Written by Kedisha Goddard, Entrepreneur & Founder of Saved & Sanctified LLC Kedisha Goddard is a purpose-driven entrepreneur and founder of Saved & Sanctified LLC. Her faith-based brand empowers people to walk boldly in their identity, purpose, and transformation. Sometimes the vision does not change, our understanding of the vision grows. When Saved & Sanctified LLC began, I knew I wanted to create something centered on faith. I wanted people to be able to wear messages that represented what they believed and boldly express their relationship with God. But as I continued building the company, and as God continued working on me, I began to understand that the vision was deeper than clothing. A person can wear a message without ever learning how to live the message. That realization changed the way I understood what I was building. More than something you wear The tagline for Saved & Sanctified is simple, "Wear the Word. Walk the Message." For a faith-based apparel company, “Wear the Word” makes immediate sense. A shirt can carry Scripture. A hat can start a conversation. A message printed across someone’s chest can remind another person of hope, faith, courage, or the goodness of God. But what happens after we take the shirt off? That question matters to me. We can wear "Faith Over Fear" while privately allowing fear to control our decisions. We can wear messages about purpose while feeling completely lost concerning our own. We can quote Scripture while still carrying rejection, disappointment, insecurity, unforgiveness, or wounds from experiences we have never fully confronted. We can profess Christianity publicly while privately struggling to become whole. That does not make us failures. It makes us human beings who are still growing. Somewhere along my own journey, I began to understand that Saved & Sanctified could not only encourage people to wear what they believe. It needed to encourage people to live what they believe. That is the heart behind Walk the Message. Salvation is the beginning of a journey The name Saved & Sanctified carries deep meaning for me. To be saved is to come to Jesus Christ, to receive the gift of salvation through Him, and begin a life of following Him. Then there is sanctification. To be sanctified means to be made holy, consecrated, and set apart for God and His purposes. It also speaks to the continuing work of God in the life of a believer as we grow in holiness, maturity, obedience, and Christlikeness. Being set apart does not mean believing we are better than other people. It means recognizing that our lives belong to God and allowing that truth to influence how we live. Following Christ does not mean that every broken place in our lives instantly disappears or that we suddenly become perfect people. There is a process of growth that includes transformation, renewing of the mind, learning, unlearning, surrender, and obedience. Sometimes, that process also includes healing from things we have carried much longer than anyone around us realizes. For me, that makes the name Saved & Sanctified more than the name of a company. It represents a journey, saved by Christ, set apart for God, continually being transformed, and learning to live differently because we belong to Him. Sanctification is not about pretending to have everything together. It is about belonging to God and allowing Him to continue His work in us. That understanding has become increasingly important to the vision behind Saved & Sanctified. What happens when the person behind the vision is still healing? I am not building Saved & Sanctified from a place of having arrived. I am building while growing too. I know what it feels like to struggle with self-esteem, to love deeply, experience rejection, seek acceptance, question yourself, and have to learn that another person’s response to you does not determine your value. I know what it means to have faith while still having questions, to believe God while still working through fear, and to encourage other people while God is still developing you. Perhaps that is part of why this mission means so much to me. I don’t want people merely to survive what hurt them. I want to encourage people to pursue healing, wholeness, growth, identity, faith, and purpose while keeping Jesus Christ at the center. Healing does not mean that the past never happened. It means the past no longer has to possess the authority to determine everything that happens next. Your wounds do not have to become your identity Many people are walking through life carrying names that were never supposed to become their identity, rejected, abandoned, unwanted, failure, not enough, too much, broken, forgotten. Sometimes those labels come from other people. Sometimes they come from experiences. Sometimes they come from things we have repeatedly told ourselves. But what happened to you and who you are do not have to remain synonymous. There comes a point when we must ask, "Who am I becoming?" For me, faith is deeply connected to that question. God does not ask us to pretend that painful experiences never happened. But neither do I believe we are required to spend the remainder of our lives being defined by the places where we were wounded. We can heal, grow, forgive, establish healthier boundaries, rediscover our identity, and begin again. When appropriate, we can also receive help from pastors, healthy communities, counselors, therapists, medical professionals, and other qualified people who can support that journey. Faith and responsible help do not have to be enemies. Purpose looks different when you are becoming whole Purpose is a word we use often. People ask, "What is my purpose? What am I called to do? What was I created for?" Those are important questions. But I have also learned to ask another one, "Who am I becoming while pursuing my purpose?" Reaching a destination without developing the character to carry it can create another kind of problem. If the opportunity becomes larger, can our character handle it? If the platform becomes larger, can our humility survive it? If the resources become greater, can we steward them? If more people begin listening, will we remain teachable? If the vision expands, will we still remember why we started? Those questions matter to me as a founder, but they also matter to me as a woman who loves God. I do not simply want Saved & Sanctified to grow. I want to grow while I build it. Steward the vision If you believe God has placed a dream, vision, business, ministry, book, idea, assignment, or something else on your heart, I want to encourage you. You do not have to build everything today. You may not have all the resources yet, know all the right people yet, or understand every part of the vision yet. You may even discover that what you thought was the entire vision was only the beginning of it. Be faithful with what you have. Pray over it, write it down, seek wisdom, remain teachable, and protect what needs to be protected. Be willing to change strategies without abandoning the mission, and allow God to develop your character while you develop the vision. Habakkuk 2:2 says, “Write the vision, and make it plain…” Sometimes writing the vision is not merely about documenting where you are going. Sometimes it helps you finally understand what you have been carrying. Building something bigger than a product Today, I understand Saved & Sanctified differently than I did when I began. Yes, I want people to purchase our products. I am an entrepreneur. Saved & Sanctified is a business, and businesses must become financially healthy and sustainable in order to grow. There is nothing wrong with wanting the work of your hands to prosper. But I do not want the transaction to become greater than the transformation. I want someone to encounter a message and remember that fear does not have to receive the final say. I want someone who has experienced rejection to remember that rejection is not their identity. I want someone who has been wounded to believe healing is possible, someone who feels stuck to believe they can begin again, and someone searching for purpose to have the courage to take another step. Above everything else, I want people to encounter Jesus Christ. That is why Saved & Sanctified is becoming more than something I want people to wear. It represents something I want people to walk. Wear the Word. Walk the Message. Maybe that is the invitation for all of us. Do not merely wear faith, walk it. Do not merely speak about love, live it. Do not merely talk about forgiveness, practice it. Do not merely post about purpose, pursue it. Do not merely say you trust God when everything is comfortable, learn to trust Him when you cannot see what happens next. And do not become so focused on where the vision is going that you miss what God may be developing inside of you while you are building it. I am still building, learning, healing, growing, and becoming. I am grateful for every opportunity God gives me to steward what has been placed in my hands. Ultimately, this is bigger than clothing. It is bigger than a business. It is about becoming the people we profess to be, living a faith that extends beyond what others can see, and pointing people toward Jesus. It is about having the courage to "Wear the Word. Walk the Message." Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Kedisha Goddard Kedisha Goddard, Entrepreneur & Founder of Saved & Sanctified LLC Kedisha Goddard is a purpose-driven entrepreneur and founder of Saved & Sanctified LLC, a faith-based brand created to inspire bold faith, identity, and transformation. Through impactful messaging, apparel, and leadership, she encourages people to walk confidently in purpose and authenticity. Her vision is to build a global movement that uplifts, empowers, and reminds people who they are.

Written by Brian Curtis, Consultant, Creator & Author Brian Curtis is an author, foundational thinker, and the innovator behind the Cirkuitbreaker project. Leveraging a 25-year career as an electrician in both the public and private sectors, he provides executives with a rare, grounded perspective on self-management and systemic alignment. You may or may not be familiar with these two iconic characters. Those of us from older generations grew up with Bugs Bunny. One Punch Man is a much newer take on a remarkably similar concept. I recently watched the series with my son, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The writing is brilliant. So why compare them in an article? Both characters share traits that set them apart from every other hero in fiction. Through examples and a few personal stories, I want to show why these two are arguably the most powerful characters in all of cartoon storytelling and cinema. While fans endlessly debate who reigns supreme across the MCU, DC, and various anime universes, I hope to spark a different conversation, why Saitama and Bugs are not only the most powerful, but also the most relatable, and how their unique abilities serve as striking examples of true inner growth. Saitama Most people are familiar with Bugs Bunny, so I will explain the context of the anime series One Punch Man to start. Much of this will seem cartoonish (and it is), but our fictional stories always carry deeper truths that we can relate to in real life. I encourage you to read and assess my conclusions at the end. Spoiler alert! I don’t believe you can replace seeing something firsthand, but I am going to explain parts of the story that you may want to see firsthand. I don’t believe what I have to say here will diminish the enjoyment of watching the series later, but it’s your call. The writing in the first season is excellent, and I found myself laughing out loud many times as I watched it with my son, who is in his first year of college. In season 1, our main character Saitama (One Punch Man) is living a lonely life in a one-bedroom apartment in some conceptualized version of Tokyo, with lettered districts that indicate large masses of inner-city dwellings. Our hero lives in City Z, which is known to be the most active area of monster sightings. There is a little backstory at the beginning, but the short of it is that Saitama has chosen to become a hero for fun. He lives on very little, but his purpose in life is to protect people from monsters, which leads to protecting other heroes as well. What makes Saitama unique in this story is that his life has become very boring for him. He has grown strong enough that nothing really affects him anymore. His run-ins with monsters have become boring for him because they die in just one punch. He is also completely anonymous. In this universe, there is a “Hero Association” that hands out ranks based upon a pecking order of competing superheroes. They rank from S to C, where C is the lowest rank, and S represents the most powerful heroes at the top of the pecking order. It is the job of the Association to curb the monster threat and assess new heroes who are interested in joining their ranks. This is part of the main story of the first season. Saitama inherits a pupil, a cyborg named Genos, who was once a young boy who wanted to become much stronger to fight monsters. Saitama saves him from impending doom, and after witnessing Saitama's effortless strength, he begs Saitama to take him on as a disciple, constantly taking meticulous notes on Saitama's everyday habits to decipher the "secret" to his power. Shortly after Saitama grudgingly agrees, the Hero Association holds an annual event for new heroes to apply for membership. Saitama seems interested after Genos explains it to him, and they both enter. This is where the story becomes comical and somewhat real. Saitama and Genos enter the evaluation, and Saitama is off the charts in the physical tests but scores extremely low in the written tests. Genos scores high in both categories and is given an S rank, already being on the Association’s radar. Saitama is a nobody, so he is given a C rank and allowed to join only because his physical score was so high. Our storytellers, in many ways, are poking fun at institutions and their ability to “assess” people based on mandatory tests and procedures. Saitama doesn’t seem too concerned. He never cares how he “ranks” compared to someone else. His only goal seems to be finding a tough enough monster to present a challenge, so moving up the ranks in the Hero Association gives him something to do, but not something that occupies much mental space. Genos doesn’t seem to be too concerned with his rank either, although he has been placed alongside the strongest of the S-class heroes. The story progresses, and we get content that mostly surrounds classes of heroes clashing with different classes of monsters and so on. Saitama starts to naturally attract the most heart-centered S-class heroes when they see how unconcerned he is with rank and how easily