WELL…I fell victim to self inflicted

exhaustion and burnout.

Are you a high achieving professional feeling inner conflict in your daily surroundings?

Do you feel like you are losing yourself, constantly holding back by biting your tongue in the workplace?

Struggling to break the work-life stress cycle? 

Never topping up before the week ahead?

Warning: This feeling only gets louder and will impact you further. 

I know, it was broken too. I didn’t see it coming. I have only truly gotten to know, love and befriend myself in my 30’s, and at 38 I have balance and peace …. and no more insomnia.

This is your call to claim the life you love and deserve 

I’m Michelle, I always thought of myself as a strong ambitious woman, thriving in a big city job felt like a good fit in the beginning. What I've come to realise is that the mould I was squeezing myself into, which I was holding as desirable, was in fact a woman with little agency, no autonomy, no boundaries and no voice. 

I had little control over my working hours, which meant I couldn’t manage my energy levels, sleep hygiene, mental health, social life and time with my family. I was another cog in a corporate machine, feeling essential in the moment but also knowing that I was disposable and replaceable if I were to give them less than my complete focus. 

Do you work amongst stress addicts in a work culture where morning chitchat is a competitive conversation about how late each person worked, or how little sleep is collectively managed due to work stress or a pending deadline? These chats amongst colleagues normalise how unhealthy these environments can be, yet they bring us solidarity as you realise “at least it wasn’t just just who is restless at night’’. No, just no. This shit needs to end. Boundaries must be formed and applied in order to break these cultures. What messages are these conversations giving to the generation of interns, or our children? 

Afterall, who wants bragging rights to sleepless nights? For well over a decade I was a slave to the deadline … slave to the profit. 

“I sold out baby!” My health and happiness was my penalty. 

15+ years in the thankless rat race resulted in huge internal burnout and numbness. I’d unknowingly become monotone, pared back, hollow and withdrawn. In order to survive in that world with burnout, my objective was to keep my head below the parapet and stay under the radar. I couldn’t risk work Management see my ongoing weakness, see that I was struggling with long term creative blocks as a result of living in an anxious fog.

A sniff of that weakness and they would have

moved in on me like an eagle to its prey. 

Not being able to keep up with the constant demands of the job, I spiralled into territory of panic attacks as everything I'd worked so hard for was under threat. My home, my salary, my marriage, my health. The human body can only take so much stress. 

Working in a toxic culture long term is detrimental to your health, in order to take stock I first needed to surrender. This was the turning point. 

I sought support from my G.P and was prescribed time, long term sick leave. Time is a gift that wasn’t on my radar, my career had completely consumed my health. I needed time, time to rest, destress, and come out of the anxiety spiral. Three months later, I began to more clearly, I had my own fresh perspective, I began to feel creative again. I was finally thinking outside of the box, rather than the corporate institutional box which I'd been married to. 

I have spent time in talk therapy, it helped to have my feelings validated, realise the systemic issues, realise that I needed change, but it didn’t connect me to what I needed… It was only through somatic enquiry that I was able to bring myself a sense of calm, authenticity and self worth followed. 

It was through somatic practice that I was able to bring myself a sense of self connection, a voice, authenticity. My long lost self worth followed. I have come into an awareness and perspective which I never thought possible. I thought I'd be an anxious person for the rest of my years. I thought it was the dominant part of my personality, however it was a reflection of my tense and unsafe surroundings. We are tender, deep feeling mammals after all. 

If this resonates with you or that tight sensation in your stomach, you need to know that you can flourish again.

You can thrive in a world without the cloud of stress casting a shadow over your glow. The industry that you fought so hard to prosper in shouldn’t have this much of a hold over you. Those intrusive spiralling thoughts can end. You’ll have the tools to evolve into a more resilient you.

Somatic Therapy, how does this look?

There’s no one size fits all approach to Somatic Enquiry, therefore we would work 1-1, with your personalised sessions.

A suggestion of 8 1 Hour sessions is usually required in order to break through the walls and conditioning we’ve become accustomed to, allowing you to follow the breadcrumbs, leading you to a new authentic inner wisdom. These sessions are available online or in person for clients based in the Midlands UK.

We begin our partnership with a short consultation call, this gives you an opportunity to get a feel for how I work and also ask as many questions as you’d like.