Written by Rosalba De La Rosa-Ruiz, Spiritual Wellness Practitioner As a Reiki Practitioner, channeler, yoga teacher, and sound healer, Rosie weaves together energy work, movement, and sacred sound to create deeply transformative healing experiences. Through the circles she hosts, she guides others on their healing journeys, holding intentional space for alignment, release, and reconnection to their inner wisdom. Over the last few years, I've had the privilege of meeting and holding space for many different people from all walks of life. One thing I've noticed is that, despite our differences, they all have one thing in common: a desire for a safe space where they can be heard. I love being that sounding board for others and offering tools that may support them on their journey. Whether someone comes seeking healing, guidance, clarity, or simply a positive and supportive environment, the intention is always the same, to create a space where they feel seen, heard, and valued. I offer a different perspective when needed, and sometimes I simply listen. At our core, we all seek connection, community, and understanding. One question I often hear is, "What happens at your circles?" Some people ask if we're doing yoga, while others wonder if we're summoning spirits. There are even those who assume it's something spiritual that may conflict with their personal beliefs. You should always do what feels most comfortable and aligned with your values, but that isn't part of my practice. My circles are rooted in love, connection, and support. I offer practical tools, gentle movement, reflection, and energy work designed to help people reconnect with themselves and support their overall well-being. I always tell attendees that everything I do comes from a place of love and light. My intention is never to tell people what to believe, but rather to create a space where they can explore their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences in a supportive environment. One of the greatest joys for me is reconnecting with participants after a circle and hearing how they have integrated the tools they learned. I love listening to their stories, how they've applied a new practice, reflected on a message they received, or discovered a lesson that continued to unfold long after our time together ended. The truth is that healing often begins with connection. Sometimes people don't need someone to fix them; they simply need someone willing to sit with them, listen without judgment, and remind them that they are not alone. That is the joy of holding space. It's found in the people, their stories, the connections we create, and the healing that naturally unfolds when someone feels truly seen and supported. Follow me on Instagram for more info! Read more from Rosalba De La Rosa-Ruiz Rosalba De La Rosa-Ruiz, Spiritual Wellness Practitioner Rosalba “Rosie” De La Rosa-Ruiz is a Reiki Practitioner, channeler, yoga teacher, and sound healer devoted to guiding others through transformative healing experiences. Blending energy work, intuitive guidance, movement, and sacred sound, she creates heart-centered spaces that support deep release and reconnection. Through her circles, classes, and one-on-one sessions, Rosie empowers others to align with their inner wisdom and step into greater balance and authenticity. Her writing carries the same intention, offering insight, inspiration, and practical tools for the healing journey. Connect with Rosie to explore more of her work and upcoming offerings.

Written by Kathleen Johnson, Coach/Consultant/Educator Kathleen Johnson is a well-known coach, consultant, educator, and internationally certified in Diversity Inclusion Service Management (DISM). She is the founder of Kreativ Culture Strategies, a creative engagement and solutions firm, author of the book Thinking Outside the Boardroom: Creative Solutions in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and host of The Kreactivators Podcast. The presence of women in leadership roles ticks a diversity box but does not automatically mean there’s equality in the workplace. Are organizations genuinely advancing gender equity, informed by women, or do they purposely put women out front while leaving systemic barriers intact, then scapegoat them when initiatives fail? There are two main things you can do to shift your organization toward gender equity for real. The new “F” word “Feminism” has become the new “F” word. Once proudly claimed by our mothers and grandmothers, it is often now shied away from in its traditional form. It’s a movement that has had divisions within it from the very beginning. What was empowerment and advancement for White women often did not translate into what it looked like for women of colour, immigrant women, 2S/LGBTQQIA+ women, disabled women, poor women, or women who are in a few of these groups at once. Organizations typically do not look at women as a dynamic group, but as one type of woman qualified to represent and speak for all women. Representation is not equity Representation and equity are not the same thing. Representation refers to the visibility of women in leadership positions. Equity involves creating fair systems, opportunities, compensation structures, and workplace cultures that allow every type of woman at every level to succeed. If the higher up you go in the organization, the fewer women and the less diversity of women you see, it is often an indicator that barriers may be actively at play. Organizations may proudly appoint women to executive roles while maintaining gender pay gaps, limited maternity and caregiving support, poor or nonexistent mentorship, employee resource groups with no advocacy power, workplace cultures that tolerate sexism as “jokes,” lack of support for marginalized women, minimal investment in leadership development for women, and an unclear or absent stance on women’s issues. “Femwashing” Many women leaders find themselves in what scholars describe as "token" positions. They are highly visible, allowing an organization to “femwash” inequitable policies and practices while lacking intention to shift corporate culture. Sometimes women who get into these positions were chosen because of their dedication to the status quo. Their compliance with racism and discrimination gives organizations a veneer of progressiveness, while preserving the same dominant group in leadership. This is not what a functional meritocracy looks like. Some believe that touting you have a merit-based system means you have one. It is a cheat code of sorts that, should it exist, would inevitably result in fewer women or other marginalized people. However, a meritocracy would result in more nontraditional hires, not less. Two main goals for organizations 1. Name it and claim it Recognition that women experience workplace barriers differently based on race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic background, and country of origin is otherwise known as intersectional feminism. It is more unacceptable than it is “radical” that women are still fighting for equity in the workplace after three waves of feminism. Name and claim that your organization unequivocally supports all women. That is what feminism is. Collect quantifiable disaggregated data, hold interviews with leadership on the issue, and have key decision makers complete a comprehensive questionnaire to ensure you know what the gaps are. This will show where to concentrate your efforts, which can later be mapped out for quick wins and long term gain. The system I use that treats DEI as a system and business process is ISO 30415. It is the international standard of DEI work. 2. Consult, consult, consult Ensure that, every step along the way, women’s needs are front and centre. If you do not have access to a diverse feminine-presenting population, do your due diligence in conducting a literature review and environmental scan. This will help you determine what has worked well in the best possible match you can find for your type of organization in your industry. Build an external advisory group if the diversity among women and allies in your organization does not exist. Members of such a group can come from all across the world, if need be. They can provide good, evidence-based support to inform your plan, so that one day your organization will have this representative lived experience and knowledge base to draw from internally. “Too many rights” Nobody can have “too many” rights or “too much” access unless they mean harm to others. There can also be more than one minority group at a time on an initiative, board, or in a department. No two people think exactly alike because they share factors like race, age, sex, or gender. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked how many women she felt should be on the Supreme Court, she said “9,” and why not? If it would not be considered too much for White males, then why should it be considered “too much” or too many for anyone else? Challenge your thinking! Resistance to equity work or collusion with policy that harms marginalized groups surfaces because our privileges can make us feel someone’s gain is our loss. The reality of life, and of our species as diverse, is not divisive; the maintenance of unequal systems is. Systems and organizations are not accidentally exclusionary; therefore, we must be intentional in our pursuit of fairness. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Kathleen Johnson Kathleen Johnson, Coach/Consultant/Educator Kathleen Johnson is an award-winning thought leader and strategist focused on creative engagement in helping people from all backgrounds come together around social justice issues in a corporate setting. Experiencing racism and discrimination from a young age and seeing her immigrant parents build community instilled a deep sense of wanting to work towards more fairness in institutions. Kathleen is also a leader in healthcare, a sessional instructor with Simon Fraser University's Equity in Healthcare program, one of Canada's Top 100 Black Women to Watch in Canada for 2025, and a mother of 5 children with disabilities.

