Written by Dr. Greg Schreeuwer, Human Behaviour and Health Expert Dr Greg Schreeuwer is a Human Behaviour and Health Pattern Specialist, speaker, and Integrative & Functional Chiropractor with over 20 years of experience. His work explores how unconscious patterns shape health, performance, decision-making, and personal growth, helping people create lasting change by addressing causes rather than symptoms. I’ve spent more than twenty years asking one question, "Why do intelligent, capable people continue recreating experiences they consciously want to avoid?" The answer has gradually changed the way I understand health, human behaviour, and what it truly takes to create lasting change. How unconscious lessons shape your choices and future There is a question that has quietly followed me for much of my adult life, Why do people keep finding themselves in the same situations, even when they genuinely want something different? I first began asking that question more than twenty years ago while trying to better understand myself. As I reflected on my own life, I noticed recurring challenges that couldn’t be explained by a lack of motivation or effort. I wanted different outcomes, yet I found myself thinking, responding, and making decisions in ways that often felt automatic. The more I studied human behaviour, the more fascinated I became by the same question in the people around me. Why do some people repeatedly end up in unhealthy relationships? Why do others continually burn out? Why do some struggle with persistent health challenges despite doing everything they believe they should? Why do intelligent, capable people continue recreating experiences they consciously want to avoid? Over more than 20 years in practice and through conversations with over 30,000 patients, I’ve come to believe the answer begins somewhere most of us rarely think to look. Not in our behaviour, not in our habits, and not even in our goals. It begins with what our experiences have taught us. Every experience teaches us something From the moment we’re born, we’re learning. We’re learning what love looks like, whether it’s safe to speak up, how conflict is handled, what success means, whether we’re enough, how relationships work, what earns acceptance, and what leads to rejection. Every experience teaches the brain something. Some lessons are helpful and continue serving us throughout our lives. Others help us adapt to circumstances that no longer exist. The challenge is that the brain doesn’t automatically update those lessons simply because our environment changes. Unless we become aware of them, they continue influencing the way we think, respond, and make decisions without us even realising it. Over time, what we’ve learned becomes so familiar that we stop recognising it as learning. We simply experience it as reality. Why we keep recreating the same experiences One of the most consistent observations I’ve made throughout my career is that people often recreate experiences they consciously wanted to avoid. This is not because they want to suffer or because they’re making poor decisions, but because the brain continues responding according to what it has learned. I recently saw a patient who grew up in a household where men held the power. Whenever she challenged her father, she was met with anger or severe punishment. Without anyone needing to explain it, her brain learned something. Speaking up wasn’t safe, and keeping quiet protected the relationship. Years later, she promised herself she would never marry someone like her father. Initially, she believed she hadn’t. He was charming, successful, and confident, everything her father appeared not to be. Over time, however, the relationship slowly began to reflect many of the same dynamics she had experienced growing up. When we explored her story together, something interesting emerged. She remembered noticing warning signs very early, including comments that didn’t sit well, behaviours that made her uncomfortable, and interactions that didn’t feel right. She sensed them, but she overrode them. Her conscious mind had plenty of logical reasons to continue. Looking back, she realised those signals had been there from the beginning. For me, this wasn’t surprising. It reinforced something I had been observing for years. People often don’t recreate the same experiences because they consciously choose them. They recreate them because the brain continues to respond based on what it has learned, adapted to, and accepted as normal. The unconscious lessons we live by One of the biggest mistakes I think we make is trying to change our future without first understanding what our brain has already learned from our past. We change jobs, relationships, careers, cities, routines, and sometimes even countries. Yet many people continue experiencing remarkably similar outcomes, not because they aren’t trying hard enough, but because the unconscious lessons driving many of their decisions remain unchanged. If the learning doesn’t change, there’s a good chance the future won’t either. Awareness changes what becomes possible One of my favourite moments in practice has very little to do with symptoms improving. It happens when someone pauses and says, “I’ve never thought about it like that before.” For me, that’s the beginning of meaningful change. Not because they’ve learned something new, but because they’ve become aware of something that has been quietly influencing them all along. I see awareness as bringing something unconscious into conscious awareness. It’s recognising the hidden order that already exists. It’s seeing what was always there but had remained outside conscious awareness. When awareness changes, something remarkable happens. New choices become available, not because the world has changed, but because we’ve started seeing more of what’s already there. A different way forward I don’t believe lasting change begins with trying harder. I believe it begins with understanding. Understanding what your brain has learned, why those lessons once made sense, and how they continue to shape the way you experience yourself, other people, and the world around you. Once those unconscious patterns become conscious, they no longer automatically direct your future. You begin responding with greater awareness rather than simply reacting from old learning. That’s where choice begins, and I believe that’s where meaningful change begins too. Perhaps the future you’ve been searching for isn’t waiting for you to become someone different. Perhaps it’s waiting for you to become aware of what has quietly been shaping your life all along, because once you can see it, you’re no longer bound to keep repeating it. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Dr. Greg Schreeuwer Dr. Greg Schreeuwer, Human Behaviour and Health Expert Dr Greg Schreeuwer is a Human Behaviour and Health Pattern Specialist with over 20 years of experience helping people create lasting change. After facing years of bullying as a child, he became fascinated by the forces that shape human behaviour, confidence, and self-expression. That journey inspired a career dedicated to helping people break free from limiting patterns, trust their own voice, and live more authentically. Drawing on expertise in health, behaviour, and personal development, Greg writes and speaks about the hidden patterns that influence our lives and how greater awareness creates greater freedom.

Tara Christine Roe is a Relationship Recovery Advisor, author, and digital entrepreneur who helps people break recurring emotional patterns and rebuild their lives around stronger boundaries, self-trust, and personal authority. Drawing on her own recovery from destructive relationship cycles, she views transformation not as becoming someone new, but as letting go of the identities, expectations, and attachments that no longer fit. In this interview, Tara explores why achievement does not always lead to freedom, how minimalism and intentional living can support emotional recovery, and what it takes to stop people pleasing and create a life on your own terms. Tara Christine Roe, Author & Self-Mastery Mentor Your work invites people to question the life they have built, so what first inspired you to help others pursue a more authentic path? What first inspired me was naturally connecting with others on relatable subjects and deeply impacting them as I healed from the exhausting, devastating weight of my own self-destruction. For decades, I juggled two opposite, yet equally toxic, cyclical relationship dynamics – unhealthy loops where I was either the narcissist only concerned with my needs, wants, and feelings or constantly compromising my own boundaries and identity to keep the peace or prove myself. Gaining a keen awareness upon reclaiming my personal authority after those experiences revealed just how many others are suffocating in silence, trapped in relationships and routines that drain their life force. I stepped into my role as a Relationship Recovery Advisor because I know exactly how hard it is to survive the spiraling cycles we subconsciously perpetuate. It’s now my civic duty to hand others the exact blueprint for their own transformational journey and ultimate freedom. With focus and intentionality, it will drastically improve their entire life. You describe transformation as an act of unbecoming rather than becoming, so what does that shift change for the people you advise? We are hardwired to believe that personal growth means adding more layers – more achievements, more relationship milestones, more compromises. But when individuals come to me seeking clear guidance, they don't need more. They are already carrying the immense weight of emotional baggage, societal conditioning and everyone else's expectations. Unbecoming completely shifts the paradigm. It is a radical reset. Instead of trying to build a better version on a broken foundation, we strip it all away. Intentionally disposing of the limiting beliefs, the material anchors and the toxic relationship patterns that were never truly theirs to begin with. For my clients, this shift is profoundly liberating. It moves them from a state of exhaustion – constantly trying to "fix" a dynamic or "become" what a partner needs – to a state of raw authenticity. By letting go of who they were told to be, they uncover the undeniable authority that has always existed beneath the surface. Transformation isn’t about changing into someone new; it is the courageous act of excavating who you were before the world brainwashed you to shrink. You combine relationship rescue with digital entrepreneurship and intentional living, so why do those three elements belong together? True freedom is multi-dimensional. You cannot claim personal authority in your relationships if you are entirely dependent on systems, locations or people that do not serve your highest good. Relationship rescue, with yourself first and foremost, is the internal foundation – it dictates your energetic alignment and whole health. Internal freedom requires a physical and financial vessel. That is where digital entrepreneurship and intentional living come in. By leveraging digital platforms to build an independent, impact-driven business, you create a self-sustaining ecosystem that answers to no one but you. When you combine this with intentional living – whether that means radical minimalism or choosing to redesign your environment – you eliminate the static. You aren't just healing from past relationship trauma; you are actively designing a life that naturally protects your peace. These three elements are the ultimate trifecta for reclaiming personal power. Mastering the process through my exclusive 12-week Relationship Rescue framework protects your mind and heart, digital entrepreneurship secures your financial autonomy and intentional living dictates how and where you spend your finite energy, nurturing your soul. Visit my website for more on my 12-week program. Why do you think so many people mistake achievement for freedom, especially in midlife? By the time we reach our forties, we have usually followed the exact blueprint handed to us: build a career, accumulate possessions, secure the relationship, maintain the image, etc. We are taught that these achievements are the down payment on our freedom. But what happens when you cross those finish lines and still feel entirely trapped? Usually even more so. In midlife, especially for those navigating the painful reality of cyclical, draining relationships or a deeply jarring identity crisis, the illusion shatters. We realize that we traded our authenticity for a meaningless checklist. Achievement is external validation; it requires an audience. Freedom is internal alignment; it requires presence and absolute honesty with yourself. People mistake the two because our culture celebrates the accumulation of things – titles, properties, stuff – as success. But maintaining those things, especially if they are misaligned, costs us our life force. True freedom is the exact opposite of traditional achievement. It looks like the courage to walk away, downsize, start saying no and finally begin prioritizing how your life feels over how your life looks. Slow living and radical minimalism are becoming more popular, but where do you think people often misunderstand what they really involve? The biggest misconception about radical minimalism and slow living is that they are purely aesthetic choices – that it’s supposed to look and be a certain way. In reality, it is a visceral, sometimes painful process of intentional awareness and disposal, problem solving, critical thinking and learning to trust your own instincts fully. It looks different for everyone. When I guide clients through this, especially those healing from difficult relationship dynamics, the physical clutter is almost always a manifestation of emotional hoarding. We hold onto objects to feel in control or because of what they represent or remind us of. Radical minimalism isn’t just throwing away excess; it’s severing the attachment to an illusion. It is the practice of stripping your environment so bare that you are forced to sit with yourself, without distractions. Slow living isn’t about laziness; it’s about intentionally being present enough to recognize your own behavioral patterns and the universal laws of energy at play. It requires a fierce commitment to emotional detachment from material anchors, past narratives and present expectations, which is deeply uncomfortable work before it becomes incredibly freeing. For someone who feels trapped by people pleasing or outside expectations, what is one practical place to begin? The most practical, yet radical, place to begin is by implementing a 12 to 24-hour pause on every single demand made of your time and energy. If it’s an immediate request, allow yourself thirty minutes. When you are trapped in the cycle of people-pleasing – which is essentially a trauma response to gain acceptance and avoid conflict – your default reaction is immediate compliance. To break this, you must insert space between the request and your response. On a deeper level, you have to recognize the Law of Correspondence: your external reality is mirroring your internal environment. If you are surrounding yourself with people who cross your boundaries and drain you, it is because you have not established internal authority. Start by observing your resentment. Resentment is your intuition's way of showing you exactly where a boundary needs to be drawn. In my relationship rescue framework, we focus heavily on emotional detachment. Practice detaching from the immediate need to manage someone else's behavior and emotional state. Let them be angry or disappointed. Let them react however they choose. Your job is not to regulate