Ep 132: She Kept Going Until She Couldn’t

By Charlotte Cummings | Feel Better Podcast

When the Wheels Actually Fall Off: Amy Luttrell on Trauma, Burnout, and Building a Life You Actually Like

There is a version of this story that gets told a lot.

Woman works hard, woman burns out, woman finds wellness, woman recovers. Neat. Packaged. Probably with a sunrise somewhere in the thumbnail.

Amy Luttrell's version is not that story.

It is messier, darker, and more honest than most people are prepared to be. And that is exactly why it is worth telling.

Amy is a business coach who works with ambitious women in leadership and entrepreneurship. She is warm, direct, and clearly at ease in her own skin. But the version of Amy sitting across from me in this conversation is someone who was built, and rebuilt, through a stretch of loss that would have floored most people.

This is that story.

THE BACKSTORY

Amy left school at the end of Year 11, trained in spa and beauty therapies, and at 23 opened her first wellness centre in Margaret River, Western Australia. Her philosophy from the start was about combining movement and talk therapies, creating spaces where people could come and genuinely feel better.

By her early thirties she had moved back to New Zealand, grown her wellness centre from a team of four to thirteen, and was in what felt like an upward spiral. She had a son, was 30 weeks pregnant with her second child, and felt like life was finally building into something.

Then, early one morning, her brother called.

Their father had died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 61.

Amy fell to the floor. She remembers thinking: I don't know how I'm going to get up.

She got up. She flew to Auckland with her son and husband, entered a six-day tangi that was both devastating and deeply beautiful, and then came home and kept working. Because that is what she did. That is what high functioning women do.

Eleven months later, a police officer knocked on her door. Her stepfather had been killed in a road accident. Her mother, miraculously, survived, but would spend the next two years recovering from serious injuries. Sophia, Amy's second child, was eight months old. Max was four.

Amy kept working.

She knew she needed to slow down. She just did not know how. The weight of responsibility she felt for her team, her clients, her family, her business, it kept her moving long past the point where her body and mind were managing.

Then her daughter got sick and ended up in hospital. Amy lay on the hospital bed beside her and felt, in her own words, like she needed to be admitted too.

That was the moment.

Within weeks she was sitting with her accountant and her lawyer, exiting the business partnership she had built.

THE LAG

When I asked Amy what she made of the fact that it took one more crisis, another full step beyond two devastating losses, to finally make her stop, she was thoughtful.

She said she had always held a certain perspective about change. That you see what needs to shift and you shift it. But when it was happening to her, she could not change. She was too depleted. Her mind, which she describes as her greatest asset and her Achilles heel, just kept her going. It was her body that finally said enough.

This is something I see constantly in the women I work with. Trauma does not always produce an immediate pivot. There is often a lag, a period where we are still functioning, still delivering, still showing up, while quietly falling apart on the inside. The body holds the score long before we are ready to look at the board.

For Amy, what finally created movement was not a moment of clarity. It was exhaustion meeting crisis meeting a body that had simply reached its limit.

THE SHAME NO ONE TALKS ABOUT

One of the things Amy spoke about with real honesty was shame.

She had spent years working in the wellness industry, surrounded by practitioners, therapists, coaches. She knew the language of wellbeing. She had tools. And when everything fell apart, none of them worked.

She would try to go to yoga and end up in a panic. She would try to meditate and feel destabilised. A massage could re-traumatise her. She felt broken. And because of who she believed herself to be, the wellbeing person, the capable mother, the business owner holding it together, the brokenness came loaded with shame.

She also felt isolated. Her husband was struggling. Her family were navigating their own grief. The people around her often did not know what to do with the weight of what she was carrying. So she carried it quietly, the way capable women learn to do.

What helped were the few people who kept showing up anyway. A close friend who had been through her own hard things and could see what was happening. A business partner who stayed in her corner. A therapist for her and her husband, even when there was so much going on she did not know where to start.

Sometimes support does not look like someone with the perfect words. Sometimes it looks like someone who keeps calling.

WHAT HAD TO CHANGE

The biggest shift Amy describes is stopping being so hard on herself.

She had to let go of identities she had built her sense of self around. The mother who goes to music groups. The mother who bakes. The high functioning woman who has a 5am biohacking routine and a clean inbox and a wellness practice that works. She had to grieve the version of early motherhood she did not get with her second child because she was too deep in loss to access it.

And she had to find a different relationship with her body. One built on relentless compassion rather than performance. Not a one-off decision but a daily choosing. What can I do for myself today given what my body can actually manage right now?

She mentions baby steps, specifically the Olivia Dean song, and laughs a little. But she means it literally. Can I just get out of bed this morning? Can I get into the shower and feel the hot water on my skin? That was the work. That was the practice.

She was honest too about a period when she had intrusive thoughts about not wanting to be here. She did not share it with anyone until later. But she describes a part of herself, quiet but persistent, that kept saying you can do this, get out of bed, one step. She listened to that part.

