Written by Sarah Hurst, Coach & Creator of the Mind Medicine Movement™ Drawing on her own healing journey through cancer, Sarah Hurst is a coach and creator of the Mind Medicine Movement™. She helps people calm the nervous system, reconnect with themselves, and take back their power to heal body, mind, and soul. Wellness can easily become another project. We make ambitious plans, create new routines, buy the journal, download the meditation app and decide that from Monday everything will change. Then life happens, energy dips, illness interrupts, and suddenly the very things that were meant to support us become another reminder of what we are not managing to do. I have become far more interested in something smaller: the ordinary practices we return to again and again, not because we are trying to perfect ourselves, but because they help us pause, reconnect and remember that we matter. A daily ritual does not need to be impressive to be powerful. What makes a ritual? We often use the words habit and ritual interchangeably, but there is a subtle difference that matters to me. A habit is something we repeat often enough that it can begin to happen more automatically. Brushing our teeth is a habit. Making coffee when we walk into the kitchen each morning may become a habit. Habits are incredibly useful because they reduce the amount of conscious effort required to repeat a behaviour. A ritual can contain something else: meaning. Imagine making a cup of tea. You could make it while scrolling through your phone, barely noticing that you have drunk it. Or you could use exactly the same few minutes to feel the warmth of the cup, notice your breathing, look out of the window and ask yourself, “How am I actually feeling today?” The action has hardly changed, but the experience has. Psychologists have been increasingly interested in this distinction. A broad review of the psychology of rituals identified roles for ritual in regulating emotion, supporting goals and strengthening social connection. The meaning we bring to a repeated action appears to be part of what makes ritual psychologically significant. For me, that is what turns a routine into a Mind Medicine moment. It becomes less about completing an activity and more about meeting yourself within it. Why big changes fail There is something wonderfully seductive about a fresh start. We convince ourselves that we need the perfect morning routine, an hour of meditation, daily exercise, better food, journalling, breathwork and perhaps a cold shower before breakfast. For someone already exhausted, stressed or dealing with illness, that can be an extraordinary amount of pressure disguised as self-care. Behavioural science also suggests that habit formation is far less neat than the popular idea that something magically becomes automatic after 21 days. A recent systematic review of health habit formation found enormous variation between individuals and behaviours. Habit formation could take months rather than weeks, and the researchers specifically concluded that the familiar rule of 21 days is not supported by the evidence. That matters because unrealistic expectations create an easy route to self criticism. We miss a few days and decide we have failed, when in reality behaviour change has always been far more individual and messy than wellness culture sometimes suggests. I would rather someone meditate for three minutes in a way they can genuinely return to than commit to forty-five minutes and give it up within a week. The smaller practice may look less impressive, but if it can live comfortably inside real life, it has the opportunity to become part of that life. Why repetition matters There is something reassuring about repetition. When so much around us is unpredictable, familiar actions can become small points of steadiness. This is particularly relevant after cancer, trauma or another major life change. Much of the distress can come from uncertainty. Appointments change, bodies change, plans change and suddenly the future we assumed was waiting for us feels less certain. A familiar ritual cannot remove that uncertainty, nor should we pretend it can. What it can do is give us one small experience that feels known and chosen. Perhaps every morning you sit beside the same window for five minutes before the rest of the house wakes. Perhaps you step outside and take three slower breaths. Maybe you make tea after treatment, write a few lines before bed or walk the same route through the park. The power is not necessarily in the tea, the notebook or the walk. It lies partly in the repetition of the message: here is a moment in which I return to myself. In my article Why Healing Begins With Gentle SIPS™, with SIPS™ standing for Slow Down, Identity, Purpose and Self Love, I explored why slowing down sits at the beginning of my SIPS™ framework. We need space before we can really hear ourselves, and a simple ritual can become one of the ways we create that space. Rituals create predictability When the nervous system has spent a long time responding to uncertainty, predictability can feel deeply reassuring. I want to be careful with language here. A morning cup of tea does not magically “heal the nervous system”, and having a bedtime routine does not mean you will never feel anxious. Human nervous systems are far too complex for that. What repeated, familiar experiences can offer is a cue of predictability. We know what is happening next. We have chosen the environment. We can slow down enough to notice where we are. This is closely connected to what I have previously written about in The Nervous System and Healing. Regulation is not about forcing ourselves to remain permanently calm. It is about increasing our capacity to notice our state and gently find our way back when we become overwhelmed. A ritual can become one of those return points. The same piece of music before sleep, the familiar smell of an essential oil, feet on the grass, the first few breaths of a meditation or the sensation of warm water in the shower can gradually become associated with slowing down. It is not about tricking the body. It is about giving ourselves repeated opportunities to experience a little more presence and predictability. Habits shape identity This is the part I find particularly fascinating because it connects daily behaviour with the Identity pillar of SIPS™. We tend to think that our identity drives our behaviour. If I believe I am a runner, I run. If I see myself as someone who meditates, I meditate. But the relationship may work in both directions. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of habit and identity looked at 19 studies involving more than 13,000 participants. Researchers found a substantial positive relationship between habits relating to health and identity, while also noting that the direction of influence may be reciprocal rather than simply one causing the other. In everyday language, what we repeatedly do may gradually become part of the story of who we believe ourselves to be. There is a subtle but powerful difference between saying, “I really should meditate” and beginning to experience yourself as someone who says, “I am someone who makes a little space for myself.” Likewise, “I should get outside more” can slowly become, “I notice when my body needs air and movement, and I respond.” That is why I am less interested in using rituals to create the perfect routine and more interested in what those rituals quietly communicate about our relationship with ourselves. Each small act can become a vote for an identity, not an identity based on productivity or perfection, but one rooted in listening, self-respect, and care. Meaning changes everything There are countless things we could turn into ritual, but I do not think we need to keep adding more to our lives. In fact, for many people I work with, adding less is probably the more healing choice. Instead, look at what already exists. You already wake up. You already shower. You already make a drink. You already travel somewhere, eat, get dressed or get into bed. Somewhere within those ordinary moments is an opportunity to create a small point of connection without finding another twenty minutes in the diary. Your morning shower might become a place where you deliberately notice the sensation of water and take three slower breaths. Making tea might become two minutes without your phone. Getting into bed could become the moment you ask yourself what went well enough today, rather than mentally rehearsing everything still undone. A walk can become a chance to look for one glimmer. A commute can include a piece of music that helps you arrive rather than simply rush. Putting moisturiser on your hands can become an act of touch rather than another item on the bathroom checklist. None of these actions is inherently profound. The meaning is in the attention. When we repeatedly bring presence to something ordinary, the ritual starts saying, I am here. I am listening. I matter. For me, that is where ritual becomes much more interesting than routine. Rituals need flexibility There is a trap here, particularly within wellness culture. Practices intended to support us can very easily become another measure of whether we are doing life “properly”. You missed meditation today. You did not journal. You stayed in bed instead of walking. Suddenly a practice designed to cultivate self-compassion has somehow become evidence against you. That is not the purpose. If missing your morning ritual leaves you feeling guilty, anxious or as though you have failed at healing, then something has shifted. The practice has stopped supporting your life and started becoming another standard against which you measure yourself. This matters enormously for people living with cancer, fatigue, chronic illness or changing health. Capacity is not identical every day. A practice that feels nourishing on Monday may be completely unrealistic by Thursday. Flexibility is part of self-connection. Sometimes your meditation will be twenty minutes. Sometimes it may be three conscious breaths while lying in bed. Sometimes the walk will happen, and sometimes resting will be the more respectful response to what your body is telling you. Consistency does not have to mean rigid repetition. It can mean repeatedly returning to the intention beneath the ritual, even when its form changes. Perhaps the intention is simply: Today, I will listen. Rituals are not medicine I also think it is important to distinguish supportive wellbeing practices from medical treatment. Meditation, journalling, movement, breathwork, meaningful routines and sensory rituals can support emotional wellbeing, stress management and quality of life. They are not substitutes for appropriate medical or psychological care, and no one should feel that their illness occurred because they failed to live well enough. This distinction is particularly important within cancer support. There can already be enormous pressure to eat perfectly, think positively, reduce every possible source of stress and follow increasingly complicated wellness protocols. Self-care should not become self-blame. The Mind Medicine approach I use is not about trying to control every outcome through behaviour. It is about recognising the places where we do have choice and using those choices compassionately. A ritual cannot guarantee what tomorrow brings. It can change how we meet ourselves today. Start with one If you want to create a daily ritual, I would resist the temptation to design an entirely new routine. Choose one ordinary moment that already happens most days. Perhaps it is your first drink in the morning. For the next week, when you pick up the cup, leave your phone where it is. Feel the cup’s warmth, notice one breath and ask yourself one question: What do I need from myself today? You do not need to answer perfectly. You do not even need to change anything afterward. The ritual is simply the pause. Or perhaps your moment is stepping outside, turning off the bedside lamp, sitting in the car before you walk into work, applying hand cream or waiting for the kettle to boil. The specific action matters far less than your willingness to inhabit it. Then keep it small enough that it does not become another burden. Over time, something quietly important may begin to happen. You are no longer simply trying to build a wellness habit. You are practising the experience of turning towards yourself. Perhaps that is one of the most meaningful rituals we can create. If you have spent so long caring, coping or simply getting through that you have forgotten what it feels like to listen to yourself, you can explore my coaching and the Mind Medicine Movement™. You do not need to overhaul your life to begin. Sometimes one gentle, repeated moment is enough to start changing the relationship you have with yourself. Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Sarah Hurst Sarah Hurst, Coach & Creator of the Mind Medicine Movement™ After walking her own path through cancer, Sarah Hurst discovered that true healing isn’t just physical, it’s emotional, spiritual, and deeply personal. She went on to create the Mind Medicine Movement™, helping others calm their nervous systems, rediscover purpose, and reconnect with themselves through her SIPS™ framework: Slow Down, Identity, Purpose, Self-Love. Today, Sarah supports people living with or beyond cancer and anyone seeking calm, clarity, and wellness through her coaching, meditation, and touch therapy practice in Hove, East Sussex. She also offers an online coaching service.

