager in the 80s and young adult in the 90s and this was the time where diet culture was everywhere in popular media. It was aerobics everywhere, hello Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons. I was an aerobics queen, don't get me wrong it was a lot of fun and a great thing to do with friends, but the body standards were impossible and dangerous. The leotards were ace though!
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This was also the generation in modelling of the waif. Remember Kate Moss when she started out, impossibly thin. So there is a whole generation of 40 and 50 year olds out there who whose mental models of acceptable beauty are based on, excessive exercise, starving yourself and dangerously thin models.
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We are very impressionable in our early years and these impressions around body image last for years. When we don't look like what is portrayed in popular culture as normal, we feel like we aren't enough, like we don't belong. Some of us will go to extremes to fit in. This need to belong is hardwired into our DNA. In Tribal days, we relied on the tribe to be protected and fed. So it literally can feel like a life or death situation when we feel like to don't belong. It puts us into survival mode.
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So as you can see, shame has a lot to say about how we perceive our bodies. We have these internal versions of ourselves based on these external images that relate to our self-esteem. Some of us who suffer pervasive shame over our body image, have some very harsh inner critics. Some of these inner critic parts live deep in our unconscious so they are not always that easy to detect and hear. They way to diminish them is to talk about them. Shame thrives on secrecy; when we talk about our inner critic we starve them of their supply.
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There is a particular type of shame a lot of us feel as we get older. We compare how we are now to our younger selves. We remember when we were really fit and healthy and could do a lot. We remember our young faces, without wrinkles and saggy skin. We remember our hair before it was grey. Some of us go to great lengths to avoid this. There is a particular strength that can be found in accepting ourselves just as we are right now. A happiness, a contentment, a sense of joy.
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Whats the antidote to all this shame?
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Pride, curiousity and open conversations, shut shame down. Learning to love your body and all the amazing things they have done for you is the way through. It might not be easy but it is totally doable.

Need some help? Come talk to me.

Midlife, the autumn season of our life. A time to pause, reflect and let go.

We humans are cyclical beings although our modern world doesn’t care or cater much to our cyclical nature. For those of us in female bodies, we are in a constant state of cycling through our menstrual cycles and this brings with it for many people a way of orienting and being in the world that provides a sense of feeling anchored to our cyclical nature. Our life is seasons within seasons, within seasons. Although many of us don’t always feel good about this all the time and I wonder if we talked about our inherent connection with nature and the natural rhythms of the world more, this would provide a sense of meaning to us at a deeper level.

Our midlife season is Autumn. It is a time to take stock, pause, reflect and let go of what we no longer need in our life so we can birth new parts of ourselves. I find this metaphor to be true for all midlife people I work with regardless of gender. It is a process of death and rebirth that happens where we are moving toward a soul oriented life. With this for many comes expanded consciousness where you are stepping into an unknown way of being in the world; this in itself can be overwhelming for many especially if you do not have roadmap or mentors to guide your through. The rebirth is your initiation into your wise woman power that is your authentic self. You are probably familiar wit the archetypes of maiden, mother and crone. This archetypal stage is called Maga which is the stage before Crone. Maga is Portuguese for sorceress and is the feminine of Magus, which is the sorcerer. We are the first generation of woman going through this because we are living longer than the other women in our female lineage.

For Males the archetypal equivalent is the Magician or the Sorcerer and to move to this is a rite of passage, a man needs support and community of wise elders supporting him. The Magician archetype when integrated in a man has the ability to turn disappointing situations and setbacks into opportunities to learn, grow and become a better man.

For all of us when we come to midlife their is often a great deal of inner work to be done for Autumn is the seasons of letting go. In the Celtic tradition, Autumn signifies a time of abundance because harvests are at their peak but also the season where we prepare for austerity, the winter season to come. Autumn is the season that brings the double outer and inner movement, a transition. By midlife we are ready for this big transition. It is the right time for this as we have the wisdom and perspective to really differentiate what is going on for us. Many of us may have been judged as having mental health or personal development needs in the past when they are in fact dealing with cultural overlays that are maligning our life. With our deep life experience we begin to see everything happening in our life for what it is.

Midlife is about healing any trauma or wounding from the first half of your life. When we move through this process of letting go, we are going through a process of dying metaphorically speaking. All the ideas you had about yourself, who you are, who you thought you were becoming, where you thought your life would take you may not have eventuated. So of course there will be anger, grief, resentment and maybe sadness that comes with that. You will find that what used to motivate you no longer does. You will start to pull back into yourself in a way, rather than giving your energy away.

This is because, for women in particular, you are leaving the archetypal mother phase of your life. With that comes some very real deep emotion. I think for many women there is grief regarding fertility ending. This is especially true for women who have not had children regardless of the reasons why, because all of a sudden choice is removed. There will no longer be any choice anymore, no possibility. I have also seen women who have had children experience this even though they were quite adamant that they did not want more children. The nervous system loves choice and agency, so when we are faced with the removal of choice, it does not surprise me that the body experiences either strong fight or flight responses like anger, anxiety and resentment because lack of choice backs us into a corner. But you also experience grief. Grief you see is the emotion that is the secret ingredient that helps us move on. You cannot let go without grief.

