It has almost been one whole month since I left my job. Twenty seven days and counting.

And here I am, now slowly figuring out what on earth to do next.

Before I dive into my jumble of ideas and plans, let me answer this:

Why did I leave?

After mum died last November, I returned to my marketing job at the end of January, on a part time basis. 3 days a week. I was studying to be a pilates teacher around this. My new shorter work week enabled me to manage the rollercoaster of emotions that came with grief, as well as the little cups of stress that would come with work - like it does with any job. I was happy with this balance. I could pay the bills, lead a comfortable life, and learn a new skill. I wasn’t earning the same by any means, but you know, it really made me realise that I actually don’t need a tonne of money to live off. This was the first realisation something inside me was changing…

It wasn't that I stopped wanting things. I still have big dreams, I’ve just noticed the shape of them has changed. It used to be about the number, being the first person in my family to hit millionaire status, chasing a figure just to prove I could reach it. Now it's less about how much I earn and more about how I actually want to live, closer to nature, slower, with space around me. Turns out that still costs money. It's just no longer the point of the whole thing.

Then June came, and I knew that at some point I'd be asked to return full time. When that conversation finally arrived, my gut told me I simply wasn't ready. Losing mum had shifted my priorities completely, and I knew full time work wasn't going to make me happy right now.

So I made the brave leap and handed in my notice.

This isn’t some big dramatic girl leaves corporate job to chase financial freedom story. It’s the tame version.

I’m 37. My sister’s first response when I told her I’d quit was, “what, again?” I have a habit of leaving full time jobs to experiment with my career and dabble in running my own businesses. Life is too short to stay on one path when you’re unhappy, and I’m all for changing direction and screaming PLOT TWIST out loud.

In the past, leaving the safety net of a nine to five has felt whimsical and carefree, and in hindsight, a little naive at times too. This time feels different, and I think it’s taken me a while to work out why. There’s an age thing sitting underneath it, this quiet sense that by 37 I should have my life sorted, whatever that even means. There’s a societal thing too, being unmarried, not having kids, and here I am leaving a job again, as if I haven’t already spent my twenties and thirties doing exactly that. I don’t believe there’s one straight road to happiness, I never have, but there’s still a part of me that whispers, god, is this my last real shot at getting it right. It’s a strange feeling to sit with, even when my gut is completely certain this is exactly what I’m meant to be doing, carving out my own different path again.

It doesn’t feel like the same recklessness I had in my twenties either, because for the first time in my life I’m in a genuinely stable, happy relationship, and I want to do right by that. There’s more riding on this than there used to be. I’ve got plans, real ones, and someone I love watching me build them, and that changes the weight of every decision in a way it never used to.

Do I have a plan this time? Yes and no. And when I say yes, it’s a very, very loose yes.

The week after I left the office, I boarded a flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia, the most beautiful place, I genuinely didn’t want to leave. It was exactly what my nervous system needed. The first few days I struggled to switch off and grief crept in, it being my first holiday without mum, but eventually I leant fully into it. Kayaking, boat trips, running along the coast, gorgeous food and cocktails. Everything you could want from a summer holiday. And yes, I debated becoming a travel influencer for about five minutes. Who hasn’t.

Then I landed back in the UK with this epic vision of myself at my desk, pristine new self employed schedule, all systems go, rolling straight into building my £10k month system alongside qualifying as a Mat Pilates instructor. Very main character energy. Except the universe had other ideas, because that first week back was never actually going to be about desks and schedules, it was going to be about surviving my Mat Pilates assessment, which absolutely consumed me in the best way, and which I passed, by the way, more on that whole journey soon because it deserves its own moment in the spotlight.

Which meant this week, right now, was meant to be the real debut.

The actual first week of going all in on being self employed. And in true Zoe Newlove style, it is not going to plan. Here I am, no assessment left to study for, no holiday to land from, and instead I’m bouncing between a walk in centre and A&E, dealing with an infected insect bite that has decided to turn itself into a full blown abscess, right on my bum, obviously, because subtlety has never really been my thing. I can’t sit at my desk. I can’t exercise. I can’t really wear clothes without wanting to cry. I can’t drive myself anywhere. A very glamorous start to the soft life I’d been picturing.

