Women Who Lead by Bloom

I've dedicated my life to development, darling.

Developing myself first. And in turn, developing the work that supports your development too.

A few weeks ago I was in a room, one of the containers I belong to as a participant, not a leader, and we were asked to describe an ideal day.

I answered without thinking. When I'd get up. What I'd do first, fully present in it. Then work, being of service. Then stopping at a certain time so I could go be in the actual world, remind myself I'm part of something bigger than my laptop.

And the feedback wasn't what I expected.

They said, we thought you were going to describe some extravagant dream. You just described a Tuesday.

I've had to let that land, gang. I'm hoping it lands in you too.

I accidentally, on purpose, built a life where an average Tuesday is the dream.

I'm sharing that because I know how it feels to get lost in the development work. To feel behind. To watch everyone else and wonder if you're doing this right.

Here's all you actually need to know.

Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep running small experiments and noticing whether they make your life better or worse.

Eventually you look up and you're already living it. And you might be closer than you think...

Hop on my FREE mid year review tool and sit with your amazingness this week.

No fluff. Just the right questions at exactly the right moment.

www.womenwholead.us/bloom-in-2026

I love you ❤️‍🔥

Can I just say something darling?

You do not need fixing.
You don't need another program, another framework, another quieter, more manageable version of yourself.

What you actually need is someone to stop making you feel guilty for wanting more.
That's it. That's literally it, my darling.

You get to feel fulfilled by your work, and your life ❤️

My self esteem was so low back then that I genuinely used to question why my husband was even with me.

If I was good enough, he wouldn't treat me this way. Right?

That's the logic abuse teaches you. It turns the question inward every single time.

And it happens at home, and it happens in the workplace.

At work it looks like staying quiet when you have the answer.
Taking the criticism and assuming it must be fair, even when something in you knows it isn't.
Working twice as hard to make yourself undeniable, because some part of you still believes you have to earn the right to simply be there.

It looks like apologising before you've finished your sentence.
Shrinking your own success so nobody feels threatened by it.
Staying in rooms that quietly diminish you because leaving feels riskier than staying.

Same logic. Same inward turn. Just a different room.

❤️‍🔥

This song has been living in my body and soul for a while now.

Walking with the elephants. Not sitting safely in the jeep watching the wildlife from a distance. Actually in it. Among it. Choosing the thing that feels alive over the thing that feels managed.

That line: "Can't live life like them. That ain't wildlife when you're just on safari."

Gang, that is the whole thing.

Because so many of us are on safari. Watching our own lives from a safe distance. Making sensible decisions. Staying in the jeep. Not because we don't want more but because at some point we got the message that the jeep was where we belonged.

I spent years in the jeep. Building a life that looked impressive from the outside and felt like I was watching it happen to someone else.

Walking with the elephants is the other thing. The thing that looks reckless to everyone in the jeep. The thing that gets you called a weirdo. The thing that requires you to actually show up in your own life rather than manage it from a comfortable distance.

I do what I love or die. I should think the same when I breathe.
That's it, darling. That's the whole invitation.

What would it look like for you to get out of the jeep this season?

❤️‍🔥

I met a wonderful woman earlier ❤️‍🔥

I was about to leave the store.

And then a song came on I hadn’t heard in thirteen years.

I took that as a sign, as I do with most things these days. Stayed. Danced around the shop a bit. Sang.

And met the most brilliant woman called Constance.

This is what happens when you move through the world as who you actually are, gang.

Life just keeps finding you.

❤️‍🔥

Abuse rarely arrives with big flags and fanfare.

It builds slowly. Quietly. One tiny moment of contraction at a time, until you look up and can't remember the last time you said what you actually thought.

And here's the part nobody talks about. The person being abused is often complicit in their own demise, on some very sad level. Not because it's their fault. But because when you don't love yourself, you find ways to confirm you were right not to.

I have been that woman twice. And I would not trade who I get to be because of it for anything.

This week's newsletter is suuuuuuuuuuuper personal, but SUPER informative for you to understand the real real underneath these dynamics. There is a trigger warning at the top, helplines at the bottom, and in the middle the most honest thing I know how to say about what it actually takes to come back to yourself.

Link in the comments.

(And if this is landing close to home, you can message directly. You are not alone in it.)

❤️‍🔥