Written by Anika Kumar Vashishth, Positive Psychology Practitioner Anika Kumar Vashishth is a positive psychology practitioner and founder of I Am Enough | Flourish, a community supporting people to cultivate self-awareness, well-being, and flourishing. With a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Melbourne, she brings psychology grounded in evidence into everyday life. When life looks fine on the outside, how do we know we are truly flourishing? I remember meeting a professional whose life, by conventional measures, seemed to be going well. He had built a career, achieved financial security and had a family with children. From the outside, there was little reason to think anything was missing. Yet, somewhere between meeting responsibilities and responding to one demand after another, the space to enjoy his life had begun to disappear. Whenever something needed his attention, he felt an urgency to respond immediately. There was always something to attend to, something to resolve, something that could not wait. Travel, leisure and the simple pleasure of doing something just because he enjoyed it had gradually taken a back seat. His life was full, but I wondered how much room it left for him actually to experience it. How often do we get so caught up in responsibilities that we forget to ask ourselves whether we are enjoying the lives we are working so hard to build? In my more than ten years as a wellbeing specialist in schools, working alongside students, teachers and parents, I became increasingly interested in a question that went beyond how people coped with life's challenges. What does it mean to be well, beyond simply getting through the day? This question led me to the work of psychologist Corey Keyes, whose research offers a valuable perspective on the relationship between mental illness and positive mental health. His work helped articulate a distinction I had been reflecting on through my own practice: the absence of mental illness does not automatically mean that a person is flourishing. Understanding wellbeing: The work of Corey Keyes The World Health Organization (WHO) describes mental health as a state of mental wellbeing that enables us to cope with life's stresses, realise our abilities, learn and work well, and contribute to our communities.[1] Psychologist Corey Keyes explored this idea further through his mental health continuum model. He proposed that mental illness and positive mental health are related but distinct dimensions of human experience.[2] [3] Keyes described positive mental health along a continuum from languishing to flourishing. Languishing is associated with low levels of positive emotion and psychological and social functioning. A person may feel disconnected, struggle to find meaning, or engage little in daily life. Flourishing, by contrast, involves positive feelings and functioning across emotional, psychological and social dimensions. This distinction matters. Someone living with a mental illness may still experience meaningful relationships, positive emotions and a sense of purpose. Equally, someone who is not experiencing mental illness may struggle to feel engaged, connected or fulfilled. Mental illness and positive mental health are not opposite ends of a single scale. One does not automatically determine the other. Keyes's work encourages us to look beyond whether people are coping and consider whether they are experiencing positive mental wellbeing. So, what might flourishing look like in our everyday lives? 6 dimensions of flourishing Psychologist Dr Martin Seligman introduced the PERMA framework, which identifies five elements associated with wellbeing: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment.[4] The Flourishing Centre extends this framework through PERMA V, adding vitality as a sixth dimension.[5] Together, these dimensions offer a practical way to reflect on the experiences that contribute to flourishing. 1. Positive emotion: Making room for joy Positive emotions include joy, gratitude, interest and appreciation. Barbara Fredrickson's theory of broadening and building suggests that positive emotions can broaden our thinking and help build psychological and social resources over time.[6] After a demanding day, sharing a laugh with a friend or pausing to appreciate the warmth of the afternoon sun may not remove our challenges, but these moments can change how we experience the day. Flourishing does not mean feeling happy all the time. It means making room for positive experiences alongside life's difficulties. Reflect: Am I making room for moments of joy and appreciation in my everyday life? 2. Engagement: Being fully involved Engagement is the experience of becoming absorbed in an activity. It might happen when we are painting, gardening, learning a skill or working on something that genuinely interests us. Research on flow, associated with psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, explores how deep involvement can arise when an activity's challenge aligns with our skills.[7] Think of a time when you were so involved in something that you lost track of time. Your attention was fully absorbed, and the experience itself felt rewarding. Reflect: Which activities make me feel engaged, curious and fully present? 3. Relationships: Feeling connected Supportive relationships build belonging, trust, and a sense of being understood. In A Primer in Positive Psychology, Christopher Peterson captured their importance: “Other people matter”.[8] Sometimes, connection comes from a conversation with someone who genuinely listens, a friend checking in, or a shared meal with family. These ordinary moments remind us we don't have to navigate life alone. Flourishing is not simply about how many people we know, but about the quality of the connections we experience. Reflect: Which relationships help me feel connected, understood and supported? 4. Meaning: Knowing what matters Meaning emerges when we recognise what matters to us and how our lives connect with those values. It may be found in family, community, creativity, spirituality, learning or contributing to something larger than ourselves. Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl explored the human search for meaning in Man's Search for Meaning, reflecting on its significance even in the face of profound suffering.[9] Meaning can also be found in everyday experiences: helping a child learn, supporting a family member or contributing to a cause we care about. When obligations consume our days, reconnecting with our values can help us consider whether how we spend our time reflects the life we want to live. Reflect: What gives my life meaning, and how does it show up in my daily choices? 5. Accomplishment: Recognising progress Accomplishment involves working towards goals, developing skills and experiencing progress. Research by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham explores how clear, appropriately challenging goals can support motivation and performance.[10] Progress might mean completing a project, learning a new skill or recognising how far we have come. However, accomplishment is not simply about doing more or constantly striving for the next milestone. When we tie our worth exclusively to productivity, it can be hard to appreciate where we are. Flourishing invites us to value progress without turning life into an endless pursuit of achievement. Reflect: Can I recognise and appreciate the progress I have already made? 6. Vitality: Caring for our physical wellbeing Vitality brings the physical dimension of our lives into the conversation about flourishing. Sleep, movement, nutrition and rest can influence our energy, concentration and capacity to participate in everyday life.[5] We may notice the difference between starting the day after a restful night and after several nights of interrupted sleep. Our energy can influence our patience, focus and ability to engage with others. Vitality looks different for everyone. Health conditions, disability, caring responsibilities and access to resources shape our experiences. The goal is not to meet a particular physical ideal, but to recognise and support our individual needs. Reflect: What influences my energy, and what helps me feel supported in everyday life? Beyond getting by Keyes's research reminds us that mental health deserves to be understood not only in terms of illness, but also in terms of positive wellbeing. PERMA V offers one practical framework for exploring this broader understanding, although no single model captures the whole of human flourishing. Our wellbeing is also shaped by our circumstances, including supportive relationships, financial security, safe environments and access to healthcare. Flourishing is not simply a matter of individual effort, nor does it mean feeling positive every day. Through my work in wellbeing, I have come to appreciate the importance of looking beyond what people accomplish and considering how they experience their lives. Are we finding moments of joy? Do we feel connected to others? Are we engaged in activities that matter to us? Can we recognise meaning and progress in our everyday experiences? We do not need to have everything figured out. Sometimes, flourishing begins with a small shift: making time for a meaningful conversation, returning to an activity we love, acknowledging our progress or allowing ourselves to rest without guilt. Perhaps flourishing begins when we look beyond the visible markers of a successful life and pay attention to how we are actually experiencing it. The question is not only whether we manage our responsibilities, but whether we make room for the experiences that make life meaningful, connected, and fulfilling. Are we simply getting through life, or are we finding ways to flourish? What does flourishing look like in your life? Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Anika Kumar Vashishth Anika Kumar Vashishth, Positive Psychology Practitioner Anika Kumar Vashishth is a positive psychology practitioner whose work explores mental wellbeing beyond the absence of distress, towards flourishing. Grounded in positive psychology and neuroscience, she is interested in what enables individuals and communities not merely to function, but to live with greater meaning, connection, and wellbeing. She is the founder of I Am Enough | Flourish, a community that brings evidence-based approaches to wellbeing into everyday life. Her work is centred on making the science of flourishing accessible, relevant, and applicable to how we live, learn, and connect. References: [1] World Health Organization. (n.d.). Mental health. [2] Keyes, C. L. M. (2002). The mental health continuum: From languishing to flourishing in life. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 43(2), 207 to 222. [3] Keyes, C. L. M. (2005). Mental illness and/or mental health? Investigating axioms of the complete state model of health. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73(3), 539 to 548. [4] Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Free Press. [5] The Flourishing Center. (n.d.). Certified Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP). [6] Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218 to 226. [7] Moneta, G. B., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). The effect of perceived challenges and skills on the quality of subjective experience. Journal of Personality, 64(2), 275 to 310. [8] Peterson, C. (2006). A primer in positive psychology. Oxford University Press. [9] Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man's search for meaning. Beacon Press. (Originally published in 1946.) [10] Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705 to 717.

