Yearly Digest 2025 DWC Weekly Issue 72

Defiant Women Conversations was never meant to be comfortable. DWC Magazine was not created as a place of agreement, tidy conclusions, or polite nodding. It was built as a space for defiant women, and the C in DWC has always stood for conversation. Not consensus, not approval, but the kind of conversation that asks us to pause, reflect, and sometimes sit with discomfort long enough for something to shift.

Over the past year, a number of covers and stories across the magazine have done exactly that. Not because the women featured were wrong or misaligned with the values of DWC, but because they challenged unspoken expectations about how women should look, present, or be received. When those expectations are challenged, reactions surface. That is not a failure of community. It is proof that the conversation is alive.

We often say we want inclusive spaces for women, but inclusion is not tested when everyone looks alike, thinks alike, or lives in familiar ways. It is tested when difference arrives and we are asked to respond without immediately categorising, correcting, or judging. What this year has revealed is not a problem with who appeared on our covers. It is a reminder of how deeply conditioned many of us still are to read appearance before story, and discomfort before understanding.

Those reflexes do not disappear just because we enter women-centred spaces. They surface most clearly there, because that is where they can finally be seen. DWC was never designed to present a single version of womanhood. It exists to hold stories of resilience, reinvention, survival, and self-trust, and those stories live in bodies and lives that do not all look the same.

A truly safe space is not one that removes discomfort. It is one that can hold it without turning away. Safety is not sameness. Safety is respect. The moment inclusion depends on comfort, it becomes conditional. This has never been about silencing reactions or pretending discomfort does not exist. It is about what we do with it. Do we rush to judgement, or do we slow down long enough to ask better questions? Do we project meaning, or do we allow the story to unfold?

Conversation, real conversation, requires maturity. It asks us to recognise our own edges without needing to defend them, and to remember that empowerment is not uniformity, but dignity. As we move towards 2026, the invitation before us is not to narrow who belongs, but to widen our capacity to listen. To hold space without policing. To celebrate women not only when they feel familiar, but when they stretch us into greater awareness. Defiant women do not all look the same. They never have. What they can choose is how they respond to one another, because the conversations that challenge us are the ones that change us. They are the reason spaces like this exist.

This moment, standing at the edge of a new year, also asks us to look back. There are always posts telling us not to, but sometimes you need to look back just long enough to see how far you have come. Life often only starts to make sense that way.

This year, I lost the most important person in my life. Papa. The loudest voice in my corner. The one who championed me and gave me my freedom. Some days it aches. Some days I catch myself smiling. Because honestly, Papa, look. Look at what has happened.

Cancer arrived four times across three people we love. Some days the words come easily. Some days you wonder why anyone should have to fight so hard. There are no neat answers to that, only the quiet truth of putting one foot in front of the other.

MRSA has finally left my body. No new spots in almost three months, which means I am ready for my final surgery. That sentence alone carries more weight than I can easily explain.

And then there is this magazine. The thing that quietly brought so many of us together. Stories shared. Voices amplified. Reach growing in ways we never planned but always hoped for. We became a private limited company. We are in conversations with six tourism boards across different countries. We are set to be in over 40,000 retail outlets worldwide, more than 12,000 hotels, across four hotel chains.

None of this happened overnight, and none of it will be completed overnight either. It feels a bit like standing at Everest's base camp. You can see the mountain. You know what the climb requires. You also know you are not standing there by accident.

This is our final issue for 2025, and we are already sold out for covers in 2026. Even writing that still feels unreal. This issue also marks our first bumper digital edition, alongside two print editions featuring our most-read articles of the year and the people who helped us reach retail.

The most important part, always, is this.

Thank you. To the readers. The contributors. The people who believed enough to invest, support, and show up. This magazine exists because of you, and because you trusted us with your stories and your time. We are deeply grateful.

Here's to 2026. Happy New Year to you and yours.

Lately, a number of stories shared in these pages have touched on the memories that resurface later in life — the childhood wounds, neglect, and betrayals that shape us long after we've learnt to smile through them.

I'm reading Nobody's Girl by Virginia Giuffre, and I'm not even up to the Epstein chapters yet. She is only 15 where I am up to, and already I'm wrecked.

Because before the private jets, the billionaires, the headlines, there was a little girl being abused in her own home. A father who took what was never his to take. A mother who, for reasons we'll never fully know, looked the other way. A family who heard the screams and did nothing.

We've spent years focusing on the Epsteins, the Maxwells, the Prince Andrews. We've turned the abuse of young women into clickbait, into courtroom theatre. But before there were global headlines, there were homes — homes where the first betrayals happened, where girls learnt that speaking the truth would cost them love, stability, or safety.

And I can't stop thinking: Where were the women?

The silence that starts at home

We like to believe that women — mothers especially — are wired to protect. That somewhere deep inside us there's a primal code that says no one touches my child.

And yet, time after time, we see women who do know, or at least sense, and still stay quiet. They convince themselves it's not happening. They hope it will stop. They don't want to believe the man they chose could be capable of it. They fear losing their home, their reputation, their sense of control.

Maybe it's conditioning. Maybe it's terror. Maybe it's centuries of messages telling us to keep the peace, keep the man, keep the life together.

It's the same paradigm that allows domestic violence to keep rising — an undercurrent of fear and acceptance that teaches women to endure, to excuse, to stay quiet. But whatever it is, it's costing our daughters their innocence, their safety, and their belief that women are safe to turn to.

I've seen it and lived it, across generations

I don't write this from the sidelines. In my own family, including my own personal experience, there were blurred boundaries that were never questioned, and later, stories that surfaced which were not blurred at all. They were textbook sexual abuse.

I also personally know women who have lived these stories. Women who now say, "How did my mother not know?" Women who finally found the courage to tell the truth, only to be met with, "No, that didn't happen," or "No one can ever know — it'll ruin the family."

And it isn't always family. Sometimes it's teachers, coaches, neighbours, mentors. People trusted and known. People protected by silence.

When these things aren't confronted in the moment, time distorts them. Memory softens the edges, shame reshapes the details, and the story changes as protection takes hold. Decades later, when survivors finally speak, they're no longer the children who lived it. They're adults carrying guilt, confusion, and the fear that no one will believe them. They question themselves before anyone else does.

And that's the cruellest part. Not only were they unprotected then, but now the truth itself is questioned. This is what silence creates: not just pain, but complexity. Healing becomes harder, not because the wound is gone, but because its outline has blurred.

The power that protects men

We have to name it. There's a power that still sits with men, even in the homes and hearts of strong women. It's the power of approval, of belonging, of perceived safety. It's the power that says: if I stand against him, I'll lose everything. It's the lie that's been passed down for generations — that our worth is tied to keeping the peace, not breaking the silence. But every time we protect a man's comfort over a child's safety, we abandon the next generation of girls to the same cycle.

The women who knew — and the ones who will no longer look away

In Virginia's story, there were women at every turn, and the first was her mother. Giuffre writes that her mother knew. Her mother denies it, but Virginia remembers differently. Her wider family knew, because she screamed it out loud at a family gathering and no one did anything. The institutions knew. She recounts being encouraged to journal about the sexual abuse she and other girls were experiencing while in state care. And still, no one intervened.

This isn't isolated. Look at the high-profile orbit, because this doesn't happen only in quiet homes.

Ghislaine Maxwell wasn't a bystander; she was convicted of recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein — befriending them, coaching them, and normalising access. Her legal team later cited an emotionally abusive upbringing under her father to explain her compliance. It's not an excuse, but it shows how cycles of harm can warp loyalty and silence truth.

Sarah Ferguson publicly apologised for accepting money from Epstein and later wrote to him calling him a "supreme friend", even as she distanced herself in public. Her life story shows the undercurrent many women live beneath: a childhood shaped by family fracture and emotional absence, followed by adult years overshadowed by financial strain and dependency. For a woman raised inside privilege, the fear of losing status, reputation, or belonging can be as powerful as the fear of physical survival. It doesn't excuse the choice to stay close to power, but it helps us see how fear of loss and conditioning towards loyalty keep so many women silent.

Harvey Weinstein's empire survived for decades because people around him enabled or ignored what was happening. It wasn't only men protecting him. Women inside that system stayed silent too, many bound by non-disclosure agreements that acted as legalised coercive control. Former assistant Zelda Perkins broke her silence years later, describing how Miramax forced her to sign an NDA that prevented her from warning others. Lauren O'Connor, another employee, wrote an internal memo detailing Weinstein's abuse that was buried instead of acted upon. Even powerful Hollywood women like Amy Pascal and Donna Langley have since admitted they heard the rumours but felt powerless to confront him, while actresses Rosanna Arquette and Mira Sorvino spoke of being ostracised after rejecting him. This is what fear and conditioning look like when dressed in professionalism and success — the hierarchy that teaches women to protect the power that harms them.

Then there's France's Pelicot case. Dominique Pelicot drugged his wife, Gisèle, and invited dozens of men to rape her over nearly a decade. Their daughter, Caroline Darian, says she tried to warn her mother, not only that her father had abused her, but that he was continuing to abuse Gisèle as well. Still, Gisèle refused to believe her. Caroline later described the moment her mother withdrew her hand in court as she recounted her abuse: "My mother let go of my hand in that courtroom… She abandoned me." That moment captured everything — the collapse of maternal protection, the denial of truth, and the generational fracture that follows when a woman cannot bear to face what she has lived beside.

And now, another woman looks away, publicly

As this article goes live, another woman, and a mother, has stepped into the spotlight with the same pattern of minimisation. On her SiriusXM show, Megyn Kelly defended distinctions about Epstein's victims that immediately sparked global outrage. She said Jeffrey Epstein "was into the barely legal type", and that "he liked 15-year-old girls", implying this somehow made him "not a paedophile". She even added, "He wasn't into, like, eight-year-olds."

The reaction was immediate: horror, disbelief, and a collective exhale from survivors who know what statements like this do. They minimise, excuse, and blur the line of harm. They teach girls once again that their suffering is negotiable, dependent on age, not violation. And once again, the question echoes: why is it women who are doing this?

These aren't outliers. They reveal the thread running through all of it: women's silence — whether born of fear, conditioning, dependence, or misplaced loyalty — magnifies the harm.

The reckoning

If you are a woman who knows, speak. If you are a mother who senses, act. If you are a friend who suspects, intervene. And if you are one of these women, the one feeling fear, guilt, denial, or shame tightening in the pit of your stomach right now, ask yourself why. Why are you refusing to look at your own wound? Why are you protecting what broke you instead of healing it? Why are you allowing the same silence that harmed you to endanger another child? This is how it continues,

generation after generation. Not just through the men who abuse, but through the women who cannot bear to face what was done to them, or by them, or in front of them.

The first act of courage isn't calling the authorities — it's calling yourself into accountability. The next act is making sure no girl in your orbit ever learns to swallow her voice the way you once did. We can't keep saying, it's not my place. It is. It always was.

Because when women look away, girls disappear.

On a cold day in November 2017, I had a choice — to keep living as though I were separate from God, or to move with God in every area of my life. The journey wouldn't be easy, but it would be worth it. Little by little, I began walking it, until I realised it wasn't me making the journey at all, but God calling me home. The same gentle whisper that calls each of us to remember our unending innocence and the inheritance we've been promised: Love.

It began with a crash, the sound of life rearranging itself. I could feel something big coming. As much as I wanted to prepare, it wasn't preparation that was being asked of me, it was surrender.

In a world obsessed with climbing ladders, I was being asked to fall, into God's grace. It was not a time to hold tighter, but to release. Like autumn leaves that let go when the air cools, I was being asked to trust that life has always held me, even in the falling.

