What if the most transformative journey you could take wasn't to a faraway place, but back to yourself?

In this episode, I sit down with Damianne President, a coach who helps midlife women use intentional solo travel as a catalyst for self-discovery. Damianne has lived and worked across four continents — from St. Lucia and Canada to India, Sudan, Japan, and now Prague — and her extraordinary cross-cultural life is the foundation of her work.

What you'll hear in this conversation:

How a Sufi teacher in India told a 20-something Damianne she was "watching her life from the window of a train" and how that moment set her on a completely different path,
Why travel, especially to unfamiliar countries, is one of the most powerful developmental tools available to us, and how it works on the nervous system in ways our everyday routines simply don't,
The crucial difference between escaping yourself through travel and genuinely meeting yourself and what it looks like when people confuse the two,
How Damianne supports clients to stay regulated when travel gets uncomfortable, including Tara Brach's RAIN practice and her own beautifully simple "5 more minutes" approach,
Why midlife is such a potent moment for this kind of work, identity is formed but something feels quietly off, and the anonymity of a new place offers the freedom to experiment with who you want to be,
The integration piece: why the real transformation happens not on the trip, but in the intentional reflection that follows.

There's also a rich conversation about belonging and nervous system regulation, the grief that lives inside unmet aspirations, the way our neurobiology pulls us back toward the familiar, and why shared humanity is the thing that consistently surprises people most when they travel deeply.

Damianne makes a distinction that stayed with me long after the conversation ended; the difference between searching for yourself and meeting yourself. They're not the same thing.

Connect with Damianne:

Website & free guide for beginners: freedomlookslikethis.com/goalone
Social media: @Damiannecoaching

Caroline Shahbaz is a colleague, mentor and friend who I am so happy to talk to today. She is a meta psychotherapist, who is deeply experienced and who has trained in many different therapeutic modalities. She is a Clinical Psychologist, has a masters degree in Depth Psychology, is trained in Family Constellations work, is a certified in providing psilocybin assisted therapy and has trained in many wisdom traditions and modalities. Caroline is also a member of the kink community and she trains other therapists how to work with Kink and BDSM.

We talk about how relationships are crucibles for our transformation and growth throughout our lifetime. They trigger our core wounds so that we may heal and burn away who we think we are. We learn how to be in relationships through our family system and internalise much of this from our parents and caregivers, but we are born into a cultural narrative or story that shaped you and often our growth is about reclaiming part of that or alternatively it may be about letting go what we no longer need.

You will also hear:

Understanding the midlife narrative through the Jungian Lens. We also apply an astrological frame to it (Neptune square Neptune),
How our hormones and the changing hormonal cocktail we have facilitates changes through our lifetime,
Understanding the deeper architecture that drives the general level of dissatisfaction in midlife many of us experience,
The Hero and Heroines Journey and how they are an archetypal framework for the many initiations we face in our lifetime,
The concept of the Shadow and how it plays out in our relational life,
The different alchemical stages of relationship transformation.

Caroline runs a program called Transforming Relationships that is for couples and individuals who want to explore themselves deeply in a group container.

You can find Caroline at Transformingrelationships.com.au or metapsychotherapy.com