Written by Natalya Gevorgyan, Founder of The Magic Church Natalya Gevorgyan is the founder of The Magic Church, a U.S.-based nonprofit religious organization focused on research and governance in psychedelic practice. Her international background spans technology, hospitality, investment banking, and entrepreneurship across Armenia, India, China, and the U.S. After founding technology businesses across international markets and leading product initiatives at Amazon Web Services, the Armenian entrepreneur is shifting his focus to a long-standing challenge in software. He aims to help companies accurately identify and deliver what their customers actually need. Artificial intelligence has made software faster and easier to build. But the ability to develop a product does not necessarily mean there is a market for it. For Narek Gevorgyan, founder and CEO of DataPlay.ai, that distinction lies at the center of his latest venture. The San Francisco Bay Area-based entrepreneur has spent more than a decade working across software engineering, enterprise technology, market research, and international business operations. His career includes founding companies in Armenia and the United States, expanding operations across India and Ukraine, and serving as a senior technical product manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS). With DataPlay, founded in 2026, Gevorgyan is applying that experience to a recurring problem in product development: how companies can make better decisions about what to build before committing resources to building it. From Armenia to international entrepreneurship Gevorgyan began his career in Yerevan, Armenia, where he studied physics at Yerevan State University and worked as a software engineer. In 2012, he founded Bifortis, a software development company operating across Armenia and India. The business developed web and mobile applications for international clients, spanning software as a service, healthcare, fitness, and other sectors. According to his professional profile, Bifortis was subsequently acquired by HOPE Research Group, where Gevorgyan became managing partner. At HOPE, his responsibilities expanded beyond software development into enterprise analytics and operational leadership. He helped develop retail execution technology used by major consumer goods companies, including Coca-Cola and Nestlé, to monitor product visibility and availability in stores. Gevorgyan also led a team of more than 40 people, managing the intersection of technology development, commercial requirements, and international operations. The experience marked a transition from building software for clients to developing systems that addressed measurable business problems. Building and scaling across borders In 2018, Gevorgyan founded Starkflow, a company focused on simplifying international recruitment, payroll, and workforce management. The business developed technology and operational services to help organizations hire and manage distributed teams across borders, including in India and Ukraine. According to Gevorgyan's professional record, Starkflow acquired more than 30 customers and onboarded over 10,000 engineers. Its software development work included talent matching, payments, and contract management. Building the company exposed him to challenges beyond engineering, including entering new markets, coordinating international operations, and ensuring that a product addressed a commercially meaningful problem. In a publicly reported 2026 founder discussion, Gevorgyan reflected on the importance of validating demand before committing substantial resources to development. That lesson provides a direct connection to his current work. Rather than treating product development as the starting point, DataPlay is designed to move customer research and market evidence earlier in the decision-making process. Product development at Amazon Web Services Between September 2022 and April 2025, Gevorgyan worked at AWS as a senior technical product manager, focusing on cloud database technologies and enterprise product initiatives. His responsibilities included launching features and expanding regional availability for Amazon DocumentDB, along with developing onboarding and connectivity workflows involving DocumentDB and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS). He also worked on go-to-market strategy, product adoption, retention initiatives, and customer engagement. His professional profile identifies interactions with enterprise customers, including Rippling, Tesla, and United Airlines, as well as technology partners such as Datadog, JetBrains, and HashiCorp. At AWS, product development involved balancing engineering capabilities with customer requirements, operational constraints, and commercial priorities. That environment provided a different perspective from startup entrepreneurship. While early-stage companies must carefully allocate limited resources, large technology organizations face their own prioritization challenges across complex product portfolios. In both settings, the underlying question remains important: which initiatives justify investment, and what evidence supports those decisions? DataPlay.ai: Turning market evidence into product decisions Gevorgyan founded DataPlay.ai in February 2026, positioning the company as an AI-powered platform for product research and decision-making. The platform is designed to help founders and product teams identify customer problems, examine market demand, and prioritize development opportunities using external market signals and internal product information. Conventional product research often involves reviewing customer interviews, support requests, competitor activity, online discussions, search trends, and product analytics independently. Bringing these sources together can be time-consuming, while isolated observations may not accurately represent broader demand. DataPlay attempts to consolidate that research process. According to the company's website, the platform examines publicly available conversations, online reviews, search activity, and other market signals to surface recurring customer problems and potential opportunities. Its workflow centers on three stages: discovering problems, validating demand, and translating findings into product decisions. An important component is traceability. DataPlay aims to connect its findings to underlying sources, allowing product teams to examine supporting evidence instead of relying exclusively on AI-generated conclusions. The platform also incorporates indicators related to search demand and visibility in AI-generated recommendations, reflecting changes in how customers research and discover products. The broader ambition is to help organizations distinguish between features that are technically feasible and initiatives that have evidence of market relevance. As AI-assisted development reduces some of the time and expense required to create software, that distinction may become increasingly important. The opportunity and the test ahead DataPlay enters a competitive market that already includes product analytics platforms, customer feedback systems, market research services, and general-purpose AI tools. Its potential differentiation lies in connecting externally observed customer problems with product prioritization, rather than limiting analysis to existing users or internal performance data. However, identifying recurring complaints or search activity does not automatically establish commercial demand. Online discussions can be unrepresentative, customer preferences may change, and AI-generated interpretations require verification. The company's own terms acknowledge limitations in the accuracy and completeness of AI-generated findings. For DataPlay, the central challenge will be demonstrating that its research process produces better decisions in practice, not merely more information for teams to review. Publicly available evidence of long-term customer outcomes and measurable commercial impact remains limited at this early stage. For Gevorgyan, the venture brings together several stages of his professional career: developing software in Armenia, managing enterprise analytics in India, building an international workforce business, and working on cloud infrastructure products at AWS. Those experiences have led him toward a different focus within technology entrepreneurship. Instead of concentrating primarily on making software easier to build, DataPlay is attempting to improve the decisions that come before development begins. In an industry increasingly capable of producing software at speed, knowing what deserves to be built may prove to be the more consequential challenge. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Natalya Gevorgyan Natalya Gevorgyan, Founder of The Magic Church Natalya Gevorgyan is the founder of The Magic Church, a U.S.-based nonprofit religious organization focused on research, governance, and responsible psychedelic practice. Her work brings together research, neuroscience, institutional design, and regulatory engagement to explore how emerging psychedelic contexts can be approached responsibly. With a background across technology, hospitality, investment banking, and entrepreneurship in Armenia, India, China, and the United States, she brings a cross-disciplinary perspective to mental health and responsible innovation.

Written by Parul Agnihotri, Mindset and Empowerment Coach Dr. Parul Agnihotri is a scientist, mother, dancer, fitness enthusiast, and founder of Continuum™, bringing a science-informed perspective to mindset and personal evolution. She helps women reconnect with their identity, embrace every version of themselves, and intentionally evolve into who they are becoming. What if our need for validation is not simply insecurity, but a brain that has learned to look outside itself for evidence of worth? You can wake up feeling confident in who you are. Then someone dismisses your opinion, questions your abilities, or withdraws their affection. Suddenly, you question yourself. Nothing about your character or accomplishments has changed. So why does someone else's behavior feel powerful enough to rewrite your self-perception? The answer lies partly in the biology of belonging, the neuroscience of reward, and the experiences that teach us what acceptance means. The biology of belonging Humans evolved as social beings. Belonging once offered protection, while exclusion could threaten survival. Our nervous systems still register social rejection as significant. Studies show that exclusion engages brain regions associated with distress, though social and physical pain aren't identical. [1] Wanting connection, then, is human. But needing someone else's approval to feel worthy is something different. The distinction matters because our brains learn from what repeatedly brings us relief. Dopamine: When approval becomes the reward Dopamine is often called the pleasure chemical, but its role is more interesting. It helps the brain learn which outcomes are worth pursuing. When a reward exceeds expectations, dopamine signaling can help reinforce the cues and behaviors that preceded it. [2] Now imagine the reward is affection, praise, or recognition. A compliment feels good. An unexpected message from someone important can feel even better. When approval becomes unpredictable, we may begin monitoring every shift in tone, adjusting our behavior, and searching for the next reassuring signal. Sometimes what feels most rewarding is not affection itself, but the relief when uncertainty finally ends. That is the trap. We can mistake relief from distress for proof of love or personal worth. Physician and author Gabor Maté encourages us to consider the emotional pain a repetitive behavior may be attempting to soothe. [3] One person may turn to a substance to escape distress, while another may compulsively pursue achievement or approval to quiet feelings of inadequacy. These are not clinically equivalent forms of addiction. But the comparison raises a valuable question. What emotional need does our validation seeking serve? Perhaps we are not always seeking admiration. Perhaps we are seeking reassurance that we are enough. Epigenetics: The power of our environment As an immunologist, I am fascinated by how profoundly biological function depends on context. Our deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) does not operate in isolation. Epigenetic processes regulate gene activity without changing the underlying DNA sequence, and environmental exposures can influence aspects of that regulation. [4] I see a meaningful parallel in how our sense of self develops. A child raised with consistent encouragement may learn that affection is secure. A child exposed to repeated criticism or conditional approval may associate love with performing, pleasing, or never disappointing. Human identity emerges through intertwined psychological, social, and biological processes. Yet the broader principle remains. Our environment shapes how we respond. Repeated learning can begin to feel innate. What is familiar can start to feel true. When familiarity masquerades as truth Our brains interpret new experiences through old expectations. If rejection recurs, an unanswered message may feel like evidence that we are unimportant. A disagreement may sound like proof that we are difficult. Someone else's silence can feel like a verdict on our value. Psychologists Jennifer Crocker and Connie Wolfe describe contingencies of self-worth, the domains and outcomes on which people stake their self-esteem. When worth depends on approval or achievement, it rises and falls with events we cannot fully control. [5] But a person's response is information about an interaction, not an objective measurement of our identity. Instead of asking only, "Why did they treat me that way?" we might ask, "Why am I using their behavior as evidence against myself?" Rebuilding self-trust is a practice The capacity to learn new responses gives us a way forward. Rebuilding self-trust isn't pretending rejection doesn't hurt or repeating affirmations until we believe them. It is learning to separate a feeling from the conclusion we attach to it. "I feel rejected" is an emotional experience. "Therefore, I am unworthy" is an interpretation. Before seeking reassurance, we can ask, "Is this feedback accurate? Does it align with what I know about my values and behavior? Am I trying to repair a meaningful connection or escape the discomfort of disapproval?" Self-determination theory identifies autonomy, competence, and relatedness as central psychological needs. [6] We need connection, but we also need to experience our choices as our own. Healthy validation makes room for both. My doctoral research examined gene regulatory circuits guiding CD4 T-cell development and function. In immunology, a cell's response to a signal depends on its history and context. I find that a useful metaphor for people, too. The same criticism may prompt reflection in one person and profound self-doubt in another. The signal matters, but so does how we interpret it. We can learn to examine that interpretation rather than automatically obey it. Each time we honor a boundary, make a decision aligned with our values, or tolerate someone's disagreement without abandoning ourselves, we practice a different relationship with approval. Validation is human, self-abandonment doesn't have to be We will never stop wanting to be seen. Nor should we. Recognition can deepen relationships and encourage growth. The goal is not indifference to others, but discernment about how much authority their opinions deserve. Someone can fail to recognize your worth without diminishing it. Someone can withdraw approval without invalidating your identity. Someone can treat you poorly without their behavior becoming the measure of who you are. Science helps explain why we seek validation. Self-awareness helps us decide what to do with that impulse. Perhaps the question is no longer, "Why don't they see my worth?" Perhaps it is, "Why did I stop trusting that I could?" Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Parul Agnihotri Parul Agnihotri, Mindset and Empowerment Coach Dr. Parul Agnihotri is a scientist, mother, dancer, fitness enthusiast, and founder of Continuum™, a platform centered on mindset, identity, and personal evolution. With a PhD in Immunology and over a decade in scientific research, she brings a science-informed perspective to understanding growth and transformation. Inspired by her own journey through motherhood, health challenges, career transitions, and self-rediscovery, Parul helps women reconnect with themselves, embrace every version of who they are, and intentionally evolve into who they are becoming. References: [1] Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302(5643), 290- 292. [2] Schultz, W. (2016). Dopamine reward prediction-error signaling: A two-component response. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17, 183- 195. [3] Maté, G. (2008). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. Knopf Canada. (Interpretive framework, not evidence that validation-seeking is a substance addiction.) [4] National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. (2026). Environmental epigenetics. [5] Crocker, J., & Wolfe, C. T. (2001). Contingencies of self-worth. Psychological Review, 108(3), 593? 623. [6] Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68? 78.