When doctors told me my dad had two weeks to live after a long battle with leukaemia, I could hardly breathe. There was nowhere to run. I had to face death head-on. Yet in what seemed like hopelessness, love began to emerge. Instead of counting down his days, I began counting the moments of joy. We remembered stories, laughed through tears, and I realised, no matter the circumstance, love is never missing.

Until then, I'd relied on my own strength to survive hardship. My prayers were commands more than surrender: God, I'm going here, please support me. I hadn't yet learned that I wasn't in charge. At the time, I was teaching and terrified to leave my students on bereavement leave. But grace had other plans. A colleague reached out and offered his lesson plans. Friends and family surrounded me with love. It wasn't luck, it was proof that we are always held by something bigger than us.

What seems like challenge is often an invitation: how big is the God we believe in? If God is smaller than our circumstances, we've forgotten about love. But if God is mysterious, infinite, and always greater than our understanding, then love becomes the only constant in a sea of change.

This time of year, amidst so much change, God invites us back to the heart, to remember that God is always at work. Even the hardest seasons can be blessings in disguise. The heart doesn't yearn for more ladders to climb; it ripples out through ecosystems of love. According to Pema Chödrön, things come together and fall apart, and the constant underneath it all is love.

Lately, God's been teaching me to be uncompromising in this realisation, that love is the only constant. My ego resists, but each surrender brings peace. Even in the smallest moments, the lesson deepens.

This morning, I came home to find our dog had torn through the rubbish, think Christmas Vacation kitchen vibes, haha. Anger arose in me instantly. My mind reached for blame as a means of control. Then I remembered a teaching from A Course in Miracles: only what you are not giving can be lacking in any situation. I placed my hand on my heart and asked what I truly needed. Patience. Pulling from Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication list of needs, I found beneath that, harmony and order.

I sat on the bed, breathing slowly, asking God to help me find those qualities of patience, harmony, and order. A calm returned as I picked up the pieces. Harmony and order had been restored, not by blame, but by love. Peace wasn't out there; it was something I extended to my circumstances and had reflected back to me.

It can be tempting to believe people must change for us to feel peace or God's love. But the good news is we can remember God's love in any situation. I continue deepening with this lesson.

This is the work of a spiritual warrior, to meet life as it is and choose love. When we tend to our inner ecosystems with care, we become light for others when the world feels dark. Giving what we most need transforms every moment into an act of love.

When you feel unseen, ask God to slow you down so you can truly see the other person. When you need patience, ask for patience, and then give it. The act itself affirms that nothing is missing in you or in an abundant universe. You are already complete in Love.

Autumn is a season of letting go, the trees reminding us that release is not loss, but renewal. We are in a shedding year, a time to let go of what no longer serves. Releasing doesn't mean we failed; it means we did our best with the awareness we had. Letting go makes space in the heart to welcome the new and to feel the quiet, joyous celebration of what is.

Instead of piling more on to feel full, consider lightening the load of any self-judgement to make room for what matters most: Love.

This holiday season, pause and notice what feels heavy. Ask God to give you what you think you need and share those qualities from the heart. Because you lack nothing, life reflects this fullness of love. Who benefits most from loving? You, dearest one.

Love is never gone. Love knocks on the door of those who are ready to remember: in the end, it was all a dance of grace.

For Sharon Latham, photography was never something she simply picked up and put down. It entered her life when she was eight years old and never really left. Her father, a keen amateur landscape photographer, gave her both her first camera and, unknowingly, a lifelong calling. When he died shortly after her eighth birthday, that camera became more than an object. It became a connection, a way of staying close to him, and a constant presence in her everyday life. Even now, she says there has never been a day since that she hasn't taken photographs.

Those early years were defined by trial and error. Armed with a small Zenith camera and very little technical understanding, Sharon's first images were often blank or blurred. What she lacked in knowledge, she made up for in persistence. Books became her teachers, curiosity her guide, and by her teenage years she had honed her skills enough to upgrade her camera. Photography was no longer something she did; it was something she was.

Despite that lifelong relationship with the camera, professional photography was never part of her plan. For years, it remained a passion rather than a career. It was only later in life, after the end of her second marriage and with her children grown, that she reached a crossroads. She realised that if she didn't at least try to turn her passion into her work, she would regret it forever. That decision led her from Manchester to Liverpool, with a single aim: to break into the music scene.

What followed was a period of relentless work. Sharon offered her services anywhere she could, from open mic nights and recording studios to small local venues. She worked, in her own words, "stupidly hard", driven by the need to learn and to be present. During this time, another door opened unexpectedly when she became involved with non-league football team AFC Liverpool. Sports photography, something she hadn't previously considered, quickly became a love of its own. Following the team through their inaugural season, she discovered that photography didn't need to fit neatly into one category. Music and sport could coexist, each feeding a different creative instinct.

From there, momentum built quickly. Freelance work followed with non-league football teams, schools, rugby clubs, and anywhere else that would welcome her. Evenings were still dedicated to music venues, theatres, and festivals. Opportunities began to overlap, each one leading to the next. A turning point came after she photographed a Tim Minchin concert in Liverpool. His agent requested the images, and soon after, Sharon received an email asking to purchase one. That first sale became her first true wake-up call. Photography was no longer just passion; it was possibility.

Further freelance work at the Manchester International Festival led to her work being noticed, and soon she was offered the chance to shoot a trial game at Manchester City FC. What followed was a moment she still speaks about with disbelief. Initially hired on a freelance basis, Sharon later applied for a full-time photographer role when it was advertised. Competing against around sixty other photographers, she secured the position, becoming the first woman to hold such a role at a Premier League club.

The achievement came with both pride and pressure. Sharon was acutely aware of the responsibility she carried for women in the industry, stepping into a role no woman had held before. What mattered most to her, though, was being told she earned the job because of her skill, not her gender. That acknowledgement cemented her sense of achievement and belonging.

Working in a predominantly male environment brought its own challenges. Some grounds and training facilities didn't even have female toilets. Walking onto a pitch alongside twenty-seven male footballers could easily have been intimidating, but Sharon refused to shrink herself. She met banter with banter, confidence with confidence, and over time earned trust and respect. In her view, you cannot be a quiet wallflower in a male-dominated space. Without confidence, you don't get the images, and without trust, you don't get access to the moments others miss.

The pressure to prove herself was constant, not just among players, but also staff and fellow photographers. Being a club photographer, she explains, involves far more than taking pictures. It means managing photographic archives, designing kit shoots, planning marketing campaigns, and carrying the visual identity of an entire club.

Through it all, she learned a defining truth about herself: gender is not an obstacle when skill, conviction, and passion lead the way. She has never allowed anyone to undermine her work, her work ethic, or her abilities.

Sharon's images are known for capturing raw, defining moments, and that ability comes from both instinct and preparation. On the football pitch, movement is restricted. You cannot chase the action, so you must read the game, anticipate emotion, and hope that when the moment comes, the players run towards you. Brightly coloured hats help players spot her among the crowd of photographers, though celebration doesn't always follow the plan. Behind the scenes, however, she finds greater freedom. Training grounds and off-site visits allow her to capture quieter, more human moments where emotion unfolds naturally.

Music photography, she says, is a completely different world. Her love of live music runs deep, encompassing everything from the lights and crowds to the energy of the artists themselves. Preparation is key. She researches performers, studies how they move on stage, how they engage with fans, and builds a mental wish list of shots before the gig begins. Long lenses give her flexibility when access is limited, and she adapts constantly to challenging lighting, sometimes switching to black and white to preserve the integrity of the image.

At the heart of all her work is a simple philosophy: what would a fan most like to see? That question guides every decision she makes behind the camera. By putting the audience first, she creates images that resonate on multiple levels. Fans want to see their heroes as real people, smiling, expressive, human. Her love of black and white photography further strips moments back to their emotional core.

In high-pressure environments where moments last milliseconds, Sharon relies on knowing her equipment inside out. When it comes to people, however, she lives by the eighty-twenty rule: twenty per cent technical skill and eighty per cent personality. Without connection, trust, and rapport, the best technical setup in the world won't deliver meaningful images.

Without confidence, you don't get the images, and without trust, you don't get access to the moments others miss.

One moment that still feels surreal took place on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury with Noel Gallagher. Before the gig, Gallagher told her he wanted the crowd captured, not himself. Positioned behind drummer Chris Sharrock, Sharon crawled across the stage between songs, popping up to capture angles wherever she could. When Noel finally turned around to face the audience, the scale and emotion of the moment overwhelmed her. Sitting on the stage floor afterwards, she remembers thinking, "What the hell is your life?"

Despite the perception of glamour surrounding celebrity photography, Sharon is quick to dismantle the myth. Red carpet events are crowded, competitive, and stressful. Deadlines are unforgiving. She recalls countless hours sitting on cold floors with Wi-Fi dongles, frantically sending images to agencies. Glamour, she says, is rarely part of the reality.

Emotional intuition underpins everything she does. Understanding who she is photographing, why she is there, and what story needs to be told is essential. Her greatest compliment comes from music lovers who say they feel they can truly see who an artist is through her images.

Looking forward, Sharon is clear about what still needs to change. There need to be more women in creative and sports media, particularly in sport, where representation remains low. Her advice to young women is direct and honest: if you love what you do, show up. Push your work. Compete. The right place and the right time only matter if you are already there.

Beyond photography, Sharon's creativity continues to expand. Exhibitions, print sales, and app development reflect both her ambition and her desire to showcase the full range of her skills. She chooses projects she believes in, both creatively and financially, and commits to them fully. Failure, she believes, is simply part of learning.

After more than thirty years behind the camera, Sharon is proud not just of being a woman in a man's world, but of making a living from something she loves and sharing that joy with others. Home, for her, is family. Her grown children and grandchildren, proud of her journey, remain her grounding force.

The loss of her father continues to shape her life and work. Using his camera as a child helped her feel close to him, and she believes he would be proud of where that connection led. Away from the lens, she describes herself as an excellent swimmer, surprisingly funny, and even a former stand-up performer.

If there is one lesson she holds above all others, it is this: talent and skill mean nothing without honesty, humanity, and connection. And if she could speak to her younger self, camera in hand and unsure of the future, her message would be simple. Keep going. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't. Because you can.

Louise Bernadette Butcher's diagnosis came just weeks after a clear mammogram, a moment that might have shattered someone else's faith in their body. For her, it did the opposite. She had always trusted her intuition, perhaps too much at times, a tendency that once fuelled health anxiety rather than peace. Yet she understood that the subconscious is powerful, and that living mostly in the conscious mind does not mean that is all there is. Cancer did not silence that inner voice. It strengthened it.

What followed surprised her. Not fear. Not collapse. But a fierce determination not to be pitied, not to become a victim. She describes it as a fire inside her, something that drove her forward when the ground beneath her life gave way. Illness had always frightened her, not because of pain or mortality, but because of the imagined loss of control, the dependence on others, the shrinking of self. That is how illness is often portrayed, and sometimes it is true. But Louise wanted to change that narrative. When she became ill, she wanted to show that strength does not arrive from the outside. You are your own carer, your helper, your rock. Sometimes, she says, you are all you will ever need.

After surgery, people spoke to her about "getting back to normal". Louise rejected the idea entirely. Normal no longer existed, and she did not want it back. Cancer shifts your mindset; you do not return unchanged. Some people close to her struggled to understand that, and she accepted it without resentment. Darkness, she believes, offers two paths. It can teach you how to live more fully, or it can destroy you. Normal felt safe, and safe had once made her world small and anxiety-ridden. Life, she insists, is not meant to be safe. If you feel safe all the time, you are not living. When she senses herself slipping back into that version of life, she quietly calls herself back.