Written by Carmel Shami, Holistic Time Management Mentor Carmel is a time management mentor, author, and former social worker who helps overwhelmed professionals and individuals with demanding lives break free from burnout and constant overload. Using a holistic productivity and time management framework, she helps them regain clarity, balance, control, and live intentionally. I have been married for thirty years to a man with severe ADHD. I know what it is to love someone deeply and still feel worn down by the same struggles, again and again. The forgotten plans. The unfinished tasks. The feeling that I am holding the whole house in my head. I also know that it is possible to build a good life together, because we have. So when I write about this, I am not speaking only as a coach. I am speaking as a wife who has lived it. It is almost never about the dishes. It starts with something small. A sink left full. A bill that did not get paid. A plan that was made and then forgotten. We tell ourselves it is about that one thing, but it rarely is. By the time the words come out, we are not arguing about the dishes anymore. We are arguing about everything the dishes have come to mean. In a lot of homes, one partner has ADHD and the other does not. One of them is holding the calendar, the reminders, and the running list of what still needs doing. The other is trying hard, falling short, and feeling it. Both are tired. Both feel alone in it. And both of them love each other, which is the part that makes the conflict hurt so much. Here is what usually goes unseen. The struggle is rarely about effort, and it is almost never about love. It is about two brains that experience time, tasks, and follow through in very different ways. This is not a character problem. It is a translation problem. In the head of the partner with ADHD The ADHD brain does not run on importance. It runs on interest, urgency, and novelty. Researchers have found that people with ADHD can focus deeply on what genuinely engages them, yet struggle to hold attention on tasks that matter but do not feel interesting in the moment. This is not a choice. It is wiring. The same brain often loses track of time completely. There is a real experience, sometimes called time blindness, where twenty minutes and two hours feel almost the same from the inside. Emotions arrive fast too. In many ADHD brains, the part that pauses and steadies a reaction is slower to switch on, so a feeling can spill out before the thinking part of the brain has a chance to step in. A small frustration can turn into a big reaction in seconds, and the person feels it just as strongly as it looks. This is not a drama. It is a nervous system that feels first and filters second. So the partner with ADHD is often not careless. They are carrying a nervous system that makes ordinary follow-through genuinely hard, along with a growing, private fear that they keep disappointing the person they love most. They are not getting it wrong on purpose. They are getting it wrong while trying. In the head of the partner without ADHD This partner is usually holding the structure of the home in their head. The appointments, the deadlines, the small things that will fall apart if no one keeps track of them. Over time, they stop asking and start reminding. They stop reminding and start nagging. Not because they want control, but because they are afraid that if they let go, everything will drop. This is exhausting in a way that is hard to put into words. They begin to feel less like a partner and more like a manager, or even a parent. And underneath the frustration is usually something tender. They are tired of being the one who remembers everything. What they want is to set down the invisible list they carry in their head, even for an evening, and simply enjoy the person they fell in love with. They do not want a project to manage. They want a partner to be with. They are not trying to control. They are trying to keep everything from falling. What happens when they try to work together When these two brains share a home without understanding each other, they tend to fall into a predictable pattern. Specialists who work with these couples call it the parent-child dynamic. One partner takes on the role of the responsible one, managing and reminding. The other takes on the role of the one being managed, and slowly stops trying, because trying and failing hurts more than not trying at all. One pushes. The other pulls away. The more one pushes, the more the other withdraws, and the home fills with a tension that has nothing to do with how much they care. Both people end up feeling unseen in the very place that was supposed to feel safe. This is worth naming honestly. Couples affected by ADHD do face real strain. Some studies suggest higher rates of conflict and, depending on age and circumstances, higher rates of divorce. But the research points to something hopeful underneath the numbers. ADHD on its own does not end marriages. What wears them down is the years of misunderstanding, the silence, and the belief that one person is broken and the other is the long-suffering fixer. It helps to be clear about one thing. Understanding the brain is not the same as excusing the behavior. Awareness explains the struggle. It does not erase it. The partner with ADHD still has real work to do, building systems and supports that fit how their brain actually functions. The partner without ADHD still has real work to do, stepping out of the manager role and back into partnership. Awareness is simply where that work begins. What thirty years has taught me So how did we make it work? It did not happen by accident. Early on, we chose three values to be our anchors: respect, communication, and compromise. When things got hard, and they did, we came back to those three. They became our compass. In practice, those anchors look like this. We communicate with respect, even when it is difficult. No blaming. No rolling of the eyes. We let ourselves have deep, sometimes painful, conversations, and we hold to one rule. They have to end somewhere, with some kind of resolution. Almost every time, that resolution asks one of us, or both of us, to compromise. Usually, it is a compromise on how we each wanted something to be done. That is where the real shift happens. We let go of the need to do things one certain way. When we each try to see the situation through the other's eyes, we stop defending our own version of how it should be done, and we start building a new plan together. A solution that fits both of us, and one that is almost always better than what either of us was holding onto alone. It opens a whole new way of loving each other, and a deeper harmony than I expected to find. The real change in me came when I started to understand his brain. Compassion grew where frustration used to live. I stopped seeing his struggles as choices he was making against me and started seeing them as the way his mind works. And with that came acceptance, which I believe is the true key. When you accept your partner as they are, with their shortcomings, you stop trying to turn them into someone else. Four ideas live in my heart and guide how I show up in our marriage. They come from the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, and over the years, they became a daily practice for me. Take nothing personally. Make no assumptions. Be impeccable with your word. Always do your best. When I hold onto these, most of the small daily friction loses its sting. I also learned what is realistic to expect and what is not. Letting go of the expectations that were never going to be met is what created peace in our home. At the same time, I learned to enjoy his strengths, the very things that drew me to him in the first place. The energy. The creativity. The way he can hold ten things at once. The fun. I let myself love all of that and let go of what I knew he simply could not do. I learned to notice how hard he tries. For me, the effort is worth everything, even when it does not lead to the result I hoped for. I stopped measuring him by the outcome and started honoring the trying. After all, every one of us has shortcomings. God knows I have plenty of my own, and he accepts me exactly as I am, without a word of judgment. I have come to think he is my real teacher when it comes to acceptance. So now, when my husband goes to the store with a list of three items and comes home with five, none of which were on the list, I smile with true compassion. I do not get angry. I feel for him, because I know this is far harder on him than it will ever be on me. What each partner can do If you are the partner with ADHD: Build a system that fits your brain. Create a productivity setup designed around how your mind actually works, not how it is supposed to. Visual cues, reminders, and structure that match you. The right system is the one you will actually use. Make time visible. Use timers, alarms, and a calendar you actually look at, so time stops disappearing on you. Get the list out of your head. Put tasks in one shared place, so your partner does not have to be your backup memory. Name it in the moment. Saying "my brain is avoiding this" is more honest, and more workable, than going silent. If you are the partner without ADHD: Move from reminding to systems. A shared board or list can hold what you have been carrying alone. Say the need, not the criticism. "I feel like I am carrying this by myself" opens a door that "you never help" closes. Let go of having it done your way. Done differently is still done. As a couple: Name your shared values. Choose the few values you both want your home and your time to reflect. They become the anchors you return to when things get hard. Write a couples vision statement. Put into words the kind of life and partnership you are building together, so you are both aiming at the same thing. Set shared goals and shared systems. Decide together what matters most, then build systems you both use, so the load is carried by two people instead of one. For both of you: have the real conversation when you are calm, not in the middle of a fight. Talk about how each of your brains works, not about who is right. Before you assign blame on a shared task, take turns describing how your own brain experiences it. That single shift, from blame to translation, changes the whole tone of a home. One small practice helps more than people expect. Set a short weekly check in, and use it to tell each other two things. What worked well this week, and what could be smoother next week. Keep it warm. A genuine compliment, paired with gentle accountability, does something powerful for the ADHD brain. "I noticed how you handled that, thank you" reaches a person in a way that "you always forget" never will. You may be surprised how much a little encouragement makes the partner with ADHD want to try even harder. The deeper truth Two people can love each other deeply and still be speaking two different languages about time. The goal is not to make one of you think like the other. The goal is to understand each other well enough to build something that works for both. This is the work I do with couples. In my couples coaching, we slow down and map how each partner's brain experiences time, energy, and responsibility, and then build real life systems that fit both of you, instead of asking one of you to become someone you are not. It is not about fixing the partner with ADHD. It is about helping two very different brains build a home that holds them both. If that is the conversation you and your partner are ready to have, you can learn more at here. You do not need to become the same person to build a life together. You need to understand the person you already chose. When you stop fighting the brain across the table and start working with it, something shifts. The differences do not disappear. You stop reading them as proof that you are unloved and start seeing them for what they are: two minds doing their best under one roof. Choose to understand each other first. Everything else gets easier from there. Follow me on LinkedIn and visit my website for more info! Read more from Carmel Shami Carmel Shami, Holistic Time Management Mentor Carmel is a time management expert who helps people rebuild clarity and balance in demanding lives. She is the founder of It’s About Time, a holistic productivity practice rooted in mindset, structure, and energy management. Drawing on her years of work with the elderly and families facing grief, she developed an approach that considers the whole person, not just their schedule. Witnessing how often people reach the end of life with unspoken regrets shaped her mission to help others choose intentionally how they live. As she often reminds her clients, no one dies finished. Choose what matters.

Written by Jenna Ellis, High Performance Somatic Coach Jenna Ellis is a High-Performance Somatic Coach specializing in nervous system regulation for women with autoimmune conditions. With 17 years of lived RA experience, she guides women from symptom management to embodied self-leadership through evidence-based somatic practices. Have you ever stopped to consider how much energy you spend fighting yourself? Not fighting your circumstances. Not fighting your schedule. Not even fighting your illness. Fighting yourself. For years, I believed healing meant fighting harder. Fighting my symptoms. Fighting my limitations. Fighting my body. Like many women, I had learned that strength meant pushing through discomfort. Productivity meant ignoring exhaustion. Success meant overriding my body's signals in order to meet everyone else's expectations. When I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at twenty-one years old, that mindset only intensified. I believed my body had betrayed me, and I became determined to fight it into submission. But over time, I realized something that changed not only my healing journey, but also the way I understand transformation itself. The greatest battle wasn't happening inside my body. It was happening in my relationship with myself. We live in a culture that rewards self-abandonment From a young age, many of us are taught that our value is measured by what we accomplish, how much we can endure, and how well we perform under pressure. We celebrate busy schedules. We admire people who never stop moving. We praise those who push through exhaustion and wear resilience like a badge of honor. Feeling tired? Have another cup of coffee. Overwhelmed? Work harder. Emotionally drained? Keep going. Need rest? Earn it first. Without realizing it, we learn to disconnect from ourselves. We override hunger, fatigue, grief, intuition, and pain in the name of productivity. We become experts at ignoring what our bodies are trying to communicate. Eventually, self-abandonment begins to feel normal. What living at war with yourself really looks like Living at war with yourself doesn't always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like criticizing yourself for needing rest. Sometimes it looks like believing your worth depends on how much you produce. Sometimes it looks like saying "yes" when every part of your body is asking you to say "no." It looks like chasing the next achievement while believing happiness exists just beyond the next milestone. It looks like treating healing as another project to perfect rather than a relationship to nurture. For many high-achieving women, this internal battle becomes so familiar that we no longer recognize it as a conflict. It simply becomes the way we live. Yet every moment we dismiss our own needs, silence our intuition, or push beyond our capacity, we reinforce the belief that our value exists outside of ourselves. Your nervous system is always listening The nervous system isn't simply responding to the world around you. It's responding to the relationship you have with yourself. When your inner dialogue is driven by criticism, urgency, perfectionism, or fear, your nervous system receives a consistent message: You are not safe unless you keep performing. Over time, this state of chronic survival becomes familiar. We become disconnected from our bodies, not because our bodies have failed us, but because we've spent years learning not to listen. This doesn't mean every illness or symptom is caused by stress, nor does it suggest that healing is simply a matter of thinking differently. Our health is shaped by many complex factors. What it does mean is that the quality of our relationship with ourselves matters. When we begin to approach our bodies with curiosity instead of judgment, compassion instead of criticism, and presence instead of pressure, we create the internal conditions in which healing, resilience, and regulation become possible. Healing begins when the war ends One of the greatest misconceptions about healing is that it requires becoming someone different. In my experience, healing has asked something entirely different of me. It has asked me to stop fighting the very body that has carried me through every season of my life. It has invited me to replace punishment with partnership. Control with curiosity. Perfection with presence. The opposite of self-abandonment isn't another self-care checklist. It's a self-relationship. It's learning to trust yourself enough to listen when your body whispers, instead of waiting until it has to scream. It's remembering that your body has never been your enemy. Coming home to yourself Living with rheumatoid arthritis transformed my life in ways I never could have imagined. Not because I found the perfect protocol or finally learned how to eliminate every symptom, but because it led me to ask a different question. What if my body wasn't asking me to fight harder? What if it were asking me to listen? Today, I believe healing is about far more than symptom management. It's about rebuilding trust with ourselves. It's about ending the internal war we've unknowingly been fighting for years. Because when we stop viewing ourselves as problems to solve, we create space for something extraordinary. Connection. Safety. Self-trust. Perhaps the greatest transformation of all is not becoming someone new, but finally coming home to the person we have always been. If you're ready to move beyond simply managing symptoms and begin rebuilding a relationship with your body through nervous system regulation and somatic practices, know that healing doesn't begin with fighting harder. It begins with learning to listen. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jenna Ellis Jenna Ellis, High Performance Somatic Coach Jenna Ellis is a High-Performance Somatic Coach who specializes in nervous system regulation for women with autoimmune conditions. Diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at 21, she was told she'd never run again, today, she's in better physical condition than 17 years ago. Through her transformation journey, Jenna discovered that autoimmune conditions aren't the body attacking itself, but the body's intelligent attempt to protect and survive. She now guides women beyond symptom management to authentic self-leadership, serving clients globally from her base in New York. Her mission is to help women with autoimmune conditions reclaim their power and create lives aligned with their authentic truth.