other adults, they are ultimately none of your business; your only job is to fiercely protect your own peace. Living full time out of a van with your dog, Bear, is part of your own story, so what has that lifestyle taught you about freedom that you could not have learned any other way? Living on the road has been the ultimate masterclass in stripping away the unnecessary. When your entire world is confined to a mobile living space, you simply do not have the physical or mental room for dead weight – whether an unneeded object, a toxic thought pattern or the energetic residue of past mistakes. It forces a beautiful, long overdue, ruthless prioritization. Traveling with Bear has grounded me in the present moment. Animals don't ruminate on past dramas or worry about digital marketing strategies; they just exist, wholly and fully. Van life has taught me that freedom is intrinsically linked to mobility and non-attachment. If an environment feels heavy, I literally turn the key and drive away. That’s my sign. It is the physical manifestation of what I teach my clients to do emotionally. I learned that security isn't found in a permanent foundation or traditional lifestyle; it’s found in trusting yourself to navigate the unknown of a full, adventurous life. It solidified my belief that ultimate freedom is the ability to change your coordinates – geographically and emotionally – at a moment's notice. After everything you have lived through and written about, what does mastering relationship recovery mean to you today? It truly is the difference between life and death. When I wrote "Surviving Me: A Hard Journey to Ultimate Freedom from Self-Destruction", I was reliving and processing the sheer gravity of what it takes to stop being your own worst enemy. Today, mastering myself and my relationships through recovery means possessing an unwavering, unshakeable authority over my own energetic state. It means I no longer look outside myself for rescue, validation or closure. For a long time, especially navigating single parenthood and the aftermath of deeply draining relationship cycles, I believed that if I could just fix the external circumstances, I would feel at peace. My self-mastery transformation flipped that entirely. It is the realization that I am the sole creator of my reality. I get to choose the way I experience everything. It is the discipline to observe my triggers without letting them dictate my actions and the strength to enforce boundaries when I’m feeling the pressure. It means understanding the laws of polarity and knowing that every moment of darkness I survived was building the capacity for the immense light I hold now. It is, simply put, the ultimate reclamation of my authentic self. If readers could walk away with one belief that helps them build a life on their own terms, what would you hope it is? I want them to know, with absolute certainty, that they are not required to maintain a life, a relationship or an identity that they have outgrown. You have the ultimate authority to walk away from any cycle, dynamic or material anchor that drains your life force, no matter how much time or energy you have already invested in it. So many people stay in toxic relationships or suffocating circumstances because they don’t trust themselves and fear the discomfort of starting over. But the pain of staying in a situation that is slowly destroying your spirit is infinitely worse than the temporary pain of unbecoming. You are allowed, encouraged even, to initiate a radical reset. Allow yourself to be the perceived villain in someone else's story since it means becoming the hero of your own. Your freedom is waiting for you on the other side of your own self-imposed limitations. Trust your intuition, refuse to negotiate your peace and remember that building a life on your own terms starts the exact moment you decide you, and those around you, deserve better. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Tara Christine Roe

Written by Tonia Kisliakov, CEO/ Director of Gateway Travel We connect travellers with trusted destination specialists and DMCs to create tailored travel experiences designed with intention, pace, and wellbeing in mind. In today’s crowded digital world, people are surrounded by endless promotions, advertisements, and sales messages. Yet, when it comes to travel, people are not simply buying a product, they are trusting someone with their dreams, their time, and their life experiences. For more than five decades, Gateway Travel has understood that successful travel connections are built on trust, authenticity, and genuine relationships. Established in 1972, Gateway Travel has evolved from a traditional travel business into a global travel connection platform, helping travellers discover meaningful experiences through trusted destination specialists around the world. The approach is simple. Attract people through inspiration, knowledge and value, not through constant selling. This is the foundation of organic attraction marketing. Creating connection before conversion Organic attraction marketing is about creating a presence that naturally draws people towards your brand. It is about sharing stories, experiences and insights that make people want to learn more. In travel, this is especially powerful because destinations are not just places on a map. They represent emotions, memories, adventures and personal milestones. A beautiful image of a hidden European village, a story about a local culture, or a glimpse into an authentic experience can inspire curiosity and create an emotional connection long before someone makes an inquiry. At Gateway Travel, content is created to inspire discovery and open the door to conversations. The goal is not to simply promote travel offers. The goal is to help people imagine what is possible. The power of authentic storytelling People connect with people. In an age where many brands compete for attention, authenticity has become one of the strongest ways to stand out. Travellers want confidence that there is a real person behind the brand who understands their needs and values their journey. Sharing knowledge, personal experiences and destination inspiration helps build credibility over time. Every story shared becomes an opportunity to create awareness, build trust and remind people that travel is about much more than transportation and accommodation. It is about experiences that stay with us for a lifetime. From selling travel to creating travel inspiration Building relationships through value: Traditional marketing often focuses on reaching people with a sales message. Organic attraction marketing takes a different approach. It focuses on creating value first. When businesses consistently share useful information, inspiration, and authentic stories, they become a trusted source people remember when they are ready to make a decision. For Gateway Travel, this means showcasing the world beyond the usual highlights, sharing hidden gems, cultural experiences, local connections and destinations that encourage travellers to look deeper. Travel decisions are personal. Every traveller has different dreams, interests and expectations. By providing inspiration and insights, we help people begin imagining their own journey. The relationship starts before the inquiry. Becoming a trusted voice in travel: A strong brand is not built overnight. It is built through consistency. Every article, video, social media post and destination story contributes to how people see a business. Over time, these moments create recognition and trust. At Gateway Travel, the focus is on sharing the passion behind travel, the history, culture, landscapes, people and experiences that make each destination unique. This approach allows travellers to connect with the brand naturally. They are not simply seeing an advertisement. They are discovering ideas, learning about possibilities and becoming inspired. The human side of travel: Technology has transformed the way people research and plan travel, but the human element remains essential. Travellers still value guidance, experience, and someone who understands the importance of getting the details right. Gateway Travel connects travellers to trusted destination specialists with 24/7 global support, creating a network designed around expertise and personalised experiences. Organic attraction marketing supports this by allowing people to discover the brand, understand its values and build confidence before they ever make contact. Trust is the foundation: The strongest businesses are built on relationships, not transactions. When people feel connected to a brand and trust the people behind it, the conversation becomes more meaningful. Instead of chasing customers, businesses can create an environment where the right people are naturally attracted. For Gateway Travel, organic attraction marketing is about sharing a genuine passion for the world and helping travellers discover journeys that become lifelong memories. Creating a global travel community through inspiration and connection Beyond destinations – Creating a sense of belonging: Travel has always been about connection. It connects people with new cultures, different perspectives, local traditions and unforgettable experiences. In the same way, a travel brand has the opportunity to create connections long before a traveller books a journey. Through organic attraction marketing, businesses can build communities around shared interests and passions. At Gateway Travel, the focus is on bringing the world closer by sharing destination inspiration, cultural discoveries and stories that encourage people to explore beyond the familiar. Sharing the world through digital storytelling: Today, travellers often begin their journey online. They may discover a destination through a photograph, a video, an article or a personal recommendation. This creates an opportunity for travel businesses to inspire people in meaningful ways. By sharing authentic destination content, Gateway Travel helps travellers discover possibilities they may never have considered, from hidden European towns and historic landmarks to unique Australian experiences and worldwide adventures. Each story creates curiosity. Each destination creates a conversation. Each connection has the potential to become a future journey. Building trust across borders: Travel is a global industry, but trust remains personal. Working with trusted destination specialists around the world allows Gateway Travel to connect travellers with local knowledge and expertise. These relationships help create experiences that are more authentic, personalised and memorable. The modern traveller is looking for more than a standard holiday. They want confidence, support and the feeling that someone understands what they are looking for. That is why building trust before the booking stage is so important. Consistency creates recognition: Organic attraction marketing is not about a single post or one moment of attention. It is about consistently sharing meaningful content that reflects the values of a brand. Over time, people begin to recognise the message, the personality and the purpose behind the business. For Gateway Travel, every destination story, travel insight and shared experience reinforces the same belief. Travel is not just about where you go. It is about what you experience, who you meet and the memories you create along the way. The future of travel marketing: The future belongs to brands that can combine technology with authenticity. Digital platforms provide incredible opportunities to reach people worldwide, but genuine human connection remains the foundation of trust. Organic attraction marketing allows businesses to communicate their story, demonstrate their expertise, and build relationships naturally. At Gateway Travel, the journey begins long before departure. It begins with inspiration. Gateway Travel — Your Journey. Real Experiences. The Gateway Travel Philosophy: Connecting people with the world Travel is about experiences, not just places: Every destination has a story. Behind every landmark, coastline, village, city and cultural tradition are the people and experiences that make a place memorable. At Gateway Travel, the belief has always been that travel should be meaningful. It should create connections, inspire curiosity and leave travellers with memories that last long after they return home. This philosophy has guided Gateway Travel since 1972, helping travellers discover the world through trusted knowledge, personalised service and authentic experiences. Bringing people and destinations together: The role of a modern travel business is no longer simply to provide information. Travellers today have access to more information than ever before. The true value comes from understanding what matters to each traveller and connecting them with the right expertise. Gateway Travel connects travellers to trusted destination specialists with 24/7 global support, helping create journeys that are tailored around individual interests and expectations. Whether discovering a historic European town, exploring Australia’s natural beauty, experiencing another culture or planning a special journey, the focus remains on creating real experiences. The importance of human connection While technology continues to change the way people discover and research travel, relationships remain at the heart of the industry. People still appreciate guidance from someone who understands their needs, listens to their ideas and helps turn dreams into achievable journeys. Organic attraction marketing supports this philosophy by allowing people to discover a brand through its values, knowledge and stories. Trust develops naturally when people see consistency, passion and genuine care. Sharing a passion for discovery A destination is more than a location. It is the taste of local cuisine, the conversations with people along the way, the history behind ancient streets, the beauty of landscapes and the unexpected moments that become treasured memories. By sharing these stories, Gateway Travel inspires travellers to look beyond the ordinary and discover the possibilities waiting around the world. Looking ahead The future of travel belongs to businesses that can combine experience, technology and human connection. Organic attraction marketing provides a way to communicate authentically, build relationships and create a community of people who share a passion for exploration. For Gateway Travel, the mission remains clear. To inspire discovery, connect travellers with trusted expertise, and create journeys filled with real experiences. Follow Gateway Travel for destination inspiration on LinkedIn, YouTube and social media, and visit this website for more information. Read more from Tonia Kisliakov Tonia Kisliakov, CEO/ Director of Gateway Travel Tonia Kisliakov is the Founder and Director of Gateway Travel Australia, a Sydney-based travel business connecting travellers with trusted destination specialists for personalised travel experiences across Australia and worldwide. With decades of industry experience, Tonia is recognised for her commitment to ethical practice, long-term client relationships, and meticulous attention to detail. She has built Gateway Travel into a trusted brand serving discerning travellers, families, and corporate clients. Her business philosophy centres on professionalism, financial discipline, trusted global relationships and client advocacy. Tonia is known for providing hands-on guidance throughout every stage of travel planning and for protecting her clients’ interests during disruptions and emergencies. Gateway Travel maintains a strong reputation through consistent service delivery and positive client feedback on independent review platforms.