he dispatches monsters that others can’t seem to deal with. In one scene, an S-class hero named Silver Fang is asked about Saitama by a B-class hero named Blizzard. She is trying to get Saitama to “join her club,” but Silver Fang readily admits that Saitama is many times stronger than himself. This surprises her since Silver Fang is considered one of the most powerful heroes in the Association. Strength doesn’t seek recognition. It only serves to balance protection while making others stronger, and Saitama emulates this quality flawlessly. Over-protection disables growth, while a balanced approach disables only the direst threats. This is the constant of the whole series. Saitama is one-punching everything that others cannot while letting them “cut their teeth” on things they can handle without destroying themselves. Genos continually destroys himself against superior monsters but understands that Saitama is there in case things get too dire. In the end, it is always Saitama who saves the day, punching the most powerful monster that could kill most, if not all, of the other heroes. His efforts go unnoticed by most, walking on his own and doing what he loves to do, being a hero for fun. When asked about his secrets, he merely states that you do “100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 squats, eat three meals a day (bananas in the morning),” and other mundane things that don’t explain why he is invulnerable and can kill monsters with one punch. In a way, the following character represents Saitama’s heart, which is something he is mostly unconscious of. King One of the most interesting characters in this universe is King. He is widely believed by the public to be "The Strongest Man on Earth." In reality, he is an ordinary, timid civilian with zero powers who keeps happening to stand near the corpses of monsters Saitama effortlessly defeats. Saitama isn’t a hero to get credit, and King ends up getting it. He becomes Saitama's closest friend and gaming partner. In a way, you could say he is the spiritual “heart” behind Saitama and keeps him humble since Saitama can’t get the best of him when gaming together. It is really the only thing that frustrates Saitama in the series, but not necessarily. The public, and the other heroes for that matter, believe that King’s superpower is connected to the deep thumping heard when there is a threat nearby. In fact, it is only when King is scared to death, and the sound is simply his heart racing. In effect, it triggers someone to take care of the danger for him. There is a scene in season 2 when Saitama is genuinely depressed, and King gives him a strong spiritual perspective on Saitama’s journey. It is, without a doubt, the best writing of the series. I will let you watch it without much spoilers here. Bugs Bugs Bunny is a similar character, and of all the cartoon characters I can think of, he most closely resembles Saitama. Nothing affects Bugs, and he does his best to aggravate anyone out to get him. Bugs teases and lets his adversaries destroy themselves, much like One Punch Man. Like many of you, I grew up with Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, and the rest of the Looney Tunes bunch. What strikes me most about the bunny is that he always shows love for the characters trying to kill him or eat him, and teases them accordingly. The bigger picture My cousin Barbara told my dad to watch something recently. Dad is getting older, and with age, he has trouble finding meaning in life. Mom is gone, and he does miss her. Barbara suggested watching “How to Live Younger,” a Netflix documentary that she thought Dad should watch. I put it on a couple of days ago for him (his hands don’t work very well, and he has trouble using the remote), and we watched it, although Dad has a hard time sitting through things this late in life. The first episode deals primarily with exercise and its effects on the body and mind. The episode goes into studies showing how at least thirty minutes of exercise a day increases the body’s ability to fight off disease, creating a better mental state and releasing chemicals in the brain. The second episode deals with the placebo effect and how patients often have better results when given a placebo. What was most interesting, and what I want to talk more about, is how patients had the same result even if they knew they were taking a placebo. Episode three was about diet and the benefits of fasting, something that is being widely accepted at present. What is most relevant to our story here is the placebo effect and why patients responded just as well to treatments that they knew were placebos. A placebo is defined as a neurobiological process where a person's psychological expectation of healing triggers real physical changes in the body. When the brain anticipates recovery, it releases endogenous chemicals, such as natural opioids, dopamine, and anti-inflammatory compounds, and alters nervous system signaling. This response can reduce pain, lower inflammation, regulate blood pressure, and restore physical function, even when the external treatment contains no active medical or surgical mechanism. What spooked researchers more was the fact that patients responded just as well when they knew the treatment was a placebo. Doctors and surgeons didn’t know how to treat these responses, so they just kept doing the surgeries anyway. What the show doesn’t reveal is why it continued to work, regardless of whether or not the patient knew they were just receiving the belief that it would work. I can tell you from personal experience that the act of caring and giving love is much more powerful than belief. It triggers the natural interactions that support all life and supports the belief that life is precious and worth living. Why keep going if we stop giving and receiving love for one another? I can tell you, for certain, that my dad would have died shortly after my mom passed away if I wasn’t there. I’m not saying I’m special in any way. I was just there to give and receive love with my dad, so he had a reason to live. I benefited just as much as he did since I was no longer married. I have a son and daughter that I still connect with, but they are moving out of the house, and I don’t get to see them as often. There is no doubt that a healthy diet and regular exercise contribute to overall health, but if you don’t have someone to spend your time with, then the desire to take care of yourself falls away. In short, we grow older because we unconsciously isolate ourselves over time by prioritizing our external reality. We save for retirement because we fear what will happen if we don’t. Who will take care of us if we can’t afford healthcare or basic needs? Dad went into the hospital in December of last year. He had low sodium (for the third time from drinking too much water without eating) and had a potentially fatal gallstone blockage in his bile duct. He took a life flight to the University of Washington Medical Center for a sequence of surgeries and ended up in bed for over a week. At 82, it can take a while before you regain enough strength to walk on your own. Consequently, he ended up in rehab for three weeks. They would have kept him longer if we had let them. The reason I bring it up is because of what it was doing to him. He loved it there because they did everything for him, but they wouldn’t let him walk on his own due to liability. Liability is a slow death. He was walking fine before his temporary health issue, but despite explaining this ad nauseam to the “health care professionals,” he wasn’t allowed to walk on his own. This has a destructive element on the mind. If you tell someone they can’t walk, they will believe you, especially at that stage of life. My family and friends were aware of it, and I made sure to get him out of there before Christmas. They insisted he take a walker home to get around, afraid that he would fall down and injure himself. Once I brought him home, he never used the walker and hasn’t since. Fear will kill you in the end, and liability is just an example of fear. Fear of losing something that you never had in the first place. The only thing we ever have is our capacity to love one another and ourselves. Balancing that is paramount to overall health and well-being. Saitama is a great example of that. As a collective group, we are starting to understand this more and more. Old business structures are based on making money, but it comes at the cost of using other people for one’s own gain, destroying the mind and body over time. I will admit that I didn’t see it so accurately for what it was when I was working as an electrician. When you create hierarchies of increasing revenue models, it creates conflict in the mind and body. Money becomes the reason for working, so it creates stress between every relationship within that structure. If making money is the goal, then you want to make more, meaning that you are at odds with everyone else there since the highest income spots are few at the top. It kills our relationships with one another. It is nobody’s fault, only our misunderstanding of who and what we are and how that has created the structures we work in and live in daily. Trading time for money creates a situation where money starts to separate you, on a greater scale, from everyone else, causing you to grow older. Everyone is trying to take care of themselves without much concern for other people’s ability to take care of themselves. We say, “If you do the work and sell enough, you will be successful.” The truth is that is not the case. Clarity is what makes us successful, and becoming clear on how to give and receive love in equal proportion without creating over-dependence in one direction or the other is what creates a healthy lifestyle, both mentally and physically. The money itself is evidence of the monsters inside our minds that tell us we “need to save for tomorrow or die,” when, in fact, we can’t die. Everything dies and is reborn every day. The cells in your body are no more than ten years old. Think about that for a little bit. I believe the only reason the cells are that old is that we haven’t learned the process of renewing the mind daily. Killing monsters in the mind takes time, and it’s not something that can be sold. There are legions of coaches and consultants selling emotional intelligence, but it is gained by a deeper and deeper understanding of the self over time. Tempering the body and mind is a process, and it happens under the right conditions. If you are focusing on external things, it never happens because your emotional states are directly connected to something you have or don’t have. You don’t learn to create your own state of being as fast. This is not a religious article, but this is a fact, and it is why Jesus said to “seek ye the kingdom of heaven first.” Chasing something outside yourself leads to boom-and-bust emotional cycles based on the fear of loss, leading to self-destruction. There is nothing wrong with the things we create, but when our minds are fixated on them, then we have a hard time seeing the bigger picture. When all we want at the deepest level (some people will deny this) is to become closer to one another over time, reaching a singularity again, then focusing on external things just pulls us apart, making us grow older. People talk about the power of attraction and other things, but magnetism slowly breaks down under the power of gravity. Our interactions wane, and in reality, that is all we are. Unconditional love is what keeps our interactions more profound over time, forever. Spiritual laws were spoken for the sake of growth and increased clarity over time. “Love your father (source) with all your heart, mind, and soul” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” are the two that stand out most in our spiritual texts. The reason the first one is spoken before the second is that the people around us don’t know who they are or what they are. We aren’t identifying ourselves as creators and infinite potentiality when we externalize our freedom. If we don’t connect with our inner guidance, then we don’t know how to accomplish the second. We are an infinite array of projected thought forms and energy, and our ability to change our own momentum is relative to our own understanding. So, what then is the bigger picture? Many of you who have worked for yourself for years understand much, if not all, of this. It is why emotional intelligence is talked about in the business community. From the outside, it’s easy to watch people tear themselves apart when they aren’t grounded. It impacts the ability to listen and communicate in more profound ways. The success of our lives is relative to these seemingly simple skills, although I believe they are some of the most difficult to develop. We are experiencing another temporary bubble in the AI movement. I have lived long enough to know that it is just another marketing scheme to extract as much revenue as possible. Its fundamental design is based on marketing, not human connection. If the things we create slowly destroy us, then it forces us to change much faster. My advice? Follow the simple spiritual laws. After all, you are always looking at yourself. Do your best to value other people’s time the same way you would value your own. Momentum is always changing. It is the only thing that never changes. Saitama, for me, is the best example of this. He’s invulnerable, so he has somehow found the secret to creating a structure within a field that is not affected by any other projected energy or thought form (except for King, who beats him at every game they play together). He can get rid of any monster with bad intent with one punch. They present no challenge for him, and there is no fear when facing them. He does it because he loves to protect those who may succumb to fear. I think there is a Saitama and Bugs Bunny at the heart of every one of us. Something that cannot be destroyed, where we are just children having fun and playing together, forever. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Brian Curtis Brian Curtis, Consultant, Creator & Author Brian Curtis is a specialist in self-management, human energy systems, and organizational alignment. After a distinguished 25-year career as an electrician, he stepped away from traditional industry models to explore the intersection of universal laws, human behavior, and corporate structure. Through years of deep introspection and creation, he recognized that true professional success is dictated entirely by an individual's inner state and emotional alignment. Today, he dedicates his life to helping leaders heal the heart space, dismantle outdated behavioral patterns, and cultivate sustainable freedom. He is the founder of Cirkuitbreaker, a decentralized platform modeled after the balancing laws of nature.