Six weeks after her double mastectomy, Louise stood on the start line of a marathon. The moment was shaped by an internal dialogue that reflected everything society assumes about illness, femininity, and survival.

Poor Louise. Cancer. Lost breasts. The end of her strength. The end of her femininity. Invisible now. She will never run that marathon.

She refused that story. She was not invisible. She was still herself. Strong. A woman. Resilient. She would not accept pity, would not allow weakness to define her. Running was not something cancer could take. Running was proof of life. She was alive when she ran, and she would reach the finish line. Watch me, she thought. And she did.

Running had never been a hobby. Louise needed it in the same way others need medication or silence. During periods of anxiety, she would run instinctively, like fight or flight, escaping the chaos in her head. Before cancer, it stopped that internal energy from destroying her. During cancer, it kept her focused, determined, distracted, productive. Now it is part of her identity, but not the whole of it. Like her breasts once were, it is a part, not a definition. Everyone has layers, she says, and those layers shift across a lifetime.

People speak of "bouncing back" after illness as though it is optional. Louise disagrees. Bouncing back is something she has practised most of her life, through mental and physical struggles alike. You do it or you do not survive. That repetition, she believes, is why she navigated cancer as she did. It felt like exposure therapy, painful but familiar.

Acceptance did not arrive instantly. Not long after her second mastectomy, Louise made a short film. She had not accepted her new body then and felt exposed, ashamed, deeply sad. Standing in front of a mirror with a crew of ten watching, she showed her scars to people outside her family for the first time. When she let her dress fall and unzipped her mastectomy bra, revealing her flat chest, she broke down. A panic attack followed. But it was not the scars that caused it. It was the voice inside her head, narrating what she imagined others must be thinking.

That moment changed everything. She realised the pity did not belong to the audience. It belonged to her. Pity, she understood, is transferred. If she had walked onto that set owning her scars, loving them, no one could pity her. Shame comes from hiding. You can only fix something if you believe it needs fixing. Acceptance begins when you stop trying to correct what is not broken. Showing her scars, owning them, seeing them as beautiful was the only way forward.

Those scars became teachers. They taught her that the body is extraordinary, a machine designed to keep you alive, always healing, always working for you. Society trains women to value the superficial and ignore biology, but Louise now sees her body with reverence.

Her scars are not beautiful because of how they look, but because they remind her daily that her body saved her life without hesitation.

Her advocacy grew from that understanding. It has many layers, she explains. If society stopped sexualising women's bodies tomorrow, only part of her work would change. The aspect focused on how women are judged and valued by appearance would fade, but her work would continue through healing, exercise, mental strength, authenticity, and freedom.

One of the most urgent conversations she pushes for happens behind closed doors, in surgeons' offices. From her research and experience, reconstruction is often presented as the default, while flat closure is barely mentioned. The research driving that bias is outdated. Many women live happily flat. Many regret reconstruction. Balanced conversations need to happen immediately, with both options presented honestly, with equal weight, and tailored to the individual.

Running topless brought Louise into contact with women across cultures and continents. Journalists from Nippon TV in Japan came to her home, met her family, and followed her to the London Marathon finish line. The story mattered deeply to them because many Japanese women avoid screening or self-checking, often leading to late-stage diagnoses. The piece resonated so strongly it was shortlisted for Story of the Year at the Foreign Press Association Media Awards 2025. Brazil showed similar interest. In some cultures, Louise notes, women die simply because of how breasts and womanhood are perceived by men. She calls that reality criminal.

The misconceptions around flat closure remain relentless. People ask why she would not want "free perky breasts" put back. She calls it ignorance. Reconstruction is invasive, painful, time-consuming, risky, and sometimes fails. Flat closure offers quicker recovery, fewer risks, no maintenance, and freedoms rarely discussed: living bra-free, feeling less vulnerable, and defining womanhood through strength, intelligence, kindness, and warmth rather than appearance.

Cancer amplified something Louise had always felt but never fully named: a thirst for purpose. Before diagnosis, she sensed there was more to life than material milestones, but she could not articulate it. In her darkest hour, everything unnecessary fell away, leaving only the question that mattered. If time is threatened, what will I leave behind? What difference has my existence made? In answering that, clarity arrived.

If her pre-diagnosis self could see her now, Louise believes she would understand that life offers no reassurance, and chasing it is futile. She would know that authenticity is enough. That the five-year-old girl who ran and laughed freely before being shaped by expectation was already complete.

Kindness marked her journey, but one moment remains etched in her memory. At a breaking point, overwhelmed and believing she had brought darkness into her family's life, Louise did not want to be here anymore. After her daughter's tantrum at a performing arts class, she left in tears, sat in her car, and contemplated ending her life. Her friend Tess followed her, sat with her, calmed her without judgement, and took her home for tea. Tess did not know what she prevented that day.

Louise wishes journalists would change the way cancer stories are told. Rather than dwelling solely on fear and loss, she urges a focus on the lessons, the growth, the unexpected strength. Her story has helped people because it is rooted in possibility. Fear breeds fear. Positivity, she believes, creates momentum.

One identity did not survive surgery: the anxious Louise. The woman who tried to fit into rules and norms that never suited her. Letting that version go created space for something truer.

When people look at her topless photos or marathon images, Louise hopes they feel something before they think. Empowerment. Drive. Encouragement. She wants them to see that life after cancer, after losing breasts, is not tragic. It can be the making of you.

Today, freedom is simple. It is living as her authentic self, holding close the people who accept that, and releasing the need to be understood by everyone else.

If you've been affected by anything in this article, the Samaritans are available free, any time, on 116 123.

As the year draws to a close, I return to a truth that has carried me through both triumphs and struggles. Every ending carries a shadow, and every shadow carries the seed of renewal.

For many people, the last week of December feels like a pause, a place between what was and what is yet to come. We take stock of our choices, our challenges, and our unexpected detours. Some of us celebrate milestones, while others quietly grieve dreams that did not unfold the way we hoped. This rhythm is universal. Each year asks us to reflect, to honour what shaped us, and to decide what we will carry forward.

I used to resist this rhythm. For years I raced into the new year with unrealistic promises and carefully constructed masks. I thought I could escape my shadows by running into the light of a clean slate. What I discovered is that shadows always travel with us until we turn to face them.

The last week of December is not just a time to look forward. It is also an invitation to look inward.

Shadows as Teachers

Shadows are often misunderstood. We think of them as dark corners to avoid, or as evidence of our failures. Yet, in my own life, shadows have been my greatest teachers.

Addiction taught me the power of honesty. Mental health struggles taught me compassion. Autism and personality disorder diagnoses revealed the importance of self-understanding. Each shadow carried pain, but each also carried a message that shaped the way I now live and work.

Walking through shadows was never easy. But as I stepped into my role as a clinical counsellor and life coach, I realised that the very experiences I once tried to hide were the ones that now allow me to connect with others on a deeper level. Safe2Talk2 was born from that realisation. It is not just a business. It is a safe space where conversations lead to transformation, where shadows are met with compassion, and where people are reminded that they are not broken.

The Power of Letting Go

Endings often bring grief, even when they are necessary. The end of a relationship, a job, a role we once clung to, or simply the end of another year can stir up feelings of loss. But letting go is not about abandoning what we loved. It is about creating space for what is waiting.

At the end of each year, I now ask myself: What am I ready to release? What no longer aligns with my values or supports my growth? What heavy mask am I still carrying that I can finally set down?

Letting go can feel like surrender, but it is actually a radical act of trust. It tells the universe, and ourselves, that we are ready for something new.

Resilience and Renewal

Every ending holds within it the possibility of beginning again. That is the essence of resilience. It is not about avoiding difficulty. It is about learning how to rise after each fall.

In my own journey, resilience has rarely looked heroic. It has often looked like small, stubborn choices to keep moving forward: showing up for therapy when I wanted to give up, rebuilding relationships one difficult conversation at a time, choosing honesty over hiding.

Renewal is born in these moments. It comes when we give ourselves permission to start again without shame. Renewal does not erase the shadows of the past. Instead, it integrates them into a story that is richer, fuller, and more human.

This is the same work I now support others in through Safe2Talk2. Whether someone comes for counselling, coaching, or a moment of support, the heart of my approach is always resilience and renewal.

Looking Ahead with Intention

As we step into a new year, I invite you to consider not just what you want to do, but who you want to be. Authenticity is not about creating a new version of yourself. It is about returning to the version that has always been there, waiting beneath the noise of expectations and "shoulds".

Ask yourself: Where in my life am I living in alignment? Where am I still wearing a mask? What truth is waiting for me to claim in the year ahead?

These questions are not meant to overwhelm you. They are meant to anchor you. They can become your compass for the choices and challenges of the coming year.

As both a counsellor and coach, I know the power of setting intentional goals with support and accountability. That is why I invite you to begin this new year by setting goals that go deeper than surface resolutions. It is about creating space to explore your shadows, clarify your values, and chart a path that feels authentic and sustainable. This is not about fixing yourself. It is about honouring yourself and moving towards the life you are ready to claim.

Journey Through the Shadows

In January, I will release my book, Journey Through the Shadows. It is but a shadow of my life, yet more than that, it is a reflection of what I believe to be true for all of us. Shadows do not mean we are broken. They mean we are alive, and they hold within them the possibility of transformation.

The book is not just about addiction, mental health, or identity. It is about the courage to face what hurts and the freedom that comes when we stop running. It is about how authenticity, vulnerability, and alignment are not abstract ideals, but daily practices that can carry us from despair into resilience.

As you close this year and prepare to step into the next, I hope you will join me in exploring what it means to walk through shadows with courage. The path is not easy, but it is worth it. And, as I have learned time and again, we do not have to walk it alone.

The last week of December is not just an ending. It is a threshold. On one side are the shadows that shaped us. On the other side is the light that waits to guide us forward.

My invitation to you is simple. Pause before you leap. Reflect on what this year has taught you. Release what no longer serves you. And step into the new year not with the pressure of perfection, but with the courage of authenticity.

If you are ready to set meaningful goals for the new year, I welcome you into the Safe2Talk2 community. Together we can turn shadows into teachers, obstacles into opportunities, and goals into a lived reality.

Because when we learn to walk with our shadows, we also learn how to walk in the light.

I've always seen myself as independent — stubbornly so, if I'm honest. It was part of my identity, almost a trademark. And then, at 43, everything collapsed so quickly it felt as though someone had pulled the floor out from under me. My husband's business shut down, the debts came rushing in behind us, and I had just lost my job on top of it. One afternoon, I did the maths and realised I could only survive on my own for a month or two. I had no savings. Nothing to fall back on.

And so, I did one of the hardest things I've ever done: I asked my parents for help.

It wasn't just my independence I was losing. What made it truly painful was knowing I was adding pressure to two people I love who were already stretched. My dad dismantled his office and rebuilt it in the garage, a cold, makeshift space that didn't feel like his at all. My mum adjusted the grocery budget to feed two extra mouths. Watching them do all that because my life had fallen apart was heartbreaking.

Still, even when things look impossible, something in me refuses to stay down. I accepted a job offer slightly above minimum wage, telling myself it was temporary. Meanwhile, I began attending entrepreneurship events, hoping that being surrounded by like-minded people would help me. I had ideas, creativity, leadership, but I lacked confidence. Every attempt felt shaky, as though it could collapse at the slightest touch.

The breaking point came during yet another failed business attempt. I remember being on the phone with a friend, crying so hard I could barely speak. She paused and said, "But how many attempts were there really?" Something about that question stayed with me. Later that night, I wrote everything down, every idea, every project, every escape plan. Seeing it all on paper, I realised I hadn't been building anything. I had just been jumping from one lifeboat to another. Despair had taken the wheel without me noticing.