Written by Sabine Bierenstiel, Business & Life Coach Sabine Bierenstiel, a dynamic Business Coach and Spiritual Healer, synergizes her expertise to guide individuals towards transformative growth and profound self-realization. In Michael Ende’s iconic masterpiece, *The Neverending Story*, the magical realm of Fantasia is slowly consumed by an invisible, creeping force known as The Nothing. Fantasia dies not through violent destruction, but because humanity stops dreaming, loses its inner alignment, and forgets how to give the realm its true, soul-given name. It is only when Bastian Balthazar Bux finds the courage to call out the name Moon Child, Mondenkind, that Fantasia is reborn from a single grain of sand. In the realm of high-level enterprise ownership, board governance, and legacy building, a strikingly similar phenomenon occurs every day. Sovereign owners and enterprise builders gradually trade their core alignment, intuitive intelligence, and personal sovereignty for external validation, market performance, and rigid corporate mechanics. They allow the "Nothing" of bureaucratic overload and transactional expansion to consume their life force. On the surface, the balance sheet looks pristine. Underneath, however, the human engine driving the enterprise is paying an astronomical price, psychologically, physically, and financially. When you lose your heart and life to the machine, even an eight- or nine-figure empire becomes a ghost world: vast, wealthy, but fundamentally devoid of life force. The hard reality: The quantifiable cost of "The Nothing" When governance and ownership are driven purely by external pressure, effectively abandoning the "heart" of why the enterprise was created, psychological erosion rapidly turns into measurable financial destruction at the balance sheet level. The sovereign burnout benchmark: According to global corporate health research, over 60% of top-tier executives and enterprise founders report experiencing severe burnout. This is not mere fatigue; it is systemic nervous system exhaustion caused by operating from a place of deep inner disconnect for years. The financial toll of invisible friction: Chronic disconnect in governance leads to micro decisions rooted in fear rather than market foresight. Industry reports show that strategic misalignment and internal corporate friction cost enterprises up to 1.5 to 2 times an executive's annual compensation through lost momentum, poor strategic execution, and restructuring costs. The wealth paradox: Over 70% of high net worth founders who sell or scale their businesses through total personal sacrifice experience a profound post-achievement crisis. Accumulating liquid capital while losing personal sovereignty results in capital stagnation, risk aversion, or destructive investment choices. 3 real-world scenarios: How the heart and life get stolen To understand how "The Nothing" creeps into high-level operations, let us examine three classic scenarios found across modern business landscapes. 1. The scaling trap: The founder running out of Fantasia The setup: A visionary founder scales an enterprise to eight or nine figures. To satisfy institutional investors and external boards, they replace their intuitive leadership style with hyper-controlled, rigid mechanics. The stolen element: Their life. Like Bastian trapped in his own constructs, they no longer run the enterprise; the enterprise runs them. The impact: Psyche: Permanent hypervigilance, insomnia, loss of joy in achievement, and profound isolation at the top. Finances: Capital gets locked in inefficient expansion to overcompensate for internal friction. Strategic decisions are made from exhaustion, leading to costly hiring mistakes and missed market turns. 2. The golden cage: Suppressing the true name The setup: A high-performing principal or equity partner maintains a prestigious role that fundamentally conflicts with their personal values and natural strengths. They refuse to name what is missing, playing a role designed by external market expectations. The stolen element: Their heart. They suppress their intuitive intelligence to wear a predetermined corporate mask. The impact: Psyche: Cognitive dissonance, emotional detachment, erosion of self-worth, and chronic physical stress. Finances: Despite high yield, their personal wealth strategy stalls. The psychological need to compensate for daily suffering leads to reactive spending and passive capital management rather than strategic wealth building. 3. The over-operationalized enterprise: Strategic drift and lost DNA The setup: A longstanding business owner attempts to step back from operations by forcing the company into standard corporate molds that completely erase the original organic culture and vision. The stolen element: Both heart and life. The business loses its distinct DNA and soul. The impact: Psyche: Frustration, loss of purpose, and an identity crisis as the owner watches their life’s work become transactional and lifeless. Finances: Client retention drops because the authentic core of the brand has been stripped away. Margin pressures increase, enterprise valuation drops during exit negotiations, and capital is burned trying to fix cultural decline with external management consultants. Sovereign audit: Is "The Nothing" infiltrating your legacy? To diagnose where your life force or heart may have been compromised, evaluate your enterprise against these four high-level criteria: The sovereignty test: Does your enterprise serve as an engine for your personal freedom and vision, or has your creation turned into a high-yield cage that demands your vital energy just to sustain itself? The legacy test: If you were to step away today, would the organization retain its living DNA, or is its value tied purely to transactional mechanics that degrade the moment the vision disappears? The capital efficiency test: Is your capital actively expanding into new impact, or is a significant percentage secretly being burned to patch structural friction, team paralysis, and misaligned strategic focus? The alignment test: Are top-level strategic decisions made from organic clarity and market foresight, or from fear of market volatility and loss of control? The strategic blueprint: From governance trap to systemic sovereignty Just as Bastian had to speak the name Moon Child to resurrect a dying world, sovereign leaders must have the courage to acknowledge their inner truth, reclaim their core alignment, and rename their purpose. Winning in business without personal sovereignty is a net loss. True performance, sustained wealth, and high-level leadership do not require the sacrifice of your life force. To reclaim both heart and life at the highest level of leadership, sovereign owners must shift from transactional management to organic governance: Step 1: Audit structural friction. Identify where rigid corporate overhead is stifling the original organic vision. Strip away processes that generate high activity but low actual value. Step 2: Reanchor the core DNA. Define the nonnegotiable core values and vision of the enterprise, speaking your Moon Child. Establish governance models where the core remains stable while operational branches adapt dynamically to market shifts. Step 3: Align capital with purpose. Ensure that personal wealth strategies, board governance, and enterprise growth operate in complete synergy, protecting both financial yield and personal life force. "True enterprise sovereignty is not measured by how much you control, but by how organically your vision yields sustained wealth without consuming the life force of its creator." If you recognize these systemic warning signs in yourself or within your leadership team, managing the decline is no longer an option. It is time to pivot and expand your leadership space once again. She is elemental. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Sabine Bierenstiel Sabine Bierenstiel, Business & Life Coach Sabine Bierenstiel blends her knowledge from the realms of business and spirituality, catalyzing transformative experiences in others. With a background in both economics and spiritual practices like Akashic Records and Seashell Healing, Sabine embodies resilience and perseverance. Her mission is to unlock the highest potential within individuals, making it tangible through her coaching and teachings, ultimately guiding them towards profound self-realization.

Written by Marina Shulga When people talk about AI inside product teams, the focus almost always lands on engineers and designers. The more consequential change is happening one level above them. The pace at which a product organisation moves, the questions it can answer without specialists in the loop, and the kind of judgement it now demands from leadership, all of that is being rewritten right now. A CPO whose tooling literacy stopped in 2023 has already missed a generation of capability. Multilingual content, synthetic avatars, and instant translation all looked remarkable two years ago and have become the baseline. The work that earns a product leader their seat now happens in the decisions about where AI enters the workflow, which handoffs collapse, and what the team is freed up to attempt instead. I've spent the last several years across EdTech and fintech product organisations, and what I'm watching is the role being redrawn through three operational shifts and one strategic consequence that's starting to separate teams that move from teams that watch. The role itself has changed shape The differences between teams now show up in how they integrate AI: where in the funnel it intervenes, what it replaces, and what it forces a human to do with sharper craft. A CPO who can't read those choices critically becomes a passenger in their own organisation. A product leader is now judged on how clearly they understand the three-month consequences of a tooling decision, well beyond whether they could write the code themselves. Three operational shifts to watch The first runs between design and development. Product design is becoming less about approving a finished visual and more about being part of the build itself. As Figma generates production-ready code from the visual layer, the transition into frontend development becomes smoother, as engineers work from code reviews rather than mockups. Teams that hold onto the older visual-approval process tend to carry its overhead well before they see anything return from the newer way of working. The second is the integration of discovery and ticketing. With Cursor used as a development environment, AI models such as Claude accessed through approved APIs or enterprise services, and Jira connected to the engineering workflow, the distance between identifying a product need and turning it into executable work becomes much shorter. Where a CPO once spent effort moving work between research and execution and keeping the two aligned, that effort now goes toward setting the quality bar for what enters the flow in the first place. The third is analytics. With events placed across a product and connected to a platform like PostHog, natural-language prompts can run the kind of analysis that used to require a Discovery brief and a product analyst. A reasonable question can be asked and answered without having to queue for it. The output still needs a sharp reader at the other end; an AI-assisted read is only as good as the question the CPO asks of it, and the framing they bring to what comes back. The analyst doesn't disappear from this picture either; their day reshapes around the questions that warrant deeper investigation. Another question worth pointing this at: where do users drop off in parts of the product the team doesn't directly control? Most teams can build a clean, friendly interface, but a funnel still has blind spots where users quietly drop off, often when the journey stops telling them what's happening or what to do next. Checkout is the clearest example. Once a user is handed to a payment provider, they move through a redirect, a 3DS check, and a chain of steps that the product team doesn't run. When something breaks in that chain, the team is left tracing what failed, where the routing went wrong, and which part of the experience confused the user. None of these rollouts lands without friction inside the team, and each has to happen anyway. And these three are only a small part of what's shifting in how tech companies run products right now. The larger the organisation, and the wider the markets it distributes into, the longer the list of challenges a product team has to work through to deliver to users with quality, on time, and above all effectively. The strategic consequence The compound effect of these three changes shows up at the strategy level, not at the tooling level. When a landing page can be localized in around 2 hours using pre-built templates, the arithmetic for entering a new market changes. A test that used to require a quarter of preparation now costs a meeting. When product analytics are reachable without a specialist in the loop, the standard for evidence-based decisions rises, because the friction excuse has been removed. Data has gone from one input among several to the biggest one in the room, pushing aside the intuition and market-reads strategy that used to rely on it. Teams that have been letting processes stand in for direction will find this uncomfortable. Those who already move with clarity get more room to work. AI shortens the distance between an idea and its output, and that's what shows which kind you are. Where working processes aren't in place, adding AI doesn't fix the backlog or the actual work of building the product. It speeds up whatever's already there, so a group running on chaos just speeds up the chaos. A CPO's job right now is to know which pattern is theirs and to close the gap before it shows from the outside. The shape of product strategy hasn't changed. What's changed is cost, speed, and complexity, to the point that execution no longer holds a company back. Now the limit is what a leader decides to do with the room those shifts have opened, which is what the three points above all add up to.