Somewhere between the holiday high and the assessment nerves and now the antibiotics, I’ve noticed something about myself that I don’t particularly love. I’ve been putting pressure on myself to match my old part time salary before this month is even out, and if I’m honest with you, and with myself, that simply isn’t happening. Instead of just accepting that and moving on, I’ve caught myself being so much harder on me than I would ever be on a friend sat in this exact spot. I’m back from Croatia less than two weeks. I’ve qualified in a whole new skill. I’ve had conversations with four different pilates studios about picking up classes. I’ve already got two small social media clients on retainer and a monthly workshop contract nicely ticking along in the background. That’s not nothing. That’s actually rather a lot for two weeks and an abscess.

The content plan I’d built up so beautifully in my head, the vision boarding day, the journaling, the fitness routine slotting neatly into place, none of it has unfolded the way I imagined it would. And I think I just needed to write that down plainly, rather than dress it up as something it isn’t.

There’s a book I return to every single time I find myself in a moment like this one, called The Surrender Experiment, and it always reminds me that the answer isn’t to force a plan into existence, it’s to slow right down and actually listen to the nudges. Which, funnily enough, is rather the whole point of why I left in the first place.

What am I working towards?

I’ve never really had this before, an actual picture of what I want, it’s always just been a number sitting there with nothing underneath it. It used to be I want this much money, full stop, no story attached.

Now? It's a farmhouse. If you've read Yesteryear, you may laugh at this, but I am serious. Or a little cottage with land, if that's what it ends up being, because it’s not really about the size of the place. Growing my own veggies. Teaching Pilates privately, in an annex style outhouse on our land. Painting again, playing the piano again, a home office with a library. Yes, it's an expensive dream to dream, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but it's expensive in service of something I actually want, not a number I picked because it sounded impressive. And if that dream takes ten years to build instead of two, then that has to be okay, because this time around I am not going to become a victim of burnout. The slow life that I crave? I can build that NOW. It doesn’t have to wait until I have my ducks and chickens running around me. I truly believe if I embody the life I dream of now, it will arrive faster anyway. I just know it.

And underneath all of this, I’m still grieving.

The day I passed my assessment I cried, not from relief, but because I couldn’t call my mum. I still catch myself wanting to run every decision past her, the big ones and the silly ones. There’s a photo of us on my desk, and some days I genuinely can’t look at it for long. It only just hit me that this time last year she was starting to grow unsteady on her feet, and I had absolutely no idea it would end up being our last Summer together. You truly have no idea what is around the corner, and that in itself is the undercurrent motivating me to build a life I actually do want, and when it gets hard, because building something for yourself is inevitably never easy, I will always come back to my why. Mum is my why.

So that’s where I actually am. Rebuilding a career and rebuilding myself at exactly the same time, refusing to pretend those are two separate projects. I’ll keep showing up here and telling you the truth about both.

I was the kind of girl whose head would hit the pillow, out like a light and I’d easily clock up 8-9 hours.

That was before, and this is afterwards.

I wake up, my body feels tense and without needing to look, I already know that it’s probably between 3 and 4am in the morning. I carefully place my feet into my soft slippers, which I’ve left at the foot of my bed and I shuffle my feet towards the bathroom. I never switch a light on, I don’t need anything else signalling to my body that it needs to wake up.

It’s probably the third or fourth occasion that night, and I’m fairly positive my bladder does not in fact need to be emptied. I talk to myself, out loud, and say that I am safe and that I can go back to sleep now. I definitely made sure I didn’t drink anything at all before bed this time, not even my Bird & Blend sleepy tea. My absolute favourite is Deckchair Dreaming, you’re welcome.

Then there is the matter of getting back into bed, climbing back in next to my partner who is a dreadfully light sleeper, and the anxiety triples, as I worry that I’m going to disturb him, yet again.

