Self Doubt Isn’t Confidence Problem. It’s a Nervous System One.

Maybe you're in a senior meeting. There are some strong personalities at the table - sometimes more certain than right - and the conversation is going in a direction you know isn't quite correct from your experience. You've got something considered to add. But they're kind of covering what you want to say, just not deep enough - and so you umm and ahh, and then stay quiet, because you don't want to repeat what's already been said and look like you're saying something of no value.

Maybe you were halfway through a point when they cut across you. You stopped. They kept going. Going back to it would have meant interrupting, or making a thing of it, and in that room, in that moment, it didn't feel worth the friction.

Maybe there's something you've been meaning to raise with your boss for weeks. You've thought it through, asked several people's opinion. It's reasonable. Every time you're in the room with them, it quietly doesn't make it out. Now is not the right time.

Let's be real, you know your stuff. You can read the difference between someone who's actually right and someone who's just very confident about it. You've sat in enough of these rooms.

What you know isn't the issue.

Most people call this a confidence problem. It isn't - and the advice that follows from that diagnosis (be more assertive, back yourself, speak up - if only it were that simple!) arrives at the wrong layer entirely. Here's what's actually at play here.

What's actually happening in those moments

When the stakes are high - the room that matters, the relationship where the power sits unevenly, the moment where something genuinely feels on the line - no matter how small - - your nervous system scans the situation faster than thinking can keep up. If it reads the room as risky, it acts. It doesn't wait to be consulted.

The response might be obvious: voice going thin, breath catching up high in your chest, the sudden blank mid-sentence where the point you'd had ready just disappears and is replaced by spiralling thoughts. Or it might be quieter - a slight softening in your language that you didn't decide to make, a nod that became agreement before you'd finished deciding, a half-retreat before you'd registered you'd retreated. Or quieter still - losing access to what you know in the moment itself. Not frozen exactly, just operating below what you're actually capable of. Often in the moments where you care the most.

Either way, it isn't weakness. It's a nervous system doing what it learned to do - often for very good reason, often in rooms that weren't built with women in mind.

The women I work with have almost always already tried to think their way through this. Journaled about it. Reframed it. Read the books, done the courses, possibly had therapy. Likely ChatGPT'd the f*k out of it. They know their patterns better than most. They can name the inner critic. And still, in the meetings that matter, the body takes over.

Louder so it registers - this isn't a knowing problem. It's a capacity problem. Not in the sense of capability - there's plenty of that. But in the sense of what your whole system will actually let you access in the moment.

There are two layers - and most approaches only address one

Here's the part that most conversations about self-doubt don't reach, and it might be the most useful thing in this whole piece.

The first layer is the pattern itself - the nod that became agreement before you'd finished deciding, the point that came out half the strength you'd intended, the moment you stayed quiet rather than say something that had partly been said already. This is just your nervous system doing its job. A system that has learned, from experience, that bringing fresh ideas or new ways of thinking in certain kinds of rooms can create friction - and that friction can carry a real cost. You aren't broken. You aren't flawed. You've got a protective response doing exactly what protective responses do.

The second layer is the self-criticism about having the first layer.

Why do I always do that. What's wrong with me.

That second layer is its own activation, sitting on top of the first thing and making it louder, harder to move through, and more evidence that something is fundamentally wrong with you - when nothing fundamental is wrong at all.

Most approaches to self-doubt treat both layers as the same problem. They try to address the self-criticism - why do I always do that - without ever touching the pattern in the body that ran first. Which can quieten the self-judgment briefly. But the next time a moment like that arrives, the body runs the same pattern. Because the pattern itself and the judgment about the pattern live at different depths, and they need different approaches.

Seeing them as separate - really separate, not just intellectually - changes what becomes possible.

Why the reframe doesn't land under pressure

Most approaches to self-doubt treat it as a thought problem: change the story you're telling yourself, change what happens next. This can work reasonably well when what's needed is a different perspective - a fresh way of seeing something. But self-doubt under pressure isn't a thinking problem. It's a nervous system response - a body that has already moved toward people pleasing, defensiveness, or going quiet, before the mind has finished reading the situation.

Rather than working only with what the rational mind can understand, a somatic approach recognises that the mind and body work together - and works with both. That's what allows something to shift in the moments that matter, not just in the thinking about them. No reframe lands while the system is already activated, because in those moments the thinking brain isn't the one running the show. The body is. And the body needs something different from being reasoned at.

Self-doubt under pressure is a nervous system response, not a thought problem. Under pressure, the nervous system scans for threat faster than conscious thinking and runs a protective pattern before the mind can intervene. Maybe you know, clearly, that you're capable. Maybe you can see the self-doubt coming from a mile away. And still - in that specific moment - the pattern runs. The knowing arrives after the loop is already moving.

It's rarely a capability issue. More often it's this weird gap - between what someone consciously knows, what they've already proven, what they're capable of on a regular day - and what their nervous system does when the pressure lands, the visibility goes up, or certain dynamics kick in. That gap is exactly what most approaches to self-doubt never reach.

The loop that keeps repeating

Here's roughly the shape of it. A high-pressure moment arrives. And it might not even 'feel' high pressure, but more a slightly deeper 'let's do this' breath in. Your body clocks the stakes before your thinking brain catches up - and it runs a protective pattern: racing heart, anxious tummy, breath moving high and short, shoulders rising. You feel the activation and think I'm doubting myself again. And then the second layer kicks in - why do I always do that - which cranks the activation higher. So what started as information from your body becomes identity. That's the loop. And no amount of mindset reframing will quiet a nervous system that has already decided the room isn't safe.

The bind underneath it all

Self-doubt persists not because of stubbornness, and not because you don't want to change badly enough. It persists because it's doing something real.

And here's the thing that makes the environment a lot of these women are working in so hard to navigate - and harder still to name.

The woman is in the room - she's been given the seat, possibly because of a quota, possibly because the organisation genuinely wants to do the right thing. But there's a layer underneath the stated intentions, unconscious and accumulative, where her contributions carry a little less weight. Where her expertise requires a little more proof. Where her perspective is a little easier to reframe or overlook. Where her family responsibilities may not be an issue on paper, but under the surface do affect her opportunities.

I watched a prime example of this happen in a football game. A woman took a free kick from well outside the box and bent it into the top right corner. Afterward, in the bar, a man told her it was a great goal, but that it was a cross that happened to go in. She corrected him. Several times she said she practises them at training each week. He started acting as though she was joking, laughing and saying 'good one, sure, sure!'. It took her male coach stepping in to confirm what she was saying was true before he accepted it as true. Her word alone hadn't been enough.

That man would 100% describe himself as supportive of women in football. His brain just couldn't fully accommodate what she was telling him as true.

That's not an ally problem exactly. It's an unconscious credibility gap. Women's contributions genuinely included on the surface, while still being treated as slightly less authoritative underneath. And because there's no obvious villain, no clear moment to point to, the woman in the room is left with the accumulated experience of having to say things twice. Of watching her contribution become real only once it's been through different hands. Of carefully, strategically advocating every time she needs to tend to her family responsibilities.

Maybe I'm imagining it is the most natural conclusion. Even when you're not.

This is what the nervous system is running on. Not just old patterns from old rooms. A real, accurate read of a room that - even while believing itself to be supportive - is still, unconsciously, treating her contribution as slightly less central.

The version of you that's done with managing yourself so carefully, and the part that knows the room still warrants some care - both are yours. Both doing what they think is right. And they're in direct conflict. You can't research your way out of that. You can't be angry enough at the bind to dissolve it - though a lot of women have tried.

The pattern lives in the body. That's not a motivational statement. It's just where it is.

What your body has actually been doing

The responses that show up under pressure aren't random. They're protective.

The voice that softened learned that going quieter kept the temperature down. The part that agreed without a thought learned that the friction of no, sorry wasn't always worth it in the rooms it was trained in. She's been wanting to reach out to someone she'd love as a mentor - every time the opportunity comes up, she hears herself think I don't want to bother them. She has an idea in a meeting. By the time there's space to say it, she's already talked herself down: it's probably already kind of been touched on. The blank, the retreat, the going quiet - these aren't glitches. They're strategies your nervous system developed at a point when they made sense, when they worked, and so your system filed them under useful, reach for this again.

The problem isn't that they ran. It's that they're still running. Sometimes in rooms that are genuinely safer than the ones they were built for - where you have more authority, more credibility, more standing than the version of yourself who first learned these patterns could have imagined. And sometimes, as you just read, in rooms that are still sending their own real signals. The body isn't always getting it wrong. Part of the work is learning to tell the difference - and being able to choose from that clarity, rather than from a pattern that's already run before you had the chance to check.

The reframe worth keeping

Not what are you lacking? But what is your system not yet allowing you to do?

Your self-doubt isn't telling you you're not capable. It isn't telling you you're in the wrong room. It's telling you your nervous system hasn't yet been shown it's safe to show up fully - without editing yourself down to a more manageable size.

You're not capable - that can be reasoned out of. Your nervous system hasn't yet been shown it's safe to show up fully - that gets worked with at the body layer, where the pattern actually lives.

Pressure is part of the job. Self-doubt doesn't have to be. Not as a slogan. As something that becomes true in your body, in the moments that actually count.

There's something worth being honest about, though.

A piece like this can explain the architecture. Maybe something in it has already shifted - the two-layer distinction, the protective logic of it. That's real, and it matters.

But the part of you running these patterns has been keeping them just outside of conscious awareness for a reason. That's the whole point of protection. You can't think your way past it alone, and reading the right thing won't dissolve it - because your own mind won't allow you to notice some of what needs noticing.

What shifts in this work happens because a somatic coach - in this case, me - is outside the pattern you're inside. I walk alongside you, questioning gently, noticing what your system is doing as it does it. Because I'm not running the same protective architecture, I can hear what your own mind works hard to keep just out of reach. Which is exactly why having someone alongside you who isn't inside it changes the landscape - so that you can show up as that fierce, grounded, certain, unstoppable woman you want to be.....but your nervous system is too afraid to step into right now.

Women's sport needs good people staying in it. And it needs them staying connected to themselves while they do it.

If what I've described sounds less like a mindset problem and more like something your body has been trying to tell you for a while, you'd fit right in on my mailing list - Self Aware Women Leaders.

It's where I write for women working in sport and male-dominated environments who are looking for fresh ways of shifting what they're experiencing.

[Join Self Aware Women Leaders →]

If you're ready to talk about working together one-to-one, what that looks like and what it costs is on my [Work With Me] page. Working one-to-one via coaching helps create enough internal space and safety for that deeper clarity and direction to emerge again - rather than trying to force decisions from a stressed or overwhelmed nervous system state. There's no need to wait until your mind tells you you're completely ready - it's a chat, kind of like a vibe check.

Related reading: [What Is Somatic Coaching?] - the longer piece on what this work actually looks like in practice, including what happens in a session.

