Let me take you back five years or so. I was working as a lawyer in a demanding, difficulty and often dramatic area of law.
I had qualified as a lawyer after a long hard slog, nearly £30k in private loans to complete my post graduate degree on top of my undergraduate degree loans. It had taken 6 years of paying my dues and, along the way, I had done *everything* to make myself invaluable.
Working a minimum wage paralegal job with a second job at a cinema to pay the bills - check.
Working through my lunches, late in to the evening and assisting everyone around me that I could? Check
Working a second job at the first job so I could spend time with more senior lawyers and be considered a team player? Check
Coming in sick, shuffling through the office barely able to move after a back injury and cancelling holiday to hit targets - check.
Shortly after I qualified back in 2012 I calculated that, in my 6 years' scrabble to qualification, I had worked an additional 3.5 years in secondary paid employment alone.
Let me spell that out for you.... for every 37.5 hour working week, I had worked an additional 23 hours in paid employment... before I added in the early starts, late finishes, checking email outside the office and all the networking-training-schmoozing client shenanigans that came with the job.
It's fair to say, I was fucking exhausted.
Oh, and did I mention that throughout that time my mum had been in and out of hospital? She died, five years ago.
By early 2015 I was a mess.
Looking back, I can clearly see how anxious, depressed, exhausted and struggling I was. I know now how the people closest to me saw me sinking.
But, if you weren't looking very closely? You'd think everything was fine.
A bit tired, a bit raggedy around the edges maybe. In need of a good personal trainer and personal shopper perhaps. But, otherwise, fine.
I know that that's the case because I have a number of clients and colleagues from that time that I've kept in contact with, bumped in to in the street or at an event, and when they know what I do now... they had no clue how much I was struggling.
I kind of need to point this out to you - as desperately sad and struggling and alone as you feel right now, I can almost guarantee that no-one else realises.
You spend your days looking over your shoulder waiting to be marched out of the building, and only the most astute and empathetic around you would ever even guess you were tired.
Anyway, back to 2015. My mum had recently died, I was commuting 3 hours a day to my job working with the recently bereaved, was taking one day a week off to go clear out my childhood home and put affairs in order, all the while desperately trying to keep paddling.
Like a swan... appearing to glide whilst all the while my little legs were paddling furiously to keep me upright.
I thought my problem was my diet.
Isn't that hilarious?
Working 40 hour weeks, commuting 15 hours a week, saying goodbye to everything I had known, all at the age of 30.
Quarter life crisis doesn't even cut it.
I stumbled across someone who offered a way out of burnout. Someone who, just like me, had worked so hard she had made herself ill and exhausted.
'THAT'S IT!' I thought 'IT'S NOT JUST ME!!'
So I signed up for her emails.
Se advocated green juices and taking jacket sweet potato for lunch and I went for it. I was hungry and had foul looking pond water on my desk, but I had a plan, and a solution and it was going to work!
Not long after I started following along, this woman, who had burned out just like me, and had this beautiful website filled with photographs of her looking happy and well rested, switched up what she was doing.
She now coached professional women who wanted to leave their corporate careers and create a better work life balance.
By this point I had felt so bad for so long that I quashed down those gut feelings and doubts because I assumed it was me - I was the problem, I was what was wrong, so I should just sit down and shut up.
But I kept feeling that way. And I took the plunge and signed up to work with her, handing over more than two month’s salary, for the opportunity to no longer feel this way. (Sidebar: that was for a group course to boot, I’d have had to pay 3x to work with her 1:1!)
(Here’s a takeaway for you, before I tell you any more - it's not about good or bad, it's about what you learn from it, take from it, how you redefine yourself as a result of it. Some of the most difficult and traumatic things in my life have helped to define me the most and there is a lesson in absolutely everything, no matter what. It's your job to get curious, get introspective and to figure out the lesson.)
But, to bring you back full circle, I stumbled across a blog from this first coach recently. I don't think it was even all that recent of a blog but it popped up from a group I had forgotten I was even a member of.
And in that blog, she talked about how AWFUL her life had been.