Written by Veronica Kim, Certified QHHT® Level 2 Practitioner and Harmonic Egg® Guardian Veronica Kim connects the dots within the vast field of reality, guiding individuals to a powerful 40,000-foot macro view of their life’s purpose while offering intimate micro perspectives that reveal the intricate essence of who they truly are. Someone will ask you this question today. Maybe they already have. "How old are you?" It seems harmless. Friendly, even. A simple social ritual, the kind of small talk that fills the space between strangers becoming acquaintances. But I was lying in the dark wearing headphones, listening to sound frequencies designed to guide the brain into deep altered states. In the state the Monroe Institute calls Focus 15, where time, as we know it, begins to dissolve, what came through in that silence gave me a very different way of seeing what is actually happening in that exchange. When someone asks your age, they are not just curious about a number. They are reaching, subconsciously, for a brick. A brick to place in the wall of linear time that keeps their entire sense of reality stable and intact. They are performing what I now recognize as a reality construction ritual, a daily, automatic, entirely unconscious act of reinforcing the shared agreement that we are all moving forward through irreversible moments, accumulating years like miles on a road, and that knowing where someone is on that road tells you something essential about who they are. When you answer with a number, you hand them the brick. You co-create the wall with them. But when you gently reflect it back, "Why do you need to know how old I am?" something interesting happens. A subtle confusion arises. A flicker of uncertainty. In that flicker, something true briefly surfaces: I don't actually need this number to exist. So why am I so invested in it? That tiny crack is where higher awareness leaks in. When someone asks your age before they've asked anything of real substance, what they're reaching for, unconsciously, is a category. A filing slot. A way to know how to place you on the map before they've actually encountered you. Age becomes a proxy for relevance, wisdom, compatibility, and authority. But it is a remarkably poor one. A number tells you where someone is on the calendar. It tells you nothing about the depth of their consciousness, the richness of their experience, or who they actually are. You do not need to know my age to know me. You need to be present with me. Those are very different things. Time is not what we think it is. It is not a river we float down. It is not an inevitable force moving us from birth toward death. It is a building block. A construct of physical reality, deliberately designed to give third-dimensional existence its coherence, its texture, its feeling of solidity and forward momentum. Time needs boundaries to claim its existence. It requires numbers, dates, and sequences, anything that defines the boundary of each block. Without those markers, the 3D experience dissolves. This is why we anchor ourselves so instinctively to temporal coordinates: I was born in..., I graduated in..., I'll retire when..., I remember when... Every sentence like this is laying another layer of cement. Every conversation that locates you on a timeline is reinforcing the architecture of the reality you share with the person you're talking to. This is not a flaw in the design. It is the design, a deliberate feature of the curriculum of third-dimensional existence, built into the very architecture of this realm so that cause and effect can function, so that growth has texture, and so that the lessons carry enough resistance to make the expansion real. You enrolled in a reality where time gives everything its weight, its consequence, and its meaning. The question is not whether this construct exists, it clearly does, but whether you are aware that it is a construct and whether you are moving through the curriculum consciously or simply being moved by it automatically. Here is where the teaching deepens into territory that most people find either fascinating or deeply unsettling, depending on where they are in their own journey. Time and memory form the structure: cause and effect, the architecture of experience. An event happens, time sequences it, and memory stores it. That, on its own, is simply how the 3D curriculum works. But emotion is the battery. The charge of that battery is what determines everything about what the structure becomes. It works like this. An experience occurs, neutral in itself. Then emotion arrives. Not as a passenger but as a current, running through the moment and determining its density. Negative charge doesn't simply pass through and dissipate. It impregnates the event, turning what was neutral into something weighted. This is not a single drop. It is a chain reaction, pulling in more charge and building momentum until the moment solidifies around the feeling. Time then steps in as the hardener, linearizing the experience, freezing it in sequence, and declaring: this happened then, and it defines me now. Memory becomes the block, the permanent record of what emotion and time built together. The higher the negative charge, the denser the block. A light charge: wood. A heavy charge: cement. A memory sealed in grief, rage, shame, or fear becomes almost structural in the field. Here is the crucial insight: time and memory alone cannot hold a block together without the emotional charge sustaining them. Neutralize the emotion, truly, not just intellectually, and the structure of time and memory loses its adhesive power. It begins to dissolve. The block doesn't need to be broken. It needs to be discharged. This is the most direct lever we have. Not analyzing the memory. Not reframing the timeline. Transforming the emotional charge at the center of it and watching the structure that depended on that charge quietly release. This is why trauma feels eternal. Why certain memories play on a loop no matter how many years pass. Why some grief never moves. The soul fragment caught in that memory isn't weak or broken. It is quite literally stuck in a repeating timeline bubble, still running the program that was hardened at the moment of impact: this pain defines me, therefore I must keep experiencing it. The charge hasn't been discharged. So the block remains. Then there are those for whom the block becomes so dense, so adhesively sealed, that even death doesn't dissolve it. The transmission called lower 4D, the astral emotional realm where unresolved charge accumulates, is populated by souls who built cubes so solid during their physical lives that, at the moment of death, the final cascade of emotion, fear, rage, guilt, and resentment, sealed them inside. Without a physical body to ground them, they continue circling inside their own construction, perceiving reality through the lens of their last living moment. Time is still linear, the body is still vivid, memories are still active, and the wall is still intact. These are not malevolent entities. They are not supernatural threats. They are souls who built a cube so dense that they cannot see the exit. Their reality is still 3D linear because the block hasn't dissolved. They are reliving the architecture of a moment that, from inside the construction, never ended. This is what a haunting actually is: not an attack, but a loop. Not evil, but stuck. A soul still running the old program because no one, including themselves, ever showed them the exit. I know this not only as a concept, but as a felt experience, twice, twenty-five years apart. The first time, I had no framework for what I encountered. A group of friends and I were on a ski trip to Lake Tahoe, staying at a hotel. The moment my friend and I walked into our room, something was immediately wrong. There was a heaviness in the air, a quality of density that made the space feel occupied in a way that had nothing to do with furniture. We tried to sleep. I began to feel something watching. Then a cold sensation moved across my body, deliberate and unmistakable. A male energy, present and intrusive in a way I had no words for at the time. My friend, in her separate bed, felt it too. Without comparing notes, we both got up, went down to the lobby in the middle of the night, and asked for a different room. The staff didn't ask a single question. They simply handed us new keys. They knew. I left that room with no understanding of what had happened there, no way to help whatever was present, and a question I carried for years: whose story was that, and why were they still in it? The second time, I was in a Monroe Institute training, deep in a guided Lifeline exercise, a practice specifically designed to help souls in transition. What I encountered in that state was a young woman I perceived as a nun. Her name came through as Teressa. The year: 1735. The place: France. She was in a dark room, head bowed, wearing a white nightgown marked with blood, praying in an unbroken loop. It was the prayer of someone who had endured something unspeakable at the hands of someone in authority and had nowhere else to put the weight of it. She wasn't aware, in any ordinary sense, that nearly three hundred years had passed. I called her name. She looked up slowly, confusion on her face, as if the sound of her own name was something she had not heard in a very long time. I told her she could stop. That she didn't belong there anymore. That what was waiting for her on the other side of where she was trapped was rest, comfort, and the kind of love that doesn't ask anything of her. It took time. She had been praying for a very long time, and the program ran deep. But gradually, something shifted. She began to move. Then she was gone. I couldn't say with certainty where she went or whether what I experienced was a literal encounter or something else entirely. What I could say was that the heaviness I had felt at the start of the session was no longer there. Something had completed. A loop, perhaps, that had been running since 1735, sealed by violence, sustained by time, and held in place by a charge so dense that even death had not dissolved it. The exit, for Teressa, was the same as it is for any of us: being witnessed. Being called by name. Being told that the prayer doesn't have to continue forever. That the charge can be released. That she was allowed to leave. The exit, it turns out, is the same whether you are living or not: discharge the emotion that hardened the block. Time and memory cannot hold their structure without it. Remove the charge through presence, through grief fully felt, through forgiveness that is genuine rather than performed, or through the simple act of being witnessed, and the architecture that seemed permanent begins to soften. You stop handing people the brick. You stop answering the question of where you are on the timeline as though that answer defines you. This is what moving from 4D toward 5D actually means, not ascending to some distant cosmic state, but incrementally loosening the grip that the construct of time has on your field. It is not dramatic. It often feels like nothing more than a quiet moment of noticing: I am locating myself in time again. I am letting someone else's question about my age tell me who I am. I am treating this memory as permanent when it is made of something far more temporary. The edge of 4D is exactly where the structure of time becomes visible. Where you begin to see, not just understand intellectually, but see, that yesterday and today and tomorrow are a framework you've been moving within, not a reality you're subject to. Where the question, "What am I going to do today?" starts to feel subtly strange because you've caught a glimpse of what lies on the other side of it: a present moment so complete that it doesn't require a yesterday or tomorrow to make sense. What does moving toward 5D actually feel like in the body? An electrical signal, unmistakable and yours alone. Goosebumps that feel definite rather than reflexive. A heat rising from within. The recognition that every event that shaped you is not a scar to carry but a memory point, a vibration that becomes the building block of forward movement. Not forward in time. Forward in frequency. This knowing was not new information delivered from outside. It was always already inside me, compacted beneath the layers of lived experience, waiting for the right container to surface it. Focus 15 was that container. The extraction happened there. But what was extracted belongs to no training, no institution, and no exclusive path. It is available to anyone willing to go still enough to hear it. So the next time someone asks how old you are, notice what happens in you before you answer. Notice the automatic reach for the number, the impulse to locate yourself on the road, and the reflex to hand over the brick. You don't have to refuse. You don't have to make it strange. But you can let a moment of awareness pass through the exchange, a quiet internal recognition that the number is a coordinate in a construct, not a definition of what you are. Because what you are existed before the construct began and will continue long after the timeline has dissolved. Time is a building block. You are the one who decides what gets built. The ripple continues. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Veronica Kim Veronica Kim, Certified QHHT® Level 2 Practitioner and Harmonic Egg® Guardian Veronica is a QHHT® Level 2 Practitioner and Harmonic Egg® Guardian who guides individuals toward profound self-discovery and healing through Quantum Healing Hypnosis and sacred sound-light energy sessions. Her journey spans continents, from a childhood fascination with the supernatural in Korea to immigrating to America, where serendipitous paths led from teaching English to thriving in Silicon Valley's innovative tech world, reigniting early scientific dreams as tools for growth and stability. Through deep self-observation, she embraced her true purpose, helping others release blocks, access Higher Wisdom, and step into mastery of their intricate soul stories.

