You were never too needy. You were neglected, and you adapted brilliantly to survive it. The fact that you’re still looking for love now doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you. It means the wound is still open, and you’ve been trying to close it with the wrong hands.

That's the conditioning working exactly as designed: shrink, apologise, underestimate, hide. Meanwhile, this entire time, my body (and yours) has been quietly performing actual sorcery, without asking anyone's permission.

Wild, right? I do now. Before I sat down to write this, I pulled two cards. The 3 of Materials (Pentacles). And the Moon. The 3 of Pentacles is the card of collaboration - skilled people, doing meaningful work, building something together. The Moon is about what lies beneath the surface. The hidden things. Trusting the process even when you can’t yet see where you’re going. I sat with that for a moment. Then I started writing. This time last year, I was building something I t

What the most ironic three weeks of my professional life taught me about invisible labour - and receiving. Three weeks ago, James hurt his leg. Badly. This comes straight after I hurt my back (I’m almost fully recovered, thank goddess). Which meant that by the time I rocked up on Thursday to run a two-hour masterclass called Why You’re Exhausted (And It’s Not Because You’re Doing Too Much), I had lived through what might be the most ironic lead-up of my professional life. Let

On going viral, the voice that wouldn't let me stop, and what's underneath it Last week, a post went viral. Over 115,000 people saw it. Almost 2,500 liked it. Hundreds of comments. My phone became a small, vibrating rectangle of notifications, and my full-time job became responding to strangers on the internet. Which I am genuinely glad about. The conversation mattered. The rage in those comments was real, and it was right, and it needed somewhere to go. But by Friday, I was

Capability. Fear. Or something darker. Last Friday I posted this photo on LinkedIn. I asked people to count the women. Almost 100,000 people saw it. 2,233 liked it. 270 reposted it. 282 comments. 200 new followers. And almost no one came to defend it, which tells me something I’ll come back to. But first. Count them yourself. Go on. The two largest economies on the planet, sitting down to negotiate the future of trade, of technology, of the lives of billions of people. Count

On rejection, external validation, and the voice that pulled me out I’m officially in my third week of doing very little. Not by choice. A bunny rabbit. I stroked my rabbit, did something fairly catastrophic to my back in the process, and that was that. Two weeks of lying horizontal, unable to work, unable to move without wincing, unable to do the things I normally do to feel like myself. And if you work for yourself, you’ll know: there’s no phoning in sick. No sick pay. No H

Graduating, gathering, and what's coming next. April, then. I’m finding these monthly reflections genuinely useful. I do things and then completely forget them, simply moving on to the next thing. So taking a pause - actually looking back at what happened - turns out it’s really flipping useful. Here’s what happened. This month, I finished two things I have been building for a very long time. The first-ever public Rise Above cohort - 28 women, seven months, one complete R.I.S

On love, witness, and what happens when women finally see each other clearly It’s gone midnight, and I’ve just spent the last few hours doing something that felt, if I’m honest, like an act of love. Let me explain. At the end of every Rise Above cohort (both the public and corporate versions), we do something called the Sovereign Mirror. It’s a structured exercise where the women pour their words over each other - what they see, what they admire, what they want the other pers

And Why They Don't Want Us in the Same Room I say it in every room I walk into. “The greatest untapped resource we have on this planet is the unrealised potential of women.” I said it again this week, sitting across from two senior men in an organisation, with James beside me. I said it the way I always say it - not as a provocation, not as a pitch, but as the thing I know to be true in my bones. And they agreed with me. I don’t take that for granted. I really don’t. Not righ

I had just written the book version of it. I watched Barbie again last week. I still cried my eyes out. Not sad crying. The other kind. The kind that happens when something reaches into your chest and squeezes the part of you that knows. The first time I watched it, I’d literally handed my completed manuscript to my publisher that same day. Fully written. Beautifully edited. Done. We went to the cinema as the celebration of it. Me, pink-adjacent energy, probably a bit smug, d

March 2026 - Crying, fixing, marching, and what's coming next. March, then. I cried at least three times. Possibly four. I’ve stopped counting. It started in London, at the launch of Sophie Jane Lee’s book Beyond Palatable - which, if you haven’t read it yet, fix that immediately. It’s a manifesto for women who are done making themselves digestible. Absolutely essential. Sophie and I had a conversation. A short one. And she said something that stopped me cold. “The Rebel is s

And We’re Not the Same Yesterday, something shifted. We packed up our colouring pens and pencils, colourful paper and A4 printed pages of Good Girl Deprogramming - Teen Edition, headed to the Sports Hall at Newcastle University, and joined the wonderful, noisy, hopeful chaos that is the Festival of the Girl Newcastle. And we left feeling both energised and more determined than ever. The Room That Surprised Us (In the Best Way) Let’s start with James’s observation, because it

How a single conversation changed everything I thought I knew Sometimes the most important intellectual moment isn’t a breakthrough. It’s a gap. A place where you’ve been looking so carefully at what’s there that you’ve completely missed what isn’t. That’s what happened to me with Sophie Jane Lee. Sophie is the author of Beyond Palatable - a book about women refusing to make themselves digestible for others. If you haven’t read it yet, add it to your list. Immediately. I had

In a world on fire, women still gather - and that matters This weekend, I have been properly out and about. I got the train down to London to celebrate the release of the incredible Sophie Jane Lee’s new book, Beyond Palatable - a manifesto for unapologetic women from an award-winning journalist turned voice and visibility consultant who has helped thousands of women find and use their voices. And honestly, what a way to spend International Women’s Day weekend. On Friday morn

How to protect your peace without turning away from what is happening. So, we had been away in Malta for a week of planned peace and quiet. We heard the news as we were travelling to the airport: the US and Israel had launched strikes on Iran. By the time we landed, we were reading about dozens of little girls killed when a missile hit Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab, southern Iran. By the time we got home, I found myself doing what so many of us do when the world lu

Power. Joy. Self-trust. And the slow end of self-abandonment. When I was writing my first book, Good Girl Deprogramming, I got stuck on a question that seemed simple but wasn’t. If you’re not a “Good Girl”… what are you? At the time, I felt I had to give people an answer. Something neat. Something you could grab onto. A satisfying opposite. And for months, I couldn’t find it. I thought maybe the opposite was a “Bad Girl”. Or a “Boss”. Or a “Power Woman”. Or something a bit wi

An invitation for women done with self-betrayal I’ve been thinking about a very specific kind of New Year energy. Not the “new year, new me” storyline - which tends to feel like a demand. More like: something has been shifting under the surface for months… and now it’s ready to move. In Chinese astrology, we’re moving from the Year of the Wood Snake into the Year of the Fire Horse on 17 February. And whether you hold astrology lightly, devoutly, or with a raised eyebrow, the

How to Stay Human Without Burning Out This week (honestly, these past couple of years, to be fair) has been absolutely relentless. Not in a vague, “things are a bit much” way. In a what-the-actual-fuck-is-happening way. In our WTF (Women Talking Facts) this week, Felice and I did what we always do – we gathered, compared notes, and tried to name what’s actually going on beneath the noise. And we made a very conscious decision. We didn’t include the really bad stuff. Because i

What Happens When You Stop Managing Other People’s Reactions I have heard three or four women this week say some version of, “I don’t want to ruffle feathers.” And every time, I wanted to shout: No. Do ruffle some feathers. They need to be ruffled. Because when women say this, they are rarely talking about being cruel, reckless, or unkind. They are talking about not wanting to make other people uncomfortable. Not wanting to be seen as difficult. Not wanting to deal with the e