HOW IT SPED HER UP

Five years on, Amy is earning more than she ever has, working less than she ever has, and coaching women in business from a place that is grounded in real lived experience.

She talks about life design, the idea that business, when built intentionally, can be structured to give you income, flexibility, time, and contribution, all at once. She takes clients to Melbourne and Auckland for in-person immersions, not just for strategy but to give women permission to receive, to be in beautiful environments, to want things out loud.

Her work now centres on helping ambitious women be honest about what they actually want, not the version they think they are supposed to want, or the version that sounds appropriately humble and purpose-led, but the real desire underneath. The number. The lifestyle. The kind of life they are genuinely trying to build.

She says that for a lot of women she works with, especially millennials, there are deeply systemic beliefs about money, about ambition, about what women are allowed to want and say and claim. Her work is about making those conversations normal.

WHAT SHE WANTS YOU TO KNOW

If you are in a hard season right now, Amy's message is not a tidy list of steps. It is more honest than that.

She says: I know how hard it feels. I know what it is like when the mountain looks enormous. So do not think about climbing it. Think about the next step. Just the next one.

She also says this: you are probably not seeing yourself clearly right now. You are likely more capable than you think, and more depleted than you are admitting. Both things can be true at the same time.

And she says: find the right people. Whether that is a coach, a therapist, a friend who actually gets it, a school committee, a board, a podcast, whatever room or relationship stretches you in the right direction. You do not have to navigate this alone, and you do not have to pay for support to access it. But you do have to be willing to reach out for it.

The version of Amy who fell to the floor the morning her brother called could not have imagined where she would end up. She is glad she kept taking baby steps to find out.

If this conversation resonated, you can find more about Amy and her work online. And if you are at a point where you are wondering what needs to shift in your own life, I would love to help you think that through. Head to charlottecummings.nz to find out how we can work together.

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• Transcription

  So I'm really keen as part of this getting to know you warm up to the episode to have you answer a few questions to help us get to know who you are and a few little things about your personality. So you're out at a cafe, what's your hot drink order going to be? Flat white always, yeah it's more flat white. What kind of cup do you want it to be in? Yeah well I've been playing with this lately because I was in Nelson recently and my cousin asked for a flat white and a tulip cup and so that feels a bit racy you know it's like a small hit of coffee.

  Yeah fun. Tell me what's the best job you've had in the past as you look back? Yeah that's a big question for me because I've had many many jobs but if I go right back to when I was in employment, when I was 18 I worked for Qantas as an international flight attendant. I can kind of strangely imagine it, is that wrong to say? No like so that was probably the funnest job I've ever had because I got to travel all around the world.

  I was 18, had too much fun. Yeah yeah it was awesome. I can see that polished customer service part of you.

  Yeah yeah yeah that's right and I like I mean I have such a love for service and I have such a love for beautiful hotels and design and things like that so I got to experience all of that. Oh good yeah and my kind of selfish mum question is what's your favorite family meal right now? So my husband's the cook in our house so anything he cooks for me really for us but roasts are always a popular dish in our house I love them. Yeah yeah and what did you want to be when you were a child? When I was really little I wanted to be a makeup artist for the stars that was like something I would talk about a lot.

  Yeah it's funny because my daughter Sophia who's six she says the same thing and then I moved into wanting to be a journalist because I had this real love of writing and it's interesting because I probably still want to be a journalist you know like I think yeah interesting eh? Maybe in a different season I'll do that. Yeah how fun and tell us what's something about your day-to-day life that people would be surprised by? No I'm not a morning person so I don't have this like early morning biohacking routine. Yeah I'm so relieved.

  Yeah I like to sleep in my kids like to sleep in too so we definitely need an alarm clock going when they've got school but yeah so I love to sleep in have a coffee in bed and take my time. Amazing love it yeah and somehow you managed to have a successful life without 5am starts. Yeah I'm not a gate so early start but yeah it's definitely not for me.

