Written by Zeljka Cacic-Escalera, Transformation Coach Zeljka is a transformation coach and founder of Day One with Zeljka. She coaches ambitious women through personal and professional change using mindset work, self-leadership, and the body-mind connection. Her mission is to help you take your power back and create a life that finally feels like yours. Are you in a season of life where you feel stuck somewhere between the old and the new? Maybe you left your job, moved to a new country, ended a long-term relationship, or simply realized that the life you once knew no longer fits. You know you have moved on, but you haven't quite arrived at what's next. You're not alone. These in-between phases can bring uncertainty, fear, and the temptation to return to what feels familiar. But they can also be some of the most transformative seasons of our lives. In this article, you will discover practical tools to help you navigate uncertainty, stay grounded, and keep moving forward when the path ahead isn't clear. Because sometimes, being in between isn't a sign that you're lost. It's a sign that you're becoming. What happens when you have left your old life, but your new life hasn't fully arrived yet? A particular kind of uncertainty comes with being between chapters. Maybe you have left a corporate career to build something of your own. Maybe you have moved to another country, and suddenly everything familiar is behind you. Maybe you have ended a long-term relationship and are learning how to build a life that looks different from the one you once imagined. Whatever the circumstances, there are moments in life when you find yourself somewhere in between. You are no longer where you were, but you are not yet where you want to be. This space can feel incredibly uncomfortable. When you have left, but haven't arrived yet We often imagine transformation as a clear process. You make a decision. You take action. You move forward. Eventually, you arrive at your new life. But real transformation rarely looks that simple. There is often a messy middle. The old routines are gone. The familiar identity may no longer fit. The people, places, or structures that once gave you a sense of security may have changed. Yet, the new chapter has not fully taken shape. This is where doubt can become loud. Did I make the right decision? What if this doesn't work? What if I have made a huge mistake? What if I should just go back? These questions are normal. They don't necessarily mean you made the wrong decision. Sometimes they simply mean you are standing in unfamiliar territory. When uncertainty feels like failure One of the hardest things about being in between is that we often interpret uncertainty as a sign that something has gone wrong. We want reassurance. We want a plan. We want to know that everything will work out before we take the next step. But life rarely gives us that kind of certainty. When you leave a stable job to pursue something of your own, there may be months when your business doesn't look anything like the vision you had. When you move to a new country, there may be days when you question why you ever left the comfort of home. When you leave a long-term relationship, loneliness may make the familiar past look much more attractive than it actually was. The temptation is to return to what you know simply because it feels safer. But familiar does not always mean right. Sometimes it simply means familiar. When fear makes the past look better than it was Fear has an interesting way of rewriting our memories. When the future feels uncertain, the past can suddenly look incredibly comfortable. We remember the security of the salary but forget the reasons we wanted to leave the job. We remember the familiar routines of our old home but forget why we wanted a different life. We remember the good moments in a relationship but sometimes forget the reasons it ended. This doesn't mean the past was bad. It simply means that our minds often romanticize what is familiar when we are confronted with uncertainty. This is why it can be helpful to ask yourself: do I actually want to go back, or do I simply want to stop feeling uncomfortable? There is a big difference. The temptation to return to your comfort zone Human beings naturally seek safety and predictability. Our comfort zones give us a sense of control. They let us operate in environments we understand, surrounded by things we know how to navigate. But comfort and fulfillment are not always the same thing. Sometimes the very thing that feels safest in the moment is the thing that keeps us from becoming who we are capable of becoming. Growth requires us to do things differently. To have conversations we have been avoiding, take risks, make decisions without having every answer, tolerate moments of uncertainty, and become a beginner again. That can feel uncomfortable. You cannot step into a new chapter while constantly trying to make the old chapter feel comfortable again. You don't need to see the whole path One of the biggest mistakes we make during times of transition is believing that we need to know exactly where we are going before we can move forward. But clarity often comes through action. You don't need to know exactly how your business will look three years from now to take the next step today. You don't need to know where you will live forever to begin creating a home where you are right now. You don't need to know who you will become after a breakup to begin reconnecting with yourself. Sometimes we create unnecessary pressure by trying to solve the entire future at once. Instead, ask yourself, What is the next right step? Not the next ten steps. Not the entire plan. Just the next one. Create anchors when everything feels uncertain When your external world is changing, creating small points of stability can make a significant difference. Your morning routine, moving your body, spending time outside, eating nourishing meals, getting enough sleep, journaling, calling someone who makes you feel grounded, creating a weekly routine. These things may seem simple, but they can provide structure when so much else feels uncertain. You don't need your entire life to feel stable. Sometimes you simply need a few stable things within your day. Ask yourself better questions The questions we ask ourselves during uncertain times can either increase our fear or open up possibilities: Instead of asking, "What if this doesn't work?" try asking, "What if it does?" Instead of asking, "Did I make the wrong decision?" try asking, "What is this experience teaching me?" Instead of asking, "When will I finally feel settled?" try asking, "What can I do today to feel more grounded?" Instead of asking, "What if I fail?" try asking, "Who could I become by trying?" Changing the question doesn't magically remove uncertainty. But it can change the way you relate to it. Sometimes that is where the transformation begins. Let yourself grieve what you left behind Moving forward doesn't mean you have to pretend you don't miss your old life. You can be excited about your future and still grieve your past. You can know that leaving was the right decision and still miss what was familiar. You can love your new chapter and still have moments when you long for the old one. These emotions can coexist. Give yourself permission to feel them without allowing them to dictate your next decision. Your past wasn't a mistake just because you have outgrown it. Sometimes a chapter can have been beautiful, meaningful, and exactly what you needed at the time, while still being finished. Growth begins where certainty ends We often say that growth happens outside of our comfort zone. But perhaps the more important lesson is learning to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Because the space outside our comfort zone is not always exciting. Sometimes it is lonely. Sometimes it is confusing. Sometimes it feels like failure. Sometimes it looks like taking one tiny step forward and then questioning everything the next day. That doesn't mean you are not growing. Growth is not always visible. Sometimes growth looks like staying committed to a decision even when you haven't received proof that it will work. Sometimes it looks like choosing yourself again after doubting yourself. Sometimes it simply looks like not giving up. Trust the chapter you cannot see yet There will be seasons in life when the path ahead feels obvious. There will be others when it feels like you are walking through fog. The difficult part is that we often want certainty before we are willing to trust ourselves. But what if certainty isn't required? What if you can move forward while still being afraid? What if you can take the next step without knowing exactly where it will lead? What if being in between isn't a sign that you are lost, but a sign that you are transitioning? Sometimes we focus so much on reaching the next destination that we forget the person we become along the way is part of the transformation. Final thoughts If you are currently somewhere between chapters, I want you to know that you are not alone. There may be days when you question everything. There may be moments when going back feels easier than continuing forward. There may be times when your old life looks safer, and your new life feels frighteningly uncertain. Don't automatically interpret that fear as a reason to stop. Pause. Breathe. Come back to the present moment. Create some stability around yourself. Ask yourself better questions. Then take the next step. You don't need to have everything figured out. You don't need to know exactly how the story ends. You simply need to trust yourself enough to keep turning the page. Because sometimes the space between who you were and who you are becoming is where the greatest transformation takes place. You are not stuck. You are in between. There is a difference. If this article resonated with you, consider sharing it with someone who may be navigating their own in-between season. If you're going through a significant life or career transition and would value support along the way, I invite you to connect with me on social media or book a discovery call. You don't have to navigate transformation alone. Follow me on Instagram for more info! Read more from Zeljka Cacic-Escalera Zeljka Cacic-Escalera, Transformation Coach Zeljka is a transformation coach and founder of Day One with Zeljka, with a professional background in international corporate and consulting environments. Years of working in high-performance, results-driven settings shaped her deep understanding of pressure, self-doubt, and identity loss behind outward success. Today, she bridges business acumen with mindset work, self-leadership, and the body-mind connection to support ambitious women through meaningful change. Her mission is to help you take your power back and create a life that finally feels like yours.

Written by Jo Warwick, The Money Therapist and Glitches To Gold Founder Jo Warwick is The Money Therapist, host of the Glitches to Gold podcast, and author of The Big Book of Love. Blending over 25 years of expertise in psychotherapy, business, energetics, and Human Design, she guides women to uncover inherited and unconscious patterns that drive their money and success in life. As women, we spend so much of our lives collecting identities. The good girl. The responsible one. The woman who achieves it all. But what happens when the identities that once helped us belong, survive, or succeed no longer fit? In this article, The Money Therapist and creator of Glitches to Gold™, Jo Warwick, explores why becoming more of your 'self' might have far less to do with adding another layer and far more to do with finally taking some off. How many identities are you still wearing? As women, we collect a lot of identities. The good girl. The responsible one. The woman who holds everything together. The woman who never says no. The woman who is always available. The woman who needs to be needed. Even the high achieving one. We put them on, layer after layer, until eventually we’re walking through life wearing so many versions of ourselves that we can barely move, and wonder why we struggle to move into our desires without so much effort. It always makes me think of that episode of Friends where Joey puts on every single piece of Chandler’s clothing at once. “Could I be wearing any more clothes?” It’s funny because it’s ridiculous. Yet, I wonder how many women are doing exactly the same thing with their identities. Some identities are given to us. Some we chose. Some helped us belong. Some protected us. Some helped us survive or succeed. Some fitted us beautifully for a particular season of our lives. But that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to wear them forever. Personal development has become obsessed with becoming. We’re constantly encouraged to add another layer. Become more confident. Become more successful. Become a better version, a future version, that version. What if becoming more of your SELF requires the opposite? What if you need to start taking things off instead? When an identity no longer fits An identity that once held you together can eventually become the very thing stopping you from breathing. I think of it like wearing a corset. A corset can look beautiful. It can create the right shape, hold everything perfectly in place, and even be admired by everybody looking at you. You still can’t breathe. That’s what an old identity can become. It can look incredibly successful on the outside while restricting the life underneath. I recently came face to face with an echo of one of my own, the caretaker. I’ve carried this identity for most of my life, and I’ve spent years stripping it back, layer by layer. But when I returned to where my parents live after a month away, I realised a little piece of it was still hanging around. It was almost like getting completely changed, putting on a beautiful new outfit, walking out of the house, and then discovering you’ve had an old pair of knickers stuck to the back of your trousers the entire time. Oh. You’re still here. That’s what this felt like. Not the caretaker suddenly taking over my life again. Not me stepping back into an old identity I’d already predominantly put down. Just an old piece of clothing I’d somehow walked out of the house still carrying. The identity that still wants a job Within a couple of days, I could feel the familiar pulse in my body. My energy wanted to mobilise. I could feel myself questioning and behaving from a state where I don’t trust my dad to take care of my mum. From there, I found myself asking him questions. Has he done this? Has he sorted out her pills? Has that been taken care of? And then I caught it. Because underneath all of those questions was another assumption. Does my mum actually need someone to take care of her? There it was. The caretaker. Still trying to find herself a little job. That’s when I realised there was another piece of this identity I was ready to take off. Being responsible for my parents’ wellbeing. Their health, their happiness, their emotional world. Keeping them alive. Caretaking had woven itself through much of my life. You could see