Written by Marya Firdausi Kazmi, Transformational Leadership & Identity Coach Marya Kazmi is a Transformational Leadership Coach and educator who helps individuals and organizations to examine identity, unlearn limiting patterns, and build values-aligned leadership using reflective frameworks and community-centered practices. I once sat across from a school leader who told me, without hesitation, that being a good leader meant being nice. Keeping the peace. Making sure no one felt uncomfortable. I remember my reaction in that moment: a quiet alarm. Because what I was hearing wasn't leadership. It was avoidance dressed up as kindness. “Love is an action, never simply a feeling.” – bell hooks That conversation stayed with me. It made me ask a harder question: what does it actually mean to lead with love in spaces where accountability and justice are at stake? Why this matters for leaders In my work consulting and coaching leaders, especially in education, I've watched the duties of the job consistently override the deeper work of leading with love. Leaders default to comfort. They avoid the real concerns, the unhealthy patterns, and the practices quietly causing harm. They mistake niceness for leadership. Neither approach works. Avoidance and false harmony both lead to the same place: mistrust, compliance instead of investment, and a culture that fractures from the inside while looking fine on the surface. Love, when it's real, is not soft. It's not the absence of conflict. It's a stance, and it requires a leader willing to do something much harder than keeping the peace. Love is a stance, not a strategy Love does not mean avoiding conflict. Love begins with cultivating spaces that honor the full humanity of the people inside them, through relationships that are actually authentic. Leaders who handle conflict well understand something simple but rare: people need to feel safe enough to engage in creative friction, in real dialogue aimed at understanding, not debates aimed at winning. That safety doesn't come from happy hours or softball games. Team building isn't community building. Community building requires real conversations, the kind that surface the life experiences that shape who we are. That opens up two things most workplaces leave at the door: identity and personal experience. Both are constantly present, whether we name them or not. Who we are determines what makes us feel threatened or replenished as employees, leaders, and colleagues. Race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability, and all the intersecting parts of our humanity shape how we move through work and how we're perceived by the people around us. When we don't create space to talk about these things, both as life experience and as something that shows up in how we work together, we lower the odds of risk taking, real conflict resolution, and genuine collaboration. We also lose our ability to disrupt harm with care when it happens, because we never built the foundation that makes that possible. bell hooks and the practice of love hooks' words anchor this: love is an action, never simply a feeling. For leaders, that means listening deeply when someone tells you the system is hurting them. It means interrupting practices that protect comfort or default norms simply because "it's the way we've always done it." It means making space for joy, for resistance, and for healing inside the organizations you lead. This kind of love isn't about being agreeable. It's about being committed. When I tell the leaders I coach that I love them, I don't mean I coddle them. I mean, I believe in their capacity to grow into who the people around them need them to be. The danger of niceness Niceness and kindness are not the same thing. Kindness is honest. It's just. It's brave enough to say the hard thing. Niceness, on the other hand, is often a tool people use to avoid difficult conversations about identity, to sidestep accountability, or to protect their own comfort at someone else's expense. In my leadership development work, I've watched the moment a leader stops being nice and starts being real. It's uncomfortable. It's also the moment real trust starts to build. Leading with love means holding people to their potential Real love for the people you serve, whether that's students, employees, or a team, shows up in how you push the adults around them to be better. I coach leaders to see past the deficits they notice first in their staff or their students. To ask the harder questions instead of the comfortable ones. To reflect honestly on their own identity and the power they hold. Loving leadership is generative. It says, you're not there yet, but I'm going to walk with you until you are. Closing reflection What would it look like if love, the real kind, was the foundation of every leadership decision you made? Not love as ease. Not love as avoidance. Love as accountability, as affirmation, as action. That redefinition is the work. And it starts with the decision to stop being nice and start being honest. If this resonates, I'd love to continue the conversation. Reach out to explore coaching, speaking, or consulting for your team or organization, and let's talk about what it would take to build a culture rooted in this kind of love. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Marya Firdausi Kazmi Marya Firdausi Kazmi, Transformational Leadership & Identity Coach Marya Kazmi is a Transformational Leadership & Identity Coach and educator who helps individuals and organizations examine identity and cultivate values- aligned leadership. Her work is shaped by lived experience and years of professional practice, informing the reflective tools she created to support healing, clarity, and growth. She is the creator of the RETURN framework, which guides people through a process of unlearning, reconnection, and coming home to themselves. Marya is also the executive producer and host of Pain to Power, a talk show exploring leadership, healing, and human-centered change. Her work bridges lived insight with practical strategies, inviting others into a healing evolution rooted in self-trust, belonging, and purpose.

