I had it too…A deeply ingrained reluctance to spend money on myself.

As a woman, I had a powerfully ingrained training that others must come first.

Who am I to spend money on myself? Who am I to “invest” in my health. I had been told it is an investment (and it truly is…)

But what was this life that I was living?

🥺 I was anxious + on edge all the time, second-guessing my every action, worrying about every decision I made.

🛌 I was lying awake for hours at night, contemplating everything that could go wrong, from the decisions my kids were making about school and university /drama school, to what to do about that under­performing practice nurse (who didn’t like technology), to how to support the practice manager, to why the garden was full of “weeds”, to whether the dog was overweight, to when we would fit in packing for the holiday, to how crushed I felt in my GP partnership in the NHS…

🥱 I was exhausted and burnt out, keeping going like an automaton.

🏃‍♀️ I always left work late, in a hurry, too late for the school bus – sometimes it waited, once my kids were taken back to the school, which was 40 minutes away.

🌟 I was forever chiding myself for not being perfect – a place I could never attain.

👩🏻‍⚕️ I was convinced that I had to be the perfect business partner, the perfect doctor, the perfect mother, daughter, sister, wife, aunt.

And my perfection was putting even more on my plate.

I filled my lunch “break” with extra work – medication reviews for the elderly for which, at the time, there was no incentive, no delegation, no structure.

Worst of all, I had lost heart.

I was broken inside….

I was so broken inside that I was completely unable to reach out and meet people heart to heart.

This affected my relationship with patients, impacting their ability to heal.

My job satisfaction was impacted deeply.

It impacted my relationship with my ever-giving, long-suffering husband. It affected the way I talked to my kids. My friendships suffered, and so did my health.

I was 38….

The crux came when I was crying inconsolably between patients. I had felt cold and unemotional for long enough.

Thank goodness for Julie, my practice manager.

She wondered why I was running so late, came into my GP consulting room, and talked to me, told me to go home. I was in floods of tears, inconsolable.

I didn’t recognize the burnout.

She recognized burnout, I didn’t.

That’s so often the case…

I felt so guilty for taking time out. I don’t know how long I took off. I thought it was 6 weeks – an extortionate amount of time if you are a busy, ambitious professional in a partnership when time off is not the done thing. My husband tells me it was longer, nearer 3 months.

And to be honest, I have been on a healing journey ever since.

I had never heard of adrenal fatigue. I had never heard of energy healing. I had never heard of journaling. I had never heard of personal development.

I had heard of life coaching, but thought it was for “other” people.

I thought supplements “just made expensive urine”.

I thought counseling was the only therapy that “worked” (that’s the establishment’s term).

I had never heard of functional medicine, integrative medicine, any alternative approaches to thyroid health besides T4 (Synthroid).

I had never heard of EFT, + meditation was something I thought only monks did.

Can you relate?

Was this the start of perimenopause? It’s difficult to say. Adrenal fatigue & burnout are so common.

What if I hadn’t invested in my mental and physical health?

What if I hadn’t invested in my mental and physical health at this time and on an ongoing basis?

Where would I be?

I’m not sure that I would still be here at all.

I may well have stayed stuck, cycling in and out of burnout, hating my job, my colleagues, the NHS, and my patients.

I suspect I would have ended up leaving my profession – but what then?

And what of all the suicide statistics? Burnout & depression are certainly on a spectrum…

Instead, I invested time, energy, and money into my health.

I revisited my priorities. I realized I could not be there for others if I was not there for myself.

I discovered powerful ways to heal burnout through personal development, energy work, and supplements.

I hired mentors and coaches to hold my hand.

I invested in functional testing to determine what was really going on in my body.

I did not have the money but I found it; I used credit cards and borrowed. And I was amazed at what I discovered.

And these tips are what I put, with my heart and soul, in my programmes and packages and in my 1:1 mentoring and consulting.

Now let me know…

What is holding you back?