The mother of all wake up calls

Eight years ago, I felt like my world was spinning out of control. My emotions hit me like a freight train—I couldn’t catch my breath, couldn’t find solid ground. I thought I was losing my mind. But the truth landed hard: my daughter had just turned four—the age I was when trauma ripped through my childhood.

No one talks about this. How when a woman enters perimenopause or menopause, every buried wound, every suppressed emotion, every piece of ourselves we’ve tried to hide suddenly rises, demanding to be seen. Had I walked into a doctor’s office, I would have been handed medication for anxiety, told that this was simply “normal.” That I was “just” perimenopausal. But they don’t tell you the real truth: menopause is the mother of all wake-up calls.

It’s not just hot flashes or hormonal shifts. It’s a reckoning. A full-body, full-spirit transformation that asks you to face everything you’ve buried. It pulls back the curtain on your choices, your limiting beliefs, your silent fears, your unspoken desires. If you’ve spent years running on adrenaline, living in survival mode, bracing against life’s hits—menopause will lay it bare. It will show you every neglected need, every stressor you’ve absorbed, every piece of yourself you’ve sacrificed. It asks one burning question: How have you been living?

You can’t run. You can’t numb. Not anymore. Everything comes to the surface. And you have a choice—to continue in survival, or to shift into alignment with the truth of who you are.

For me, it was a reckoning I couldn’t turn away from. It forced me to face my shadow and my light, to confront the stories I’d carried, and to heal what I’d pushed down for far too long. I am deeply grateful I had the awareness to see the trauma that needed healing. And I am forever thankful for Petra Brzovic, who guided me on that path back to myself.

Reading an old email I’d sent to Petra recently brought tears to my eyes. I’d written: “I hope to help women overcome their stories and step into their power when I have dealt with mine.” That version of me feels like a distant memory now. I am grateful for the healing, the growth, and the transformations I’ve experienced.

I’m so grateful to my girls for shining a light on what needed to be resolved in me. For the courage it took to choose myself, even when it was f*****g hard—when I wanted to escape, to turn away, to numb it all. For choosing love over fear.

Today, I guide other women on this journey—back to themselves. To reclaim their power, their truth, their wholeness. To become the cycle breakers and changemakers they were born to be. To lead fiercely, unapologetically, and with hearts wide open.

If you’re ready to stop numbing, to stop surviving, and to start living in alignment with who you really are—it’s time. Rise up. It’s time to come home to yourself.