My Story

About Natalie

Burned Out to Fired Up

Although my parents meant well, my upbringing wasn’t the smoothest. My mum was just 18 when she had me, still a child herself, and she and my biological father were separated before I was born. Later, my stepdad came along but the relationship was complicated, and it didn’t last. I stayed in contact with my stepfather, whom I consider my dad, but he struggled with depression and unfortunately our relationship broke down. We didn’t speak for many years, and though we did eventually reunite, it has not been without its difficulties. My biological father was on the scene but infrequently and at the age of 15 we lost contact.

The relationship with my mum was difficult and just before my 18th birthday she told me to leave the family home. I was financially and emotionally unprepared and this reinforced my belief that she didn’t care. I felt abandoned and decided that I was going to provide for myself. I managed to build myself a successful career in Financial Services, frequently working 12 or more hours a day with the sole focus of making something of myself.

Unfortunately, in my early 30’s my health started to decline. I’d always been highly motivated, focussed and energetic but now my body was giving up on me and my concentration was poor. It was gradual at first with a general feeling of tiredness, headaches, sinus congestion, rashes, digestive issues and weight gain – even though I was eating well! I’d been diagnosed with an under active thyroid a decade before which was managed with medication but now I was displaying all the symptoms despite blood tests showing ‘normal’. I felt extremely tired despite excessive sleep, I had chronic fatigue, frequent colds, hair loss, tingling down my arms, I looked bloated, had poor concentration, heart palpitations which led to anxiety and the most frustrating symptom of all was the relentless and excruciatingly painful sore throat and banging headache that I would wake up with every single day. I could literally scream every single time I woke up!

I became deliberately obsessed with understanding my health and ways that I could make myself feel better. I put myself on a diet removing inflammatory foods, went organic and removed chemicals from my home. Friends, colleagues and especially my family thought that I had gone crazy. I lost a lot of weight which was inflammation and water retention and my family were very critical of this and my methods.

I employed a health coach to help my recovery thinking my family might take me more seriously if I had a qualified professional guiding me. This was not the case, she was referred to as a quack and they thought I was clearly being taken advantage of. However, I stuck with her and she has been instrumental in my recovery.

I’d lost weight, a lot of symptoms had subsided and my life at this point had greatly improved. I was ready to get back to my old self and be the highly motivated and reliable employee I’d always been. But, something still wasn’t right. I just couldn’t quite ramp back up to the intensity I’d been able to work at before and my what I was most fearful of happened, my health declined again! More severely than it did before, and my GP signed me off work.

It was at this point I started to consider that maybe it wasn’t only about my physical health. After all, I had done so much work on my body. I was eating perfectly, getting lots of sleep and using a number of different supplements and although I had made some improvement, it was always short lived – and the excruciatingly sore throat and banging headache never went away! I was desperate for help and came across a Coach. At first, I didn’t really know what to expect. The coach I worked with focused on mindset and so I was dubious as my problems were my physical health, so how was this going to help? But I felt like I had tried everything else, so I was willing to give it a shot as I felt miserable.

During the coaching I realised I’d buried much of my upbringing deep in my mind. Discussing it with perspective allowed me to have a deeper understanding of myself and my behaviours. I now knew why I didn’t like myself, why I felt I had very little to offer, why I was a martyr at the expense of myself, why I felt inferior in the workplace and worked so hard to make up for my perceived lack of intelligence and why I set myself unrealistic and unachievable goals. I now understood why I was physically and mentally burned out!

I also came to understand that my parents did the best that they were able to, even if this had fallen short of what I needed, and I was able to forgive them. The result of this particular breakthrough was unbelievable! I still can’t believe this but after 22 years of not speaking to my biological father I found the courage to reach out to him and explain to him how I felt and how this had had been affecting me.

I’m excited about the future for many reasons. The relationships with my family are so much more fulfilling as now that I am able to accept myself I am able to accept them just as they are, and we get along so much better. I get to meet wonderful people from all over the world and participate in their journeys, sharing my knowledge and experience and importantly I have struck the work/life balance which will allow me to indulge my passion of exploring the world. I’m fired up and seizing each and every day!

Oh, and one last thing. Do you remember that relentless excruciatingly sore throat and banging headache I had daily that made me want to scream? Well it’s gone, I can’t even remember what that feels like now. It’s a miracle! The whole time the cure was within me.

All I had to do was explore my thoughts, nourish my body and start to love myself. This process and journey has been a gift. A gift that I can now give back to other women. I now help women get the exact same results, so they too can wake up with mental clarity and physical wellness and be ready to seize the day! If this sounds like something you would benefit from then let’s arrange a time to talk. We can sit down and discuss where you are with your life right now and how lifestyle coaching could change your life too! It would be great to talk with other professional women who are ready to seek more for themselves.

My Story

About Natalie

Burned Out to Fired Up

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