Written by Paul Wakefield, Scale Readiness Advisor With over 30 years as a founder and operator, I help businesses build the infrastructure needed to scale safely. As the creator of the Scale Readiness Ladder, I focus on turning growth into lasting strength rather than fragile overload. Today, I'm building RESJAM.com to empower entrepreneurs to connect, collaborate, and monetize seamlessly. Why do some businesses become harder to run as they grow? After 30 years in business development, I've seen how increasing revenue can expose weaknesses that founders never knew existed. That's why I developed The Scale Readiness Ladder, a five-stage framework designed to help founders build businesses that can grow without breaking. Why growth doesn't always mean your business is ready to scale There's a moment in business that should feel like success. Revenue is increasing. New customers are arriving. The team is expanding. Years of hard work are finally paying off. Yet behind the scenes, something very different can be happening. The founder is working longer hours. Employees are constantly asking questions. Cash flow is becoming unpredictable. Customer service is slipping. Processes that worked perfectly when the business was small are beginning to fail. I've spent 30 years building businesses and working with founders. I've seen this pattern repeatedly. The business grows, but the infrastructure underneath it doesn't. I call this Scale Fragility: a business that looks successful from the outside while becoming increasingly vulnerable on the inside. It's one of the reasons I wrote my latest book, The Scale Readiness Ladder: The 5 Fundamentals Every Founder Must Build Before Growth Breaks Them. The book introduces a framework built around one central principle. The order in which you build your business matters just as much as what you build. What is the Scale Readiness Ladder framework? The Scale Readiness Ladder is a five-stage framework designed to help founders develop the financial, operational, and commercial foundations required for sustainable growth. It identifies five fundamentals that should be strengthened in a deliberate sequence: Accounting: Know your numbers. Systems: Build the machine. People: Staff the machine. Marketing: Create consistent demand. Sales: Convert demand into profitable revenue. These aren't simply five business functions. They're five interconnected rungs of a ladder. Each depends on the strength of the foundations below it. Yet founders regularly attempt to climb the ladder out of sequence. They hire before creating systems. They invest in marketing before understanding their margins. They push sales before establishing reliable delivery processes. When growth creates problems, they often respond by trying to grow even faster. The Scale Readiness framework challenges that approach. If you're unsure how prepared your business is for growth, you can start with my free Scale Readiness Assessment. Rung 1: Accounting, know your numbers before scaling The first fundamental is accounting. There's a reason it comes first. If you don't understand your numbers, you're making business decisions without knowing their financial consequences. I've encountered founders who can tell me their monthly revenue immediately but struggle to explain their profit margins, cash position, or cost of acquiring customers. In my book, I call this the Revenue Mirage. It's when increasing sales create the illusion of financial health while the business's underlying financial position is deteriorating. Imagine winning a £100,000 contract. Fantastic news. But what if delivering that contract requires £70,000 in costs before your customer pays? The contract may be profitable on paper, but your business still needs enough cash to finance delivery. This is why founders need to understand cash flow, gross margins, operating costs and financial runway. Accounting isn't simply about satisfying His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC). It's about having the financial intelligence to make better decisions. The accounting gate check: Can you explain your business's current financial position, margins, and cash runway without waiting for your accountant? If not, your first priority may be financial clarity rather than more sales. Rung 2: Systems, build a business that doesn't depend on you This is where many founders discover their biggest obstacle to scaling. Themselves. I use the term Founder Gravity to describe the invisible force that pulls every important decision, operational problem, and customer issue back towards the founder. In the early stages, this is understandable. The founder sells, delivers, manages customers, solves problems, and makes decisions. But what works with five customers becomes increasingly difficult with 500. Eventually, the founder becomes the operating system of the company. The business can only move as quickly as that individual can respond. The solution is to create documented, repeatable processes that allow work to happen consistently without constant founder involvement. A system isn't simply software. It's a clear process that defines what needs to happen, who is responsible, and what successful delivery looks like. The more knowledge you transfer from your head into the business, the less dependent the business becomes on you. The systems gate check: Could someone else run your core operations using your documented processes without needing you to explain everything? If not, you have a systems problem that growth will eventually expose. Rung 3: People, hire into systems, not chaos Hiring is often the first response when a founder becomes overwhelmed. The business is busy, so another employee joins. Then another. Before long, the company has doubled its headcount, but the founder is still working longer hours. Why? Because hiring into a business without clear systems often multiplies confusion rather than productivity. New employees need training, defined responsibilities, performance expectations, and the authority to make appropriate decisions. Without these foundations, every new employee can create additional demands on the founder. That's why people come after systems in the framework. Once processes are established, recruitment becomes more effective. Training becomes easier. Responsibilities become clearer. Founders can begin making the transition from doing everything themselves to leading an organisation that can operate independently. The people gate check: Can your team consistently deliver results, make appropriate decisions, and take ownership without your constant intervention? If not, hiring more people may simply increase the pressure. Rung 4: Marketing, build predictable demand Marketing is where many conversations about business growth begin. More traffic. More leads. More enquiries. More customers. But in The Scale Readiness Ladder, Marketing is the fourth rung. That distinction is deliberate. Marketing creates demand, and demand creates pressure on everything that happens afterward. If your finances are weak, more customers can create cash flow problems. If your systems are unreliable, more demand can expose delivery failures. If your team isn't ready, a successful marketing campaign can overwhelm your operations. Marketing should accelerate a business that's ready to deliver, not expose one that isn't. Once the first three foundations are sufficiently strong, founders can focus on developing predictable demand through positioning, messaging, content, referrals, partnerships, and appropriate marketing channels. The objective is to create a repeatable process that doesn't rely entirely on the founder's personal relationships or constant involvement. The marketing gate check: Can your business consistently generate qualified demand through a repeatable process? If not, your marketing engine may still depend too heavily on individual effort. Want to identify which of these foundations needs attention? Take the free Scale Readiness Assessment and start examining your business across all five fundamentals. Rung 5: Sales, create a repeatable revenue engine The fifth rung is Sales. This might surprise founders who have been told that selling should always come first. Of course, businesses need sales from the beginning to survive and validate demand. But there's a difference between making sales and building a scalable sales operation. A founder may be an exceptional salesperson. They know the product, understand customers, and can close deals through personal relationships. But what happens when the business needs to win ten times as many customers? If every important deal depends on the founder, the business has a structural limitation. A scalable sales process needs clear qualification criteria, defined stages, consistent follow-up, measurable conversion rates, and an effective handover into delivery. Sales should generate revenue that the business can fulfil profitably and consistently. The sales gate check: Could your business maintain its sales performance without you personally managing every important opportunity? If not, the founder may still be the company's primary sales system. Why building your business in the wrong order creates problems Here's the central argument of my book. You can make individually sensible business decisions and still damage your business by making them in the wrong order. Hiring is sensible. Marketing is sensible. Technology is sensible. Increasing sales is sensible. But each can create problems when the foundations needed to support it are missing. Consider a consultancy that wins several large contracts and immediately recruits additional employees. The business has no documented delivery processes, unclear responsibilities, and limited financial forecasting. New employees require constant direction. The founder becomes busier. Delivery becomes inconsistent. Payroll increases before customer payments arrive. The founder responds by investing in more marketing. More customers enter an already overstretched operation. Revenue grows, but the business becomes increasingly fragile. I describe the accumulated cost of neglected systems and postponed operational improvements as Infrastructure Debt. It builds quietly, and growth eventually exposes it. The Scale Readiness approach encourages founders to address the earliest weak foundation before adding further complexity. It's not about reducing ambition. It's about making that ambition sustainable. The Founder Freedom Check: Can your business operate without you? There's another important dimension to scaling that rarely receives enough attention. The founder's freedom. Many entrepreneurs start businesses because they want independence, flexibility, and control over their lives. Yet as their businesses grow, they become increasingly trapped. Every holiday involves checking emails. Every important decision requires approval. Every unexpected problem becomes their responsibility. In my book, I introduce the Founder Freedom Check. Imagine stepping away from your business for 90 days. No involvement in daily operations. No constant calls. No emergency decisions. Could your business continue delivering, generating revenue, and serving customers? Could you return to find it operating effectively? That is a powerful test of genuine scale readiness, and achieving it requires all five fundamentals working together. Financial clarity. Reliable systems. Capable people. Predictable marketing. Repeatable sales. How to start preparing your business for scale One mistake founders make is attempting to improve everything simultaneously. They introduce new software, restructure teams, change marketing strategies, and launch sales initiatives all at once. The result can be more disruption. My recommendation is simpler. Start with diagnosis. Understand where your business stands across the five fundamentals. Identify the earliest weak rung. Then prioritise the improvements needed to strengthen it. The book also introduces a 90-day roadmap for turning that diagnosis into practical action. You don't need to rebuild your entire business overnight. You need to understand what matters most and start making progress in the right order. After three decades in business, I've become convinced that founders need to change the questions they ask about growth. Instead of asking, "How do I get more customers?" Ask, "Can my business consistently deliver for more customers?" Instead of asking, "Who should I hire next?" Ask, "What systems need to exist before I hire?" Instead of asking, "How quickly can I scale?" Ask, "What would break if my business doubled tomorrow?" Your answer could reveal exactly where your attention needs to go. Take the free Scale Readiness Assessment I created Scale Readiness Lab to help founders put the principles from my book into practice. If you're planning to grow your business, start by understanding how prepared it is across accounting, systems, people, marketing, and sales. The free Scale Readiness Assessment is designed to help you reflect on your business's current foundations and identify potential weaknesses before they become expensive problems. Take the free Scale Readiness Assessment here. Because successful scaling isn't simply about growing faster. It's about building a business that's strong enough to support that growth. Build the foundations. Follow the sequence. Then scale. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Paul Wakefield Paul Wakefield, Scale Readiness Advisor I've spent more than three decades in real businesses–retail, hospitality, logistics, technology, data, marketplaces, education, and professional services. Founder, operator, executive, advisor. That range matters. It means I've seen the same problems arrive in very different clothes: the cash that disappears during a good quarter, the hire that makes everything slower, the process everyone assumes exists and nobody has written down.

