Tracy Tufnell left a decade-long corporate career after a concussion forced her to slow down. Now a perimenopausal educator and lifestyle coach, she’s helping women transition through perimenopause with confidence, supporting them to listen to their body and what it’s telling them.

Tracy is a mum of two girls, a trained sports and remedial massage therapist, and has studied women’s health. She founded ‘U Heal U Holistic Health’ after her concussion coincided with the onset of perimenopause.

In this Substack, I talk to Tracy about how she structures her days around rest, morning walks, meditation, and breathwork. She’s open about the ongoing impact of her injury and credits it with teaching her to prioritise herself.

Tracy and I first met at LinkedIn Local Auckland and now, happily, our paths continue to cross at other networking groups. I’m excited to share her story with you here.

Tracy, could you introduce yourself and the work you do.

I’m a perimenopausal educator and lifestyle coach, and I’ve been doing it for over a year now. I help women transition through perimenopause with confidence and clarity rather than confusion and overwhelm.

The narrative out there right now is very negative. I understand symptoms can be extremely difficult, but I love looking at things from two perspectives. My signature saying is ‘be bold, be brave, stay curious, and let’s dare to change the narrative and the perspective on this.’

So why is your body doing this? What’s it trying to tell you?

Especially being in business, you tend to get stuck in your head quite a bit. So I think being open to looking at things from two different points of view, it keeps you quite centered.

I love that you mentioned the words bold and curiosity, because those are two values I have, too. Having the courage to ask the questions and be able to sit with the answers and try and find the best solutions for you, rather than a cookie cutter approach somebody else has tried and might not work for you.

A lot of the research is still done on men, and it has been for decades and decades. And now what’s happening is there’s a quite a big shift in women’s health where we’re standing up going, ‘I want to be a participant in my own health.’ You’ve got your team, but you’re still very much a participant.

Women are saying I’m going to take my power back and start looking after me which is very empowering. And that’s why I love what I do.

That’s a beautiful segue to my next question. What does success look like for you, both in life and in business?

One of my biggest pillars of everything that I do is making me a priority or making my clients a priority. I teach my kids the hierarchy: you come first, then your family, then your friends, then your community. And that’s what I see in a lot of the work that I do. If someone doesn’t have that self-belief or making themselves a priority, especially women, because of the social conditioning that we’ve been through, I can teach you everything that I know, but nothing’s going to land. You have to choose you.

Otherwise you’re going to social media and you’re trying everything. But why? Why are you doing that? What are you trying to achieve?

I honestly believe if every single woman put herself first, we could change the world. And I’ve got goosebumps as I’ve said that. So that’s what success looks like for me.

When I am self-regulating my nervous system, making sure that I’m looking after my body, my mind and my soul, it will start to move outwards and then my daughters will look after themselves better and the clients I work with, when I’m sitting with them holding space, will feel calmer.

When and why did you move into self-employment?

When I left school, I went travelling and that was always my dream. My one-year OE turned into a decade. I studied therapeutic reflexology and sports and remedial massage therapy. I’ve always been in the healing gig and then came to New Zealand and studied business management.

And after travelling for 10 years, I thought, let’s get some stability. Because that’s apparently what you do when you become an adult. And I went into corporate and I did 10 years there.

I’ve also seen on that side of what women are dealing with in the workplace. Women are trying to run a patriarchal gauntlet. They’re tanking their hormones; they’re tanking their health because they’re trying to do that as well as run their households and everything else. And it was really eye-opening.

And then I had a concussion.

I feel like life knocked me on the head and went, ‘wake up. This is not what you came here for. You came all the way here. What are you doing?’

I’ve curated this entire life. This is exactly what I wanted. On paper, it looks perfect. But whose life is this really?

And it was nutrition. And the spiritual side. If you’ve got 16 hours a day all you can do is meditate and listen to podcasts.

And then I realised all these symptoms I was having, the brain fog, the fatigue, the overstimulation, all that bar the hot flashes, because that’s hormonal, was the same stuff that I was going through with my concussion.

And that’s why I say with perimenopause, it can be very scary because you don’t know how your body works because we’ve never been taught it. We teach our young women for puberty, and we give them all the support. We do the same for pregnancy. And there’s antenatal classes.

