Authentic

In this episode, I speak into the grief that can come with becoming more honest, more awake and more yourself.
The heaviness you feel is not a sign that you are going the wrong way. Sometimes it is the ache of leaving behind a version of you that once had to exist. The version who stayed quiet. The version who kept the peace. The version who made herself smaller so other people could stay comfortable. The version who said yes because no felt dangerous.
And while you may not want to go back, it can still hurt to move forward. You can miss who you were, even when you know you cannot live from that place anymore. You can be proud of your growth and still feel sad about what it has asked you to release. You can outgrow a pattern, a role, a relationship, a way of being, and still feel tender about leaving it behind.
This episode is about giving yourself permission to grieve the old self without making that grief mean you have made the wrong choice. Because grief does not always mean go back. Grief means something mattered. Grief means a version of you did her job. Grief means you are standing at the edge of who you have been and finally telling the truth about who you are becoming.
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In this episode, Steve and I speak about what it means to love each other more deeply 10 years in.
The love after, “I have seen so many versions of you and I still choose you” kind of way.
We talk about how our love has grown, changed and deepened over the years, and why we believe that has come down to communication, the willingness to keep growing together and continuing to have fun. 
Because 10 years in, you are not the same people you were at the beginning. Life changes you. Work changes you. Family changes you. Grief, stress, seasons, bodies, dreams, disappointments and growth all change you. And a relationship has to be able to hold those changes.
We speak about the importance of continuing to meet each other where we are, not where we used to be. To keep having the conversations. To keep telling the truth. To keep listening, even when it is uncomfortable. To keep being curious about each other, instead of assuming we already know everything there is to know.
And of course, we talk about fun. Laughing matters. Being ridiculous together matters. Taking the pressure off matters. Sometimes the thing that keeps love alive is not another deep conversation, but the ability to look at each other and laugh at the absolute nonsense of life.
This episode is a reflection on long-term love, the beauty of growing together, and the small choices that help a relationship stay alive, honest and connected over time.
And 10 years on, we love each other more than we did at the start, because we have kept choosing to know each other, grow with each other, speak to each other and still have a bloody good time together.
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In this episode, I’m speaking into the difference between what the head wants and what the heart knows. The head can want a lot of things. It can want the impressive thing, the safe thing, the thing that looks good from the outside. The thing that keeps us approved of, chosen, respected, admired or protected.
It can want the next achievement, the next goal, the next version of success, the next thing we think will finally make us feel enough. But sometimes, the question we need to ask is, do I actually want this? Or do I want what I think this will give me?
The heart often has a quieter clarity. The heart is the part of us that can feel when something is aligned, and when something is only being chased because we are scared to stop.
It can feel the difference between a true desire and a conditioned one. Between a genuine pull, what is ours, and what we have been taught to want.
And this is why it is healthy to question what we are going for. Do I want this because it feels true? Or because I am trying to prove something? Do I want this because my heart is in it? Or because I have been subconsciously influenced by what I have seen, absorbed, compared myself to, or been praised for?
So much of what we chase is shaped quietly. By family systems, culture, social media, old wounds, the desire to belong, the fear of being left behind. By the version of success we were handed before we ever got to ask whether it suited us.
This episode is an invitation to come back into that kind of listening. To question the chase. To sit with the truth beneath the wanting. 
Sometimes the clarity we are seeking does not come from thinking harder. It comes from getting quiet enough to hear what has been true all along.
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What are you pretending not to know? It is a confronting question because, most of the time, we do know.
We know when something no longer feels right. We know when we are outgrowing a relationship, a role, a version of ourselves or the way we have been living. We know when we need to speak, leave, begin, rest, change direction or finally tell ourselves the truth.
But knowing asks something of us.
It asks us to act. It asks us to risk disappointing people. It asks us to let go of what is familiar. It asks us to stop hiding behind confusion when the truth has been there all along.
Sometimes we pretend not to know because we are not ready for the consequences of knowing. So we overthink. We ask more people. We wait for another sign. We keep gathering information, hoping the answer will change.
This episode is an invitation to get honest with yourself.
Not to judge where you have been avoiding the truth, but to notice it. To listen to what your body, your intuition and your life have already been trying to tell you.
Once we stop pretending not to know, the next step usually becomes painfully clear.

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