And then life added one more hit: I lost my job again. By then I had already moved out of my parents' house, and I was not ready to go back. I had to survive, no matter what.

So I made the hardest choice: I let go of my dream of being an entrepreneur. I accepted that, for the moment, I needed stability, corporate stability. I had always been intimidated by that world, the hierarchy, the scale, the procedures, but I applied anyway. Somehow, I ended up being hired by a large multinational.

I adapted. I learned. I grew. But as I moved up, I felt myself drifting away from who I was. My work didn't feel like mine. It wasn't fulfilling. It didn't carry the meaning I was craving.

One night, after months of that vague ache of "something's missing", I prayed for meaning. Just that. Nothing complicated.

About a month later, everything shifted.

I came across the idea that emotional energy from past experiences can get stuck in the body and quietly shape how we feel, think, and react. I didn't dive into it with faith, but with hope, approaching it with curiosity, almost like an experiment. I started releasing emotional patterns in myself and began feeling the shift. Everything loosened. I felt different, better, in the ways that truly matter.

Word spread quietly. Friends referred other friends. People came to me with anything and everything — stress, relationship issues, emotional heaviness, old hurts. I didn't plan a side business; it simply grew on its own. Soon, I was making as much, sometimes more, in a few hours of this work as I made in my corporate job. And then that little thought showed up again: maybe I can do this full time.

But fear appeared with it. The thought of losing a consistent monthly income scared me more than I expected. Yet the desire to build something of my own, that spark, was stronger. So I started slowly, measuring every step.

I reduced my hours. I invested in programmes. I tried to build momentum. And still, I felt blocked. At first, I blamed the programme. Then I bought a second one, followed every step, and nothing changed.

Eventually, the truth hit me with absolute clarity: the obstacle wasn't the outside world. It wasn't the economy or the market. It wasn't the lack of money, the lack of clients, or even the strategy.

The obstacle was me. More precisely, it was the sandbags I was carrying that stopped my hot air balloon from rising.

That truth could have crushed me if I hadn't already learned how to drop those sandbags. But instead of breaking me, it opened a door. I realised I didn't see myself as someone capable of building something solid and growing. My identity was still attached to old failures. I wasn't blocked in skill, I was blocked by who I believed I was.

When I began shifting those internal patterns — emotionally, mentally, energetically — everything moved quickly. Setbacks stopped feeling like enemies. They became signals. Data.

I started acting, and reacting, like someone who expected to rise, not collapse. That shift became the foundation of the work I do today.

It became Shiffully — where I help entrepreneurs release the inner blocks standing between them and the business they're trying to build. After years of working with all kinds of emotional issues, I now focus almost entirely on entrepreneurs, because I know what it feels like to want more and feel held back by something invisible. And I know the freedom on the other side of that.

After everything I've lived, rebuilt, and witnessed, there is one truth I believe completely: there are no dead ends. There is always a way through. There is no obstacle we cannot overcome.

When we release what keeps us stuck, when we shift, doors begin to open.

The email arrived over a month after I'd sent my new rates notice. Over a month of silence, and then this — a response that should have been a simple "OK great" or a "no, thank you". Instead, the tone inside was worse than any outright rejection I'd ever received.

"It's unclear if you're bringing anything more to the table," something to that effect — this, despite my practically immediate response times, same-day delivery of technical design work, and the fact that I was essentially on tap for their every whim. Then came the carrot: a quarter of the rate increase I'd asked for. If I still felt it was warranted.

They'd sat with my new rates for thirty days and came back with that.

My body knew before my mind did. The anxiety crept up my spine. The shame settled in my chest, shame for daring to ask, for thinking my work was worth more than poverty wages.

I was a Tech Concierge of colour, working primarily with privileged coaches in the spiritual and healing space. Women who posted the right words on social media about equity and inclusion, love and light. Women who later showed up very differently behind closed digital doors.

They forwarded me personal emails with no context, expecting me to "just pick it up". They demanded I drop everything to focus on them. They gaslit me when I set boundaries. Basic manners, please, thank you, were apparently optional when addressing "the help".

And I was tired of being the help.

The Kitchen Was Where I Went to Remember

While they diminished me in emails, I was in my kitchen, hands deep in spices and steam, creating something that actually nourished. Cooking was my sanctuary, the one place where my worth wasn't up for negotiation.

The day I decided enough was enough, I was making sweet and sour pork. The sauce bubbled in the white deep-bottom frying pan, filling my home with the smell of ginger and vinegar and possibility. I stood there watching it transform, and something clicked.

I didn't want to build behind anyone's scenes anymore. Sure, I had felt safe there in some way, hidden in the shadows for so long. But now? I wanted to stand in my own kitchen, literally and metaphorically, and create something that was mine.

Everyone told me I was insane. "You can't mix tech work with cooking! That will never work!"

But I knew something they didn't. I knew that my days of providing Done-for-you services were dying. I knew that simple backend systems, paired with basic knowledge of how to use them and great nourishment, were the keys to sustainable success when building a home-based business while raising a family. And I knew, firsthand, what getting kids involved in the kitchen could create.

My eldest was proof. At 17, with A–C high school grades after only 18 months in traditional school following eight years of home and world education, they'd been invited to cook in a Jamie Oliver kitchen in central London. At 15, they landed brand deals from Instagram reels with 2.9 million views. At 13, they were planning menus and cooking for paying customers in a Mexican café. At 12, they were a self-taught Adobe Premiere Pro and Photoshop expert running a video editing business for YouTube gamers with tens of thousands of subscribers.

All because they'd been in the kitchen since age two.

But the moment I knew, really knew, that this worked? When I became deathly ill in 2023, and my eldest stepped up. They did the food shopping, managed the budget, cooked every meal for me and their two-year-old sibling. They handled it with ease and joy.

The kitchen had given my child agency. Confidence. Capability. Everything the internet, social media, convenience foods, and modern schooling were designed to strip away.

So I built Empire Kitchen, a place where entrepreneurial families, especially those from marginalised communities and families of colour, could learn the foundations of sustainable success. Where parents could build without burnout. Where kids could develop real-world skills instead of scrolling into oblivion. Where the family unit became the secret weapon, not the thing holding you back.

Despite the naysayers, I did it. And it worked.

The Transformation I Didn't Expect

But here's what I didn't tell you: before Empire Kitchen, there was a time I was drowning.

My kitchen was chaos. Every cup and plate used. The dishwasher perpetually full, either dirty or clean but never unpacked. I was living on a mix of beige oven food, takeaways that cost more than we could sustain, and chocolate pretzels washed down with endless coffee. So much coffee I don't even touch it now.

I felt miserable. Exhausted. Brain fog so thick I couldn't make clear decisions or think straight. I was stuck in a cycle of starting and stopping business ventures, never gaining traction.

And underneath it all, I knew: I desired location independence. I craved a way forward.

One day, pacing the house as I so often did, I asked myself a question that changed everything: do you want to keep going like this?

The answer was immediate. No.

No more half-cooking or not cooking at all. No more feeling incapable in my own kitchen. No more expensive takeaways. No more business dreams that never materialised because I was too foggy, too tired, too disconnected to build anything sustainable.

That's when I realised something: I already had the answer. It was in that tiny apartment abroad, where my simple backend systems automated my business and gave me time to cook and enjoy great meals with my kids. These two things, nourishing food and smart systems, went hand in hand.

You can't build a sustainable business when your kids are hungry, eating empty calories, constantly sick with colds and stomach bugs, riding sugar highs and crashes. All of that steals your time and attention. You can't think clearly. You can't work. You're always putting out fires.

But when I started getting my kids in the kitchen, really involving them, everything shifted.

They helped gather ingredients, wash produce, peel vegetables, mix sauces. Little tasks that added up to real time back for me. As they grew, they became capable. Confident. Resilient. They inherited CEO skills through the kitchen: problem-solving, creativity, initiative. My teens could cook entire meals while I finished work.

The running of the household became teamwork. Easy. Fun. Connective.

And suddenly, I had mental energy for my business. Clarity. Focus. The capacity to actually build something.

One client told me recently: "Cooking with you meant my family now eats better. The kids are enjoying new foods and learning 'dangerous' skills like using knives. I have renewed energy and clarity in my business that I just didn't have before, when I was living on oven crap, coffee, and being ref between my bickering bored kids."

That's the real transformation. It's not just "kids can cook". It's that mum can breathe.

The family grows closer, something modern norms have systematically destroyed. Kids gain confidence and capability. They learn responsibility and are actually ready for the real world. Parents stop burning out, stop carrying the full mental load, stop feeling like they do everything for everyone and get nothing back.

Health is gained by all. And health is wealth. Without it, there is no business happening.

Empire Kitchen became my rebellion against the lie that we should do it all alone. Against the normalisation of food delivery apps providing three meals a day and screens as parenting tools. Against the idea that convenience food and exhausted, disconnected families are just "how it is" for entrepreneurial parents.

We're preparing the next generation for a better world and sustainable success. And we're giving parents, especially those of us from marginalised communities who already have to work twice as hard, the foundation to actually build empires without sacrificing our families or our sanity.

That's what Empire Kitchen is. And it works.

But Something Was Still Missing

I'd found my voice. Built my own stage. But the racial bias that had broken me? I was still carrying it alone.

When I tried to talk about it, I was shushed. Told to "just let it go". Warned not to "create more division". But in my heart, I knew many of my fellow entrepreneurs of colour were experiencing this too. Hiding it. Staying silent because "you can't talk about that stuff".

I'd also been tokenised, invited to be "the one of colour" at otherwise all-white events, used as the diversity piece in the family portrait. And I was tired of that too.

Then, on 7 August 2025, at around 2 p.m., a DM arrived from my friend Sutton.

Sutton is a beautiful, dark-skinned Muslim woman I'd met on Facebook years earlier, bonded in some long-forgotten battle over a topic neither of us remembers. Her message was casual: she had an idea she'd been marinating for three years. A collaboration. Did I know anyone who might be interested?

I asked for details, mentally scrolling through my rolodex.

She told me about her vision: a community. Not like the sales-post wastelands most groups had become. Something that lifted members, moved money, influenced change, and celebrated people for who they are. People who, like her, didn't fit the traditional business mould and were often overlooked entirely.

My sacral chakra lit up like a firework.

"Sutton," I typed back immediately, "your collaborator is here. I want to put myself forward for this." She'd meant for me to suggest someone else. But when she read my response, she said: "No, don't give me names. I want to do this with you."

Just like that, The Flavor Room was born.

Twenty-Four Hours That Validated Everything

We didn't have a website. We didn't have branding. We had a Google Form and a Stripe link. But money moves at the speed of belief.

I was at home on my laptop, wondering if we were completely mad, especially after a white woman had mocked me publicly just days earlier when I'd invited her to join as a founding member. Who did I think I was to DM her when I don't even show up as a baddie on Facebook? Real mean-girl energy.

But then the payments started coming in.

One. Two. Five. Seven.

"We did it," Sutton and I said to each other. That's validation.

The Flavor Room became what we'd both been hungry for: a space where entrepreneurs of colour and those from diverse backgrounds are seen, celebrated, and elevated. Where we set the standard instead of begging for a seat at someone else's table. Where white members and partners show up as true friends and allies, not performative diversity hires with a quota to fill.

It's an invite-only community. A bold choice. One I never would have made alone.

But that's what working with Sutton taught me: partnership isn't just about shared workload. It's about being pushed to do things you'd never do solo. She encouraged me to show up on partnership calls I would've avoided. To release disrespectful clients and connections so I could set a new standard for myself. To build something unapologetically exclusive.