I’ve found the gap and I created a course: this is your antenatal course for perimenopause so we can teach you how your body works and what it needs for this period.

In the corporate world, what will happen is, they’ll have a restructure. And I mean, women know that past fifty, for them to get a job, if they’ve been let go, it’s really difficult. But that’s when a woman becomes her strongest leader.

The grandmother hypothesis is the only reason why we are here as a civilization is because the grandmothers were the ones that kept the tribes alive.

Our brains rewire for that last part of our lives. Women, on average, spend 42.5% of our lives in post menopause. The body does not do anything by mistake.

It’s really moving to hear it from that perspective. So you had this concussion which sounds like it was the catalyst to look inwards and think, oh, well, what do I actually want to do with my life? Do I want to stay in that rat race, or do I want to create something new? How did you then start your self-employed journey? What did that look like?

The healing journey is very different for everyone. And I had the amazing support of the concussion service, but it’s reintroducing yourself back into society because going from a dark room for 16 hours a day and then trying to run a family again…it’s baby steps. Baby steps.

And it’s breaking your day up. Even brushing your teeth is a big thing. I couldn’t drive, I think, for a month.

Everything I’ve built is you wake up, don’t look at your phone, meditate or journal and you take it really slowly.

Are you still feeling the impact of concussion? Is it something that will have lingering effects or gradually it will lift over time? Can you explain a little bit about the long-term impacts of concussion?

I’ve got really young kids, they’re really busy. Really loud. I’ve got two girls. So they just talk all the time. And I’m just like, oh my goodness. So that’s that hypersensitivity side of things.

If I don’t take my breaks and if I don’t sleep in the afternoon, I burnout.

At the beginning that would mean three days back in bed. And I’m very aware because I’ve now learned how to listen to my body.

When I’m getting to that point I start not being able to hold on to information. Right at the beginning, there was a point where I was cooking dinner and I left the cooker on. The brain’s just trying to hold on to things it needs for survival.

And it’s hard being a solopreneur – some days you’re motivated and then others you’re not.

Did you have any beliefs or thought patterns related to what a successful entrepreneur looks like? Do you think we have that patriarchal gauntlet in the self-employed world as well?

Yes, especially for people that have come through corporate, it’s so ingrained that you wake up and you go to work. There are some mornings where I wake up and I just can’t today because my 3-year-old was up at 4am.

So you have your priorities and the things you’ve committed to with people. But honestly like the rest of the time, you came here for a reason. And a lot of that reason is for play and joy. And kids have it totally correct because all they want to do is have fun and play and do things that light themselves up.

And then if we’re going to run our own businesses the same as the patriarchal gauntlet, well, we might as well just go and work for corporate again.

We’ve got a clean slate. The week before my period I just want to sit on the couch and do nothing. Listen to your body; what it’s asking for. If you’re going to push three meetings a day that week before your period, it’s going to affect your body for the rest of your cycle.

Last week was the week before my period and I did push through because I had a deadline. I felt so on edge through the whole thing. Do you find that sometimes you slip back into old patterns of thinking and, and if you do, how do you redirect or how do you prevent yourself slipping back into those old patterns?

I do a meditation while I’m brushing my teeth and I ground myself. It takes two minutes.

If you had to put it on a piece of paper and it was picture perfect and you were so attuned, that’s not life.

I’m a firm believer of 80/20 because you didn’t come here to live your life super rigid. You came here to also have fun. And that 80/20 keeps you very balanced.

When you do push through and you feel edgy, you know for next time.

It’s trying to let your body know that you’re safe.

Also something as simple as this: a physiological sigh. It’s when you take a deep breath in, followed by a short breath in, then a long breath out, and you do that three times. That took you less than 30 seconds. It’s your body’s way of slowing yourself down.

You’ve talked about meditation and breathing. What other things have you put in place quite intentionally to keep your mental health feeling robust?

My morning walk is definitely very grounding. Normally that’s a non-negotiable but sometimes things happen and, again, it’s just allowing yourself space. I get myself into nature and if I don’t my day’s a little bit off, and then maybe just having another tool.

