I spent years trying to become the kind of woman I thought people would approve of. And the thing is... I didn't even realise I was doing it. I thought I was working on myself. I thought I was becoming more confident, more successful, more healed, more spiritual. But if I'm really honest, a lot of what I called self-development was just self-rejection with better branding.

I was constantly editing myself. Too loud? Tone it down. Too opinionated? Be softer. Too ambitious? Make sure nobody feels intimidated. Want to help people? Better become someone nobody could possibly judge. Because if nobody could criticise me... nobody could reject me, and the irony is, I spent so much time trying to become someone people would respect that in time I became someone I no longer recognised. I genuinely thought there was some secret personality I had to unlock before I was allowed to be successful. And it was exhausting!

I looked at other women and constantly asked, "what do they have that I don't? why does it seem so easy for them? why does everyone see their potential and not mine?" I thought I was jealous of their success. Looking back, I don't think I was. I was grieving the woman I could have been if I'd have trusted my voice the way they trusted theirs. I had spent so long listening to coaches, experts, social media, family & friends, that I trusted them more than me. Somewhere along the way, I had stopped asking, "What do I want?" and started asking, "Who should I be?" And then one day I burned out.

I realised I couldn't keep auditioning for a life that didn't feel like mine - I didn't even like who I was trying to become. I was building my life around a version of myself that didn't belong to me. I was building my life from a wound. I realised in that moment that there was never anything wrong with me. I was never supposed to become someone else. I was supposed to stop abandoning the me I'd always been.

And that's the work I do now... Helping women untangle the expectations, beliefs and stories that were never theirs to carry. Helping them stop performing. To stop abandoning themselves in the name of self-improvement. Because once you stop performing and start living by your own standards - something extraordinary happens - you stop trying to become the woman you think the world will approve of… and start becoming the woman you actually respect.