it in my career as a psychotherapist, energy healer, medium, and business consultant. My natural 'self' is caring. But caring and caretaking are not the same thing. The caretaker in me was overstimulated and overgiving, always ready to mobilise, always looking for who needed help, what needed fixing, and where my energy needed to go next. Being needed gave me an identity. It gave me a purpose. At one point in my life, it helped justify my existence. If I was useful, if I was helping, if I was taking care of everyone, then I had a place in my family, in the world. Every identity gives us something Like so many identities women carry, caretaking wasn’t confined to one area of my life. It affected my work, my business, and my money. Because attached to the caretaker was another belief that so many women will recognise, if I truly care, I’ll do it for free. I’ll give more, ask for less, keep going, and make sure everyone else is okay first. Until, eventually, resentment begins to creep in because you’ve given away far more than you ever had available to give. But resentment is poisonous and blocks the flow of life force energy until nothing flows or works well. Perhaps that’s a conversation we don’t have enough of when we talk about identity. The caretaker gets to be needed. The busy woman gets to feel important. The good girl gets to belong. The woman who never says no gets to avoid disappointing anyone. The woman who holds everything together gets to feel in control. Every identity gives us something. Not always something good. But it serves a purpose. Otherwise, we wouldn’t keep wearing it. But eventually, you have to ask whether what it’s giving you is worth what it’s costing you. Does it still fit? Can you move in it? Can you breathe? Or are you wearing an identity that has become so tight around your life that you’ve forgotten what it feels like to move without it? Related article: Why Stability Has Become the New Luxury for Modern Women What if you’re ready to take it off? I don’t hate the caretaker. She had a purpose. She served me. At one point, I needed her. But I don’t need to wear her anymore, and I truly don’t want the job anymore. There is finally no anger or fear in that realisation. I know I can be caring without being the caretaker. Love deeply without becoming responsible for everybody I love. Share my wisdom without rescuing and support without sacrificing myself. Care without mobilising my entire life force every time somebody I love is struggling. So am I finally willing to let this identity go? Not manage it better. Not heal it more. Not turn it into a more evolved version of itself. Take it off. Get naked. Be me. Live fully without it? Yes is the only answer I know to be true to my core. Who are you underneath it? This understanding sits at the heart of the Glitches to Gold™ Method. Instead of being encouraged to add another new identity, the more powerful move is the opposite, shedding the conditioning, decluttering, and taking off the layers that no longer belong. Human Design teaches us that a true SELF already exists underneath the conditioning. You don’t need to dress her up as somebody else. You just need to give her room to move and breathe fully, without hiding. Shedding an identity can feel so confronting because you’re not simply changing a behaviour. You’re taking off something you may have worn for decades. Something people recognise you in. Something they may even expect you to keep wearing. And when you’ve worn something for that long, taking it off can leave you wondering who you’ll be without it. But perhaps that’s the wrong question. The question isn’t, "Who will I become without this identity?" Perhaps it’s, "Who am I already underneath it?" As I put down the final pieces of the caretaker, I’m not becoming less of who I really am. I’m simply taking off a role that has long been outgrown and has no purpose. So when you are asking to be more, have more, and feel more alive, have you considered what becoming more of your SELF really looks like? Does it really need you to add more or simply remove? Carry less? Perhaps it’s time to stand in front of your wardrobe of lifetime identities, decide to declutter, and choose what you wish to take forward into your future. Ready to discover the truth underneath? The power of an identity is that it doesn’t just affect how you see yourself. It can affect how you give, receive, work, earn, love, and move through your life every single day. And when an old identity starts taking more from you than it gives back, it can become part of what I call The Secret Feminine Tax. Decode the Matrix is my three-day experience for women to uncover the hidden patterns taxing their money, energy, time, and capacity, so they can stop paying for who they thought they needed to be and start experiencing the Gold Standard Life they were already designed for. Start with the Glitches to Gold™ podcast, with four seasons and 900+ five-star reviews. It’s the perfect place to begin turning your glitches to gold. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jo Warwick Jo Warwick, The Money Therapist and Glitches To Gold Founder Having rebuilt her own life more than once, former elite athlete Jo Warwick understands what it means to redefine success from the inside out. Drawing on over 25 years of experience across psychotherapy, business, energetics and Human Design, she now works as The Money Therapist, guiding women to uncover the inherited and unconscious patterns driving money and success in life, so they can stop working so hard to become themselves and start living the life they are already designed for.

Brainz Magazine Exclusive Interview Lee Solomon is an OCD specialist, therapist, educator, and founder of Solomon Psychiatrics. Based in Tampa, Florida, he works with teens and adults living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). His professional work is inseparable from lived experience. After spending years trapped by unwanted thoughts about harming the people he loved, Lee found the language and treatment that helped him understand what was happening. He went on to become the therapist he once needed but could not find. In this interview, Lee shares how his own experience shaped his mission, why OCD is about far more than tidiness or organisation, and how invisible compulsions such as rumination, avoidance, checking, and reassurance can quietly take over a person’s life. He also explains why intrusive thoughts feel so convincing, how Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) helps interrupt the cycle and what gives him hope for the future of OCD treatment. Lee Solomon, Founder of Solomon Psychiatrics You often say that you became the therapist you needed but could not find. What did life look like when OCD was at its worst, and what ultimately changed? My childhood included a great deal of instability and trauma. My parents divorced, and there were family challenges involving abuse, substance use, and mental health. As I moved into adolescence, I became increasingly watchful and afraid. I started having intrusive thoughts, but at the time, I did not understand what they were. Eventually, one particular fear took hold: What if I hurt someone I love? What if I stab my mom or a friend? These thoughts were completely unwanted, but they felt so vivid and convincing that I began to fear I might lose control. I did not hear anyone talking openly about experiences like this, so I assumed something was deeply wrong with me. I later learned that I was experiencing harm OCD, a presentation of OCD involving unwanted obsessions about harming oneself or others. A close friend who also lived with OCD helped me recognise that this was more than general anxiety. He noticed that I was constantly checking, avoiding, seeking reassurance, and trying to neutralise the thoughts. That recognition changed everything. Once I understood that there was a name for what I was experiencing, I could stop treating the content of every thought as a personal truth and begin addressing the cycle around it. Many people spend years moving between professionals before they receive an appropriate diagnosis and specialised treatment. I know how lonely that period can be, which is why I became the therapist I once needed. OCD is often reduced to being neat, organised, or particular. What does it really look like behind closed doors? OCD involves obsessions, compulsions, or both. Obsessions can appear as intrusive thoughts, images, urges, feelings, or sensations that are unwanted and distressing. Compulsions are the mental or physical behaviours a person feels driven to perform in response, usually to reduce anxiety, prevent a feared outcome, or obtain certainty. Intrusive thoughts alone are not unusual; people without OCD can experience them too. The problem is the meaning attached to the thought and the cycle that follows. For someone with OCD, the thought can feel so urgent that everything else stops until it has been checked, solved, neutralised, or made to feel safe. The most visible compulsions include repeated cleaning, arranging, counting, or checking whether a door is locked or an appliance is switched off. The less visible compulsions are often missed. Someone may spend hours reviewing a memory, analysing what a thought “means,” testing their feelings, silently reassuring themselves, praying, or trying to prove that a feared possibility is not true. That is what OCD can look like behind closed doors: an exhausting amount of mental and physical work that other people may never see. “OCD is not simply a preference for order. It can be a relentless cycle of fear, compulsion, and temporary relief.” Why can intrusive thoughts feel so real, and how does the OCD cycle keep someone trapped? When the body enters a state of alarm, logic can become much harder to access. A person might know intellectually that a thought is irrational or inconsistent with who they are, but the anxiety, physical sensations, and urgency make it feel as though something is happening right now. That creates a powerful conflict. The mind says, “This does not make sense,” while the body responds as if danger is present. People often try to resolve that conflict by debating with the thought, proving it wrong, or seeking reassurance. Unfortunately, that can become another compulsion. The cycle often begins with an intrusive thought, image, urge, or sensation. That triggers anxiety and doubt. Because the feeling is so uncomfortable, the person performs a compulsion - perhaps checking, avoiding, researching, asking for reassurance, or mentally reviewing the situation. The compulsion usually works in the short term. Anxiety falls, and the person feels relief. That temporary relief is precisely what makes the cycle so powerful. The brain learns, “Checking kept me safe,” or “Reassurance solved the danger.” The next time doubt appears, the urge to perform the compulsion becomes even stronger. The relief does not last. The doubt returns, sometimes within minutes or hours, and the cycle begins again. Over time, a person may need to perform more compulsions or repeat them more precisely to achieve the same sense of safety. One of the biggest lessons in my recovery was that the brain learns from repeated behaviour. If I respond to a thought as an emergency every time it appears, I reinforce the message that it is dangerous. Recovery is not about finding the perfect argument against every intrusive thought; OCD will always produce another “what if?” It involves changing the response and allowing doubt to be present without repeatedly trying to remove it. “The brain does not only learn from what we tell it. It learns from what we repeatedly do.” What are some everyday compulsions people may not recognise as part of OCD? Checking is a common one. A person might repeatedly check the locks, appliances, messages, social media posts, or apps on their phone because they fear they have made a mistake. Taking photographs of a locked door or an unplugged appliance can also become a way to seek certainty later. Avoidance is another major compulsion. In my case, “harm OCD” led me to avoid knives, weapons, and violent content because they triggered intrusive thoughts. Avoidance brought immediate relief, but it also strengthened the belief that those triggers were dangerous and that I could not cope with the feelings they created. Reassurance can be particularly difficult to spot. Someone might ask a loved one, “You know I would never do that, right?” or “Do you think I am a good person?” The question may sound ordinary, but internally, the person is trying to neutralise a specific fear. Then there are mental compulsions: replaying an event, analysing a thought, testing attraction, monitoring emotions, replacing a “bad” thought with a “good” one, or repeatedly telling yourself that a feared event will never happen. Rumination can feel like problem-solving, but when its purpose is to eliminate uncertainty, it may be maintaining the OCD cycle. The behaviour itself is not always enough to identify a compulsion. Intent and pattern matter. Checking something once does not automatically mean OCD. The important questions are: What fear is driving this? Do I feel unable to move on until it feels certain? How much time, distress, or interference is this creating? ERP is widely recognised as an effective treatment for OCD. How does it work in practice? Exposure and Response Prevention is a structured form of cognitive behavioural therapy. The exposure element involves gradually and intentionally approaching a thought, situation, image, or sensation that triggers the obsession. Response prevention means resisting the compulsion that would normally follow. The first step is understanding the person’s specific cycle: their triggers, obsessions, compulsions, avoidance patterns, and reassurance-seeking. From there, therapist and client can create a personalised hierarchy, usually beginning with manageable exercises and building towards more difficult ones. An exposure might involve writing a short scenario about a feared possibility, reading it without neutralising it, viewing carefully selected material, or completing a real-life task while allowing uncertainty to remain. The goal is not to prove that the feared outcome is impossible. It is to learn that anxiety can rise and fall without the person performing a ritual to make it disappear. ERP should be collaborative, carefully planned, and appropriate to the individual. It is not about placing someone in genuine danger or forcing them into the most frightening situation immediately. Especially when obsessions involve harm or self-harm, exercises should be developed with a properly trained clinician rather than improvised alone. For me, the turning point was realising I did not have to fight fear with more analysis. I could outlast the urge to perform a compulsion. Each time I stayed with the discomfort and responded differently, I weakened the cycle. For someone who recognises themselves in this conversation, what are the first practical steps they can take? My first recommendation is to seek an OCD specialist, someone trained to assess OCD and deliver evidence-based