This is the fun part. It feels like I am playing a game. I don’t know quite yet if I will fall back to sleep straight away or whether I will lay awake until my alarm goes off to get up for the next day. What’s it going to be tonight? I can usually feel which way it’s going to go once I am nestled underneath the duvet. If there are no tingling sensations in my body and my chest isn’t tight, I will - if I’m lucky - drift back off.

I’m not.
It’s 5.30am.

Neither my mind nor my body had any inclination to fall back to sleep, instead I sit and watch. Like an old school movie streaming from a projector, playing in front of me, flickering in and out of the darkness. I’m running through the house and listening to the breathing or waiting for my name to be called out. Or any noise at all. Any movement. The sadness feels so suffocatingly heavy.

Now, if you’re a parent reading this, you might be thinking to yourself, I’ve not slept through in years - “Wait until you have kids”. I do not have children so I cannot say I know what that feels like, but what isn’t talked about enough is the lack of sleep that caregivers also experience.

We brought mum back home when we learnt the news of her terminal diagnosis. Her face lit up the minute she was leaving the hospital ward, and she was so happy to be back in front of her big TV watching endless Carry On movies. We wanted to spend every last minute we possibly could with her, and alongside a beautiful palliative care team, my sisters, my stepdad and I, became her carers.

I felt so fortunate I could be there, so grateful, and even when things got really hard, we made the most of a terrible situation.

The night time was always the hardest.

There were always two of us on “shift”. We’d take the sofas in the room next door, and pretend we were going to try and get some rest.

I’d read and read until my eyes became so sore that I would eventually drift off, but never for too long. I was listening for every movement, breathing, any change at all.

We’d often have to get up in the night to tend to mum’s needs, or I’d feel so anxious that I too needed countless trips to the bathroom.

I never wanted my mum to wake up feeling scared or alone, or in pain.

To make light of the situation, I would often say to my sisters (who both have children), that it was training for when the day came for me to be a mum. Except, I just know in my bones caring for your dying mother is just not the same as looking after your new born baby. It could just never be the same.

My mum passed on November 11th, 2025. My role as a carer has ended, but my body still doesn’t believe me. It’s still on duty.

Every single evening, I have this inner panic, this creeping dread that I am to face yet another sleepless, terrorising night. Filled with broken sleep, panic attacks and flash backs.

There was one night, where my partner didn’t take a breath for what felt like quite some time, and it sent me into an absolute spiral. In my mum’s last 48 hours, all we did was sit at her bedside, in silence, listening and watching her breathe.

Breathwork has always been a tool that I had used to calm my prior anxieties (I had PTSD from my dad’s passing when I was 18) and now I struggle to use it, as it just reminds me so much of mum.

Slowing my breath, with my favourite 4-7-8 count, no longer soothes me. My mind wanders and I just think about the moment when you take your very last breath.

Quite frankly, my nervous system feels utterly wrecked.

I have spent 18 years, since my dad’s traumatic passing rebuilding and rewiring my body to feel safe. I now feel like I am back at square one.

There is a grand-canyon sized gap between knowing and feeling you are safe. I have work to do.

Those first few weeks are so painfully raw.

I once had a panic attack in bed, so frightening, that I genuinely felt my heart was bursting out of my chest. It turns out broken heart syndrome is a real thing. If you’ve ever experienced grief, you’ll understand what it feels like, when those tears just do not stop falling and you cannot see a way of surviving without the one you love so dearly.

Eventually, carrying the grief becomes a little bit easier. Not because it weighs less, but because you’ve grown stronger.

My sleep isn’t by any stretch, resolved. It’s a work in progress.

The awareness I have now for my body is helping me heal. Your body truly does keep the score and it will tell you it’s not okay before your mind does.

My nervous bladder & the tension in my jaw (wow my jaw can hurt so much in the morning) is a signal that whilst I am starting to feel a bit better within myself, my body still needs time.

I’m still in the middle of it.
But I’ve been learning what helps - even a little.

I thought it might be helpful to share a few of the things I’ve been using to try to improve my sleep and settle my nervous system. None of them are cures, just small ways I remind my body that it’s allowed to rest. Whether you’re grieving or struggling with anxiety, these are simply what I’ve found to help.