Jenni Schanschieff is an ICF-trained executive somatic coach working with women in sport and male-dominated environments. She is the Oceania Network Lead for the Women's Sport Collective and is based in Auckland, New Zealand, working online with clients around the globe.

The Curse of the Perfectionist Woman in a Male-Dominated Environment

“What’s your biggest weakness?” asked the interviewer many years ago.

I smiled and gave what I thought was a clever, polished answer. “Perfectionism,” I said, hoping to spin it as a strength. Look at my attention to detail, high standards….no weakness here, thank you very much!

But here’s the kicker: perfectionism was my biggest weakness. It was the silent thief of my confidence, productivity, and wellbeing. While I thought I was impressing others with my flawless work ethic, I was actually tripping myself up in ways I couldn’t see.

How Perfectionism Masquerades as Strength

In male-dominated industries and environments, perfectionism often feels like armour. When you’re one of the few women in the room, the pressure to prove yourself is intense. You want to be seen as credible, capable, and worthy. So, you work harder, you scrutinise every detail, and you never let anyone see you sweat.

But here’s the double bind: the very thing that feels like a solution in the short term is a long-term curse. Perfectionism isn’t about doing things well; it’s about avoiding the shame of being wrong, judged, or seen as less-than. And that avoidance creates unconscious weaknesses that erode relationships, performance, and wellbeing.

Let’s unpack those, shall we?

The Hidden Weaknesses of the Perfectionist Woman

1. Wasting Time on What Doesn’t Matter
   I’ve spent countless hours perfecting PowerPoint presentations, redesigning slide colours and fonts until they “felt right.” Guess what? No one cared. They wanted the data, the ideas, the strategy - not my design flair. This obsession with the look of things stole time and energy that could’ve been spent on bigger-picture thinking.
   

2. Not Asking for Help
   Perfectionists hate admitting they don’t know something. I avoided asking questions in meetings because I was afraid of looking clueless. Instead, I’d go back to my desk and spend hours figuring things out alone - sometimes completely missing the mark. The irony? If I’d just asked, I could’ve saved everyone a lot of time and hassle.
   

3. Procrastination Disguised as Preparation
   Ah, the endless drafts. The one-paragraph email I rewrote 10 times. The report I didn’t submit until the last second because “it wasn’t ready yet.” Perfectionism slows you down and keeps you from delivering. In a fast-paced environment, it can make you look indecisive or, worse, like you’re not pulling your weight.
   

4. Fear of Failure = Fear of Growth
   Perfectionism often means playing it safe. You don’t raise your hand in the meeting unless you’re 100% sure your idea is brilliant. You don’t volunteer for the stretch project because what if you screw it up? Over time, this fear of failing keeps you stuck in your comfort zone while others around you take risks and grow.
   

5. Damaged Relationships
   Perfectionism doesn’t stay at work. It seeps into how you relate to others. Maybe you’re hypercritical of a colleague’s work because it’s not “up to standard.” Or you hold your partner or kids to impossibly high expectations. The need for everything to be “just so” can make you a nightmare to collaborate or live with.
   

6. Burnout and Resentment
   Let’s not sugarcoat it: perfectionism is exhausting. Constantly striving for flawless performance takes a toll on your body and mind. Over time, it leads to burnout, resentment, and the creeping suspicion that all your hard work isn’t getting you where you want to be.
   

The Short-Term Fix vs Long-Term Harm

Here’s the thing: in male-dominated industries, perfectionism feels like a survival strategy. It’s how you stay “safe.” If you’re flawless, no one can criticise you. But this is a short-term solution.

In the long run, perfectionism keeps you:

• Invisible: Because you only speak up when you’re certain, your ideas stay hidden.

• Overwhelmed: Because you overwork and overthink, you’re constantly on edge.

• Underperforming: Because you spend too much time on small details, you miss the bigger picture.

And the worst part? You’re so busy proving your worth that you don’t enjoy the success you’ve worked so hard to achieve.

How to Break Free from the Perfectionism Trap

So, how do you stop perfectionism from running (and ruining) your life? Here are some steps I’ve used in my work with women:

1. Notice the Voice of Perfectionism
   Start paying attention to the inner dialogue driving your behaviour. That voice that says, “If this isn’t perfect, they’ll think I’m incompetent”? That’s not you. That’s a part of you - one that’s scared of rejection. Acknowledge it, but don’t let it run the show.
   

2. Regulate Your Nervous System
   Perfectionism thrives on a stressed-out nervous system. When your body is in fight-or-flight mode, the stakes feel higher than they are. Practising grounding techniques like deep breathing, mindfulness, or somatic exercises helps you stay calm and keep things in perspective.
   

3. Ask: What’s Good Enough?
   Not every task deserves 100% effort. For routine emails or reports, aim for “good enough.” Save your perfectionist energy for the high-stakes projects that really matter.
   

4. Practise Self-Compassion
   Perfectionism is rooted in fear and shame. Learning to be kind to yourself - especially when you make mistakes - is the antidote. When you treat yourself with compassion, you create space for growth and creativity.
   

5. Celebrate Progress, Not Perfection
   Shift your focus from the end result to the journey. What did you learn? How did you grow? By celebrating progress, you’ll start to value the process over the product.
   

6. Work with the Body
   Somatic coaching can help you release perfectionist habits by connecting with your body’s wisdom. Noticing where perfectionism shows up physically (tight jaw, clenched fists, tense shoulders) and making slight changes to your physiology can help you unconsciously ‘un-remember’ those life-long patterns and make different choices in moments of challenge.

The Truth Bomb

Let me hit you with some real talk: perfectionism isn’t about being the best. It’s about avoiding the fear of not being enough. And here’s the twist—you are enough, flaws and all.

Breaking free from perfectionism isn’t easy, but it’s possible. It starts with recognising the ways it holds you back and choosing to show up as your messy, human self. Because at the end of the day, being real is far more impactful than being perfect.

So, here’s to progress over perfection—and to finally hitting send on that damn email.

What resonated most with you? Let’s talk if you want to do the work to release your inner perfectionist through 1:1 coaching - contact me HERE to book a call.

If you are in an organisation that would like to support women who struggle with this, contact me today to book in a call. Click HERE.

Case Study: From Self-Doubt to Self-Assured - A Gen-Z Professional’s Journey to Confidence

I’ve recently had the privilege of working with Ella, a young professional early in her career, who when we started working together had stepped into a challenging new role, fresh out of university, straight into a fast-paced workplace.

In this space, Ella often found herself questioning her abilities and place in her new environment. Through coaching, she experienced a transformative journey, shifting from self-doubt to self-assurance and finding her voice both professionally and personally.

Initial Challenges

Before engaging in coaching, Ella recalls the early weeks of her job as overwhelming. “I’d just started, and I kept thinking, ‘should I even be here?’” or “I’m not as good as them”. Ella was constantly analysing herself and felt like she wasn’t contributing much during meetings, in her words “I just simply couldn’t, I didn’t have anything to say or give”.

Her self-doubt extended to how she approached learning. “Back then, if I didn’t contribute, I’d think I was useless. I’d sit in meetings thinking, ‘What am I even doing here?’ instead of taking in what was being discussed.”

Mindset Shifts Through Coaching

Over the course of her coaching engagement, Ella experienced a profound shift in mindset. She moved from feeling like an outsider to recognising her value and ability to contribute meaningfully.

Now she says “I’m actually there for a reason” and realises active listening has as much value as contributing and has the confidence to take away learnings from new situations rather than berating herself and overthinking the situation.

Ella’s also experienced a huge shift in self-belief. She’s gone from asking, ‘Can I do this?’, instead saying ‘I can do this,’ or ‘How can I make this happen?’. She says these more positive thoughts are “constantly ticking in my head. If something uncomfortable happens, it's like that automatic change in mindset [to a more positive one], which is really cool, because I feel like before I was quite easily capable of just shutting myself down”.

Personal and Professional Growth

Beyond the workplace, the coaching journey positively influenced Ella’s personal life. “It’s been great for me…not even just in work, in my life… how I go about things with my family.”

Her professional growth was also recognised during a recent review. “My manager told me he’s noticed a huge difference from day 1 to where I am now…. I believe that I know more, that I’m capable”

A most recent standout moment for Ella was how she handled a high-pressure situation presenting at a conference. “We had tech problems when we were presenting. The slideshow wasn’t working, usually I would have gone blank and been like ‘this is too much’” but instead but instead of panicking, I stayed calm. I just thought, ‘Okay, the screen’s not working—let’s keep talking.’ Before coaching, I would’ve shut down completely. I trusted myself to adapt, and it worked.”

Most Valuable Aspects of Coaching

Ella found the sessions uniquely impactful because they went beyond surface-level strategies.

“The longer sessions were great for diving deep. I loved how we connected current challenges to past experiences—it helped me understand myself better. Plus, the group sessions were awesome for connecting with colleagues. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone in facing challenges.”

She particularly appreciated the somatic aspect of coaching “Those moments were powerful. It felt like my body guided me to answers I didn’t even know I had. Trusting that process led to some really cool breakthroughs.”

Ella also valued the practical somatic tools provided, “it’s amazing how something so simple can make such a difference.”

Biggest Transformation

For Ella, the biggest change was realising how she could tap into her innate potential in a way that was right for her, “Everyone’s like ‘go with your gut’, but I feel like a lot of fear lives in my gut….I loved all the parts where we connected to my body…and my body would guide me to the answer…once you actually trust that, some really cool things come out of it…understanding I’m strong, I can do this…it’s a huge thing”.

Final Thoughts

Ella’s journey reflects the profound impact coaching can have on mindset, behaviour, and confidence. “I’ve noticed a huge difference….so powerful for me starting a new job to have this new change of mindset rather than a few years down the track”.

Would Ella recommend coaching with me? “Any day, in a heartbeat, yes. You’re so skilled in what you do and have this amazing ability to connect. Honestly, thank you so much for changing my life and the whole mindset thing…..it’s a very strong skill of yours to be able to create this amazing safe place”.

Ella’s story is a testament to how a tailored, supportive coaching approach can empower young professionals to thrive in their careers and beyond.

If you’re a forward thinking organisation looking to support your young workforce with personal development so that they too can start their career off powerfully, contact me today to book in a call.

Empowering Women Leaders: The Key Role of Interoception

As a Self-Aware Woman Leader, you’re likely aware of the external challenges that comes as a woman in your position — navigating workplace dynamics, managing teams, and getting results (in addition to all the other hectic life stuff – aging parents, young kids, pets, social life, book club, extra-curricular activities and of course the non-stop group messaging for parents!).

But what about the internal landscape? How often do you tune into your body’s signals, understand what’s going on so that you can connect with your deepest sense of self? These internal processes, often overlooked, are foundational to leading with confidence and authenticity.