Written by Andy Hall, Executive Leadership & Business Coach Andy Hall is an executive coach, leadership development specialist, and founder of Andy Hall Coaching. Through Leader As A Coach, he helps organizations retain their best people by developing leaders who build trust, ownership, and performance every day. Your organization may have competitive pay, flexible working, wellbeing initiatives, and a carefully designed employee retention strategy. Yet if people experience poor leadership every day, those investments will always struggle to keep them. Retention becomes real in ordinary conversations between leaders and their teams. Keep reading to understand why most retention strategies fail and what organizations must do differently. What is a retention strategy? An employee retention strategy is an organization’s plan to keep the people it values and reduce avoidable employee turnover. It may include competitive compensation, benefits, career pathways, recognition, flexible working, wellbeing support, employee surveys and improvements to the wider workplace experience. All of these things matter, of course. People do leave because of pay, workload, personal circumstances, limited opportunities and organizational change. It would be too simplistic to blame any one leader for every resignation. The problem begins when organizations treat retention mainly as a collection of policies and programs. Employees do not experience a retention strategy as a document. They experience whether their leader listens, keeps commitments, gives useful feedback, supports development, sets clear expectations, and trusts them to make decisions. A retention strategy can create the right conditions, but leaders turn those conditions into daily experience. Why do retention plans fail? Many retention strategies fail because they are designed too far from where commitment is strengthened or weakened. Senior leaders approve the strategy. HR creates the processes, resources, and measurement. Leaders then deliver the employee experience, often without enough time, support, or development to do it well. This creates a gap between organizational intention and everyday reality. The company says it values development, but one-to-one meetings are repeatedly cancelled. It promotes empowerment, but leaders approve every small decision. It asks for honest feedback, but employees learn that challenging the status quo is unwelcome. It celebrates wellbeing, while leaders are overloaded and pass that pressure down to their teams. In my previous Brainz article, I described this distance as the Leadership Retention Gap. The gap grows when what an organization promises and what its people experience no longer match. How do leaders affect retention? Leaders translate almost every part of working life. They explain priorities, allocate work, respond to mistakes, recognize contribution, approve flexibility, influence workload, and shape whether people feel safe enough to speak honestly. Gallup reports that managers account for 70% of the variation in team engagement. Engagement is not the same as retention, but it is closely connected to the daily experience that influences whether people contribute fully and want to remain. This is why a centrally designed retention initiative can produce very different results across teams in the same organization. The policy may be identical, but the lived experience may be completely different. One leader holds meaningful career conversations and helps people see a future, while another postpones those conversations until somebody resigns. One leader invites ideas and develops judgment, while another provides every answer and creates dependency. One leader gives timely feedback, while another stays silent until frustration has built on both sides. Employees rarely separate these experiences from the organization itself. Their leader becomes the organization in the moments that matter most. Why are leaders underprepared? During more than three decades in corporate leadership, I repeatedly saw capable people promoted because they were technically strong, dependable, and successful. Their promotion made sense. What happened next often did not. They were expected to lead difficult conversations, create accountability, manage conflict, develop talent, build trust and retain good people. Yet many had never been shown how to do those things. They knew the operation, product or profession, but they had not necessarily learned how to help another person think, grow and take responsibility. Some responded by becoming highly directive. They solved problems quickly, checked everything, and carried too much themselves. Their intention was often positive. They wanted to help, protect standards, and keep work moving. Over time, however, the leader became exhausted, and the team became increasingly dependent. Organizations then made the situation worse by holding leaders responsible for engagement and retention without first developing their leadership capability. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 shows the pressure on leaders. Global manager engagement fell from 31% in 2022 to 22% in 2025. Leaders cannot consistently create an engaging environment for others when they are unsupported and disengaging themselves. Can HR own retention alone? Of course, HR has an essential role in retention. It can identify patterns, improve policies, challenge unhealthy practices, strengthen selection and development, and give leaders better tools. Senior leadership must also set expectations and make retention a genuine business priority. Neither can replace the leader’s everyday influence. A new benefits package cannot repair a relationship in which an employee feels ignored. A recognition platform cannot compensate for a leader who never notices contribution. An engagement survey cannot build trust if nobody discusses the results. A career framework has limited value when leaders avoid development conversations or other difficult discussions. Retention therefore needs shared ownership. Executives create the conditions, HR builds the supporting system, and leaders shape the daily experience. Employees also have a responsibility to contribute, communicate, and take ownership, but the strategy weakens when any one group assumes somebody else will make it work. What support do leaders need? Better leadership does not come from telling leaders that people matter. Most already know that. It comes from helping them turn that belief into consistent behavior, particularly when they are busy, under pressure, or dealing with a difficult issue. Gallup’s guidance on manager development reports that managers trained in coaching and people development can achieve up to 18% higher engagement among their teams, alongside improvements in other manager performance measures. The important word here is development, as information alone seldom, if ever, changes behavior. Leaders need practical development in the conversations they lead every week. That includes listening beyond the first answer, setting clear expectations, giving timely feedback, recognizing contribution, discussing growth, addressing concerns early, and knowing when to ask rather than tell. In an earlier article, I shared seven ways leaders can reduce employee turnover through better conversations. These skills improve through practice, observation, feedback, and repeated application. A single workshop may create awareness, but leaders need reinforcement if new behaviors are to survive the pressure of everyday work. A coaching approach is especially valuable because it helps leaders develop capability rather than becoming the answer to every problem. This does not mean leaders should refuse to mentor, direct, or decide. Sometimes speed, safety, risk, or clarity require a firm answer. Effective leaders learn to recognize when direction is needed and when a thoughtful question will strengthen somebody else’s judgment and ownership. That distinction is central to my coaching-style leadership approach. The purpose is not to make leaders less accountable. It’s to help them create more capable and accountable people around them. Is your leadership system ready? Before launching another retention initiative, executive and HR teams should examine the leadership environment the initiative must operate in. Time and capacity: Do leaders have enough time to lead people, or are they carrying an unsustainable individual workload as well? Organizations often ask leaders to coach, listen, and develop others while measuring them primarily on the volume of operational work they complete. If every hour is already full, people leadership becomes the activity that is postponed until a problem becomes urgent. Conversation capability: Which conversations are leaders expected to lead, and have they practiced them? Consider feedback, accountability, career development, recognition, workload, conflict, and performance. Leaders also need to distinguish between a moment that requires direction and one that offers an opportunity to coach. Confidence rarely comes from reading a framework once. It grows when leaders practice, receive feedback, and try again. Reinforcement and evidence: What support helps leaders continue improving after formal development ends? Look beyond attendance and satisfaction scores. Examine whether employees receive more useful feedback, whether decisions move to the right level, whether one-to-one conversations improve, and whether engagement, turnover, and internal-mobility patterns differ across teams. Leaders should always be recognized for developing capable people and building a strong succession bench, as well as delivering short-term operational results. These questions move the conversation away from blaming leaders and toward understanding what the organization has equipped them to do. They also reveal whether retention is being treated as a campaign or as a leadership capability. Make retention a leadership outcome No single solution exists for employee turnover, and healthy organizations will never try to prevent every departure. People move for many legitimate reasons. However, organizations should not keep investing in retention initiatives while ignoring the quality of leadership that employees experience every day. Better pay may attract attention, flexible policies may remove obstacles, career pathways may show possibility, and leaders determine whether much of that promise becomes believable. Start with one honest assessment. Identify where leaders feel least confident, which conversations they avoid, and where employees experience the greatest gap between company intention and leadership behavior. Then give leaders practical development, time to practice, and feedback that helps the new behavior last. If your organization is losing good people, it may be time to look beyond recruitment and examine how people are being led every day. At Andy Hall Coaching, Leader As A Coach helps organizations develop the everyday leadership behaviors that build trust, ownership, engagement, and performance. Follow me on Facebook and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Andy Hall Andy Hall, Executive Leadership & Business Coach Andy Hall is an executive coach, leadership development specialist, and founder of Andy Hall Coaching. He helps organizations reduce employee turnover, improve performance and strengthen trust by changing the everyday leadership behaviors that shape how people feel, contribute and stay. After more than two decades in senior corporate leadership roles across the UK and US, Andy created Leader As A Coach to help leaders stop creating dependency and start building ownership. His work focuses on practical conversations that improve accountability, engagement, confidence and results. Andy believes retention is not just an HR challenge, it is a leadership behavior challenge.

Written by Markella Kaplani, Parenthood and Relationship Coach & Psychologist Markella Kaplani, Master of Arts (M.A.), is a licensed psychologist specializing in parenthood and relationship dynamics. With over 16 years of experience, she brings a holistic, compassionate approach to mental and emotional wellness, helping parents reconnect with themselves, their partners, and their dreams so the entire family system can thrive. You booked the massage. You took the bubble bath. You bought the journal with the gold lettering. You carved out 45 minutes on a Sunday morning while your partner handled the baby, and you sat in a coffee shop with a book you didn't finish because you spent the whole time making a mental grocery list and feeling guilty for not being home. This is what self-care looks like for most mothers: an aspirin for a broken leg. The problem is not that you are doing self-care wrong. The problem is that self-care, as it is currently sold to mothers, was never designed to address what is actually causing the felt exhaustion. In this article, you will learn why the modern self-care movement fails mothers, what research actually says about maternal well-being, and 5 things that help more than any bath bomb ever will. I still remember the linen journal with gold lettering I bought during my own hardest stretch of early motherhood. I wrote in it exactly twice. It sat on my nightstand like a small monument to everything I was supposed to be doing for myself and wasn't. Nothing shifted until I stopped trying to 'treat' the exhaustion and started naming what was underneath it, the invisible load, the loneliness, the quiet grief for who I'd been. The self-care problem Maternal mental health is in decline. A 2025 study published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Internal Medicine found that the proportion of mothers reporting ‘excellent’ mental health dropped from 38.4 percent in 2016 to 25.8 percent in 2023, while those reporting fair or poor mental health rose from 5.5 percent to 8.5 percent. This is not a blip. It is a trend, and it is accelerating. During this same period, the self-care industry exploded into a multi-billion-dollar market. More wellness products, apps, retreats, and Instagram accounts are dedicated to maternal self-care than at any point in history. Yet, mothers are doing worse. This is not a coincidence. The self-care model, as it is currently constructed, places the burden of well-being squarely on the individual. It tells mothers that if they are burned out, overwhelmed, or falling apart, the solution is a personal practice: meditation, journaling, exercise, skincare routines. It frames maternal distress as a self-management problem rather than a systemic one. In doing so, it performs a subtle but devastating trick: it makes mothers responsible not only for their family's well-being, but for their own recovery from the very conditions that are making them unwell. What self-care gets wrong about mothers The modern self-care movement has its roots in something genuinely important. The concept was originally developed in clinical and activist communities, particularly by Black feminist thinkers and disability advocates, as a radical act of preservation in systems that did not care whether marginalized people survived. In that context, self-care was political. It asserted worth in the face of structural neglect. Today, however, it has become a consumer product. Self-care, as marketed to mothers, is overwhelmingly individual, temporary, and transactional. Buy this candle. Take this class. Download this app. The implicit promise is that if you do enough small pleasant things for yourself, you will be able to tolerate the conditions that are exhausting you. It is a coping strategy dressed up as a solution. This fails mothers for three specific reasons. First, it treats the symptoms without touching the cause. A mother who is burned out because she carries 80 percent of the cognitive and emotional labor in her household does not need a yoga class. She needs the labor to be redistributed. A mother who feels disconnected from her identity does not need a face mask. She needs space and support to process the developmental earthquake of matrescence (learn more about it in this article). Self-care, as sold, offers relief. What most mothers need is structural change. Second, it adds another task to an already impossible list. When self-care becomes something a mother is supposed to do, in addition to everything else she is managing, it becomes another performance metric she is failing to meet. She is not just burned out. She is burned out and not doing her self-care, which means she is burned out and it is her fault. The guilt compounds. Third, it is almost always solitary. The self-care prescription is to take time alone, get away, recharge, and have "me time." But for many mothers, the problem is not too little alone time. The problem is too much aloneness inside the experience of motherhood itself. They are isolated in their overwhelm, invisible in their struggle, and disconnected from the reciprocal, honest human connection that sustains people through hard seasons. What the research actually says When researchers study what actually protects maternal mental health, the findings consistently point away from individual self-care practices and toward relational and structural factors. A 2025 study examining self-compassion, social support, and self-care among mothers of young children found that while self-care behaviors were associated with physical well-being, social support and self-compassion most strongly predicted both physical and mental health outcomes. In other words, how mothers relate to themselves and how supported they feel by others matters far more than whether they fit in a workout. Similarly, research on maternal isolation has identified social disconnection as one of the most significant risk factors for postnatal depression and anxiety, a finding the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified as a growing public health concern. The data paint a picture almost the opposite of what the self-care industry sells: mothers do not need more time alone. They need more meaningful connection, more practical support, and more honest acknowledgment that what they are going through is genuinely hard. This doesn't mean rest, exercise, and moments of pleasure are unimportant. They are. But they are maintenance, not medicine. They keep a functioning system running. They do not repair a system that is fundamentally overloaded, unsupported, and operating without the structural scaffolding it needs. What actually helps A mother I worked with, let’s call her Elena, arrived having done everything 'right': the 5 a.m. workouts, the gratitude journal, the standing monthly massage. 