Anastasia Schenk is a Pediatric Feeding Specialist and Integrative Nutrition Health Coach who reversed her own autoimmune condition through nutrition and now helps families build a healthier relationship with food from the very first spoonful. As founder of Early Eaters Club, she works where clinical feeding science meets lived experience, with a focus on picky eating, gut health, and the early years that quietly shape a lifetime of eating. In this interview, Anastasia explains why feeding shapes far more than nutrition, what the convenience-food era is quietly costing young children, and how parents can take the pressure off the table without giving up on real food. Anastasia Schenk, Pediatric Feeding Specialist/Integrative Nutrition What first made you realize that childhood feeding habits shape far more than nutrition alone? It crept up on me. I trained thinking the job was nutrients. Iron, fats, the right amount of protein at the right age. Tidy, measurable, the kind of thing you can put in a chart. Then I started watching what actually happened at the table, and the chart fell apart. A toddler refusing everything green was not being difficult for sport. He was telling me something about texture, about control, about a meal weeks earlier that had gone badly and got quietly filed under danger. Food was never just food to him. It was memory, safety, autonomy, the first place he got to say no and have it mean something. That reframed the whole job for me. What a child learns at the table, they carry well past it, whether to trust their own hunger, how to sit with discomfort, whether the adults feeding them are on their side. We think we are building eaters. We are building a relationship with the body that outlasts childhood by decades, and nobody hands you a manual for that part. How did reversing your own autoimmune condition change the way you approach pediatric feeding today? It changed everything because it dragged the theory out of my textbooks and onto my own plate. For years, I was told my condition was something to manage, not something to question. Take the medication, expect a slow decline, that is simply how these things go. Nobody asked what I was eating. Nobody connected the inflammation in my lab results to the food I was putting in three times a day. When I finally started treating food as information rather than fuel, my body answered. Not overnight, and not by magic. But it answered. That rewired how I see children. When one arrives with eczema, permanent congestion, a stomach that always hurts, and reflux that everyone shrugs at, I no longer see a tidy list of separate problems to medicate. I see a system trying to get a message through. We are remarkably good at silencing those messages in children and calling it treatment. I treat feeding as the earliest and most repeated lesson a body ever gets. I learned that the hard way, on myself, which is not the route I would recommend. Why do you think picky eating is still misunderstood in many families and even within healthcare? Because we have been handed a story that is convenient for everyone except the child. The story says picky eating is a phase, or bad behaviour, or proof that a parent is too soft. All three are comforting, because they put the blame somewhere tidy and let us avoid looking harder. The truth is messier. Some children are genuinely wired to taste bitterness more sharply. Others are quietly recovering from a feeding experience that scared them. A few have a gut or sensory issue that nobody has thought to check. Healthcare is not built to catch any of this. A standard appointment runs ten minutes, and feeding usually gets a weight check and a cheerful “he’ll grow out of it.” Most clinicians were never trained to tell the difference between a fussy eater and a child whose nervous system has decided the dinner table is enemy territory. So families are left improvising, normally with bribery and crossed fingers, which makes the whole thing worse. The child is rarely the problem. The map we were all given is. What concerns you most about the rise of convenience foods and pouch-based feeding for young children? It is not the occasional pouch in a handbag that worries me. We have all been there, parked outside somewhere, buying ninety seconds of peace. It is what daily reliance quietly takes away. A pouch asks nothing of a child. No biting, no chewing, no wrestling with a piece of food that refuses to slide straight down. We are raising the least practised jaws in human history, and the body builds what you ask it to build. Less chewing reshapes the jaw, the airway, and even how a child sleeps. None of that prints on the label. Then there is taste. Pouches are sweet, smooth, and almost identical from one brand to the next. A child raised on them learns that food should be sweet and effortless, and then we act betrayed when broccoli flops at age three. Convenience is not the villain. I have two children and a deep respect for exhaustion. My worry is that we have let convenience become the default instead of the exception, and a small body gets exactly one run at learning how to eat. What is one mistake parents often make when introducing solids that can create long-term feeding challenges? Starting with bland, single-note cereals and then keeping everything smooth for months longer than needed. There is a stubborn habit of opening with baby rice or oat cereal because it feels gentle. The catch is that a baby’s digestive system in those early months is primed for fat and protein, not for a heavy load of starch. The enzyme that breaks those cereals down has barely clocked in. So we lead with the one thing the gut is least ready for, wrapped in a flavour that quietly teaches a child food is beige. The second half of the mistake is staying on purees out of nerves. Texture is a skill, and skills have windows. A baby who never meets lumps and soft finger foods at the right age tends to refuse them later, once the window has narrowed and everyone is more anxious about it. My rule is unglamorous. Real food, real flavour, real texture, earlier than most parents are told. Babies are far more capable than the cereal aisle gives them credit for. How can parents reduce mealtime anxiety without turning food into a daily battle? Step out of the role of enforcer. The second a meal becomes something you win or lose, you have already lost, because a child can out-stubborn you on this every time. It is the one lever they fully control, and they know it. The shift that rescues most families is splitting the job. You decide what is served, when, and where. Your child decides whether to eat it and how much. It sounds almost too small to matter. In practice, it lifts an enormous weight off the table, because you stop negotiating and they stop performing outrage for an audience. Then turn the temperature down. Eat together when you can. Put the new food on the table with no speech attached and no pressure to touch it. A child often needs to see something ten or fifteen times before going near it, and every calm exposure counts, including the ones that look like nothing happened. You have not failed because dinner was quiet and barely touched. You are playing a long game, and calm is how you win it. What role does gut health play in a child’s behavior, immunity, and relationship with food? A far bigger one than most people are ready to hear. A huge share of the immune system actually lives in the gut, and in early childhood, the whole thing is still under construction. The mix of bacteria a child builds in those first years helps set how their immune system reacts, how they handle food, and even how steady their moods run. This is the part that surprises parents. The gut and the brain are in constant conversation, and not always a polite one. A child carrying low-grade gut inflammation can be irritable, foggy, a poor sleeper, quick to melt down, and none of it looks like a tummy issue from the outside. It looks like behaviour. Diversity is what builds a sturdy gut, and diversity comes from variety on the plate, real fibre, and fewer additives elbowing the good bacteria aside. The narrow beige diet we hand so many children does the precise opposite. I tell parents to stop picturing the gut as plumbing. It is closer to a second brain, and we are feeding it whether we mean to or not. Why is emotional safety at the table just as important as nutritional quality? Because a stressed body does not digest, learn, or trust well, children eat with their entire nervous system, not just their mouth. Think of the tensest meal of your own childhood. The order to finish, the plate was going cold while somebody made a point of it. Most of us can feel it in our shoulders instantly. That stress response shuts digestion down and files the whole event under threat, and do it often enough, and a child starts bracing before they have even pulled out the chair. You can plate up the most flawless, nutrient-dense dinner ever assembled, and if it lands with anxiety attached, the child’s system is too busy defending itself to absorb much of it. Nutrition and emotion are not separate tracks. They travel together, always. This is the line I most wish parents heard. A relaxed meal of imperfect food beats a tense meal of perfect food every single time. We pour so much energy into what sits on the plate. The mood around it matters at least as much, and usually more. The table is the first conversation a body ever has. If every parent could change one thing about the way they feed their children, what would you want it to be? Stop treating every meal as an exam you can pass or fail. If I could change one thing, it would be the pressure. Pressure to clean the plate, to finish the vegetable, to hit some invisible standard by bedtime. It always comes from love. But it quietly teaches a child to eat for approval instead of hunger, and that is a lesson that can take decades to unlearn. Feeding a child well is not a daily test. It is a slow, repetitive, mostly unglamorous practice of offering good food in a calm room and trusting the child to meet it in their own time. Some days, it looks like a balanced plate. On plenty of days, it looks like three bites of pasta and a flat refusal on everything else. Both are completely fine. Pull the camera back. You are not raising a single dinner. You are raising an eater for life. If parents could hold onto that one idea, the table would get lighter, and so would they. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Anastasia Schenk

Written by David Henzell, Sobriety Coach David Henzell is a qualified addiction therapist, accredited recovery coach, and founder of Phenomenal Sobriety, a transformative recovery programme built on his signature THRIVE Sobriety System. He brings eight years of personal sobriety and three decades of professional experience to everything he writes. A Guardian columnist wrote something this week that I haven’t quite been able to put down. Amy Galliford, an associate of the Centre for Public Christianity, described catching herself reaching for ChatGPT the way she reaches for prayer. It started with recipes and poems. Then, almost without noticing, she was asking it to read her relationships, her habits, and her future. She knows it can hallucinate. She knows it has no moral obligation to her. Still, in the moment of asking, she finds herself soothed by the tidiness of a five point plan and a voice that at least sounds certain. Her argument is more interesting than mere unease, and she reaches back through the mystics to make it. Prayer, for the philosopher Simone Weil, was a form of attention, and in the original French, that word is bound up with waiting. To contemplate, Galliford points out, shares a root with temple. The gap between a question and its answer is, in her telling, a kind of sacred ground, and the trouble with the machine is that it hustles her off that ground too fast. It relieves her discomfort, and in doing so, robs her of the waiting. I read that as a person of no particular faith, and I think she’s right. I also have an unusual reason to care, because I spend my days building the very kind of machine she’s describing. I’m building an AI companion for people who are quietly wondering whether they drink too much. Not people in crisis, not people in treatment, but the much larger group sitting in the uncomfortable middle, asking a question they’re not ready to answer. And here’s the thing I most want you to take away, because it cuts against the way AI is usually sold to us, the instant answer is not the prize. With the questions that matter most, it’s the booby trap. The genuine value of this technology, the thing it can do that almost nothing else in a person’s life can, only shows up when you build it to hold back. Let me make that concrete, because it’s easy to nod at in the abstract and miss in practice. Imagine someone types this at two in the morning, “I think I might be drinking too much” The unhelpful machine resolves it. It returns a definition of alcohol use disorder, a screening score, a five point plan, and a list of services. Tidy, fast, confident and almost always useless, because the person didn’t ask to be assessed. They worked up the nerve to say a frightening sentence out loud for the first time, and they got handed a leaflet. The helpful machine does something harder. It stays with the person. It might simply ask what’s making them wonder tonight. It leaves the question open long enough for them to hear their own answer, which is nearly always truer and more durable than anything a machine could hand them. Galliford has a lovely word for the space that opens up when you do that. She calls it the waiting. In her world, it’s a spiritual discipline. In mine, it’s a clinical necessity. The vocabularies differ, the instinct is identical. The gap has to be protected. That’s the reframe I’d offer anyone thinking about where AI actually helps. Used well, it isn’t a faster oracle. It’s something stranger and more useful, a place to start being honest, available at the exact moment a person is ready, with no appointment, no waiting list, and no human on the other side to flinch. That last part is not a flaw to apologise for. For a great many people, it’s the whole reason they can finally ask. So when AI is built with care, what does it actually give people? Here’s what I’d put on the list. Access at the moment of readiness. Courage to ask a hard question rarely arrives in office hours. It arrives at midnight, in the car, in the gap between one drink and the decision about the next. A tool that’s simply there, instantly and without judgment, meets a person in a window that human services, for all their value, usually miss. That alone is a genuine good. Honesty without consequence. People will tell a machine things they cannot yet tell their partner, their GP, or themselves. The absence of a human listener lowers the stakes of the first admission. Handled responsibly, that’s not isolating, it’s a rehearsal space for a truth that’s too heavy to say out loud anywhere else first. Restraint, on purpose. This is the rare one, and the most valuable. The ability to answer is not the obligation to. Almost all design effort in AI goes into making systems more responsive, more confident, more sticky. Building one that knows when not to resolve a question runs against the grain of the entire technology. But that restraint, the willingness to reflect rather than rule, is exactly what turns a clever tool into a genuinely supportive one. A bridge, not a destination. This is the one I feel most strongly, and the line I’d ask anyone building in this space to hold. Success is not how much someone confides in the machine. It’s whether confiding in the machine makes it one degree easier to confide in a person. Anything worth building has to treat itself as a doorway back toward human support, never a replacement for it. The day a tool like this becomes someone’s only confidant, it has failed, however good the conversation. The truth about what it is. None of the above works without this underneath it. A system that lets a vulnerable person believe it understands them, remembers them, or cares about them, when it does none of those things in any real sense, is running a confidence trick. Honesty about the limits of the tool isn’t a disclaimer to bury in the footer. It’s the foundation the other four stand on. Notice that not one of those is about giving better answers. They’re about giving people room, timing, safety, and a way back. That’s the version of AI I think is worth getting excited about, and it’s almost the opposite of the faster, cleverer, more certain machine we’re usually promised. None of this is theoretical for me The companion I’m building is named Sol. Early on, I assumed the hard part would be making it knowledgeable enough about alcohol and recovery. It wasn’t. The genuinely hard part was teaching it not to diagnose. To meet “I think I might be drinking too much” not with an assessment, but with curiosity. To hold the question open long enough for the person to hear themselves. To protect the wait, and to know it is a place to start, never the place to stay. Galliford ends by deciding she’ll take her questions to God instead of the machine, and I won’t argue with her. But not everyone has a temple to walk into. Some of the people I build for have nowhere they feel safe to ask at all, and they reach for a chatbot at two in the morning precisely because it’s the only thing that won’t flinch. We can build things that exploit that, answering too fast and too confidently because confidence is what keeps people coming back. Or we can build things that honour it, that tell the truth about what they are, that have the restraint to leave a question open, and that quietly point back toward the irreplaceable business of being known by another person. Galliford is right that not knowing can bring us closer to the truth. The least the rest of us can do is build things that know that too, and use them for what they’re genuinely good at. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from David Henzell David Henzell, Sobriety Coach David Henzell writes at the intersection of sobriety, identity, and personal transformation. With eight years of personal recovery and a professional background spanning addiction therapy, creative practice, and academia, he brings a rare combination of lived experience and clinical insight to his work. He is the founder of Phenomenal Sobriety, a premium recovery programme built on his signature THRIVE Sobriety System, combining evidence-based techniques, AI companion support, and genuine community. David's approach draws on meaning-centred psychology and a restless curiosity, resisting the dogma of traditional recovery culture. His mission is simple, to help people who don't fit the conventional recovery mould find their own way through.

