Growing up alongside a high-achieving sister, I watched her collect the trophies, receive the praise, top of her class, best results in the year. I was in awe of her, and ached for a version of that recognition for myself.

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I learnt to self-soothe by daydreaming, putting my active imagination to good use. In my head, I was on a stage, singing, acting and dancing in front of a large audience, cheering me on. Just the thought of it lit me up.

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But those dreams remained tucked away in my head, “where they belonged,” never serious enough to be taken seriously.

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And with my prayers seemingly unanswered, I adapted. The way we do.

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I found another way to be seen

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​I got really good at being good.

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​I became the girl who made everyone smile, who kept the peace even when it cost her, who was easy-going, went with the flow and never made a fuss.

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It was second nature to me. My natural sensitivity made it easy to tune into the people around me, sense what was needed,  and shapeshift accordingly.

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And for a while, it worked.

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Until it didn't.

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By the time I reached my thirties, I was burnt out, miserable and sick.

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From the outside you wouldn't have known. After all, I was well practiced at showing up with a smile on my face and acting like everything was fine.

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But inside I was screaming.​

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I couldn't keep abandoning myself, but the guilt of doing anything else felt almost unbearable.

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Something had to give.

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And it did.

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While I was stirring a pot of risotto in my kitchen, five words came spilling out of my mouth that would change my life:

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​"I can't do this anymore.”

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​​I walked away from my marriage, my business and my family home.

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The life and relationships I'd built had cost me a lifetime of self-abandonment, and what they'd left behind was a bank of resentment for words not spoken, and grief for a life not fully lived.

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What I hadn't expected was the aftermath.

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Friendships I'd spent years building started falling apart. There was a phone call that never came, judgement and gossip that came flying my way, and the slow, painful unravelling of the life and identity I'd once known.

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Surely I didn't deserve this. I was a good person.

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For two years, I couldn't find any peace.

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Until, in a moment of desperation, I fell to my knees and cried:

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​“For God's sake, please tell me what I need to do.”

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​And there it was, in plain sight.

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​Me. Still searching for answers outside of myself.

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​The years of pleasing and appeasing, the constant looking for approval that had once helped me feel seen, was now the very thing holding me back.

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For the first time, I could see my own part to play in my misery. It was a hard pill to swallow, but liberating, because now I had a choice. I could take my power back, and live more freely, as me.

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I began turning that same sensitivity I'd spent a lifetime pointing at everyone else back towards myself. My kindness and compassion had always been real. It had just always felt safer to give them than to receive.

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I tuned into that little girl who once believed she wasn't enough, and let her know how truly sorry I am for not believing in her sooner, and assured her that she can trust in me now.

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And so every time I say yes to something that lights me up, every time I stand on a stage, my heart beating, my legs shaking, and all the nerves that come with being fully seen, I do it for her,

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And finally let her recognise all that she is, and always was.

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​Because I hear her prayers.

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I believe in her dreams.

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And I finally recognise what a privilege it is to be the woman who gets to honour them.

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That reckoning is where more than a decade of work began. Today I work as a Human Capacity & Nervous System Educator, speaker and facilitator — because I know, from the inside, the difference between understanding yourself and actually living what you know.