(I’m not qualified to advise anyone - this is simply what I’ve learned along the way. Always do what feels right for you and your body).

The first thing I started to take was Magnesium. I use this one but I also have another that is just Magnesium Glycinate, there are many types of magnesium, and this form is meant to be better for sleep as it helps to lower cortisol levels (the stress hormone that contributes to keeping you awake). I also use an organic Magnesium spray which I spray onto the soles of my feet before I get into bed. It’s in my bath salts and in the Creatine supplement I take too. Basically, I love magnesium.

I’ve found that whilst it isn’t the secret ingredient to my peaceful slumber of dreams, I do wake up feeling well slept regardless of it being broken. The early morning fatigue isn’t as hard to battle. Waking up is no longer a struggle and the snooze button has been retired.

I suppose in the same way you could sleep train a child, I am putting myself through sleep training as having a consistent sleep schedule is really important. For me this looks like going to bed at the same time every night and waking up at the same time each day. After taking four months away from work, this seemingly “simple” routine had completely broken down.

Another thing I really try to do, is to stop any screen time at least an hour before bed, roughly around 9pm. The kettle boils, and a mug is brewed, never caffeine but a sleepy herbal tea, again an hour or so before bed. This one may amuse you, but I eat 2 kiwis too. I read somewhere that kiwis have lots of serotonin, which the body then uses to create melatonin (the sleep hormone) and they help reduce inflammation & relax you. I’m not one of those crazy humans who eat kiwi with the skin on, I haven’t gone quite that far.

If I’m feeling okay, and not anxious, I will do a guided sleep meditation or try the 4-7-8 breathwork. I have to be in the right mindset to do this, or it can end up making my anxiety a thousand times worse. I just listen to my body, rather than pushing it to try something that the wellness space insists on being helpful.

A friend also told me if I put my legs up the wall it can help relax the vagus nerve and soothe the nervous system. So yes, you can often find me doing that with a face mask on and playing “Cortisol Lowering Music” on Spotify.

Some nights nothing at all works.

Other nights, one small thing helps me a little.

I never really know at the moment how my body or mind is going to react or respond. It’s quite unpredictable but I think that’s okay. I’m not trying to rush the process. I am just giving myself as much compassion and kindness as possible. I know in time my nervous system will feel safe and at ease once more.

I’ve realised sleep isn’t something I can force, instead it’s something I need to gently invite back in. It feels like I’m learning again, and not in the disconnected, “auto-pilot”, sense of things but more the intuitive, somatic based learning. It’s an honour to feel so connected to my body after something so traumatic.

And what a gift that is.

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I’d been crying, relentlessly, for about 20 minutes.

Unable to catch my breath, and no one beside me to calm me down. I wasn’t sure if my tee shirt was wet from my run or whether it was all the tears.

Why was I so upset?

On the surface, the trigger was simply disappointment. It took me 30 minutes to run 4k, not 5k as I’d set out to do and therefore in my mind I had failed.

I was mortified, with myself. I honestly felt so small and so pathetic. With each sob, I tried to calm myself down but the embarrassment of being a 36 year old woman, crying alone in her car, over something as silly as not bloody being fast enough…

It’s okay, I can see you rolling your eyes and muttering under your breath: get a grip.

Allow me to give you a little bit of context. I’d set myself up to complete a “6 Week Back To Running Plan” on the Runna app - with the end goal being able to complete a 5k race in 30 minutes. I’d like to just caveat, I am not in any way, shape or form a “runner”.

If you can picture Phoebe from Friends (the famous scene where she is running through the park with Rachel) and combine that with a giraffe - then you have an excellent idea of what I look like when running.

It’s a pretty ordinary feeling one of disappointment, even one of failure. Failure is something I’ve long struggled with, but let’s not unpack that today.

For the entirety of the 6 weeks, I’d ran outside. Fresh air stinging my cheeks, feet pounding the horse path, a little bit damp and muddy at times. I felt strong, I even missed running (never thought I would say that) on my rest days.

Then came race day. I couldn’t reschedule it, it was final. Locked in.

The weather was not on my side.