Written by Ben Robins, Business & Leadership Coach Ben Robins, a business and leadership coach and former EMEA leader of a global consultancy, helps established business owners gain more control, more profit and more time by building a business that no longer depends on them for everything. Many leaders can articulate a clear vision, but struggle to follow through when it matters most. This article explores why and how self-leadership changes that. Why good leaders fail to follow through on their vision Early in my career, I worked with a director who came into the role on a wave of expectation. They spent three days walking us through their plan for the region. It was the kind of vision that makes you pay attention, and everyone was bought in. If you had asked me then, I would have said they were exactly the kind of leader people want to work for. But six weeks later, nothing had changed. The vision that seemed so compelling had already faded, and the team that had been so engaged began to question what they were actually meant to be doing. What made it more striking was that this didn't look like a struggling leader at all. They were likeable, had bold ideas and were good in a room. If you asked them where we were going, they could tell you. But when it came to making decisions, following through, and creating an environment where people could perform at their best, they were largely absent. The gap between who they were in a good week and who they became when the pressure was really on fascinated me. Because on the surface, everything looked right. Yet when it actually mattered, it was a different version of them showing up. And that gap matters more now than it ever has. Why leadership is now the last remaining competitive advantage AI is stripping away a lot of what used to make companies hard to compete with. Things that once took years to build, technology, data, even specialist knowledge, are now easier to access, easier to replicate, and moving faster than most organisations can keep up with. What remains are the people. The ones who create, who solve, who build something worth having. AI changes how the work gets done, but it doesn’t change who is directing it. This makes the leader more important than ever. How you attract great people, retain them, and direct them toward something worth building has always lived with the person at the top. In a world where the best people have more options and increasingly less tolerance for leaders who aren't worth following, the cost of getting that wrong has never been higher. According to Gallup, managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement, and only one in five employees globally are truly engaged at work. That gap has a price. And it sits squarely on the leader. I spent a decade leading teams in the corporate world, and now work with leaders navigating exactly this through leadership coaching focused on decision-making and clarity. The real reason leaders struggle with decision-making under pressure It shows up most clearly under pressure. A difficult conversation where you say less than you know you should. A decision you've already made, but soften the moment you say it out loud. A meeting where you hold back, not because anyone has challenged you, but because of how you think they might. These moments aren't about strategy or knowledge. And it doesn’t always feel like hesitation in the moment, it feels like being reasonable. They come back, almost without exception, to a story. A story formed long before you had the title, that continues to shape how you lead without ever being questioned. These stories might sound like, if I push back on this, I'll lose the room. Or if I'm not across every detail, something will go wrong. Or if this doesn't work, it's on me. Individually, they don't sound particularly significant, but over time, they accumulate. Your decisions become smaller and more cautious than they need to be. Your vision gets diluted in an attempt to make it more acceptable. You say things slightly differently depending on the room you’re in, not because you don’t have something valuable to add, but because you’re constantly adjusting yourself. Your team feels it, even if they can't quite explain why. They see the priorities that shift, and the direction that is less certain, which leads to second-guessing what matters and where to focus. The people you most want to keep, the ones who care, the ones who want to build something meaningful, start to disengage or leave altogether. The team joined because of what was promised. They leave because of what they experienced. Why senior leaders struggle to see their own blind spots At a senior level, this becomes even more pronounced. The higher you go, the less you are meaningfully challenged. The people around you have careers that are shaped by your opinion of them, which means feedback gets filtered and softened. You can ask for honesty and still receive a version of what people think you want to hear. At the same time, your schedule fills up. Back-to-back meetings, constant decisions, leaving very little space to step back and look at how you’re actually showing up. And on top of that, you have built your success a certain way, which makes changing it feel like a risk, not an opportunity. I saw this first-hand while working with global brands during the ecommerce expansion. Even after entire categories had been transformed, some of the most intelligent and successful leaders I knew were slow to engage with what was changing. Not because they couldn't understand it, but because it had very little to do with ecommerce itself. It was about identity. And their running story was: my value here is built on what I know. This is something I don't yet understand. And I'm not sure what it means if my experience stops being enough. That’s the part that’s hard to see. On the surface, it looks like a strategic call. A choice to hold back and take stock. But often it’s being driven by something else. The same pattern plays out in different forms. As knowledge becomes easier to access and replicate, the differentiator is less about what you know and more about how you lead. What is self-leadership, and why it changes the way you lead Self-leadership is the work of becoming the leader you already know you want to be, not by adding more, but by examining what has been shaping your decisions up until now. In practice, it is the ability to recognise what is shaping your response in a given moment, and choose deliberately rather than defaulting to it. To catch what shows up under pressure, question whether it's actually true, and to decide how you respond. It starts by creating space. To look at the moments where you didn't show up as you intended, understand what was behind that, and to see that those patterns aren’t fixed. They’ve been learned, which means they can be changed. When you challenge these stories, it is subtle but significant. You’re able to make decisions with more conviction, not because you have more information, but because you are no longer negotiating with the same internal constraints. You handle pressure, rather than passing it on. And you hold your vision more consistently, even when it is challenged. Your team feels that immediately. They know where they are going, because you do. The opportunity is to do this work so that when the moment comes, you are not reacting unconsciously but choosing deliberately. The next time you notice yourself holding back, changing direction, or softening something you had already decided, pause. Ask what is actually driving that response. What story is showing up here? Most leaders have a story like this, often more than one. The difference is not whether it exists. It's whether you recognise that story in the moment, it's shaping how you lead. It’s whether in that moment, you recognise that story and how it’s shaping how you lead. Because if you don’t, you won’t experience it as a story. You’ll experience it as you. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube for more info! Read more from Ben Robins Ben Robins, Business & Leadership Coach Ben Robins is a business and leadership coach and keynote speaker who spent a decade in senior leadership, including running EMEA for a global consultancy with clients such as Google and Meta. He has seen the pattern from the inside: companies that have grown but still rely too heavily on the owner for decisions, client relationships and to keep things moving. His work sits where business strategy, leadership and mindset meet. He helps owners change how the business runs, while also challenging the habits, beliefs and ways of leading that keep them at the centre of it. Ben works with business owners across London, Dubai, Singapore and the US who are ready to lead the business rather than carry it.