When you’re feeling anxious you actually don’t care about the science of why walking is so good for your brain. You just need an idea.

A very good example of this was with my concussion stuff. I was really struggling with sleep. My evening routine was so full on. I would look at the clock and it was 8:30 and I’ve got a three-level house.

So, it’s 8:30, I need to walk up two flights of stairs to get to my bed. That was my barrier. I’m just going to push it and nine o’clock came and then my sleep routine would take me half an hour because I would go upstairs, I do legs up the wall, I do breathing, I do meditation, I do stretching, I’d read and I was so wired because I was check-boxing all this stuff.

I’ve had to change my whole relationship and narrative around consistency as well. And you’re not thinking about consistency as such. You’re thinking about what does my body need tonight? And that might change, but it’s not about having a perfect habit tracker that every day you’ve done these eight habits perfectly.

My whole driving force behind what I do is learning to love yourself. Learning to love your body and start listening to it. Your body is divine and it’s giving you these signals for a reason. You just have to stay curious.

And unfortunately, women are villainizing their bodies.

I’m not saying I woke up one day and went, I can totally listen and hear and feel what my body’s saying. It’s taken me a long time, but it’s carving out that little bit of space every day to have a conversation with your body.

Once you start listening to your body and listening to nature, your life will change. We’re cyclical beings.

Self-care is not selfish. And so often women say to me, but it feels like I’m being selfish. But you’re not taking the whole day, you’re not going for massages, you’re not taking a weekend. It’s literally going to the toilet when you feel like you need to go to the toilet and not holding on because you’re sitting in a meeting. That’s listening to your body, that is prioritising you and your body.

Like, please go to the toilet!

If that’s one thing you change, you are signalling to your body: I’m listening.

I believe work can be a source of joy or a source of harm. What are your thoughts around this? How do you make work tip more towards a source of joy than harm?

My word for this year was play. If you’re not playing, go back and work in corporate. It’s so much easier. You get a pay-check. You get days off.

If you’re going to do this, you have to be able to have fun while you’re doing it.

Things that light me up are hanging out with people and doing public speaking. I love all that. I have been known to go to all these networking things and then not do my accounts because that just does not light me up. But again, life is here and you have to keep the balance, if that means you get an accountant to help you out.

Being a solopreneur you do have that flexibility of being able to design your days a whole lot easier. Do you feel the same about working for yourself?

From a family point of view as well as from a personal point of view, if my concussion symptoms are off the chart, I’m useless to everyone, including myself. So I go, not today. Tomorrow.

The time you spend with your kids is precious. Inevitably they will leave home. I’m not taking away from the juggle. It’s real. But if you can carve out 10 minutes a day to play with your kids, I think you’re winning. To me, that’s success.

Again, it’s that ripple effect of teaching your kids that you are here to have fun and to enjoy.

Are there people you look up to in business and why?

My mentors and a lot of the networking events I think that you and I go to, there are some phenomenal women out there.

I follow Tony Robbins and he says business is a spiritual game. You can’t give from a place of empty. So the people that come across my paths at these networking events are giving information or support or encouragement. There’s a lot more collaboration than competition.

I’m seeing that shift where people say to me, we should do something together.

I’ve got some amazing people, including yourself, Katie, that are out there that I can just bounce off ideas and are open for coffee and asking how’s it going? How’s your business going?

Having that network you can chat or co-work with, it’s phenomenal.

Is there anything you would like the readers to know if they’re considering starting a business or perhaps if they can see themselves in your story in terms of the concussion and the perimenopausal journey?

I think to be a business owner you have a calling and you wake up and think this is why I’m doing it.

And for you to find your people, you have to be yourself.

Yes and that brings me back to my core belief: make yourself a priority. Put yourself out there.

One of my favourite quotes I learned from a fellow toastmaster is, live your life at the edge of your comfort zone.

And keep a journal. So six months down the line you see all these scary things you’ve done, and you go, ‘oh, I don’t find that scary anymore’. It’s a track of what you’ve actually achieved, and it’s good to take stock every now and then.

