An extract from my upcoming book, "the Gift of Burnout"

When people ask me what I do, I usually say I help people build a life that sings to their soul.

“How do you do that?” they ask.

“Depends if they give themselves permission or not.” 

“Oh… I’ve never thought it that way…” 

Through their facial expressions, I see their mind’s arm has gone reaching far back into their beliefs cupboard about what they do or do not give themselves permission to do, while trying to figure out what singing to their soul even means. I know I wouldn’t have had a clue when I was working in the financial widgets industry. My contorted face and pinched eyebrows would have exposed my judgement towards a person declaring to have such a career. 

"Who is she even working for? God?" I would have scoffed, while scanning the room for someone with their head properly screwed on their shoulders to converse with, not one of these new age weirdoes. 

However, if I’m honest - and that’s what this book is all about – the idea of something singing to my soul would one day release a warm, blossoming tincture into my veins, like copper clouds being released from tea leaves in hot water. But I wasn’t there yet. I had to keep selling financial widgets just a bit longer. Of course, I felt a pebble in my shoe, so to speak. But wasn’t that just the price to pay for having nice shoes? Didn’t everyone have a pebble in their shoe? So, I soldiered on, as I always had, intellectualising all of my reasons I had to despite everything feeling so terribly wrong. 

We’re funny like that sometimes, us humans. We cling to what we know, however awful it may be, because the unknown can be so damn scary. Most of us only envisage change once change is the only option, generally after a loss such a job, relationship, death or health issue. Just ask a cancer survivor and you’ll know I speak the truth.

In my case, I had to crash and burn as they say and lose my mental health and career before I could face the truths I’d spent years swimming away from. I still remember my GP saying, “If you don’t pull yourself out of this hole, no one will do it for you.” So, I started therapy and journeyed inside. I sat in my darkness until I finally saw my light. I didn’t want to sell financial widgets anymore. I didn’t want to be married to my husband anymore either. I wanted to be happy, to experience joy and follow my passion. 

At forty-two, I decided to start over. I made the difficult decision to leave my husband while our children were still young. Over the next ten years, I trained in fields which truly interest me - developmental coaching, meditation, neuro-linguistic programming, Reiki, the Enneagram and equine-assisted therapy - and built a business dedicated to helping individuals access calm and joy by living and leading authentically. Clearing out the old allowed me to make room for the new. The heaviness of being a superwoman was replaced by the lightness of being just me. Authentically me. As I shed the things I wasn’t, reshaped my limiting beliefs and reconnected with the mysterious source of life, constriction and stagnation gave way to expansion and aliveness.

During this transition, I read a lot of books, from positive psychology and Buddhist philosophy to energy healing and somatic therapies, passing by a very wide spectrum of literature about the mind-body-spirit connection and what we must do to heal. While my intellect was nourished, I craved a practical guidebook which rolled all of this wisdom into one and showed me how to mend my wounds, overcome my fear of change, make the shifts towards a more fulfilling life, build trust in something out there much bigger than me, raise my children without damaging them too much and of course pay the bills. 

I also started writing to let my pent-up thoughts run free, to force my mind to make sense of my feelings by assigning them words. I thought about telling this story as a memoir, about how a twenty-one-year-old American girl, with chutzpah in her veins and a thousand dollars in her pocket, fled the deep American South to Paris, where she fell into the booming financial widgets industry and was whisked into a tornado of exotic travel, elegant soirées and five-star everything before parachuting onto the golden beaches of Sydney at thirty-one to set up the business for her French employer. 

But then, I’d have to confess I was called "intimidating" and "a ballbreaker." I’d have to admit the embarrassing truth about being bewildered when I saw poverty and happiness sitting side by side, like two old friends sharing tea, when I trekked through Nepal in my twenties and how my mind’s arm had to go digging through my own beliefs cupboard about where happiness comes from and how it took me over twenties years and a breakdown to figure it out.

Then worst of all, I’d have to fess up that after gallons of tears and thousands of hours on the therapist’s divan, yoga mat and meditation cushion, I’ve morphed into one of the people I spent many years judging: the middle-aged, health-conscious, out-there, touchy-feely spirituality-seeker who sounds her intuition for guidance, speaks in bumper sticker, separates her home waste into five different bins and is more fulfilled than she ever imagined possible.

So, I decided to write this book instead. Not a memoir in the true sense of the literary genre, but based upon my journey of burnout, recovery and growth. A practical guide on how to gently redirect your life towards fulfilment, but definitely not the generic self-help book that promises happiness in ten easy steps. I sincerely hope you'll laugh with my stories, which might resemble some of yours. My intention is that this book will help you realise your worth, empower you to slow down, ground and nurture yourself. 

While burnout feels like the end of the world, it’s not. It’s the beginning of a new one.

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To be released in time for Christmas 2024