  Yeah they haven't worked for me either spoiler. Tell us the Amy Back story. Amy Back story where do I start from? I can start from when I became a business owner yes so I I started my first business at 23 and it was in the wellness industry and I had so I was I had kind of an unconventional start in terms of like school wasn't for me and I finished school early I think I finished up school at the end of fifth form it's I don't know what year that is now but year 11 and I went and did a course in spa therapies and beauty therapy and I wasn't interested in that but it was just something that I could do that would get me a job and it happened to be like the best thing ever because it put me in environments that were linked to the wellness industry yeah and so that's really where my love of well well-being and wellness and creating beautiful environments for people to come and experience peace and rest started from and so at 23 24 I was living in Margaret River which is beautiful yeah a beautiful town outside of Perth southwest in Australia and I met my first business partner and we started a center a wellness center together and so my philosophy was always about combining movement therapies and and talk therapies together and creating a space where people can come and feel better yeah and so I worked with a whole bunch of different people and in the wellness industry therapists and counselors and movement experts and physios and naturopaths and all of that and learned a lot I was working as a in body-based therapies and somatics and yoga and pilates and things like that and I absolutely fell in love with business yeah and so I continued to work in the wellness space in the wellness industry I moved back to New Zealand and opened a center but my focus quickly became the the business side of things and and growing the business and the brand yeah I love the relationships that I that I was able to grow working more in the business side of things because as you know it's you know it links us to people in marketing and branding and graphic design and I really could see the value in like the creative process and working with smart people who have that you know that way of seeing things creatively yeah cool yeah and your personal backstory so at the moment tell us about what life looks like for you yeah so personal backstory at the moment right now I'm a and I'm a business owner and I uh it's I navigate those two things quite well now um but that hasn't always been the case so when I was if I kind of go back a bit to when I was working in the wellness industry and before I moved over into into coaching um I had one child at that point my son and um and unexpectedly I went through um quite a a long extended time of traumatic things happening yeah and so it started at the end of 2019 when my dad died suddenly of a heart attack and it was really like he was 61 and I was in my early 30s at that stage and um life felt really good yeah I thought I was um you know I was I thought that I was in this stage of my life where I was just on this upward uh you know spiral really and um and I had I wasn't actually aware of at the time but I was very much a high functioning yeah woman with a lot of anxiety and a lot of um anxiety that I thought was more drive um and ambition and so I got this call uh really early in the morning and I was in bed with my son at the time because he was he was three and I was 30 weeks pregnant with my second and I get this call from my brother and he's like Amy dad's gone and I can remember like that moment so clearly because it was really the moment my life changed yeah and um you know fast forward to now it's what's got me to where I am now where I feel like I'm really um grounded and integrated and and well um but yeah that moment when when I found out that dad had passed away really suddenly and I think you uh may know about this in terms of you know people you've worked with before but when it's sudden like that it was so shocking yeah and I I fell to the floor and I just remember thinking I don't know how I'm gonna get up yeah how am I gonna get off the floor yeah and um and so over that time I don't know it kind of came in threes so it was dad passed away and it was really sudden and so um I'm Māori so I went up to Auckland with um my son and my husband and we entered this six-day tangi which really was the first time that I had experienced a tangi I'd been to many but experienced it where I was at the center of it because it was my father and um it was a really emotional very visceral six days um really beautiful and really amazing to come together as a whānau like that but it did it definitely was um I can remember it just feeling really shocking and I was numb and I just was kind of thinking at that point because I had this business and the business was in a place the wellness center at that time was in a place of um we were really thriving we'd only been open maybe 18 months um we'd gone from maybe four a team of four to a team of 13 and and I can remember worrying because I felt responsible I had so many responsibilities and I didn't know how I was going to get through um and so what I did is what I did really well was I just kept functioning and kept going and then 11 months later after dad passed away um I had had Sophia had had my my second child and so I was in that kind of recovery of having a child and um I was still running my business and I she was eight months old Sophia and I got this call again and it was um really early in the morning again and I at that point it wasn't a call it was a knock on the door and so at that time a police officer came to the door and um and this time it was my stepfather and my mom had been in a road accident and so that it was really interesting the way that I responded to that because I just went into high functioning so I went from it wasn't falling to the floor wasn't not being able to get up it was like I know exactly what to do in these situations and I'm just going to do it um and so my my stepdad died in that accident and my mom um as a miracle she's such a miracle survived a massive um load of injuries and then she went through a two-year process of recovery um Sophia was eight months old Max was four you can imagine how much stress and how layered that experience was um and so it took you know like that that happened in the space of 11 months it was 2019 end of 2020 that second accident happened and I still continued working and feeling responsible in my business I still this was the level of yeah you know like functioning that I could I I was you know I was running it um I knew that I had to slow down I just didn't know how because of the level of responsibility that I thought I had to continue to to carry yeah um and I talk about this honestly now because I worked in the wellness industry right I was surrounded by all the people all the people um and and it was interesting too because all of my practices you know like my well-being practices and my wellness things that I did no longer worked for me I would go into you know a yoga class or I would go and try and do a meditation or whatever it was and I would go into panic I would have you know there were times I would go to have a massage and I would feel like it would re-traumatize something like I really