And for the first time in my entrepreneurial life, I felt like a peer. Respected. Celebrated. My ideas didn't just matter, they shaped the culture of what we were building. I wasn't "the help". I was a leader.

I didn't realise how much I'd needed that until I wrote these words.

What Happens When We Stop Being Silent

The Flavor Room didn't just create community. We created a movement.

And movements demand evidence.

That's why we spent months asking the questions nobody else would ask.

We spent 24+ hours interviewing entrepreneurs across the online business landscape. We documented what everyone whispers about but rarely names. We gathered the data nobody else wanted to collect.

The result? Is It LEGIT? Redefining Equity, Leadership, and Influence in Online Business. Not another surface-level report that changes nothing. This is a mirror. And a manifesto.

It exposes the truth about race, class, and access across the entire online entrepreneurial industry: coaching, consulting, creators, the whole ecosystem people of colour and marginalised entrepreneurs navigate while being told the playing field is level.

And we're not just releasing a paper. We're creating an immersive experience unlike anything the online business world has ever seen. Spoken word. Live performances. Raw conversations that don't happen anywhere else. Visual storytelling that will give you chills.

And the unveiling of something that changes everything: LEGIT™: Certified Standards for Impact-Driven Business™. Because DEI couldn't fill the gap. Because "diversity and inclusion" became corporate theatre. Because we deserve more than performative allyship.

LEGIT is the new standard. The certification. The line in the sand.

The Flavor Experience launches soon. Full details at theflavor.biz.

When this drops, when we show what accountability actually looks like, you'll want to say you were there from the beginning.

Two Businesses, One Revolution

Empire Kitchen heals the disconnection in entrepreneurial families. It gives parents a chance to build without burnout, with health and family intact. It breathes new life into kids who've been forgotten, whose potential school doesn't cultivate, whose self-esteem social media destroys. It's about healing humanity through vital life skills and real food.

The Flavor Room heals the disconnection between us and our privileged counterparts. It's changing the face of entrepreneurship and redefining the standard of business as we know it. It's truly disruptive. We talk about the things most won't and shine a light on them. Then we bring solutions. It's time for people of colour and those from diverse backgrounds to be respected and seen as the leaders we are. We created a platform for that.

Together, they're about refusing to be invisible. Empire Kitchen makes sure families see each other. The Flavor Room makes sure we see each other.

Both are rebellion. Both are legacy.

What I'd Whisper to You

If you're a woman of colour building your business right now, if you've been told to be grateful for scraps, if you've been the diversity piece in someone else's portrait, if you've dimmed your light to make others comfortable, I need you to hear this:

You are brilliant. The world needs your contribution.

Not behind the scenes. Not as the help. Not as a token.

Centre stage. Full volume. Unapologetically.

Your kids are watching what you're building. The next generation of entrepreneurs of colour is watching. And they need to see you refuse to accept less than magic.

So build your Empire Kitchen. Find your Sutton. Create your Flavor Room.

And when they ask you to dim your light? Let the sauce bubble. Let it smell so good they can't ignore it.

Then serve it on your own damn terms.

The thing most people don't understand is that abuse strips us of our identities and even our sense of reality. Half the work afterward is regaining a lens on the world and on ourselves. We do this while managing a house, being the sole provider for children, building a career, pursuing further education, creating safety and stability, and chasing new goals.

The loss of identity and sense of reality is by far the hardest part of abuse recovery. Honestly, the physical wounds were easier to heal. It's the psychological damage that cuts the deepest. This is the part you simply cannot grasp unless you've been here.

It is a long process, and if you haven't had to live it, heal it, or face the psychological remnants, please don't judge what you don't understand.

When Others Just Don't Get It

Survivors often encounter well-meaning but damaging comments. Here's how to reframe those moments for yourself and others.

"I would never let that happen to me." This comment isn't about the survivor; it's about the speaker's ego. In that moment, they're clinging to a false sense of control, needing to believe they're somehow above it. When you catch yourself in judgement, pause and bring some curiosity. You don't need to rush to fill the space. You can simply sit back and listen without needing to "fix" things so you feel comfortable. Don't ask a survivor to absorb your shame so you can feel better about yourself. That's your character in question now. Own it. We didn't think it would happen to us either.

"Just move on and get over it." You have no idea how someone is handling things day to day. You have no idea what they're doing to make necessary changes. This is a slow process from the outside, and it needs to be. We are healing massive depths of ourselves. This isn't a case where you remove the abuser and suddenly everything is fine. That's a fantasy and a complete dismissal of the actual journey this person is on.

Again, reset your empathy here. These are normal human reactions when confronted with the reality of abuse. I'm not shaming you for feeling them. I'm reminding you to offer more compassion and humanity in those harder moments of connection. We know it isn't easy. We appreciate the extra effort.

Replace the Judgement with Real Support

Listen and encourage. Offer practical help that actually supports a real obstacle. Small gestures matter. Something as simple as offering to go on a walk usually helps more than you realise.

A Letter to the Survivors: Holding Your Truth

Part of healing is learning not to get bent out of shape every time someone doesn't understand. Early on, it feels like a dagger and we want to defend or prove. Later, we learn to let it pass. Their ignorance doesn't change our truth. One of the clearest signs of recovery is when you no longer crumble or rage at being misunderstood.

Hold your head high. Don't waste energy trying to prove or explain. That's not your work anymore.

"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from." — T.S. Eliot

Your identity will move through victimhood and then into the survivor stage. It's part of the journey. We can't stay victims, and we also can't stay stuck as survivors.

Victimhood is a necessary step. You are allowed to own what happened to you. In fact, finally saying "this happened to me", loud and unapologetic, is a massive liberation for abuse survivors. We have to truly own all the hurt and make sense of the confusion inside the fog of cognitive dissonance.

Our identity often stays tethered to the past. I accept that I'm in the survivor phase right now. I have processed it all, found peace, and started building my life: changed jobs, gone back to school, started writing, raised children, gone to therapy, tried new hobbies, travelled, made new friends.

I can still feel the shadow of the abuse on my identity. I still see myself as a warrior or a survivor. But I also trust this is just one leg of the journey. One day, I'll be living the "new" life I'm building. That layer of life will make my story less about what was and more about the new present waiting ahead.

I don't know what the next stage looks like yet. I call it the "living stage". It's still taking shape, but I can see pieces coming together more each month. I trust it to unfold how and when it's meant to. And I trust myself to get there, hurdles and all.

By the end, you'll be the strongest, most interesting person you know. Keep going. Don't get caught up feeling defeated by what you haven't figured out yet. Keep looking for the tiny ways you've grown and built forward.

There are times I get frustrated that I'm not further ahead. We all have those days. But when I look back over my shoulder, I see more of what I've built and less of what used to be. When I look in the mirror, I see this new version of myself: a woman who will keep living, with laughter along the way, into the next stage of life.

Yes, this is the hardest thing you'll ever do. Some days it will be awful. But listen, by the end, you'll be the strongest, most interesting person you know.

Answering the Call

Some careers are chosen. Others choose you. For me, speech-language pathology was more than a career, it was a calling. From the moment I began at the Center for Neuro Skills in Bakersfield, California, more than three decades ago, I felt drawn to adults with neurological conditions. That training environment, where cross-disciplinary collaboration was the norm, gave me a strong foundation and shaped every professional decision I would make.

Over time, dementia became the heart of my work. It wasn't just about therapy, it was about helping families preserve connection, dignity, and meaning through one of life's hardest journeys. Long before the pandemic, I was giving seminars, teaching families, and offering strategies to make communication and care less stressful. What I didn't know then was how much my own life would soon test my resilience.

The Pandemic Shift

In 2020, the pandemic upended everything. Suddenly, work in my home state of Arizona was scarce. California, however, was desperate for help, and I returned there to work in skilled nursing facilities. Patients were isolated from their families, recovering from COVID, strokes, and Parkinson's, often without a familiar face to comfort them. My role was to help them rebuild, but the heartbreak of separation weighed heavily on all of us.

By September, I was grateful to return home in time for my daughter's wedding and a new permanent position at a local rehabilitation hospital. But only weeks later, I received devastating news: my best friend in California had died by suicide. Even though we had spoken daily during my time there, I was overcome by guilt and grief.

To add salt to the wound, the leadership at my new workplace fell into disarray. With administrators leaving, I was asked to step in as Director of Rehabilitation, without the training I had been promised. I worked 60–70 hours a week, scrambling to solve problems I often learned about at the last minute. My health began to fail. My old back injury grew unbearable, and carrying an extra 100 pounds of weight left me in constant pain. Still, I pressed on, determined not to let my team down.

When Everything Collapsed

In April 2022, life changed again. My 29-year-old daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was terrified, but also resolved to be by her side. I arrived at work at 4 a.m. so I could complete my duties before driving her to her appointments. One Friday, while I sat in the Cancer Treatment Centers of America waiting room during one of her scans, I received a message from my CEO criticising my absence. Despite my honesty and dedication, two weeks later I was pushed out of my job.

I unravelled. Depression and anxiety took hold, and I rarely left the house except for my daughter's treatments or my own appointments. When she suffered a severe allergic reaction to chemotherapy and nearly died, my world felt like it was breaking apart.

Around the same time, my father's health declined from complications of prostate cancer treatment, while my mother battled severe COPD and skin cancer. I began travelling to Texas to help, giving my sister respite, supporting my dad through colostomy care, and translating medical updates for my family. By the end of 2022, both my parents' health had worsened. On 27 December, my mother unexpectedly passed away. Sixteen days later, my father followed her.

The Weight of Caregiving

When I returned home, I became my mother-in-law's caregiver, watching her steadily decline. Meanwhile, my eldest daughter experienced a recurrence of cancer in March 2023. It was déjà vu in the meanest form. She endured chemotherapy again, this time completing the full cycle, followed by a mastectomy. Thankfully, she has remained cancer-free since.

Yet, as I supported one child through survival, another was spiralling. My youngest daughter was battling addiction, her life unravelling in ways I could not control. Her struggle led to erratic behaviour, legal consequences, and eventually hospitalisation, where she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. During some of my darkest days, her anger and confusion often turned towards me and my husband. She blamed us for my mother-in-law's decline and even accused us of hiding the truth about my parents' passing. It was heartbreak layered upon heartbreak, watching her suffer while already carrying so much loss.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, I found myself on my own journey back to health. After years of pain and limited mobility, I finally lost enough weight to undergo back surgery. By late October 2023, I could walk again. I eventually lost more than 100 pounds, reduced my prescription medications from thirteen to five, and regained my physical and emotional health through therapy and hard work. But life didn't let up. In early 2024, my mother-in-law suffered a devastating fall and passed away, just a week before my family gathered in Texas for my parents' funeral services.

Revival Through Mentorship

Despite the heartbreak, something within me shifted. I began to see the thread running through all my experiences, caregiving, loss, resilience, renewal. I realised how much I had endured, how much I had learned, not just as a clinician but as a woman who had lived what so many caregivers silently face every day.

As my health improved, I reconnected with my purpose. I started working again, first in retirement communities and later in schools. I joined networking groups, participated in challenges, and began to share my story publicly. I remembered that before the pandemic, I was at my best when helping dementia caregivers feel seen, supported, and hopeful. That calling had never left me, it had simply been waiting for me to return to it.

Today, as a dementia care mentor, I help caregivers find balance between caring for their loved one and caring for themselves. I guide them through communication challenges, teach strategies for managing behaviours with compassion, and remind them that their wellbeing is not secondary, it's essential.

Why I Founded Ludie's Revival

"Revival" means many things, renewal, restoration, awakening. For me, it's all of these and more. It's what happens when the dust begins to settle after loss, when you start breathing again after years of holding your breath. It's not about returning to who you were before; it's about becoming someone stronger and more compassionate because of what you've endured.