Written by Jenny Gaynor, Social Emotional Learning Coach and Founder Jenny Gaynor, author and founder of Calm Education, teaches SEL tools to help kids, families, and teachers build confidence, connection, and calm. July is peppered with fireworks, flags, and celebrations of independence. We gather with family, enjoy longer days, and embrace the slower rhythm that summer can bring. But for many adults, especially parents, educators, and caregivers, independence can feel surprisingly out of reach. We spend so much of the rest of the year caring for others. We manage schedules, solve problems, support students, coordinate family activities, and make sure everyone’s needs are met. In the process, our own needs often move quietly to the bottom of the list. As we celebrate our nation’s independence this month, perhaps it is also an opportunity to consider our own. What would it look like to reclaim our time, care for ourselves, and appreciate what is already present in our lives? This summer, I invite you to give yourselves the following three gifts: 1. The freedom to choose As adults, we often lose sight of our own autonomy. Our calendars become filled with obligations, responsibilities, and commitments to others. We become so accustomed to saying yes that we forget we still have choices. Freedom doesn’t always mean taking a vacation or making a major life change. Sometimes freedom looks much smaller. It might mean taking a walk alone or declining an invitation. It might mean reading a book in the backyard instead of folding another load of laundry. It might mean returning to a hobby that once brought you joy. Many of us encourage our children and students to become independent thinkers, yet we rarely ask ourselves, “What do I need?” Permitting ourselves to answer that question honestly is the best act of independence we can offer ourselves. 2. Productive rest For many adults, self-care has become another task to complete. Social media often presents self-care as spa days, expensive products, or elaborate routines. While those things can certainly be enjoyable, true self-care is often much simpler and a lot less expensive. Simply put, self-care can be getting enough sleep. It can be drinking water, moving your body, and spending time outside. It is attending your doctor’s appointment, asking for help, setting boundaries, or taking ten quiet minutes before the rest of the household wakes up. As educators and caregivers, we often believe that our worth is connected to our productivity. We feel guilty when we rest. We convince ourselves that there will be time later. But rest is not something we earn. It is something we require. Just as we encourage children to take brain breaks, practice mindfulness, and regulate their emotions, adults need those same opportunities. Rest allows us to return to our relationships and responsibilities with greater patience, clarity, and compassion. Taking care of ourselves isn’t selfish. It is productive and sustainable. 3. The practice of gratitude Summer has a way of reminding us to slow down. The longer evenings, warm air, and changing routines can invite us to notice the small moments that often go unseen during the busy school year. Gratitude doesn’t ask us to ignore challenges. Instead, it invites us to pay attention to what is already present. It asks us to pay attention to the conversation around the dinner table, the sound of children laughing outside, a quiet cup of coffee, a supportive colleague, or a sunset at the end of a long day. Research continues to show that gratitude can improve emotional wellbeing, reduce stress, and strengthen relationships. Yet gratitude doesn’t have to be complicated. You might keep a small notebook by your bed and write down three things you are thankful for each evening. Or maybe you choose to share appreciations with your family during dinner. You may even simply pause and notice one good thing during your day. Gratitude shifts our focus from what is missing to what is meaningful. A different kind of independence As fireworks light the sky this July, perhaps we can celebrate a different kind of independence. We can celebrate the freedom to listen to ourselves, care for our own wellbeing, and appreciate the life we are living. Parents, educators, and caregivers spend much of their lives helping others grow. This summer, perhaps we can offer ourselves the same kindness and attention that we so freely give away. The gifts of freedom, rest, and gratitude aren’t luxuries. They are practices that help us reconnect with ourselves and with the people we love. This season, may we permit ourselves to choose what we need, to rest without guilt, and to find gratitude in the ordinary moments that make up our lives. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jenny Gaynor Jenny Gaynor, Social Emotional Learning Coach and Founder Jenny Gaynor is the author and founder of Calm Education. She teaches children, families, and teachers essential SEL (Social Emotional Learning) skills. Her mission is to help others build confidence, resilience, and healthy connections. Jenny is a former educator with over 20 years of classroom experience. She holds certifications in both elementary and special education. Jenny also has training in yoga, meditation, and SEL facilitation. She lives in Barrington, Rhode Island, with her family and therapy cat, Tiller.

Written by Lydia Linise, Founder of MHB Academy Lydia Linise is the UK's leading pioneer in halal brow bleaching, a faith-aligned beauty technique she brought to light and has taught to 300+ professionals across 15+ countries through her academy, MHB Academy. In 2021, if a Muslim woman wanted her brows done, her options were these, one YouTube tutorial, one product on the market that most people tried and hated, and nothing else. No professional service. No trained specialist. No industry conversation. Just women quietly figuring it out at home, alone, with no guidance and no community. Four years later, the hashtag #halalbrows has nearly 20,000 posts, major beauty brands are creating dedicated content and products, and a global market worth over forty billion dollars is demanding to be served. This is the story of how a technique went from invisible to unstoppable. Before there was a service, there was a problem no one was solving The starting point matters. To understand how significant the rise of halal brow bleaching is, you have to understand just how empty the space was before it. For many observant Muslim women, the ruling they follow is clear, removing brow hairs through threading, waxing, or tweezing is not permitted. This is not a fringe interpretation. It is a mainstream ruling that affects millions of women worldwide. Yet, for decades, the beauty industry simply did not acknowledge it. Brow services were built entirely around removal. If you could not remove it, you had nothing. The workaround that existed was not a solution. There was one YouTube tutorial circulating in Muslim beauty communities, grainy, informal, with no product guidance and no safety information. There was one bleaching product on the market that women were attempting to use on their brows at home. Most of them hated it. The results were unpredictable and often yellow, the formula was not designed for thick brows, and there was no professional anywhere to ask for help. The demand was real. The industry response was silence. A technique that existed, but not here Halal brow bleaching did not emerge from nothing. The technique has roots in the Gulf, particularly Qatar and the wider Middle East, where brow decolouration had been practised within Muslim communities for decades. Women there had developed their own methods, passed knowledge between themselves, and built a quiet tradition around a need the mainstream beauty world ignored. In Europe, that knowledge simply did not travel. The technique was invisible, not because it did not exist, but because no one had translated it into a professional service, built a curriculum around it, or brought it into the mainstream beauty conversation. In the UK in 2021, there was no certified training, no dedicated product line designed for professionals, and no brow artist offering it as a formal service. I was among the first to change that. Working from home during my baby’s nap times, I began developing the method, testing products, and building a protocol that could be taught and replicated safely. I started sharing the work on social media not to build a brand, but because I genuinely could not believe no one else was talking about it. The response told me everything I needed to know about the size of the need. What halal brow bleaching actually is The technique is precisely what the name suggests. Brow bleaching, or decolouration, uses a powder and developer to lighten the brow hairs until they create a fade effect on the skin, rather than removing them. Combined with brow mapping, which uses the client’s natural bone structure and measurements to follow the natural shape, the result is a defined, polished brow that requires no hair removal whatsoever. For the client, this means something profound, a beauty service she is allowed to have. Not a compromise. Not a workaround. A full, professional brow treatment that respects her faith and delivers results she can be proud of. For the brow artist, it means a technique that builds directly on existing skills, including mapping, product knowledge, and skin prep, with the addition of specific bleaching protocol and safety training. Done correctly, it is one of the most precise and controlled brow techniques available. The variables, including skin type, hair density, timing, and formula, require training to manage well, which is exactly why professional certification matters. This is not a DIY treatment with a professional label on it. It is a genuine skill set. From invisible to unstoppable: The numbers behind the rise What has happened in the four years since is difficult to overstate. In 2021, the hashtag #halalbrows had fewer than 100 posts. Today, it sits at nearly 20,000, and that figure does not capture the full volume of content being created across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram under related searches. Halal brow content is no longer a niche corner of beauty social media. It is a genre. The market data reflects the same trajectory. According to Research and Markets, the global halal cosmetics market was valued at over forty billion dollars in 2024 and is growing at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 14%. It is projected to reach over eighty billion dollars by 2029. This is not a trend. This is a structural shift in the global beauty industry, driven by demographics, rising consumer awareness, and a generation of Muslim women who have grown up expecting their needs to be met. The brands have noticed For years, the halal beauty conversation happened in spite of the mainstream industry, not because of it. That has changed. Major beauty brands are now creating dedicated halal certified product lines. Beauty media, including the publications, YouTube channels, and newsletters that shape industry conversation, are running features on halal brow techniques. The content exists not just on personal accounts and community pages, but on the platforms of brands with millions of followers. The industry has recognised that ignoring this market is no longer a viable position. Yet, on