Stay connected with Tracy and check out her coaching

You can connect with Tracy on LinkedIn, Instagram @tracytufnell.nz and Facebook @U Heal U Holistic Health. Or check out how to access her support and services here:

Tracy Tufnell

This post is an edited version of our full interview. You can now hear the extended version on my new podcast, Business in the Bath. Currently only available on Spotify but watch this space.

On the podcast you can also hear the extended interviews with Tiffany Bartlett and Deb Thompson who previously featured in this series on Not One Way to be a success in business.

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Welcome to the next instalment of my series on “Not One Way” to be a success.

Today I’m joined by Deb Thompson. I’ve been following Deb’s work for the last couple of years, and I’m thrilled to share with you her insights on fibromyalgia, succeeding in business with chronic pain, the importance of boundaries and acceptance, and how to build a recovery mindset.

She’s a long one today, so grab a cuppa, a cosy blanket and some quiet time to read this in full.

Deb, could you begin by introducing yourself and your work, who you help and how you support them?

And so fibromyalgia coaching is really important because people can talk to someone who understands and someone who’s trained. I’m a certified coach and I’ve done my training in my particular field.

I went to a fibromyalgia coach for myself because I was finding my other work — teaching — getting harder and harder, and I loved it so much.

I knew I had to keep working which made it difficult for me to slow down when I needed to.

I’ve had chronic pain since 2013; I didn’t get diagnosed with fibromyalgia until 2020.

I listened to one of the best podcasts about fibromyalgia, the Fibromyalgia Podcast, and then discovered they have a coaching institute attached.

And so, to begin with, I found one of their lovely coaches who I felt was like me, but doing better.

Very quickly when I got into the coaching, I realised I could do it. And so I started to have these ideas.

One of the reasons I’d gone to see a coach was to try and work out a segue out of my profession and into something that had a similar sort of skillset as teaching.

As a teacher, my identity was very tied up in that job and it ticked all my values.

Of course, once you’re actually coaching clients, it’s different.

So, the people I help primarily are women with fibro. Men do get it, but the ones that reach out often are busy women.

And that was because that was me. I’ve been in their shoes.

People often fight really hard against fibro. They often have to keep working or things are hard around the home. They don’t really know where to go forward; they’re quite desperate and often smiling on the outside.

So, I primarily work with women who need to change something and that’s really hard, but also learning what it is that they want and need in their lives.

When did you become self-employed?

In 2023. Not that long ago.

I’m still doing a little bit of work part-time at school. I’ve segued into a comms role there which is brilliant because it’s actually helped me.

Our school social media has a much bigger audience than I do. But it’s helped me to learn those skills. I was also a Media Studies teacher so I have some idea about marketing. These two jobs work really well alongside each other.

But it also takes up 14 hours of my week and I do some pain advocacy work for the Pain Society here in New Zealand. I’m one of the co-chairs of their lived experience advisory panel and that’s really important work to me. I’ve taken part in some research here and in Australia.

So, it’s busy!

Does your week still look like a full-time week when you bundle it together?

Absolutely not! I try really hard to not do that. One of my most precious tools is something we were taught that’s called the ‘Dream Week’. It will change and it is a idealisation of what you would like in every week.

But essentially you put in your non-negotiables which includes time for rest.

Without that I’m completely poked. I can’t do it. And so, I always have my diary and sometimes I look at it and go, “oh no, I have to takes things out’. I’m a person who likes to do things.

Or something happens, like I’m not feeling great that day and things have to change.

I mean, you understand that.

We were meant to meet a fortnight ago, but I had a migraine. You have to be flexible and kind to yourself and meet yourself where you’re at in the moment.

Exactly. And that is quite difficult in a business because you do have commitments.

I would say I’ve got about 20 hours of work a week — that doesn’t sound like much to a lot of people, but to me it’s quite a lot.

And it’s quite labour intensive. It’s deep work, isn’t it? It requires a lot of you.

And I tend to hyperfocus a little bit, so I have to really concentrate on sitting down, standing up, stopping, going to have a cup of tea, looking out the window. Finding the things I can do to break it up a little bit.

I’m curious, Deb, what does success look like to you and how has that changed since your diagnosis or since you’ve been working for yourself? Let’s touch on success in general and then in business.