The years I spent walking through grief, caregiving, and personal healing taught me that revival isn't a single event, it's a process of rediscovery. It's the slow rebuilding of faith in yourself and in life's goodness. And it's realising that even after everything falls apart, purpose can still rise from the ashes.

That realisation is what gave birth to Ludie's Revival. It became more than a name, it became a mission. Through my work as a dementia care mentor, I help families move from merely surviving to truly reviving. I walk beside them as they reclaim their balance, rebuild their hope, and nurture their wellbeing with the same compassion they pour into others.

Revival means many things — renewal, restoration, awakening. For me, it's all of these and more. It's what happens when the dust begins to settle after loss, when you start breathing again after years of holding your breath.

Because caregiving changes you. It stretches your capacity to love and asks more of your heart than you ever thought you could give. But it also holds the power to grow something sacred within you, resilience, empathy, and grace.

At Ludie's Revival, I help caregivers remember that tending to themselves is not selfish, it's survival. Because when you restore yourself, you restore your capacity to love.

That is what revival truly means: renewal of the spirit. Restoration of balance. Rediscovery of joy.

And that is the heartbeat of Ludie's Revival, a place where hope is restored, connection is rekindled, and both the caregiver and the cared-for can thrive in dignity, love, and grace.

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." — Ecclesiastes 3:1

In today's world, many of us carry multiple assignments. We may be called to preach, teach, or lead in ministry, while also building businesses that provide for our families and communities. The challenge comes when the lines blur, when the very gifts God entrusted to us for Kingdom work start to clash with the demands of entrepreneurship. That's where discernment and integrity come in.

Ministry Is an Assignment. Business Is an Avenue.

Ministry is rooted in service. It's about pouring into others, even when there's no paycheck attached. Business, however, is an avenue for building resources, offering value, and creating sustainability. Both are vital. Both are God-ordained. But confusing them can leave you burnt out, broke, or bitter.

Ministry is an assignment; business is an avenue. Don't confuse the two.

Discernment: Knowing When to Sow and When to Charge

Discernment is your compass. It teaches you when to give freely and when to stand firm on your rates. There will be moments when God calls you to serve, mentor, or speak without an invoice attached, that's obedience. But there will also be moments when your expertise is meant to be compensated.

If you're not careful, guilt or manipulation can cause you to undervalue yourself. Jesus fed the 5,000 freely, yes. But He also turned over the tables when people mishandled sacred space. Balance matters.

Integrity: The Standard in Both Realms

Integrity is the bridge between your pulpit and your platform. It means showing up the same way in church and in business: honest, transparent, and trustworthy. Clients should never feel exploited under the banner of ministry, and congregations should never feel like customers in a sales funnel.

Reflection question: am I glorifying God with how I conduct business, and am I honouring Him with how I handle ministry?

When your integrity is intact, you don't have to convince people of your character — they'll see it in your consistency.

Practical Boundaries That Protect You

Separate your platforms. Don't turn sermons into sales pitches, or sales calls into sermons.

Establish clear systems. Contracts and invoices belong to your business. Scripture and pastoral care belong to your ministry.

Communicate expectations. Let people know when they're engaging you as a minister versus as a professional.

Seek God's wisdom. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God…" — James 1:5

The Reward of Walking in Order

When you honour the distinction between ministry and business, you protect your peace and your witness. People will respect your business because of your professionalism, and they'll honour your ministry because of your purity of heart.

At the end of the day, whether in business or ministry, your assignment is to steward well what God has entrusted to you. Keep your boundaries clear. Walk in integrity. Let discernment lead you, and watch how God blesses both.

Picture this: you're sixteen, standing behind a supermarket checkout, hands trembling as you try to scan a tin of beans while a queue of impatient customers watches your every fumbling move. Your heart pounds, your voice barely rises above a whisper, and you can't bring yourself to make eye contact with anyone.

This was me, decades ago, learning one of life's most counterintuitive lessons: the very thing that terrified me would become the foundation of my growth. That trembling teenager had no idea she was about to discover something revolutionary about how we're meant to navigate challenge, something that would eventually reshape her entire understanding of what it means to be resilient.

We've Been Asking the Wrong Question

We live in an age where stress elimination has become the holy grail of wellness. There's an entire industry built around helping us find instant serenity, perfect work-life balance, and cortisol-free living. These approaches often come from a place of genuine care, wanting to help people feel better and live more peacefully.

But what if we've got it completely backwards? What if stress isn't the villain in our story, but rather the most essential character in our personal growth? What if the very thing we're trying to escape is actually the key to becoming everything we're capable of being?

Here's a truth that might surprise you: there's no such thing as "good stress" and "bad stress", there's just stress. It's how we respond and, crucially, how we allow that response to complete that creates either growth or stagnation in our lives.

Your Body's Brilliant Survival System

Our bodies, minds, and spirits have evolved intricate systems specifically designed to handle stress, not avoid it entirely. Think of your nervous system as the ultimate multitool, a Swiss Army knife of survival that deploys different strategies depending on what you're facing.

Social engagement is your first line of response, connection through a smile, conversation, seeking support. This "tend and befriend" approach uses minimal energy while potentially resolving the stressor through relationship.

Fight or flight kicks in when social solutions aren't sufficient. As civilised humans, we've transformed fight into assertive communication, while flight becomes strategic withdrawal or seeking alternatives.

Freeze engages when other options feel impossible. We've turned this into sophisticated coping mechanisms that help us survive overwhelming situations.

The genius lies in efficiency, your nervous system always seeks the least energy-intensive solution that effectively addresses the challenge. But here's where we humans have created our own predicament.

The Completion Gap: Where Everything Goes Wrong

Unlike every other animal on the planet, we interrupt our natural stress cycles. Picture a gazelle that's just escaped a lion. It doesn't immediately return to grazing while muttering, "I'm fine, that's over now." Instead, it literally shakes, trembling, breathing deeply, allowing its nervous system to discharge the activation energy. Only then does it return to peaceful grazing.

But us? We declare ourselves "fine" the moment the external threat passes, leaving our bodies holding unfinished stress energy. We tell our children to stop crying because we're uncomfortable with their natural stress down-regulation. Our clever minds say, "Right, that's sorted. Let's move on," while our nervous systems are still buzzing with unprocessed activation.

This interruption has profound consequences. We're the only species that consistently develops trauma responses precisely because we don't allow our stress cycles to complete their natural course.

When I Discovered My Superpower

Back to that supermarket checkout. Week by week, something remarkable happened. The stress that once paralysed me became the very force that empowered me. I developed skills, confidence grew, and what began as an ordeal transformed into genuine enjoyment.

Crucially, I was unknowingly allowing my stress responses to complete naturally, each challenging interaction followed by moments of recovery, each small victory building resilience for the next challenge. There were often tears before bedtime, and a lot of laughing on the job. My body was doing exactly what it was designed to do.

I didn't just survive my supermarket job; I developed social skills and confidence that served me throughout my life. The teenager trembling at that checkout counter couldn't have imagined that her terror would become her teacher. But that's exactly what happened when she stayed present with the discomfort long enough to discover what lay on the other side.

The Choice That Changes Everything

This brings us to a crucial decision point in every challenging moment: do we contract or expand? Do we view ourselves as victims of circumstance or as active participants in our own development?

The wounded child within us may want to retreat, but the empowered woman recognises that discomfort often signals growth opportunities knocking at our door. We get to choose: do we want to remain stuck in patterns that keep us small, or develop the capacity to move through challenges with grace?

Each challenge follows the same transformative pattern: initial discomfort, sustained engagement, natural completion of the stress response, and adaptation leading to mastery. Public-speaking terror transforms into confident communication only when we allow our bodies to process the full cycle, activation, engagement, and recovery.

Rewiring Your Relationship with Stress

The goal isn't to eliminate stress but to develop a healthy relationship with it. This means learning to recognise when stress calls us towards growth versus genuine danger. Most importantly, it means allowing our nervous system to finish what it started, to shake, breathe, laugh, cry, and release each experience fully.

Rather than asking, "How can I avoid stress?", perhaps we should ask, "How can I relate to stress in ways that serve my growth?" The answer lies in building our capacity to stay present with discomfort, to trust that our nervous system knows how to navigate difficulty, and crucially, to let each stress cycle complete before moving to the next challenge.

We are, indeed, designed for stress. The question isn't whether we'll encounter it, we will. The question is whether we'll let it strengthen us or diminish us.

Your stress is not your enemy. It's your invitation to become everything you're capable of being. Every challenge you face contains within it the seeds of your next level of strength, wisdom, and capability.

Your Invitation to Grow

The next time you feel that familiar flutter of activation in your chest, that quickening of your pulse, remember: your body isn't betraying you. It's preparing you. The question isn't how to make the feeling go away, it's how to let it do its work and then complete its cycle.

We are meant to be moving beings, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Growth requires the friction of challenge, the pressure that transforms carbon into diamonds, and the completion that allows integration.

Your stress is calling you home to your own strength. Are you ready to answer?

In this article, I share my journey from a childhood of abuse and silence, through years of study and self-discovery, to the point where I decided that my lived experience could become a force for change, for myself, and for others.

I wonder whether I should include a trigger warning here or simply acknowledge the harsh reality. Abuse happens. Fathers exploit their daughters. Mothers pretend they are unaware or blatantly ignore it, as admitting the truth would threaten their perfect family image. I now use those experiences to build a thriving community dedicated to learning and development, a community founded on integrity, compassion, and professionalism. From this vision, I established the Association of Child and Family Coaches and developed a new ethical framework to ensure that support for children, parents, and families is safe, empowering, and grounded in research.

Please read my story as one of survival, scholarship, and purpose, not one of pity, because when we turn what once seemed like weakness into strength, we become stronger than the things that tried to define us.

My childhood was marked by silence and a desperate need to survive. This desperate need to survive is the reason why, when asked by health professionals, "Have you ever tried to end your own life?", I respond "no". Not because I see that as a weakness when faced with a desperate need to escape a world of hate, but because I spent so much of my childhood screaming into my pillow through the tears: "I will get out of this. I will escape."

Abuse was not just something that happened in moments; it was the backdrop of my formative years. It left me feeling small, voiceless, and unsure of whom I could trust.

According to the NSPCC, I was less alone than I thought. In fact, one in twenty children aged 11–17 are sexually abused. Disclaimer incoming: those are the children who were surveyed. I was not one of them. Those early traumatic experiences shaped me in ways I would only come to understand much later. For a long time, I believed my story would hold me back. For a long time, I questioned who I might have been if they had not stolen "me" away from me.

But even then, I held onto a quiet determination: that my life would not end where it began. The pain I carried would one day be transformed into something purposeful. Am I healed? Absolutely not. Forgive them? Not a chance. Side note, readers: you do not have to forgive your abusers. It is not on you to do so. Push that narrative far from your mind. Forgotten? Not according to my nightmares, dysregulated behaviour, and overprotective parenting of my children. But… we are where we are.

Education as a Lifeline

Education became my refuge and my pathway forward. Initially, it was more about survival than passion. At school, I was safely away from home. At university, my mind was occupied. But I became obsessed, perhaps even desperate, to prove, to myself and to the world, that I was capable. Every assignment I completed and every exam I passed was a step away from the labels and shadows of my past. It was my way of saying: I am more than what happened to me.

Over time, however, studying became more than just a means to an end. It became a lifeline. Through my studies, I began to make sense of the experiences I had endured. I discovered language for the feelings I had kept hidden in silence. I found theories and practices that explained what I had gone through, and, importantly, showed me that it was possible to break free from myself.