'I'm doing all the things,' she said, 'and yet I still feel like I'm disappearing.' Adding more self-care did not change much. If self-care, as it is currently sold to us, is not the answer, then what is? What actually helped Elena was learning about matrescence and understanding that she wasn't failing at motherhood, she was being remade by it, without a map and without support. Research and my clinical experience converge on five things that measurably improve maternal well-being. Unfortunately, none of them come in a package with a ribbon. 1. Redistribute the labor, not just the tasks The mental load, that is, the cognitive and emotional work of tracking, planning, anticipating, and managing everything a household and family needs, falls disproportionately on mothers even in partnerships where the physical tasks are shared relatively equally. The mother told to "just ask for help" still carries the weight of knowing what needs to be done, when, and how. Meaningful relief does not come from a partner doing more when asked. It comes from a partner taking full ownership of domains, not tasks, but domains, so that the cognitive burden is genuinely shared rather than merely delegated. 2. Build community, not just support networks There is a difference between having people who will help you in a crisis and having people who understand what you are living through on a Tuesday. Most mothers have the former. Few have the latter. What the research calls "social support" is not just babysitting swaps and meal trains, although those matter. It is the presence of other people who can hold the full complexity of your experience without trying to fix it, minimize it, or redirect it into gratitude. It is being seen by someone going through the same thing and being able to say, "Yes, this is as hard as you think it is," without judgment. That kind of community is protective in ways that no individual self-care practice can replicate. 3. Name the transition you are in One of the most consistently powerful interventions in my work with mothers is simply naming matrescence, telling them that what they are experiencing has a name, a history, and a body of research behind it. When a mother learns that her brain is literally restructuring itself, that her identity confusion is a developmental stage and not a personal deficiency, that her grief for her former self is normal rather than ungrateful, the relief is immediate and profound. Self-care tells you to manage your symptoms. Understanding matrescence tells you why the symptoms exist. That difference changes everything. 4. Practice self-compassion, not self-improvement Self-compassion keeps appearing in the research as a stronger predictor of maternal well-being than self-care behaviors. Self-care, as currently practiced, is often another form of self-improvement, another thing to optimize, another way to perform wellness. Self-compassion asks something entirely different. It asks you to stop performing and start being kind to yourself in the middle of the mess. Not after you have fixed it. Not when you have earned it. Right now, in the thick of it, when everything is imperfect, you are exhausted, the house is a disaster, and you've lost your patience again. Self-compassion says, this is what it is, and you are allowed to be struggling. 5. Get support that matches the magnitude of the transition A bath is not proportionate to an identity crisis. A journal is not proportionate to the neurological rewiring of your brain. The scale of the support should match the scale of the transformation. For many mothers, this means working with a therapist, coach, or counselor who understands matrescence and the transition to parenthood as a developmental process, not just a stressful event to manage. Therapeutic approaches like Internal Family Systems (IFS) and compassion-focused therapy are particularly well-suited because they honor the complexity of what mothers experience. They do not rush toward a fix. They create space for all of it, the love and the grief, the expansion and the loss, the fierce protectiveness and the quiet despair, without pathologizing any of it. The real radical act Here is the irony: the original concept of self-care was radical precisely because it was not about bubble baths. It was about refusing to accept that your suffering was normal, inevitable, or your fault. It was about asserting that you deserved care in a system that did not provide it. For mothers, the truly radical act of self-care is not adding another wellness practice to the pile. It is naming the structural conditions that are making motherhood so hard: the isolation, the unsupported identity transition, the unequal distribution of labor, the cultural pressure to perform gratitude while drowning, and refusing to accept them as personal problems with personal solutions. Asking for help isn't because you are weak, it's because you were never meant to do this alone. It is demanding that your partner, your family, your workplace, and your community show up for you with the same energy and investment you pour into everyone else. It means giving yourself permission to be in the middle of the hardest transformation of your life without pretending a scented candle will get you through it. You deserve more than maintenance If you are a mother who has done all the "right" self-care things and still feels like something fundamental is missing, trust that instinct. You don't need another tip. It is a deeper understanding of what is happening to you and support that matches the scale of the change. As a psychologist and parenthood and relationship coach, I work with mothers and couples who are ready to move beyond surface-level coping and into the real work of identity, connection, and transformation. Visit here for relevant resources and programs, or reach out via email to book a free discovery call. You were never meant to go through the wave of matrescence alone. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Markella Kaplani Markella Kaplani, Parenthood and Relationship Coach & Psychologist Markella Kaplani, M.A., is a multi-passionate, restless soul passionate about discovering the depths of the psyche and what makes us whole. In her quest to support people along their journey to better mental and emotional health, Markella is a dedicated lifelong learner. She holds an M.A. in Clinical-Counseling Psychology and specializes in child psychology, special education, couples therapy, and motherhood psychology, giving her a holistic perspective on the family system, both internally and externally. With her non-judgmental, culturally sensitive, and compassionate approach, she combines facts with each person's unique experience to create interventions that speak to their individuality.

Written by Emma Arnaudet, Burnout Recovery Coach & Pranic Healer As a certified Robbins-Madanes Coach and Pranic Healer, Emma empowers individuals to recover from burnout and restore their intrinsic joy. By combining tailored life coaching with restorative energy work, she guides clients, especially single parents and busy women, toward lasting physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Burnout is commonly defined as “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation, usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration.” But this dictionary definition only tells part of the story. Burnout can affect far more than your physical and mental health. It can impact your lifestyle, your relationships, your communication, your confidence, and your performance at work. “The Burnout Report 2026 reveals the risk of burnout remains stubbornly high, with 9 in ten (91%) adults experiencing high or extreme levels of pressure and stress in the last year.”[1] Burnout is particularly relevant to people in their 40s to 60s, who may be navigating the multiple pressures of the “Sandwich Generation”. A generation “sandwiched” between the physical, emotional and sometimes financial demands of ageing parents and children, who still need you. What are the signs of burnout? Burnout can affect your most basic needs, your sleep, your appetite and your ability to maintain healthy routines. You may start withdrawing from social activities or stop exercising because you simply don't have the energy. When you see yourself through the prism of burnout, your self-image and self-belief suffer. You develop fears around your performance. You start doubting your skills. Your standards at work slip, and you start worrying that others will notice. You may feel undervalued, both at work and at home. Emotionally, you might find yourself moving between anxiety, frustration, irritability, and low mood. Your thoughts can become repetitive, making it difficult to switch off or see situations clearly. After several sleepless nights, it is much easier to become triggered by people or situations that you would normally handle calmly. Then, there are the physical signs: your energy is depleted. You might experience headaches, sore or tired eyes, difficulty concentrating, muscle tension, physical aches, and disrupted sleep. When you reach the point where you no longer feel like getting up in the morning and would much rather hide under your duvet, you know it is time to take action. How does Pranic Healing support you physically? Pranic Healing is a complementary energy therapy developed by Master Choa Kok Sui, following 17 years of research into different healing modalities [2]. Pranic Healing is a healing modality based on the energetic chakra system. Each chakra is an energy centre responsible for a bodily system: gastrointestinal, respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, urinary, reproductive, musculoskeletal, endocrine, and lymphatic. The Pranic Healer will realign your energy and rebalance your chakras, whether they are congested (too much energy) or depleted (not enough energy). Pranic Healing works with this energetic system through specific cleansing and energising techniques based on precise protocols. If you are experiencing physical tension, tiredness, or other symptoms associated with prolonged stress, Pranic Healing provides a complementary approach to relieve you of these symptoms. What about nervous system regulation? Burnout, closely associated with prolonged stress, can affect your nervous system. Likewise, Pranic Healing helps to regulate the nervous system by working on the body's energy field to rebalance the chakras and release stress and anxiety. How does Pranic Healing support you psychologically? Burnout is not only physical. Anxiety, resentment, fear of failing, worry of underperforming, and a pervading feeling of worthlessness can all become part of the burnout cycle. Some Pranic Healing protocols were specifically designed by Master Choa Kok Sui to work with emotional and psychological patterns through the energetic system. After a first session, you will begin to release what may be weighing you down and regain focus, calm, and emotional balance. Why a combined approach? My approach is different because a purely physical approach or a solely mindset-based approach is not always enough. Your mind and body are not two completely separate entities. When you're physically exhausted, it becomes harder to think clearly. When your thoughts are overwhelmed and you feel emotionally drained, your body feels the effects. So I brought together two complementary, comprehensive services: Life Coaching and Pranic Healing. The coaching provides practical tools and strategies to help you change behaviours, strengthen boundaries, improve communication, and create new ways of responding to life's challenges. Pranic Healing provides a complementary energetic approach to supporting physical and emotional wellbeing. Together, they can create a powerful reset. By alternating Pranic Healing with Burnout Recovery Coaching, we work on both sides of the equation, supporting your physical and emotional wellbeing while developing practical strategies for sustainable change. This approach goes beyond managing burnout or preventing it. It helps you reset your life physically, mentally, and emotionally. What could be the root of burnout? Burnout is not always caused by an overload of work, tasks, a fast pace, or unreasonable deadlines in the workplace. It also depends on how we respond to the demands placed on us. People-pleasing, difficulty saying no, taking on too much responsibility, and constantly putting other people's needs before your own can gradually drain your energy. Learning to establish healthy boundaries is therefore an important part of burnout recovery. To transform your life, you also have to become the captain of your thoughts. Your thoughts guide your day. Burnout can make communication harder. When you are exhausted and emotionally overwhelmed, it can be difficult to express what you need without either becoming defensive or simply giving in. Learning to communicate assertively and establishing boundaries will protect your energy, time, and health without damaging your relationships. Practical coaching tools will help you to strategise your routine and work on your mindset and boundaries, while Pranic Healing will help you to regain a clear focus and an energy level which will have positive consequences on the way you are able to think. Once you become aware of your behavioural patterns, you can begin to break the mould and create new habits. According to James Clear in Atomic Habits, “On average, it takes more than two months before a new behaviour becomes automatic, 66 days to be exact."[3] I recommend giving yourself the space to work on these patterns over a sustained period rather than looking for a quick fix. Why is this approach pioneering? One of the most surprising aspects of Pranic Healing is that you can administer it remotely! You don't need to be sitting in front of a screen during the session, and you don't need to travel. You can choose to visit me in person, but remote sessions allow you to receive Pranic Healing while continuing with your normal day. If you don't have the luxury of taking months away from work or putting your entire life on hold to address burnout, you need an approach that works alongside your life. Turn burnout on its head! If you are open to an innovative approach to burnout recovery and burnout prevention, book a free appointment today and let's explore whether this combination could be right for you. Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Emma Arnaudet Emma Arnaudet, Burnout Recovery Coach & Pranic Healer Emma is a Burnout Recovery Coach and a Pranic Healer who offers an innovative combination of holistic therapies through her company, Lovemynewlife. A professional and single parent, she empathises with women who have been giving too much and have failed to protect their time, energy, and emotional boundaries. Being made redundant in the middle of the pandemic was the catalyst she needed to retrain as a Robbins-Madanes-trained Life Coach and a Pranic Healer, trained by Les Flitcroft and Master Co, two leading figures in Pranic Healing, founded by Master Choa Kok Sui. Her mission is to help as many women as possible create a life they love, one where they feel energetically aligned. References: [1] Orpwood, G. (2026, September 1). Burnout Report 2026: High stress pushing workers into sick leave as just one in four feel mental health is genuinely prioritised and supported in the workplace. Mental Health UK. [2] The Origin of Modern Pranic Healing and Arhatic Yoga, Master Choa Kok Sui. [3] Atomic Habits, James Clear.