Written by Kate Cubley, Founder of Tala Performance Kate Cubley is a practical voice coach, performance specialist, and the founder of Tala Performance. She empowers performers, speakers, and business leaders to overcome performance anxiety and build a clear, confident voice when the pressure is on. Standing up in front of a room of people, whether you know them or not, can cause a host of unwanted side effects, such as a dry mouth, shaky hands, total gaze avoidance, and completely forgetting what you wanted to say. When your mind goes blank We have all witnessed it when someone stumbles over their words and goes blank on stage. As someone in the audience, perhaps you’re rooting for them to get back into it, or maybe you’re wishing the hole in the floor would swallow you up along with them, to a place of safety, far, far away from the public eye. When the mind goes blank, whether we’re supposed to be sharing our expertise, delivering news, or even speaking up in a meeting, it may cause feelings of disappointment, embarrassment, anxiety, shame, or self-doubt. The fear of making mistakes or the prospect of being judged by others literally stops so many brilliant people from standing up on stage in the first place. If you’re reading this, maybe you’re one of them? If you’re reading this, maybe you consider that you have something important you want to share, too! If so, I am glad you’re here. You’re not the only one who feels like this The fear of public speaking is very common. YouGov (2023) reports that 49% of Brits have some sort of fear of speaking in front of people, and 15% described it as debilitating. The poll surveyed around 1,800 adults in Great Britain. Imagine if this fear kept you quiet forever. What would you not be sharing? What would other people miss out on as a consequence of you holding back? 5 skills to help you speak brilliantly I believe that if you have a story to tell, a message to share, or an opinion that could help someone else, then you definitely should be sharing it. So here are five essential speaking skills to help you move from feeling the fear to speaking brilliantly instead. 1. Know what you want to say: Knowing what you want to say and your reason for saying it is a prerequisite for delivering a decent talk. If you are absolutely clear about your purpose for being on that stage, with a microphone hovering in front of you, the only thing you now need to do is get that message across. It doesn’t matter if you don’t stick to the script you rehearsed, or didn’t rehearse! Make your point, serve your purpose, then make your point again. 2. Take up space: Taking up space means several things, but in brief, to deliver your message with authority, you need to look like the authority. Consider your body alignment. Be open and tall. Consider where you cast your eyes into the sea of faces before you. Smile if it’s appropriate, move across the stage, express yourself freely with appropriate gestures, or stand behind the lectern and use your face to add expression and meaning. Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy researched the impact of ‘power posing’ on the results of an interview scenario, and she discovered that superhero poses, which involve taking up space, had an overwhelmingly positive impact on both how the interview was delivered and how it was received. Be bold. You’ve got this! 3. Hack your breathing: Your breath is the simplest way to hack into your autonomic nervous system. Did you know that your brain spies on what your breath is doing to assess a scenario? If your breathing is rapid and shallow, your brain will assume you’re about to be chewed up by a dragon, or something similar. However, by shifting your breath to move in and out through your nose, you will slow down your breathing rate, the breath will travel lower in your body, and your brain will assume you’re safe. Which you probably are. The body is a clever thing, and if you put yourself in a scenario that is unusual, unfamiliar, or has not made you feel good before, then it will react in a way that tries to save you. This is the autonomic nervous system at play, making sure you’re ready to fight, flee, or freeze. Adrenaline and cortisol pump through the body. Then you get jittery, as if you’ve downed 47 shots of espresso. Then your voice shakes, and the vicious cycle of “I’m not good enough, this is going to be terrible” can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Catch your breath early on, however, and the result is vastly different. You can do this. It’s science. Remember, breathe through your nose, then elongate your out-breath before you even step onto the stage. 4. Make your voice irresistible: Have you ever thought you could listen to someone all day? Or been bored to tears by a teacher reading monotonously from a textbook? One of these speakers engages the room better and serves their purpose for being there with greater success. There are many ways to play with your voice, which can make your talk more fun and engaging for your audience to listen to. Take a sentence from your presentation and try speaking it aloud in front of your camera. Play with the following ideas and see how you can make your voice even more irresistible for an audience to listen to. Pace: Adjust the speed of your speech. Slow is good for important points, faster is great for excitement, but variety is the spice of life. Clarity: Are you enunciating? Can the people at the back hear you? Use your vowels for volume and your consonants for clarity. Volume: Ensure you can always be heard. Otherwise, people will zone out. You can make your audience lean in by speaking quietly or shock them with a sudden burst of loudness. Have fun here! Pause: This can help with the nervousness mentioned in point 3. When you pause, you give the audience a moment to collect their thoughts. It also gives you a moment to breathe in and out, and in again, through your nose to regulate any nerves without it showing. Using a pause after an important or key point is a particularly clever way to use it. A pause is also way more powerful than the words “erm, like, you know.” Inflection: This is what helps a speaker avoid monotony and add interest. Shifting the pitch up or down provides wonderful clues as to what’s exciting, what’s serious, what’s important, and whether you’re posing a question or making a statement. The key to doing this well is being open to playing with your voice during rehearsals. Have fun with your sound, add variety, be silly, and use your camera or an audio recorder to play yourself back for instant feedback. Keep what you like, change what you don’t. 5. Connect with your audience: Bring all these ideas together during your rehearsal time, then ask yourself what you want your audience to think or remember next. This brings you full circle to point 1 again, leaning into your purpose for standing up there, taking up space, and wanting to sound brilliant in the first place. Speaking brilliantly is a skill you can practice Confident speaking is built through the practice of actually doing it. It isn’t a personality type, a genetic talent, or an innate skill. Get yourself on stage, be clear about what you want to say, take up space, take a breath, and play. Give yourself total permission to mess it up and make mistakes, then learn for yourself how you can do it better next time. One of the best ways to learn public speaking is to get out and do it yourself. For 15 years, I have helped people develop their voices and feel more confident when they speak. I now bring that experience together in SPEAK, my six-week course for speakers who want to get the best from their vocal presentation, speak with purpose, and enjoy being on stage again. If you’d like support putting these skills into practice with real audiences, I’d love to help you find your voice and make it heard. Alternatively, follow me on socials for a variety of vocal warm-ups and regular advice on keeping your voice happy and healthy. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Kate Cubley Kate Cubley, Founder of Tala Performance Kate Cubley is a practical voice coach and founder of Tala Performance. Growing up, she struggled to overcome performance anxiety; then, in her early 30s, she developed allergies affecting both her voice and her breathing. Combining these obstacles, she has dedicated her work to helping performers trust their voices in high-pressure situations. She hosts The Tala Club, an online academy, helping students to unlock their true vocal potential.

Written by Engy Neville, Conscious Leadership Mentor & Emotional Intelligence Expert Engy Neville is a Conscious Leadership Mentor and Emotional Intelligence Expert who blends 30 years of corporate brand management, leadership and brand strategy with NLP, subconscious work, and energy healing to help people recognize the patterns shaping how they live and lead—and consciously choose what comes next. You got the promotion. Built the business. Earned the degree. Received the recognition. People seek your advice. They trust your judgment. They tell you how good you are at what you do. There is evidence everywhere that you are capable. So why doesn't it feel like enough? This is one of the things I find most fascinating about impostor syndrome: it can exist alongside extraordinary accomplishment. You can be intelligent, experienced and objectively qualified for the room you're standing in and still feel as though you need to prove why you deserve to be there. You overprepare because being prepared doesn't quite feel sufficient. You work harder because doing a good job doesn't quiet the voice wondering whether someone else could have done it better. You receive praise and immediately think about what you could have improved. You achieve something you once desperately wanted and, rather than allowing yourself to fully receive it, your mind begins searching for the next piece of evidence. Surely that will be the thing that finally makes you feel accomplished enough, experienced enough, credible enough. Except the evidence keeps accumulating and the feeling doesn't fundamentally change. At some point, I think we have to ask a different question: What if you aren't suffering from a lack of evidence? Impostor syndrome isn't humility We sometimes romanticize self-doubt as humility. But humility and impostor syndrome are not the same thing. Humility allows you to recognize what you know while remaining open to everything you don't. You can be deeply confident in your expertise and still understand that there is more to learn. Impostor syndrome causes you to distrust the expertise you've already earned. Instead of “I don't know everything,” the internal conversation becomes, “Perhaps I don't know enough to belong here at all.” That distinction matters. Because once your sense of belonging becomes conditional, proving can quietly become a way of life. You don't simply prepare. You overprepare. You don't simply contribute. You overgive. You don't simply want to do excellent work. You need the work to be excellent because somewhere beneath the ambition is the fear of what imperfection might say about you. From the outside, this can look like exceptional performance. Internally, it can be exhausting. When achievement becomes evidence of worth I spent 30 years working in corporate environments, much of that time surrounded by extraordinarily intelligent, accomplished and ambitious people. One of the things those years taught me is that you cannot determine someone's internal relationship with themselves simply by looking at what they have achieved. We are very good at measuring outcomes: revenue, promotions, awards, titles, credentials, growth and recognition. We are less practiced at asking what is driving the person producing them. There is a difference between pursuing excellence because excellence matters to you and pursuing it because anything less feels threatening to your identity. There is a difference between wanting the next opportunity because it genuinely excites you and needing it because you hope it will finally prove something about you. There is a difference between healthy ambition and using achievement to answer a question achievement was never designed to answer: Am I enough? When the evidence is right in front of you I understand this contradiction personally. Many years ago, before remote work became commonplace, I was working full-time in a corporate, in-person environment in brand management and consulting. My children were toddlers. Life was full in every possible way. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I wrote my first novel. I didn't just write it. I finished it. I submitted it. Eventually, it was published by a publishing house. Not long afterward, I was invited to speak to a women's group about the book. Looking back now, I can see the evidence so clearly. I was raising two small children while managing a demanding corporate career. I had written and published a novel, and someone believed my experience and perspective were valuable enough to invite me into a room to speak about them. I still remember feeling like I wasn't enough: not accomplished enough, not qualified enough, not whatever version of “enough” I had unconsciously decided I needed to be before I could fully own my place in that room. Today, I want to hug that version of myself. Not because she lacked intelligence, ambition or capability, but because she had bought into an idea of “enough” that was never actually hers to begin with. So many of us inherit definitions of what enough looks like long before we ever think to question them: enough success, enough education, enough experience, enough recognition, enough productivity, enough proof. Society gives us plenty of markers to measure ourselves against, and then we add our own: family expectations, cultural expectations, professional expectations, the people we compare ourselves to, and the milestones we thought we would have reached by a certain age. Eventually, “enough” becomes a destination we are perpetually trying to reach without ever stopping to ask: Who defined it in the first place? That's the part I couldn't see then. I thought I needed more evidence. What I actually needed was to question the standard against which I was measuring the evidence I already had. Your achievements cannot answer an identity question This is why I believe the conversation about impostor syndrome needs to go deeper than confidence. If external accomplishment could resolve an internal belief of insufficiency, then accomplishment would eventually make impostor syndrome disappear. But for many people, it doesn't. The promotion happens. The degree is earned. The business grows. The book gets published. The invitation arrives. The internal voice simply finds another reason why none of it quite counts. That's because we may be trying to solve an internal question with external evidence. External evidence has its limits. Your résumé can tell you that you are experienced. Your clients can tell you that you create value. Your employer can tell you that you are doing excellent work. Your friends can remind you how capable you are. An audience can applaud you. But none of those things can permanently answer a question about how you see yourself. That is an inside job. The exhaustion of constantly proving yourself There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being in constant evaluation of yourself: Did I say enough? Did I know enough? Did I prepare enough? Was that impressive enough? What