Written by Ben Robins, Business & Leadership Coach Ben Robins, a business and leadership coach and former EMEA leader of a global consultancy, helps established business owners gain more control, more profit and more time by building a business that no longer depends on them for everything. For years, the advice was the same, do more. More habits, more goals, more hustle. I followed that playbook. It worked, and it nearly broke me. Here's what I discovered when I finally stopped adding and started removing instead. I was leading the European business of a global consulting firm. Managing teams across multiple countries, advising major international brands, hitting every target that had been set. On paper, I was winning. Off paper, I was exhausted, burnt out, and despite every external milestone, something fundamentally still felt off. I'd been doing everything the personal development playbook prescribed. Early mornings, meditation, the gym, reading the right books. I was optimising everything, and yet I still felt like I was running on empty. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise the problem wasn't what I needed to add. It was what I needed to remove. Michelangelo, when asked how he sculpted David, said he simply looked at the marble and removed everything that wasn't David. The masterpiece was always there. It just needed everything else cleared away. Now I am certainly not saying I am a masterpiece, but the idea of chipping away at my life, rather than adding more, appealed to me. It changed my relationship to life, and it's the same removal-first approach that has transformed the lives of the people I now coach. Why addition is the wrong starting point You can absolutely build a life through addition, more discipline, more systems, more force. I did it for over a decade. It does work, but at what cost? If you're trying to juggle a million different things, adding more to your already full plate likely isn't going to make things better. And all the morning routines in the world won't last if they're stacked on top of unconscious patterns, beliefs that no longer serve you, and an identity you didn't consciously choose. You end up building a taller house of cards, not a more fulfilling, meaningful, or joyful life. Removing first is faster, more sustainable, and considerably more easeful. What follows are the four layers I worked through, and the things I removed at each one. Layer 1: Clear the external noise Before you can add anything meaningful, you need to stop letting chaos into your environment and mind. The first thing I removed was mental clutter. Bizarre as it sounds, I used to pride myself on being able to keep everything going, just by holding it in my head without a to-do list. Sure, I never dropped anything, but I hadn't considered the tax I was paying. My brain was holding far too much, and as a result, I felt constantly fragmented and overwhelmed. It wasn't so much because of my large workload, but because I had so many mental tabs open. The solution was to get everything out of my head. Once it was out on paper, I could sort it. Will I ever use this? No? Then I don't need to think about it. Do I need to take action on this? Then it goes on a to-do list I can actually check off. The mental clarity that followed was startling, and I see this with clients too. They think they need better time management. What they invariably need first is to start by closing those cognitive loops draining their energy. The second piece of external noise I cut was the news. It's controversial, as people always ask, aren't you ill-informed, how do you stay up to date with things? But I have always found that if something important happens, people will tell you. The news, by design, keeps your attention by making you feel the world is worse than it is. Churchill's doctor banned him from listening to broadcasts during the war, noting they were spiking his anxiety without informing his strategy. I found the same thing. Watching the news late at night left me lying awake replaying disaster scenarios that had nothing to do with my actual life. Removing it changed how I thought, slept, and acted, more than almost anything else I've done. It's not really about the news, but letting external perspectives influence your life, so I have always since become ruthless at cutting out things like doomscrolling, social media, or constantly checking emails. Layer 2: Remove the misaligned actions Once the noise is cleared, the next question is, what are you actually doing with your time and energy? For me, this meant getting very clear on my schedule, rather than it running me. I found that if I wasn't clear on my priorities, my calendar would decide them for me, or worse still, someone else's. I'd previously get pulled into meetings that didn't require me, conversations that didn't move anything forward, obligations that felt urgent but weren't aligned with what actually mattered. I once suggested a client tell a meeting organiser, 'I'll join when it becomes relevant for me to contribute.' They were convinced they'd lose respect. Instead, they gained it. Your time signals your value, but only if you treat it that way first. The second misaligned action I removed was having too many goals. I used to believe that ambition meant excelling at everything simultaneously, top performer at work, peak fitness, learning a language, reading 52 books a year, the list would go on. I was making progress on everything and real progress on nothing. Before the 2008 Olympics, Michael Phelps had one goal, eight gold medals. His coach Bob Bowman made him quit everything else, no sponsorship deals, no parties, no distractions. Phelps later said the hardest part wasn't the training. It was saying no to everything that wasn't the pool. But he won all eight golds. Even the greatest Olympian of our time didn't pursue competing goals. When I cut to one clear priority, I finally had the focus to make real progress. Layer 3: Stop chasing the wrong things This layer goes deeper. It's about what you're actually chasing, and whether you're chasing it for yourself or for someone else. For years I was caught in comparison. Measuring my career against others, defining success by money, prestige, and how it looked from the outside. It took a moment in Portugal, sitting with my partner by a lake, with a little space from the rush of our day-to-day lives, to finally say out loud what I'd been avoiding. The life looked right, but it wasn't truly mine. What I tell my clients now, it's okay to be weird. In fact, the more your life looks different to everyone else's, the more likely it is that it's actually yours. A question I ask myself now before adding another achievement to chase is, do I want this, or do I think I ‘should’ want it? Layer 4: Examine the stories running beneath everything This is the deepest layer, and the one that makes the most difference. The stories we tell ourselves become the life we live. Not 'I made a mistake,' but 'I am a failure.' Not 'I'm learning,' but 'I'm just not that type of person.' These start as thoughts, but repeated long enough, they become identity. Identities we defend without ever questioning whether they're true or not. As Carl Jung put it: 'Unless you make the unconscious conscious, it will run your life, and you will call it fate.' For me, the story was rooted in believing life 'should' have been different, that I had time to make up for, ground to recover. It showed up as relentless overthinking, replaying conversations, overanalysing decisions. Nothing ever felt quite significant enough. Maya Angelou had a similar problem. She felt every sentence had to be perfect, every word was analysed to the point of paralysis. Eventually she started writing her recurring worries on a 3x5 index card. She filled fifty cards in the first week. When she spread them on the floor, she realised she'd been having the same twelve thoughts for thirty years. She kept the cards in a box, never looked at them again, and removing those stories allowed her to write seven autobiographies. You can add all the habits and systems you want. But if you're operating from an old, unexamined belief, you will keep sabotaging yourself without ever understanding why. To better understand the stories holding you back, here are some questions to reflect on. When you next feel hesitation, when you don't go for the thing you say you want, pause. Write down what you're telling yourself in that moment. Then ask, is this actually true today? Or is it a story formed at some earlier point and never re-evaluated? Most of the time, you'll find it belonged to a younger version of you. You've just been carrying it forward like a permanent label. The question worth sitting with The personal development industry will keep telling you to add more. More routines, more optimisation, more systems. And some of that is genuinely useful, but only once you have the capability to handle more. Stack habits on top of mental clutter, misaligned commitments, borrowed goals, and unexamined stories, and you're not building a better life. You're just building a taller version of the same one. So before you add anything else this week, ask yourself one question, what is the single thing you could remove that would create the most space, in your mind, your schedule, or your sense of who you are? Start there. The rest will follow. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and visit my website for more info! Read more from Ben Robins Ben Robins, Business & Leadership Coach Ben Robins is a business and leadership coach and keynote speaker who spent a decade in senior leadership, including running EMEA for a global consultancy with clients such as Google and Meta. He has seen the pattern from the inside: companies that have grown but still rely too heavily on the owner for decisions, client relationships and to keep things moving. His work sits where business strategy, leadership and mindset meet. He helps owners change how the business runs, while also challenging the habits, beliefs and ways of leading that keep them at the centre of it. Ben works with business owners across London, Dubai, Singapore and the US who are ready to lead the business rather than carry it.

Written by Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker, Holistic Bodyworker Kicki Hjortmarker is known for her broad knowledge and extensive experience working with the human body and mind to heal injuries and chronic pain conditions. She is the founder of Swedish Balance, dedicated to helping people live a balanced life pain-free. If you are experiencing a persistent, painful spot between your shoulders, or anywhere else in your body, that does not improve with massage or pressure, you may have a trigger point that is referring pain to that area. You may try to knead, push, or rub the area but find no lasting relief. For example, if you have a headache in the front of your head and rub your forehead but the pain persists, the discomfort may originate from another area of the body. This phenomenon is known as referred trigger point pain. How do I know if I have referred trigger point pain? The muscle that is injured is not always the location where you feel pain. A trigger point acts like a faulty electrical wire; it sends pain signals to another part of the body. Signs of referred pain include: Pressing on a specific area reproduces familiar pain elsewhere in the body. Imaging studies, such as X-rays or an MRI, do not fully explain the symptoms. Pain improves when the trigger point is released through neuromuscular massage therapy or other appropriate treatments. Some common referred pain patterns are: The upper trapezius can refer pain to the side of the neck, behind the ear, or into the temple, contributing to tension headaches. The sternocleidomastoid (SCM) can refer pain around the eye, forehead, or jaw, or even create dizziness, as it attaches to the temporal bone near the ear. The gluteus medius can refer pain down the outside of the hip and thigh, sometimes mimicking sciatica. Trigger points in the psoas can refer pain to the lower back, front of the hip, groin, or abdomen. The piriformis can contribute to pain in the buttocks and down the back of the leg. So, what is a trigger point? A trigger point can be as small as a pinhead or the size of a pea. It can also consist of several lumps together or tender spots in a taut band. It can be a hard muscle that feels like a cord or guitar string, ropey and stringy, like spaghetti glued together. Trigger points can be felt embedded within muscle fibers and myofascial tissue, and they form mainly in the belly of the muscle, where the motor endplate is located. Trigger points are believed to be implicated in most types of musculoskeletal and mechanical muscular pain, and they can be present in both younger and older people. Trigger point pain has even been demonstrated in small children. I have personally worked on children as young as seven years old with symptoms of trigger point pain. Trigger points can be either active or inactive. When they are inactive or latent, they do not cause pain at the moment. Secondary trigger points, also called satellite trigger points, often develop in response to the primary trigger point, and they tend to develop along fascial lines under stress. Pain symptoms may be due to active trigger points, or the pain may have built up over time from latent trigger points. When you press on a trigger point, it might feel tender, tight, and painful, cause pain to travel to another area, restrict movement, weaken the muscle, and produce tingling or a dull ache. Why do trigger points form? Studies have shown that active myofascial trigger points produce spontaneous electrical activity even when the muscle should be at rest. Rather than holding a static electrical charge like a battery, trigger points behave as if they are electrically overactive. One of the leading scientific theories proposes that trigger points develop when a small group of muscle fibers becomes stuck in a sustained contraction. This activity is thought to result from an energy crisis caused by depletion of energy in the area, reduced blood flow, reduced oxygen delivery, and sensitization of nearby pain receptors. The reason for trigger point formation is multifaceted There is general agreement that muscle overuse or direct trauma to the muscle can lead to the development of TrPs (trigger points). However, there are several theories as to why TrPs form, but scientific evidence is lacking. The nerve root compression theory It has been widely accepted that when the root of a nerve is traumatized or pinched, trigger points form along that same nerve. But it is still a model rather than a proven fact. I believe that this theory is true in some cases. I have seen patients who have been medically diagnosed with a pinched nerve at the root, and I have then found and treated trigger points along the nerve, from the root to the nerve ending, or the other way around. The pain has diminished. I have also experienced this in my own body. I have had nerve compression in my cervical spine due to disc degeneration, bulging discs, and stenosis. At the time of pain symptoms, I have always found plenty of trigger points along the compressed nerve. It is also believed that the following can cause TrPs formation: Metabolic disorders Inflammation Metabolic byproducts Bony anomalies Congenital malformations Aging Weight gain The structure and alignment of the joints and spine Nutritional and hormonal factors: Some studies have shown evidence that vitamin C deficiency may perpetuate trigger point activity. Some studies have shown evidence that iron deficiency may perpetuate TrPs activity. Vitamin B12 deficiency may increase chronic trigger point formation and fatigue. There is evidence that estrogen and thyroid deficiencies may contribute to increased TrPs formation. Researchers also agree that repetitive microtrauma may lead to the development of trigger points just as much as acute trauma. Additionally, in 2004, Dr. Ferguson, D.C., and Dr. Gerwin, M.D., suggested that chronic parasitic, yeast, and viral infections may increase and perpetuate trigger point formation. Evidence of trigger points Dr. Janet Travell, a physician and medical researcher known for her success in treating myofascial pain syndrome (MPS), conducted studies and experiments to find evidence of trigger point formation. In 1957, she discovered that trigger points generate and receive small electrical currents. She measured these signals with an electromyogram and found that when a small part of the muscle contracted, it caused a small, localized spike in electrical activity. Can trigger points ever go away? Yes! Here are some suggestions for what you can do: Choose foods that fight inflammation. Correct your posture. Get regular bodywork, which can help erase trigger points and stop pain symptoms. Change daily habits that pull joints and the spine out of alignment and perpetuate the formation of TrPs. Take a look at your ergonomics. How do you sit or stand when working? Strengthen the body to minimize the overuse of certain muscle groups and find balance in the musculature. Use self-help tools, such as a foam roller, therapy balls, tennis balls, and a Theracane, to work on trigger points and myofascial release regularly. Take care of your myofascial trigger point pain now! Call or text Kicki at 1 (323) 404 6613. Email me here. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker Kicki Katarina Hjortmarker, Holistic Bodyworker Kicki Hjortmarker has a solid background in the hands-on healing field, treating people with injuries and chronic pain conditions. With a holistic approach, she integrates Neuromuscular Massage Therapy, Craniosacral Therapy, Hypnotherapy, Reiki, Pilates, and more. To practice the artistry of mind/bodywork and massage therapy has been Kicki's lifelong passion. It started with the awareness of her own body as a child and ballet dancer, and, later, as a gymnast who developed chronic lower back pain whilst on the Swedish National Team in Rhythmic Sports Gymnastics. Decades later, she overcame nerve damage and temporary paralysis in one hand. This taught her to trust the healing power of body and mind, and that the body prefers holistic healing methods over conventional treatments. Her mission is to encourage and inspire others to do the same. To trust the healing power of body, mind, and spirit!

