My Story

7 years ago, my life looked very different...

7 years ago I would hide in the closet. Door locked. Lights off. Curled into the corner where the coats hung down. I'd cry so hard I'd choke on my own breath. Sometimes I'd pray for God to take me. I didn't really want to die. I just didn't know how to live anymore.

But every morning, I put on mascara and returned to the same place that was quietly undoing me. Seventeen years in the family business. Seventeen years of drowning in the need to be perfect, to be valuable, to finally earn my father's approval.

I was the hero in my own story - the breadwinner, the capable one, the woman who could handle anything. The more I could endure, the more I was valued. I mistook it for purpose. I took it as love.

My anxiety was like static beneath my skin. My OCD was unbearable. I couldn't parent. I couldn't be with my kids in any real way. I was too consumed with proving my worth to actually be present for my oldest son's growing up. My marriage became something I managed around the edges of my "important" work.

The real cost was devastating. I was sacrificing my most important relationships for the approval of someone who might never give it. My husband got my leftovers. My children got whatever energy remained after I'd poured everything into being indispensable.

When the business ownership changed hands, I lost more than a job. I lost my identity. My proof. My scaffolding.

I had to confront what I'd been avoiding for so long - I had chosen performance over presence, achievement over connection, my father's approval over my own family's needs.

Today...

I've been married for 19 years. I'm a mother to two boys. Our life is beautifully chaotic, deeply nourishing, woven with neurodivergence and creativity and a house full of pets.

My husband has been one of my greatest teachers in conscious relating. We've repaired the distance I created through years of making everything else more important than us. We've learned to stay curious instead of defensive, to see each other's needs beneath our triggers, to choose connection over being right. Our relationship is no longer secondary to anything.

The static beneath my skin has quieted. I can be present with my children now - really present, not managing the next crisis or chasing the next achievement. I'm here for the ordinary moments I used to miss while performing somewhere else.

I no longer disappear into roles or performances. I've learned the difference between being helpful and being desperate for approval, between being responsible and being controlled by others' expectations.

The work I do now - facilitating other women's return to themselves - isn't separate from my life. It's practiced in my kitchen on Tuesday mornings when we're both triggered and the kids need breakfast and somehow we have to find our way back to each other. It's in the moment I notice I'm about to say yes when my body is saying no, and I pause. It's in learning to apologize without collapsing into shame, to set a boundary without building a wall.

It's in those moments when my old patterns surface - the urge to fix, to control, to make everyone comfortable - and instead I breathe, I feel my feet, I remember that their emotions aren't mine to manage.

This isn't theoretical work. It's lived. It's the daily practice of choosing presence over performance, connection over achievement, what's real over what I think should be.

If something inside of you recognizes this work, let's begin.