Success in general to me starts with living my values. I really only discovered how to use that to my advantage when I saw a pain psychologist. I think I always knew it, though.

Family things are really important to me so keeping time for that and not working all the time — you have to keep your eye on it.

I think that’s harder now than when the kids were here and littler — not working all the time.

When your kids are little, the school day punctuates it, so you have to stop. But I imagine once they leave, you don’t necessarily have that natural kind of closing.

And just doing stuff that’s important to me. I’ve been a teacher, so the value of money has been a challenge for me. We could probably talk about that a bit more too. But thinking about what am I worth in the business world has been an ongoing challenge. But knowing that I have skills and knowledge, that’s important.

When you’ve been a salaried worker your entire life, someone else has dictated what you’re worth. And especially the sorts of jobs that go outside the workday. You might be doing too much.

The work you have to do to get the work.

Teaching is diabolical for that. And the expectations are really high too. Not so much since COVID, but people go to work sick, and I can understand why.

I mean, I have done it myself. It’s hard when you’ve got a chronic condition because every day can feel like you’re not feeling great. You have to make that judgement call: you go or you don’t go. But what I mean is some people will go with a cough and a cold rather than stay home, because it’s just too hard to do the alternative, which is having to plan all your work anyway.

What does success look like for you in business now?

Are these women in business or women across all walks of life?

I’m getting women who are either working a little bit or a lot. Or women of a certain age, like me, and I would market myself as being that. So they’re often 40s or over.

I’ve just turned 64. I’m close to retirement age. Although I want to be clear I am not planning on retiring from coaching, but my salaried job, so I can concentrate on the business.

Are there other things like perimenopause or menopause that exacerbate fibromyalgia?

Absolutely. And other conditions like hypothyroidism, any of the autoimmune conditions, so lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, or anything that has inflammation in it. And there are no inflammation markers for fibro, but often if you’ve got inflammation, it just makes everything worse. People come with other concerns and then they’ve been diagnosed with fibro, or they’ve been diagnosed with fibro and then they’re diagnosed with something else.

Did you hold certain beliefs about what a successful business owner looks like or behaves?

And the money side of it too, but I wasn’t exactly sure how they had done that. I don’t think I thought they were ruthless especially, but I think I thought a successful businesswoman had to put that (making money) above everything else.

When it comes to coaching, the messaging can be “work with me and suddenly you’re going to be fantastically better.” Overnight transformation, or not even overnight.

And more and more I realise that that’s not living with a chronic condition. People come along wanting to be fixed.

Like, how can I have this chronic condition but still be achieving at the level of somebody that doesn’t have a chronic condition?

I have done the practice of ‘living well’ enough; I know what to do if the wheels fall off. I live a different life. So I have a better life now, but I still have my condition alongside of it. I’ve been doing this enough times to know that if I have a flare, it gets better. And 99% of that is my tools. And the last 1% is it will get better anyway. Acceptance is a huge part of this.

I’m much kinder to myself when I say to myself, I can’t show up consistently every day, but I could perhaps show up consistently month by month.

I come first and my family after that and then my clients.

I also have a responsibility to show them that sometimes you don’t push through what you shouldn’t push through. You have to be flexible.

And it’s not like I’ve run away; I’m getting myself together so that I can show up again.

I love that. What kind of things do you do to protect your energy or your boundaries?

I’m not working full-time. That’s a really big one.

To begin with I was working like a full-timer at school, even though it’s part-time. But now I’m very protective of the boundaries around the time I work at school.

I try and do a little bit every week on my business. So it’s working in and on your business.

I’m also realising that I don’t have to bust a gut over that. If I have a good idea, I can just do it right now. I do think there’s a place for: that’s a good idea; I’m going to do that and then it’s done. And then you’re not spending hours and hours angsting over everything.

That’s another thing: I don’t spend hours angsting.

I have good systems around my client onboarding, and when I work with them I always offer email support.

And I’ve made some resources that I’m slowly building up that might turn into something else.

But I can only do what I can do.

I’m not a big meditator — I don’t spend hours doing it, usually only 10 minutes in the morning — but I am a consistent meditator.