felt broken but I felt a lot of shame because of who I was identifying as you know like the well-being person or the the mother um the partner and I it was a really eye-opening time for me because I was kind of faced with this lived experience of what I had supported people through or I'd had heard these stories before but it was actually happening to me and it definitely changed my perspective around wellness yeah and well-being yeah yeah wow and what a juxtaposing time when you've got littlies at home and you're meant to be dancing to the wiggles or like doing all the play groups and you know going to the park and it's meant to kind of look and feel and sound like this yeah and then on the inside you're carrying all that you're carrying and a business yeah yeah yeah it was really challenging and I think I had that for a long time I was um that that piece around feeling broken and feeling shame they were quite entangled because there wasn't I wasn't able to see people that were similar to me or even you know and I would talk about it sometimes and people would people's responses were uncomfortable because it can be uncomfortable to hear you know like that level of trauma and in hardship even my husband found it really really difficult so it wasn't just the you know out there in the community it was also in the home I felt really isolated because of the experience I was going through even though many of my family members were going through their own grief and trauma as well it was also eye-opening to see how different we all processed it and so it came to as I said before I sometimes you know like for me it came in threes so there were these two things that happened and you would think by that point I would be like okay I need to make some changes to the way that I'm working and the way that I'm functioning um but when I was in it I couldn't see it I couldn't actually see a way out and so I just kept going and then it was probably about two years since my dad had passed and I had all these little kind of reminders reminding me to maybe make some changes to maybe you know make some changes to my lifestyle into the way that I was working and um and then my daughter got really sick and I ended up in hospital with her and it was during a time where you know like because obviously COVID was going on through these years too and so there was a lot to navigate in terms of having a physical space of business that was that people were coming to and um but it was also a time that we were getting quite sick yeah and uh and she ended up getting really sick and I was in the hospital with her and I remember lying on the hospital bed with her and I felt like I needed to be in that hospital as well and that was the moment that I was like this needs to change like this the way that I'm working um the type of business model that I have interestingly in the wellness industry um the way that I was you know how much I was earning to how much I was having to work and all of those things that just all came to a head yeah and um and within you know a couple of weeks I was sitting with the accountant and the lawyer and I was exiting my business partnership yeah wow wow and so how interesting that the rock bottom moment came you know another whole step after the traumatic moments yeah what do you make of that now can you ask that question again yeah um it's really interesting to me that for so many women really traumatic things happen to us and there's a a lag it takes us a period of time to get our heads and our hearts and our action around making changes for ourselves and it sounds like there was that kind of lag for you what do you what do you make of that as you look back on it now yeah definitely and I actually didn't think that until it happened to me yeah I had a certain perspective around making changes um when but then when this happened I felt like I couldn't change it was really interesting um and what I make of that now is how depleted I was I was absolutely exhausted yeah um and because I was a really high functioning driven woman um I you know my mind is is my greatest asset I think um but it's also you know my Achilles heel at times because it will just keep me going and um and what stopped me and made me change was actually my body it was like enough is enough and a gift hey oh such a gift it was such a gift and I um you know and also having really amazing people around me because that having those support networks is so important and I know we talk a lot about like because I talk a lot about this asking for help and that was really challenging I I found it really hard to ask for help because what that brushed up against was my shame and the biggest shame for me was that I wasn't showing up as the mother that I expected I would um and there was a lot of shame around from for myself and my husband he'll be fine about me talking about this but in terms of our um you know like the where our relationship had gotten to it was it was hanging on by a thread yeah um we had we had a therapist which was amazing but there was so much going on I just didn't know where to start yeah um and so having those supportive people around me some really amazing friends that could see it yeah and that continue to come over continue to ring me continue to offer their support I think those people are like angels in our lives because um there wasn't a lot of them but there was a few really amazing people one of them was my business partner at the time and one of them was a really close friend of mine that had also gone through traumas in their own life and could see it and just continue to be persistent in terms of supporting me and and leading me in the right direction yeah wow quick check in um I'm thinking we should cut this episode into two yeah I know one whole chunk that is your personal story yeah um if we can stay if you're happy for me to add some questions and stay here and then we'll do a part two which is the next the businessy part is that what you want well I think that's where we should go okay that's where we should go yeah cool you're okay with that yeah I'm fine with that because this is because this personal story can take up quite a bit of well it's not so much that as I kind of want to stay here and there are other questions I want to ask here that are not these okay so is that all right um and I just need to watch you if that's fine with you yeah um I just need to think about 2 15 and I've got um so I've got what's the time now 40 minutes quarter past two okay so let's do 10 or 15 minutes of um some questions I want to ask around the personal story piece and then we'll deliver it as two parts I can't go into the business okay perfect is it all right yeah I think that that's how it will make sense okay because I don't want to skip this bit yeah tell me what you share with other women now because of what you learned through that time um yeah so what I share with other women now because of what I learned is that you will get through it um it's it might not but it might not look the way that you expected it to look yeah and what I mean by that is I had to let go of a lot of identities that I thought I was meant to be yeah uh one being the mother that you know is going to the music things and the mother that's baking in the kitchen and the