As I was cleaning the house and thinking about where this year had gone, I had the realisation that it was a year ago this week that I finally reached burnout. My husband had taken a week off work to rebuild a shed in our garden, as my daughter and I were back at school so he could crack on. After a day in school, I came home and had nothing left. No emotions, no energy, no thoughts. I signed myself off for a few days and spent the rest of the week being near my husband, helping to mark and cut timber. But I didn’t say anything for three days. This was so unusual, that he became really worried.
I have had stressful times before, many of them: job moves, house moves, deaths, health scares, postnatal depression, mental health issues in my close family, car accidents and all the other major life problems, and I had dealt with them well. I had also managed to complete a PhD whilst working full time and having our daughter (who has only just started sleeping through the night this last week, aged 7 years and 2 weeks). I was not immune to stress, but I had resilience and coping mechanisms, and had always just got on with things.
This time, I couldn’t move or think at all. My dog of 17 years had been put down at the start of the summer, and our other dog nearly lost her life to pancreatitis. This, coupled with a hard teaching year, yet another failed interview to try and make my working life easier or at least different, and a six week summer holiday paying off vet bills and entertaining my own and other peoples’ children, and I had had it. I had recently finally been told I could go on HRT to help with the perimenopause, but it hadn’t kicked in yet.
I didn’t know what to do or where to turn. I had tried so hard to change my life myself by looking for a different job, losing 2 stone, being healthy, doing yoga and talking to my family and friends but couldn’t shift the dread of where I was in my life.
After an awful experience with a ‘counsellor’ at my local GP surgery (where they tried to tell me my marriage was failing), I was talking to a close friend who had been through a lot and she said she couldn’t have done it without life coaching. She gave me Kelly’s details, and despite my initial trepidation, I saw how well my friend was doing (despite many setbacks herself) and decided to give it a go.
I only had enough time and money to see Kelly once a fortnight for an hour, but it was life giving. Kelly is one of only a handful of people I know who could make sense of the complete muddle of worries, stresses and thoughts in my mind, and help me to see a way forward.
Although I still call it magic, it is so much simpler once you know how to separate your thoughts and what is in front of you. The first step of working out what my actual core values are, and how I wasn’t able to honour them because of work and family and stress, was brilliant. I had lost myself along the way over the past 10 or so years, and mistakenly thought I needed to get back to where I was before I had my daughter.
It was very evident from talking things through that who I was is still here, I always was, but that I needed to give myself some time for myself and work through to find my core being again. This took time, not too much as I was still teaching and carrying on with everyday life, but I took some key steps to help myself.
The first one was to prioritise what my roles were in the many relationships in my life. It was evident that I was trying to be everything to everyone, with nothing left for me. Once I explained to friends and family that I was really struggling, and I needed to cut back on cooking for people around me, taking on all their problems, and slow down, things got easier.
Two months into my journey I was diagnosed with severe and rare migraines. I had suffered with them since I was 10, but this was the first time doctors took me seriously. This wasn’t a moment too soon, as my work was suffering from absences due to three day migraines every month. Kelly helped here too, working through how I felt now that people knew I wasn’t faking illness, but that I had been struggling for years with a really debilitating condition.
I continued to work through my emotions, feelings, and giving myself time to rest, whilst telling my friends and family about this journey. It felt empowering to be able to explain how I was feeling, understand why I was so stuck, and work towards getting back to myself.
After 6 months of seeing Kelly, I found the courage to give up mainstream teaching after a career of 20 years. I started a new job which gave me more time for myself, still teaching, but in a different environment that was much more nurturing. Coupled with the correct HRT combination, I was starting to feel so much better.
I don’t think I would have had the courage or understanding of myself to be able to leave a career that had determined who I was for two decades without life coaching. Kelly helped me to see what I would be leaving behind, but also what was possible in the future. Again, this was so empowering, and enabled me to see that different is not always bad. I had to give up seeing Kelly due to taking a large pay drop, but I felt it was an ok time to do this. Kelly has stayed in touch, and I know she is there when I am financially able to pick up the journey again (there is so much more to learn!).
A year later, I am a new person. I feel closer to who I was in my 20s and 30s. I listen to more music, I enjoy walking my dogs, spending time with my friends and family, I notice the seasons, I have my love of cooking back, and read a lot of books. I haven’t had a migraine since leaving my old job. I haven’t missed a single day of my new job due to illness, and despite its challenges (working with severely disabled and traumatised young people), have found myself surrounded by like minded people who put reflection and kindness at the forefront of everything. I even survived a month in a campervan with my husband and daughter on a huge 10 country adventure - something that would have terrified me a year ago.
Everyone around me has said my new job has made me a different, happier person. But I know it is a combination of hard work on my part, huge direction and encouragement from Kelly, and using my support networks to help me as well as to help them. I am not there yet. I still feel overwhelmed at times, and have to remember to say no to doing too much, but I cannot believe how different my whole life feels and actually is compared to a year ago. I recommend life coaching to anyone and everyone - those who say they can’t afford it need to remember that they can’t afford not to!