What is Interoception?

Interoception is your body’s ability to sense its internal state. It’s the awareness of signals from within—like your heartbeat, breath, hunger, or the butterflies in your stomach before a big presentation. Interoception plays a crucial role in how you experience emotions, manage stress, and make decisions.

For women leaders, honing interoceptive awareness can be a game-changer. It’s not just about noticing what’s happening inside; it’s about interpreting these signals accurately and responding to them in ways that align with how you want to be as a leader. To your team, to your kids, to the world.

It's common to feel ‘something’ in our bodies before, during or after something that’s taken us out of our comfort zone. It might be that we can’t pin point exactly what you’re feeling and so our brain looks to make meaning of this ‘something’ inside of us.

Sometimes it’s things like ‘You don’t know enough to present this to the board’ or ‘You’re asking too for too much of a pay rise’ or ‘You need to say yes to this to prove you’re worth it’.

This is where knowing about interoception and how it relates to your nervous system can help you quash these thoughts so that you’re not acting from a place of fear or self-doubt.

Why Your Nervous System Matters

Your nervous system is the command centre of your body, constantly responding to internal and external stimuli. It operates in different ways when you experience stress or a challenging moment (such as going out of your comfort zone) and you’ll either move into a survival-led state of fight, flight, freeze or fawn (people pleasing).

When you’re aware of your nervous system’s state, you gain insight into how stress, anxiety, and external pressures affect you. Often we have patterns that have been deeply embedded since childhood and are used over and over. More importantly, you can develop strategies to regulate these states, allowing you to respond to challenges with clarity rather than reacting impulsively and from survival-led place.

Understanding and managing your nervous system enables you to remain calm under pressure, communicate effectively, and lead with poise. This awareness is not only essential for your well-being but also for the well-being of your team (or family!). A regulated leader can create a stable and supportive environment, fostering trust and productivity.

Using Self-leadership

The concept of “Self” in IFS is akin to the “Sage” in Positive Intelligence (of which I am a coach). Self represents your core essence—the calm, confident, courageous and compassionate part of you that can stay present, no matter the circumstances. Leading from Self is distinctly different from leading from the many other parts of you that may be driven by fear, anger, or insecurity.

When you lead from Self, you’re not reacting from a place of anxiety or stress. Instead, you’re grounded, regulated, clear-headed, and aligned with your values. This state allows you to respond to challenges with wisdom and empathy, making decisions that reflect your true leadership potential.

How to Cultivate Interoception and Lead from Self

1. Practice Orientation: Regular orientation practices, such as meditation or breathwork and focussing on your senses, can help you become more attuned to your body’s signals and your nervous system’s state.

2. Body Scans: A body scan is a simple yet powerful practice where you mentally scan your body from head to toe, noticing any sensations without judgment. This practice enhances interoceptive awareness and helps you connect with your physical self.

3. Self-Inquiry: Regularly ask yourself questions like, “How am I feeling right now?” or “What does my body need?”. This practice fosters a deeper connection with your internal state and supports leading from Self.

4. Conscious movement: Taking time for moving with a real awareness of how all the muscles in your body are experiencing this movement and getting curious about how moving something a millimetre affects the sensations allows you to be present and connect with your Self energy, enabling you to access your inner wisdom and lead with greater clarity and purpose.
   

The Impact on Your Leadership

When you combine interoceptive awareness with an understanding of your nervous system and knowledge of your self-led behaviours, you’re not just managing stress; you’re transforming how you lead. By cultivating these practices, you develop the ability to stay centred in your Self, making decisions from a place of confidence and compassion.

In a world where women leaders often face unique challenges, leading from Self isn’t just a strategy—it’s a necessity. It empowers you to navigate the complexities of leadership with grace, ensuring that your decisions and actions are aligned with your true values and vision.

By embracing the power of interoception and your nervous system, you can step into your full potential as a leader—grounded, confident, and ready to inspire others from a place of authenticity and strength.

If you need support in getting started with learning and accessing more of your Self, check out my programme ‘Authentic & Confident Self Leader’.

I Just Don’t Feel Like Myself Anymore - A Peri-Menopause Journey

It was New Years Day 2022, I was 42 years old.

I woke up hungover, feeling a bit shit and I got a very clear message from my body that said:

'I don't want to do this anymore'

This was the start of my peri-menopause journey.

Over the next few years I would go on a path that would lead to me learning more about this phenomenon that every woman's body goes through, how the symptoms showed up for me, the research, the myths, the highs, the lows and the HRT. 

This is not the kind of thing I usually write about, I’m an Executive Somatic Coach. And yet lots of women I coach are going through this phase of life and because every woman's experience is different, I'm writing this so that you or someone else you know may read it, perhaps identify with parts of it and then do your own research, take your own path through this time.

That New Year's day was the last day that I drank alcohol. I firmly believe looking back that on that morning, my body knew the year that was to come in relation to symptoms on this peri-menopause journey and it was telling me in no uncertain terms that I didn't need alcohol muddying the waters. I wasn't a massive drinker since having kids, more of a binge drinker on a good night out, maybe once or twice a month. But that once or twice a month was followed by three days of feeling shit and tired and overall rubbish (so roughly 9 days a month feeling crap). So I stopped and haven't drunk since. I found it easy, which is different to a lot of the stories you hear and I will write a blog about this!

That same year I started a somatic (body wisdom) coaching course that saw me tuning into more of what my physiology needs and wants by slowing down, observing what I needed, cultivating safety from a physiological sense and regulating of my nervous system.  So I was in a really good place when everything started, I had loads of support, loads of tools and strategies and was working on myself in big way. I felt like I knew a lot about myself.

But when the symptoms started, there was a definite sense after a few months of ‘what in that I-don’t-feel-like-myself is going on here?’

On 'The Balance App', designed by Dr Elizabeth Newson, a leading menopause specialist, there are SIXTY FIVE symptoms of peri-menopause that you can track daily to see how they are affecting you. They are:  

Abdominal pain | Acne | Altered sense of smell | Anxiety | Bloating | Brain fog | Breast pain or tenderness | Cramps | Crying spells | Diarrhoea | Difficulty concentrating | Difficulty sleeping | Dizziness or feeling faint | Dry eyes | Dry hair | Dry skin | Facial hair | Feeling nervous | Frequent urination | Hair loss or thinning | Headaches | Hot flushes | Incontinence | Irritability | Irritable legs | Itching | Joint pain | Lack of interest in things | Low libido | Low mood or depression | Low motivation | Memory problems | Migraine | Mood swings | Mouth and gum problems | Muscle pain | Nausea or sickness | Night sweats | Panic attacks | Pressure in head | Tingling hands and feet | Tinnitus | Tired or low energy | Weight gain | Wind | Allergies | Brittle nails | Burning mouth | Cold sweats | Constipation | Difficulty breathing | Excitable |  Feeling tense | Heart Palpitations | Heartburn | Numbness in body | Numbness in hands or feet | Pain passing urine | Painful sex | Sagging breasts | Skin crawling | Vaginal bleeding | Vaginal dryness | Wrinkles

What an awesome list eh??

Some of the symptoms are not ones that you even want to admit because of how society views them as a woman. And of these 65 symptoms, I was experiencing 45 of them! Soooo many times I tested myself for covid because I thought that's why I must be so tired. The tests were always negative.

And yes, it's fair to say that when you read the list above, it can be like 'well that's just getting older', which it is....but I found that what I was experiencing were symptoms that hadn't EVER been a thing in my life that  were now impacting me on a daily or weekly basis and making my life a lot more challenging from within myself.

So here are the symptoms of peri-menopause as I experienced them. Some were everyday, sometimes a couple of times a week, sometimes more would occur all at once. A lot of the time there was no rhyme or reason.

• I was bone tired. A lot. I could wake up from a 10 hour sleep (not even waking in the middle of the night to go for a wee) and then in the afternoon, I'd be falling asleep at my computer and simply have to have a 30 minute nap where I was 'dead to the world'.
  

• I had a lot of anxiousness for seemingly no reason. It would start in the morning a bit but by the time I’d drop my kids off at school I’d have this feeling in my stomach on the drive home and it would last all morning, sometimes all day. No matter what strategies I had learned to try and be more mindful, present, calm, the anxiousness would come straight back once I finished the exercise. And then suddenly it would go when I hadn't been trying anything.
  

• The only other time in my life I had experienced the same type of anxiousness was after my daughter had been born and they related it to hormones - this was a key for me in identifying that it was peri-menopause. Before I realised this, I had been examining lots of areas of my life and trying to come up with 'stories that made sense' for why I was feeling anxious. The only story there needed to be was that what I was experiencing was scientific and it was my hormones causing this anxiety.

• I had diarrhoea most mornings even though I wasn't ill. (this is one of those ones I found hard to talk about because who wants an image of someone on the shitter each day - I now realise no-one actually cares 🤣)

• I started getting hair on my chin (this is also one of those ones that I found hard to talk about because of the stigma, but I'm over that now. My kids help me pluck my chinny-chin-chin sometimes cos their eyesight is better 😆)

• I was never sure that I was smelling stuff 'right'. If my kid would fart, I couldn't always smell it (this was a benefit but also one of the ones that made me think it was covid). If I was cooking food, I couldn't smell it so if I was cooking people might say 'it smells yum in here', but I couldn't smell it.

• I was never sure I was tasting stuff 'right'. I could add salt to a meal and not really notice the difference. People would say 'this is so delicious' and I would think they were just being nice. (this is one of the ones that made me think I had covid)

• I would get stomach cramps for no reason. I tried relating this to food I ate, but the timings never made sense and no one else would get a sore tummy.

• Terrible acne on my chin every month. Like pimples the size of Mt Fuji. Awesome.

• I never really knew what brain fog was. People talked about it and I just thought I was lucky that I didn't get it cos it wasn't a fog for me. Then I realised for me it was 1,000 bunnies jumping around in my head flitting from one thing to the next, making me forget what I was doing mid 'doing or putting the milk carton in the dishwasher or the dirty dishes in the fridge without a second thought.

• The breast pain....ooooh the breast pain. I remembered having breasts this tender not long after giving birth (which had been 10 years prior). The thought of someone touching them would make me wince. This time it was things like my daughter running in to give me a hug and her head bashing against them and I would cry out in agony. Or accidentally bumping my nipple. Or my daughter rolling over in bed and knocking my chest.....yeoooowwww!!!

• I'd get cramps in different parts of my body that I'd never been susceptible to before.

• I'd cry and cry for no reason, for like a whole day. I couldn't pinpoint any reason for being unhappy, but it was a deep sadness that would come for a day and then go the next and it wasn't linked to a particular part of my menstrual cycle.

• Because of the bunnies in the head, I found it really hard to concentrate on anything and flit from thing to thing - so much so I started looking into whether I had ADHD (still a possibility but I was directed down the route of peri-menopause after a consultation with an ADHD screener).

