Writings & Musings
Rested. Rooted. Radiant.
Insight and inspiration on living unhurried lives, overcoming feminine burnout, reclaiming our radiance and self-sovereignty and embracing our brilliance.
Trusting the Wisdom Of Our Body: 6 Ways Somatic Intelligence Can Help Us Experience More Presence, Wellbeing, Purpose And Confidence
Have you ever felt torn between what your mind (or the outside world) was telling you to do, and how your body felt about it? Perhaps you were considering applying for a new job, saying yes to an invitation, or considering how to navigate an argument with a friend, a child or your partner?
Have you ever ignored an inner nudge or a deep knowing, followed what you thought you should do, and regretted it later (wishing you could have a do over)?
Most of us are very aware of our thoughts, but much less so of the language of our body.
We often forget that our body holds deep wisdom.
In this blog post, I explore the power of our somatic intelligence: the wisdom of our body, this innate guidance system within us that can lead us towards more of what we truly desire: aliveness, clarity, confidence, or ease.
Restoring Inner Stability, Rhythm & Belonging : How Reconnecting With Nature Heals & Grounds Us
In my work with women, one of the themes that arises most often is a yearning to let go of always being the holder, a desire to soften the instinct to push forward and strive, a longing to exhale and let ourselves be held.
Under the strong facade and the ‘holding it all together’, there is a part of us who deeply wants to put it all down and feel held.
We long to rest in the deep knowing that we don’t have to do it all alone.
The Invisible Giver: Why Emotional Exhaustion Comes from More Than Just Doing Too Much
We naturally assume that exhaustion comes from doing too much. From overcommitting, overextending, and carrying too much on our plates.
And of course, this absolutely contributes to a sense of feeling physically exhausted and depleted.
But often, there is a deeper layer to our exhaustion, which we may not perceive.
It comes from giving without being met.
Pouring out without being poured into. Offering support without being acknowledged.
It’s the emotional exhaustion of being so reliable and endlessly available that our giving becomes invisible.
This kind of exhaustion is rooted in a lack of reciprocity, and beyond leaving us tired, it leaves us feeling hollow…
Slow Change is Sustainable Change - Why Somatic Approaches Work Differently
The world we live in is obsessed with quick fixes.
Productivity hacks and fast transformations are all the rage, and we are led to believe that real change happens in big moments: dramatic breakthroughs, radical shifts, quantum leaps.
But our body isn’t wired for these overnight changes.
Real, embodied transformation doesn’t happen in big bursts.
It happens in layers, over time, at a pace that our body and nervous system can hold.
This is why somatic approaches work differently. They are the antidote to our fast culture.
They show us that deep and sustainable change doesn’t mean pushing harder and faster, but moving at the pace of safety and integration, to allow the changes to gently ‘take root’ in our body.
Recovering From Burnout: A Somatic Approach To Healing And Flourishing Again
Burnout doesn’t come crashing down on us all at once. It’s more like a tap dripping - slow, steady, almost imperceptible - until one day, the tank is empty. It’s a gradual wearing away of our energy, our capacity, and our vitality. And because the slope is so gentle, we may not even realise how far we have gone until we are completely depleted.
For women, who often juggle caregiving, demanding careers, and conflicting responsibilities, burnout can feel like an inevitability - almost a byproduct of constantly holding multiple strands.
Burnout can often be accompanied by a sense of shame or a feeling of inadequacy, but it isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s our body’s intelligence at play saying “It’s time to stop, I can’t keep going like this”. Wisely, our body pulls the emergency brake on our behalf to stop further depletion.
Burnout is our body’s way of protecting us, asking us to pause, rest, and recalibrate.
From Fixing to Witnessing: A Somatic Approach to Embracing Our Whole Self With Compassion
When was the last time you experienced stress, anxiety, sadness or another tender or uncomfortable emotion?
Did you notice an instinctual urge to make it go away or fix it?
For many of us, fixing, numbing or suppressing our emotions has become a well practised way of coping in difficult moments.
We might pick up our phone and scroll through our social media feed, get busy with our to-do list, or eat food that feels particularly comforting - without truly noticing.
These strategies often serve us well for a while.
They may have enabled us to cope with emotions that felt too overwhelming to open ourselves up to, without the fear of drowning in them.
But they are not sustainable.
They often leave the underlying emotions unresolved.