treatment such as ERP. Many excellent therapists are not specialists in this condition, and approaches that work well for other concerns can unintentionally become reassurance or rumination when applied to OCD. The second step is awareness. Begin noticing the pattern without immediately trying to fix it. You might say, “I am noticing an intrusive thought,” or “I am noticing the urge to check.” Labelling the experience can create a small amount of distance between you and the OCD cycle. I sometimes ask myself, “Is this something I genuinely want, or is this something I am afraid of?” That question is not a diagnostic test and should not become another ritual. It is simply a way to notice when fear is demanding an immediate answer. Some people also find it helpful to give OCD a nickname. The point is not to mock the suffering but to separate the disorder from identity. Instead of saying, “Here I go again; something is wrong with me,” you can recognise, “OCD is asking for certainty again.” Most importantly, do not assume you have to overcome it alone. Specialised support can help you understand which responses are compulsions and build a recovery plan that is both challenging and safe. I still experience intrusive thoughts and difficult feelings. Recovery does not mean never having an unwanted thought again; it means those thoughts no longer control my behaviour in the same way. That lived experience is central to the way I practise. I understand how convincing OCD feels, but I also know that feeling convinced does not mean a person is beyond help. OCD is sometimes called “the doubting disorder.” Why is uncertainty so central to it? OCD does not merely ask for reassurance; it asks for complete certainty. The difficulty is that complete certainty does not exist. No one can guarantee that they will never make a mistake, become ill, hurt someone, damage a relationship, or experience something painful. Compulsions offer the illusion that certainty is possible. The more often a person checks, avoids, or seeks reassurance, the more dependent they become on those behaviours whenever doubt appears. Acceptance was a major part of my recovery. For me, that meant responding to OCD with: “Maybe that could happen, and I am not going to spend the rest of the day trying to prove that it will not.” This is not agreement that the fear is true, nor is it giving up. It is giving up the impossible task of achieving a 100% guarantee. I often picture the moment I stopped fighting as putting down my sword and shield. I had been trying to defeat every thought, but I was really fighting myself. I did not need more protection from uncertainty; I needed to learn how to move through it. “The goal is not to win an argument with OCD. It is to stop letting the demand for certainty run your life.” Has technology made OCD harder to manage? Technology can be useful for education and for finding the right support. Many clients first discover my work through social media because they finally hear someone describe an experience they thought no one else understood. The problem begins when information becomes reassurance. Search engines, social media, online forums, and AI tools can provide an almost endless stream of answers. For a person with OCD, that can turn into repeated research: asking the same question in different ways, comparing symptoms, reading another post, or watching another video in the hope of finally feeling certain. I have had clients tell me they cannot stop watching my videos because the content temporarily makes them feel safe. Once they are working with me, we look at the intention behind that behaviour. Are they learning something once, or are they returning repeatedly to neutralise fear? If it is the latter, even helpful content can become part of the compulsion. Technology is not inherently the problem; the pattern of use matters. Sometimes one of the most useful experiments is to postpone reassurance-seeking, write down the question, and bring it to treatment instead of researching it immediately. That pause allows a person to practise tolerating uncertainty rather than feeding the cycle. When does OCD usually begin, and what can contribute to its development? OCD can emerge at different stages of life. I have worked with people whose symptoms began early and others who did not recognise a serious pattern until adulthood. There is no single story that applies to everyone. Genetic and biological vulnerability can play a role, and OCD may run in families. Stress, trauma, major life events, or a panic episode can also coincide with symptoms becoming more visible or severe. Sometimes a person has experienced anxiety for years, then a frightening event intensifies the need to prevent uncertainty from ever returning. What matters is that no one should assume they are too far gone because the pattern has been present for a long time. Treatment may require patience, particularly when compulsions and avoidance have become deeply established, but people can learn new ways of responding. That lesson extends beyond OCD. Some of the most important changes in my own life came from doing what fear had always told me not to do. As someone who treats and educates people about OCD every day, what gives you hope for the future? Earlier generations often lived without access to the language, specialist care, or evidence-based support available today. My grandfather struggled with OCD throughout his life, and he did not have the opportunities for treatment that many people can now find. Awareness of ERP is growing, more clinicians are pursuing specialist training, and organisations are helping the public recognise presentations of OCD that were once hidden or misdiagnosed. That gives me tremendous hope. My own goal is to expand the reach of specialised OCD care. I have a practice in Florida and work with people in different places, but I want to help make this support more accessible around the world. I would love to see centres in the UK, Australia, and beyond, with more people receiving the right guidance earlier. The issue was never that people with OCD were incapable of recovery. Too often, they simply did not know what they were experiencing or could not find treatment designed for it. We now understand far more about how to interrupt the cycle. The more accurately we talk about OCD, the more people will recognise that they are not alone - and that their lives do not have to remain organised around fear. Lee Solomon’s message is a reminder that OCD is not defined by tidiness, organisation, or the presence of an unwanted thought. It is the cycle of fear, doubt, and compulsive behaviour that can begin to control a person’s life. Whether he is talking about harm OCD, reassurance-seeking, technology, or ERP, the principle remains the same: recovery begins when people stop trying to achieve impossible certainty and learn that they can experience fear without obeying it. To learn more about Lee or get in touch, visit the Solomon Psychiatrics website, follow him on Instagram, or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Written by Kate Taylor, Registered Nutritionist Kate is a Registered Nutritionist and the Founder of Eat Drink Think Nutrition Limited. Kate supports systemic health & wellness through personalised nutrition, diet and lifestyle strategies & recommendations, and particularly specialises in Brain health, cognitive function and Dementia risk-avoidance. We often cite philosophical ‘life laws’ as aspirational words of wisdom to follow or cautionary warnings. So I thought I would take six ‘life laws’ and one ‘life story’ and adapt them to a nutritional standpoint to offer supportive guidance and inspiration from a professionally informed perspective. Occam’s razor “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.” Nutritional application: Of two competing nutritional options, choose the simpler. It may help with consistency, habit stacking and dietary sustainability. Segal’s law “A person with one watch knows the time. A person with two watches is never sure.” Nutritional application: Nowadays, this can be applied to nutrition because it is becoming an oversaturated ‘influencer domain’, with enticements to buy and promises of miracle cures one week, followed by health warnings the next. Qualified Registered Nutritionists follow evidence based criteria, never guarantee certainty, and personalise the recommendations according to a client’s health nuances. Distanced, impersonal ‘influencers’ do none of this. Try to wear one professionally guided watch, but also keep your professional accountable, since mixing and matching sources will inevitably lead to uncertainty. Goodhart’s law “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Nutritional application: Nutrition is not unquestionably centred around calorie counting or macronutrient tracking. Nutrition is about feeling healthy, nourished, satiated, energised and cognitively astute. The health sensations are worth more than the health statistics. The law of correspondence “As within, so without.” Nutritional application: What we put into our bodies will be reflected in how we feel and look on the outside. Food is fuel, if you fill your body and brain with suboptimal dietary synthetics, that may transpire as the output. Kidlin’s law “If you write down a problem clearly, the problem is half solved.” Nutritional application: Before a health consultation of any sort, particularly Nutritional Therapy, write down, using a maximum of three words, what you would like the consultation to achieve and how you would like the consultation to leave you feeling. Too many wishes or imprecise goals may leave you feeling disenfranchised and disappointed, either on your part or that of your professional. In healthcare, focus is key. Gilbert’s law “The problem with work is that no one tells you what to do, finding the best way to achieve a goal is your responsibility.” Nutritional application: This may be hard to hear, but your health professional can only impart what the research relates to, to the best of their knowledge, and apply it to your personal situation. What you do with that information is up to you. If you are having trouble actioning the recommendations, you simply need to let your professional know so that, together, you can devise an implementation strategy that suits you. Try to avoid worrying in silence, you and your professional are on the same team, cheerleading you on your path to health and healthspan accomplishment and contentment. The tale of the hare and the tortoise There’s nothing wrong with being a nutritional tortoise. Nutritional application: Nutrition is typically not a quick fix race, but rather a long term investment in your healthspan. Results are rarely instantaneous, they need to be curated, and perseverance is often a non-negotiable necessity. In nutrition, rushing could be futile. How would you feel in years to come about an opportunity you missed through impatience? Don’t mind running with tortoises, moving forward in your health goals is forward progress. As an aside, whilst I was researching laws, I came across a bizarre law enshrined in Section 32 of the Salmon Act of British law in 1986. This law states that “it is illegal to handle salmon in suspicious circumstances.” Since oily fish are amongst the most highly evidenced omega rich sources of essential beneficial fat, hopefully the purchase and consumption of salmon and smoked salmon are perfectly permissible, and indeed nutritionally recommendable, to nourish and support your cognitive function and Brainspan. Nutrition and diet are the benchmarks and the starting points that have been recognised since 1903, when Thomas Edison commented in The Newark Advocate, “The doctor of the future will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.” Our medical sciences are advancing with phenomenal alacrity, but it is important not to forget that underpinning health, especially brain health, is a healthy respect for fresh, nourishing food, a balanced diet and a wholesome lifestyle. If a functional medicine perspective on nurturing, nourishing and supporting your brain health and cognitive function is of interest, the time to act is now, "Why postpone what could be actioned today?" Investing in your brain health and Brainspan could just be the wisest decision you will ever make. Please note that these are general nutritional statements. They are not personalised, and they are not tailored to account for or include recommendations for any existing health imbalances or medical conditions. In these cases, please consult a medical professional and/or a nutritionist or dietitian if you have a particular health or dietary requirement. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Kate Taylor Kate Taylor, Registered Nutritionist Kate is an advocate of proactive and preventative healthcare through optimising and personalising the basics, nutrition, diet, and lifestyle. Kate's experiences watching those around her develop and decline from Dementia instilled in her a mindset of 'prevention is better than cure' and that, particularly when it comes to Brain health and Dementia risk-avoidance, the perception 'false hopelessness' should not triumph over health optimism. Whilst sensitive to the fact that Brain health and dementia risk avoidance are multifaceted and cannot be solely addressed by nutrition, Kate's professional nutritional aspiration is to empower & inspire people that diet and lifestyle are integral foundations to health, healthspan, and importantly, Brainspan. References: Legislation.gove.uk, Salmon Act 1986. (accessed 19th July 2026)