Porto, Portugal – September 2026 – Maternity leave is often treated as a temporary interruption to a woman's career. While organizations commonly focus on preparing for an employee's absence, the support and structure surrounding her return to work can be less consistent. &BEYOND – The Maternity Transition Consultancy, founded by Isabel Theissen, aims to change this by helping individuals and organizations create more structured, consistent, and sustainable maternity transitions. "Returning to work isn't a return to the old normal," says Isabel Theissen. "Motherhood can fundamentally change a woman's identity, priorities, and perspective, while the workplace may have evolved during her absence. We need to move beyond the expectation that women simply bounce back and instead create the conditions for a more realistic and sustainable transition." Addressing the gap in return-to-work support Drawing on her background in senior digital marketing roles at global brands, experience as a motherhood and leadership coach, and qualitative research with working mothers, Isabel Theissen developed &BEYOND to address the challenges women face throughout the maternity transition. Her research explores experiences ranging from navigating matrescence and changing priorities to managing workplace expectations, reintegrating after leave, and reconsidering future career directions. A key focus is the assumption that women should return to work as the same professionals they were before maternity leave. This expectation can overlook the personal transformation that comes with motherhood and the support needed to navigate the return sustainably. &BEYOND takes a broader approach, recognizing maternity as a transition that extends beyond the leave period itself. The Motherhood & Leadership Framework™ At the center of &BEYOND is the Motherhood & Leadership Framework™, a research-informed approach that considers four interconnected phases where motherhood and career overlap: Pre-leave: Preparing the foundation through clarity around expectations, responsibilities, and the transition ahead. On leave: Recognizing matrescence and creating space to navigate personal and identity changes. Re-entry: Supporting a realistic and sustainable return through clear priorities, appropriate expectations, and reintegration support. &Beyond: Recognizing personal growth through motherhood as an opportunity for continued leadership and career development. The fourth phase is central to the framework. Motherhood can bring new perspectives, values, strengths, and ways of leading. Rather than treating these developments as separate from professional growth, &BEYOND considers how they can inform a woman's ongoing leadership and career journey. "The return to work should not be viewed solely as a process of restoring previous performance," Isabel Theissen explains. "It can also be an opportunity to recognize what has changed, reconnect with what matters, and consider how personal growth can shape the next stage of a woman's professional life." Supporting women and organizations &BEYOND works with both individuals and organizations to bridge the gap between maternity leave policies and their practical implementation. For individuals, the consultancy provides coaching, practical tools, and guidance to help women navigate maternity leave, their return to work, and the professional decisions that follow. For organizations, &BEYOND supports more structured maternity transition processes, manager guidance, and sustainable reintegration practices. The approach aims to help organizations create more consistent, realistic support throughout the maternity journey, ensuring performance continuity and leadership development beyond. Isabel Theissen emphasizes that responsibility for a successful maternity transition should not rest solely on the individual woman. "Organizations and managers have an important role in creating the conditions in which women can reintegrate sustainably and continue to develop. Supporting maternity transitions should extend beyond ensuring that an employee has a position to return to." Free Maternity Leave & Beyond Guide To support women and managers navigating maternity transitions, &BEYOND offers a free Maternity Leave & Beyond Guide, with resources tailored to both audiences: For individuals: Guidance to prepare for maternity leave, navigate the return to work, and approach the transition with greater clarity. Download here. For managers: Practical guidance to better understand maternity transitions and support employees before, during, and beyond their return. Download here. Discover &BEYOND and access the free guide. About &BEYOND &BEYOND – The Maternity Transition Consultancy supports women and organizations in creating more structured, consistent, and sustainable maternity transitions. Founded by ICF-accredited Motherhood & Leadership Coach Isabel Theissen, &BEYOND combines qualitative research, coaching expertise, and the Motherhood & Leadership Framework™ to support women and organizations before, during, and beyond maternity leave. As a result, &BEYOND helps organizations strengthen engagement, ensure business continuity, and support the long-term development of their leadership talent. Book an introductory consultation to explore what &BEYOND’s support could look like for you. Website Instagram

From Charlotte Courts to Chapel Hill classrooms. Matthew Stiles grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, where sports and music were both important parts of his early life. He was captain of his high school tennis team, played basketball, and spent time playing in multiple bands. Those experiences gave him a mix of interests that extended well beyond the classroom. After high school, Stiles attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and economics. His education gave him a foundation in understanding both people and the economic forces that influence businesses and markets. Although his career would eventually take him into cybersecurity and technology sales, those subjects remain relevant to the way he thinks about business and decision-making. Building a career in technology Stiles began his professional career in sales at NetApp. From there, he continued building experience across the technology industry, later working in sales at Palo Alto Networks, Tanium, Abnormal AI, and Zero Networks. Moving between different technology companies has given Stiles experience with different parts of a rapidly changing industry. His career has remained closely connected to enterprise technology, with cybersecurity becoming a central focus of his professional work. Today, he serves as a Channel Sales Director at Zero Networks. In this role, he works within the cybersecurity industry while continuing to build on the sales experience he developed throughout his career. Stiles describes himself as a cybersecurity professional who helps fight cybercrime. His professional interests also include data center technology, giving him a broader connection to the technology infrastructure that businesses rely on every day. Seeing cybersecurity from a business perspective Working in technology sales has given Stiles a perspective that goes beyond the technology itself. Businesses have to consider how new technology fits into their existing operations, what problems they are trying to address, and how decisions affect the people who will ultimately use those solutions. That perspective is particularly relevant in cybersecurity, where businesses are constantly balancing technology needs with practical considerations. Cybersecurity is an area where the technology continues to change, but organizations still have to make decisions based on their own circumstances and priorities. For Stiles, understanding the business side of technology is an important part of working in the industry. His background in sociology and economics also gives him a different lens through which to consider how organizations and individuals make decisions. Interests beyond technology While technology and cybersecurity occupy much of Stiles' professional life, his interests outside of work are considerably broader. He continues to enjoy tennis and basketball, sports that were part of his life growing up in Charlotte. He also enjoys golf and fly fishing and maintains a regular running routine. His interest in music also goes back to his younger years, when he played in multiple bands. These interests provide a significant contrast to his professional work and give him ways to spend time away from the technology industry. Stiles has also followed the Mill House podcast associated with Andy Mill for approximately five years and considers it one of the most influential podcasts he has listened to. His interest in the podcast reflects his broader appreciation for learning and following subjects outside his professional field. Giving back to the community Community involvement is another part of Stiles' life outside of his career. He has supported organizations including the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the YMCA, and Habitat for Humanity. These organizations represent different areas of community support, from health-related causes to programs focused on community development and service. For Stiles, charitable involvement provides another way to stay connected to causes and communities outside of his professional responsibilities. Looking at the career as a whole From his early years in Charlotte to his education at UNC Chapel Hill and his career across NetApp, Palo Alto Networks, Tanium, Abnormal AI, and Zero Networks, Stiles' professional path has developed within the broader technology industry. His current work as a Channel Sales Director at Zero Networks brings together many of the experiences he has developed along the way. His career has given him exposure to technology sales, cybersecurity, and data center technology while allowing him to continue developing relationships across the industry. Outside of work, his interests in sports, running, fly fishing, golf, music, and community involvement provide a different side of his life. Together, these experiences paint a picture of someone whose professional career is rooted in technology while his interests extend well beyond the office.

Long before Paul E Skidmore III worked in sales, he spent years behind bars across Tampa learning how people communicate. Bartending may seem far removed from account management, but both careers depend on reading a room, answering questions quickly, and understanding what someone actually wants. That experience became part of the foundation for Skidmore’s move into sales. Rather than viewing sales as a matter of having the perfect pitch, he came to see it as a combination of preparation, product knowledge, communication, and follow-through. Growing Up in Tampa and learning through experience Skidmore grew up in Tampa, Florida, with his parents and younger sister. His father worked as an engineer, while his mother held office jobs as she helped raise the family, and much of his childhood revolved around sports, collecting cards, spending time with neighbourhood friends, and attending St. Paul’s Catholic Church. He describes himself as a latchkey kid who often had to learn by experience. There was not always a clear lesson attached to every decision, so much of his understanding of work and life developed through trial, mistakes, observation, and repetition. “I remember what it was like growing up, and then I look around at everything going on,” Skidmore says. “I use real life to remind myself that things could always be much worse, and whatever does not kill you will teach you a lesson.” What bartending taught Paul E Skidmore III about people After high school and some college, Skidmore spent nearly 15 years bartending at different locations around Tampa. The work exposed him to people from different backgrounds and required him to constantly adjust the way he communicated. Bartending also demanded speed, memory, patience, and attention. A customer rarely explains every detail of what they expect, so part of the job is recognizing signals, asking the right questions, and responding before a small issue becomes a larger one. Those skills later transferred into sales. Skidmore began working as a sales contractor during the later years of his hospitality career, initially gaining experience in a call centre before eventually branching out on his own. Why product knowledge became central to his sales approach Skidmore believes one of the biggest mistakes someone can make in sales is knowing only enough about a product to sell it. His approach has been to understand what he is offering in greater detail so that conversations can move beyond a rehearsed script. “Knowledge is one of the most important qualities,” he says. “Technology is always evolving, so to stay successful you have to stay up to date on the content and information.” That means learning cannot stop after an initial training period. Products change, customer questions change, and technology can make yesterday’s knowledge incomplete surprisingly quickly. Skidmore describes learning with an analogy he has carried into both his career and personal life. “Your cup can never be full, and once it gets full, you dump it out and get a bigger cup,” he says. “There is so much to learn and so much to understand in this world.” Why availability matters in account management Knowledge is only useful when customers can access it, which is why availability has become another major part of Skidmore’s approach. He places a strong value on being reachable and following up rather than disappearing after an initial conversation. That accessibility can make account management more demanding because work does not always fit neatly inside traditional hours. Skidmore acknowledges that separating his career from his personal life remains something he is still working to improve. “To me, it is a hard balance between work and personal life,” he says. “Anyone who can properly balance the two is truly successful, and I have not been able to completely separate them yet, but I continue to try and learn.” How setbacks changed the way he communicates Skidmore is open about the fact that some of his most difficult obstacles have come from his own decisions. Over time, that recognition forced him to look more closely at how he reacts to setbacks and how communication can shape what happens next. “The biggest obstacle in my life has been me,” he says. “I always self-sabotage without realizing it, but I have learned that you will always have problems and choices, and not all choices are going to be the right ones.” One lesson that stayed with him is the cost of poor communication. He has learned that people do not always interpret situations in the same way, and assumptions can create problems that might have been prevented through clearer conversations. How Paul E Skidmore III defines progress today Goal setting for Skidmore is practical rather than abstract. Once he decides what he wants to accomplish, he relies on written plans, reminders, and repeated follow-ups to stop intentions from disappearing into the background. “Once a plan hits paper, it becomes just that, a plan,” he says. “By setting constant reminders and follow-ups, I am able to follow my strategy with goals that are immediate and long-term.” His definition of success has also become more focused on the present. Instead of judging progress only by career milestones, he looks at what he has actually done on a given day and whether it had an effect on someone else. “I measure success by what I have done today, not yesterday because that is the past, and not tomorrow because it is not here,” Skidmore says. “Did I make a difference to anyone today? If I can say yes, then today was successful.” Fatherhood and the motivation to keep learning Skidmore says his father was his biggest supporter growing up, while his children have now become his main motivation. He spends much of his personal time with them, volunteers at their school, and has taken a deeper interest in learning about autism because one of his children is autistic. He also continues to collect sports cards and sneakers, interests that connect back to his younger years. Alongside those hobbies, he supports charitable causes and has spent several Christmas seasons helping families with food, presents, and other assistance without seeking recognition for doing so. For Skidmore, the larger lesson connecting his career and personal life is that there is always another area to improve. His path from Tampa hospitality to sales did not come from following a fixed blueprint, but from paying attention to what each stage taught him and carrying those lessons into the next one. “Success is constantly growing and striving for more,” he says. “You may fall, and you may have setbacks, but to be truly successful in my eyes means to always keep striving to be better.”