• I'd wake up at between 2am - 4pm many mornings. Many times it was 3.43am exactly.and for no apparent reason e.g. I didn't need to go to the loo.  Getting back to sleep was impossible until about 6am and then I'd be woken up from a really deep sleep to start the day.

• My eyes sometimes felt like they were on FIRE....so dry and no amount of weeping seemed to stop the burning feeling.

• My hair went dry as hell and started breaking off at the ends so has never really grown longer than just past shoulder length. It definitely thinned out.

• I'd feel nervous about stuff, but not sure why - it was a fine line between nervousness and anxiety. They say that nervousness is excitement without the deeper breath, but this was definitely not excitement.

• Hot flushes - I had two - more about them later, they were awesome.

• I started not being able to hold in my wee. Bearing in mind my kids were 10 and 12 at the time of all this going on, the only time I'd had trouble with leakage was when I was jumping on a trampoline, but now I was getting to the point of almost full on wetting myself if I needed to go to the loo - it was like I couldn't hold it in anymore.

• The RAGE - there were times when my husband just had to drink a glass of water and the sound of him drinking I wanted to rip his head off. Or chewing. Some days I could wake up and feel so much RAGE it was unreal - I'd never experienced this kind of thing in my life and have always been quite a calm person. I think I kept most of it controlled using lots of breathing or leaving-the-damn-room strategies, but it was sooooo hard. I remember listening to story of a woman in peri-menopause saying she was so angry she threw the vaccum cleaner through a closed window so it smashed it and landed out on the lawn and at the time my thought was 'that sounds like completely understandable behaviour' 🤣😂

• My legs and torso would itch so bad. I would end up red raw from scratching even though there were no 'bites' or anything.

• Many mornings I would wake up and get out of bed like a 100-year old woman. My joints and muscles would be so stiff, I would walk to the toilet hunched over at the waist because it was hard to straighten up.

• I had a big lack of interest in things - it had to be something really freakin enticing to keep my attention otherwise my mind would wander. This included talking to my kids about their day - so hard to concentrate.

• I put on about a stone (7kgs) in weight out of nowhere. I had been the same weight for 12 years and was still eating in exactly the same way and then all of a sudden was about a stone heavier over the course of a couple of months. It didn't matter what I did, the scales just kept going up and up and stuff that had worked in the past to 'lose a couple' did nothing to change the situation and still havent!

• Low libido - yep - had no interest.

• Out of nowhere I started having migraines - I've had headaches in the past from drinking but with these I couldn't even lift my head and just had to go and lie my head on a pillow in a darkened room and sleep it off. These would be around once every 1-2 months.

• I had problems with my gums - they'd ache or be really sensitive.

• I thought I was getting dementia - my husband would talk about things we'd discussed to do with logistics and I would have no recollection of the conversation. Sometimes I thought he was making things up. Mid sentence I would not be able to think of a word. This is the only symptom I remember my mum having (she didn't know it as peri-menopause) because my sister and I used to think she was getting Alzheimer's when we were teenagers.

• In the morning my daughter used to jump into bed and I remember her saying 'Mummy, why are you always so sticky now'. Night sweats happened really frequently, waking up dripping with sweat, even when it was a cold night. Night sweats were not enough to diagnose peri-menopause - more about that later.

• I had a few panic attacks - I've never had these in my life and haven't had them since being on HRT.

• The pressure in my head some days, it felt like my head was going to explode.

• But the best part - the wind! There were some rippers out both ends!

So as you can see, life was pretty fun! When it all started, I had written a blog '10 things I believe help me create more joy in my life' a few months previously and then all of a sudden, even though I was doing all those things and I had been in a super joyful place, they didn't feel like they were working as well at all. I felt like a fraud even having that blog up. I didn't feel like myself and nothing was helping change that for good.

So I finally decided to do something about it from a medical perspective and I'd heard about the menopause documentaries done by Davina McCall and thought 'I'll start there' and watched them - there are two. I can't remember the story exactly (go memory ha ha), but I remember being moved to tears by a woman saying something like 'she wouldn't', but she felt like it would be easier if she was just no longer here on this earth. I don't remember feeling EXACTLY like that, but I remember thinking 'holy shit, what if I got to that, I can see how I could get to that if this goes on' and I sobbed and sobbed for this woman.

Then there were the female scientists in the second documentary (that's more about peri-menopause) who had been studying the brains of women going through peri-menopause and menopause and found that the decrease in oestrogen directly correlated to the decrease in brain activity in peri-menopausal brains they scanned. They said that once someone has been through menopause, the decrease in brain activity could be PERMANENT. Their message was 'don't wait' to get started on HRT.

These two things were what made me take action. I think before then it was a classic woman thing of not putting myself first to get this sorted out, putting up with feeling a bit shit and also 'just getting on with it' and 'sucking it up'.

But fuk me, permanently decreased brain activity? No thanks bruv.

So I rang my local GP, asked who was the menopause specialist and made an appointment (I was living in the UK at the time).

By this stage I hadn't heard of the Balance app, but I had done a bit of research and had a page of about 20 symptoms on a piece of paper with some notes and went armed with this to the appointment. I'd heard through the documentary and from joining a facebook group that doctors at the time didn't know a huge amount about menopause and would palm you off or that it was common for you to know more than them so I was kinda prepared for this. Plus, I was still accessing a lot of good stuff with coaching, nervous system regulation, knowing myself inside out etc. But not to worry, I was going to see a menopause specialist, so surely they would just see it straight away for what it is, no?

At the appointment the doctor listened to my experience and looked at my page of notes and said that they would suggest testing thyroid and doing blood tests to check that there wasn't anything else going on. She asked if I was having hot flushes (at the time I wasn't) and that because I wasn't having hot flushes, I was too young to be going through peri-menopause (I was 42 and still having regular periods).

When I asked her how all these other symptoms could be explained she said she thought I was depressed. Having just finished my somatic coaching training, I was so bloody well resourced it was untrue. I had been having 1-2 coaching sessions a week with my peers so talking about stuff all the time. We had no financial worries. My business wasn't overly stressful, I had a nice life. Sure I had kids that pushed my buttons, but could kids really be the source of all these symptoms (hmmmm…maybe ha ha).

The reality was that I was feeling unhappy at times because of all the symptoms that were being caused by the hormones, which felt similar to the hormones post natal....I was not fucking depressed. I knew that, but even I felt a bit of a waiver of certainty about this.

In far less colourful language and very calmly (because I was so regulated combined with classic good girl conditioning) I relayed this to her. And what of the night sweats, how do they relate to depression? This held no sway apparently they are not the holy grail of peri-menopause - hot flushes you have during the day are. Disappointed but resolved to 'do what was needed', it was arranged that I would have the blood tests and meet with her in a month to see what the results were and decide a way forward given the evidence.

During that month I had a trip away to Wales with my husband and some family. I was in the hotel sitting down to breakfast and all of a sudden I noticed my calves were sweating. Like I could actually feel the beads of sweat on my calves through my leggings, it was bizarre, and when I touched my calves they were damp. This sweatiness and heat moved all the way up my body to my face, to the point that I just HAD to take my jumper off (it was November in the UK - cold!) and I asked everyone 'is it just me or is it really hot in this room', to which they confirmed it was not hot at all, cold if anything because it was only about 3 degrees outside!

The only way that I can describe my first hot flush....was that the sweatiness and heat rose up my body, it felt a bit like what I imagine a re-birth might feel like. Like an uncloaking....I got a real sense of me stepping out of one phase of my life and into the next phase - and I felt like I was a fucking powerful, wise, regal goddess ready to take on the world. It was UNREAL and I LOVED IT. I know not everyone experiences it this way and I looked into it a bit.....however in some cultures, they see the menopause as a huge time of celebration as you move into the wise woman era of your life - you become a wise elder and I LOVE this idea. This is exactly how it felt for me.

(and there was also a part of me that was like 'take that doctor', because I knew armed with the holy grail of the hot flush, she would start listening to me about peri-menopause)

I walked into that next appointment having had two hot flushes. My blood results were all normal (I don't actually know what she was testing for, but I have since learned that testing for hormones are pointless as they fluctuate so much in the day - which is why some of my symptoms would just disappear!). My thyroid was operating as expected. And I'm not gonna lie, I sat up a little straighter and didn't quite give her the eyebrows when I said 'I've had two hot flushes baby!'. (ok I didn't say baby, but in my head I did)

Well that was it, she put me straight on the HRT, not another question asked. Who knew hot flushes are the be all and end all of the peri-menopause. It didn't matter that by that stage I'd found out through research that I had another 25 symptoms to add to my original count of 20 symptoms. The two hot flushes trumped them all.

In January 2023 almost a year to when my body told me to quit alcohol, I went onto a Everol 50 patch - a patch that releases oestrogen and progesterone over the course of the day - I would change mine Tuesday (after hockey training) and Saturday (after a hockey match) otherwise they would fall off from sweating so much. Much like a smoker you stick the patch to your butt or hip (not scientific, but I found it better when mine was on my hip so have a play around with this).

After about three weeks, I started to feel better. My symptoms lessened. And then some of them went. I didn't experience anymore hot flushes. Diaorrhea mostly gone, no night sweats, anxiety almost non-existent. Started to feel more myself. Still tired, but not so fatigued I'd need so many naps in the day.

This lasted for six months before some of the symptoms started to increase again. I went to a different doctor who specialised in menopause and straight away when I told her my symptoms she said 'we'll up your dose of oestrogen and you'll feel better within a week'. And she was right.

I moved on 75mg of oestrogen (patch) combined with progesterone tablets that are used to stop the lining of the womb getting too thick. Every 28 days or so, I have what they call a withdrawal bleed that is aligned with the HRT but isn't necessarily aligned with the 'cycle' of how I feel or experience energy and creativity. I found with this higher dose that one day of my withdrawal bleed I had pretty bad stomach pain, that's something I'm experiencing less now that I've been on it a while, but I did get fibroids and adenomoyosis checked out and I was all clear, so still not entirely sure what that is.

I'm learning more about my cycle - there's lots of people out there who can teach you about the different seasons of your cycle (winter, spring, summer, autumn) and how that can map with your energy levels, how creative you are, how you might feel more self doubt at a certain time of month or feel like you just want to be on your own and slow vs times where you feel really social and crave connection. And also how this can also align with the moon phases. It's fascinating and something that I wish was taught to girls in schools, maybe it will in time.