Written by Philip Mallourides, Lifestyle Architect Philip Mallourides specialises in accountability. He is the founder of Activate Your Success and coaches small business owners who have the desire for success. He is also a keynote speaker, talking on self-belief and overcoming adversity. What is holding you back in your business? When I ask the small business owners I work with, I get many different answers: automation, consistency, cash flow, time, marketing, staffing, and competition. But when I sit with any of them for an hour and dig beneath the surface, I find two common denominators missing: clarity about what they are actually trying to build and accountability for the actions that would get them there. These two forces do not operate in isolation. Clarity without accountability is just a nice plan gathering dust. Accountability without clarity is busywork, running hard in a direction you have not actually chosen. It is only when the two work together that momentum builds, and momentum is what separates the businesses that grow from those that simply survive. I have come to see this relationship through three connected stages: clarity, confidence, and commitment. Let us take each in turn and look at how they reinforce one another. 1. Clarity: Knowing exactly what you are building Clarity is deceptively simple to describe and remarkably hard to achieve. It is not just about having a vision or setting goals in the vague sense that most business owners already believe they have. Real clarity means being able to answer, without hesitation, questions like: Who exactly are you serving, and what specific problem are you solving for them? What does success look like in 12 months, in concrete and measurable terms? What are the two or three priorities that actually move the needle today, and what are you willing to stop doing to protect time for them? Most business owners I meet are busy. However, very few are clear. They are reacting to whatever is happening that day, whether it is an enquiry, an invoice, or a fire that needs putting out, rather than operating from a defined sense of direction. This is not a character flaw, it is what happens naturally when you are running a business without deliberately stepping back to define it. The cost of unclear direction is easy to underestimate because it does not show up as a single dramatic failure. It shows up as a thousand small inefficiencies: marketing that does not convert because the message is wrong, trying to speak to everyone without being specific, talking too much about yourself, hiring decisions made under pressure rather than through strategy, and pricing that undervalues the work because there is no confident story about the value being delivered. Ambiguity is expensive, it just charges you slowly, through wasted effort rather than a single visible cost. Your homework Before you can expect anyone, including yourself, to be accountable for results, you need a written, specific definition of what those results are. Not a mission statement, but a working document that answers these questions: Who is your target client? What is your 12-month goal? What are your top three priorities? If you cannot write it on a single page, it is not clear yet. 2. Confidence: The natural output of clarity Confidence is often treated as a personality trait, something you either have or do not. In business, that is a misunderstanding. Confidence is much more often a byproduct of clarity than an innate quality. When you know exactly what you are doing and why, confidence follows almost automatically. When you do not, no amount of positive thinking will manufacture it convincingly. Think about the difference between a business owner who can explain their offer in one clean sentence and one who rambles through three paragraphs of caveats when someone asks, “So, what do you actually do?” The rambling is not a communication problem. It is a clarity problem wearing a communication costume. Give that same person real clarity about their value and their market, and the confident sentence appears on its own. This matters commercially because confidence is contagious, and so is its absence. Clients and customers can sense hesitation. They can tell when a business owner is not quite sure of their own pricing, process, or promise. Confidence, built on genuine clarity, is what allows you to hold your prices, say no to the wrong fit clients, and make decisions quickly instead of second-guessing every move. Behind all of this sits self-belief, and it deserves to be named directly because it is the part most business owners are least willing to examine. Clarity can hand you a perfectly sound plan, but if you do not genuinely believe you are capable of executing it or worthy of the success it points to, that plan will quietly be sabotaged from the inside. Self-sabotage rarely looks dramatic. It looks like underpricing just to be safe, delaying a launch that is actually ready, preparing excessively instead of publishing, or accepting the wrong fit client because a small voice says you cannot be sure the right ones will come. Each of these feels like caution in the moment. In reality, it is self-belief quietly overruling clarity, and if it goes unchecked, it will erode the very confidence that clarity was supposed to produce. The business owners who move fastest are not the ones who never doubt themselves, they are the ones who notice the doubt, recognise it for what it is, and act on the plan anyway. Confidence also changes how you handle setbacks. A business owner without clarity treats a lost sale or a difficult month as evidence that perhaps the whole thing is the wrong idea. A business owner with real clarity treats it as data, a single data point to learn from, not a verdict on the entire venture. That resilience is not stubbornness. It is the stability that comes from knowing your direction is sound, even when this week’s results are noisy. Your homework Test your own confidence as a diagnostic tool. Where do you feel hesitant, apologetic, or unsure in your business: pricing, your message or positioning, or a particular service line? Treat that hesitation as a signal that clarity is missing in that area, and go back to stage one before trying to act more confident. Confidence built on nothing is fragile. Confidence built on clarity holds under pressure. 3. Commitment: Where accountability does its work Clarity tells you where to go. Confidence gives you the belief that you can get there. But neither one, on its own, gets the work done. That is the job of commitment, and commitment is sustained in practice by accountability. This is the stage where most business owners lose momentum, and it is rarely because the plan was wrong. It is because there was no structure holding them to it once the initial motivation faded, and motivation always fades. Three weeks after the strategy session, the excitement has worn off, a busy period has arrived, and the carefully defined priorities quietly slide back down the list behind whatever is urgent today. Accountability is the mechanism that prevents this slide. It works because it introduces something that willpower alone cannot reliably provide: a fixed point outside yourself that the plan has to answer to. This can take several forms: A coach or mentor who checks in on specific commitments, not just general progress. A peer accountability group made up of other business owners who report on their stated goals. Scheduled review points, weekly or monthly, where you measure actual results against the plan you wrote in stage one. A public commitment, such as telling your team, a client, or your network what you intend to deliver and by when. None of these works through magic or pressure alone. They work because they force a regular, honest confrontation with the gap between intention and action. They also do it before three months have quietly slipped by unproductively. A monthly review that shows you are two priorities behind schedule is uncomfortable, but it is far less costly than discovering the same thing at year-end, when there is no runway left to correct course. It is worth being honest about something here: accountability without clarity is close to worthless. If you do not know what you are meant to be accountable for, a check-in simply becomes a vague conversation about being busy. This is why the order matters. Clarity defines the target. Confidence supplies the belief to pursue it. Accountability protects the commitment to keep pursuing it once the initial energy has faded. Your homework Choose one accountability structure and put it in place this month, not when things settle down, because they will not settle down on their own. It does not need to be elaborate. It could be a standing 30-minute call with a peer, a monthly self-review against your one-page plan, or a coach who asks direct questions about specific commitments. The format matters less than the fact that it exists and that it recurs. 4. Bring the three together Here is the pattern worth remembering: clarity, confidence, and commitment are not three separate initiatives. They are a single sequence, and each stage depends on the one before it. Without clarity, confidence is just performance, and it cracks under pressure. Without confidence, commitment is exhausting because you are forcing yourself toward something you do not fully believe in. Without accountability, commitment quietly erodes the moment life gets busy, which is to say, almost immediately. Business owners often try to shortcut this sequence. They chase confidence through motivational content without doing the clarity work first. They try to force commitment through sheer discipline without an accountability structure to sustain it. Both approaches can produce short bursts of progress, but they rarely last because they skip the foundation. The businesses I see growing steadily, not by luck but by design, are usually the ones where the owner has done the unglamorous work of getting clear first, allowed that clarity to build genuine confidence, and then built an accountability structure sturdy enough to carry that commitment through the inevitable slow weeks. If you take one thing from this piece, let it be this: do not ask, “How do I become more disciplined?” Instead, ask, “What, exactly, am I trying to build, and who is going to hold me accountable for the work of building it?” Answer both questions, and the discipline tends to take care of itself. Come work with me I am a mentor and coach who can provide guidance, support, and insights based on my own 40 years of experience in small business. Look me up here. I run Clear Momentum, a clarity session followed by goal setting and 12 weeks of accountability, based on the quarters of the year. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Philip Mallourides Philip Mallourides, Lifestyle Architect Philip Mallourides is a coach and mentor for the small business owner who desires success. With over 35 years in the SME space, he leads from experience and went from being a millionaire to losing it all and now dedicates his life to helping others. He believes that if we just have that self-belief, then we can all achieve anything we want, but it must be what we want!