Written by Eric Jenkins, Photographer & Creative Director Eric Jenkins is a San Diego-based photographer and creative director with an MBA and about ten years of experience in branding, design, digital marketing, and creative strategy. He brings together visual storytelling, leadership, business, and the human side of creativity. There are probably hundreds of things you see every day that you don't actually see anymore. The building you pass on the way to work, the same person walking their dog in the morning, the coffee shop you have been going to for years, the street you've driven down so many times that you barely think about where you are. You know they are there. But if someone asked you to describe them, could you? I've often caught myself doing this more than once. I'll go somewhere familiar and realize that I have almost no memory of how I got there, the road I took, or the lights I stopped at. But my mind was somewhere else. Thinking about work. Thinking about something that happened yesterday. Thinking about what I needed to do when I got there. The road was right in front of me the entire time. I just wasn't really looking at it. That got me thinking about how easily we can move through our own lives without actually experiencing much of them. When routine becomes invisible Routine isn't the problem. We need routine. It saves time. It makes certain parts of the day easier. There are things I don't want to have to think about every morning. But there is a point where familiarity starts working against us. We take the same route and stop looking at it. We sit in the same chair and stop noticing the room. We have the same conversations and stop really listening. We know what comes next, so we don't pay much attention to what is happening now. Nothing dramatic has happened. That's part of what makes it easy to miss. Life can feel repetitive without actually being the same. The light is different. The weather is different. The people around us are different. We are different. But if we move through everything assuming we've already seen it, we miss those changes. Familiar places can become invisible One of the things photography has taught me is that a familiar place can change simply because you look at it from a different perspective. I've walked through the same streets more times than I can count and still find something I had never noticed. A reflection in a window. A shadow falling across a wall. Someone sitting alone on a bench. The way light hits a building for only a few minutes. The interesting part is that most of those things were probably there before. I just didn't see them. That has made me question how often we confuse recognizing something with actually seeing it. We recognize a street. We recognize a face. We recognize a place. Our brain already knows what it is, so we move on. There is no reason to look closer. Except there might be. We are often somewhere else Sometimes autopilot has less to do with where we are and more to do with where our attention has gone. You can sit across from someone and think about your phone. You can eat dinner while watching something. You can walk through a beautiful place while thinking about tomorrow. You can drive through a neighborhood without noticing anything outside the windshield. Physically, you are there. Mentally, you are somewhere else. I've done it. Most people probably have. There are always things competing for our attention. Messages. Work. Notifications. News. Responsibilities. Whatever is happening inside our own heads. The problem isn't that any one of these things exists. The problem is when they take up so much of our attention that moments in front of us become background noise. The ordinary moments don't announce themselves We are usually pretty good at recognizing the big moments. A trip, a birthday, a wedding, a new job, a major change. We know those moments matter, so we tend to pay attention to them. But most of life isn't made up of those moments. Most of it is ordinary. A conversation in the kitchen. A quiet drive. A few minutes sitting outside. Someone making you laugh unexpectedly. A song you haven't heard in years. The smell of coffee. The light coming through a window at the end of the day. Nobody tells you that these moments are important while they are happening. There isn't a sign that says, "Remember this." You usually understand that later. Sometimes much later. That makes me wonder how many moments we have already missed simply because we weren't paying attention when they happened. The cost isn't just lost time When most people talk about wasting time, they usually mean procrastinating. Not getting enough done. Spending too much time on a phone. Watching too much television. Putting things off. Those things can matter. But another cost is harder to measure and often goes unnoticed. We can lose our sense of the ordinary. The small details that give a place its character. The little changes in people we know. The feeling of a particular morning. The way a neighborhood sounds at a certain hour. The things that make one Tuesday different from another Tuesday. When everything becomes part of the routine, those details can disappear. Not because they aren't there, but because we stopped looking for them. This is where I think we sometimes get things backward. Look again When life starts feeling repetitive, the first instinct can be to change something. Take a trip, move somewhere new, find a new job, or start something completely different. Sometimes that is exactly what we need. But sometimes life itself isn't the problem. Maybe we've simply stopped paying attention. You can walk down the same street and see something completely different. You can sit in the same coffee shop and notice the people around you. You can take the same drive and actually look out the window. You can have a conversation without thinking about what you are going to say next. You don't necessarily need a new life to experience something new. Sometimes you need to look at the life you already have. I don't think the answer is to become hyperaware of every second. That sounds exhausting. Not every moment needs to be meaningful. Not every sunset needs to become a lesson. Not every cup of coffee needs to be photographed. Sometimes a walk is just a walk, and that's totally fine. But every so often, it might be worth interrupting the routine. Try taking a different street. Leave the phone in your pocket. Notice the people you normally ignore. Look at a building you have passed a hundred times. Pay attention to the weather. Not because you are trying to turn the moment into something profound, but just because you are there. The world is still there Maybe that's the weird thing about living on autopilot. The world doesn't disappear. We keep having experiences. We keep going places and talking to people. We just become less aware of them. Days still pass. Weeks still pass. Months still pass. Eventually we look back and wonder where the time went. Maybe some of it went exactly where we thought it did. Maybe we just weren't looking closely enough while it was happening. I don't think we need to escape our routines. I think we need to step outside them occasionally, long enough to notice what they have been hiding. The street is still there. The person is still there. The light is still changing. The ordinary moments are still happening. Look again. You might find that life wasn't as repetitive as you thought. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Eric Jenkins Eric Jenkins, Photographer & Creative Director Eric Jenkins is a photographer and creative director known for visual storytelling, branding, and creative strategy. He holds an MBA and has more than ten years of professional experience in branding, design, digital marketing, and creative direction.

Written by Annalie Mariem Pelot Al'Khalek, Registered Clinical Psychologist, Spiritual Counselor, & Founder Annalie Mariem Pelot Al’Khalek, M.A., is a registered clinical psychologist, founder of ReThink Consciousness, and author of Returning 2 ONE and ReTHINK EVERYTHING. A descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, her work integrates advanced neurobiology, theoretical physics, and the MAHDI Code™ to awaken sovereign consciousness. In the modern corporate and entrepreneurial landscape, we hyperfocus on metrics of optimization. We track key performance indicators (KPIs), download time management applications, and hire elite consultants to identify operational inefficiencies in our businesses. We treat intellectual mastery as the ultimate shield against professional failure. Yet, there is a hidden, massive trapdoor inside the executive suite. As a clinical psychologist, author, and business founder, I frequently consult with highly functional, elite leaders who have built immaculate empires of public success. They have completed postsecondary education at top-tier institutions, opened successful practices, and written influential books. They flawlessly guide their teams, navigate market volatility, and master complex regulatory frameworks. Yet, privately, these same formidable leaders are often absolute prisoners to their origin stories. They suffer from what I call The Invisible Leak: the systemic, unconscious drainage of their vital energetic frequency and leadership authority, driven by loyalty formed through trauma bonds with unhealed family and personal networks. The neurobiology of the sibling trauma loop To understand why an intellectually dominant professional can be completely compromised by a single phone call from an unhealed sibling or former partner, we must look at the concepts of structural accommodation and the enteric nervous system (ENS). When a child grows up navigating severe childhood trauma, whether shaped by an absent parent or an unpredictable environment, their survival depends on mapping the emotional states of those around them. To maintain connection in a fragile family system, the young psyche develops defensive behaviors: compliance and being constantly available. They become the perpetual fixer, the emotional sponge, and the "dependable helper" who buys a false sense of safety by keeping everyone else comfortable. When these survival rules remain unexamined, they become deeply wired neural pathways. As an adult, whenever an unhealed family member reaches out with a chronic crisis, passive aggression, envy, or subtle manipulation, the leader’s "second brain" (the gut) drops instantly into a full fight or flight response. Adrenaline floods the system, smooth muscles spasm, and a visceral knot forms in the stomach. The subconscious mind panics, interpreting the act of setting a boundary as a dangerous betrayal of the family tribe. Consequently, the executive reverts to childhood compliance: they shrink their stature, hide their professional wins, soften their opinions, and give too much of their time to pacify the other person’s insecurity. The zero-sum game of lower ego envy The clinical reality is that your professional expansion forces a choice upon those who choose to stay stuck in repetitive, lower vibrational loops. Your success shines an intolerable mirror onto their stagnation. Because the lower ego prefers defense over hard inner work, an unhealed counterpart will rarely attack your objective material success. Instead, they will target your core human vulnerabilities by questioning your capacity as a parent, undermining your spiritual path, or playing a relentless "devil’s advocate" to destabilize your grounding. Every single drop of vital energy you leak trying to convince an unhealed environment of your worth is a literal theft from your actual assets: your children, your clients, your corporate expansion, and your ultimate alignment with the Divine Source. Your authentic self is an Amanah, a sacred trust. It is not an open resource for toxic consumption. Implementing the process protocol True leadership demands moving away from a desperate need for horizontal validation and shifting into a state of absolute vertical sovereignty. You cannot heal an unhealed environment by allowing it to drag your frequency down into the mud. To secure your personal and professional kingdom, you must execute a rigid Process Protocol: Gauge capacity prior to contact: Do not answer communications automatically. Pause, check your internal energy reserves, and if you are depleted, let the phone ring. Silence is an asset. Enforce a sacred content lockout: Categorize your financial milestones, clinical expansions, and personal wins as highly classified information. Keep interactions strictly mundane, or shift focus entirely to supporting the next generation. The zero explanation cut: The millisecond a conversation turns toward venting expressed through passive aggression or envy, pull the emergency brake. Do not argue. Do not teach meta awareness to an unhealed ego. State cleanly: "I do not have the capacity for this conversation today. Goodbye." Then, disconnect the call mid-breath. Reclaiming the sovereign crown Unconditional love does not require enmeshment or self-destruction. You can love your family from a position of absolute detachment. When you step onto your leadership mat, place your hand over your solar plexus and realize that you require nothing but vertical alignment with the Supreme Source, the old survival loops dissolve. You stop playing the role of the trauma-bonded rescuer. You put your crown back on, close the energy leaks, and run your empire from a place of unshakeable, sovereign peace. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Annalie Mariem Pelot Al'Khalek Annalie Mariem Pelot Al'Khalek, Registered Clinical Psychologist, Spiritual Counselor, & Founder Annalie Mariem Pelot Al’Khalek is a registered clinical psychologist, spiritual counselor, and the founder of ReThink Consciousness. As a Muslim revert and a living descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, her work bridges advanced neurobiology, theoretical physics, and scriptural cryptography. Through her revolutionary MAHDI Code™ framework and notable books, Returning 2 ONE and ReTHINK EVERYTHING, she treats the human ecosystem at the absolute "Whole" level. Her mission is to dissolve human division, break generational trauma loops, and guide global leaders out of survival density into sovereign spiritual awakening.