The period between noticing symptoms, doctors appointments, getting a diagnosis, trialling estrogen to me feeling better was probably about six months. During that time, something that helped me massively was playing hockey. Every Tuesday I did NOT want to go to training and every Tuesday I went so that I didn’t let my team down and I felt better. Every Saturday felt hard to get up the energy to play in a match, but going because of my team helped me feel better and I feel a lot of emotion when I think about how that helped me through that period of my life, those young players, those players my age would not even know the impact they had on my wellbeing because I’m not sure I even knew then. Even the days when I was so dog tired I could barely run around on the pitch, it helped. Having other women who were going through the same thing and talking about it with them helped. Getting up and going for a walk helped. It would have been so easy to stay in bed all of those times and there were definitely days where doing that helped too. Tune into your body.

Because I talk about this with most people my age that I meet (from all genders), I’ve heard and learned a few things that stuck out to me too:

• A senior leader taking a new recruit around the office to introduce people and not being able to remember any of their names despite working with some of them for 20+ years.

• A woman reporting to her CEO and the board and in that meeting going completely blank about what she was talking about and having to let her team take over because she couldn't remember.

• A woman who got her HRT sorted that for six months she was as randy as hell and jumping her husband any chance she could get - it's not all low libido!

• That 7/10 divorces occur because of peri-menopause and the menopause (see experience of RAGE above to give an insight into why that might be 🤣)

• Testosterone can help with energy.

• This shit can last for 7-14 years.

RESOURCES

If you only do one thing today, download this research into women’s brains so that more research can be commissioned….

20th June 2024 a ground-breaking new study was published by neuroscientist Dr Lisa Mosconi @dr_mosconi and others in Nature, one of the top scientific journals in the world.

For the first time ever, they have been able to put tracers in the brain that tracks estrogen activity in women’s brains. The brain as well as ovaries can produce estrogen. The results show how estrogen receptor density changes in women’s brains during the menopause journey.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-62820-7

Clicking and downloading this paper shows the major science/medicine journals that studies relating to menopause are important and more should be published.

Here’s Dr Mosconi’s take: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8cSVQzMXyw/...

Dr Mosconi talks about it more here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8cdDMLu6TF/?igsh=MXhxZHhkdm55dXB5dw==

1/5 women will leave their career due to symptoms of peri-menopause / menopause and so far most of the research has only been done on mice’s brains not actual human women’s brains 😲 Funny story (sarcasm ) this research shows mice’s brains are different to a woman’s as they found estrogen receptors in parts of women’s brains that were not present in mice.

There is evidence that the higher your total lifetime of estrogen exposure means less risk of developing Alzheimer’s so this study shows that during peri-menopause and menopause, rather than declining, the estrogen receptors are lighting up as they are hungry for estrogen! But unfortunately estrogen production declines during this phase..

So many more studies are needed…

The DOAC podcast with Dr Lisa Mosconi:

My takeaways from this were:

• Peri-menopause is a brain condition, but the professionals that prescribe and diagnose are not trained in the brain (e.g. Gynaecologist)

• Black and brown people suffer more greatly with peri-menopause and professionals don't know why because…..it's never been studied (this was like wow WTF and I hope that more is done asap). 

• Menopause that is surgically induced (e.g. Cancer patients) also affects trans people who have had a hysterectomy to transition, which can be as a teen in some cases.

• When the media originally reported that HRT was dangerous and increased risk of breast cancer, they didn't tell the whole story in that the group of people being given HRT in this study were 70-80 year olds, which yes, HRT is not beneficial then. Now the research shows the risk is minimal.

• Get rid of as much plastic in your kitchen and toxins from your home, skin, beauty.

• Eat legumes.

• What women have been saying for YEARS is now backed up by science. Trust women.

 
The Davina McCall documentaries:

• Sex, Myths and The Menopause

• Sex, Mind and The Menopause

The Balance App - download this to track your symptoms - you can then present this information to your doctor.

Follow Dr Lisa Mosconi, Dr Elizabeth Newson, Dr Naomi Potter on socials.

Find a Facebook group in your area so that you keep in the loop about what works with the doctors, products and you hear how it affects others and their solutions.

It's now June 2024 and I'm currently noticing after a year of being on the higher dose that a few symptoms have increased. During the writing of the blog where I went through the symptoms (which had mostly all gone away) it's made me realise it could be that my HRT needs a tweak. It's an an ever changing beast unfortunately, not just one pill and solved. I also looked into testosterone for increasing energy as I know people who swear by this, but for me, a few stories of women losing their hair on the top of their head freaked me out too much to delve too much further - that may change, who knows.

At the time of writing there is a national shortage of oestrogen patches in NZ (I moved here last year) and they don't expect it to be resolved in the next six months so I'll be moving to the oestrogen tablets and will have to see how they go as some people don't get on with them. It's a bit daunting that something you rely for your wellbeing can be unavailable so this has prompted me to start looking into alternative methods of reducing the symptoms (but as it stands, because of the decrease in brain activity thing you may have to prise the HRT from my dead lifeless hands before I give that up).

My story is not to say that you or someone you know experiencing symptoms need to go onto HRT. Maybe what you read you can relate to and it and it will help you on your own journey. I know people who have gone onto HRT, then done lots of changes to lifestyle, diet and detoxes and come off the HRT because that is what they felt was best for their body. It's a completely individual thing.

I talk about my experience most chances I can get because I don't want others to suffer thinking it's just them, that perhaps they're losing it, that they're no longer good enough and would encourage all women to do the same to raise awareness.

Letting my family in on what's going on has helped their understanding of what I sometimes go through and made them more empathetic.

Clients going through this phase talk to me about losing confidence and wanting to get back to 'how they used to be'. A big part of the work I do with women is helping them remember themselves so that they can live life more easefully, more confidently and calmly. We work on tapping back into the self belief, increasing self worth and regulating your nervous system so that you come out of survival mode.

If this is you and you'd like to learn more, drop me an email on hey@jennischanschieff.com.

Otherwise, best of luck on your journey - feel free to drop me a line on socials if you have any questions.

How do I feel inner confidence?

Confidence is what you believe about yourself. 

You may not feel this yet, but deep down, your body knows exactly who you are and who you're not. 

And inner confidence starts with embracing this fully.....consciously and unconsciously going 'yep this is me and I bloody love it'.

So when you go out with colleagues, instead of stressing beforehand about whether the clothes you're wearing look good enough, are appropriate and spend time worrying what people think of you, you wear what feels good to you and don't give it much of a thought.

When you walk into a networking event, instead of dreading the thought of walking into an already formed group and joining the conversation, you just do it.

When you've got to deliver a workshop or presentation, instead of procrastinating on getting it sorted because thoughts of 'no one cares about what I have to say' stop you from getting on with it....you know from within what you have to say is powerful and you just do it.

To be able to feel more inner confidence, it's likely you're going to have to work through the layers of limiting beliefs that you have gathered along the way in life. 

These limiting beliefs can come from your lived experience:

• If as a six year old the teacher didn't choose you for an activity, you might have taken on the belief 'who I am and what I have to offer is not good enough' and find it hard to believe you are good enough to step outside your comfort zone and make your dreams come true by taking a big step in your life/career.

• If as a child struggled to make your voice heard by your family, you might take on the belief 'what's the point in speaking up' and find it hard to speak up or speak your truth in a meeting, when there are differences of opinion etc.

• If your decisions were always questioned (out of concern by a parent), you might take on the belief 'I'm never going to get it right, so why bother' and struggle to make decisions, often looking to others for confirmation of what you should do.
  

Limiting beliefs can be absorbed from people around you:

• If you grew up with a parent who struggled with parenting, you might take on the belief 'I'm a bit useless, so what's the point'.

• If your parents were fighting when you were a child and didn't listen to you when you tried to get them to stop, you might take on the belief 'it's not safe when I'm not in control' and find that you need to control a lot of things in your life and work.

Limiting beliefs can also be been trapped in the cells of your ancestors and passed down generations, so yep, there can be layers of shit to get through. But it’s totally possible and then things start to feel easier, the inner critic quietens down and you start behaving differently in ways that support what you want to go after in life.

The majority of these limiting beliefs are unconscious, so you don't realise how much they dictate how you behave on a daily basis. And unconsciously, behaviours such as procrastination, people pleasing, over-thinking, over-analysing all take up precious, precious hours of the day.

You know the thing...you've got an important email to send to a colleague, but you spend an unnecessary amount of time reading, re-reading, changing, re-reading and re-reading the email again to check it's just right. So that when they read it, because you’ve taken so much time to word it so amazingly that there is no possible way they can be pissed off and not like you. A two minute job has turned into 20 and then as soon as you send it, you're sweating it out waiting for their reply. Imagine typing that same email, proofing it and then sending it. Without worrying about whether they’ll still like you.

Or when you've got something that's a bit out of your comfort zone and without realising it, you're cleaning the house, watching Netflix, scrolling social media....anything BUT the thing that would push you out of your comfort zone. Anything easier unconsciously gets your attention and before you know it, it feels like another day wasted where you haven't moved forward with the really important thing. Imagine just doing the thing outside of your comfort zone without the procrastination and worrying if you’re good enough.

Limiting beliefs are the reason that although you've got all the skills on paper, it feels like something is missing and you don't know why you feel like you're not good enough or that you don't know enough.

Bringing these beliefs into conscious awareness and shifting them so you're not holding yourself back is a truly transformative process and what will help you feel more inner confidence.

It can be beneficial to go on this journey with someone else because they can help you bring the limiting beliefs out into the open and then support you to shift them.

If you think it's time for you to find your inner confidence, the invitation is there to contact me to set up a free call to find out more about how my 1:1 confidence coaching programme could help you or your employees.

Jess’s Case Study: From stressful life changes to huge improvements in family relationships

Before Jess started working with me, she had been through some big changes in her life that all came around the same time, finishing university, starting a new job and was also dealing with some significant and stressful changes within her family which left her feeling in an uncomfortable position. All things combined she was experiencing a huge strain on her most precious relationships and sometimes found even small, insignificant situations a challenge to deal with.

Working together Jess was able to understand more about why she felt certain ways and through coaching is now able to think a lot more clearly and go into situations more open-mindedly. She's able to accept certain things for what they are and will question and try and improve things she wants to in a calm controlled way. She's able to apply this new energy to even small insignificant situations with the aim of solving the problem or move on. Her relationships with family members are better than she can ever remember!

How were things in your life and/or business before we started working together?

Just before I began my coaching sessions with Jenni, I experienced a series of significant and stressful changes within my family which left me in a difficult position with a huge strain on my most precious relationships.

What results and mind shifts have you achieved since we started working together?

Coaching with Jenni couldn't have come at a better time for me. She guided me through and out the other side of a really difficult time by helping me to understand and rationalise my feelings, listen to them, and make conscious decisions about what to do with them and how to move on productively, rather than destructively.

What is your biggest learning through working with me?

I have learnt how to listen to my emotions and understand how I'm feeling. I am now able to know my desired outcome in a difficult situation and choose to act in a way which will help me get that outcome rather than see red mist and act/speak impulsively.

What's the most important thing people should know about working with me? How would you describe to someone what it is I do?