If I can see my days are getting too full, and I have a break in my day, I’ll also add in something called Yoga Nidra (or yogic sleep) which is a little lie down progressive body scan. It’s a real sort of deep rest.

I can relate to that guilt and even a sense of shame around the feeling that I used to be able to do this. Why can’t I do it anymore?

I hear that a lot from my clients, and I used to hear it a lot from myself. But one of the joys of knowing you’re nearing retirement age is you are seeing a different stage in your life. So some of that guilt is falling away for me now. I’ve got 20 good summers. I’ve got to make this the best I can for me and my family.

And knowing there’s a difference between making it the best and making the most. Sometimes we think the best is doing the most, but other times it’s stripping it back to what is going to give me the most joy.

I read somewhere that when you’re diagnosed with a chronic condition, it’s like a watershed moment. You go through and you can’t come back. Your life’s going to be irrevocably changed in some way, and not always negatively, sometimes positively, but there’s a new normal, isn’t there?

There is a new normal. And all the women who I know that live well with fibro — and we’ve got a really supportive coaching community that I meet with often — have said there are things that have changed because of this that are better. People find that idea very difficult when they first get diagnosed.

It’s hard to imagine anything could be better, given what you’ve been told. But I do I think I’m a better person too. I’m a more empathetic person. You never know what’s going on for people.

I was lucky enough to take part in a research project which was co-designed in Australia. It’s for a program called “Our Recovery” and it’s for people with chronic pain. It’s self-paced resources with some peer support.

How do some of those things play out in your life? What have you put in place that connects those aspects?

This helps me with my mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health, I would say. They’re all so tied up.

So, commitment to self is about doing the right thing by me and by others. A lot of people with chronic pain and fibro have very poor boundaries and there’s lots of reasons for that. But if I say ‘yes’ to absolutely everything, I haven’t got time being focused on what’s right in my business.

Acceptance. A very hard one. One of my absolute favourite quotes is by Cheryl Strayed who wrote Wild. She went on that enormous hike by herself in America, played by Reese Witherspoon in a film.

She describes acceptance as a small quiet room. I love that because it’s about this little space I can picture in my head.

It’s a nice little space with comfy chairs or couches and blankets. It’s cosy and warm and there’s probably a lot of books, and maybe a jigsaw and some television.

But it’s small and so sometimes you can’t find it.

It takes a long time for people to get to an acceptance state.

I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar for ten years and it’s probably only in the last three or four years I’ve fully been able to accept it and come to peace with it.

And it might mean grieving. It also might be having a day where you’re going, this is not fair.

Being in the moment is definitely about concentrating on my mindfulness techniques and meditation really helps with that. Self-compassion is a really hard one. Talking to myself like I would talk to a friend, that’s a real practice.

On choices, I can look at my diary and decide what I’m going to focus on this week.

Flexible thinking is not being hard on yourself. You might be thinking: I’m in constant pain. That’s never going to change. Flexible thinking focuses on: what can we do about this?

And taking action. I’ve sat here for 20 minutes now I need to stand up. Sometimes it’s that small.

I believe work can be a source of joy or a source of harm. I’ve definitely encountered both. Do you resonate with that, too? And what kind of things do you have in place to make work and business more joyful than harmful?

They don’t train teachers as managers, and so dealing with other people, at times was quite hard. It was harming my physical, mental, spiritual, emotional health. And I had to do something about it.

There’s no point in busting ourselves to help other people. That would be harmful.

What would you like people to know if they feel like they don’t fit that traditional, popular mode of being a business?

I think you’ve got to be a little bit brave. It’s okay to feel different and it’s okay to do it your way. Nothing’s certain with business. I think some things go off for some people and maybe they didn’t expect it. And other things are harder.

Having your message really clear as to who it is you’re talking to is really important. I do think there are a lot of women out there who are trying to run a business on top of other things.

I’m seeing more and more people who are doing non-traditional businesses in their own way, that’s for sure.

And some people have to go into business or working for themselves as a necessity because the corporate world or employed world just isn’t working for them anymore. So sometimes it’s the leap they have to take.