the ground, in the brow studios and beauty salons, the service still barely exists. The content is there. The demand is there. The trained professional who can actually deliver the treatment is still, in most places, nowhere to be found. That gap between awareness and access is exactly where the opportunity lives. The UK picture The domestic numbers tell their own story. According to the Muslim Council of Britain’s analysis of the 2021 ONS Census, the UK Muslim population now stands at four million people, a figure that grew significantly in a single decade. Approximately two million of those are women. They are concentrated in Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester, London, and dozens of smaller cities and towns across the country. These are not women who are unaware of halal brows. Thanks to social media, many of them have been watching the conversation develop for years. They know the technique exists. They are searching for someone who offers it. In most places, they are still not finding anyone. The brow artist who gets trained now, positions herself clearly, and shows up consistently for this clientele is not entering a competitive market. She is entering a market with almost no competition and a clientele that is already looking for her. Where the industry goes from here The trajectory is clear. The halal beauty market is not slowing down. The Muslim population in the UK is young. According to ONS data, people who identified as Muslim had the youngest average age of the tick box religious groups in England and Wales, which means the client base for halal beauty services will continue to grow for decades. The brands know it. The social media numbers confirm it. The demand is not going anywhere. What is still catching up is professional provision. The training infrastructure, the certified specialists, and the studio menus that actually include halal brow services. That is the gap that remains, and it is closing faster than most people in the industry realise. In 2021, there was one YouTube tutorial and one product nobody liked. In 2026, there are trained professionals, a growing body of certified curricula, and a market that is only just beginning to understand its own scale. The technique did not rise because someone invented a trend. It rose because the need was always there, and finally, someone decided to meet it. Ready to be part of what comes next? MHB Academy is the UK’s first professional training institution specialising in halal brow bleaching. Our certified courses are designed for qualified brow artists ready to add this technique to their menu and serve a clientele that has been waiting for them. Explore our programmes at MHB Academy. Follow me on Instagram for more info! Read more from Lydia Linise Lydia Linise, Founder of MHB Academy Lydia Linise is the UK's leading pioneer in halal brow bleaching, a faith-aligned grooming technique she brought to light and built an entire training academy around. As the founder of MHB Academy, she has trained 300+ beauty professionals across 15+ countries, helping them add an exclusive, in-demand service to their practice. A French-born revert and mother of three, Lydia built her business from the ground up during nap times, proving that faith, femininity, and entrepreneurship are not just compatible, but powerful together. Through her courses, mentorship, and podcast "Become the Reference," she is on a mission to make halal brow bleaching a global industry standard.

Written by Paul Adamson, Trusted Advisor to Founders & Leadership Teams Under Pressure Paul Adamson is a global keynote speaker and leadership strategist who helps organisations navigate change, build resilient teams, and create breakthrough performance. His work blends real-world experience from being a professional sailor and pivoting into the business world. You had a vision. Not just for the business, but for the life it would give you. The business was the vehicle. The means. The thing that would, one day, soon, when things settled down, give you the freedom to live the way you actually wanted to live. But somewhere along the way, the vehicle became the destination. The life you were building toward? It’s still waiting on the other side of the next hire, the next quarter, the next crisis you didn’t see coming. Sound familiar? The yacht in the marina I work with a particular type of founder. Successful, smart, driven, and usually passionate about the sport of sailing. Almost without exception, they share one quiet admission that sits underneath all the strategy, the growth plans, and the forward momentum. They built the business to fund a life on the water and then the business took the life. I had a client, I’ll call him Harry, who had done everything right. Built something real. Created genuine value and bought himself a beautiful yacht. A serious yacht. The kind of vessel that was supposed to represent arrival. The reward for all those years of sacrifice and focus. When I took him to see her for the first time, he stood on the pontoon, and his eyes filled with tears. Not because he was happy, but because in that moment, he understood, with complete clarity, that he had no idea when he would ever get to sail her. The business wouldn’t let him go. That moment crystallised everything I do. My core purpose, in one image, a man standing next to his dream, unable to climb aboard. I enable dreams. But first, I help people understand what’s keeping them on the pontoon. The trap no one talks about Here’s what I’ve observed across years of working with founders and leadership teams. The business doesn’t steal your life through failure. It steals it through success. When you’re struggling, the urgency is obvious. You have to be there. You have no choice. You’re firefighting, surviving, keeping the thing alive. But then it starts to work. Revenue grows. The team expands. The complexity increases. Instead of the business needing you less, it seems to need you more. More decisions. More relationships. More responsibility. More surface area to defend. You become, without ever choosing it, the lighthouse keeper who can never leave the lighthouse. The sea, the life, the freedom, the thing you were sailing toward, sits there on the horizon. Visible. Wanted. Just never quite reached. What’s actually happening I spent years at sea before I spent years in business. Two hundred and fifty thousand miles offshore, including a full circumnavigation of the globe. The ocean teaches you many things. But perhaps the most important is this, you cannot navigate by looking at your feet. You need a horizon. A fixed point. A heading. Most founders I meet are running their business with their eyes down. Managing what’s in front of them. Reacting to what arrives. Solving, fixing, responding, but never truly navigating toward the life they originally set course for. The technical term in sailing is dead reckoning. You work out where you are by tracking your speed, your direction, and your time. Then you plot a course to where you want to go. The problem is that most founders are so consumed by the speed, by the pace of the business, the demands, the noise, that they’ve lost track of the direction entirely. They’re moving fast. But they don’t know where they’re heading and the life they wanted? It’s not on any chart they’re currently looking at. The question worth asking I want to ask you something, and I want you to sit with it honestly. If your business gave you a month off tomorrow, genuinely, completely off, nothing burning, team running, revenue flowing, would you know what to do with it? Or has so much of your identity fused with the role that the freedom would feel more frightening than the work? This is not a criticism. I’ve sat with this question myself, in difficult circumstances, and found the answer harder than I expected. But it matters. Because the answer tells you whether you own your business or your business owns you. Getting back on the boat The good news, and there is good news, is that this isn’t fixed. The founders I work with who make the shift share a common turning point. Not a strategy change. Not a restructure. Not a new hire or a better system, though those things often follow. The turning point is a decision about identity. They stop being a founder who wants a life and become a person who has a life and happens to run a business. That sounds simple. It isn’t. But it’s the work and it’s the most important work a founder can do, not just for themselves, but for every person who works for them, every client who depends on them, and every relationship that has been quietly put on hold until things settle down. Things won’t settle down on their own. You have to choose to settle them. The yacht in the marina is not a reward waiting at the end. It’s a signal. A reminder of what you’re actually here for. The question is whether you’re willing to climb aboard. Be the lighthouse, not the weather My whole philosophy rests on one distinction. The weather is reactive. Unpredictable. At the mercy of conditions it didn’t choose and can’t control. The lighthouse holds steady. It doesn’t change its signal when the storm arrives. It knows what it is, where it stands, and what it’s for and ships find their way home because of it. The founders who build businesses that fund and free them, not trap them, are the ones who make the shift from weather to lighthouse. Grounded in who they are. Clear on where they’re going. Consistent enough that the people around them can navigate by their light. Harry eventually sailed that yacht. It took work on the business, but more importantly, on himself. On the decisions he’d been deferring, the boundaries he’d been avoiding, and the clarity he’d been too busy to find. When he cast off the lines for the first time, he sent me a simple message, “Paul, I’m free!” That’s why I do this work. So which are you, the lighthouse or the weather? If you recognised any part of Harry in this article, the success that somehow built a cage instead of freedom, I’d ask you one thing before you close this page. Take three minutes and find out where you actually stand. The Lighthouse Check is a free scorecard I built using the same five-part framework, State, Horizon, Identity, Navigate, and Energy, that I use with every founder I coach. It won’t tell you what you want to hear. It’ll tell you what’s actually true, right now, about how you’re leading yourself and your business. It’s not a pitch, and you won’t get a sales call you didn’t ask for. Just clarity. Run the Lighthouse Check here. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Paul Adamson Paul Adamson, Trusted Advisor to Founders & Leadership Teams Under Pressure Paul Adamson is an international keynote speaker and leadership strategist known for helping organisations navigate change, build resilient teams, and unlock high-performance cultures. His journey began at sea, where he skippered a 27,000-mile global circumnavigation before leading the commercial turnaround of Oyster Yachts from administration to a £185M order book. Paul’s work blends high-stakes decision-making with practical leadership tools that drive real-world results. A cancer survivor, he speaks powerfully about resilience, purpose, and optimistic leadership. Today, he works with entrepreneurs, founders, and executive teams worldwide, helping them create breakthroughs that move them from where they are to where they want to be.