The most important thing to know when going into life coaching sessions is that it really is a safe space. Jenni is there to help you, and the more you allow her to by being honest and open, the more she will.

For people on the fence about working with me, what would you say to them?

I'd absolutely recommend taking life coaching sessions with Jenni. When I first signed up, I was sceptical about how much it could really help me, but after the first session, it became obvious that I needed to talk to someone like Jenni and now, looking back, I hate to think where I could be without her help.

“I was lucky enough to start coaching sessions with Jenni at a really difficult point in my life where I was going through stressful changes in my family and work life. Jenni worked through each of my problems with me slowly and methodically - validating my feelings, rationalising my emotions and helping me to figure out how best to cope with and move forward from my frustrations. I am extremely grateful to Jenni for her expertise in coaching. I found her to be calm and patient as well as very skilled in knowing what to say and techniques to use in order to guide me towards my own positive and productive conclusions. I have seen a huge improvement in my relationships, and my own ability to cope with difficult situations and wouldn't hesitate to recommend coaching with Jenni.”

Jess

If you’re going through lots of change and want support navigating this with a qualified somatic coach, connect with me via LinkedIn or book a chat below.

Case Study: From catastrophising every day about money to a heaviness lifting

Due to the personal nature of what is being shared, my client wanted to remain anonymous.

Sasha (not her real name) came to me with a real worry about running out of money. She felt uncomfortable and anxious about money and it was lowering her energy. It consumed her thoughts at times and filled her with dread on a daily basis.

We uncovered a limiting belief related to not believing there was enough money to feel safe, related to a trapped emotion of feeling on edge.

This belief was stopping her from being present, she got so worried thinking about the future and was worrying about stuff that might not even happen. She was constantly catastrophising and it was stopping her from doing the things she wanted to, at times feeling apathetic about her business.

In one session working together, we cleared the limiting belief surrounding money and input new beliefs designed to help her to feel a lot safer and believe there was more abundance out there.

Here's what she had to say about working with me:

What results, mindset or energy shifts have you noticed since?

I feel much more positive about this issue. I felt a huge energy shift - a heaviness lifted. My thoughts have changed - I'm able to rationalise and reframe quicker and easily.

What's the most important thing people should know about working with me?

This is for everyone! The body has a lot of wisdom. Belief work is powerful.

For people on the fence about working with me, what would you say to them?

Try it! You'll be surprised. Be open minded. It's a really interesting experience and you're safe with Jenni.

“Jenni is warm and explains things well. She is fun and puts you at ease. I really enjoyed the time taken to explore different feelings. She used a variety of different tools some of which were new to me. She had a real belief in you and you felt whatever came up, you were safe and it was ok.”

If you’re interested in finding out how you can work with me to overcome beliefs that are holding you back, connect with me on LinkedIn and drop me a DM or book a chat below.

10 things I believe help me create more joy in my life

I remember a while ago talking to a mum friend about my mindset coaching for moms and saying to her; ‘I feel happy for no reason most days’. And she was like ‘what the actual hell….is that even possible?’.

And it’s totally understandable to feel that way, I used to as well…being a mom is really fucking hard and for sure some days in the past I was like ‘is this it?’.

This list is not to say that I never experience shitty things, life can be shitty lots of times…it’s just that our brains are wired to look for the negative in life, so I’ve been actively trying to do stuff that I believe helps creates happiness for no reason.

It’s not to say that I was morbidly unhappy in the past, it was that I used to get my happiness from external things. Meeting up with friends, buying a new thing, having a new experience etc. All those things still bring me happiness.

But now I have moments where I feel happy for no reason. I’m still getting used to it, but it happens most days and feels different, almost overwhelming good when it pops up.

So it got me thinking about what I do differently now and I wrote a list.

They’re in no particular order and sometimes they’re done a few times a week, sometimes daily. And that’s the whole point, I don’t beat myself up, I just accept that I’m where I need to be and move on with the next day. Because if my child has woken up five times in the night because of bad dreams, I’m sure as hell not going to be getting up at 5.30am like those gurus do and practising yoga on my head and meditating for an hour.

If you prefer audio, it’s all on my TikTok, click here.

1. Constructive Rest

Constructive Rest is for regulating my nervous system. So often our bodies are in a state of stress - much like when cave people feared threats from wild animals because they might die - and these days stress can be caused through our busy environments but doesn’t necessarily mean we’re actually going to die. It’s like a smoke detector going off but you’ve only burned the toast.

To do constructive rest, you lie on your back with your knees bent so your back is flat on the floor. This lengthens your psoas muscle and tells your body that you are safe. From here you notice your connection with the surface underneath you, what you can feel through different parts of your body, how you know your alive, how your breath makes your body feel. Getting curious as to any tingles, warmth, gripping - just noticing - no judgement.

I do this most days for about 10 minutes, but you can do it for much longer if you like.

2. Shaking/Dancing

Shaking or dancing freely is a great way to get out of your mind and into your body. It’s fab for moving emotion through the body and often I’ll have a release of tears: I’m not sad, it’s just energy that needed to be released. If I’ve had a tough morning with the kids it can sometimes leave me feeling a bit uneasy and this is a great way to move through this feeling.

It looks pretty wild, so just let yourself go and make everything wobble, move and shake as much as you can in whatever way feels good to you. If something feels good, play around with doing the movements bigger, smaller, faster, slower….get out of your mind and into your body.

3. Work on Limiting Beliefs

Working on my limiting beliefs has massively helped me to be more chilled about life.

I used to believe things like ‘every time I play with my kids it turns to shit’ because that was something I had experienced when they were little and every time it happened as they grew up, it reconfirmed what I thought.

I had the limiting belief that I should put other people before myself because I believed that was what I should do.

I found it hard to bring up issues with my children’s school because I wanted the teachers to like me, not to be that ‘difficult parent’.

I would get stuck re-reading emails to make sure they were exactly ‘right’, because I thought I needed to be perfect otherwise people won’t like me.

I’ve changed those beliefs (and many more) and it brings me soooo much more ease into my life.

When there is an issue with school, I get straight in there, say it how it is with far less emotion attached to it. Because I don’t need to be liked by them anymore, I’m much better at facilitating change that helps my children get the care they deserve.

Now I put myself first in situations where in the past I felt like I ‘should’ put others first.

Now I play with my kids and we have fun and if it does turn to shit (it still does sometimes, cos, y’know, kids!), I’m far less attached to their drama so my mood is less affected.

Now, I write an email, do one quick check and then send it off and don’t look at it again.

Lots of these issues stemmed from minor incidences in my childhood, where I made the meaning of not being good enough, not feeling like I could get things wrong etc. Some of the beliefs were absorbed from other people. Some were inherited. Some were mine. But all of them were unconsciously driving my behaviour 95% of the time. You can read more about how limiting beliefs hold you back by clicking here.

Releasing limiting beliefs is lifechanging and is what I do with my clients as a mindset and self belief coach.

4. I believe ‘I am time’

I used to believe AND say to myself, my kids, my husband ‘I don’t have time’. I then read about Einstein time in the book ‘The Big Leap’ by Gaye Hendricks. It’s flipping the narrative to believing ‘I AM TIME’. And honestly, don’t even ask me how it works, but it does.

When I have like three things I need to do and only a 15 minute window, in the past I would have though ‘I don’t have time to do those things’ and so might do one of them and it would take 15 minutes for that one thing. Now I say ‘I am time, so I’ve got time to do them’ and crack on with it. I always have enough time and usually have a couple of minutes to spare. It’s wild!

As a result, I’m more chilled about time now. Because ‘I am time’, I don’t stress about there not being enough.

And hand on heart, the times at the beginning where I slipped into ‘there’s not enough time’, there never was, I was rushed and stressed!

So I invite you to give it a go if that feels like something you need in your life 😊

5. Observing myself

Taking time to observe how my bodily sensations ‘are’ during a challenge or a good patch allows me stay curious, experiment with how I ‘am’ and do things differently or savour the good feelings.

6. Orienting

Orienting is about going out into your environment to feel different, ideally better!

Whenever I feel an influx of emotion (seems to be mainly related to kids 🙈) or if I feel like I need to relax, I get in the present moment using something called orienting. It’s basically about noticing where you are in the space of where you are. You can just talk through where you are to start with ‘here is the door, here I am, here is the chair, here I am).

This means you’re not thinking about the past or what has just happened, you’re not thinking about the future, you’re in the present. Let your eyes wander around the where you are, bring a softness to your eyes. If something feels good to look at then let your eyes hover, but there’s no judgement if they want to move on.

For me, even just a couple of minutes when I wake up feels good to me.

Here’s some other ways for you to orient to your environment when things get intense.

7. Conversations - look for when people light up

It’s our default to look for ‘what’s wrong’; it’s just how our brains work. I would invite you to notice it when you’re speaking to your friends.

To make for a completely different conversation experience, I look for when people light up and then focus in on that. It’s great for kids too - asking them ‘what was good today’.

8. Playfulness & Pleasure

How can you find more playfulness and pleasure in your life? And by pleasure I don’t mean a bit of the old sexy time 😜 although go for it if you want!

I’m talking about little things that make you smile, how can you access playfulness with your kids and in your life everyday, even if it’s a beautiful flower that brings about a nice feeling. I used to think that people who did this were unique, but now this is me. I can look at a beautiful sky and a feeling of wonder and awe washes over me. What can you notice today that brings you pleasure?

9. No Alcohol

Not really sure how popular this will be for some people and that’s cool. For me, I was never a massive drinker since I had kids, but I’d do it once or twice a month and then put up with feeling shit for a couple of days afterwards. Once I drank three days in the month and felt rubbish for three days after each session - that’s 9/30 days and was when I went ‘yeah, I don’t want to feel like this anymore’ and stopped.

So when people ask me ‘do you feel better for it’, it’s more about the fact that I never feel physically shit in the way that alcohol makes you feel. I think this helps to have a baseline level for feeling good that is never depleted by alcohol, so when I feel joy, I’m not topping myself up, I’m just feeling even happier!

10. Curiosity

I know they said curiosity killed the cat, but it didn’t. The cat just didn’t assess the risk properly and did something silly 😂

If I get a funny feeling in my tummy or have something that feels negative come up in my body, I get curious and think ‘ooh, what’s going on there’, ‘what could be happening’. So instead of focussing on feeling rubbish, I get more curious about what’s going on and it helps me remove the emotion from it.

If someone acts in a way that brings up resistance, jealousy, anger - it allows me to be more empathetic - what might be going on for them to act this way? What might be going on in me to act this way? Then I explore.

Why limiting beliefs hold us back…

Everyone has limiting beliefs! Sometimes you know what they are and how they affect you and sometimes they appear out of nowhere.

What is a limiting belief?

A limiting belief is something you believe about yourself that can hold you back. What you believe about yourself impacts how you think, feel and behave.