I would like to shoutout Chronically Ellen Eats who I think was one of the first people I came across who knew this. She had been in the corporate world, and she has had chronic conditions that involve fatigue and pain. She has reinvented herself towards her values and it’s been successful.

She’s got really strong boundaries about what she can and can’t do and she was in a corporate, so she knows what that world was like.

Is all your coaching done remotely?

I’ve got some New Zealand clients at the moment, which is lovely. A lot of my clients have come through the institute, which has also been lovely. Americans, Canadians, and someone from Australia. And I had a client in Europe a while ago.

All remotely. And that makes it easier for them and for me.

Who do you look up to?

My number one person is Tami Stackelhouse, she runs the institute I trained in. Tami built her business around helping other people with fibromyalgia.

Coaching’s quite intense, so when I do a three-month bundle of coaching sessions for people, it’s one a week for an hour. So I do three weeks on and then a week off. I align them so that I’ve got no one that week off.

But Tami’s also taught me, and it’s been a tough lesson, the value of what I do in terms of being a business person, my skills and knowledge, and what I can expect for that. In the same vein, I've also had great support from Rosie Holt of rosie.coaches, who has taught me to value myself more.

You can support people by giving yourself a decent wage, which means that for some people or in some opportunities, you can do something that gives back.

What would you like the readers to know if they resonate with your story?

Your business is your business. It can be individualised to what you need.

Would you recommend people keep their paid job?

It was necessary for me because you don’t get a client and they stay with you forever and ever. I knew I needed to balance that when starting my business. And I wanted to start slowly. It’s been a necessity for me. I’ve had to be really careful about how much I give to both of it.

But that’s also a personal choice and situation. For some people, they might need a really big focus and you can’t focus on everything at once.

Maybe they need to devote that singular focus to their business. And especially if financially it works for them.

But again, it’s not the same sort of advice you’d probably give someone who didn’t have a chronic condition.

You don’t have to make massive changes. You can take micro steps as you come into business. You wouldn’t recommend a complete overhaul?

I think a complete overhaul is a hiding to not doing stuff because you can’t keep up motivation and willpower. It has to become your identity rather than throw everything out with the bath water.

If you can start with something that’s a tiny dip in the water. For me, that was setting up an Instagram account and my email list, and encouraging people to come there by offering a lead magnet.

So that was a ‘dip my toe in the water’ situation.

Finding something that’s really low effort to start. And because I needed to, I’ve outsourced my branding. I did some business coaching with high performance business and personal growth coach, Rosie Holt to figure out how the heck these things go.

What else have I outsourced? I needed a bit of help with my email marketing, so I employed the lovely Tiffany Bartlett, who knows how to do these things. I also want to shoutout Sally Tudhope as she helps me with my website, and she’s just as lovely as Tiffany.

I’ve got Stripe, I’ve got Google Workplace, which I know intimately because of work. I’ve got a booking system which is free, but I had to learn how to use it. I’ve got MailerLite, which is also free for me for my emails. All need learning, but they all work together to help my business be a bit easier.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Stay connected with Deb and check out her coaching

You can connect with Deb on Instagram and Facebook @debthompson or check out her coaching services here:

Deb Thompson Certified Fibromyalgia Coach

This and all future Substack articles are free

I’ve put a stop to all paid subscriptions for this Substack. But if this interview spoke to you and you’d like to support me financially, feel free to shout me a coffee using the link below!

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I started this Substack because I wanted to build a regular writing practice and community of readers. It was always going to be a side quest, never my sole focus.

I’ve come to a place where I’ve decided to stay on Substack, but I don’t want to charge people a subscription on this platform.

This is for a few reasons (and I get that everybody will come at this from a different perspective).

1. I feel bad when I can’t write consistently and I’m charging you consistently - there will be periods when I can’t write because of health reasons or I need to devote more time to my book.

2. I feel bad that some of your money is going to the Substack founders (send me a message if you want to know more about this). Yet, there’s lots I still love about this platform so I’ve decided to stay.

3. While lived experience is undeniably valuable, I want my insights to be more readily available and not behind a paywall, particularly when people’s jobs and incomes are more precarious than ever.

4. I’ve joined the “Buy me a coffee” platform so you can still support me financially if you want to, are in a position to, or if a particular article really speaks to you.