Tana J. von Isser, LCSW, is a Relationship Transformation Coach, Certified Grace Method® Hypnotherapist, and founder of Tonic Wellspring Healing Arts. Her own lived journey healing through grief, complex trauma, survival patterns, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and neurodivergence inspired the creation of her Quantum Neuro-Developmental Integration (QNDI) model. She helps high-achieving empaths move from self-abandonment, codependency, and hyper-independence into healthy interdependence and deeply fulfilling relationships and lifestyles. She has served over 300 clients and is recognized for facilitating profound breakthroughs in accelerated timeframes. Her mission is to guide individuals from survival patterns into self-trust, relational wholeness, and aligned living. Tana Jay von Isser, Empowerment Coach, Hypnotherapist & Visionary Who is Tana Jay von Isser? I've spent much of my life answering one question, "What happens when we stop abandoning ourselves to belong?" I work with accomplished, spiritually grounded people, mostly women, whose generous hearts have been mistreated or abandoned, by others and often by themselves. They've spent years being capable, intuitive, and deeply caring, only to end up exhausted, disconnected from their own guidance, and stuck repeating relational patterns that no longer serve them. My work helps them recalibrate their relationship to themselves and to the Divine, and from there, heal what's rippling into their outer world, their lifestyle, and their sense of meaning. I integrate neuroscience, attachment theory, somatic wisdom, hypnotherapy, and spiritually oriented practice to surface the identity structures quietly running the show and reorient clients toward their soul purpose and true legacy. I'm a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Certified Grace Method® Hypnotherapist, Relationship Coach, Identity & Lifestyle Architect, and the founder of Tonic Wellspring: Healing Arts. Healing isn't just feeling better. It's getting better at feeling. Be with what's real. Feeling good is more sustainable when we're not afraid of the whole range of feelings. What challenges do your clients typically face before seeking your services? Many of the women I work with look like they're thriving. They're accomplished, intelligent, intuitive, and capable, with successful careers, families, and full lives, even if the word success falls flat. Underneath, they're running on empty, getting fleeting hits of aliveness from a good playlist or a pet's touch, but haunted by a gnawing sense that something's missing. They arrive after years of over-functioning, self-sacrifice, hyper-independence, or codependence, carrying more than their share of the emotional weight in every relationship. They say things like, "Why do I keep attracting the same thing?" "Why do I know better but still can't change this pattern?" "Why am I so tired when I'm doing everything right?" Or, the deepest one, "If I stop taking care of everyone else, who am I?" This work isn't about becoming less capable or less caring. It's about learning the difference between generosity and self-abandonment, empathy and enmeshment, independence and healthy interdependence. It's about transmuting pain into a powerful sense of purpose and loving the inner saboteur on the road to self-mastery. What inspired you to start Tonic Wellspring, and what unique approach do you offer? In 2021, I got myself out of a situation that had turned genuinely dangerous, the kind where you're making emergency plans from a parking lot and crossing the country with nothing but roadside naps. My dog and I made it to safety, and some of the deepest work and most rewarding transformation of my life followed. It took months of untangling myself from what I now recognize as narcissistic abuse and confronting a belief I'd inherited and carried even with years of intentional work, I'm not worthy of better. That belief was the common thread I had to address at its root. That's when I found Grace Method® Hypnotherapy, and it cracked open something talk therapy hadn't. I'd been living like the walking dead, jolted awake by my own inner critic, forcing myself through exercise, eating healthy, going to grief groups and therapy, and feeling little relief as I was white-knuckling my way through anhedonia. I finally got off the medications and coping mechanisms I'd leaned on for years because they were causing more harm than benefit. I went deep into nervous-system and fascia release, parts work, inner child healing, and practices shaped by neuroscience and a growing understanding of the subconscious. Finally, the rubber met the road, and I quantum leaped into a new reality. The vision for Tonic Wellspring's logo came to me in a desert arroyo, mid-meditation. Within months, I met the man who became my husband, someone with whom conflict brings us closer instead of shattering our hearts. That's the arc I now help clients through, not relief from bypassing what's hard, but bliss from actual alignment. I followed the breadcrumbs into clinical work and served as a lead therapist in a residential trauma and addiction treatment center before returning to my niche of relational and spiritual healing work. I've walked both sides of this work, my own healing was the real prerequisite for walking alongside anyone else. A wellspring is a source of nourishment that already exists beneath the surface. My job isn't to give clients something they lack, it's to clear what's blocking their access to what's already there. What sets Tonic Wellspring apart from other wellness providers in your field? There are a lot of skilled providers doing trauma work, hypnotherapy, and nervous-system regulation. What's harder to replicate is the person holding those tools, someone who's truly tested the theories, not just studied them. I've lived the collapse and the rebirth I now guide clients through, from trauma begetting trauma to firmly knowing the worth and beauty of this life and finding reflections of goodness everywhere. These days, I spend my time on trails and in museums, awestruck and inspired, holding my husband's hand, a far cry from the years I spent holed up in self-loathing, or even surrounded by luxury and feeling numb. That's not a credential. It's a frequency. Clients don't just get my years of education and training, they get a whole human who's already proven this path works. They get my unique energy and medicine. Techniques can be taught. Presence can't be copied. I'm offering clients more than modalities, I'm offering them a guide who's already walked the specific terrain they're standing in. I'm helping them collapse time, so transformation toward their deepest desires doesn't take as long as it took me. The solutions are often simple. That doesn't mean they're easy, and it doesn't mean insight alone gets you there. For many women, the real question isn't "How do I regulate my nervous system?" It's "Who am I now that I no longer want to live the way I used to?" Survival stops being the goal, and the question becomes, "What do I actually want to create with this life?" That's where my work moves past symptom management into relationship coaching and lifestyle architecture, designing a life around who she wants to become, not who she had to be to survive. As a licensed clinician, I know when someone needs a different level of care and how to collaborate with a team of skilled professionals. My coaching lets my own lived experience and spiritual lens come through in ways therapy never could. This is high-touch, hands-on work, subconscious reprogramming, embodied practice, and real accountability, not a worksheet and a wish. What would you advise someone who is just beginning their wellness journey? Get curious about yourself instead of trying to fix yourself. Most people start healing assuming something is broken. Ask different questions instead, "What is this part of me trying to protect? Can I meet what feels unlovable in me with compassion instead of shame?" Your anxiety was trying to keep you safe. Your perfectionism once helped you perform. Your hyper-independence and people-pleasing made sense when relying on others didn't feel safe. None of that means you have to keep it or discard it entirely, it means you meet it differently. Slow down enough to listen to your body. Notice what expands you and what contracts you. Don't measure your healing by how little you struggle. Measure it by how fast you find your way back to yourself when you do. That's the beginning of true belonging, coming home to yourself and realizing you were never the problem you were trying so hard to fix. You were the key all along. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Tana Jay von Isser

Written by Bridgit A. Norris, Strategic Growth Partner Bridgit Norris is a Business Growth Strategist who helps founders identify the real constraint capping their growth. Through her high-touch, one-to-one diagnostic work, she is known for uncovering, in a single hour, the problem founders have spent years working around. Lawyers make so much money. Says everyone except the lawyers. This profession has a kind of financial strain no survey captures because the people living it rarely say it out loud. It's the woman who owns her firm, brings in real revenue, pays her team, her vendors, and her tax bill, and takes home nothing. Not a small paycheck. Nothing. This is about how common that actually is, why it reaches far past law, and why paying yourself is not a reward you earn later. It's the first sign the business works. The real numbers There are just over 1.37 million active lawyers in the United States as of 2025, according to the American Bar Association (ABA). Women now make up about 41 percent of them, roughly 564,000 attorneys, and the profession is projected to reach gender parity around 2026. A large share of lawyers practice alone. The ABA puts solo practitioners somewhere between a quarter and a third of all lawyers, and close to half of everyone in private practice. Now, when you look at that against the number of women, you land on the numbers. So somewhere between 90,000 and 135,000 women are running solo law firms right now. These numbers seem to be solid. But there are numbers no one has. The number nobody has No survey tracks how many of those women take zero salary. Zero draw. How many run a firm that pays everyone in the building except the person who built it? Based on the women I work with and the conversations I have, this isn't a rare story. It's an epidemic. Even a conservative guess makes the scale plain. If it's just ten percent, and I think ten percent is low, that's nine to thirteen thousand women lawyers right now, growing their firms in constant financial stress and paying themselves only when there's something left, if there ever is. Paying yourself as a reward instead of a standard is a pattern. Far too often, it stays invisible because owner pay is private and wrapped in shame. Nobody wants to admit the successful-looking firm doesn't pay her. I feel this and can understand why. That's exactly why it needs to be said louder. It isn't just lawyers If this were only a legal problem, you could blame the industry itself and move on. It isn't. The same structure shows up for women across every demanding, male-dominated field, which tells you the driver is structural, not personal. The data says it all. A 2026 ABA survey found 40 percent of women lawyers reported financial strain, against under 30 percent of men, and even worse, it shows higher anxiety, more sleep problems, and more burnout. That gap repeats field by field. In medicine, recent American Medical Association (AMA) data show about 46 percent of women physicians reporting burnout versus 37 percent of men, and women physicians earn around 78 to 80 cents on the male dollar in total compensation. In tech, women report burnout in the high fifties compared to their male counterparts in the mid-thirties in several analyses, and roughly half leave the industry by their mid-thirties. In finance, one of the widest pay gaps, women earn closer to 60 cents on the dollar in some Census-based measures, alongside higher daily stress. In construction, women leave the trades at around three times the rate of men, driven by culture and lack of respect more than the work itself. Different industries, same issues. Higher stress, wider pay gaps, heavy care loads at home, and more women deciding to leave roles they love. We can no longer say it’s just the workload. This goes deeper than undervaluation, the habit of absorbing the cost personally rather than pricing it into the business or the paycheck. What happens when she goes solo More women are deciding to leave and go solo. They open the firm, the consultancy, the practice, chasing control of their life and their professional future. Unknowingly, this all follows them out the door, except now there's no employer and no W-2 to enforce it all. How does this show up in the actual numbers? A 2022 study of early-stage women entrepreneurs by the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center found that 55 percent did not pay themselves at all for the work they did for their own company. Paying themselves became common only after the business passed roughly eight years or landed meaningful outside funding. Australian surveys of women business owners repeatedly find majorities taking no wage, and when they do pay themselves, taking roughly half what male owners take. A UK study of more than fifty women founders who were explicitly aiming for a living wage found fewer than eight percent matched their old salary, and more than half took no income at all, some of them four years in. The reasons are always the same. “I'll pay myself when it's working.” “Everything must be reinvested.” “I'll take what's left.” It reads like responsibility but functions like a slow bleed. It quietly erodes her savings, her retirement, her Social Security base, and her sense that the business is real. Why paying yourself is a business metric What matters is understanding this isn't greed, and it shouldn't be a reward for good behavior. A business that cannot pay its founder a real wage is not lean. It's underpriced or under-structured, and the owner's empty paycheck is the symptom telling you so. When you treat your own pay as optional, you're hiding the truth about the business from yourself. You're lying to yourself every day. The firm may look and feel alive because revenue is moving. But a business that can't compensate the person doing the most important work in it hasn't proven it works. All it does is prove she's willing to subsidize it with her own financial future. Don't treat these the same. Decide your pay as a line item, the same as rent, the same as your tech stack. Fund it on a schedule, the same day of the month. Not because you deserve to survive. Because the number forces the business to become one that can actually carry you, that's how the firm grows in a way that lets you pay your team well too, instead of on the same fear-and-leftover cycle you're living. We cannot stay silent This is a taboo topic that almost no one wants to admit out loud, so I have no choice but to keep saying it until it's ordinary. If you own a firm and you are not paying yourself, please know you are not failing, and most importantly, you are not alone. You are one of thousands, in law and well beyond, running a business that hasn't yet been built to pay you. This is fixable, and it starts the moment you decide your own pay is no longer the last thing you get. If this is you My sole focus when working with women in law is getting them paid consistently and sustainably. Period. Then I design the firm so it grows in a way where everyone succeeds. If you recognize yourself here, there's no shame in it, and there's a way out of it. Book a call, and we'll build a firm that will finally pay you. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Bridgit A. Norris Bridgit A. Norris, Strategic Growth Partner Bridgit Norris is a Business Growth Strategist who helps founders identify what's actually slowing their growth, and it's almost never what they think. After 20 years working inside businesses of every size, she developed a diagnostic approach that traces stalled revenue, shrinking take-home, and founder burnout back to one or two constraints built so deep into the company they feel like the company. Her work is direct, numbers-first, and allergic to fluff, no decks, no funnels, no recycled advice. Nine out of ten founders who bring her their real numbers leave looking at a completely different problem than the one they walked in with. She writes about leadership, avoidance, and the hard calls that actually grow a business.

