16/08/2026
Left: 2.5 years ago. Right: today. 4 stone lighter — but honestly, that’s the smallest part of it.
I almost didn’t post the photo on the left. It was taken not long after the hardest stretch of my life. We’d fought so hard through a brutal fertility journey, and I remember genuinely believing that once our babies arrived, everything would feel rosy. Like the hard part was over.
Then came the allergies. The colic. Months where sleep just didn’t happen. I was surviving on sugar and whatever was fastest to eat, running on empty, telling myself this was just what motherhood looked like. I was so depleted I barely recognised myself some days.
As a therapist, I spend my days helping people regulate, set boundaries, listen to their bodies. But there’s a difference between knowing that and actually living it. When things with the babies finally settled, I had to turn all of that inward — properly, for the first time in years. Boundaries I’d never had the energy to hold before. Learning to calm my nervous system instead of just pushing through it. Food that nourished instead of numbed. Movement that felt like care, not punishment. And slowly, rebuilding a work life that could actually hold my family instead of competing with it.
It wasn’t linear. It wasn’t quick. Some days it still isn’t easy.
I share this because we talk so much about holding space for others, but we go through our own seasons of struggle too. If any part of this feels familiar — the exhaustion, the running on empty, the sense that you’re supposed to be okay because you help others be okay — I’d love to hear from you. Sometimes just naming it is the first step. 🤍