Now, I am not a fool. I knew I couldn’t run on ice or snow, I’d end up in A&E with all kinds of broken limbs. I am one of the clumsiest humans you could ever meet.

I had to find myself a treadmill.

I’ve just reached that point in storytelling where you realise you’re taking a very long time to get to the point and the other person is visibly bored and going through their to-do lists in their mind. I promise, I am getting to the point of this tale.

Signed up to a new gym. A triumph in itself. Gyms terrify me.

Nothing about running on a treadmill for me is enjoyable. I couldn’t work out my pace, there was no air con and I just felt so HOT. I honestly felt like my lungs were collapsing in on me.

Everything about it, just kept adding to the fierce emotion bubbling up inside of me. As soon as I realised I wasn’t going to finish on time, I just bolted from the gym. I couldn’t get out of the place fast enough.

(What I didn’t realise until later in the evening is that I was getting sick, and my temperature was down to an oncoming fever)

You’re probably wondering: why do you care so much Zoe?

We don’t know each other very well, so just to tell you a little about myself.

Once I set myself a challenge, I do not quit. I do not give up.

I’ve never been a runner per se, but I’d been going to Reformer Pilates for a few years, and whenever I could get out on a hike I would. I love being active and outdoors and it’s quite frankly, crucial, for my mental well-being.

I shared in my last (and first!) article about mum getting sick.

When she first started showing signs of not being herself, it began as restless legs at night and losing her balance. I spent a lot of time at mum’s house, working from home instead of the office and supporting her as much as I could. I also quit the gym.

From the moment she stepped foot into the hospital, to the moment she closed her eyes. We didn’t leave her side. My sisters and I, and my stepdad, had a schedule. It was always at least 3 of us with mum.

When we got to take her home, we all supported the palliative care team. I’m not quite ready to go into detail here, I may do at some point should it be helpful for others going through this, but trust me when I say, your life just shrinks to being in the house. I’d panic if I left the house for too long even upon taking the family dog, Noodle, for a walk. I couldn’t bear to be away in case anything happened.

When the inevitable happened, my world turned upside down.

Running became an anchor, a way of regaining control.

One afternoon, sat in the house only a few days afterwards, my youngest sister suggested that we should raise money for the CJD Campaign charity, by running from Manchester to the Prion Clinic in London. She wanted to do something challenging, something that would really raise awareness around this terrible disease and give back to the CJD team that had given us so much support.

The seed had been planted.

What I didn’t realise, as I downloaded the Runna app, was how badly I needed something to move towards again. To feel like my mum still needed me, even after she was gone. To have something that I could say out loud to her and hope she could hear me: I promise I will keep going.

I didn’t have a plan, just a sense of direction and someone I couldn’t let down.

So as each tear fell, that sense of failure had nothing to do with the time, or the conditions or the race. With no one watching me, I felt completely and utterly alone. As my heart splintered, I just let the emotion pull me under.

What at first appeared as ridiculous self criticism, was grief waiting in the wings. As the ache settled in, it was only when I got home did I realise it was never about the run.

Grief doesn’t need to ask for permission.

It doesn’t have a schedule.

I was feeling vulnerable, and it saw it’s opening and the flood gates crashed down. The body needed a release and grief saw that it was safe to do so.

Not everything that breaks us is as what it appears to be on the surface.

Sometimes we cry for the thing underneath the thing. Sometimes the body finishes something the mind couldn’t.

I felt silly. Tired. Hot and bothered. Disappointment. Failure. Heartbreak. Sadness. Anger. All at once.

And instead of punishing myself, or getting a grip. I. Felt. It. All.

By the time I finally drove home, the car was quiet again.
My face still hot. My chest still sore.

Nothing had been fixed.
But something had softened.

It wasn’t about the run.
It never was.

If this resonated, I’m really glad you’re here.

I’ve of course been resting, reading, drinking bountiful mugs of lemon, ginger & honey, waiting to feel better. Coexisting alongside this has been the urge to write. The words under my skin, desperate to get out.

I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a Substack for a little while.