It might be that you struggle to speak up in a group because you hold the belief that 'no one cares about what I have to say'.

It might be you find it hard to do a presentation or workshop because you hold the belief that 'I don't know enough' or 'I'm not an expert' or 'They might ask me something I don't know'.

It might be that you stop yourself from doing a course in a subject you're interested in because you hold the belief 'I don't have enough time'.

Limiting beliefs are totally standard in our lives as human beings and they affect everyone differently. If they're not getting in the way of what you want, then you might not even know you hold a limiting belief about something. 

But when they are very real for you, they can keep you from seeing new possibilities, following dreams and take you away from the amazing, creative person that you are.

Why do we have limiting beliefs?

Experts believe that most of our beliefs about the way the world works are formed by the time we are 8 years old. In the psychoanalytical theory and method of 'Transactional Analyisis', this is called our Life Script.

This involves making sure we survive by fitting in with the adults around us. Just think of how much there is going on at any one time in someone's life - family, culture, faith, community, society....the whole world. As children, we're thinking 'how must I need to behave to fit in, to get my needs met, to survive'.

It's thought that in the first two years (and in the womb), children are in the Delta brain-wave cycle. When you're deeply asleep as an adult, this is the state you are in. Even as you get to 1 year old, you're mainly in and out of this state. This means as a baby, you are taking eeeeeeverything in as you learn about the world, there's no filter at all.

From age 2 - 8, it's thought that children will mostly be in Alpha and Theta brainwave states, which is what you're in while you're under hypnosis or perhaps meditating. So basically at that age you're going about your day hypnotised, open to everything that is being presented to you. Being able to be rational when something goes wrong or think critically is not really a thing your brain can do yet, so you're still in a high learning state. Between five and eight years old, this is when your analytical brain starts forming and you start to interpret and make meaning from your environment.

• If as a three year old you heard a nursery nurse say 'you're so clumsy', you might grow up thinking you're clumsy even though that was bestowed on you age three (when most three year olds fall over a lot anyway!).

• If, as a 5 year old you heard your mum say to a friend 'he/she is not very good at reading', you might take that as fact.

• If, at six years old your teacher tells you 'stop being naughty' when you're fidgeting in your chair, you might take on the belief that your need to be moving to make yourself feel calm is bad.

• If, when you were 7 years old, you asked your dad if you could have a toy when you were at the shop and he got annoyed and shouted 'you can't ask for those kind of things!', you might grow up with the belief 'I can't ask for what I want'. You're not sitting there going 'I appreciate my dad spoke to me like that because money is tight and he has an electricity bill due tomorrow'.

If you feel like you're holding yourself back in certain areas and you don't know why, it might be that you start to take a look at what limiting beliefs you have and notice how they are serving you.
 

Examples of Limiting Beliefs

Once you start tuning into what a limiting belief could be, you'll start to hear people saying them everyday. They're everywhere, so take some time to notice them and get curious.

Sometimes they can start with 'I'm not...', 'I can't...', 'I'm always...', 'I'll never...', 'I'm too...'

• I'm not good enough

• I'm not ready

• I'll never be successful

• I can't fail

• I'm too old

• I don't have enough experience

• I'm not smart enough

• I can't be who I really am or people will judge me

• I can't ask for what I want because the answer will be no

Other times they can be more specific, for example in the workplace:

• I need to know everything that goes on in my team

• I don't have enough experience to go for that role I would be amazing at

It might be that you write them down and get curious about where they may come from.

Limiting Beliefs about Money

Money mindset and limiting beliefs about money are really common, but let's address the elephant in the room - it's never about the money! I'll write another blog about this one day.

• You need to work hard to make money

• If I've got money, people will ask me for it and I won't be able to say no.

• If I'm rich, I'll be too busy

• If I'm rich, my children will be spoilt brats

• I am not good with money

• Being rich is selfish

• If you're rich, you're not a nice person

• You have to be greedy to be rich

Again, you might like to get curious about where these beliefs come from and check out if they are serving you.

Secondary Gains

Sometimes we benefit from holding onto a limiting belief. We are not normally aware of this though, it's an unconscious thing.

For example, someone might want to give up smoking, but if they did that, deep down they might believe they'll miss out on social interactions with colleagues and not want to lose that connection.

You might like to take a look at the benefits you get from holding onto your limiting beliefs, get curious and ask yourself 'what's going on there?'.

Can we change our limiting beliefs?

Coaching can help us to update our Life Script by questioning the way we think, feel and behave and in my experience they can be changed.

As a very surface level example, I used to have a messy bedroom ('it's hard to keep my bedroom tidy') and could never figure out why. Notice my language - 'I used to have a messy bedroom', this indicates a belief has changed.

Keeping my room tidy always felt like SUCH hard work and I tried to, for years and years, tell myself 'just keep it tidy'. I would go through a massive clean up and be like 'right, I'm doing it, I'm keeping it tidy' and then three days later it would be messy again.  It wasn't until I started looking at the belief behind why I had a messy bedroom that I was able to change it.

My mum had always told the story about how she'd never been able to keep her room tidy even at university. So it was partly a belief I'd taken on board from her, but also, I got down to 'if I don't have a messy bedroom, I won't be like my mum and that would be bad!'.  This was a massive 'holy shit' moment for me. No wonder keeping my room tidy felt SOO hard. My mum is amazing by the way, but clearly I'd formed something along the lines of 'must always do as I'm told' as my Life Script was forming in those early years! I found the emotion behind it and was able to change the belief.....much to the relief of my husband 😂

I've given you quite a surface level belief (It's hard to keep my bedroom tidy), but even with that you can see how deep it can go. If I'd have just stuck an affirmation on the wall of 'it's easy to keep my bedroom tidy', I wouldn't have gotten very far if I hadn't gone further into the reason and emotion behind what my belief was.

In summary, limiting beliefs are all around us, they're completely normal and we can change them once we know what they are and where they come from.  And yes our children are forming limiting beliefs everyday no matter how amazing we are as parents 🙈

If you're interested in a belief session to help you change a specific limiting belief, do get in touch!

What Is Somatic Coaching? (And Why It Keeps Finding Women Who've Already Tried Everything Else)

Maybe you already know your patterns.

Maybe you've journaled about them. Tried to reframe them. Maybe at some point you've had therapy, done the course, read the book - probably more than one book. Perhaps you can even name the inner critic. And the socials you've scrolled at some point searching for answers have probably told you exactly where it came from.

And still - in the big meetings, the hard conversations, the pitch you've been preparing for all week - something tightens. Your heart starts racing, your tummy drops, and the version of you who was ready to speak goes quiet somewhere behind your ribs. You watch yourself hand the floor back to someone less right who is more certain. And on the drive home you're already running through everything you should have said.

If any of that sounds familiar, somatic coaching is probably what you've been circling without having a name for it. Here's the plain-language version - no jargon, no mysticism. What it actually is, why it works, and what a session genuinely feels like from the inside.

What is somatic coaching?

Somatic coaching is a body-first approach to change. It works with the nervous system and the body's felt sense - not just thoughts - to shift patterns that mindset work alone can't reach. Used well, it helps people access confidence, clarity and decisiveness when it matters, especially under pressure.

The word somatic just means of the body. That's the whole mystery, demystified.

A somatic coach works with you to notice what your body is doing as you move through your life - the tightening across your chest before a hard conversation, the hollow pit of anxiety before you walk into that particular room, the dread in your stomach that causes you to overprepare.

Rather than coaching you around those responses, the work happens at that layer. In the body. Where the pattern actually lives. Most coaching approaches start with thoughts, goals, or behaviours - addressing the mind first and trusting the body will follow. Somatic coaching reverses that: regulate the nervous system first, and then watch what becomes available in your thinking and your choices.

Why it works where mindset work alone doesn't

Here's what most coaching content won't say plainly: insight isn't change.

You can understand a pattern completely - think you know where it came from, possibly know why it runs - and still repeat it. You can know the theory behind your own holding-back and still watch yourself hold back in the next meeting. This isn't weakness and it isn't insufficient effort. It's just how the body works.

Under pressure, your nervous system scans for threat faster than your thinking brain can keep up. If it reads the stakes as dangerous - and for a lot of women working in male-dominated environments, it does, because those rooms have historically cost them something - it runs a protective response before your conscious mind gets a word in.

Maybe your shoulders rise. Your voice might land higher than you meant it to, or soften just slightly without you choosing to soften it. Maybe your mind blanks, the sentence you had ready, practised over and over just disappears, and you're stuck mid-thought while trying to look like you're not.

And it runs the same calculation in the quieter moments too - the thoughts that spiral after a conversation you thought went fine, the yes you heard yourself say before you'd registered the question, the email drafted and deleted and drafted again and still not sent.

So when you try and reframe it, that reframe has to bypass the body to land - and the body doesn't always listen to reframes. Somatic coaching works at the layer that mindset reframes skip over.

'Somatics is the study of the self from the perspective of one's lived experience, encompassing the dimensions of body, psyche and spirit' ~ Thomas Hanna

The bind most women arrive carrying

There's a particular place most of the women I work with have reached, and it's worth naming because it's usually what finally brings them here.

They're done shrinking - starting to notice the moments when it costs them. Maybe they forgot to pick the kids up once because they stayed late, only for no one at work to even notice the sacrifice. Maybe they missed dinner with the family for a meeting that could have been an email. They're done with softening the ask so as not to ruffle emotional men's feathers, and done with going quiet in rooms where their opinions and insight could create meaningful change for the very people the system wasn't built with in mind.

And deep down, they're also worried about what happens if they stop shrinking.

What if I take up space, say the thing, push back, hold the line - and it costs me? Gets me taken off the project. Makes me the difficult one. Loses me the relationship. Confirms what they already suspect about me.

That bind is not irrational. It's not a mindset problem. It's pattern recognition based on real experience - experience that likely started well before the boardroom, in the specific ways the world teaches women to manage themselves carefully in rooms that weren't designed for how they lead. The boardroom is just the latest room where the old pattern gets activated.

Somatic coaching doesn't try to talk you out of the bind. It works at the layer where the bind actually lives - in the nervous system, in the protective responses that haven't yet been shown the room is different now.

What sessions give you - and why it's rarely what’s expected

"That's not what I thought was holding me back" is one of the most common things I hear after a first session - and it almost always lands as a relief.

Because the thing they walked in naming wasn't wrong. But underneath it, something else had been waiting - something the body had been holding for a while, that the mind had been quietly filing under the wrong "I just need to work on this" folder.

More often than not, sessions don't tend to go where my clients think they will. They tend to go somewhere more alive than they realised.

