There was a version of me that gave everything to everyone —except herself.

I was stuck in what I can only describe as “the messy middle”.

Not junior enough to be learning, not senior enough to be progressing. Highly capable, but completely burnt out. I was the person colleagues — some far more senior than me — would quietly delegate their work to, knowing I'd deliver. And I did. Every time. Because I needed to be seen as capable. I needed to be liked. I needed to prove myself.

What I didn't realise was that in trying to prove myself to everyone else, I was abandoning myself completely.

The burnout showed up everywhere. I was experiencing anxiety, panic attacks, DPDR, and a grief I hadn't allowed myself to properly feel.So I kept pushing. And pushing. And pushing. Until I failed my professional exams. Once. Twice. Three times. Not because I wasn't intelligent enough.Because stopping felt like failing. But because I had nothing left to give to the things that actually mattered for my own progression. I was running on empty, pouring from a cup that had long been dry.

I remember the moment things shifted. I was weighing up whether to take out a loan to fund another attempt at qualifying (to stay on a path that had never truly felt like mine). And something in me got very quiet and very clear. If I had that money, where would I really want to put it? The answer wasn't the exams.The answer was me. My ideas. My potential. The version of myself I could sense was in there somewhere, buried under years of people pleasing, overextending, and shrinking.

So I chose a different path.

I changed my environment. I started doing the inner work. understanding who I actually was beneath all the proving and performing. I built boundaries. Real ones. And I'll be honest with you — it wasn't comfortable. People who were used to the version of me that always said yes didn't always respond well to the version of me that finally said no. Some people left. Some relationships shifted in ways that were genuinely painful.

But here's what I gained:

peace. Clarity. Time — actual time — for myself, my goals, and the people who truly see me. And I learned something I now believe with everything I have: the right people don't just tolerate your boundaries. They respect them.

My tattoo says kintsugi — the Japanese art of repairing broken things with gold, making them more beautiful for having been broken.That's what this journey has been for me. Not despite the hard parts. Because of them.

I'm a coach who helps women work through:

the stuckness, the burnout, the boundaries, the identity shift, the quiet but radical decision to finally choose yourself.

I created Funky fresh Coaching for the woman who is done feeling like she's living for everyone else.

The woman who is capable of so much more but keeps getting in her own way. not because she's weak, but because nobody ever taught her that choosing herself wasn't selfish.

You don't have to let difficult experiences harden you. You can let them refine you.

Nice girls don't have to finish last. They just have to learn to guard their hearts and trust that the right people will stay.

If any part of my story sounds like yours, you're in the right place.