Like everything I do, I felt an incessant need to do it well. Forever the perfectionist.
So instead of writing and starting, I’ve spent time observing, learning the platform, scribbling notes about how I might begin.

So here I am, finally doing it.

I need an outlet.
A place to empty my head.
To unravel, in particular, the last three months of 2025.

Before I travel backwards, I need to begin in the present moment.

As I sit at my desk, waves of nausea roll back and forth, back and forth.

And yet, my brain is still translating my thoughts into language.

My fingers are still able to type these words quickly, without any need to glance down at the keyboard. The placement of the letters lives in muscle memory.

I feel quite unwell.
And I am still functioning.

My cognitive skills aren’t impacted by this sickness bug.

Thinking. Typing.
Automatic. Unremarkable movements.
Invisible processes we just… do.

I wasn’t always this attentive.

There will always be a before.
And an afterwards.

I, like so many of us, took for granted the simplicity of being able to think, type, procrastinate, move in my seat, smell the candle burning on my desk, and listen to the cars outside. All at once.

But then my mum got sick.
Specifically, her brain got sick.

And all of this changed.

One tiny protein - a prion - failed to do its job correctly. Its function isn’t even fully understood. And when one spontaneously folded the wrong way, for no reason whatsoever, it set off a devastating domino effect: irreversible and fatal.

Sporadic CJD occurs in one to two people per million annually.
It is incredibly rare.

We had one month from diagnosis.
Four weeks, exactly.

And then it was goodbye.

I want you to take your ring finger - either hand, it doesn’t matter - and touch your nose. Slowly at first, then faster. If your cognitive skills are intact, this should feel effortless. As some might say - a no-brainer.

We knew something wasn’t quite right with mum and we had her admitted to hospital. She was kept in for multiple tests, but there was one day in particular where I was truly humbled. The physio came to visit mum and began asking her to perform simple tasks, including the one I just asked you to try. My mum’s hands were shaking and she was completely off target, she nearly took her own eye out. My stomach hollowed out entirely and I knew something was really wrong.

In that moment, I also understood - viscerally - how much we take for granted.

This was all weeks before diagnosis, and I was honestly convinced mum just had a vitamin deficiency and we’d be able to turn it all around.

We then received the news.

This disease humbled me in a way I don’t think I’ll ever fully be able to articulate.

I’ve seen the brain fail before. My nan and grandad both had dementia.

However, when you understand exactly what causes sporadic CJD and the speed and severity at which it moves - gratitude takes on a different shape.

When we talk about gratitude, we usually speak of it as something positive. I’m learning it doesn’t have to feel good.

Gratitude can simply mean awareness, not optimism. Shaking off the robotic state and bringing presence back to everyday functioning - the things that we mechanically, historically lose sight of.

Gratitude can mean developing a deep respect for just how many things have to go right simultaneously, for us to LIVE.

I am learning you can hold both - to be absolutely terrified and deeply grateful.

With very little to no positivity at all.

This journey taught me something my insufferable need to “stay positive” never allowed space for - that it’s okay to not be okay.

We can still hope.
Just not in the way we’re taught to.

Hope doesn’t have to mean believing everything will get better in the end. Sometimes hope simply means staying present. It allows you to keep going, when you feel like giving up. There was hope in the moments when I would brush my mum’s hair or apply her blusher. There was hope as she gobbled up her favourite custard and demanded a second portion of chocolate cake. There was hope in knowing I would not leave my mum’s side and we would get through it together.

Grief didn’t rush in all at once either, it ebbed like the tide, so gradual you barely notice, until suddenly you are knee-deep, surrounded by water. And then, without warning, pulled beneath a wave.

So many emotions. I am in awe of how much capacity we have as humans to hold all of this.

Life is so fragile isn’t it? We know this, but still, how easily we forget.

I don’t want to rush through it… I want to soak it all up. Savour it, piece by piece. Deliberately. Attentively. Not on autopilot.

And in writing, I hope to never forget. It feels like a way of remembering. Of staying present. Of not slipping back into the void.

As I slowly recalibrate and piece my nervous system back together, I’ll document what comes afterwards.