Breaking Free from Overgiving: Including Ourselves in Our Circle of Care
Do you tend to be the last person on your list of priorities?
Do you consistently put others’ needs above your own, sometimes at the expense of your own wellbeing?
This way of being is so ingrained in many of us that we have stopped noticing it, let alone, questioning it.
Overgiving is something I am very familiar with - so are many of the women I support. How often do we tell ourselves, “I will get to me when everything else is done” or “It’s easier if I just handle this myself” or “I’ll make time to look after myself later.”
But later never comes, and each one of these small moments where we give beyond our capacity is an act of self-abandonment. It erodes us by chipping away at our energy, our joy, and ultimately our sense of self.
For so many women, this self-sacrificing narrative feels normal. As women, our culture praises us for how much we give, how much we do, and how little we ask for in return.
We need reminding of this fundamental truth: others matter, but we do too.
Finding Inner Rest in an Unrested World: How to Reclaim Stillness When Everything Feels Too Much
There is no denying that we live in a world that often feels deeply unrested.
The pace of our lives is relentless, the state of the world may feel overwhelming, and our attention seems pulled in a myriad of directions from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep at night.
The world beats to the rhythm of urgency.
So it’s likely that we all experience moments where it feels like we are living on fast-forward, feeling overstimulated, thinly stretched, and out of sync with our own pace and rhythms.
One of the themes that arises most often in my conversations with women is a deep and almost vital yearning for a sense of ‘inner rest’: a way to exhale, catch our breath and integrate moments of stillness and peace in our lives. An ability to anchor in a sense of stillness within, regardless of the storms constantly playing out in the outer world.
In this blog post, I explore the body’s natural tidal waves of action and rest and why they get interrupted, why cultivating inner rest is vital for us in an unrested world, different flavours of rest, and how we can integrate them in our life to resource ourselves in an unrested world.
How Our Nervous System Impacts Our Leadership Capacity As Women: A Somatic Approach to Leading with Confidence
Have you ever felt pulled to step into something bigger : a greater vision, a leadership role, or a new chapter of your life, but found yourself stuck between the desire to lean in, and an inner resistance that left you feeling stuck, hesitant or overwhelmed.
As women, the tension between ambition and the internal barriers that hold us back is so common, and can feel like an internal tug-of-war.
The idea of the ‘something bigger’ might feel exciting, but when opportunities to take that step present themselves, fear, self-doubt or self-sabotage seem to get in the way, leaving us frozen and unable to move forward.
The truth is, leadership isn’t just about ambition or skills; it’s about capacity - our ability to hold the emotional, physical, and mental ‘charge’ of being the leader we envision ourselves to be.
And that capacity begins with your nervous system.
Embodied Presence: Reconnecting with Our Body’s Natural Intelligence to Transform Our Life
Do you ever feel like you’re ticking all the boxes, meeting expectations, and doing all the “right” things—yet underneath it all, there’s a quiet sense that you’re not fully in your life?
Embodied presence is a doorway to a more empowered and meaningful life.
It’s an invitation to tune in to our body’s natural intelligence (our somatic intelligence), to reclaim a sense of agency, freedom and sovereignty.
In this post, we’ll explore what embodied presence and interoception are, how we become disconnected from ourselves, why it is so vital for us to reconnect to our body’s natural wisdom to reclaim agency and to embrace a more empowered way of being and living.
The Power of Somatic Coaching: 6 Ways A Body-Based Approach Facilitates Deep Transformation
Are you finding yourself longing for more than just coping with the demands and pressures of life and wondering how to feel more deeply present and alive?
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world, and looking to feel more anchored within yourself amidst the chaos?
Have you reached a point where you are tired of constantly feeling exhausted? Maybe you’re craving a way to feel more sovereign over your life, and to make choices that reflect what YOU need, desire and value most?
Perhaps you would like to envision new possibilities and horizons, and explore a life that reflects your deeper yearnings?
If any of this resonates, somatic coaching could offer a path forward.
From People-Pleasing to Sovereignty: A Guide to Setting Compassionate Boundaries
Have you ever felt the pull to say “no” but heard yourself say “yes” instead?
Are you familiar with that subtle moment of override - the moment where we ignore our inner voice and abandon ourselves to keep the peace or make others feel comfortable.