Written by Katrina Batey, Anxious Children Parent Coach Katrina Batey specialises in how parents can support their children with anxiety. She is a trained Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) anxiety treatment provider and mental health coach, working with parents across the UK and internationally to help their anxious children overcome anxiety and build confidence. A child chats happily and confidently at home. They’re funny, opinionated, noisy and perhaps even difficult to interrupt. But at school, they barely speak, and they can’t answer their uncle or family friend when they ask, “What did you do at the weekend?” They might communicate with a nod or a smile. They might look down and appear uncomfortable, or hide behind their parents’ legs. They may whisper to one trusted friend at school. They might speak freely in the playground but become completely silent when they walk into the classroom. When an adult asks them a direct question, they may freeze, look away or appear not to respond at all. To someone who doesn’t understand selective mutism, this can look like extreme shyness. Sometimes it is mistaken for stubbornness, defiance or even rudeness. But selective mutism is none of these things. It is an anxiety disorder in which a child who is able to speak finds themselves consistently unable to speak in certain situations or with certain people. That distinction, unable rather than unwilling, changes everything about how we need to respond. What does selective mutism actually feel like? One of the biggest misconceptions about selective mutism is that a child is consciously deciding whether or not to speak. They aren't. For many children with selective mutism, speaking in particular situations triggers such a strong anxiety response that speech feels impossible. Imagine being asked to stand up and sing, completely alone, in front of hundreds of people. You might know perfectly well how to sing. Your vocal cords still work. But your heart starts to pound, your mouth becomes dry, and your entire body screams at you not to do it. Now imagine being told, "Come on. There's nothing to worry about." Or, "You sang at home yesterday, so I know you can do it." That reassurance probably wouldn't make your body suddenly feel safe. For a child with selective mutism, an apparently simple question such as “What did you do at the weekend?” can provoke a surprisingly powerful threat response. Their silence isn't a choice. It is their nervous system trying to protect them. Selective mutism isn't just shyness This distinction matters because shy children can usually speak despite feeling uncomfortable. They might take time to warm up. They may hide behind a parent initially or speak quietly. But as they become more familiar with a situation, speech generally becomes easier. With selective mutism, anxiety can create a much more significant barrier. A child may desperately want to answer but feel physically unable to get the words out. They may rehearse what they want to say internally but find that when the moment arrives, nothing happens, no words come out. Adults naturally expect children to answer when spoken to, children with selective mutism can experience an enormous amount of pressure around something the rest of us barely think about, talking. The child you see may not be the child their parents know This is something I wish more people understood. Children with selective mutism can look remarkably different depending on where they are and who they are with. A teacher may describe a child as quiet, compliant and reserved, while their parents describe exactly the opposite. At home, that same child may sing at the top of their voice, tell elaborate stories, argue with their siblings, make endless jokes and talk from the moment they wake up until bedtime. Neither version of the child is more “real.” The difference is how safe their nervous system feels. Selective mutism can also be highly specific. A child might speak to their teacher but not their classmates. They might speak to friends but not adults. They may speak outside the school building but not inside it. They might speak to grandma and grandad but not auntie and uncle. Some children can speak when nobody is paying attention to them but freeze the moment someone asks them a direct question. This variability is one reason selective mutism can be misunderstood. Selective mutism often isn't the only anxiety When I work with families affected by selective mutism, I think it's important to look beyond speech. Many of these children seem to experience the world with the volume turned up. They may be highly sensitive to uncertainty, social evaluation, unfamiliar situations, separation, sensory input or the possibility of getting something wrong. Alongside selective mutism, parents might notice anxiety around separating from them, starting school or attending clubs, joining unfamiliar groups, performing or being watched, making mistakes, using public toilets, eating around other people, sleeping independently, parties, playdates or extracurricular activities, unexpected changes, unfamiliar adults, or asking for help. This doesn't mean that every child with selective mutism will experience all, or even many, of these difficulties. But it does mean that focusing exclusively on whether the child speaks can miss an important part of the picture. For some children, selective mutism is one expression of a much broader pattern of anxiety and sensitivity. Some children really are more sensitively wired We often talk about anxiety as though it is something that suddenly happens to a child. But children vary enormously in their underlying temperament. Some seem to arrive in the world naturally cautious. They notice more. They think before jumping in. Their nervous systems react strongly to novelty, uncertainty or perceived threat. That sensitivity isn't inherently a problem. A sensitively wired child might also be wonderfully perceptive, thoughtful, empathetic, observant and deeply attuned to other people. But the same nervous system that notices the subtle things can also notice potential danger very quickly. Add difficult experiences, transitions, social expectations, neurodivergence or repeated anxiety into the mix, and that sensitive nervous system can become increasingly protective. For some children, speech becomes one of the places where that protection shows up. This is why I don't think our goal should simply be to “get the child talking.” Our goal is to help the child experience themselves as increasingly safe, capable and able to tolerate the discomfort involved in communicating. Speech can then grow from that foundation. What actually helps selective mutism? The good news, and it really is good news, is that children can make enormous progress with selective mutism. But pressure rarely helps. Repeatedly encouraging a child to “just say hello,” offering rewards for talking, drawing attention to speech or celebrating loudly when a child finally speaks can inadvertently make speaking feel like an even bigger event. Instead, we want to focus first on building safety for that child, because until they feel safe, they won’t be able to communicate. This means focusing on helping the child feel relaxed and at ease around you first, before any expectation of speech. Games and humour are really effective ways of doing this. Adults can also make subtle changes that reduce pressure enormously. Instead of firing questions at a child, we can comment more and question less. Replace “Hello” with “It’s really nice to see you.” Swap “What are you playing with?” to “I see you’re building a really tall tower!” We can give them time to respond rather than quickly filling the silence. We can allow pointing, gestures and other forms of communication while speech is developing. Perhaps most importantly, we can communicate, "I know talking can feel difficult sometimes. You don't have to prove anything to me. We'll help you take this one step at a time." Reducing pressure doesn't mean avoiding anxiety forever This is an important distinction. When parents first learn about selective mutism, they are often told not to pressure their child to speak. That's absolutely important. But reducing pressure isn't the same as arranging a child's entire life so that they never experience discomfort around communication. If adults permanently speak for the child, avoid every situation in which communication might be expected or remove every social challenge, anxiety can become even more powerful. The aim is neither pressure nor avoidance. It's supported, manageable progress. We want to create opportunities where the child can experience a small amount of discomfort and discover, "I can cope with this." Then, gradually, we build from there. Look beyond the silence Perhaps the biggest thing I would like parents, teachers and other adults to understand about selective mutism is this. Don't judge the child by what you can see. The child who doesn't say thank you isn't necessarily rude. The child who won't answer your question isn't necessarily ignoring you. The child who stands silently beside the other children isn't necessarily uninterested in making friends. The child who talks constantly at home but not at school isn't choosing to make life difficult. There is usually far more happening underneath the surface. When we replace “Why won't you speak?” with “What is making speaking feel difficult here?”, we start asking a much more useful question. Once we understand selective mutism as anxiety rather than behaviour, our response changes too. Less pressure. More understanding. Small, carefully supported challenges. Confidence in the child's ability to make progress. Selective mutism does not have to define a child's future. With the right understanding and support, children can learn that their voice is safe to use, and gradually become able to use it in more and more places. Follow me on Instagram for more info! Read more from Katrina Batey Katrina Batey, Anxious Children Parent Coach Katrina Batey understands childhood anxiety not just professionally, but personally, as she has been on this journey herself. It can feel bewildering, isolating, and overwhelming. This led her to train in effective and evidence-based techniques that parents can use to support their child to overcome childhood anxiety. She has seen firsthand the transformative role parents can play in easing anxiety and building resilience. Katrina is passionate about reframing the narrative around parenting and anxiety because parents are not the problem, but they can be the solution.

Written by Maynard Hebert, Keynote Speaker & Consultant Maynard Hebert is a Red Seal heavy-equipment expert, award-winning shovel technician, and the author of Onward Buttercups. He is a workplace culture specialist who teaches teams and leaders how to communicate better, work smarter, and build trust in high-pressure environments. I have a saying I've used around workplaces for years, "I'm here for the income, not the outcome." It usually gets a laugh. Sometimes management looks at me sideways, but underneath the humour is something organizations need to understand if they are serious about employee retention. Most employees did not get out of bed this morning because they were excited about improving the company's quarterly earnings. They got out of bed because they have a life to pay for. There's a mortgage or rent. Kids need braces. Somebody wants a new truck. There's a vacation being planned, retirement getting closer, or maybe someone simply wants enough left over that opening the Visa bill doesn't require a stiff drink. That doesn't make them disloyal. It makes them human. The company exists to generate an outcome. The employee works to generate an income. Smart employers figure out how to connect the two. Your business is not their life Owners and executives naturally think differently about the business. They should. Their investment, reputation, and often their personal wealth are tied directly to the organization's success. They think about margins, growth, customers, productivity, and long-term sustainability. Then we hire an employee and somehow expect them to develop the same emotional attachment. Your employee may care deeply about doing good work. They may take enormous pride in their trade or profession. They may care about coworkers, customers, and reputation, but employment is still an exchange, the organization needs something from the employee, and the employee needs something from the organization. Pretending otherwise doesn't create engagement. Understanding the exchange does. I've spent decades in automotive shops, industrial maintenance, and large mining operations, supervising people, owning businesses, and carrying the toolbox. One thing has remained consistent, people work extremely hard when they understand what the work is doing for their life. Income is bigger than an hourly wage When employers hear "income," they often immediately think wages. That's only part of it. Income represents possibility. It might mean owning a house, putting children through school, buying an recreational vehicle (RV), building retirement savings, or simply having enough security to sleep at night. This is where retention gets interesting. If you understand what employment means to the individual, you begin to understand what might keep that person. A 25-year-old technician may value development, overtime, and a chance to build a down payment. A 45-year-old with children may care more about benefits and predictable scheduling. A 60-year-old veteran may be thinking about transition, mentoring, and retirement. Same company. Same workforce. Very different reasons for being there. Yet organizations routinely fire the same retention solution at everyone and wonder why it doesn't work. That's what I call firing the parts cannon. When a mechanic doesn't diagnose a problem properly, they can start replacing parts until the machine runs. Organizations do the same with people, add a bonus, change the benefits, run another survey, order the pizza, and hope something sticks. Or diagnose the problem first. Ask a better question Organizations love asking, "How do we get employees more engaged in the business?" I think there's a better question, "How does working here help our employees build a better life?" That changes the conversation. Suddenly, compensation matters, but so do schedules, benefits, career development, leadership, retirement programs, recognition, and predictability. Retention isn't always about giving people more. Sometimes it is about understanding what matters more. That requires something increasingly rare in large organizations, knowing your people. You don't need supervisors conducting therapy sessions beside the toolbox, but if you lead twelve people and know absolutely nothing about what matters to any of them, you're missing information that could help you lead them. Know who wants advancement. Who enjoys teaching others. Who wants overtime. Who desperately doesn't. Who is nearing retirement. Who wants training. Who has ambitions beyond the current role. Then learn to listen to understand, not to respond. Too many workplace conversations happen with the supervisor preparing an answer while the employee is still talking. That isn't listening. That's waiting for your turn. The paycheque gets them there, the environment determines whether they stay Money matters. We shouldn't pretend otherwise. Try telling someone their workplace has a wonderful culture when they can't afford groceries, but compensation has limits as a retention strategy. A company can pay well and still create an environment people want to escape. I've seen people leave substantial incomes because eventually the money was no longer worth what they had to tolerate to earn it. Once somebody reaches that point, another dollar an hour probably isn't fixing it. The employee has already decided that whatever your organization is paying is no longer sufficient compensation for the experience of working there. That's when another Maynard-ism comes into play. Employee departure is the invoice for poor leadership. Sometimes that invoice is enormous. You lose experience. Productivity drops. Recruiting starts again. Someone trains the replacement. Existing employees carry the vacancy. Overtime increases. Morale takes another hit. The employee walking out the door may have been the cheapest part of the entire problem. Employees don't owe you their dreams One of the stranger ideas in modern management is that employees should somehow make the organization's mission their personal mission. Some will. Most won't, and that's okay. You need people who understand what is expected, have the resources to do the job, are treated consistently and fairly, and can see a reason to continue exchanging their time and talent for what your organization provides. That can create tremendous loyalty, not because you demanded it, but because you earned it. You can automate a plant, but you cannot automate trust. Trust develops through repeated experiences, supervisors keep their word, schedules are predictable, good work is acknowledged, problems get addressed, and standards apply equally. Culture is something we live every day in the workplace. It is not the poster on the wall. It is what happens when the pressure is on. Stop guessing and measure the problem This is also why I founded Workplace Harmonics. I spent enough years watching organizations solve people problems through opinions, complaints, exit interviews, and whatever issue was making the most noise that week that I knew there had to be a better approach. My approach is different. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. At Workplace Harmonics, I use a Zero-Bias Audit to measure what is actually happening across the organization, from the frontline through supervisors and management. The audit looks for measurable gaps in leadership effectiveness, communication reliability, expectation clarity, leadership capability, and system visibility. The employee sees the workplace from one direction. The supervisor sees it from another. Senior management sees it from somewhere else entirely. The problem often lives in the gap between those perspectives. That's why I don't walk into an organization assuming I already know what's wrong. Accurate measurement determines accurate solutions. Otherwise, you're guessing. I have another word for management by guesswork, "guessnosis". Once the actual failure points are identified, you can stop firing the parts cannon and start fixing the problem that is actually costing you people. Stop replacing people. Fix the system. Connect their income to your outcome This is where "I'm here for the income, not the outcome" comes full circle. There is nothing wrong with an organization pursuing profit. Without profit, there are eventually no jobs. There is also nothing wrong with an employee pursuing income. Without income, there is eventually no reason to have the job. The opportunity for leadership is connecting those interests. When the organization succeeds, can employees see greater security, opportunity, or reward? When productivity improves, do the people creating it share somehow in the benefit? When someone gives you ten good years, does year eleven look meaningfully different from year two? Those questions matter. If employees cannot see how staying improves their future, eventually another employer will offer them a different future. The better-life test Maybe organizations need a simpler retention test. Forget the 80-page engagement report for a minute and ask, "Are people's lives better because they work here?" Not perfect. Better. Are they building something? Progressing? Developing skills? Creating security? Can they imagine themselves being better off three years from now if they stay? If the answer is consistently no, you don't have an employee loyalty problem. You have an employment-value problem. So the next time you hear an employee joking, "I'm here for the income, not the outcome," don't dismiss it. Listen to what they're actually telling you. Then give them a reason to care about both. Because if you want employees invested in your outcome, show them how your outcome improves their income, and their life. That might be one of the simplest retention strategies you'll ever implement. Unlike the pizza party, it might actually work. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Maynard Hebert Maynard Hebert, Keynote Speaker & Consultant Maynard Hebert is a Red Seal Heavy Equipment Technician, author, and host of the Gears of Trust podcast. Drawing on decades in the mining and oil sands industry, he helps organizations strengthen communication, reduce turnover, and build teams that actually work together. His book, Onward Buttercups, has become a practical guide for mechanics, supervisors, and leaders looking for real-world, human-centered solutions to workplace chaos. Maynard blends technical expertise with humour, storytelling, and straight-talk leadership. He was recognized as Mader Mining’s 2024 Outstanding Employee of the Year. Today, he speaks, teaches, and consults across Canada on reliability, culture, and team performance.