Written by Hazel N. Williams, Relationship Strategist & Author Hazel N. Williams is an author, speaker, and relationship coach who helps couples navigate pressure, emotional distance, and communication breakdowns. Through Holding On Together, she brings 40 years of lived experience in marriage and family life into practical relationship support. There are few things quite as optimistic as a romantic dinner. The restaurant has been chosen. The lighting is flattering. Somebody has made an effort with their underwear. Across the table sits a man who, after a couple of glasses of wine, has become increasingly confident about what is apparently going to happen later. By dessert, his forecast for the evening has become positively athletic. His partner listens, amused. Back at home, she disappears into the bathroom to titivate. Teeth cleaned. Perfume applied. Lacy, alluring items on. She emerges looking and smelling magnificent, ready for the promised performance. Finds him face down on the bed. Snoring. Possibly drooling. So much for the promised X-rated dessert. But how many of us have experienced the food sex divide? The romantic dinner that defeated the romance We have been sold a particular picture of romance: an enormous restaurant meal, a rich dessert, plenty of wine, then home for a night of passion. Unfortunately, the digestive system was apparently not consulted. Post-meal sleepiness is real, although the old explanation that all your blood rushes away from your brain and into your stomach is far too simplistic. Scientists are still unravelling the mechanisms involved. Meal size and composition, blood glucose responses, hormones, our internal body clock, and other physiological processes can all play a part. What we do know is that a very large, energy-dense meal can leave some people feeling less like Casanova and more like someone desperately searching for the elasticated waistband of their pyjamas. This doesn't mean romance requires two lettuce leaves and a glass of water. It means that if the evening is supposed to continue after dinner, perhaps dinner shouldn't leave you needing a recovery period. When wine undresses your inhibitions and your ability to perform Then there is alcohol. A little alcohol may make some people feel relaxed, sociable and less inhibited. Unfortunately, confidence and capability do not necessarily rise together. As alcohol consumption increases, it can interfere with sexual response. Too much can contribute to erection difficulties, reduced sensitivity, problems with lubrication or orgasm, sleepiness and the general problem of being physically present while mentally becoming increasingly absent. In other words, the wine may have removed your inhibitions while also misplacing some of the equipment you need for the rest of the evening. Romantic alcohol consumption therefore has a rather inconvenient curve. One drink may persuade you that you are irresistible. Several may persuade you that you are irresistible while providing evidence to the contrary. But what about aphrodisiacs? Humans have been trying to eat themselves into desire for centuries. Oysters. Chocolate. Pomegranates. Watermelon. Nuts. Seeds. Avocado. Spices. Various suspicious-looking roots. If it is vaguely sensual, expensive, exotic, shaped like a reproductive organ, or difficult to eat elegantly, somebody somewhere has probably declared it an aphrodisiac. The science is considerably less exciting. There is little convincing evidence that eating one particular food will suddenly switch on sexual desire in an otherwise uninterested human being. Nutrition becomes much more interesting over time. Sexual function doesn't operate independently from the rest of the body. Cardiovascular and metabolic health matter. Blood flow matters. Energy matters. General wellbeing matters. Research increasingly suggests that healthy dietary patterns, particularly Mediterranean-style patterns rich in vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, fish, and healthy fats, are associated with better sexual function in both men and women. That is a very different claim from saying, “Eat three walnuts at 7:15 pm and remove your underwear at 8.” It is an important distinction. Food may help create some of the physical conditions in which sexual wellbeing can flourish. It is not Viagra with a garnish. Then there are oysters Oysters dominate every aphrodisiac list, but plenty of people dislike their taste, texture, or the sensation of swallowing something that appears not to have finished living! I appreciate that oyster enthusiasts may now be deeply offended. But if oysters make you gag rather than gasp, forcing one down in the interests of your sex life seems counterproductive. There has to be another way. Aubergines After Dark Instead, I have created the Sexiest Supper, and I've called it Aubergines After Dark. Before anyone contacts me demanding clinical trial data, Aubergines After Dark is not a medically proven aphrodisiac prescription. It is dinner. But it is dinner with a plan. This is a light, colourful grazing board for two, built around foods that have acquired aphrodisiac reputations, associations with fertility and sensuality, or contain nutrients relevant to the wider physical health in which sexual function takes place. The important thing is knowing which is which. Folklore is not science. I am certainly not promising that eating this board will have you swinging from the chandelier by 10 pm. What I am hoping is that it won't have you face down on the bed snoring by 9:30. Aubergines After Dark: The Sexiest Supper for two Serves two: Finger food. Pick. Dip. Spear. Nibble. Share. Feed each other if that's your thing. The point isn't simply what you're eating, it's how you're eating it. Ingredients For the caramelised aubergine bites: 1 large aubergine Olive oil, for cooking Spiced pistachio houmous Pomegranate seeds Fresh mint, finely chopped Thick Greek yoghurt Roasted pistachios, finely chopped A tiny pinch of chilli (optional) For the spiced pistachio houmous: 1 x 400g tin of chickpeas, drained 50g shelled pistachios, plus a little extra to finish 2 tablespoons tahini Juice of 1 lemon 2 tablespoons olive oil A little chilli or cayenne, to taste For the melon jewels: A small selection of two or three melons, such as watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe or Galia Juice of 1 lime Fresh mint Pomegranate seeds For the board: Heritage carrots, cut into slender batons Cucumber, cut into crisp batons Thick Greek yoghurt A little honey A whisper of warming spice A small pot of lumpfish caviar or taramasalata A small selection of passion fruit, mango, lychee, dragon fruit or berries Good dark chocolate, for shaving, curling, or melting for a dip! Pumpkin seeds Extra pistachios and pomegranate seeds, for scattering To drink: Bubbly, alcoholic or alcohol free, or a ruby red sorrel cocktail For the sorrel option: Jamaican sorrel, fresh ginger, lime, a little honey, and perhaps pomegranate A modest measure of Jamaican rum, optional Sparkling water or alcohol free fizz for the alcohol free version Method Start with the pistachio houmous. Blend the chickpeas, pistachios, tahini, lemon and olive oil until creamy with a little texture, adding chilli or cayenne for warmth. Spoon some into a small bowl, finish with roughly chopped green pistachios and reserve the rest for the aubergine bites. Cut the aubergine into rounds thick enough to hold comfortably between your fingers. Caramelise them in a hot pan with a little olive oil until beautifully golden, then finish them briefly in the air fryer. You want a tender centre with a firmer surface that can carry its toppings without collapsing halfway to somebody's mouth. Spread each aubergine round with a thin layer of pistachio houmous. Add pomegranate seeds, finely chopped mint, a small dot or drizzle of thick Greek yoghurt and chopped roasted pistachios. Finish with the tiniest dusting of chilli if you like a little heat. Do not overload them. Half the topping should not arrive on your clothing before the aubergine reaches your mouth. Make the melon jewels using a melon baller. Toss the different coloured melon balls lightly with lime, fresh mint and pomegranate seeds, then pile them into a small bowl. Put cocktail sticks alongside. Spear. Share. Feed. Arrange the heritage carrot and cucumber batons on the board. Mix thick Greek yoghurt with a little honey and a whisper of warming spice, then spoon it into a small bowl for dipping. Add a little lumpfish caviar in a tiny dish, or use taramasalata as an additional creamy dip. Add a few caviar pearls to selected aubergine bites if you fancy. This is seduction, not an oligarch's wedding. Add your fruit in small, beautiful portions. Arrange passion fruit, mango, lychee, dragon fruit, berries or whatever looks particularly good when you shop. Shave or curl dark chocolate over some of the fruit, then scatter pistachios, pumpkin seeds, and pomegranate around the board. Pour something to sip. Bubbly works beautifully, alcoholic or alcohol free. For the Caribbean option, serve Jamaican sorrel with fresh ginger, lime, a little honey and perhaps pomegranate, ice cold. Add a modest measure of Jamaican rum if you want it alcoholic, or sparkling water or alcohol-free fizz if you don't. A little food folklore with your supper Pistachios and other nuts fit into the wider nutritional conversation around cardiovascular health, while pomegranate, chilli and aubergine have accumulated their own aphrodisiac associations and folklore. None of that makes this a pharmaceutical product disguised as a canapé. It just makes it a considerably more interesting aubergine. Watermelon frequently appears in conversations about sexual health because it contains citrulline, although describing it as “natural Viagra” takes the science much further than the evidence warrants. So enjoy the watermelon. Just don't expect it to obtain a prescription pad. Honey has been associated with love, fertility, marriage and sexuality for centuries. Whether it deserves all of its aphrodisiac reputation scientifically is another matter. But as ingredients go, honey has had extraordinarily successful romantic PR. Fish roe has also long been associated with fertility, luxury, and aphrodisiac dining. An affordable lumpfish caviar works perfectly well. If you happen to have the expensive caviar lurking in the fridge, by all means bring it out. Chocolate has probably enjoyed one of the most successful aphrodisiac reputations in culinary history. The scientific evidence that chocolate directly switches on sexual desire is considerably less impressive. Fortunately, nobody has ever required a peer-reviewed paper before enjoying chocolate with somebody they fancy. Ginger, spices and Caribbean root drinks have gathered plenty of folklore around virility, desire and stamina. Again, cultural tradition and clinical evidence are two different things. If you choose the rum, remember what we established earlier about alcohol. The aim is enough to enjoy your evening. Not enough to become unconscious before the aubergines have had the opportunity to demonstrate their entirely unproven potential. Why the Sexiest Supper may actually be sexy Not because aubergines, pomegranate, pistachios, honey, watermelon, chocolate, chilli, ginger or fish roe possess some magical collective ability to manufacture desire. They don't. This supper creates an experience. There are things to spear, things to dip, things to pick up with your fingers and things to offer each other. There are different colours, textures, temperatures and flavours. Nobody receives an enormous plate of food they feel obliged to finish. You graze, talk, and reach across the table. Perhaps you feed each other, and somebody steals the last chocolate-covered piece of mango and negotiations begin. When you've finished, ideally neither of you feels as though you need to lie down for digestive reasons. Because sometimes the sexiest ingredient isn't an exotic superfood. It's not feeling stuffed. When the sharing board starts sharing too much Of course, even the fashionable romantic sharing board has its hazards. Bread and cheese can be magnificent. Warm bread, beautiful cheese, perhaps a baked Camembert in the middle of the table. Lovely. Unless your digestive system has other plans. For some people, not everyone, certain breads, cheeses or other foods can bring three spectacularly unwelcome guests to date night: bloating, cramps and wind. Nothing dismantles the atmosphere quite like discovering that the seductive rumbling you heard was not your partner growling with desire, it was the baked Camembert announcing its departure. This is where knowing your own body is considerably more useful than following somebody else's list of “sexy foods”. If a particular food routinely leaves you clutching your abdomen and apologising to innocent bystanders, date night is probably not the evening to test whether you've suddenly developed immunity. The 24-hour wind warning Which brings me to perhaps the least glamorous piece of relationship advice I have ever given. There is no completely fart-free menu. Human beings digest food differently. Beans are notorious, but so are onions, certain