mother that's you know navigating the the process even of just grieving that transition from you know not being a mother to being a mother I felt like I missed a lot of that because I was especially with my second because I was navigating such you know such big experiences of trauma and grief um and so what I say to women now is that there is no one size fits all um I think that's a big part of the work that I do now as a coach and I work with business women right and women in leadership roles is that it doesn't have to look a certain way but there will be a way for you yeah and so there is resources out there for all of us to to connect with whether it's through counseling whether it's through coaching whether it's through something else there's so many resources out there and people out there that can support us and help us to move through really hard times and not just come out the other side but come out the other side thriving yeah yeah I mean it sounds to me and I have some familiarity with your with your backstory before um this time sitting down together but it sounds to me like it was an absolute end of yourself as you knew yourself and a total rebuild of everything of your own identity of what your life looked like of what business looked like your relationship what did that feel like in the moment yeah well it felt like I was you know I definitely felt like there was parts of me dying like and and without sounding you know too dramatic but I do I definitely felt as though I was um yeah going through a complete recalibration of of who I was because of you know not just losing my father yeah at you know at 32 um and really suddenly but my stepfather as well and so and I grew up with both of these men from you know my dad since I was born obviously and my stepfather's been in my life since I was four yeah so and then my mother almost died and so there was this really like um you know that like going back to my origins where it was like my my parents yeah were passing away or you know my mother was going through her own kind of rebirth and rebuild at the same time yeah um so it was extremely complex yeah and like all these practical needs I can imagine in the middle of a recovery journey 100% and also kids need to be fed yeah and they go to school and um you know power needs to be paid and mortgage and all of those things I'm running a business um I still need to work and not just working for you know financially but also working because that was a really big part of my you know my well-being and my fulfillment is actually what is my purpose for the day as well yeah um and so like I've forgotten what the question was but what are your words of comfort to women who feel like they're dying yeah it's a hard question to to answer that because I don't actually think I have the words to tell those women but what what I do try and focus on now is contributing to humanity in a way that is going to support people to um you know let's remove the stigma around trauma and and and challenge and hardship and also I a lot of the work that I do now as a coach is not just coaching people but also supporting people strategically to connect with resources and people that are not only going to help them um you know get through this time yeah um but I often see it as being like a you know an active participant and supporting people to to get through hard things yeah yeah what had to change about how you lived your life well many things yeah but the biggest thing that had to change for me is I had to stop being so hard on myself I had to because if I didn't um I don't know what would have happened to me because I was so I was so burnt out and it's quite interesting hey because not everyone would have known that at the time because I was so I was so good at you know showing up and and acting like I was okay there were definitely people that saw the cracks yeah um but yeah it was I've forgotten the question now um and so have I yeah yeah we'll we'll piece that together I think I'm gonna I'm gonna make sense of the order of it when we're doing it okay because it's kind of like launch into some of these questions now and I think because I'm trying to stay yeah okay we need to let go of that yeah I think so we'll do it in post as they say one of the things that you work with a lot of women around now is overworking and I definitely hear that as a feature of your story and even the little bit you shared there of like well here's what I was being paid but here was how hard I was working there are so many women in that overworking trap what are your thoughts on that yeah so my thoughts on that is um understanding first what overworking actually means for you yeah um so I work with a lot of women who uh who can who feel depleted or feel undernourished or feel as though they can't keep going the way that they're going in their businesses but they're not calling it overwork yet and so um something that I focus a lot on is sustainability yeah and so what is the sustainability of the way that you're working and so how do we recognize that as often um to to notice things like and we were talking about this before does this fulfill me yeah does this bring joy in me you know is this generating feelings emotions and energy that feels sustainable for me yeah um because if it isn't yeah I mean we all have to work hard at certain points of our business right and and there needs to be a certain level of effort and and running a business and growing a business um but it's being able to notice those signals yeah and when those signals are popping up more and more and more yeah and um and yeah asking ourselves is this sustainable yeah yeah and I think one of the other key things because you know I look at some of the women that you support now and they're in the startup space the entrepreneurs and there is a lot of hard work in those stages of business yeah but this piece around energy and alignment is such a big deal and I used to be like ah alignment I'm so sick of hearing that word and now I'm like alignment everybody tell me what your thoughts are on how important it is that we feel aligned with what we're doing and why that matters in this overworking equation yeah so alignment for me because I love language right but I always I always am interested especially with my clients is understanding how how they interpret these words yeah um and making sure we're on the same page right and so for me alignment takes my mind back to when I used to work with bodies and so working in more you know therapeutics types of work with people's bodies alignment was about finding the most efficient way that the body you know the structure could could walk or stand or move yeah where there was no pain yeah yeah where there was freedom where there was ease and so when I think of alignment now it takes me back to thinking of that you know what is the most efficient way that this person can be taking action or running their business or you know and working with different teams and that kind of thing that is that feels most efficient for them that feels most energizing for them that feels most honest for them yeah yeah it feels honest for them yeah I want to explore that because I I feel like in working with women especially high functioning women this pace of getting them to be