Served with a Side of Burnout and a Garnish of Guilt

Success doesn’t taste so sweet, when it’s served with a side of burnout and a garnish of guilt…

But somehow, we’re all lining up for seconds.

Today I invite you on a journey that has the power to change your life…

For the past 13.5 years I’ve been coaching driven and ambitious women around the world to achieve the results that are important to them without sacrificing themselves along the way.

What’s become really clear to me as a result is that if the intersection of femininity and success were a physical place, it’d be like a demolition derby!

Women crashing, honking, shouting expletives out their windows, and hanging their heads in their hands, wondering what wrong turn they took to find themselves here!?

We’ve been handed a map of success that isn’t ours. It’s time to rewrite it.

For the Gentlemen reading along.. I talk about Women, a lot. Though tune in, because this is a chance to see and understand the women in your world in perhaps an entirely new way.

The ways of being that create radiance, softness, peace and ease in a woman’s system are DIFFERENT to the qualities that might help you be successful in your career.

They’re SO different, in fact, that they can almost look mutually exclusive, with more and more women today abandoning what feels good and nourishing to them in pursuit of worldly success.

I’m assuming if you’re here reading this, that you want a life that FEELS as good as it looks? (If not, you can probably stop reading now…)

So how did we get here as a culture?

Somewhere along the way, society decided that to succeed, women had to grow balls—and we all just went along with it.

To be clear, feminine energy isn’t just for women—it’s for everyone. It’s the part of us that values connection, creativity, and intuition.

But for women, reclaiming femininity is especially important, because we’ve been taught to suppress it in favour of a more masculine way of being. And that suppression is costing us deeply.

We’ve all been sold a ‘version’ of success that prioritises doing over being.

So instead of enjoying connection, spaciousness, pleasure and play, we’re focused on Outcomes! 🤦🏼‍♀️

For women, this often so often means abandoning ourselves and what feels good to align with a model that wasn’t designed with us in mind.

This is changing. But we have a way to go.

Have you ever had the experience of seeing ‘busyness’ worn like a badge of honour?

I have…

It gets shown off to prove what a ‘good’ ‘hard working’ person someone is…and therefore, of course, SUCCESSFUL!

BUT, when you live in a consistent state of nervous system arousal (and I’m not talking about the fun kind of arousal, I’m talking about the grit your teeth, running on adrenaline, just try to get through the day kind of nervous system arousal), all that go-go-go might make you productive in the short term, but the cost is high in the long term.

I know this because I’ve been there.

In 2016, professionally, I was running a thriving coaching business – I was an internationally sought after performance coach for athletes. As a highlight, I helped an Australian Paralympian win a Gold Medal at the London Olympics.

Personally, I was also a competitive Equestrian athlete – right up to two grades down from Olympic standard.

I had three horses in full competition work, meaning I was riding them 5 or 6 days a week and spending most of my weekends traveling the country training and competing.

I was living what I thought was my best life, and on the surface, it looked pretty perfect.

But inside, I was crumbling. I was exhausted, disconnected from my feminine essence, constantly stressed about money, enduring a horribly toxic relationship and running on fumes.

I kept thinking, “If I just push through, things will get better. I’ll breakthrough to a level of success where these things don’t bother me…”

But it didn’t get better. It got worse.

I was holding on and hoping…

And then one day, standing outside on the farm in Devon Meadows, looking at my horses, I broke..

I realised I’d stopped loving this life I was working SO hard for, and was utterly exhausted.

It hit me – if THIS is what Success requires of me, I don’t want it.

Now, I know the circumstances were likely different, and you weren’t on a horse property in Devon Meadows, but have you ever reached breaking point?

That day, I asked myself, do I want the next 10 years of my life to look like the last 10?

The answer was no.

I KNEW something had to change.

I had no idea how. But I knew that what I’d been doing wasn’t working.

Following that knowing changed my life. And it can change yours too.

I learned something vital during that time that became the seed of my work with women today:

It doesn’t matter how smart and determined you are, or how hard you work.

If you choose to ignore your body’s whispers, eventually you’ll have to hear her screams.