Written by Dawn Chubai, Live Shopping Strategist Dawn Chubai is an award-winning broadcaster (Breakfast Television & The Shopping Channel) and founder of Live Selling School. After generating more than $250 million in live sales and spending over 40,000 hours on live television, she now helps brands harness live shopping, video commerce, and on-camera communication to drive growth. Getting visible is an important part of growing a business, but visibility on its own does not create sales. Most brands are being told to show up more, post more, create more content, and capture more attention. Attention does matter. In Social Commerce and Live Shopping, attention is what gives brands the opportunity to connect, educate, demonstrate, and sell, but attention is only the beginning. To turn visibility and attention into sales, brands need a clear message, a trusted voice, a confident customer experience, and a path that helps people move from watching to buying. Why do visibility and attention matter in modern business? Visibility means people can find you, see you, hear from you, and start to understand that your brand exists. That visibility can come from social media content, podcast interviews, media features, videos, networking events, speaking opportunities, collaborations, email marketing, paid ads, livestreams, creator partnerships, or being more present in the places your customers already spend time. Visibility matters because a customer cannot buy from a business they do not know exists. A founder cannot build authority if no one ever hears their point of view. A brand cannot create demand if it stays invisible, but visibility is not the same as conversion. Visibility helps people find you. Attention gives you the chance to communicate. This distinction matters because brands are not only competing with other brands. They are competing with every post, video, notification, email, recommendation, creator, and platform pulling on the customer at the same time. Gary Vaynerchuk has spoken extensively about attention as a major business asset. His book Day Trading Attention: How To Actually Build Brand And Sales In The New Social Media World focuses on understanding where attention is moving and how brands can use modern social media to build brand and sales. That idea matters for any brand trying to grow online. Capturing attention may get someone to stop scrolling, watch a video, join a livestream, click a product, or listen for a few more seconds. What happens next determines whether that attention becomes interest, trust, action, or a missed opportunity. Related Article: 5 Ways Poor Camera Presence Hurts Trust and Sales Why is attention especially important in social commerce and live shopping? Social Commerce and Live Shopping depend on attention because the customer journey often begins inside the content itself. The opportunity is also becoming too significant for brands to ignore. According to ResearchAndMarkets, the global social commerce sector is projected to grow from $826.78 billion in 2024 to approximately $1.48 trillion in U.S. dollars by 2030. That growth matters because Social Commerce is not only changing where people buy. It is changing where customers discover products, watch demonstrations, ask questions, compare options, engage with creators, and decide whether to take the next step. A viewer may join a live event while multitasking. They may catch a replay between other pieces of content. They may click in because of a hook, a product, a founder, a creator, or a limited-time offer, but once they are there, the brand still has to guide the experience. The hook captures attention, the structure keeps attention, the message builds trust, the offer creates urgency, and the call to action helps the customer move. That is why visibility and attention are key factors in Live Shopping, but they cannot stand alone. A brand can attract viewers and still lose sales if the show does not explain the product clearly, answer buying questions, create a reason to stay, and make the shopping path easy. In Social Commerce, attention is the entry point. Conversion depends on what you do with it. Seven ways to turn visibility and attention into sales 1. Clarify the customer problem Before asking people to buy, make sure they understand the problem your product or service solves. Customers are often trying to figure out whether your offer is relevant to them. If your content jumps too quickly into features, promotion, or visibility for visibility’s sake, they may not connect the dots. Clear messaging begins with the customer’s problem, desire, or decision point. What are they struggling with? What are they comparing? What do they want to feel more confident about? What mistake are they trying to avoid? What outcome do they want? When your audience feels understood, they are more likely to pay attention to the solution. This is especially important in video and Live Shopping because customers may not arrive with full context. Someone may join a livestream halfway through, discover your brand through a short-form shoppable video, or watch a replay days after the event. The faster you can make the problem clear, the easier it is for the customer to understand why your offer matters. 2. Make the offer easy to understand A confused customer rarely buys. If your offer takes too long to explain, has too many options, or requires the customer to do too much work to understand the value, visibility can stall. Make the offer clear. What is it? Who is it for? What does it help them do? Why is it different? What happens after they buy? What is the next step? This matters whether you are selling a product, service, program, event, or Live Shopping experience. People should not have to guess why something matters. In Social Commerce, clarity has to happen quickly. A customer may be watching on a small screen, scrolling between videos, or multitasking while a livestream plays in the background. The easier your offer is to understand, the easier it becomes for the customer to stay engaged and take action. 3. Use a hook that earns attention The first few seconds matter. A hook is not just a trendy opening line. It is the reason someone stops long enough to care. A strong hook can speak to a problem, a desire, a surprising truth, a common mistake, a transformation, a product benefit, or a question your audience is already asking. For example, instead of opening a video or live event with, “Today we are going to talk about our new skincare set,” a brand might start with, “If your skincare routine stops working every winter, this is the part most people miss.” The second version gives the viewer a reason to pay attention. In Live Shopping, the hook can happen before the event, at the start of the event, throughout the show, and in the replay. It helps people understand why watching matters now. Attention has to be earned before it can be converted. 4. Use video to answer buying questions One of the best ways to turn attention into sales is to answer the questions customers are already asking before they buy. This could include how a product works, what makes it different, how to use it, who it is best for, what result to expect, how it fits, what problem it solves, or what happens after purchase. The more you can reduce uncertainty, the easier it becomes for the customer to move forward. Video can make explanations feel more personal, more visual, and more trustworthy. It helps customers see and hear the information instead of only reading it. Static content can tell people what a product is. Video can show them how it works, why it matters, and who is behind it. A founder can explain the story behind a product. A team member can demonstrate the details. A stylist can show how something fits. A skincare expert can explain how to use a product correctly. A service provider can answer the question that keeps prospects from moving forward. That does not mean every video needs to be highly produced. In fact, some of the most effective videos are clear, useful, and direct. The goal is not to look perfect. The goal is to help your customer feel more confident. After more than 40,000 hours on live television, I can tell you that connection is rarely created by perfection alone. It is created by preparation, clarity, energy, and the ability to communicate in a way that makes the audience feel considered. Video gives brands a chance to do that at scale. 5. Create a clear call to action Visibility without a next step often leads nowhere. Many brands assume the customer knows what to do next. In my experience, they often do not. A clear call to action does not have to feel aggressive or pushy. It can be as simple as inviting someone to download a guide, book a call, join a waitlist, watch a demo, attend a live event, comment with a keyword, click the product, or shop a featured item. The key is to make the next step specific. Brands I coach are often surprised by how simple their call to action needs to be. They assume the next step is obvious because they are so close to the offer, the product, or the customer journey, but what feels obvious to the brand is not always obvious to the customer. You have to spell it out. Instead of ending content with a vague “learn more,” ask yourself, "What action would actually help move the customer forward? Should they click the product? Should they use the code before it expires? Should they book the call? Should they stay for the next product demonstration?" The easier and clearer you make the next step, the more likely people are to take it. 6. Build a repeatable path from attention to purchase Sales rarely come from one isolated moment. They often come from a series of moments that build awareness, trust, understanding, and confidence. That means brands need more than individual pieces of content. They need a path. Someone may discover you through a social post, watch a video, read an email, attend a live event, download a resource, ask a question, and then buy later. When those moments are connected, the customer journey feels more intentional. This is where Live Shopping, email, video, social media, and website content can work together. Each touchpoint should help the customer understand the brand more clearly and feel more confident taking the next step. For example, a short-form video may capture attention. An email may build context. A product page may provide details. A Live Shopping event may answer questions and create urgency. A replay may continue converting after the live event ends. The goal is not to rely on one piece of content to do all the work. The goal is to build a repeatable path that helps attention become trust and trust become action. 7. Keep attention once you have it Capturing attention is only part of the work. Keeping attention is where many brands lose the sale. This matters especially in Live Shopping because viewers can come and go at any time. Someone may join late, leave early, or watch the replay instead of attending live. A strong Live Shopping show should reset the room regularly, reintroduce the offer, repeat how to shop, revisit key products, answer comments, and give viewers multiple reasons to stay engaged. The same principle applies to social content. A strong opening may stop the scroll, but the content still needs to deliver value quickly and clearly. Attention should be treated with respect. Once someone gives you their time, the job is to make that time feel worthwhile. In Live Shopping, keeping attention does not mean talking faster or adding more products. It means creating structure. It means guiding the viewer. It means knowing when to reset, when to recap, when to demonstrate, when to invite questions, and when to make the offer clear again. Attention is not just something to capture. It is something to serve. How can brands move beyond vanity metrics? Views, likes, followers, and reach can tell you that people are seeing your content, but they do not always tell you whether the right people are moving closer to a decision. That is where many brands get frustrated. The content is going out. The audience may even be growing, but the inquiries, bookings, purchases, or conversions are not moving in the same way. This is why visibility needs to be connected to a clear customer journey. Instead of only asking, “How many people saw this?” brands also need to ask, “Did this help the customer understand, trust, or take the next step?” In Social Commerce and Live Shopping, that distinction matters. Attention may get someone into the room, but the experience still has to move them somewhere. This is also where Live Shopping can create a different kind of sales opportunity than a traditional product page. McKinsey has reported that live commerce can deliver conversion rates up to 10 times higher than conventional e-commerce, while more recent platform benchmarks from LiveMeUp point to live shopping outperforming static product pages by helping brands create more interaction, longer engagement, and clearer buying moments. The brands that win are not simply chasing bigger numbers. They are building a clearer path from visibility to attention, from attention to trust, and from trust to action. Related article: Meta is Putting Live Shopping Back in Focus, Is Your Brand Ready? How to start turning visibility and attention into sales If your brand is showing up online but not seeing the sales, inquiries, or conversions you expected, the issue may not be your visibility. It may be the strategy behind it. That is why I created Live Selling School. Live Selling School helps brands, founders, and e-commerce businesses use Live Social Shopping, video, and on-camera communication to build trust, educate customers, and create a clearer path from attention to action. Going live, posting more content, or getting more views is not enough on its own. The real opportunity is in knowing how to structure the message, guide the customer, present the offer, answer buying questions, and make the next step easy. Through free resources, training videos, guides, clarity calls, and programs like the Live Shopping Launch Lab, Live Selling School gives brands the strategy and support to move beyond visibility and start building live shopping experiences that connect and convert. Start turning visibility and attention into sales. Follow me on Facebook and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Dawn Chubai Dawn Chubai, Live Shopping Strategist After spending more than 40,000 hours live on television and generating over $250 million in sales, Dawn Chubai now helps brands apply the same principles that drive successful live selling to modern ecommerce. As the founder of Live Selling School, she works with businesses to leverage live shopping, video commerce, and audience engagement to compete in the trillion-dollar social commerce economy.