For grief to flow it needs the support of the community. it strikes me that at midlife, many of us feel like we are losing our true inner compass we got from our regular cycles and we are trying hard to orient to something new that we have no road map for because there is so much shame and denial in our culture about ageing. I think for males they experience something similar but often later maybe in their fifties is what I have noticed with my clients. All of us are looking for our ‘north star’ to anchor to something.

So why are these big emotional experiences in midlife so hard?

I think it is because we live in a culture where there is collective denial about our emotional lives. Many of us grew up in families where we did not have that emotional life fostered by our parents or caregivers. There was a complete lack of attunement to our needs. This has contributed to a huge array of hurt, trouble and physical symptoms for many people. When we are disconnected from our emotional body we become frozen on the inside, our emotions gets stuck with no means of freeing them. Our nervous system is very clever it will create all manner of management strategies to stop us from feeling that which is painful to us. This is deep work that is required. Learning to befriend our vulnerability so we can feel into our emotions, the harder ones in particular, opens the way to feeling the full spectrum of emotions - Joy, Love, Anger, Amazement, Wonder and Delight. It broadens your emotional landscape.

In midlife, we need our community around us to support us through this transition. But you know what, we need community all the time. Humans are not wired do life on their own. Our interpersonal neurobiology is wired to connect with others for co-regulation. Co-regulation helps us feel like we don’t have to carry the burdens of life all on our own.

Image - Visions in Blue

As my teacher Francis Weller says in his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow “Private pain is a legacy of the creed of rugged individualism. In this narrow story, we find ourselves caught in the shadow of the heroic archetype. We are conditioned from birth to the image of the hero, the one who needs no one, the one who rises above his or her pain, the one who is always in control and never vulnerable. We are imprisoned by this image, forced into a fiction of false independence that severs our kinship with the earth, with sensuous reality and with the myriad wonders of the world”.

The hero archetype, which so many of our stores are centred around, disconnects us from nature, from our cyclical nature, from our natural rhythms and our inner seasons.

Is it any wonder that our rites of passage feel so hard and so overwhelming. They are super complex and we need a circle of support around us to get through and for many of us that is simply not there nor do we know how to put it together.

So how do we navigate midlife better? We face it together we build a circle of support around ourselves. Each life stage has a developmental task that is asked of us, and in midlife it is radical honestly with ourselves, discern our truth. To learn to be kind to ourselves and to stay present to our life. For many of us this might be the first time we have had to do this it re requires vulnerability and acceptance of ourselves for who we are right now. Once we can accept ourselves as we are we start to connect with our unique gifts and slowly we are ready to put them out into the world.

One the principles I really like that helps us frame this experience comes from Japanese aesthetics and it is the world view that is called Wabi Sabi. Wabi Sabi is centred on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. This aesthetic appreciates that beauty is impermanent, imperfect and incomplete. This can be seen in Japanese art.

I think it is a beautiful way of framing life because it helps us to appreciate that all of life is fluid and we are always learning growing, that there is no such thing as perfection. We are all perfectly imperfect.

There is no right way to do your midlife transition. There is your way because you are unique and your life experience are unique and whatever comes up for you, whilst it might have something in common with someone else, will be uniquely your experience to learn from.

The midlife reckoning and initiation

For women, the midlife journey is a time of reckoning and it is our menopausal journey that is often the catalyst for this for many women. It is not to say that midlife is not a time of reckoning for males but I think menopause really puts the jet thrusters on it for women in a way that men don’t experience. Sorry to talk in the binary, whatever you identify as on the gender spectrum, I think if you have ovaries and will go through menopause it puts the jet thrusters on it. Notwithstanding, I have had many male clients over the years go through their midlife reckoning in their own way.

I often talk about this process as being the Autumn season of our lives. A time where we review what works for us, work out what we need to let go of in our life and work through the process of doing that so that you can birth new parts of yourself. The rebirth is your initiation into your wise woman power that is your authentic self. This stage is called Maga which is the stage before Crone. We are the first generation of women going through this because we are living longer than the other women in our female lineage.

When we move through this process of letting go, we are going through a process of figuratively dying. All the ideas you had about yourself, who you are, who you thought you were becoming, where you thought your life would take you. So of course there will be grief that comes with that. You will find that what used to motivate you no longer does. You will start to pull back into yourself in a way, rather than giving your energy away.

This is because you are leaving the mother phase of your life. So whether you have been the mother of children or the mother of a business, or the creator and mother of something else in your life, all that energy you put into mothering is not going to be there anymore. This is what happens when our estrogen starts to decline. When I noticed it within myself I noticed I was really tired and I just couldn’t over-function in all the ways I used to and I was not really interested in lots of things I really used to get passionate about.