Success without satisfaction isn’t success at all – it’s a performance. It’s hollow and it’s not sustainable.

What does a better way forward look like?

Because the world doesn’t need more of just your intelligence and hustle. It needs more of your radiance—your aliveness.

But radiance and aliveness aren’t things you can think and strategise your way into—they’re things you feel. They live in your body, not in your to-do list.

There are thousands of great coaches out there – you can get plans and strategies and maps out the wazoo. These are important and valuable, they’re great for your intellect, and your to-do list.

You can also go to the forest and sit in sisterhood heart sharing circles, cultivate your spirituality and work with your past traumas. This is ALSO good and important!

But what we really want is the union of the two.

You need to align your head, heart and sex – which I call your Peace, Passion and Purpose.

That’s the gate to your true power!

And following your knowing is how you’ll get there.

Your body holds the map to what feels good, to what lights you up, and to what aligns with your deepest values. The problem is, most of us have been trained to ignore our bodies.

When I talk about creating transformation in your life, we’re not doing it from a place of logic or ‘shoulds.’

We’re doing it through your body—through reconnecting to your feelings, your sensations, and your intuition within the context of what success means to you personally.

I’m talking about learning to regulate your nervous system and embody a flow of sustainable confidence, self trust and ease for your life.

I’m talking about you feeling lit up and turned on by your one precious life, and creating your results from your passion instead of force and logic alone.

So, enough theory, I want you to have a taste of this.

I’m going to talk you through a practice that is a chance to feel yourself in the way I’ve been talking about, even if it’s just for a moment.

Read through the steps so you know what to do, then dive in;

1. Close your eyes and take 5 deep breaths, in through your nose, out through parted lips. Make sure your belly button is relaxed away from your spine, and your shoulders are melted away from your ears.
2. As you take these breaths, turn your attention inwards and just notice what’s present. There’s no right or wrong, just noticing.
3. Begin to move your body a little bit to loosen up and drop out of your mind – do some slow shoulder shrugs, wriggle your jaw to soften it, rotate your pelvis and undulate your spine a little.
4. Next, we’re going to connect with the three centres of your head, heart and sex I mentioned and find out how alive and empowered they are in your life.
5. Start with your head – your beautiful thinking, planning function – your intelligence. Place your hands on your temples/head and bring your attention and presence to your mind. Feeling your mind, ask yourself, how empowered is my thinking in my life? Give it a score out of 10 – trust whatever comes, don’t think too hard about it.
6. Now onto your Heart, place your hands on your heart. The centre of your emotional world, your love for yourself and others, your self trust. How empowered is this centre? Give yourself a score out of 10 (again just trust whatever comes – don’t think!)
7. Now onto your sex. This is your primal aliveness, your passion, your turn on for your life and your radiance! This is SUCH a beautiful, healthy power to harness for your life. Place your hands over your genitals and breathe into your sex and body. How alive and empowered is this area out of 10?
8. Just noticing these three scores, reflecting how things are right now. There’s NO judgement here.
9. Now re-connect with each centre again starting with your head and ask yourself, what scores would you LOVE to have? How empowered and lit up would you most love your head, heart and sex to be?
10. Finally, take a minute to imagine what life would be like if these three scores that you’d love were your reality. Take that possibility in and really FEEL it! See the person you’d become.

You’ve been told again and again to ‘LEAN IN’. Lean in to your work or business, lean into your family, lean into the things that are important to you…

But what if leaning out—into your joy, your sensuality, your aliveness—is the real power move?

You have likely been sold the idea that success comes from effort and sacrifice.

But the truth is, your greatest power lies in what lights you up.

This weekend and into next week, I want you to try something radical: when you hear yourself ask, ‘What do I need to do next?’ ask yourself, ‘What would feel good right now?’

Maybe it’s putting on some music and dancing your way through making the kid’s lunches. Maybe it’s putting on a garment that feels beautiful on your skin. Maybe it’s cancelling that meeting that you’re dreading, or setting that boundary you need to set…

Whatever it is, see if you can let your PLEASURE, not your Productivity lead the way.

Because let’s face it: the world doesn’t need another overworked woman. It needs you—radiant, alive and deeply satisfied.