About Me

In mid 2009 I came home from a normal day at work and began to make our evening meal. Fairly standard behaviour but on this night I was looking at the knives with more than the usual interest…

After about 5 minutes I put the knives down and went into the garage to start hunting for a machete. We didn’t have a machete but I knew our kitchen knives weren’t sharp enough for my purposes and I thought maybe our landlords might have left a machete behind when they went to Australia.

You know, like you do.

I didn’t find a machete but I did eye up a couple of hoes and a very blunt saw before deciding that maybe I’d better find another way out of my current situation. Wielding a machete at work might bring me some temporary relief but it probably wasn’t going to make me feel much better in the long term, and where would I go from there? Nowhere Nice, I suspected.

So I carried on chopping and stirring and tasting and thinking and by the time I had gone to bed I had made my decision.

Once I’d made it, everything fell into place.

It was so obvious, I couldn’t believe I’d even contemplated the machete option – all that mess and screaming when all I really had to do would take less than a second and not hurt anyone.

I talked it over with my Lovely Husband and he was all for it.

When the moment arrived the next day I couldn’t quite believe it was so simple. There was no fanfare, no change in the temperature and no ceremony. No one around me even noticed.

All I did was press a little button on a website and a whole new future instantly opened up in front of me. It didn’t even bring up an “Are you sure?” message. One click and that was it.

And what was on the button? It was this:

“I wish to resign”

And on October 9th 2009 I did just that, bringing to an end a 25-year career in the civil service and bringing to a start my new, second life. The life that I had been born to live. I was about to start fulfilling my life’s purpose.

I was 44 at the time and resigning to become self-employed was the next logical step in a process of self-discovery that had seen me overcome fears, discover skills and talents I didn’t know I had, learn how to put guilt back in its place, grow my self-confidence and realise that I could do whatever I wanted with my life – because it was my life!

Where I’ve come from

I’ve come from a life that was pretty much ruled by fear. My parents were children during the war and their parents were Victorians and that coloured their outlook and the values I was brought up with.

I was too scared to leave home and go to University when I was young and I carried on being too scared to do lots of things for many years afterwards.

I had a distorted view of myself both inside and out – for too many years I felt fat and unattractive and believed that I was only ever “good enough” at best.

I let people manipulate me and put me down and I didn’t take notice of my own intuition or feelings about what was and wasn’t right for me – I always worked on the basis that what I thought was wrong because other people said so.

I suffered repeated cycles of severe depression that caused me to lose pretty much everything but eventually I started to realise that I am a person who counts and who has a voice and who can make a difference.

I had no idea of who I really was, or what my life was for.

My employer made a huge investment in personal development for its staff, and that got me on the road to understanding myself and others.

I got a new, enlightened doctor who got to the bottom of some of the physical causes of my depression.

And I met a man who loved and valued me for myself and wanted to see me succeed.

Gradually I came to believe that I had a contribution to make and a voice that deserved to be heard. I still didn’t know how and I was still very fearful but in my early forties I finally decided that I was now too old to have anyone telling me what to do any more.

And then I discovered coaching, and my life changed.

I realised that I had a natural talent and I was lucky enough to be able to hone it on a fantastic coach training programme where I trained with some wonderful people who encouraged me to think big and really go for my dreams.

I slayed so many demons on that course and I knew, by the time I’d finished it, that I had discovered what I was put on the Earth to do.

At first I hoped that I would be able to use my skills and gifts at work – it was, after all, my employer that had paid for me to train and qualify as a coach.

But it was never going to happen – and the day I came home from work and hunted for a machete was the day I finally realised that.

So I took my first and biggest Leap of Faith – I had no safety net and no plan but I knew that I was leaping into the life I was meant to be living.

With that Leap, I overcame fear, guilt, lack of confidence and insecurity, all the things that had always held me back.

And it felt FABULOUS!

Why I’m here

As I came to really know and understand myself I began to realise that there really wasn’t anything dreadful lurking at the core of me. For so long I’d been afraid that the “real” me was this evil pulsing mass of nastiness and that I couldn’t let her out because then everyone would know how horrid I really was. What I learned, especially through being coached, was that fundamentally, at the core and heart of everyone, there is nothing but love, peace and joy.And that I was no exception.

Babies and small children know it – they are born expecting to love and be loved and they don’t understand things like guilt and fear until we teach them.

The more I became aware of how easy and beautiful life was once I had realised that I was “good enough”, the more urgently I felt the need to help other people to feel the same way about their lives.

So that’s what I do now. I’m a midlife woman who has experienced a fair few of the highs and the lows that life can throw at me and my mission is to help other midlife women, just like you, to learn to know, love and understand yourself so that you can put aside your fears and step out into the sunlight where you belong.

Once you know who you are, it’s only a short step from there to discovering why you’re here – your life’s purpose.  And once you have the answers to those two fundamental questions, you will never again ask the midlife woman’s number one question: “Is this it?”

I fulfil my purpose by coaching, running workshops, speaking and hosting programmes designed to empower midlife women and enable them to become their best selves.

What I believe

• I believe that you have a voice that deserves to be heard
• I believe that you have far more potential than you realise
• I believe that there is a glorious being inside of you waiting to be released
• I believe that listening to yourself is the first step on the road to happiness
• I believe that spending time working out what you really want is a necessity, not a luxury
• I believe that you deserve to live a life free of guilt, fear and uncertainty

What Inspires Me

My family are my main inspiration. I’ve already mentioned my Lovely Husband – he is a quiet, unassuming man and my rock. One hundred percent supportive and without a malicious bone in his body. He also has phenomenal inner strength AND he brings me tea and breakfast in bed EVERY morning. My children from my first marriage are right up there with him. They are both grown and have left home, and I marvel every day at what fabulous people they’ve turned into.

And I’m also inspired by my clients. It takes a fair amount of bravery to decide that you want to actively explore your innermost thoughts and opinions and even more bravery to keep going when things get messy and emotional and difficult, and yet time and time again I see my lovely clients wipe their eyes, take a deep breath and keep going. I feel so immensly privileged and grateful when a client shares a breakthrough with me, or when she tells me about a momentous change she’s made as a result of some work that we’ve done. And I feel even more inspired to keep on doing what I’m doing and help even more lovely ladies to feel that good about their own lives.

What About You?

If you like what you’ve read and you think I can help you then I’d love to hear from you.. Before starting work with anyone I always have a free, no obligation conversation to make sure if we’re right for each other. You can book your introductory chat right now and I’ll look forward to talking to you.

Because life is a journey of discovery and rediscovery, I love to help women who have lost sight of who they are and why they are here. My greatest passion is to see women take positive steps toward their own confident and personally fulfilling present and future lives.