This is personal

My personal journey through mental health, physical health, and parenting challenges deeply informs my coaching work with women. Raising two neurodiverse children as a single parent, building two businesses from scratch, and writing and publishing a book in the midst of all that — I understand the very real need to have emotional capacity to keep all the balls in the air. And still show up for your kids, as they navigate their own challenges in life. I remember how it felt when finding 5 minutes for me felt impossible, but absolutely necessary. I've learned through my own trial and error, the most powerful energy boosting strategies and because I know how much we all need them, I created the Take Care of YOU FIRST^TM Method to share these nuggets of life-changing wisdom with other women.

If I can do this, so can you

At the age of 22, three years into studying my Occupational Therapy degree, life as I knew it came to a grinding halt. A virus I didn’t recover from turned into a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. In spite of following a strict naturopathic diet, taking a truckload of supplements and "doing half of what you think you can do" - the apparent wisdom of the day - I became virtually bedridden for months. I remember getting to the shower once a week and sitting on the floor to wash myself, having no energy for standing. Wondering if I'd ever walk further than the bathroom again.

After months of no improvement, I was admitted to a psych ward for 5 weeks, got a few more labels, and started a long slow journey of recovery. Here's where I started making connections between mental, physical and emotional health in a way that no-one can teach you at Uni. I searched deeply for answers — seeing a wide range of mental and physical health practitioners over the next 20 years. This journey - of trial and error - making progress and having setbacks, over and over - has given me incredible insight and passion for supporting other women who are not satisfied to let their labels and life circumstances stop them from creating a life they love.

I know what works and what doesn’t in helping women create real change in their health, parenting, and relationships — from personal and professional experience. I’ve now had the privilege of coaching women and neurodiverse humans for the last 10 years through my group and 1:1 coaching programs. It makes all the years of struggle and pain so worth it - when I get to help other women find a pathway through their pain and create a life they love living - instead of one they’re just surviving. If I can do it, so can you.

Self-Care is not instinctive - it needs to be taught

If you're feeling fuzzy on what self-care even is - you are not alone. It's taken me 20 years, a lot of pain, struggle, and relationship challenges, trying out a lot of different therapeutic approaches to discover that self-care is actually a thing - that’s absolutely foundational to our health, relationships and quality of life. And yet no-one really teaches you how to do it. Unless you’ve seen it modelled growing up - many of us had mums who put other people’s needs first (which is actually not sustainable or loving - just exhausting), we need some help to figure this out.

What I teach in my Take Care of YOU FIRST^TM method is a process I’ve learned through years of getting it wrong, and hitting against mental and physical health challenges over and over again. But little by little I’ve discovered what does work - how to live, love and lead from a place of fullness, not emptiness. It is possible - once you know the steps, and you understand the mindset shifts. Self-care does not need to be complicated or expensive. But it does require focus and intention and a desire to change. The strategies that work the best cost nothing - but change everything, once you discover them.