did they think of me? What if someone realizes I don't know something? What if I fail the next time? Of course, sometimes exhaustion simply means there is too much on your plate. Not every experience needs to be turned into a deeper psychological explanation. But sometimes we aren't only tired from the amount we're doing. We're tired from what we're asking all of that doing to prove. Every project becomes another test. Every room becomes another audition. Every achievement earns temporary permission to belong until the next challenge arrives. That is an enormous amount of pressure to place on yourself. And ironically, the more accomplished you become, the more you may have to lose in your own mind. If your identity has become intertwined with being exceptional, what happens when you make a mistake? If your value comes from being the expert, what happens when you don't know the answer? If belonging is something you have earned through performance, what happens when your performance isn't perfect? This is where impostor syndrome can quietly shadow accomplishment. The success doesn't necessarily create greater internal safety. Sometimes it simply raises the stakes for maintaining the identity you've built around it. Confidence isn't the whole answer The traditional answer to impostor syndrome is often to become more confident. There is value in building confidence. Keep a record of what you've accomplished. Receive compliments instead of immediately deflecting them. Challenge the thoughts that tell you you're unqualified. Allow yourself to recognize what you've earned. But I believe the deeper work begins when we become curious about why the accomplishments aren't landing. Why does someone else's opinion carry more weight than your own? Why does making a mistake feel like evidence about your identity rather than information about something you did? Why do you need to know everything before you trust what you already know? Why does achievement create relief rather than fulfillment? And what do you believe the next accomplishment will finally allow you to feel? These questions take us somewhere very different from simply telling ourselves to be more confident. They take us beneath the behavior and into the beliefs shaping it. Pause before you collect more proof When the familiar “I'm not enough” appears, many of us have a well-practiced response: do more. Prepare more. Achieve more. Learn more. Prove more. But what if, instead of immediately responding to that feeling by collecting another piece of evidence, you paused long enough to become curious about the feeling itself? What am I trying to prove right now? What do I believe this next accomplishment will allow me to believe about myself? Whose definition of enough am I measuring myself against? Is that definition even mine? And perhaps the most confronting question: If everything I have already accomplished hasn't convinced me that I'm enough, why do I believe the next accomplishment will? This isn't an argument against ambition. I don't believe ambition is the problem. There is enormous power in wanting more for ourselves, stretching beyond what we've done before, pursuing excellence and discovering what we are capable of creating. The question is what is driving the pursuit. Are you moving toward something because it genuinely expands you? Or are you running toward it because you hope it will finally resolve something within you? Those can look remarkably similar from the outside. They feel very different on the inside. You don't have to stop achieving, you can stop performing your worth I don't want to be less ambitious today. I don't want to stop setting goals, stretching myself or pursuing opportunities that excite and challenge me. What has changed is the responsibility I give those accomplishments. They are no longer responsible for telling me who I am. That distinction matters. You can want the promotion without needing the promotion to prove you are capable. You can pursue another degree because you genuinely want the knowledge rather than because you need another credential to feel credible. You can build a bigger business because the vision excites you rather than because a revenue number has become evidence of your value. You can walk into a room knowing you won't always be the smartest or most experienced person there and still understand that you belong. You can make a mistake without turning it into evidence that you were a fraud all along. You can allow success to become an expression of your capabilities rather than proof of your worth. I think about that younger version of myself now—the woman raising toddlers, building a corporate career, writing a novel in whatever pockets of time she could find, getting it published and still walking into a room wondering whether she was enough. I don't wish she had achieved more. I wish she could have seen herself differently. Perhaps that's the invitation for all of us. Before collecting another credential, chasing another milestone or asking the world for another piece of evidence, pause long enough to recognize everything that is already there. Then ask a better question. Not: What else do I need to accomplish to finally feel like I'm enough? But: Where did I learn that who I already am isn't? If this resonated If you've accumulated plenty of evidence that you're capable and yet some part of you is still questioning whether you're enough, the answer may not be another accomplishment. It may be time to understand what's underneath the need to keep proving. I invite you to book a complimentary Discovery Call with me. Together, we'll explore the patterns and beliefs that may be shaping how you see yourself, where they may be keeping you stuck, and what becomes possible when your own knowing begins to carry more weight than the external evidence you've spent years collecting. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Engy Neville Engy Neville, Conscious Leadership Mentor & Emotional Intelligence Expert Engy Neville is a Conscious Leadership Mentor and Emotional Intelligence Expert who spent 30 years in corporate brand management and leadership before bringing that experience into the transformational work she leads today. Blending emotional intelligence, NLP, subconscious work, and quantum energy healing, she helps people uncover the patterns and beliefs shaping how they live, lead, and see themselves. Her work bridges the practical and the intuitive, helping people move beyond intellectual self-awareness into meaningful, embodied change. Through Embracing Zen with Engy, she teaches a simple but powerful philosophy, when you understand what has been unconsciously driving you, you gain the freedom to consciously choose who you become.

Written by Monique Farmer, PR & Communications Consultant Monique Farmer, APR, is the founder of Avant Solutions, a PR and communications consultancy that helps nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and small businesses elevate their messaging and build stronger connections with their audiences. She created Anvil Ready, an online communication strategy builder that aids the communication professional in creating communication plans. I recently had the privilege of speaking to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Omaha District Leadership Development Program class for 2026 to 2027. For me, this invitation meant a little more because USACE was my first professional home. The Corps was the first place I learned what it meant to work inside a large organization, support leaders, communicate with purpose, and understand how culture shapes the way people work together. There is something powerful about going back to a place that helped shape you. The surroundings may feel familiar, but you aren’t the same person who once walked those halls. Time has passed. Life has happened. Your perspective has changed. My own career has taken me from the Corps to Corporate America, public education, entrepreneurship, teaching, and writing. Along the way, every stop has taught me something new about leadership and, maybe more importantly, something new about myself. That is where our conversation began. Leadership begins with self-awareness When we talk about leadership development, we often focus on how to lead other people. How do I motivate a team? How do I communicate better? How do I manage conflict? How do I build trust? Those are all important questions. But I believe there is another question that should come first: Who am I when I lead? Leadership has a way of bringing us face-to-face with ourselves. Our habits. Our values. Our strengths. Our blind spots. Our fears. Our reactions under pressure. We can learn tools, read books, take assessments, and attend leadership programs. But at some point, real growth requires us to look inward. Before we can lead others with intention, we have to become students of ourselves. Every environment teaches you something One lesson I have learned throughout my career is that different environments reveal different parts of us. Sometimes you don’t realize how much a workplace has shaped you until you step into a new one. Moving from the Corps into corporate communications taught me to look more closely at organizational culture. Working in public education deepened my understanding of community and responsibility. Entrepreneurship forced me to confront risk and uncertainty in a new way. Teaching pushed me to explain what I know so someone else can use it. Writing challenged me to reflect more deeply on my own experiences. Every room gave me new information about me. That is what I encouraged the class to pay attention to during their leadership development journey. Not just the material. Not just the assessments. Not just the exercises. Themselves. I asked them: What energizes you? What makes you uncomfortable? When do you feel most confident? What makes you shrink? How do you respond when someone challenges you? What happens when you do not know the answer? How do you react when someone junior to you knows more about something than you do? Those moments give us valuable information. Good leaders pay attention to that information. Self-awareness should help you grow I asked the leadership development peers to consider the following questions: What do I value? Not simply the values listed on the wall or included in an employee handbook. What principles actually guide your choices? What do I naturally bring into a room? Are you calm? Analytical? Encouraging? Decisive? Creative? Structured? Relational? Know your strengths Where are my blind spots? What might others experience from you that you do not recognize in yourself? Who do I become under pressure? That question matters because leadership is rarely tested when everything is going smoothly. Pressure reveals things. Sometimes it reveals our best qualities. Sometimes it reveals areas that need attention. The goal of self-awareness isn’t to pick ourselves apart. I like to think of self-awareness as a mirror, not a microscope. We’re not trying to examine every flaw until we become overly critical of ourselves. We are simply trying to see ourselves clearly enough to make better choices. Knowing is not the same as growing Leadership development programs give us information. Feedback gives us information. Assessments give us information. Experience gives us information. But information alone doesn't create change. What we decide to do with that information can. You may learn that you interrupt people more than you realize or that you avoid difficult conversations. You may notice that when you are stressed, your communication becomes short and sharp. You may also discover strengths you have overlooked. The question is not only, “What did I learn?” The better question is, “What am I willing to do with what I learned?” Growth requires participation. Sometimes that means asking for feedback. Sometimes it means trying a new behavior. Sometimes it means apologizing. Sometimes it means speaking up. Sometimes it means listening more. Sometimes it means doing something before you feel completely ready. You cannot chart a different path while insisting on remaining exactly the same. Leadership shapes culture Another important part of my conversation with the USACE Leadership Development Program class focused on culture. We often think culture is created at the very top of an organization. But culture is also built in small, everyday moments. What happens when someone makes a mistake around you? How do you respond when someone disagrees with you? What happens when the newest person in the room speaks? Do people feel comfortable bringing you bad news? Do people leave conversations with you feeling more confident or more cautious? Those moments matter. Your behavior, repeated over time, becomes someone else’s experience of the organization. That is culture. You may not control everything happening around you, but you do have influence over your corner of the organization, and your corner matters. You don’t need a title to lead One of the messages I wanted the class to leave with was simple. Don’t confuse position with influence. You don’t need the biggest title in the room to lead. You can ask a better question. You can mentor someone. You can speak up respectfully. You can give credit and make room for a softer voice. Instead of merely pointing out the problem, help solve it. Leadership is about agency. Even when you don’t control everything around you, you still have choices about how you show up. Never underestimate those choices. The real leadership work is ongoing As the members of the 2026 to 2027 class begin their leadership development journey, my challenge to them was not simply to study leadership. It was to study the leader. Ask yourself: What do I want to understand about myself that I do not understand today? What leadership behavior do I want to strengthen? What do I want people who interact with me to experience consistently? What might I need to unlearn to become the leader I want to be? Those questions aren’t meant to be answered once and forgotten. They are meant to travel with us. Leadership is a path, not a finish line. Sometimes the path is clear. Sometimes it gets uncomfortable. Sometimes we reach a crossroads and have to decide whether we will keep doing what is familiar or choose something different. That is the work. Sometimes, going back home reminds us just how far we have traveled. It was a pleasure to return to the Omaha District and spend time with leaders who are preparing themselves for what comes next. I left that conversation reminded of four things: See yourself clearly. Own your agency. Have the courage to grow. Choose your path intentionally. Because before you can lead well on the outside, you have to be willing to do some work on the inside, and that work never really ends. Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Monique Farmer Monique Farmer, PR & Communications Consultant Monique Farmer, APR, runs a PR/Communication Consultancy, Avant Solutions, and is the creator of Anvil Ready, an online communication strategy builder that aids the communication professional in creating communication plans. She teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. Farmer spent 12 years working in the federal government prior to working in corporate communications for ConAgra Foods (now ConAgra Brands), then leading communication strategy for Nebraska’s largest school district. In March 2024, she published her first book, Chart Your Path: A 9-step Method to Getting Unstuck.