I immersed myself in early childhood education, psychology, and pedagogy, aiming to understand not only how children learn but also how they heal, communicate, and flourish. The more I learned, the more I realised that knowledge could be both transformative and protective. Education was no longer just about escaping my past; it was about building a future where others could be supported differently.

That determination carried me through years of higher education. I earned three Master's degrees (and still counting!), in Montessori Education, Early Childhood Education, and Digital Technology in Education, before completing a PhD that explored power, surveillance, and vulnerability in education. Currently, I am pursuing an Ed.D. in Early Childhood Curriculum, focusing on play, creativity, and child-centred learning, and an MSc in Psychology of Mental Health and Wellbeing. I also have a place to study for an M.Ed. at Cambridge next year.

And here's a secret I haven't even told my friends yet: a European university has approached me to sit on a panel for an Honorary Professorship in recognition of my work. I don't say this to boast, but to remind myself of what I have achieved. I suffer from the worst level of imposter syndrome. I am never going to be good enough for myself, so how have I been able to set up an accrediting body for those who wish to create a better world through therapeutic coaching with children and families? How dare I even consider such a thing? So, I will keep collecting the qualifications. Perhaps, one day, I will have enough to show people, and myself, that I am the right person to do this.

Education didn't just provide me with qualifications; it gave me a voice. Each degree symbolised both academic achievement and a step towards healing. It gave me the confidence to stand before others, not as a victim of abuse, but as a scholar, a practitioner, and now a leader. Most importantly, it equipped me with the tools to turn lived experience into a foundation for helping others, children, families, and the professionals who support them.

I will continue. I will keep learning so I can pass this knowledge to others, who will become trained, ethical therapeutic coaches, and thus the ripple effect of my studies will persist. Little by little, changing one life, then the next.

From Pain to Purpose

My personal history has made me acutely aware of how trauma affects children and how distress is rarely communicated through neat sentences but instead through play, behaviour, and silence. I recognised those silences because I had lived them. I understood that a child's anger or withdrawal often masks fear, sadness, or confusion. I also saw the unspoken cries for help that adults sometimes overlook, not because they do not care, but because they lack understanding.

What struck me most was how families often faced isolation in their struggles. Parents wanted to support their children but lacked the tools or guidance to interpret their behaviour. Professionals, too, were often well-meaning yet insufficiently trained, responding to symptoms rather than addressing the underlying issues of the child's experience. I began to see clearly that there was a gap, a significant need for approaches that were both compassionate and practical, grounded in theory but attentive to real lives.

That realisation became the driving force behind my work. I poured my energy into creating training programmes in therapeutic play, parent coaching, and child wellbeing. These were not mere theoretical exercises; they were genuine responses to a lifelong question I had carried: what did I need as a child that wasn't there?

I needed someone who would listen without judgement. I needed safe spaces where I could express myself without words. I needed adults who could see beyond my behaviour to the hurt beneath it. Most of all, I needed consistency, people who would not walk away when things became difficult.

So, I embedded those needs into the core of my work. Every course I created, every framework I designed, was influenced by the child I once was, as well as by the numerous children and families I have encountered along the way. I aimed to ensure that no child felt invisible, and no parent felt powerless in the face of their child's struggles.

Over time, my desire to fill the gaps in my own past grew into something much larger: research, frameworks, and ultimately a professional body that could transform how we support children and families, the Association of Child and Family Coaches (ACFC).

Through the ACFC, we establish high standards of practice, certify coaches, and offer ongoing professional development. But more than that, we nurture a network of practitioners dedicated to playful, compassionate, and ethical approaches to coaching.

Looking Back, Moving Forward

Reflecting on my early years, I see a child who desperately needed someone to listen, someone to believe in her, and someone to guide her through the storm. Today, I have built a life where I can be that someone, that someone for children and families, and that someone for the coaches who walk alongside them.

The ACFC is more than an organisation; it is a living testament that trauma does not have the final word. With the right support, healing is achievable. With proper training, professionals can alter the course of a child's life.

If my journey has taught me anything, it is this: our beginnings may shape us, but they do not define our endings. And sometimes, the very chapters we wish had never been written become the ones that give our story its strength.

In the heart of Ho Chi Minh City, Garden Plaza Saigon stands as a symbol of calm sophistication, a place where tradition and modern hospitality blend seamlessly. At the helm is Tran Viet Mai, General Manager, whose career reflects the evolving landscape of women's leadership in Vietnam's hospitality industry. Her journey is shaped by empathy, community spirit, and a commitment to mentoring the next generation of women leaders.

When asked what unique strengths women bring to leadership roles in hospitality, Mai's response is both insightful and grounded in experience. She believes women offer a distinctive dimension to leadership in this people-centric industry. Emotional intelligence, empathy, and adaptability, she says, are the foundation of exceptional service, and areas where women naturally excel. "We are also strong multitaskers," she adds, "balancing multiple priorities with precision. Women nurture team culture and pay attention to the details that elevate both guest experiences and employee engagement."

Reflecting on how the industry has changed since she began, Mai smiles. "The transformation has been remarkable," she says. When she first entered the field, women in leadership positions were relatively rare. "Today, there is much greater acceptance and recognition of women's capabilities. The industry now offers more training opportunities, international exposure, and mentoring programmes that empower women to grow their careers with confidence."

Yet, progress has not erased all challenges. When the conversation turns to whether women leaders are held to different standards than men, Mai doesn't hesitate. "Yes, in many cases, women still feel the need to 'prove' themselves more, especially in leadership positions," she admits. But rather than viewing this as discouraging, she sees it as a source of strength. "It has sharpened our professionalism and inspired many of us to lead with authenticity and empathy. The younger generation of women is redefining what leadership looks like, confident, compassionate, and courageous."

Her belief in lifting others as she climbs is evident in her approach to mentoring. Mai describes herself as a hands-on leader who prioritises accessibility. "I spend time coaching team members one-on-one and maintain an open-door policy where they can seek advice or share challenges freely," she explains. She's candid about sharing her own successes and mistakes, helping others learn from real experience. "Most importantly, I encourage women to take ownership of projects and lead initiatives that showcase their capabilities."

Mai's leadership journey has also been shaped by Vietnamese culture, something she speaks of with deep respect. As a woman from the 7x generation, she grew up surrounded by examples of quiet strength. "My mother and aunt balanced work, family, and community responsibilities with such grace. Their example taught me patience, empathy, and resilience," she recalls. Vietnam's deep-rooted sense of community, she believes, continues to influence her leadership philosophy. "Effective leadership is about bringing people together and creating shared success."

For someone leading in such a demanding sector, balance is crucial. When asked how she manages the demands of work, family, and personal life, Mai emphasises that it requires deliberate effort. "Balance doesn't happen by accident," she says. "I manage my time carefully, prioritise what truly matters, and rely on a strong family support system. Being fully present during family moments makes a big difference, even when time is limited."

Her approach to maintaining mental balance is equally mindful. "I start my mornings with yoga or a bicycle ride, which helps me stay centred," she says. "Cooking refreshes my mind and lets me express creativity in a different way. And of course, spending quality time with my family brings me peace and perspective, they remind me of my purpose and keep me grounded."

That grounding comes, in part, from a strong support network at home. "My family has been my greatest source of strength," Mai reflects. "My husband and children have always encouraged me to pursue my goals wholeheartedly. My parents instilled in me perseverance and integrity, which continue to guide me as a leader."

Turning to the future, Mai's outlook for Ho Chi Minh City's hospitality market is bright. "The market is growing rapidly, driven by international arrivals and a renewed interest in authentic, sustainable travel experiences," she observes. Guests, she says, increasingly seek deeper cultural connections and personalised service. "Technology will enhance guest experiences, but the human touch, the warmth and attentiveness that define Vietnamese hospitality, will remain irreplaceable."

"Effective leadership is about bringing people together and creating shared success." — Tran Viet Mai

As our conversation draws to a close, Mai reflects on what truly defines Vietnamese hospitality. "It's deeply rooted in warmth, generosity, and respect," she says with a smile. "We treat our guests as part of our extended family. That sense of community runs through every gesture, from a genuine smile at check-in to the personalised touches that make each stay memorable."

In Tran Viet Mai's words and work, the spirit of Vietnamese hospitality comes vividly to life, one grounded in empathy, shaped by resilience, and led by women who redefine what leadership truly means.

I'll be honest with you. Nothing lights a fire in me faster than watching brilliant women stay invisible.

I see it all the time. Women build incredible businesses, pour their hearts and souls into their clients, create results that are nothing short of life-changing, and yet, outside their circle? Silence. No speaking invitations. No major features. No big doors opening. All that effort, and it feels like a whisper in a crowded room. Easily drowned out. Easily overlooked.

And it breaks my heart, because these women aren't just "good". They're extraordinary.

For a while, I believed community alone was the answer. And don't get me wrong, it's powerful. In less than two years, I built one of the largest and most engaged Facebook groups for women-led businesses: 100,000+ members strong, with an overall reach of 1.5 million people. Every day I watch women connect, collaborate, and expand their visibility faster and further through the power of community.

But even in a group as powerful as ours, I began to see a pattern. Brilliant women were showing up, getting visible, making connections. Yet they were still playing it safe. Working tirelessly just to hold their ground, when I knew they were meant to lead the field, own the spotlight, and change the conversation entirely.

And then it hit me: I was doing the exact same thing.

I realised I was still playing small. I had built a massive audience, created a powerful platform for women entrepreneurs, and helped hundreds of businesses grow. Yet when it came to having my own authority recognised beyond my community, in the rooms where bigger opportunities were being decided, I wasn't showing up the way I could. I was relying on social visibility alone, when deep down I knew credibility on a global stage was what opened the next level of doors. Not just for me, but for the women I serve.

That's when I made a decision: no more playing small. No more waiting for someone else to hand me the spotlight. I claim it. And I make it my mission to help other women claim theirs too.

That's why I built my Premium PR Service inside Go-DBM™.

Because nothing shifts your authority like being featured in top-tier media outlets. Forbes. Entrepreneur. Business Insider. Yahoo Finance. The moment your story appears in the right media, everything shifts. You're no longer stuck explaining why you're qualified, because the world already sees it. Clients stop hesitating and start trusting you before you even step into the room. Doors you didn't even know existed begin to open. Podcast interviews, speaking opportunities, collaborations, and dream clients sliding straight into your inbox. It's the kind of visibility that doesn't just elevate your brand; it changes the trajectory of your entire business.

I know, because I live it. And I watch it transform my clients' businesses too.

I've already helped clients land features in some of the most trusted outlets in the world, including Forbes and Entrepreneur. Those placements instantly positioned them as thought leaders in their industries and opened doors that social media alone could never unlock. From new leads to podcast invitations, speaking opportunities, and bigger contracts, their visibility changed, and so did the trajectory of their businesses.

That is the power of smart, strategic PR. Not fluff. Not vanity. Just intentional visibility in the places that matter most.

And I want that for you.

Visibility isn't about ego. It's about impact. It's about women stepping into their authority and finally being recognised as the powerhouses they already are.

So let me ask you: are you done being your industry's best-kept secret? Are you ready to claim your seat at the table and finally step into the authority you've worked so hard to build? Most importantly, are you ready for your "as seen in" moment? The kind of visibility that changes everything?

If your answer is even a whisper of yes, then now is the time. Because visibility isn't a grind. It's powerful. It's magnetic. And honestly, it's quite fabulous.

Crafting Sacred Spaces with Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Spirit

Creating an altar is a deeply personal and creative practice, offering a sacred space to connect with nature, spirituality, and intention. The Elemental Altar Easy Builder's Guide serves as your step-by-step companion to designing altars that reflect the five elemental energies: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Spirit.