Written by Miranda Jane, Neurodivergent Affirming Nervous System Coach Miranda Jane is a Neurodivergent-Affirming Somatic Coach and Consultant, specializing in the masked and late-identified autistic and ADHD experience. Their personal crusade is to help recently identified AuDHDers understand and appreciate themselves, mind, body, and nervous system! Many neurodivergent (ND) people have a hard time feeling their feelings. On its face, this is a curious concept, after all, it's right in the name. Feelings should be easy to feel. There are several reasons why autistic and ADHD people don't readily access their feelings, and it is a skill you can practice and improve at. The physicality behind feelings: Interoception and alexithymia Interoception is the brain's ability to perceive bodily signals like thirst and hunger, physical cues that let you know what you need. It provides you with the ability to regulate your physical and emotional health, using sensations in the body as data about what is needed. Many autistics and ADHDers have trouble with interoception. Sometimes we can’t feel the sensations at all or get overwhelmed by them. Often, we struggle to associate the sensation with the underlying need. Alexithymia is a similar condition, also very commonly experienced by NDs, in which we have a hard time identifying and expressing our emotions. For years, I built resentment against my partner for misunderstanding me because he would frequently say I was “anxious” when I was just problem-solving. When I finally asked him why he thought I was anxious, he said, “You’re hunched over, clutching your stomach, chewing your nails, and pacing.” I finally saw it. I was anxious! Very likely my reasoning was impaired by my anxiety, which meant it was time for a snack or a walk and not time to problem-solve. Thank goodness for an outside perspective. Environmental safety and masking Masking is another reason we often miss our emotional cues. When one is masking, they are hyper-focused on what other people need and tend to turn the volume down on what they want or need inside. While masking, we are too busy prioritizing what is the safest thing at the moment instead of how we actually feel about the thing that's happening. Sometimes masking is a conscious choice, but often it’s subconscious. Reflexive masking happens more often with undiagnosed autistic people, where we are essentially “performing human” because we know it hasn’t worked well to just be ourselves. This is instinctive, similar to how animals don't show they're in pain in order to camouflage vulnerability. In the same way, masking reflexively is a camouflage to fit in, and typically, we are not aware we are doing it. Unaware masking reduces your ability to truly know how you feel about yourself and your feelings. I tend to see this in many new clients who will come to me and say, "How can I be 50 years old and not know who I am?" Unreliable feelings There is no right or wrong way to have an emotional experience. But we are often taught in childhood that there is a correct way, and we are doing it wrong. This makes emotions even more confusing. When we are raised to believe that certain reactions are unacceptable, it makes our emotions painful. Think about things like heartbreak, fear, and the physical sensations that go with our big emotions. If we don't have a strong, regulated nervous system, it can be preferable to just not feel them at all. When we are left alone with shutdowns or meltdowns, our nervous system perceives that emotions are life-threatening. We feel our heart is literally going to break. Or we are literally going to be scared to death. Our brains do these incredible loops and twists to keep us away from these tender places. One of the first things I do with my clients is work on feeling their feelings safely in their adult bodies, with adult skills, bringing compassion, curiosity, and self-acceptance to their feelings. Defense mechanisms Ultimately, the deepest part of the powerful defensive response has been building since infancy, when your system perceived emotional pain to be deadly. Sometimes emotional pain is deadly. Suicidality is one such example. Suicidal thoughts are an urgent and dangerous matter, but you can make peace with them. Please check out my other blog post on suicidal thoughts and actions. There are also reports of people having profound physical reactions to emotional experiences, like hair going white from shock, or losing vision or hearing suddenly from trauma. While these are extremely rare experiences, for NDs, physical reactions to our internal state can be a part of daily life. When we are afraid or angry, we may experience selective mutism, colloquially known as “going non-verbal.” We melt down. We shut down. So it makes sense that our defenses against feeling our feelings are strong, and that it will take some active engagement to turn it around safely. How to start feeling your feelings To begin to feel your true feelings, start by bringing compassion to your situation. You want to get the information from your emotions, but you struggle to do so. That's hard. You can start by acknowledging that it sucks to have to work so hard to get this information. It will take time and effort. That's okay. Bring the love to yourself, and this will help you with the next steps. Set the stage by making it safe enough. First, cover your vital organs using a pillow or weighted blanket, or even a stuffed animal. Covering your vital organs is important because your body often responds as if there is a physical threat in the environment, even if the threat is emotional. Just thinking about the threat makes our bodies respond as though a tiger is growling at us. When you put a pillow over your heart and lungs, your belly, your skull, whatever feels the most threatened, your skin senses the safety and reduces the physical responses. If you'd like, bring in extra sensory-pleasing items that make you feel emotionally safe. These can be things like aromatherapy, a journal and pen, or music. It's whatever you find soothing. If you're hypermobile, find a way to make your body loose, like a wet noodle. Because hypermobile people are typically very tense, make sure you are not holding or bracing your muscles. You can lie on the floor or make a pillow nest to support whichever limbs feel painful. Setting your environment this way creates a safe space to access the deeper emotions that hide behind your usual armor. This way, you can be with the emotion without fearing that you will fall into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Next, identify boundaries, like time limits. Commit to not making any changes based on what you learn. This is just information gathering. All thoughts and parts are welcome. There is no judgment. There will be no big consequences during this time. Bring to mind the closest guess of where your emotions lie. Maybe you are thinking about a certain topic and sensed a flicker of something you couldn't quite understand. Take yourself back to that moment and get curious. Ask yourself what bad thing might happen if you got the full message of your emotions. Listen to your fears. Write them down. See if there is anything else you can do to make it safe enough to hear what your emotions have to say. When the fears are addressed, move towards the topic again. Get curious about what you're feeling. Notice your thoughts and the sensations in your body. Perhaps you've received some feedback from a friend. Tell your feelings that you want to know what they know. Remember that this is a process. You can repeat this as many times as you'd like until you begin to feel that you are letting your feelings out. As you get to know your emotions, you will get to know yourself in the process. At ND Friendly Life, we specialize in supporting late-identifying autistic and ADHD adults who recognize these patterns of loss of feeling in their own lives. Through individual coaching, couples and family coaching, and supported self-assessment, we help you understand your neurodivergent nervous system and build a life and career that work with it instead of against it. All sessions are offered online, serving clients in Vermont and worldwide. Curious to learn more? Whenever you're ready, you can learn more or book a free consultation on our website. Visit my website for more info! Read more from Miranda Jane Miranda Jane, Neurodivergent Affirming Nervous System Coach Miranda Jane is a late-identified autistic ADHDer with a passion for helping people like them lead more pleasurable and fulfilling lives. They work with adults who are “twice exceptional” (2e), in many ways brilliant and in many ways struggling to function and disabled in their everyday lives. This particular blend of special skills and (often invisible) disability is particularly dangerous, leaving those who are 2e feeling thwarted in achieving their goals and leading to high rates of self-loathing, despair, and suicidality.

Lauren Seeley is a Death & Grief Doula and a Creative Grief Workshop facilitator in the NYC area. She works with both animals and humans in the end-of-life and funeral space and is a death educator as well as a spiritual practitioner using creativity, art, ritual, ceremony, and Reiki as forms of healing in bereavement and loss. She is the facilitator of two mortality-based book clubs in NYC: Silent Book Club of Death NYC and Ahhsweetdeath Book Club. She partners with historical institutions such as The Met Cloisters, Green-Wood Cemetery, and Morbid Anatomy for her events. In this interview, Lauren shares the way that she incorporates art, play and creativity into death and grief spaces, why discussions about mortality and grief are important, how we can continue to connect and honor our beloved persons and pets after loss, build stronger communities and understanding around mortality discussions, and live more fulfilling lives around death acceptance. Lauren Seeley, Grief & Death Doula, Educator, Artist What first drew you to combine grief support, death education, and art into the work you do today? I have a degree and background in design, and have been a practicing artist my entire life. In my own grief, I have found the incorporation of creativity and play to be quite beneficial in how I sit with and process grief. When I began working in the death & end of life space four years ago, I found that others could also benefit from the way that I have when a loss occurs, and they too could turn to play, creativity, and community grief environments. The personalization of memorialization is another important element of bereavement and storytelling, as it gives families and loved ones a way to venerate and honor the spirit of who their beloved was after they are no longer alive. How has working with both human and companion animal loss shaped your understanding of grief? When we lose a loved one, whether animal or person, we are left with a hole that cannot be filled with anything else. Society has given us linear guidelines on the stages and duration of grief, but it’s just not the reality of it. No two losses will fit the same mold, nor will they feel the same. I see no difference between the loss of a person or pet, and while societally there is much more recognition around the loss of a person, there is less around the loss of a pet. Time is the answer to learning to live with our grief, but what do we do in the interim? We continue the relationship. We tell their story. We say their name. We create, cry, craft, memorialize, and we do it with others if we can. The love continues, and we continue to honor them. What have you learned about the difference a personalized memorial can make for a grieving family? In the last 150 years or so, the way we care for our dead has changed dramatically in the US. While we have the advantage here to let death professionals care for our beloved, there are less conversations about how the family can still be a part of this process. I am grateful for this opportunity to hand the care to those who are educated to do so, but I love the idea of still being able to include the family in the care of their loved one. As a mentor with Continuing Vision, I have the opportunity to teach funeral directors both locally and remotely how to incorporate more personalized practices into the funeral and memorial, as well as aftercare. What I have found in my experience is that families really do benefit from the personalization of memorials, because they get to be included in the care and they get to help tell the story better than I, a stranger, ever could. It’s an opportunity to show them how much more meaningful the story of their loved one could be if they are bringing objects, collections, smells, and more of what they loved into view. Why do you think conversations about death are still so difficult, even though loss touches everyone? Death is a scary topic. A lot of people are afraid of having these conversations because confronting fears of mortality feels scary. Yes, death touches us all, and we will all die someday. What most people don’t realize is that by talking about death, we are addressing the elephant in the room and making friends with it. We are acknowledging it, respecting it and in turn are able to fully live knowing it will be there waiting for us when we are ready. As those of us in the death space know, life is precious. We aren’t promised tomorrow, and we must live for today. Memento Mori: remember you must die. How have your book clubs and public discussions changed the way people approach mortality and grief? Holding public conversations addressing mortality are so, so important. I know to those who haven’t experienced them yet, they can seem scary and morbid. What I love about my two book clubs- Silent Book Club of Death NYC (in person) and Ahhsweetdeath Book Club & Author discussions (online) is that they give everyone an equal opportunity to show up as they are and to either participate or merely observe. No one is ever obligated to share or discuss, though I’ve yet to have someone attend who doesn’t want to join the discussion. These events, and all of the conversations that I have around death, are a no-pressure opportunity to at least have the chance to. As we know, we can’t always speak openly about grief or death without freaking people out. This is a space where you can share, cry, grieve, ask morbidly curious questions, talk about your dead pets and how much you miss the smell of your dead grandmother’s cookies and not feel judged. What is one meaningful way someone can honor a loved one beyond a traditional funeral? Create an altar! Donate to their favorite charity. Cook their favorite food. Dance to their favorite song. Visit their favorite nature spots. Venerate them. Tell their stories. Say their name. There are so many meaningful ways that you can memorialize your loved one beyond and after the funeral. For someone supporting a grieving friend or family member, what simple actions are often the most comforting? Don’t ask them what you can do: show up for them. Clean their house. Help them with errands. Have groceries delivered. Take them out for a coffee and let them cry. I think people mean well when trying to support someone who is suffering a loss, but they aren’t usually going to call, text, or tell you what they need. Just do it. Please don’t say to them, “They are in a better place now.” You often describe memorialization as storytelling. What does that idea mean to you? Memorialization is the way in which our beloved is immortalized after death. Traditionally, we think of interment, gravestones, etc. The way that I see it, the story doesn’t have to end there. We can continue to honor them long after they are gone from this earthly plane, long after they’ve shed their mortal coil. We keep them alive through storytelling, and this isn’t limited to verbal conversation. We can continue to tell their story in the acts of love and veneration we carry out in their honor. If you could leave readers with one idea that would help them build a healthier relationship with grief, what would it be? Whatever you are feeling, however your grief shows up, it is valid and it is normal. There is no right way to grieve. If you find that you are unable to complete daily tasks and activities: give yourself grace, but don’t be afraid to reach out for spiritual or professional support if it drags on or feels too heavy. Don’t be afraid to lean on your people, and please, be gentle with yourself. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Lauren Seeley