honest with themselves yeah is a really really big deal like you know sweetheart what it is that you need to do differently or that you need to allow yourself to recognize but you're not yeah tell me what that feels like for you in your work it was everything I think like you know it's such a big part of it is that and I as a as a coach it's a it's a coaching partnership so it has to be honest yeah um if we can't be honest with what we want and what it is that we desire yeah and also what it is we want to change about our lives then it's really hard to change it yeah um and so I have a lot of compassion for myself and for others um in terms of the challenges that that can come up and being honest with ourselves because of everything that I've shared in terms of my backstory yeah um previous to going through that experience before going through that experience I didn't have the same compassion and and I think that's the you know that can be the wisdom of lived experience right is that I did hit rock bottom absolute rock bottom and um and some of my clients are are in that place but they're also capable and ambitious and incredibly creative and and you know and and have amazing businesses and amazing skills doing the things in the middle of doing things and so I think that honesty um can be quite hard but it's so important in this process and I think you would agree with this of growth yeah yeah yeah I think that one of the um one of the things that I recognize happens more and more is that there might be really honest conversation that can flow but that piece of honesty and admitting things to ourselves and letting ourselves even think certain things but getting honest with ourselves to in order to even be able to say something out loud honestly to another person feels like such a big piece for high performing women yeah I think so um and from my experience working with many women high achieving women um is that and from my own experience is that the fear and I'm going to use the word fear to be really honest can often come from anticipation and that there's an anticipation around what will happen yeah when I say this thing uh or when I admit this this thing to someone else or I put it out there um and so I always think you know like a problem shared is a problem halved and that's where coaching can be amazing is because I'm partnering with my clients yeah to you know to create a safe space to bring forward the things that they want to say and when you say it out loud the weight starts to to shift yeah it starts to it stops feeling so heavy yeah and then you know and then connecting a strategy or a plan to move you towards yeah the change that you want yeah absolutely yeah and one of the things that I see a lot in your work is this emphasis on women actually designing lives that fit their stage that fit their desires and that practically work in the season that they're in talk to us about it yeah can you say that again sorry so one of the things I see a lot in your work is the desire to support women around building lives that they actually like that fit the season that they're in that feel really good for them tell us about your work in that space yeah great so that's um a big motivator for me now to support women to create the businesses that they want yeah it's held by um I don't know if you've heard this term before life design yeah so I see my work now I work with business owners but I'm not coaching the business I'm coaching the person yeah and so when the person loves their life when the person is feeling like they're living a life that's in alignment to what matters to them it makes everything else so much easier yeah and so hard things are going to happen and for me they happened when I was 31 it was like a you know I got hit by this tidal wave of hard thing after hard thing after hard thing um and I was hanging on by a thread and I didn't realize that so before the tidal wave came I was high functioning I was probably edging burnout yeah but I wasn't able to recognize it and so what I know now and the work that I do with my clients is that if you can be resource yeah if you have the internal resources and that's also matched with a sustainable way of running your business of you know being in your life and enjoying your relationships and things like that when the hard things happen yeah yeah we're able to move through them in ways that um that I believe help us grow yeah yeah what's your advice for someone who's feeling off doesn't know where to start and is trying to work out what's aligned and what's not hire a coach yeah yeah I think um my advice is to like who do you have who's in your support network who are the people that you're going to for for advice or who are you talking to about this because like I said before a problem shared is a problem half and um and something that I notice in my work is a lot of people are going to the wrong people for advice and it's not to say that those people are wrong but they may not be the right people to support you through the thing that you you know through the challenges or through the changes that you're um and we were talking about this earlier having like a referral network so I find with my with my clients um there's obviously coaching them through the process but also connecting them to the right resources and the right people that are going to support them to thrive through the change so let's talk to the women who can't access coaching right now who are sitting in a space where they're either too busy they can't afford it something is going on and they need to help themselves move through working out what's aligned what isn't what are the changes they're going to make what are your words of advice for those women so yeah I think that this is a big one because not all of us have access to the same resources but we do have access to things so whether it's um looking at podcasts or books or whether it's and when I say reaching out you know having conversations with people and having conversations with the right people we don't always have to pay for that either like there's often people in our communities and our networks that we can connect with that can offer us so much support through things that we are trying to navigate alone yeah um and so you know like something as an example I this year I've just joined the school committee yeah and I never saw myself as the woman that would do that I was always sort of had this resistance around it um but I was I was wanting to be around more mums at school and I was wanting to have more um contribution and the and you know my direct community and so it felt edgy for me to do that yeah but but I did it and so I'm not you know the woman that are with me in this committee of having amazing conversations with them and they're actually supporting me through different challenges or different identity shifts that I'm going through right now is seeing myself as the coach and also the mum that's on the committee yeah yeah yeah my uh friend said to me Charlotte don't peak too soon you cannot end up on those committees too quickly or it's going to be game over for you you're going to be locked in for a really long period of time but I think that there is something to be said for being able to move our identities and what some people