Each element carries unique qualities, inviting you to explore textures, colours, objects, and rituals that align with your spiritual practice and the changing seasons.

Understanding the Elements

Earth represents grounding, stability, and abundance. It connects us to nature and the physical world.

Water symbolises emotions, intuition, and flow. It cleanses and nourishes the soul.

Fire embodies transformation, passion, and vitality. It brings light and warmth to your spiritual practice.

Air stands for clarity, inspiration, and communication. It encourages mindful thought and new ideas.

Spirit represents unity and the divine, weaving all the elements together in harmony.

Designing Your Altar

Each altar can be crafted to reflect a single element or a combination of several, depending on your intention.

Step 1: Choose the Purpose. Is your altar for meditation, manifestation, seasonal celebration, or daily grounding? You could use it as a place to keep your special crystals, display flowers in a vase, or draw an oracle card to place within the space. This area is meant to represent balance, beauty, and flow, drawing on principles of feng shui. A water feature, or a small bowl of water with herbs such as sage, can bring aromatic energies into the mix.

Step 2: Select the Location. Indoors or outdoors, your altar should feel calm, sacred, and aligned with your practice. It might be a quiet corner of your home where you often reflect, read, or pause for thought, somewhere you can bring warmth and personal touches.

Step 3: Gather Elemental Objects. Each element can be represented through symbolic items. Earth: crystals, stones, plants, soil, or wooden objects. Water: driftwood, kelp, shells, bowls of water, chalices, or imagery of rivers and oceans. Fire: candles, lanterns, sun imagery, or red and orange fabrics. Air: feathers, incense, bells, or written affirmations. Spirit: sacred symbols, a personal talisman, or representations of divine energy, perhaps a favourite goddess such as Quan Yin, Athena, or Isis. These add a timeless layer of history and joy to your altar.

Working with the Seasons

Altars come alive when they reflect the rhythm of nature. Spring: fresh flowers, seeds, and greenery to honour new beginnings. Summer: vibrant colours, sun imagery, and symbols of vitality and freedom. Autumn: earthy tones, fallen leaves, and harvest symbols to inspire gratitude. Winter: candles, crystals, evergreen branches, and moss to bring warmth and reflection.

Collecting & Crafting Items

Part of the joy of altar-building is curating your sacred objects. Collect natural treasures on walks, stones, shells, and feathers are all useful. You might also handcraft simple ritual tools, or explore thrift shops, flea markets, and seasonal fairs for unique finds such as candles, incense, and crystals.

Good luck with your altar space, let it be a reflection of your symbology, imagination, and the sacred connection you are creating.

I come from a long line of women who never accepted "no" as the final answer.

My great-grandmother raised eleven children in rural Australia. My grandmother longed to study astrophysics at Adelaide University but was rejected, not for lack of brilliance but because of her gender. She topped the state exams in mathematics, yet she was offered medicine instead and told to "come back when she was older". She never returned. Life carried her elsewhere, and she married my grandfather, a man ahead of his time who believed possibility should never be limited by gender.

Together, they raised five pioneering children. One developed an extraction process from native desert plants that laid the foundation for early global sunscreen. My mother became a rural legend, a doctor who cared for patients in a remote part of Australia, and flew a Tiger Moth for fun in her spare time.

From them, I inherited more than DNA. I inherited a way of being: that curiosity opens doors; that resourcefulness turns obstacles into pathways; that there is always another way.

These lessons began on the farm where I grew up. The wide skies and long silences taught me to listen. Boarding school taught me independence and adaptability. Becoming an exchange student showed me how deeply culture shapes who we are and how much there is to gain when we lean into difference.

I began to see that brilliance exists everywhere, irrespective of where you are born, the language you speak, or the culture you inherit.

Those insights carried into my teaching career. In the early 1990s, when the Australian government introduced the Languages Other Than English initiative, I was tasked with bringing Spanish to a rural school more than 800 kilometres from the nearest Hispanic influence. The resources I was given were irrelevant to my students' world. If I had followed them, I would have lost the class, and quite frankly, myself!

So, I co-created something new with my students. Together, we built lessons that made sense to them, drawing connections between their rural realities and global ideas. Spanish thrived in that school for 30 years, influencing state policy and trickling into the national curriculum.

That became my quiet mantra: there is always more than one way to do anything.

Years later, when my body began to fail me, my eyesight, hearing, even swallowing, I had to lead myself again. Teaching full time was no longer possible, and I faced the unsettling question: what now?

So, I followed my curiosity.

I immersed myself in the world of digital marketing, exploring organic visibility, content strategy, and the ways people connect online. As my body healed and my energy returned, my desire to create something meaningful grew stronger. That is how Global QI was born.

I envisioned a space where everyone could be seen, regardless of budget, geography, or status. A weekly online shopping catalogue where clickable ads lead directly to vendors' chosen destinations. A place where charities sit alongside innovators, where visibility is not bought but shared.

Global QI stands on two principles. Collective amplification: when one business shares the catalogue, everyone benefits. A boutique in Byron Bay might find a customer in Berlin. A family-owned farm in outback Australia might reach a retailer in Toronto. Pride in participation: there is deep satisfaction in knowing that by sharing someone else's brilliance, you are helping to build their dream while building your own.

In just six months, Global QI has grown from monthly to weekly editions. And this is only the beginning.

A weekly online shopping catalogue where clickable ads lead directly to vendors' chosen destinations. A place where charities sit alongside innovators, where visibility is not bought but shared.

Because this is not just about products or sales. It is about creating access. It is about exchanging ideas. It is about recognising the brilliance in every corner of the globe.

My daughters now carry this pioneering spirit forward. One works remotely while travelling the world when she feels like it, living a life I could only dream of at her age. Online business was barely an idea when I was her age; now it is her passport.

This is what I want for everyone: the freedom to live your wildest dream, even when it defies convention, even when it makes no sense to anyone else.

If I have learned anything from the women before me, from the farm I grew up on, from the classrooms I taught in, and from the cultures I explored, it is this: there is always another way.

Global QI is mine. What will yours be?

By the time I was ten years old, I already knew I wanted to be a journalist. While other kids were dreaming of riding horses or becoming doctors or teachers or astronauts, I was lost in library aisles, reading newspapers and watching 60 Minutes, utterly captivated by the likes of Ray Martin, Jana Wendt, and George Negus. Their voices, calm, curious, cutting through the noise, showed me that asking questions wasn't an annoying trait to upset adults but a powerful tool to find out more.

In 1971, not long after I was born, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser coined the saying, "Life wasn't meant to be easy, my child, but take courage: it can be delightful." I often wonder if he was talking directly to me. By the age of ten, I'd been to four primary schools. By seventeen, I'd moved house over 98 times and fled Tasmania with my mum and little sister to escape a violent stepfather. As the new kid, I was bullied, isolated, and uncertain. Books and words became my refuge. That's where my love for storytelling began. To start with, it wasn't a career goal, I always found books and stories to be a safe space. Storytelling, writing poems and short stories was, for me, a survival instinct. I loved researching and telling stories so much, I'd make my Nan take me to the library on school holidays so I could write reports, which I think she was the only one to read.

From Newsrooms to Navigating Trauma

I got my first job in a newsroom when I was fifteen. It wasn't glamorous, but it was me. My first story was about the local school fair. I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Over time, I wrote for Fairfax, News Ltd, Forklift Action, Sydney Business Review, and The Senior. I led columns before women were really allowed to lead columns. I told stories about innovators and aged care and abuse and illness, real, human stuff, before clickbait and the "look at me" culture.

While I may have left the media industry, initially because an editor told me I was too 'gregarious' for their paper, the buzz of the newsroom and digging into a story never left me.

After being headhunted for a greenfields role in corporate comms, I arrived at work one day only to be told my role was no longer viable due to a 'financial restructure.'

Here's something they don't teach you in J-school: how to come back from rock bottom.

At 43, I was made redundant, one of thousands when the Queensland government swung its axe on public service jobs. I spiralled. No job, no plan, just the awareness that I had to do something. A mate dragged me to a seminar on webinars, and that elbow in the ribs forced me to see I still had value. I knew things. PR, media, storytelling.

That weekend, I started a new business with zero idea how to run a business. I had no business plan, just a laptop and my love for stories. That's how Publicity Genie was born.

From PR to Profile Building to Awards Writing

The business grew. I helped hundreds of small businesses get noticed. I wrote hundreds of articles, pitched to the media and extracted stories from many who didn't think they had anything worth sharing. Somewhere in there, I became the woman behind the curtains, helping others step into the spotlight while neglecting myself. The media industry changed and it became harder to get good stories published. I was ready to throw in the towel and get a job at the local hardware store.

It was time to adapt again. Again!

Reflecting on the work I'd done in corporate comms, writing award submissions for C-Suite executives, I started to wonder why it wouldn't work for my clients. So I changed my approach. I used my storytelling abilities, curious mind and journalism skills to focus on business awards. Although I didn't factor in how many people I'd have to help overcome imposter syndrome first.

What a pesky thing imposter syndrome is. There are so many amazing and talented human beings who doubt themselves and their abilities. It's one of the biggest scourges in business and workplaces. Sometimes I have to assure people many times that they are, in fact, amazing. It is not until they see it written on the screen and see themselves through someone else's eyes that they start to believe what they are doing is making an impact and difference.

Being good at something doesn't mean it'll be smooth sailing. I co-founded an agency in 2020 that scaled quickly, too quickly. Systems overtook storytelling. I found myself being squeezed out of my own creation and the IP built from ten years in business.

The business that once felt like an extension of my soul became something I barely recognised. I walked away. Not because I wanted to, but because staying was slowly killing my creativity and my health.

Surgery, Setbacks, and Starting Over

There's a hidden part of my success, behind the awards I've won for my work and the businesses I've helped. For years, I battled endometriosis, Hashimoto's, eczema, chronic ear infections that resulted in hearing loss, and burnout. Working like a fiend, my weight ballooned.

I avoided photos, skipped speaking gigs, and let imposter syndrome settle in like a toxic flatmate. By 2020, I weighed 139kg and felt invisible in my own life. I was teaching others how to shine while I was hiding in plain sight.

In 2021, I had weight loss surgery. And no, it wasn't a shortcut. It was gruelling. It was bone broth and self-doubt and seven dress sizes down before I finally saw myself again. The physical change brought clarity, emotional, business clarity and life clarity.

All these changes gave me the courage to go solo again. Within two months, I was earning more than I ever had at the agency. Clients came back, not because of logos or systems, but because of me. Because I care and I show up.

Part of this big life change was selling everything we owned to move to Bali, to live a different life and have more adventures. Life cannot just be about work.

The Power of Walking Away

People think walking away is a weakness. It's not. Sometimes, it's the strongest move you can make. I've walked away from a business built on my IP, my words, and blood, sweat, and sanity. It nearly broke me. Lawyers were involved. Accusations were flung. I got locked out of my own systems. All I left with was £4,000 and my dignity, well, what was left of my dignity. It was tattered when the dust settled.

What I've rebuilt is better. I work with clients I love and write pieces that light me up. Through it all, I've stayed true to the same mission: telling stories that matter.

Success isn't just what you've built. It's what you've survived. It's the women I've helped find their voice. It's the stories that gave someone the courage to step into the arena. It's the ripple effect of truth-telling in a world of going viral, filters and pouting.

Know This For Sure

I'm not everyone's cup of tea. I've called out ego-driven execs, survived gaslighting, and ignored the horrible voice in my head more times than I can count. But I keep showing up. I keep writing and dropping breadcrumb stories because someone, somewhere, is watching, and they're ready to believe in themselves too.

I'll never stop doing this work. Because words saved me. Now I use them to save others.