Written by Brendon Kawondera, Personal Coach Brendon Kawondera is a London-based personal trainer and educator on a mission to elevate the fitness industry. With a thriving in-person business, he helps trainers master their craft and build successful careers. Passionate about real-world coaching over online trends, he focuses on skill, confidence, and professionalism to set trainers apart. You’ve passed your personal training qualification. You understand the fundamentals of exercise, you’ve completed your assessments, and you’re ready to start helping people. Then reality hits. I remember that day after day following my qualification, my confidence slowly started to disappear. All the energy I had while studying was gone. You walk into the gym and wonder how you’re supposed to find your first client. Do you approach people? Start posting on Instagram? Offer free sessions? How do you promote yourself without feeling as though you’re constantly trying to sell something? If you’re a newly qualified personal trainer asking these questions, you’re not alone. Qualification gives you an important foundation, but finding clients and building a business require a different set of skills. The good news is that you don’t need thousands of followers, expensive marketing, or a perfectly polished brand to begin. You need to understand the people you want to help, learn how to communicate with them, and take consistent action. 1. Stop waiting until you feel ready One of the easiest mistakes to make when starting is believing you need more confidence before you can approach potential clients. You might compare yourself with experienced trainers who seem comfortable speaking to everyone. They know the gym members, communicate naturally, and appear to have everything under control. It is easy to forget that they had a first day, too. You don't need to have full confidence before you begin. It can develop through practice, reflection, and experience. Start with simple conversations. Introduce yourself to people at your gym, learn their names, and become comfortable explaining what you do. You don’t need to turn every interaction into a sales opportunity. Your first objective is to become approachable and familiar, not to convince everyone to buy personal training. 2. Make your value easy to understand Imagine someone asks what you do, and you respond by listing your qualifications, specialist certifications, and knowledge of exercise science. Those things might be important, but the person you’re speaking to may still not understand how you can help them. Try explaining your work in terms of the people you serve and the problems you help them address. For example, “I help people build strength, improve their fitness, and develop a routine they can maintain.” Your explanation should reflect your actual expertise and the clients you are equipped to support. As you gain experience, you can become more specific about your ideal client. Perhaps you enjoy helping beginners feel comfortable in the gym, supporting busy professionals, or coaching people who want to build strength. You do not need to have your entire business niche figured out immediately. Start with a clear explanation of your service, then learn from the people you work with. 3. Learn to find opportunities where you already are Social media can be useful, but it is not the only way to find personal training clients. If you work in a gym, you are already in an environment where people are investing time in their health and fitness. Build relationships with gym staff and other trainers. Ask management about appropriate ways to introduce yourself to new members. Be helpful when someone asks a question, while respecting their space and your professional boundaries. You might also explore local fitness classes, community events, or partnerships with relevant businesses. The principle is simple. Create opportunities for people to get to know you. That doesn’t mean approaching strangers with an unsolicited pitch or giving away your expertise indefinitely. It means being visible, approachable, and professional enough that someone who needs your service can feel comfortable starting a conversation. 4. Practise the conversation that could lead to a client When someone shows interest in personal training, resist the urge to explain everything you know. Ask questions first. What are they hoping to achieve? What have they tried already? What do they find difficult? What kind of support are they looking for? Listen to their answers before explaining your service. A person who wants to become stronger after years away from exercise may need a different conversation from someone who already trains regularly but struggles with consistency. Your role is to understand whether you can help and explain how your coaching might support their goals. If the person is interested, arrange an appropriate consultation where you can explore their needs, health considerations, expectations, and suitability for your service. Not every conversation will lead to a client. That is normal. A professional approach respects the other person’s decision and helps you develop your communication skills along the way. 5. Build a reputation before you try to build a following You can post useful content online without trying to become an influencer. Share simple explanations of training principles, common mistakes beginners make, and practical ways people can approach exercise. Let your content reflect your coaching standards and your understanding of the people you help. You can also ask satisfied clients for honest feedback or testimonials, with their permission and without promising results you cannot guarantee. Remember that your online presence and your real-world behaviour should tell the same story. If you promote yourself as a thoughtful, professional coach, people should experience those qualities when they interact with you. A large audience can be valuable, but follower numbers alone do not demonstrate trust or generate a sustainable business. Focus on reaching people who are genuinely interested in what you offer. 6. Give yourself a practical challenge this week If you are unsure where to start, keep things manageable. Introduce yourself to five people at your gym. Have three genuine conversations with people you don’t usually speak to. Practise explaining who you help and how you work. Identify two opportunities to become more visible in your local fitness community. At the end of the week, reflect on what went well and what you want to improve. These activities will not guarantee you a client by Friday. Their purpose is to help you develop the habits that make finding clients less intimidating over time. Track your conversations, enquiries and consultations so you can learn which activities are creating opportunities. Most importantly, do not mistake an uncomfortable first attempt for evidence that you are not suited to the profession. You are learning. Your qualification is the beginning Building a personal training business involves more than knowing how to programme a workout. You must learn how to communicate, build relationships, conduct consultations and deliver a service people value. These skills develop through a combination of education, practical experience and honest reflection. That is one of the principles behind Personal Trainer UPGRD, my professional development project focused on helping personal trainers bridge the gap between qualification and building a sustainable business. If you’re looking for more structured guidance on developing your confidence, coaching skills, and business foundations, you can explore Personal Trainer UPGRD here. You don’t have to know everything today. Start by taking the next useful step, learn from the experience, and keep improving. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Brendon Kawondera Brendon Kawondera, Personal Coach Brendon Kawondera is a London-based personal trainer, educator, and entrepreneur committed to raising the standard of the fitness industry. With years of hands-on coaching experience, he has built a thriving in-person business by focusing on real results rather than trends. He helps personal trainers develop the skills, confidence, and professionalism needed to excel in their careers. Unlike many industry voices pushing online coaching, he believes the gym floor is where great trainers are made. Through his coaching, courses, and educational content, he empowers trainers to refine their craft and build sustainable, high-value businesses.

Written by Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker, Holistic Bodyworker Kicki Hjortmarker is known for her broad knowledge and extensive experience working with the human body and mind to heal injuries and chronic pain conditions. She is the founder of Swedish Balance, dedicated to helping people live a balanced life pain-free. I frequently meet people who wonder what causes their neck pain and headaches that won’t stop and what they can do about it. You can do a lot on your own, but you need to be consistent. Neck pain and headaches can have many causes and may persist for many reasons. Structural imbalance, arthritis, and injury are among the top causes. Why won’t my neck tension go away? Let’s say you have a hamstring injury. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with your headaches and stiff neck, but it might have everything to do with them. Tension in your hamstring may have started pulling on your pelvic bone, creating imbalances and tension in your muscles and fascia that extend all the way up to your head. Trigger points may develop along this path of tension and can worsen the pain. Trigger points in the upper back and neck often cause tension headaches. So, you need to heal the dysfunction and root cause that led to your neck tension and headaches in the first place. 11 tips on how to combat neck pain and headaches Limit your time on the phone: Hold your phone higher and support your arms if needed. This reduces strain on your neck and helps prevent excessive trigger point formation. Relieve tension with decompression: Use a decompression device gently, or roll up a towel under your neck to support its natural curve. Relax for 10 minutes. Pressure points: Press with your fingers under the occiput, the lowest part of your head at the back, and see if you find tension and tender spots. You can gently press these spots until the pain is relieved. If you don’t feel any difference, these points may not be contributing to the pain, or you may be pressing too hard or too gently. Next, press the pressure point between the base of your thumb and index (pointer) finger. This may help alleviate your headache. Stretch the neck and open the chest: For the front of the neck, lie down on your stomach and put your clasped hands under your chin. If it feels good, you can apply gentle pressure upward and back. Be gentle! To stretch the side of the neck, gently lean your head to one side and place the weight of one hand on the side of your head that you are trying to stretch. You can also stand up and tilt your head back, looking up and back. If possible, clasp your hands behind your lower back to simultaneously open up your chest. Lean toward ease: If stretching doesn’t work, do the opposite. Lean into the direction the body wants to take you. When you feel your muscles pulling you in one direction, move in that direction. This applies no force, and that might be what your body needs most to let go of tension. Choose anti-inflammatory foods: Choose whole foods and a low-carb diet. When you have a flare-up, stop eating grains, crackers, sugary chocolates, rice, pasta, and bread, and avoid wine. Use cayenne pepper for taste, olive oil and vinegar for dressing, and enjoy steamed leafy greens. Drink lots of unsweetened fluids: You can flavor water with lemon, cucumbers, or other low-sugar fruits and vegetables. A well-balanced workout: A leg workout can include lunges, hiking, and walking. Use caution! Moderation is key. If you do a strenuous workout, it may have the opposite effect and make things worse. For a Pilates core workout, always support your neck with your hands when needed. Make sure you’re not using your neck instead of your abdominals! If you do, make the movement smaller. Strengthen your back without straining your neck muscles. You can do this simply by lying down on your stomach and lifting your head, shoulders, and, if possible, your ribs. Use your hands under your shoulders for support if needed. Make sure your shoulders are aligned, not hiked up or rolled forward. Strengthen the shoulder muscles to return them to their proper position. One gentle way to do this is to hold your arms out in a T-position, bring your scapulae (shoulder blades) together, then reach your arms toward each other behind you. Strengthen your neck muscles carefully and only when your flare-up is over. You can do this by applying gentle pressure to your head with your hand while making sure to keep your head still. Chin tucks are also very helpful. Meditate: Stress leads to tension in the body, commonly in the neck. Under stress, the nervous system speeds up your breathing and makes it more shallow. Shallow breathing brings tension to the neck and upper back. Meditation will help you slow your breath and regulate your nervous system. What is the best sleeping position for headaches? The best sleeping position is the one in which you can fully relax. Your neck and upper back muscles should feel completely at ease. To do this, use cushions, rolled-up blankets, and towels to provide support for your arms, legs, neck, and the natural curves of your spine. Then choose to sleep on your side or back. The point is to find comfort and be at ease. Improve ergonomics: Make sure to sit properly when working, reading, or watching television (TV). Do not slouch or cross your legs for too long. If you have a desk job, you want to make sure all your joints are properly aligned and follow the 90-90-90 rule. If this doesn’t work, you feel you need guidance, or you want faster healing, get professional help! Myofascial release, such as neuromuscular therapy (NMT) with trigger point therapy, craniosacral therapy, and Pilates, can support the healing process tremendously! Prepared to achieve a pain-free life? Call or text Kicki at 323-404-6613, email here, or visit her website here. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker, Holistic Bodyworker Kicki Hjortmarker has a solid background in the hands-on healing field, treating people with injuries and chronic pain conditions. With a holistic approach, she integrates Neuromuscular Massage Therapy, Craniosacral Therapy, Hypnotherapy, Reiki, Pilates, and more. To practice the artistry of mind/bodywork and massage therapy has been Kicki's lifelong passion. It started with the awareness of her own body as a child and ballet dancer, and, later, as a gymnast who developed chronic lower back pain whilst on the Swedish National Team in Rhythmic Sports Gymnastics. Decades later, she overcame nerve damage and temporary paralysis in one hand. This taught her to trust the healing power of body and mind, and that the body prefers holistic healing methods over conventional treatments. Her mission is to encourage and inspire others to do the same. To trust the healing power of body, mind, and spirit!