might consider to be the other direction like away from our professional selves towards our values-led community engaged version of us and sometimes that is the journey around going what actually matters to me right now totally yeah and and it's not to say that everyone should join a school committee yeah but I what I'm trying to say with that is sometimes we have to challenge ourselves and stretch ourselves a little bit to put ourselves in rooms and environments that are going to support us to grow into the people that we want to become yeah um another example is I joined a board last year because I wanted to put myself at a table with a range of different women and men um who uh have you know experts expertise in many different areas that challenge my way of thinking but also is supporting me to you know to grow and to become a better person yeah great and so being able to kind of keep yourself focused towards growth what are your own practices that help you keep pursuing growth opportunities yeah so I it's it's similar to challenging myself and putting myself in in rooms and you know in environments that don't feel as though they would be no that's a different I'm going to answer that again so for me it's about relationship right now so I'm making decisions that are stretching me to become the woman that I want to become yeah um and in doing so it's actually giving me like a direct experience of of being that person that I want to be yeah and so those are my practices right now which is really interesting right because I in the past I would have said like meditation or going you know my yoga practice or my you know different different kind of um probably more individual kind of practices of you know but but now it's really has shifted into the practice of relationship and I learn so much from people and I learn the most from people that um may be challenging my way of thinking and you know and that's not a negative to me it's that they're challenging my way of thinking and in positive ways um yeah doing stretching myself out of my comfort zone yeah and growth through relationships has been a really big thing and grow through relationships yeah nice the pause and look at my question was that answer okay yeah um um so one of the areas of passion for you is business and something that I see a lot of women struggling with is ideas that they have around money around income around entrepreneurship tell me your experiences there around the beliefs that women have that you come up against when it comes to inviting more of themselves into the world yeah so you know you spoke to to money and income and so that can that is a big part of it I noticed with the woman that I work with uh um they're they're rewriting the rules yeah in a lot of ways um I work with a lot of women who are that generation millennials and and up so I do notice and um in the younger generation that I the younger generations that I I don't work with them so much but I do engage with them and the board that I'm a part of and things like that is they have different beliefs around money yeah but a lot of my clients that come from um you know millennials and up there's strong beliefs around money and income that I think is systemic yeah and uh and a lot of us didn't have um these role models that were like we had amazing role models a lot of us but role models that were women modeling to us that you're allowed to go out there and be ambitious you're allowed to go out there and talk about money yeah um and not dilute it by saying it's my purpose or it's you know my passion but actually I I really enjoy making money yeah um I you know this is the number that I of money that I want to earn or this is the amount of money that I want to earn um and so I find that working with women if we can just create an honest conversation where we're actually speaking about money we're speaking about desire what do you want to spend that money on or you know what do you want to invest that money on what does wealth mean for you and how does that look yeah um I've recently started running these in-person immersions that I've called a city immersion and I take my clients over to Melbourne um we're going to Auckland at end of this year as well and the whole point of these immersions is to take women into these environments that has like high quality high level of service really indulgent beautiful experiences um for women who want that to give themselves permission to have that and to really receive from those experiences but more importantly normalize them for themselves yeah nice and what other ideas that you see come up from women around the the ways that they limit themselves what are the things that you hear a lot in your coaching with women well I think the limitations that can come up and the way that these women may be talking about themselves is diluting what they want yeah so that question you know what do you want yeah can be quite a hard question to to answer especially when we're answering it from um outdated rules that no longer work for us or from expectations of others um so I do think that those limitations I do want to say that the limitations are not just personal they're also systemic we're still like for a lot of women in business we're still um up against a lot of you know external limitations in terms of what our our resources and the resources that we can grab a hold of to support us to continue to grow and thrive in our businesses yeah um so I try to remind women that they're not um it's actually not their fault these limitations often these limitations have come from like a lot of conditioning yeah and so being able to talk about it being able to be to have the permission to want something different to say it and know that they're not um saying anything wrong or they're not going to get in trouble yeah um yeah I'm big on normalizing desire for women and actually being able to speak to to their desires yeah I want to circle back to talking about your own lived experience of trauma and women's relationship with their bodies given that that was part of your background professionally too tell me what you learned about what happened for you physically through that time of responding to trauma yeah great question um because my body went through a lot and during that time I'd also you know because with both my kids I had emergency caesareans so I was recovering from I was literally recovering from from those birth experiences that were you know that didn't just happen over a couple of weeks it was it was months and um with my second it was it was a couple of years and so my relationship with my body um was very much linked to being in survival and um and so I think I said this earlier like these well-being practices that I once had um were no longer working for me because my body also wasn't actually able to function the way that I was used to it functioning um I'd go into panic without any warning and uh you know and I was dealing with you it was it was quite um it was very much linked to the trauma that my body was still processing um I I think I said this earlier that I had to have a lot of compassion for myself but it was relentless compassion it wasn't just have compassion for yourself you know it was really a big part of my um my work with a therapist was