As a recovering people pleaser, I spent years overruling my needs, desires, energy and capacity - in service of ensuring that the needs, desires and capacity of those around me were honoured and met.
The Fear of Being Seen: How to Embrace Our Brilliance, and Take Up Space In A Way That Feels Safe
Within my personal experience, and through the coaching explorations I have had with many women, one of the most insidious and common fears I see is this: the fear of being seen and of taking up the space we yearn for.
It’s a subtle, persistent voice inside of us that says, “It’s safer to remain unnoticed, to not take up too much space.” urging us to shrink and to stay small, to protect ourselves from judgment or criticism.
For many of us, it quietly lingers in the background of our lives (sometimes unnoticed), yet it powerfully shapes the way we show up in every area of our life.
Perhaps it’s something you too, are familiar with? If so, you are most certainly not alone.
Somatic Practices to Support You When You Feel Drained, Flat, or Numb
Many of us experience moments in our lives when we feel drained, flat, or numb—disconnected from our bodies, our emotions, and maybe our sense of purpose.
This can feel heavy and unsettling, leaving us unsure of how to find our way back to a sense of presence and vitality.
During these times, somatic practices can be a lifeline. They can offer simple but profound ways to restore our energy, bring us back into our body, and help us feel present again.
In this blog post, we’ll explore what it means to feel somatically disconnected, and simple, nurturing practices to help you begin to reconnect with your body and restore your energy.
Leadership, Redefined: Why Feminine Leadership Is Powered By Rest
We live in a world that measures success by productivity, achievement, and the ability to keep pushing forward at all cost.
The more we do, produce, deliver - the greater our success, even if it means deprioritising our wellbeing, and abandoning our needs and sense of purpose as we climb ladders.
For women, this model of being and leading seems to ask that we sacrifice ourselves, conceal parts of who we are to fit into a mould that was never shaped for us, and that we chronically overachieve, overextend and overgive - often leading us to constantly hover over exhaustion or to oscillate between chronic stress (being ‘all on’) and burnout (being ‘all off’).
But what if we’re missing something crucial in the conversation about leadership?
What if true feminine power doesn’t come from pushing harder, but from resting deeper?
Resting into Wholeness: Yoga Nidra as a Journey Home to Who We Are Beyond The Exhaustion and Stress
So many of us live fast-paced, rushed and demanding lives.
Lives that our human nervous system hasn’t yet adapted to living, which means that we tend to spend a lot of time in sympathetic activation: what is known as the fight or flight response.
Even though actual threats to our survival might be relatively rare in our everyday lives, our nervous system frequently perceives threats or cues of unsafety: a car cutting us off in traffic, an email from our boss popping into our inbox, a difficult conversation with our partner, a challenging presentation we have to deliver to the board, ….
Overcoming Feminine Burnout: How to end the perpetual quest towards being enough
Over 10 years ago, I experienced a severe burnout. It left me feeling utterly broken, raw, cracked open - hanging on by a very fine thread. My sense of identity was shattered, I felt completely empty, and simply moving through each day was incredibly challenging.
I felt lost: I had no idea how to move forward, and my inner critical voice was relentless.
The Courage To Slow Down And Reclaim Sovereignty Over Our Life
The pace at which we live our lives seems to be constantly accelerating, and it’s easy to get swept up in the forward moving current that we are all swimming in.
It’s as though we are pulled by an irresistible urge to be doing more, moving ever faster, pushing ourselves further.
This forward motion is often driven by a desire to feel fulfilled, happy, and at peace.
Embodied Feminine Leadership: your way of being is a way of leading
As women, we are often conflicted about leadership.
We might want to step up to lead and take a stance for what we believe in, but the current style of leadership that is role modelled to us isn’t always one we are willing to embrace. It often demands that we abandon parts of who we are, in order to fit in and belong. This way of leading omits a huge portion of who we are as women, and undervalues the unique qualities that we are naturally gifted with and embody.
The Truth About High Functioning Anxiety - And How It Causes Burnout In High Achieving Woman
High functioning anxiety is a sneaky type of anxiety. It often goes unrecognised, because of its high functioning nature.
On the surface, you appear together, grounded and in control.
You overachieve at work, and are often admired for your hard-work, commitment, and attention to detail.
You have a successful career and seem to have an incredible ability to juggle a high level role with the demands of everyday life.
You seem to 'have it all'.
But it comes at a cost.