Written by Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker, Holistic Bodyworker Kicki Hjortmarker is known for her broad knowledge and extensive experience working with the human body and mind to heal injuries and chronic pain conditions. She is the founder of Swedish Balance, dedicated to helping people live a balanced life pain-free. Wondering why your neck always feels tight, stiff, and achy and how it relates to headaches and anxiety? Do stomach issues and neck tension seem connected? This article explores the potential links between these symptoms and vagus nerve function, helping you understand possible causes. The head is heavy On average, your head weighs about 11 pounds. In a neutral posture, where your head is directly over your spine and between your shoulders, the load is evenly distributed. However, tilting your head forward greatly increases leverage, causing your neck to bear much more weight. For example, the load can escalate from about 11 pounds to approximately 48.5 pounds with a forward head tilt. Prolonged neck flexion can strain the muscles, joints, and cervical discs and may contribute to nerve compression. What triggers a pinched nerve in the neck? A nerve in your neck can become pinched when a vertebra or disc compresses it. With consistent abnormal alignment of your neck and head, such as a forward tilt, discs can become damaged over time. Remember, the head is very heavy, especially if the load isn’t evenly distributed. This may eventually lead to compromised spinal discs. Repetitive movement, injury, misalignment, or a direct blow to the neck can also cause pinched nerves. What are the symptoms of a pinched nerve? You might feel persistent tingling in your arms, hands, or fingers or a heavy weight on your shoulders. Trigger points may also form in the affected muscles. These trigger points can contribute to neck pain and headaches. If your neck has restrictions, it may also affect the area surrounding the vagus nerve, a highly complex cranial nerve with many functions. The jugular foramen is an opening in the skull through which the vagus nerve exits the cranium. The left and right jugular foramina are located near the foramen magnum, after which the vagus nerves continue into the neck. What is the vagus nerve? This complex nerve plays a crucial role in your body’s health, influencing many functions, from mood to digestion. It is the longest and most widespread cranial nerve in the body. Learning about it can help you feel more in control of your wellbeing. Dr. John E. Upledger, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and Fellow of the American Academy of Osteopathy, was a leading developer of CranioSacral Therapy in the United States. He suggested that the vagus nerve can contribute to a wide range of symptoms if compromised. It extends from the brain down through the neck, heart, and digestive system. It thereby influences the heart and digestive system, including the pylorus, the muscular outlet of the stomach, as well as the liver, gallbladder, bile ducts, pancreas, and duodenum, the first part of the small intestine. The vagus nerve is part of a two-way system connecting the organs and brain, sending messages back and forth. What are the symptoms of a damaged vagus nerve? Because the vagus nerve is incredibly complex and helps regulate many functions, damage to it can be linked to a long list of disorders. To mention two of the many disorders I have come across, since the vagus nerve influences stress responses and helps regulate heartbeat and breathing, its impairment may be associated with fear and anxiety. Another very common issue I encounter is digestive problems. They can have many causes, including damage to the vagus nerve. Understanding this connection can help you consider targeted therapies for relief. How do I know if my vagus nerve is pinched? In addition to the signs above, symptoms that may indicate vagus nerve damage or dysfunction include persistent fatigue, unexplained dizziness, voice changes, and difficulty swallowing. There is also evidence that vagus nerve dysfunction can contribute to blood pressure fluctuations and increased sensitivity to stress. Can you treat the vagus nerve? There are ways to support vagus nerve function through medical treatments and lifestyle changes, depending on the cause and severity of the condition. Exploring appropriate options with a qualified healthcare professional can help you manage symptoms and improve your overall wellbeing. Some treatments focus on vagus nerve stimulation or addressing possible compression. CranioSacral Therapy is a hands-on manual therapy that addresses the nervous system and may help some people. Self-help techniques to relax and soothe the neck can help. Manual therapy, such as gentle massage, may help relieve surrounding muscular tension. Gentle decompression may help reduce stress on structures in the neck. Gently strengthen and stretch the neck. I have also found it helpful to work on tension around the jugular foramen and foramen magnum. Deactivating trigger points in the neck has helped reduce restrictions and improve mobility. My last suggestion, as with many other conditions, is to follow an anti-inflammatory diet. Are you tired of not feeling your best? Are you trying to figure out what is going on with your head, neck, and gut? A full body assessment and treatment can help you on your journey towards an abundant, peaceful, and healthy life. Call or text Kicki Hjortmarker at (1) 323 404 6613 and email her here. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker, Holistic Bodyworker Kicki Hjortmarker has a solid background in the hands-on healing field, treating people with injuries and chronic pain conditions. With a holistic approach, she integrates Neuromuscular Massage Therapy, Craniosacral Therapy, Hypnotherapy, Reiki, Pilates, and more. To practice the artistry of mind/bodywork and massage therapy has been Kicki's lifelong passion. It started with the awareness of her own body as a child and ballet dancer, and, later, as a gymnast who developed chronic lower back pain whilst on the Swedish National Team in Rhythmic Sports Gymnastics. Decades later, she overcame nerve damage and temporary paralysis in one hand. This taught her to trust the healing power of body and mind, and that the body prefers holistic healing methods over conventional treatments. Her mission is to encourage and inspire others to do the same. To trust the healing power of body, mind, and spirit!

Written by Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker, Holistic Bodyworker Kicki Hjortmarker is known for her broad knowledge and extensive experience working with the human body and mind to heal injuries and chronic pain conditions. She is the founder of Swedish Balance, dedicated to helping people live a balanced life pain-free. Walking and massage may provide temporary relief, but they do not always address the underlying cause of recurring pain and limited mobility. Discover how a more holistic approach to movement, bodywork, and exercise may help restore balance and improve how your body feels. Treat the root cause, not just the symptoms Your neck hurts. You can’t move your left shoulder, and then your right hip starts to ache. Next come knee, back, and foot pain. Now you have trouble walking and feel like you’re falling apart. Sound familiar? Maybe you’ve been told you just need a monthly massage and to walk more every day to be “fine.” But maybe you want to be more than just “fine.” Maybe you want to be pain-free and able to do what you used to do. If so, you need to address the root cause, not just the symptoms. Can walking and massages fix the root cause? If you’re in your prime and haven’t had the pain or discomfort for very long, perhaps only a few weeks, then yes, a few treatments of neuromuscular massage therapy and myofascial release therapy, along with some walking, can probably help you. However, if you’ve lived a long life and accumulated pain, discomfort, and imbalances over decades, don’t expect walking and a few treatments to fix the root cause. The problem usually involves correcting muscle imbalances and thickened fascia that have displaced joints from their proper positions. Multiple healing methods are necessary These imbalances may have taken years to develop, so correcting them may take months or years. Multiple healing methods will be needed, including a fine-tuned strengthening system like Pilates, tailored to you and evolving as your body changes. Hands-on treatments and massages to break up scar tissue and other adhesions, increase blood flow to your tissues, and remove metabolic waste are also necessary. Can walking longer distances fix my root cause? I recently met a friend who does a lot of walking. Walking is her primary form of exercise, and she loves it. Then she injured herself for seemingly no reason. She had different theories but couldn’t figure out why her foot was so painful that she could barely put any weight on it. Generally speaking, walking is great for the body and mind. Experts say that we should walk 10,000 steps a day and we’ll be in good shape, yet people like my friend still end up with injuries. In fact, walking long distances can cause more wear and tear due to imbalances in your body, and it won’t address the root cause. You need specific movements and exercises to address the root cause. What is the best exercise instead of walking? I strongly believe there are many great ways to get and stay in shape, and walking several miles per day may not be best for your alignment or the restrictions already present in your body. To prevent injury or reinjury, or to avoid worsening your imbalances, you may need to shorten your walks and add other forms of exercise, such as Pilates, yoga, swimming, dancing, and circuit training, which are all good alternatives. Yet remember, you will be doing these activities within your existing restrictions as well. Does it make sense that my whole body feels like it’s falling apart after walking? Yes, because you haven’t addressed the root cause of your discomfort. Here is the catch with walking: Your limbs and joints move primarily in one direction. But your joints are designed to move in all directions: north, south, east, west, and every direction in between. As you’re walking, your limbs are essentially performing one task, which is to move your body forward. That can be very safe. It can also injure you more than you realize. If you have balanced hips, equal strength in both legs and buttocks, perfectly balanced joints, good abdominal and spinal tone, and strong feet and ankles, you can likely walk or run a marathon and feel fine. But if you are like most people who have been through injuries and rough spots in life, you will take every stride with a restricted body, which will worsen your imbalances. Why do I feel off balance but not dizzy? Maybe you have hurt a foot or toe in the past, or perhaps a shoulder is out of alignment due to daily habits and repetitive motion at your desk job. When joints are misaligned, the primary muscles can’t do their jobs. They become overused when the joints don’t support one another. Secondary and peripheral muscle groups, which have their own functions, begin to compensate for the overused and traumatized ones. As a result, these groups create imbalances because they perform tasks they weren’t designed to do. This may leave you feeling off balance without dizziness or like you’re falling apart, unless the imbalance is causing the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) to pull on your temporal bone, where the ear is located. Since the inner ear contains the vestibular system, which senses the position of your head in space, this can make you feel dizzy. How do I get my mobility back fast? To reduce restrictions and regain mobility as quickly as possible, you have to treat the root cause. The first step is to receive holistic treatments, such as neuromuscular massage therapy and myofascial release. Afterward, movement will be easier and less painful. You can then feel freer in your body and more motivated to consistently do specialized mobility exercises. Being diligent with your exercises and consistent with bodywork is the best way to regain mobility quickly. What is the best diet for people with low mobility? Choose anti-inflammatory foods and drinks. Avoid processed foods. Foods containing omega-3 fatty acids may help reduce inflammation and stiffness. How can I increase mobility at home? Stretching and self-help tools can help combat inflammation, break up adhesions, and reduce the feeling of “I am falling apart,” but it’s important to work with a professional as well to ensure you’re supporting your healing rather than hindering it. Ready to address the root cause and feel your best? Call or text Kicki Hjortmarker at 1 (323) 404-6613 to book an appointment. Email KickiHjortmarker@gmail.com or visit my website today. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker, Holistic Bodyworker Kicki Hjortmarker has a solid background in the hands-on healing field, treating people with injuries and chronic pain conditions. With a holistic approach, she integrates Neuromuscular Massage Therapy, Craniosacral Therapy, Hypnotherapy, Reiki, Pilates, and more. To practice the artistry of mind/bodywork and massage therapy has been Kicki's lifelong passion. It started with the awareness of her own body as a child and ballet dancer, and, later, as a gymnast who developed chronic lower back pain whilst on the Swedish National Team in Rhythmic Sports Gymnastics. Decades later, she overcame nerve damage and temporary paralysis in one hand. This taught her to trust the healing power of body and mind, and that the body prefers holistic healing methods over conventional treatments. Her mission is to encourage and inspire others to do the same. To trust the healing power of body, mind, and spirit!