vegetables, dairy products for people who don't tolerate lactose well, and various other perfectly nutritious foods. So forget trying to find a universal list. For 24 hours before your date, avoid anything you already know makes you windy. That's it. No doctorate in nutritional science required. Because nothing tests emotional intimacy quite like trying to maintain your dignity beneath a duvet after an enthusiastic plate of beans. That said, couples who have been together for decades may already have developed protocols for this. Perhaps that's the real definition of commitment. So, can you eat your way to better sex? Possibly, but not in the way the aphrodisiac industry would have us believe. Food can help support the body in which sex happens. A nutritious dietary pattern can contribute to cardiovascular health, metabolic health, and energy. Choosing a lighter meal may leave you feeling more comfortable than eating an enormous one. Moderating alcohol may mean you remain awake, responsive, and fully present. Avoiding foods that you know upset your digestion may prevent an entirely different form of bedroom fireworks. Food can also create atmosphere. Cooking together can be intimate. Sharing food can be playful. Feeding somebody you love can communicate care. A beautifully prepared meal can signal: Tonight matters. You matter. We are making time for us. But food has limits. You cannot garnish your way out of resentment. Pomegranate seeds cannot repair contempt. An aubergine cannot create emotional safety. No quantity of dark chocolate can substitute for affection, honest communication, trust and genuine connection. Sexual wellbeing sits at the intersection of body, mind and relationship. Nutrition belongs in that conversation, but it doesn't own it. Perhaps, then, the better question isn't simply, “What should we eat to have better sex?” It is, “What helps us create the physical and emotional conditions in which desire has room to appear?” That is a much more interesting conversation. It is also exactly the conversation we'll be having at Holding On Together's next webinar: Eat Your Way to Better Sex – Libido, Desire & Food Wednesday 21 October 2026, 8 pm UK time Register for Eat Your Way to Better Sex Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Hazel N. Williams Hazel N. Williams, Relationship Strategist & Author Hazel N. Williams is an author, speaker, relationship coach, and founder of Holding On Together, supporting couples and families through communication breakdown, emotional distance, and relationship pressure. With over 40 years of lived experience in marriage and family life, she brings a practical, relatable voice to conversations about connection, resilience, and restoration. Hazel also speaks into corporate wellbeing, helping organisations understand the hidden impact personal and relational pressure can have on focus, confidence, wellbeing, and workplace performance. She was recognised as a Tesco Inspirational Mum of the Year for her community impact work.

Written by Nansia Movidi, Relationship Specialist & Hypnotherapist Nansia Movidi is a relationship specialist, hypnotherapist, and holistic practitioner focused on presence, emotional regulation, and secure connection. Through transformative hypnotherapy, she helps individuals reprogram subconscious patterns, break cycles of emotional unavailability, and build relationships rooted in safety, clarity, and depth. We live in a world that celebrates movement. Keep going. Push harder. Hustle more. Never stop. Somewhere along the way, we turned life into an endurance event where everyone seems to be competing for an imaginary gold medal that no one remembers receiving. The problem is that movement and progress are not the same thing. Sometimes we're just running in very expensive circles. We've become so focused on taking the next step that we've forgotten to ask whether it's even the right one. Wisdom isn't always about moving forward. Sometimes it's knowing when to stop, pause, breathe, and step back far enough that you can actually see what you've been walking towards. Taking a step back doesn't always mean packing up your life, deleting every app on your phone, and disappearing into the wilderness. Sometimes it's as simple as waiting until tomorrow before sending that emotionally charged text. Sometimes it's taking the weekend before accepting the job. Sometimes it's cancelling plans because your nervous system has already attended enough meetings this week. Sometimes it's making a complete 180 because you've finally realized you've been climbing the wrong mountain. The brain doesn't like slowing down One of the fascinating things about the human brain is that it often mistakes urgency for importance. Everything feels like it needs an answer immediately. Reply now. Decide now. Fix it now. Know now. As though the universe has appointed us as customer service representatives for every situation that appears in our lives. The nervous system evolved to respond quickly to danger. Unfortunately, it doesn't always distinguish between a tiger chasing you and someone leaving you on "read." To your biology, both can feel surprisingly dramatic. When we're emotionally activated, the brain narrows its focus. We become reactive instead of reflective. We don't see possibilities, we see threats. We don't make thoughtful decisions, we make protective ones. We assume that because something feels urgent, it must also be important. But urgency and importance are not the same thing. Wisdom understands that reflection creates better direction. Stepping back gives the emotional brain time to settle so the wiser, calmer part of us can finally join the conversation. Often, the best decision isn't the first one that comes to mind. It's the one that remains after the emotional dust has settled. Investment creates blind spots There's another psychological trap that catches almost all of us. The more we've invested in something, the harder it becomes to evaluate it honestly. Time. Energy. Hope. Love. Money. Effort. Once we've poured ourselves into something, we naturally want it to work. That's human nature. Unfortunately, it's also the reason we sometimes stay far longer than we should. Sometimes we become so committed to the version of life we imagined that we stop paying attention to the life that's actually unfolding in front of us. Instead of seeing what is, we start seeing what could be, what should be, and what we desperately wish it would become. Psychologists call this the sunk cost effect. We continue investing simply because we've already invested so much. It's why people stay in careers that drain them, relationships that no longer nourish them, and projects they've secretly stopped believing in. We convince ourselves that walking away means everything before it was wasted. But it wasn't. Every experience gave you something, even if what it gave you was clarity. Distance cleans the lens Have you ever noticed how obvious someone else's situation looks? Your friend tells you about their relationship and within five minutes you're thinking, "How are you not seeing this?" Then you return to your own life and spend three months analysing why someone used one full stop instead of two in a text message. Perspective has an incredible sense of humour. Distance changes perception. A step back doesn't change reality. It changes your view of reality. It's like cleaning a pair of glasses you didn't realize were dirty. Suddenly, nothing outside has changed, yet somehow everything looks different. Clarity often arrives not because life changed, but because you finally moved far enough away to see it properly. Sometimes the answer wasn't hiding from you. You were simply standing too close to recognize it. Nature has been trying to teach us this all along Nature never rushes. The seasons don't panic because autumn arrived. The tides don't apologize for pulling back. Trees don't question whether they're being productive enough while standing perfectly still in winter. Everything moves in cycles: expansion, contraction, rest, and movement. Even your heart contracts before it expands again. Even the ocean retreats before the next wave arrives. Yet somehow, we've convinced ourselves that pausing means we're falling behind. Maybe we've misunderstood what growth actually looks like. Growth isn't constant acceleration. It's knowing when to move and when to recover. Every meaningful system in nature understands this balance. Sometimes we seem to be the only species that feels guilty for resting. Rest isn't the opposite of progress. It's one of the conditions that allows progress to continue. Sometimes the pause becomes a new direction Not every step back is temporary. Sometimes you pause only to realize you don't actually want to continue. Sometimes the relationship has already ended emotionally long before it ends physically. Sometimes the career you've spent years building no longer reflects the person you've become. Sometimes the dream that motivated you at twenty no longer fits the life you're creating at forty. That isn't failure. That's evolution. Wisdom isn't clinging to an old map because you spent years memorizing it. Wisdom is recognizing that you've become someone new. New values create new priorities, and new priorities often require a different direction. We don't honour our growth by pretending we've stayed the same. We honour it by allowing ourselves to change without apologizing for it. How to know it's time to step back Most of us wait until life forces us to stop. Burnout. Illness. Heartbreak. Exhaustion. Life has an interesting sense of humour. If we refuse to pause voluntarily, it occasionally schedules the pause for us. The better approach is learning to recognize the quieter signals before they become louder ones. You may need to take a step back if you're constantly trying to convince yourself something is right instead of naturally feeling it. If every decision feels urgent. If you're reacting more than responding. If you're defending something more than enjoying it. If you've become so busy maintaining a life that you've stopped asking whether it's still the life you actually want. Sometimes clarity doesn't arrive because you found the answer. Sometimes it arrives because you finally stopped asking the wrong question. Bringing wisdom into everyday life Wisdom isn't reserved for life's biggest decisions. It's something we can practice every single day. Before responding to a difficult message, give yourself permission to sleep on it. You'll often discover that tomorrow's version of you writes a very different reply than today's emotional one. Build moments of stillness into your week, whether that's a walk without your phone, sitting outside with your morning coffee, or journaling without trying to solve anything. Reflection isn't laziness. It's maintenance for the mind. When you're faced with a major decision, ask yourself, "If I had no history with this, would I choose it today?" That one question has a remarkable way of separating genuine desire from emotional investment. Pay attention to how your body feels. Your mind can argue with reality for months, but your body usually knows much sooner. Chronic tension, constant dread, or the feeling that you're endlessly pushing uphill may be information rather than something to overcome. Perhaps most importantly, become comfortable changing your mind. We often treat changing direction as inconsistency when, in reality, it can be one of the clearest signs of growth. The wisdom of knowing Everything in life has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Every relationship. Every season. Every identity. Every chapter. Wisdom isn't just knowing how to begin. It's recognizing where you are in the cycle. Sometimes life asks us to continue. Sometimes life asks us to pause. Sometimes life asks us to let go. Stepping back creates enough stillness to know the difference. The goal was never to keep moving at all costs. The goal was always to move with awareness. Sometimes the wisest decision is to continue. Sometimes it's to completely change direction. Sometimes the greatest act of courage is giving yourself enough distance to see clearly before taking another step. Sometimes the wisest step you'll ever take isn't forward. It's the one that finally allows you to see where you're truly standing. If you recognize yourself in these patterns and you're ready to rebuild trust in your own inner voice, send me an email. Let's start your journey back to yourself. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and my website for more info! Read more from Nansia Movidi Nansia Movidi, Relationship Specialist & Hypnotherapist Nansia Movidi is a relationship specialist, hypnotherapist, and holistic practitioner focused on presence, emotional regulation, and secure connection. Her work explores how attachment patterns, nervous system states, and modern conditioning shape the way we love, often causing intensity to be mistaken for depth. Through transformative hypnotherapy and her writings, Nansia helps individuals reprogram subconscious patterns, break cycles of emotional unavailability, and cultivate relationships rooted in safety, clarity, and embodied self-trust.