If you have landed on this page, you are likely a woman who already knows how to figure things out on her own.
You have the degrees, the promotions, the relationships, the reputation. You are the one your friends call when they need someone capable. You are the one your team leans on when things get hard.
And somewhere in the middle of all that being needed, you are starting to notice that you have stopped needing things from yourself.
Time off. A proper meal. A morning without a knot in your chest. A version of success that does not require you to leave parts of yourself behind to maintain.
If that is you, I want you to know two things, before you even read another word about me.
One, you are not broken. You are evolving.
Two, you do not have to do this part alone.
I spent over ten years in the high-stakes world of healthcare software. As an Implementation Director, Team Leader, and Executive Account Manager, I led multi-million dollar projects helping healthcare organisations in the US transform care delivery through technology. After relocating to England, I worked with NHS organisations supporting digital transformation.
On paper, I was a success.
In reality, I was trading my soul for a paycheck.
The work was technically complex. The pressure was constant. The pace was relentless. And underneath it all, a quieter truth was building. The career I had spent a decade constructing was no longer one I recognised myself in.
Then I became a mother. Twice.
And the gap between the version of me my job demanded and the version of me my life needed got too wide to keep papering over.
For a decade, I built a career that looked like success and felt like a slow burn of the candle from both ends.
I had a full breakdown on the floor of an international airport security line
Not my finest moment. But probably my most important one.
I was 16 weeks postpartum, on a business trip, away from a sick baby and a husband holding it all together alone at home. I was running on little sleep, grande americanos, and the quiet terror that if I stopped moving, everything would collapse.
A security officer blocked me from getting through with my extra bag, the one holding the week's supply of frozen breast milk. And something in me just broke.
I crumbled onto the airport floor, sobbing. Screaming that I needed to get home. That my sick baby needed me. That I could not take another obstacle, another limitation, another no.
Then a stranger named Karen took my hand, heard my half-cry, half-slobber explanation, and walked me straight to the front of the line. That combination of care, pity, and strong womanly love I will never forget.
On the flight home, I kept it simple. I breathed. I ate pretzels. I drank water. I soothed myself with my favourite playlist. And somewhere between the free pretzels and the tears, I finally admitted what I had been ignoring for years.
I was done.
Tired of performing in a corporate mould that did not fit me anymore. Tired of feeling not enough, despite being a high-performer. Tired of my career stealing the joy of raising my children. Burnt out, emotionally drained, and running on empty.
It took 12 months from that breakdown to actually hand in my laptop.
When I did, it felt more like defeat than victory. Like I had failed my clients, my colleagues, myself.
But slowly, something shifted.
The headspace that opened up felt like 100 elephants lifting off my shoulders. I slept better. I smiled again. I picked my kids up from daycare and actually had the energy to be present with them in the evenings.
And then it hit me.
It should not take a woman reaching total burnout, and walking away from everything, just to reclaim her own life.
That realisation is the reason I do what I do now.