Written by Franziska Ursula Stalder, Holistic Trauma-Informed Coach & Hypnotherapist Franziska Ursula Stalder is a Swiss trauma-informed coach, hypnotherapist and spiritual mentor. Through her practice FeritaS, a holistic wellbeing space near Bern, she guides children, adolescents and adults back to inner connection, safety and clarity using hypnotherapy, mental coaching, systemic constellations and gentle energy-based therapies. We live in the age of knowledge. Never before have we had so much access to knowledge as we do today, through education, books, magazines, media, podcasts, social media, everything is available, anytime. We have heard it all, about the nervous system, about beliefs, about self-love, about inner child work and manifestation. We know we should set boundaries, that we should put ourselves first, that we are allowed to take care of ourselves, that we are enough. Still, we struggle with change in our lives, we keep repeating patterns, even when they don’t serve us well. Why? Because knowledge lives in the mind, change happens through the body. The big question is, "How do we connect mind and body, and thus our entire body intelligence, and get into action, into change and personal growth?" I am Franziska Stalder, Life-Essence Expert and founder of feritas.ch. Healing through Love. I guide people back to their life-essence, to what has been within them since the very beginning, holistically, with hypnotherapy, mental coaching, systemic work, Human Design and essences from nature. Because our body is not just an executive organ for the mind, it is pure intelligence. It regulates everything, breathing, heartbeat, health, without us having to think about it, and it stores what the mind has long forgotten, emotions, imprints, inherited stories. We don’t connect mind and body by thinking even more, we connect them by learning to feel again, with love for ourselves, by lovingly dissolving the separation between the mind and the rest of the body and beginning to perceive, recognize and honour our needs and emotions. I know the other side very well, too, the side of looking away. My strategy of looking away As a child, I often asked myself, "What am I doing here?" I didn’t feel right. Not beautiful. Alone. Not loved. More like a wrong delivery in this world. At school, I was bullied, at 12 years old, I weighed 108 kilos. I tried to fill my inner emptiness with food. As a teenager, I lost 30 kilos. Through discipline and willpower, the outside changed. The inner emptiness remained. Then came the next strategy, being strong. Controlling. Functioning. Carrying. Organizing. Being there for others. My beliefs were, only trust yourself. Keep control, then everything will be fine. I solve problems on my own. On the outside, everything was working, partner, family, job, own home. On the inside, I had become exhausted because my own strategy was draining me. I knew a lot about personal development. Still, I practiced looking away to perfection. Just one more day. Just one more “I’m fine.” Just one more reason not to do it. Until my moment of enough! I cannot go on like this. What really guides us, we have often inherited Then, in a moment when we truly cannot go on anymore, we realize something that changes everything. What guides us, we have often inherited and mistaken for our own truth, our deep emotions, our fear of not belonging, our shame, our conviction that we have to be strong. It was passed down to us over generations, with love and to the best of their knowledge and belief, because back then it was necessary to belong and to be safe. Perhaps a look that made us insecure, a sentence that stuck, “You’ll never make it”, an experience of war, loss, or silence and secrets in the family, a pattern that was once vital for survival. Today, it no longer is. Today, it feels limiting, exhausting, heavy. In my constellation work, I see this every day, with so much heart and respect for every story, a child who plays the class clown because it unconsciously holds a place for another little soul in the system, a woman who cannot trust because trust was dangerous in her family of origin. We carry feelings that are not our own and hold them to be our truth. Why do children find access so quickly? Because they are still closer to their body intelligence, because they still feel. As long as we believe we are this emotion, change is hard. When we realize, I HAVE an emotion, but I AM not it, space opens up, and in this space, healing begins. We start not only to have needs and emotions, but to truly perceive them. We are allowed to let go of the need to perform, with love So many of us live with this quiet drive, I have to perform to be allowed to belong. I have to function to be loved. I have to prove that I am worthy of being here. But do you know what? From the heart, you don’t have to earn your right to exist. You are already loved when you are born. You come into this world as a gift, not as a task that still needs to be solved. With this birth, everything is already within you, self-love. Self-trust. Self-confidence. Self-worth. Life force. Your life-essence. It was never gone. Through experiences, imprints and inherited emotions over generations, perhaps only the access was covered, like a layer of clouds in front of the sun. The sun is always there, we just cannot see it right now, and that is exactly why the Lotus Path at feritas.ch exists. The solution, therefore, is not to become more. It is to regain access. To yourself. To your life-essence. To what has been within you since the very beginning. In self-love. The hole in the vessel and the growing hurdle That is exactly why we don’t get into action. We pour water into a vessel that has a hole, more performance, more validation, more knowledge, another book, another course, another podcast. It feels good for a moment, then it drains out again. We want to break out. We feel, I cannot go on like this. At the last moment, we find a reason not to do it. No time. No money. Not the right moment. Every time we pull back just before the leap, something happens, the hurdle grows bigger. The old gets stronger. We confirm to ourselves. See, I can’t do it after all. The inner pressure has to keep rising until, at some point, it becomes unbearable. Does it really have to be like that? Does it have to get so loud that we can no longer look away? No, from the bottom of my heart, it doesn’t need more pressure, it needs courage and love for yourself. Take courage by the hand, with heart Courage is not a feeling that will come someday, courage is a decision in the now. That is what two people who have deeply shaped me teach us around the world. Tony Robbins says, "Motion creates emotion." You cannot wait until you feel courageous, you have to move. Change your body, your breath, your state, first the movement, then the feeling. Knowledge is not power, implementation is power. Joe Dispenza says, as long as you live with the thoughts and feelings of yesterday, and often of yesterday from generations ago, you create the same tomorrow over and over again. Real change doesn’t happen when you wait for the future, it happens when you start now to feel like the person you want to be, in "being", not only in doing. This new "being" must be anchored in the body as a new emotion. This is exactly where the circle closes to the question, "How do we connect mind and body and get into action?" By stopping to ignore the body. By inviting it again as an intelligent partner. With heart. What happens when we take courage by the hand, or in other words, when our adult self takes our child self by the hand and says, we are going now, with love. Suddenly, the perspective changes. With perspective, perception changes. Things that seemed dark and heavy before suddenly feel different. Not because the outside has become lighter, but because you stand more upright inside. With courage, you take responsibility for yourself, you no longer live as a marionette led by others, you no longer rely on the outside to feel safe, you give yourself safety. You say, I give back what does not belong to me, and I keep what I truly am, out of love for myself. For me, this is embodiment, this is arriving in your life-essence, this is arriving in "being", when mind and body speak to each other again, separation is dissolved, and you finally get into action. Arriving at yourself and arriving in "being" At feritas.ch, Healing through Love, everything begins with a sentence that comes from the heart, everything you need is already within you. You are enough. Your life-essence was never gone, only the access is covered or interrupted. My Lotus Path guides you exactly there, in five steps that you can take in your own order, always with heart: Self-love: Feeling yourself again. Meeting yourself with kindness. With heart. Life force: Arriving in calm. Regulating your nervous system. Breathing. Growth: Lovingly giving back old patterns and inherited stories. Orientation: Finding clarity. What do I no longer want? What do I truly want, from the heart? Embodiment: Not only understanding the new, but anchoring it in the body as a new emotion and living it. You don’t need to know what the whole path looks like. You may simply say, I don’t want to continue like this. That is enough. From the heart. Your small heart moment today, your first step From the heart, I invite you to a small moment with yourself, 30 seconds that reconnect mind and body. Place one hand on your heart, one on your belly. Breathe in and out deeply. Feel, "What is truly there right now, without judging it?" Then take a sheet of paper and honestly answer two questions from your heart: What is enough? What do I no longer want in my life? What no longer feels good, even if I may give it back with love? What do I want? How do I nourish myself? What feels good, from the heart? Make it small, make it real, make it today, with heart. It’s never too late to feel yourself anew, never too early to find yourself again. Dare to take the first step. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info. Read more from Franziska Ursula Stalder Franziska Ursula Stalder, Holistic Trauma-Informed Coach & Hypnotherapist Franziska Stalder is a trauma-informed coach, hypnotherapist and spiritual mentor from Switzerland. As the founder of FeritaS, a practice for holistic wellbeing near Bern, she supports children, adolescents and adults who feel overwhelmed, disconnected or shaped by early stress and trauma. After years of working with families and deep training in hypnotherapy, mental coaching and systemic work, she developed a gentle yet powerful way to guide people back to inner safety, self-trust and clarity. She believes that every person already carries the key to their own development and helps activate the inner resources needed for their true potential to unfold. Her mission is healing through love and reconnection.