Can you tell where this is going yet?
How terrible things had been...during that period when I had worked with her.
Whilst she had been sending me (and the entire world, not just me!) messages day after day after day about how great her life was, how she had everything she ever wanted and all we had to do was work with her to find out how.
And I started to laugh... because of course!
Even at my most burned out, exhausted and overwhelmed, my gut had told me. This isn't right.
My deeper understanding had been 'what this woman is saying isn't matching with what I'm reading from her'.
Did it mean her work was ineffective? No, I learned a lot from her and it's fair to say I would never have started Searching for Serenity without her falling across my path.
But I realised something so important for my own growth, my own lessons; in order to grow, you have to truly acknowledge where you already are. And to inspire and motivate others, you have to be real, authentic, and share the downs as well as the ups.
I've talked ad nauseum about flicking your hair and saying 'I'm fine, just a bit busy, just a bit stressed' and how often we use stress as a secret code for anything from 'a touch overworked' to 'full blown anxiety attacks daily' to 'I hate my life and everyone in it' and so much more.
Getting clear, getting down to the truth of who we are, how we are feeling, and being firstly clear with ourselves, but also (and for me, more importantly) getting transparent with the people for whom it is safe for us to share our inner feelings, the people who matter most to us, is absolutely fundamental to moving forward.
Stumbling across this blog helped me to realise that I have never, and probably never will, sell myself as the ideal lifestyle.
I'm not an Instagram model, I struggle to pose in pictures (seriously, look at my facebook… I don't have a good side) and I have a bullshit detector set to high.
I will never ever tell you to be like me.
I actually ADORE when my clients take the tools and techniques I give them, and OUTDO me. It happens, often because they are #rockstarunicorns … it's like being a child and watching a helium balloon soar above you, it can't help but cause delight.
I never hold myself out as being perfect and I share (probably overshare) so much of the struggle and the times it's not quite right - because this is fucking life! I don't want to be a stepford wife who smiles and has perfect hair and zero emotions going on. I did my time with antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication and I have no intention of being a zombie again.
I love the messy, imperfect, not even pretending otherwise nature of my life. I share the ups and the downs because, if it was as easy as taking a pill or just following a 3 point plan, well, damnit if you're so smart you would have figured that out years ago.
But most importantly - I never ever want to feel that disconnected from where you are.
My entire business, purpose and meaning is centred around this one premise; I've been on the floor crying in desperation and pain. If you like, you can take my hand and I'll show you what worked for me.
I'm not perfect.
I don't have THE solution.
I'm just a woman with a hell of a lot of experience of building resilience, a bundle of tolls and techniques to try out, a unicorn mug filled with coffee, messy hair and a lot of heart.
My clients and I work together and we eat cake and drink gin and share the laughter and the tears on this journey.
I'm not perfect.
I hope you don't aspire to be.
But here's my pledge to you.
I will be honest about what works.
I will also be honest about what doesn't work.
I will always tell you the truth, about me, about you, about how we can change it together.
I will never persuade or cajole or pressure you.
I will walk this path with you, as you guide, your friend and your leader, for as long as you want to walk the path with me. And if we ever leave each other, know that I wish nothing but the best for you and will always be here for you should you find me again.
Transparency, honesty, trust.
Plus a filthy laugh, gin, cake and unicorns.
Want to walk this path with me and get really honest with yourself about where you are and what you want from life?
Throughout January I am running an intensive month long course called Start 2020 Strong and Supported, exclusively for members of my monthly membership group, The Resilience Academy.
Remember when I said I handed over two months’ salary for the opportunity to feel better? I don’t believe that that is necessary. At all.
I don’t think you should put yourself into financial hardship in order to struggle for growth. That’s why my monthly membership group costs less than a weekly bottle of wine or daily latte.
With no obligation to stay, access to more than a hundred hours of past trainings and monthly 1:1 support from me?
Well, it’s a total no-brainier of a decision for me, how about you?
Click here to find out more about Start 2020 Strong and Supported, exclusively within The Resilience Academy. Or drop me a message if you have any questions!