There's a concept called the felt sense that sits at the centre of why this work reaches places insight alone can't. It's not quite a feeling - it's more a pre-verbal knowing, a whole impression held somewhere in the body before it's been broken into language or logic. Slightly murky, slightly hard to pin down at first. That's exactly what makes it useful - because the felt sense carries information that thinking doesn't have access to. When something surfaces from it, it has a quality of "oh - that's what that is." Not an insight you reasoned your way toward. Something that was already in you, waiting to be heard.

What surfaces looks different every time. Sometimes it's recognising that a dynamic you've been navigating at work is a version of something much older - and suddenly the intensity makes sense in a way it didn't before.

Sometimes it's the pattern that's been showing up all week - the 3am replay, the way you already knew walking in which conversations were going to cost you, the tension that arrives when a particular person's name comes up in the calendar - finally having a logic to it, rather than feeling like something that just keeps happening to you. Sometimes a version of yourself you'd forgotten about turns up in the space, and you remember what it felt like to be her before you started managing quite so carefully.

None of it is dramatic. More like a quiet click. Something settling into place.

There's a parts-based layer to this work that changes things for most people. Under pressure, what shows up in the body isn't a malfunction - it's a protective response, a part of you doing a job it took on in rooms that were genuinely risky. The question is never how do I get rid of this part? It's what is this part protecting me from, and what does it need to ease up a little? When a client lands on that reframe, the whole room shifts - the tension in her face, the set of her shoulders, the pace of her breath.

Most of the women I work with aren't naturally disconnected from their bodies. They've been trained out of it - in environments that rewarded speed, performance, and certainty, and quietly penalised the kind of noticing that slows you down. That awareness can be rebuilt. It usually comes back faster than people expect.

Is somatic coaching the same as therapy?

Therapy can be focussed on talking - often around earlier life experiences or clinical conditions - and is delivered by clinically trained practitioners. If that's the work you need, therapy is the right room. Somatic coaching is focused on how you show up in the situations you're actually in and in the moments that matter. The work can be deeply therapeutic in nature but sits between therapy and transactional coaching, and for women who have already done a lot of one or both, it tends to be exactly the layer that was missing. I've been told "I've done more with you than in a couple of years of talking about it in therapy" - and while that's not a criticism of therapy, it points to something this work does differently.

Who benefits from this work - and what becomes possible

Maybe you're working in sport, or in an industry that still, in some rooms, treats your presence as a surprise. You're capable and experienced. You also carry, quietly, more than the job description covers - the invisible load of being the one who notices what's about to fall over, the one who smooths, the one managing the room's emotional temperature alongside her own, before the day has technically started.

Here's what tends to shift when that changes.

One client had something sitting on her to-do list for months. Something that could have really put her out there, made her more visible to the industry. It would get to the end of the week and she would add it to next week's to-do list - not because she didn't want to do it... it just, well... kept getting unconsciously missed. After one piece of work together, she just did it. Didn't deliberate, didn't keep imagining the best way to do it. Had a kind of "I don't care" attitude - not that she stopped caring about it (she cared a lot), just that she wasn't bothered by the risk of it anymore. What she was unconsciously afraid of never happened and she achieved what she set out to do without overthinking it once. This is what becomes available.

What the shift feels like for most women is less noise. The headspace that was being eaten by overthinking, prepping, replaying - it comes back. The transformation isn't confidence, you already have that. It becomes about capacity. You say the thing you wanted to say and don't think about it beforehand and don't replay it after. You stay in the hard conversation instead of going quiet or over-explaining your way through it. You finish the week with something left in the tank for your actual life - not because you stopped caring about the work, but because it no longer runs the show.

You don't rise to the occasion. You respond from the level of safety your body believes is available.

——————

If you're like 'yes please, I want to know more'…here's a couple of invitations:

Self Aware Women Leaders is my mailing list for women working in sport and male-dominated environments who are looking for the under-the-surface work to understand more than just mindset reframes - you're totally welcome to join.

Join Self Aware Women Leaders →

1:1 Somatic Coaching - If you're an individual intrigued enough to find out about working together, more information is on my Work With Me page. Have a read and then book a call so that we can chat. Don't wait til your mind tells you you're completely ready - it's just a chat with a vibe check - I won't pressure you into anything, promise!

Organisations - If you’re an amazing company looking to support your women in a meaningful, impactful way via 1:1 coaching, click here

Jenni Schanschieff is an International Coaching Federation trained Executive Somatic Coach working with women in sport and male-dominated environments. She is the Oceania Network Lead for the Women's Sport Collective and is based in Auckland, New Zealand, working online with clients around the globe.

Using visualisations to become the CEO of your business

There are 100% affiliate links in this post (why do people say ‘there may be affiliate links’?)! This means I may receive a commission if you purchase something through a link you’ve clicked, but this doesn’t cost you extra. I 100% only recommend products/services I love (my reputation is at stake here!) 😊

I don't know if you’re like me and ever thought something along the lines of ‘when I’m more (insert appropriate trait), I’ll be able to (insert appropriate thing)’ or 'when the kids are older, I'll be be more (insert appropriate way of being)'.

Like I’m waiting for the right time for to start being and living the way I want.

But what if right now is the right time to start life 'properly'?


What if you have the ability to be more happy, more grateful, more confident in your business purely by visualising those very things and feeling all the emotions that go with it, as though it was really happening to you?


This blog explores more about how and why full-body visualisation could help make this happen and gives you an exercise to try and see if it helps you start to think, embody, and behave the way that you really want to in your business.

I'll be drawing on a book called 'Breaking the habit of being yourself: How to lose your mind and create a new one' by Dr Joe Dispenza and things I've learned from the introduction into Somatic coaching that was part of my coaching training with Optimus Coach Academy to look at this aspect of helping you become the motherfucking CEO of your business.

So I invite you to get curious, see if these ideas fit with something you'd like to try and explore it with me.

For me, I had kids, lost myself a bit in the early mum life haze (that for me lasted nearly 10 years) and was waiting until life started again. Often I would think to myself 'remember when' and think of a time with friend where we were just laughing hysterically until our faces hurt or when I used to just lie on my bed and read with the sun pouring in the window and felt the ultimate calm. Nobody needing anything from me, I was just being.

But there had become a real sense that these things were all just events that happened in the past and that one day I might get them back like once the kids left home.

*(google is telling me that in 2019 the average to move out of home is 24.6 years old....well fuk me, I ain't waiting until then to get those feelings of happiness and calm back in my life!).

The bit that clicked about stepping into no longer waiting for the right time to start life was when I read Dr Joe Dispenza's book that touches on Quantum Physics - the notion that our future more wealthy/happy/healthy self already exist as energy in the form of atoms/energy....we just haven't allowed ourselves to observe it yet (whaaat?? straight away I was like, 'amazing, that form of me is out there somewhere, I’m going to create her!' 😂).

In the book he recounts a study done by the HeartMath Institute where they took a group of people and split them into three groups, all with the aim of winding or unwinding a vial of DNA.

The first group were instructed to bring up positive feelings of love and appreciation while they held the vials of DNA - there were no statistical changes recorded.

The second group were instructed to visualise unwinding or winding the strands of DNA while they held the vials - there were no statistical changes recorded.

The third group were instructed to bring up positive feelings of love and appreciation AND visualise unwinding or winding the strands of DNA while they held the vials - in some cases the DNA was wound or unwound as much as 25%.

Dr Joe states that if your mind can influence something like DNA, then theoretically, it can influence the appearance of any possibility.

And that possibility includes the healthier/wealthier/happier business woman that I was waiting to think, embody and behave like, until the time was right.

Then I came onto the Somatics module of my coaching course with Optimus Coaching Academy.

‘Somatics is the study of the self from the perspective on one's lived experience, encompassing the dimensions of body, psyche and spirit'.
~ Thomas Hanna

From what I've learned, the notion that 'the body never lies' is the premise behind Somatics and by tapping into our bodies, new things emerge as we bring the unconscious parts into our known conscious. By learning experientially, this gives us more possibilities than we had before and can bring about profound shifts.

During the course, our trainer, Somatic expert Natalie Joel-Smith took us through a visualisation exercise that on the face of it should have been a happy, positive experience. We were told to think about somewhere happy and I pictured myself where I grew up in New Zealand on the beach. As the visualisation neared the end, I found myself sobbing uncontrollably. Although I had been telling myself that not being able to go to NZ because of the pandemic was fine, my body was clearly telling me that I was missing it.  In the following days I experienced a real lightness that I can only attribute to that release and things felt a lot lighter.

Since then, I have been able to concentrate on happy memories that happened closer to home here in the UK and start firing up more positive experience neural pathways as I relive those lovely moments in my life. Whether that be to do with my business, my family, my friends - it really can be applied to any positive experience in my life.

And so I would like to share a similar visualisation with you so that if you wish, you can too give it a try. Regardless of the emotion, I always find it a really empowering experience - much like the people were able to change the DNA - I feel like I have control over how I want to be in the future.

It may also interest you that it is possible to take the visualisation exercise and record yourself saying it through an app called 'ThinkUp', which allows you to put music in the background; the idea being that it’s far more powerful when your brain is listening to your own voice.

Visualisation Script

It’s time for you to take this time for yourself.

Nobody wants anything, nobody needs anything.

Take 3 deep breaths to send the relaxation response to your brain.

Now, think of a positive memory that you had, a time where you were really XXX (insert positive feeling to recreate)...

And just invite yourself to see if you can really enjoy that experience as if you're in it right now...

If you feel comfortable, close your eyes or just soften your gaze to a place in the room you're in...

And just transport yourself back to that memory of a time when you felt so XXX (insert positive feeling to recreate)...

What can you see?

What can you hear? 

What can you smell?

What are your feet touching?

What can your hands feel?

What can you feel against your skin?

See if you can really enjoy that experience, right here, right now, inviting that experience in with your whole body...

 Invite yourself to stay with the experience for a few moments, for a few cycles of breath...

Then in your own time, when you feel ready, thank the memory for being here with you...

Perhaps let it know that you'll be back...

Maybe you take a moment to say goodbye like you would to a loved one...

In your own time, open your eyes slowly and soften your gaze as you take in where you are and come back into the room.

Then perhaps ask yourself:

• Is there anything that you have learned?

• Does it give you information about what you care about?

Using visualisation and tapping into how you felt, it is totally possible to relive those positive feelings of love, happiness, gratitude through visualisation.

Perhaps you may want to use it to generate feelings of courage when you need to do a live video on social media, or asking your audience for their opinion or when you go to put out a new offer.

My plan is to do a visualisation everyday for 21 days and journal around how I feel in that time. I'd love you to join my world and if you decide to do this too, let me know how it goes!


I run 'The Biz Hookup', a network for womxn who run online service businesses. We don't take things too seriously, we have a laugh and get to know other womxn on this crazy business ride. There is a Facebook group and a couple of times a month we meet on line to chat and deepen relationships. Would love to see you in there! Click the image below to register and find the link to the Facebook group.