Written by Helene Christensen, Leadership Advisor & Speaker Helene Christensen helps leaders make clear, grounded decisions and lead with inhabited authority. She advises and speaks at the intersection of marketing, storytelling, creative leadership, and lived human insight, helping leaders navigate change with integrity and dignity. Most leaders navigating their teams through real uncertainty reach for certainty itself, and that is exactly what makes things worse. The better tool is less obvious, closer than you think, and makes all the difference. She had taken her family to Southeast Asia for a month. Thailand, Vietnam, one of those trips you plan for two years and then wonder if you will ever actually take. A senior leader at a mid-sized company, in a role where stepping away for that long takes real negotiation, with your calendar, your team, and with yourself. She knew a restructuring was coming before she left. She had been part of the conversations. But she had been told it would be managed, that things would be in a holding pattern until she returned. They were not. By the time she landed back in Copenhagen, the announcement had gone out, the strategy had shifted, and her team, confused, anxious, and braced for more, was waiting for her. Her first meeting back was in forty-five minutes. She called me from the car park. "What do I say to them?" she asked. "I haven't even had time to understand it myself." I have heard some version of this question more times than I can count. Sometimes it arrives as a late-night message, sometimes as a request for a call, or it is often asked at the end of a talk. But the question is fundamentally always the same, everyone is looking to you, and you don't have the answer yet. The instinct that makes it worse The first thing most leaders do in this situation is try to sound very certain. They work on the message. They rehearse reassuring phrases and repeat them until they are blue in the face. They prepare answers to questions they don't actually know the answers to, and somewhere in the preparation, deep down, they know it is not quite right. But they find a way to convince themselves that this is what people need. That confidence is the thing that will hold the room together. That if they can just sound settled enough, the team will follow. So they walk in and say things like, "We've got this," and, "It's all going to be fine." I understand the impulse. When people are anxious, they look to whoever is at the front of the room. Most leaders believe the thing they need to offer in that moment is composure, control, and a sense that someone has mapped the terrain. But here is what that misses, people are not following your certainty. They are following whether they can trust you. Trust doesn't come from sounding confident. It comes from sounding like yourself. The difficulty is that most of us have spent years, sometimes decades, learning to shape ourselves around what the role requires, what gets rewarded, and what a leader at this level is supposed to sound like. Somewhere in that shaping, the part of you that knows what is actually true for you gets crowded out. You keep moving. You keep delivering. But you are operating at a distance from yourself, and people can feel it even when they cannot name it. Here is the irony, the more you adapt to what the role seems to demand, the more vague you become as a leader. You stop being someone people can read. You become a performance of a leader rather than an actual one. So when the moment comes where you most need to be trusted, you reach for yourself, and it takes a second to find. Getting back to who you actually are, and what you actually believe, is not a soft project. It is precisely what makes people start to trust you. What pretending to be certain actually costs you I once sat in a room when a company I worked for was acquired. Everyone was called in on a random Tuesday morning. Coffee was sipped a little faster than usual. Glances were exchanged across the table. Then our CEO walked in, a fixed smile on his face, and said repeatedly that this was going to be so good. It was obvious to everyone in the room that he was just as unsettled as the rest of us. It didn't create calm. It made everything feel worse because something was being held back, and the whole room could feel the effort it was taking to hold it back. When people can sense that what you are saying and what you are actually experiencing are two different things, they stop trusting the message and start wondering what else they are not being told. The questions they were going to ask go unasked. The concerns they were carrying get carried home. The room closes. The cost of pretending to be certain is not just your credibility in that moment. It is everything that doesn't get said, the conversations that would have helped, the clarity that could have come from honesty, and the relief that someone actually being straight with them would have brought. The three things you can always say When you are standing in front of your team without the full picture, there are three things that are always available to you. They require honesty, and nothing else. What you actually know: Even in the most uncertain situations, something is solid. Find it and name it, "What I know for certain is this." A partial truth stated directly is worth more than a complete story that no one believes. What you don't know yet: This is the part most leaders skip. They fill the space with vague optimism or careful phrasing that means nothing. But naming what you don't know is not weakness. It is the clearest possible indication that you are being straight with them. "I don't have the full picture yet, and I'm not going to pretend I do" is a complete sentence. In most rooms, it lands like a window opening. What you stand for: Not the strategy, not the plan, but what you actually believe. What drives your decisions when things get hard. What this team has built together that no restructuring can take away. People don't follow plans. They follow people who seem to know who they are. This is what creates the kind of calm that cannot be manufactured, because it gives people something real to orient around. Why this is harder than it sounds and what the inner work of leadership actually is Most people are not fundamentally broken. They are over-adapted. They have spent years shaping themselves around what the role requires, what gets rewarded, and what a leader at this level is supposed to look and sound like. In that process, they have gradually lost touch with what they actually think, what they actually feel, and what they would say if no one were evaluating them. The work of knowing what you stand for is not about inventing something new. It is about recovering something that was always there, and doing it honestly enough that it shows. That recovery takes time that most organisations never make space for, which is exactly why so many leaders find themselves in a car park at forty-four minutes' notice, asking what on earth they are supposed to say. This is what I think of as the inner work of leadership. It is the unglamorous, necessary work of knowing yourself well enough that your decisions under pressure, the ones you make when leading through uncertainty and organisational change, when the strategy is unclear and people are anxious, come from somewhere real. A settled place inside you, rather than from the performance of certainty you are hoping will hold things together. At its core, this work is deeply existential. It asks you to spend not just your career, but your life, getting to know more intimately who you actually are, what you genuinely believe in, what you want to attach your name to, and what you are willing to stand for when it would be easier not to. These are not questions that get asked in most leadership development programmes. We talk a great deal about posture and presence, about communication training and stakeholder management, about how to run better meetings and give cleaner feedback. We do not talk nearly enough about this, which I think is a genuine loss. Because this is, in my experience, one of the most interesting and most beautiful aspects of growing as a human being, and also as a professional. The idea that your work is not separate from the project of knowing yourself. That the two are, in fact, the same project. Leadership, at its best, is someone going first. Taking on the responsibility of the group. Putting themselves on the line, not just professionally but as a human being, in service of something larger than their own comfort or reputation. That requires depth. It requires a relationship with yourself that is honest enough to be useful under pressure. A leader who has done this work can bring about real change. They can ask people to do hard things and be believed. They can hold a room through genuine uncertainty, not because they have all the answers, but because people can feel that they know who they are. That, it turns out, is what people actually follow. Not key performance indicators (KPIs). Not polished strategy decks. A person who is clearly, unmistakably themselves. It is the foundation of the Inner Authority™ Method, the structured process I have built around exactly this kind of recovery. I have watched leaders who were technically excellent fall apart in moments of real uncertainty because they had never figured out what they actually believed. I have watched leaders with far less experience hold a team steady through something genuinely hard because their team knew exactly who they were, and that knowledge was load-bearing. It held the weight of the moment. The leaders who get through the hard moments with their teams intact are almost always the ones who have done some version of this work. Enough to know what they stand on when the ground shifts. What she said in that meeting Back to the car park. She was still in her jacket from the airport. Her suitcase was in the boot. She had forty minutes and a team that needed something from her she wasn't sure she had. We talked for ten minutes, not about the restructuring, but about what she actually believed. What she had seen this team do under pressure. What she was genuinely uncertain about and why. What she knew was still true, regardless of what had changed. She went into the meeting and said almost exactly that. She told them what she knew, what she didn't, what she stood for, what she believed they were capable of, and that she was going to work through this with them, alongside them, not ahead of them. It wasn't a polished speech. It wasn't designed to reassure anyone. It was honest, and honest turned out to be enough. After the meeting, one of her team members stopped her in the corridor. "That was the most useful thing anyone has said to us all week," she told her. "Because it was actually true." The question worth sitting with Before your next difficult conversation, the all-hands, the one-on-one, or the announcement you haven't figured out how to frame yet, spend ten minutes not on the message, but on these questions: What do I actually know to be true right now? What am I genuinely uncertain about, and can I say so? What do I stand for, and does my team know that, regardless of what changes around us? Those answers are the most useful thing you will bring into that room. They give your team something real to hold onto when everything else is in motion. There is this, when you are present in a room as yourself, when what you say and what you feel and what you believe are all pointing in the same direction, people feel it. It is not a technique. It is the simple, unmistakable experience of being in the presence of someone who is actually there, fully and honestly there. That is what makes a room feel safe enough to be honest in. An honest room is the most useful thing you can build as a leader, especially when no one quite knows what comes next. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn and visit my website for more info! Read more from Helene Christensen Helene Christensen, Leadership Advisor & Speaker Helene Christensen is an advisor and speaker working with leaders navigating change, uncertainty, and high-stakes decisions. She is the creator of The Inner Authority™ Method, a framework that helps leaders develop embodied authority and make grounded decisions without relying on performance or persuasion. Her work combines strategic expertise in storytelling and creative leadership with lived human insights shaped by major professional and personal transitions. She has worked with leaders and organizations across Europe and the United States. Her writing explores leadership, dignity, and what gives work meaning - including how leaders can regain direction, energy, and a sense of purpose when leadership begins to feel empty or misaligned.

Written by Andra Annette, Founder and Gut Health Expert Andra Annette is an international best-selling author, healthcare expert, and founder of Pounds-to-Go. With 40 years of experience as a nurse, nutritionist, and holistic practitioner, she is a trusted gut health expert specializing in the gut-thyroid connection and weight loss. When the body is under prolonged stress, weight resistance may be about more than calories or willpower. Understanding the connection between stress physiology, metabolic signaling, and a sense of safety can change the way we approach sustainable weight loss. When weight resistance is a physiological response, not a willpower problem If you've been struggling to lose weight despite eating well, exercising consistently, and following all the advice you've been given, you may have started to wonder if your body is working against you. For many people, especially after 50, weight loss begins to feel like an uphill battle. The strategies that once worked no longer seem effective. The harder they try, the more frustrated they become. What if the problem isn't a lack of discipline? What if your body isn't resisting weight loss at all? What if it's responding exactly as it was designed to? The body's first priority is survival The human body is remarkably intelligent. Long before it focuses on burning fat, building muscle, or improving appearance, it focuses on one thing, survival. Every day, your body receives thousands of signals from your environment, your thoughts, your digestion, your sleep patterns, and your stress levels. Based on those signals, it constantly asks one question, "Am I safe?" When the answer is yes, the body can devote energy to repair, recovery, hormone balance, and efficient metabolism. When the answer is no, the body shifts into protection mode. That shift changes everything. What happens when the body doesn't feel safe Most people think of stress as being overwhelmed by work, finances, or family responsibilities, but the body experiences stress in many forms. Stress can come from chronic inflammation, poor digestion, blood sugar imbalances, sleep disruption, nutrient deficiencies, emotional trauma, ongoing worry and anxiety, excessive dieting, and overexercising. To the body, stress is stress. When these signals persist, the nervous system begins prioritizing survival over optimization. As a result, the body may hold onto fat stores, slow metabolic processes, increase fatigue, trigger cravings, disrupt hormone balance, and make weight loss significantly more difficult. This is not a failure of willpower. It is a biological adaptation. The nervous system's hidden role in weight loss One of the most overlooked aspects of health is the role of the nervous system. When the body perceives ongoing stress, it activates protective mechanisms designed to keep us alive. These responses were incredibly helpful when our ancestors faced immediate physical threats. The challenge is that today's threats are often chronic. The body may respond to financial pressure, unresolved emotional stress, poor sleep, digestive dysfunction, or chronic inflammation in much the same way it would respond to danger. The result is a system that remains on high alert. When the nervous system is stuck in protection mode, fat loss often becomes a lower priority. The body becomes focused on conserving resources rather than releasing them. Why restrictive dieting often backfires Many people respond to weight gain by becoming more restrictive. They cut calories, eliminate food groups, and push harder in the gym. Yet the body may interpret these actions as additional stress. Instead of creating safety, these approaches can reinforce the very signals that keep the body in protection mode. This is one reason why short-term diets often produce temporary results while failing to create lasting change. The body is not simply responding to calories. It is responding to the environment we create internally. The gut, thyroid, and metabolism connection Over the years, I have seen a consistent pattern among individuals struggling with stubborn weight gain. Rarely is the issue isolated to one system. Digestive health affects nutrient absorption, nutrient absorption influences thyroid function, thyroid function impacts metabolism, and stress affects all of them. When one system becomes overwhelmed, the effects ripple throughout the body. This is why symptoms such as fatigue, bloating, weight gain, brain fog, and hormonal imbalance often appear together. The body operates as an interconnected network, not as separate parts working independently. Creating the conditions for change Many people spend years trying to force their bodies to lose weight, but sustainable health begins when we shift our focus. Instead of asking, "How can I lose weight?" we can begin asking, "How can I help my body feel safe enough to function optimally?" That shift changes everything. Creating safety may involve supporting digestion, improving sleep quality, managing stress more effectively, nourishing the body consistently, reducing chronic inflammation, and addressing underlying imbalances. These are not quick fixes. They are foundational signals that tell the body it no longer needs to remain in protection mode. Final thoughts One of the greatest misconceptions in health is the belief that the body is working against us. In reality, the body is constantly working for us. Even symptoms that feel frustrating often represent an attempt to adapt, protect, and survive. The body is always communicating. When we learn to listen, we begin to understand that weight loss is not simply about eating less and moving more. It is about creating an internal environment where the body feels safe enough to let go. Lasting health doesn't come from fighting the body. It comes from working with it. That is where true healing begins. If this resonates with you, feel free to connect. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Andra Annette Andra Annette, Founder and Gut Health Expert Andra Annette is a world-renowned healthcare expert and award-winning wellness authority. Recognized as a worldwide leader in Healthcare (2017) and a top nurse in the Bronx by INA, Andra Annette blends nearly 40 years of experience with a personal journey of overcoming leaky gut, thyroid issues, and weight struggles. Her groundbreaking work earned her the Outstanding Female Wellness Expert Award by Every Woman TV Global (2024). Holistic Practitioner and Author of the Year (2025), IAOTP, CREA Award Brainz (2025), Top 50 Fearless Leaders, IAOTP (2026), Top 26 Women Leaders to Look Out For 2026, Passion Vista (2026). As the founder of Pounds-to-Go, host of the TV show Healing from the Inside Out, and author of the published Rainbow of Wellness series, she empowers individuals to love their bodies and live vibrantly. Her mission is to clear the confusion in health and be part of the cure, not the chaos.