Liz Bell is a Career and Positive Intelligence® Coach who helps purpose-driven women overcome burnout, self-doubt and unhelpful mental habits to create fulfilling and impactful careers. In this interview, Liz shares the hidden mental patterns and misconceptions that can lead to burnout, keep people stuck in their careers, and recreate burnout even after changing jobs, a practical skill to create greater self-awareness before making any major change, and the power of mental fitness to meet all challenges in work and life. Liz Bell, Career and Positive Intelligence® Coach What first made you realise that burnout was not just about workload, but about the way we think and respond to challenges? I had switched careers. Things seemed to be going really well. Then I noticed I was starting to feel frustrated more and more. This was how I had felt in the lead-up to my experience of burnout. I was noticing similar patterns of behaviour, such as staying busy with low-priority tasks, neglecting my own goals in favour of supporting others, and putting off some tasks until I felt ready. The situation was different. The work was different. The challenges were different. The responses were the same. I was also seeing it in my clients. They were making great progress when they were working with me. Once they left me, their progress faltered. The responses to the new challenges were the same as to the old challenges. If I were going to have the business I wanted and be able to help my clients achieve sustainable change, I needed to understand these patterns of thinking, where they came from, and what could be done to address them. In your experience, what hidden patterns most often keep purpose-driven women stuck in careers that no longer feel aligned? The most common hidden patterns keeping purpose-driven women stuck in careers that no longer feel aligned are not being able to set and maintain clear boundaries in the workplace, such as saying yes when you really want to say no, working harder in order to catch up with work not completed during times of supporting others or focusing on low-priority tasks, perfectionism, getting caught up in the details on projects that are already good enough, doing the next thing and the next and you’ll have demonstrated your value, and being hyper aware of the risks in everything and losing focus and connection to what truly matters. The misalignment comes not from the career but from how these hidden patterns can distract them from doing the work in a meaningful way. You combine career coaching with Positive Intelligence®. What shifts when someone starts strengthening their mental fitness alongside making career decisions? They start to recognise their self-sabotaging behaviours and are able to respond to them with compassion rather than judgement. This leads to seeing greater possibilities and making bolder, more aligned career decisions. A client who lacked the confidence in her entrepreneurship to increase the income of her business identified and implemented a new structure that increased her income and the number of clients she could serve. In one month, these changes had given her a return on her investment in coaching of 100%. They make decisions aligned with their goals, not their fears. A client was offered two roles. One easy and safe. The other felt more fulfilling, aligned, and challenging. Strengthening her mental fitness helped her make a decision that supported her professional growth. She is still in the role today and has never regretted the decision. They are able to renew their professional confidence and see their true value. A senior manager with a 30-plus-year career in the legal sector was judging her future opportunities by her lack of secondary school qualifications. With the help of strengthening her mental fitness, she was able to accept that her extraordinary career was evidence of her abilities and is now using her extensive knowledge and skills as a business consultant. Why do some people recreate the same burnout patterns even after changing jobs, industries, or starting their own business? The same burnout patterns are recreated even after changing jobs, industries, or starting their own business, because they are unconscious patterns. These patterns remain hidden from us until we shine a light on them and bring them into view. It’s like being on autopilot. So, circumstances show up that create stress, frustration, self-doubt, and they repeat the patterns in response to these feelings. When they don’t have the skills and/or the self-knowledge to be able to recognise these patterns for what they are, they might start criticising themselves, others or the circumstances. This compounds the patterned behaviour and increases the stress patterns that can lead to burnout. The change has provided some relief from their stress. It’s like putting a plaster on an open wound. The wound won’t heal properly and will cause problems again in the future. What misconceptions about career fulfillment do you see most often in ambitious women today? Most ambitious women today see career fulfillment as being about what they do, where they do it, how they do it, or who they do it with or for. Don’t get me wrong, these things are important too. But unless they’ve done the internal work first, it’s difficult to truly identify the environmental factors that they need to thrive. Fulfillment is an inside job. We feel most fulfilled when we are focused and energised. It’s one of the reasons ambitious women have a hard time finding a fulfilling job. They focus on the what, where, and who, not the how. When we show up to something we don’t want to do with negative emotions and thinking there can be little or no fulfillment. Not in the doing or the completion. But when we show up with more positive emotions and thinking, we can have a greater sense of fulfillment, even in the most mundane of essential tasks. When someone feels trapped between financial security and meaningful work, where should they begin? What I often see is women focusing on job titles and salaries. They struggle to find anything that looks like meaningful work because they haven’t established what financial security and meaningful work mean to them. They should always start with the money. After all, we can’t survive without it. What we need is personal. Do the maths. Be clear about what is needed. So few women do this. Even fewer talk to the co-contributors of the household income. Shame, guilt, and self-doubt often get in the way. Some of the women I work with are often surprised to learn what they actually spend and what on. There is a big difference between financial security and maintaining the same level of income. Unless all their earnings go on the rent/mortgage, car, kids, food and household bills, there’s often something left over. Once they know exactly what financial security actually looks like, they can make informed decisions about current and future spending and saving. That’s when the work on what ‘meaningful work’ looks like for them can begin. We’re far more creative in our thinking when we’re not feeling the stress of insecurity. Meaningful work can then take on many forms and even come with many income streams. What is one small practice that can help people build greater self-awareness before making a major career change? One small practice that can help people build greater self-awareness before making a major career change is to connect with their life goals. To create a space for quiet contemplation of what will be most important to them at the end of their lives. The act of considering ourselves at the end of our lives, healthy of mind and body, looking back, having lived a full and happy life, can be really helpful when thinking about what is most important for us to consider when making a major career change. Considering domains of our life, such as relationships, spirituality, wellness, finances, and career, can illuminate what is truly important to us. Becoming aware of this can help generate greater self-awareness and inform the alignment of any major career change with our bigger goals. How has your own journey through burnout shaped the way you support clients today? I have so much more compassion for myself, and that enables me to have a lot of compassion for my clients! Burnout sucks! For me, it led me away from everything that I held dear, my values, my goals, and dreams, and I went to a very dark place. My mental health suffered, and I had to take time off work to recover. I am also aware that what led to my burnout and is hampering my clients is something that is common to most of us, life-saving strategies developed in early life that haven’t been updated to respond to the challenges we face as adults. I don’t see burnout as a personal failure. It is a misalignment between what we are doing and what we need to do to achieve our goals. I see it as an opportunity for a reset, a do-over. What I teach my clients is the very same mental fitness practice I use every day. It supports my sustainably fulfilling career whilst reducing the occurrence of patterned behaviour that can lead to burnout. I know it can support them in the same way, too. If readers take away one idea about creating a sustainable and fulfilling career, what would you want it to be? In a word, adaptation. Mental fitness is the ability to adapt to the challenges of work and life with a positive mindset. A career is not a job. It is all the jobs you will have across the course of your lifetime. That may take place in different sectors, in different countries, and in different stages of your life. Adaptation is about how you approach your work, how you adjust to your environment, and how you modify your behaviour to get the best out of others without losing who you are. Learning to be adaptable in this way is key to creating a meaningful and fulfilling career sustainably. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Liz Bell

Written by Michael Ritchie, Transformational Coach Michael is a Transformational Coach, Sound Healer, Numerologist & Human Design practitioner, & Sacred Medicine Holder. He is the in-house Healer & Mentor at Harmony P.E.C., leading the sacred healing team & co-facilitating the virtual Universal Foundations and Adept Courses to help seekers better understand their power & unique path. Your path to the light is through your chakras. Each Chakra has its own character, its own gifts to embrace, and its own fears to neutralize. The journey begins in the Root Chakra and progresses through the four stages of the Crown Chakra, with each increase in vibration being anchored in the Heart. Root Chakra Color: Red Element: Earth Vibration: 50 Location: The Root Chakra, also known as the Muladhara Chakra, is located at the base of the spine, between the anus and the genitals. It is characterized by the emotions of survival, stability, ambition, and self sufficiency. Body connection: The Root Chakra is associated with the adrenal glands, kidneys, and lower digestive system. Chronic lower back pain, fatigue, and immune issues are commonly linked to imbalance here. Symptoms of a blocked Root Chakra: When this chakra is out of balance, a person starts feeling unstable, ungrounded, lacking ambition, lacking purpose, fearful, insecure, and frustrated. Signs of a balanced or imbalanced Root Chakra: However, when the Root Chakra is balanced, these are replaced by more positive emotions, and you feel stable, confident, balanced, energetic, independent, and strong. Experience: The Root Chakra is not fun unless the Heart is open. This is the Chakra of survival, although with an open Heart, it is beautiful, just like all the others. With an open Heart, the Root Chakra is our connection with the Earth and all her magnificent beauty and wisdom. This is also the Chakra through which we ground our higher energies to connect us with her and let go of our fears and negative energies. Sacral Chakra Color: Orange Element: Water Vibration: 100 Location: The Svadhishthana Chakra, more commonly known as the Sacral Chakra, is located in the lower abdomen, about four fingers below the navel. Its attributes include the basic need for sexuality, as well as creativity and self worth. Body connection: The Sacral Chakra governs the reproductive organs, bladder, kidneys, and lower intestines. An imbalance can show up as hormonal disruption, lower back pain, or persistent urinary issues. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Sacral Chakra: When the Sacral Chakra is imbalanced, a person may feel emotionally explosive and irritable, sense a lack of energy and creativity, feel manipulative, or be obsessed with sexual thoughts. Signs of a balanced Sacral Chakra: When balanced, it makes one feel more vibrant, happy, positive, satisfied, compassionate, and intuitive. Experience: This is our Chakra of creation. Unless the Heart is closed, then it is destruction. All our inner beauty comes from this Chakra, including dance, poetry, art, music, sexuality, inventions, and creating new public systems. That said, when cut off from the Heart, it is filled with pain and destruction, judgement, and prejudice, which are then spread through all we come in contact with. Solar Plexus Chakra Color: Yellow Element: Fire Vibration: 200 Location: The Manipura Chakra is located at the solar plexus, between the navel and the bottom of the rib cage. It is characterized by emotions like ego, anger, and aggression. Body connection: Manipura governs the stomach, liver, gallbladder, and small intestines. Physically, imbalance often appears as digestive disorders, blood sugar irregularities, or adrenal fatigue. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Solar Plexus Chakra: An imbalance of the Solar Plexus Chakra can manifest physically as digestive problems, liver problems, or diabetes. On an emotional level, one might struggle with depression, lack of self esteem, anger, and perfectionism. Signs of a balanced Solar Plexus Chakra: By balancing this chakra, we feel more energetic, confident, productive, and focused. Experience: As this is the brain of the Body, it is also the center of the egoic self, the master of self preservation, so to speak. This is the little devil arguing with the angel upon your shoulders. It is the false ceiling that convinces you that you know, even when you’ve yet to have the experience, so in truth, you only THINK you know! The issue with listening to your gut is that you are not balancing the fullness of Soul, Mind, and Body, as the Solar Plexus blocks the Mind and Soul from your awareness. In other words, don’t listen to your gut. Listen to your heart. Heart Chakra Color: Green Element: Air Vibration: 300 Lower, 400 High Heart Location: As the name implies, the Anahata Chakra is located in the heart region. This chakra is the seat of balance, and it is characterized by emotions of love, attachment, compassion, trust, and passion. Body connection: Anahata governs the heart, lungs, circulatory system, and thymus gland. Upper back tension, shallow breathing, and chest tightness are often physical expressions of Heart Chakra imbalance. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Heart Chakra: When the Heart Chakra is imbalanced, a person may deal with emotional issues like anger, lack of trust, anxiety, jealousy, fear, and moodiness. Signs of a balanced Heart Chakra: By harmonizing this energy center, a person begins to feel more compassionate, caring, optimistic, friendly, and motivated. Experience: This is the master Chakra, the center of the entire system. From here, you have access to all Chakras, as well as access to the Mind and Body through the Soul. The Heart is where we live our daily lives, combining both tools of the Mind and Body to bring our best selves to the world. It is through the Heart that we bring Love, Compassion, Gratitude, and Forgiveness to ourselves, our families, our communities, and the world. Reality, as we believe it to be, is dependent upon it, as this is the balancing point, the fulcrum that balances it all. It is in the Heart Chakra where we find our spirit guides and animals, as well as ancestors, mystical creatures, and beings. Throat Chakra Color: Blue Element: Space Vibration: 500 Location: The Visuddha Chakra is located at the base of the throat, coinciding with the thyroid gland. It is associated with inspiration, healthy expression, faith, and the ability to communicate well. Body connection: The Throat Chakra is connected to the thyroid and parathyroid glands, vocal cords, neck, and jaw. Recurring sore throats, thyroid dysfunction, and jaw tension are common physical signs of imbalance here. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Throat Chakra: A blockage in the Throat Chakra may be experienced as timidity, quietness, a feeling of weakness, or the inability to express our thoughts. Signs of a balanced Throat Chakra: When this chakra is balanced, it enables creativity, positive self expression, constructive communication, and a sense of satisfaction. Experience: Our Throat Chakra is our tool of manifestation. It is through this tool of creation that we manifest the very reality we call our lives, though its power does not end here. The Throat Chakra includes the ears and nose as well, which are used to listen and experience the energies around us. It is through receiving and listening that we gain the fullness of this power, for it is through our awareness of the energies surrounding us, not the words, not the phenomena, but the vibrations, that show us truth. This is the Chakra of the Gods. It’s where the Archetypes, the Orishas, the Archangels, and the Gods of old live. In ancient times, this was considered enlightenment, for it is the seat of Wisdom. With an open Heart, this is a beautiful vibration, with it closed, you try to control the world. The path of “Service to Self” is limited to this vibration, with the highest of this nature being limited to the lower vibrations of the Third Eye Chakra. Third Eye Chakra Color: Indigo Element: None Vibration: 600 Location: The Ajna Chakra, pronounced “Agya Chakra,” is located between the eyebrows. Also known as the Third Eye Chakra, it is often used as a focal point during asana practice to develop more concentration and awareness. Classical texts, including the Siva Samhita, describe sustained meditation on Ajna as a pathway to liberation, a claim best understood within the broader framework of yogic philosophy rather than as a literal promise. Body connection: Ajna is associated with the pituitary gland, brain, eyes, and neurological system. Persistent headaches, difficulty concentrating, and disrupted sleep are frequently connected to imbalance in this chakra. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Third Eye Chakra: When imbalanced, it may make you feel not assertive and afraid of success, or, on the contrary, it can make you more egotistical. An imbalance can manifest as physical problems like headaches, blurry vision, and eye strain. Signs of a balanced Third Eye Chakra: When this chakra is active and balanced, a person feels more vibrant and confident, both spiritually and emotionally. In the absence of the fear of death, one becomes one’s own master and remains free of all attachment to material things. Experience: This is where the two energies that intertwine within you merge together, balancing the masculine and feminine, the electric and magnetic, the light and shadow within. This is where you begin to realize just how enormous your potential really is. This is where you leave the Maya, the Mind, and begin listening to the Spirit. It is the Third Eye where we meet the Trinity, the conjoining of the Mind and Body with the Soul and Spirit. It is the very center of the Third Eye that opens the portal to the Crown, the Infinite Creator, and the Infinite Intelligence. This is the vibration of your OverSoul consciousness, the actual player of the game. Crown Chakra 1 Color: White/Violet Element: None Vibration: 700 Location: The Sahastrara, or Crown Chakra, is located at the crown of the head. The seventh chakra is the center of spirituality, enlightenment, and dynamic thought and energy. It allows for the inward flow of wisdom and brings the gift of cosmic consciousness. Body connection: The Crown Chakra is connected to the pineal gland and the central nervous system. Chronic exhaustion, sensitivity to light or sound, and a persistent sense of meaninglessness may indicate imbalance at this level. Symptoms of a blocked or imbalanced Crown Chakra: When it becomes imbalanced, one might suffer from a constant sense of frustration, melancholy, and destructive feelings. Signs of a balanced Crown Chakra: When the Crown Chakra is balanced, there is a quality of inner stillness and perspective that is not easily disrupted by external events. In teaching, this is often described by long term practitioners as the difference between having peace and being peaceful. Experience: In the Crown Chakra, we begin working directly with the Light. This is where you begin to realize just how BIG you really are. You are a divine being, One with the Light, even though you’ve been conditioned to believe you are small and without power. You are the Creator, the Game, and the Player, and this is where you begin to remember. The Crown Chakra is the teacher, mentor, and master you’ve been waiting for, as you are already all you’ve been working to become. You simply need to get quiet and listen. The Crown is where the Angels, Aliens, and Archetypes fall away, and you begin to realize they are all within you. This is the beginning of enlightenment. Crown Chakra 2 Vibration: 800 This is “The Field,” the Mother of all physical creation. It is the quantum field, which we collapse through our very presence, our level of consciousness, our beliefs, and our awareness into the experience we call reality, Life. The Field is a mirror of the All Mind, the Creator, the Source, and the Central Sun, Logos, which reflects the Multiverse. The “One” Mind, Sun, sub Logos, also creates a reflection of itself as our Solar System, only opposite, just as your life is a reflection of your Mind. You are a sub sub Logos, as it is your vibration that collapses the field into the vibration you are both holding and experiencing. In other words, you are a creator. Crown Chakra 3 Vibration: 900 Oneness! This vibration is where you become “One” with the “Oneness.” Yet a central speck of you still remains in the center of the energy sphere. It is not quite an “I,” as this separation of ego, of identity, still remains, yet it is no longer driving the avatar. The keys have been given over to the Infinite Creator and Infinite Intelligence, as they too have become “One.” It is here that you begin to realize what you truly are and the light you have within you to share with the world. The source Vibration: 1000 The All and Nothing. Here, your separate identity ceases to exist. There is no division of any kind remaining, as you have integrated completely with the Source, the All Mind, God. You are All and Nothing, experiencing all consciousness of plant, animal, fungi, all timelines, all dimensions and densities, and everything imaginable, simultaneously. There is no further to go, as from this point, the you that you currently identify with, the avatar playing the game, no longer exists in the old way. There are no questions left, nothing to do or become, as this is the totality of you. This is full enlightenment. Now, bring this fullness to the world and be the lighthouse of Love, Light, and Truth you came here to be. The only being you are here to heal is yourself, for this is the catalyst needed to heal others. Be the change the world needs, the lighthouse to guide those who seek the truth. Just "be". Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Michael Ritchie Michael Ritchie, Transformational Coach Michael holds many skills & among many, he is known as a Transformational Coach, Sound Healer, Numerologist & Human Design practitioner, Sacred Medicine Holder, and Channeler of Energy from the Eternal Creator. In 2011-12, he was told he had 6 months to a year to live. Since that day, he has dedicated his life to understanding awakening, enlightenment, and The Great Way. Funny how a death sentence lets you see what’s important, what’s not.