around forgiveness of myself yeah forgiveness of my you know of what my body was going through and um and having this relentless compassion and what I mean by that is it was like choosing it every day choosing it every day that it was um that you know my body isn't able to do these things that it used to be able to do and rather than pushing it through to try and to try and do it it was like what else could I choose for myself how can I take um I'm thinking of that song by Olivia Dean, Baby Steps, but it was I always listen to that song now and I have like this relationship to it because it was baby steps it was and something I want to um share with everyone is that it can feel like we've taken this massive step back like for me I was you know I was very ambitious very driven and I just thought my life was you know on this upward spiral and then things happened out of my control and a few things kept happening out of my control and it did slow me down um and I felt like I was way behind but I actually found that you know so much can happen it was only really like five years in the bigger scheme of things what those five years gave me by through slowing down and through practicing compassion for myself and through figuring out a new way of doing things has sped me up so much like tell me how it sped you up yeah yeah we can get into that because this is this is the exciting part this is the part where it's like you know it the way that things are speeding up now is that I'm earning better than I've ever earned but I'm also and I don't want to sound pretentious when I say this but I do want to be honest about this I'm working less yeah and this is something that can be accessible for for us I don't I mean it's it's we're all in different situations and have different access to different resources but I do think in the world of business and I want to share this with women too is that in business and entrepreneurship we have this ability to creatively design our life in a way that's going to give us income for us and our families if we just if we choose to invest that income it's going to compound and grow if we choose to donate that income we can then go and contribute and support to others that may have less resources than us and we can then outsource and and hire people to support us to have more time doing the things that we love like spending time with our family and traveling and all of those things and I think that I'm a example of this that you can hit rock bottom and feel like it's not going to change but baby sits one step in front of the other yeah things can really change were there times that you felt you were just never going to recover and never going to find something life-giving for yourself with the level of of trauma and shutdown that you had yeah totally and I um yes and I was talking to my husband about this before I came down here to Christchurch because he was asking me about you know what are you going to share about because often when I share my my trauma experience comes into my story yeah um and and I was speaking to him about it and there was I remember there was this time where I was in bed and I had these you know I was experiencing a lot of intrusive thoughts at that time and I felt as though I life would just be easier if I wasn't around and I know that that's you know that it was a very dark time and it was a very scary way of thinking and I um I didn't share that with anyone until later but for my experience I knew I had this part of me right and this is what I want to talk about is that that we are made of parts yeah and I had I still had these parts of me that were also that was a very loud voice that this was like I'm so exhausted I do not know how I'm going to carry on yeah and there was these other parts that were very quiet but they were still there and they were you know you can you can do this you can you you you can you can get out of bed today and so those baby steps it's like okay I don't have to think about the whole business or all the team or all the you know the kids or whatever it is but can I just get out of bed this morning and hop in the shower yeah and um and because I come from a mindfulness based practice and I've and I had studied a lot of mindfulness that was really helpful because mindfulness as a practice can be kind of boring in some ways like you'd know this but it was just under stimulating it's under stimulating yeah but it was in those moments where I was so extremely exhausted and my mind was you know running all of these different stories and thoughts to be able to feel the hot water on my skin yeah to have a coffee brought to me in bed and just to just to feel that it was life-changing and I think that's why now um I take my time like I take my time in the morning yeah I take my time to uh you know if I'm going to be late to drop the kids off at school I'm not going to freak out about it yeah I'm going to be late yeah because no one's going to die it's everything's going to be fine if I'm going to be late to a meeting I'm going to say to the person thank you so much for your patience and I'm going to be okay with it I'm not going to beat myself up yeah about these small things that used to stress me out I used to put so much pressure on myself and I do believe that is why I feel so well in my life now it's because those little things that I used to put so much pressure on myself around I've let them go yeah yeah wow it sounds like the self-compassion piece was just such a big part of your recovery massive yeah massive and it's like I'm interested to hear what you think about this Charlotte because like because you know because compassion is so crucial right when we're going through trauma and we're going through these challenging times but it also can kind of be abstract and a bit like yeah what do you mean by that yeah I wonder if it connects with that honesty piece of actually you need to be allowed to be honest about how you are and to be able to have compassion for yourself you first have to recognize where you're at yeah yeah totally I agree and I think that's actually something that I have always had I haven't been taught that I've gained skills along the way that elevate that or influence that but I think I was born with this honest part of myself yeah and I think also with my experience at school where I didn't kind of fit the mold I was always recreating rules and different ways of doing things I like doing things more efficiently yeah yeah and so um so being honest is is all part of that I think it's an incredible business skill yeah to have as if we can really be honest yeah and speak our truth yeah and give ourselves permission to do that yeah um it can actually be a catalyst for our success as well nice yeah nice if someone was listening to this and they're going through their own trauma right now and that and that rock bottom place what would you say to them I I know how hard it it feels I know how hard it can feel and how um it can feel like the mountain is a huge mountain to climb um so rather than thinking about climbing it think about the steps one step after the other yeah I think it's chunking it down making making the problem feel smaller than what it is and focusing on each step that day or that morning amazing yeah thank you you're welcome