I have found this to be a hard habit to break but a necessary one. I noticed one day about two years ago, how liberated I felt and not being full of estrogen and what it used to drive within me. The overarching need to connect and make sure everyone is ok. One day I was I sitting at my desk and I felt down to my bones this freedom at not caring so much anymore. Not is a sociopathic way, but in a light and carefree way, I didn’t care what other people thought of me at all. I didn’t care if I put in a boundary and others didn’t like it, I needed to put me own needs first for my own wellbeing.

The reckoning and initiation hits us all in different ways. For some of us it is our physical health, some of this may be perimenopause symptoms but it can also be in poor health. This was me. Cancer came a knocking in a small way about 8 years ago, I got better and went on with my workaholic ways and then five years ago it was back in a big way and I had no choice but to stop. It was bad, stage 3 colon cancer, a big surgery that really knocked me around and lots of chemotherapy that went on for months. I barely functioned during that time and I could not work. “I am listening” I finally said and learned to feel safe to do nothing and sit with my own misery and distressing emotions. I didn’t do it on my own. I created a circle of support around me with different health practitioners and friends. This is often what we need in midlife, to be midwifed through the reckoning process and we can do this by creating a circle of support for ourselves to get us through. Whether it is a psychologist , a coach, your chiropractor, a nutritionist, friends you meet to talk with this about, you can create this circle of support to midwife you through this change.

My healing that I needed to do was nervous system related and deep inner child work to stop the over functioning. It was somatic work that supported me through this so I could find in my body where that small child part of me that had to solve all the problems and find all the answers lived. My excess of will power has served me well in my lifetime, it has got me through some really tough times and kept me going in jobs, relationships and challenging circumstances far longer than I needed to be. It stopped me from getting stuck and left behind often. But I could not will my way through my midlife transition I had to learn to face my shadow head on and be on the proverbial meat hook that Inanna went through in her heroines journey and have faith that I would come off it when it was time.

I think that we often think that menopause will bring us some hot flashes and night sweats and maybe other symptoms but it is so much more than that. You are faced with your own emotional reactivity, your stress levels bouncing around and it is like an out of control roller coaster. What you do not face in this transition will hang around in your life until you do face it. It is a humbling experience.

It can also be very humbling when you have already done a lot of work on yourself. I have been in a constant learning process full of self reflection for the last 20 years. I thought surely I had explored most of my inner territory. No there is always more to be explored. What I can tell you is that for me is that all the tools and knowledge I had, the ones that I work with my clients on, I used them every day and they got me through the really tough times.

What this journey takes us to is our authentic self. It strips away all the strategies our ego created when we are young to stay safe, you don’t need them and they won’t work for you going forward. To step into your wise woman power you need to address all the aspects of yourself that you have repressed. The emotional reactivity you might be experiencing? That is your body telling you to pay attention and connect with what is coming up. It is our menopausal muse showing herself. I love the saying ‘when the muse arrives let them in or they will burn the house down’. If we ignore what is coming up, if we persist in ignoring it, life gets harder.

Who is the muse?

“Your muse is the part of your that you have kept hidden away to belong or fit in. The Muse is the original essence of who we are. They reveals fears, taboos and expectations that need to be explored as this powerful transition unfolds. All those emotions repressed, feelings we have smoothed over, they want them released. As estrogen declines, a veil is lifted from our eyes. All the things we kept silent about we can longer ignore. We must speak up”.

Midlife and Menopause ebook, Kellie Stirling

Everyone goes through this journey in their own unique way. We often parse out challenging life experiences at this stage as something else, something tough that is unrelated and just bad luck. it is all part of the journey. it may not be your health that suffers. You may experience a relationship falling apart, or having to stop everything to take care of an ailing parent, maybe it is a teenager going off the rails or suffering and you need to stop everything to focus on them. Maybe you have a big career change and you know that you need something different and you don’t know where to start. Something will initiate you into this journey. It will mean you cannot go on the way you have been and you have to actually stop and learn to do life differently.

There is something for all of us in this transformation and it offers us an extraordinary opportunity to do it consciously. When you choose to pay attention to your experience and consciously focus on it, you are not only doing your own healing work, you are healing ancestral trauma, the trauma that has been carried down through family lines.

This is the time to learn to choose what you want in life. To move away from your reactive patterns, to learn to sit back, metaphorically and physically and observe. To be able to sit in your chair, in your back body, in a neutral position, back into the chair, feet on the ground, feeling the stability in your body and not lean forward and react. To learn to observe and watch as a wise elder would and then choose which course to take. You don’t have the high energy lots of of estrogen brings anymore, so taking care of your energy is so important. You don’t have to go in and react and clean up every mess. The lesson here is learning to put your needs first which means sitting back and watching. The thing is when we sit back and watch, we often have a clearer view of what is actually going on and we make better choices every time.

Once you move through this, you are naturally drawn to pursue more meaning and purpose in your life in everything that you do. Whether it is your work, your hobbies, the relationships in your life. This is because our purpose is to be our most authentic selves, lead from the our soul, and every aspect of our life wants to align with that. Because after going through the reckoning and initiation we can be nothing else but ourselves.