Ok, enough of that.

Now, I’m happy to introduce the first of many (I hope) guest interviews on what it means to be successful in business when you feel like you don’t fit the traditional mould.

My aim is to interrogate professionalism, hustle culture, and the idea that we must go all in when it comes to business.

Today’s Substack features Tiffany Bartlett, a mum, friend and business peer who’s a self-confessed geek and proud of it.

At work, she’s happiest behind a screen helping service providers, coaches and other professionals with their email marketing sequences.

For those not in the know, email sequences are what clients receive automatically once they sign up for a business download or other freebie. They can also be used to encourage past clients back into the fold should they go quiet on you.

She also takes care of the thinking behind email marketing strategies so you can simply log in and get it done or, even better, hand it off to your VA.

Tiffany! Like me, you consider yourself outside the traditional mode of what entrepreneurs are expected to be. I’m interested in hearing your story about how you view success and what you’ve put in place to keep yourself well and to make sure your business feels sustainable for you.

So, let’s kick off with this: How long have you been in business for yourself and why did you choose this road?

I’ve been in marketing for over a decade, and in business for myself for a couple of years. I actually started out in science; my training was in a molecular biology lab. I got into marketing when I joined a global company where I was writing ads and doing the marketing for scientific consumables (so chemicals and stuff like that).

I got into business a couple of years ago for two reasons, really. It was challenging times in New Zealand and in-house marketing is often the first thing to go in a restructure.

I was struggling anyway being a mum and I didn’t naturally fit the mould. But I thought, there’s people out there who need help with their email marketing, especially those smaller businesses.

Can you tell us a little bit more about your experience of not fitting the mould?

For one thing —and I think a lot of parents will identify with this — it can be really difficult juggling the mental load of parenting, and kid’s sicknesses, and have a job on top. I also struggle a bit with anxiety and advocating for myself.

I started out trying to show up the way everybody else showed up, but I’m realigning to a way that feels a lot more authentic to me.

I’m a real introvert, so that can be a bit hard.

As well as being authentic, what else does success mean to you?

Success looks like being there for my sons when they need me, like when they’re sick. I don’t have to call somebody and try and do it all.

In an in-house environment you do what you’re told. Whereas I can now go, okay, this is pushing uphill. I can find new ways to adapt.

Success is showing up the way that feels good to me, not draining myself for a day where I am forced to lie down!

For example, I prefer to write rather than show up on camera, so I’ll focus on a long form piece of content and repurpose it. I still see the value of going on camera and I know connection and being able to see somebody’s face is important. But the way I show up is a little bit different.

What were some of the beliefs you held around how a successful business owner looks or behaves? How do these beliefs either complement or contrast with your natural tendency as an introvert and somebody who experiences anxiety?

It depends on which kind of niche you’re in, but business owners and marketers quite often are a lot more extroverted. And I’ve been told all my life, ‘you’re very quiet; you need to be louder’.

But we have different superpowers and mine’s behind the scenes. I’ve had to juggle all the messaging around if you want to be a successful business owner you need to be loud and bold and unapologetically out there.

And quite opinionated as well. To the point of being polarising sometimes.

Exactly. And taking a stand is very big right now. And that’s fine, even introverts can do that! There’s definitely messaging that says you need to be a certain way to have success, but I don’t believe that’s necessarily true. And I think it’s draining for some people.

Do you think the messaging is starting to change or are we still getting it drilled into us that you have to be ‘out there’? Have you started to see more examples of people sometimes struggling with anxiety, people more like us?

Yes, absolutely. There’s been a shift and a push for being more authentic and being you. So there is that positive messaging. I think it also comes back to our own beliefs and the experiences we’ve had.

What systems or rituals do you have in place to protect your energy at work, to stop you getting drained?

If I am having a big networking day, it’s going to be more taxing for my introvert battery. I’ll plan the next day to be a little bit quieter. Yoga is another one.

I used to go to a class before I had kids, but I find it too hard now because you never know if you’re going to be looking after sick kids! But normally I just follow a YouTube video or do what feels good in the moment – I just roll out my yoga mat.

It’s reducing friction so you can just do it whenever you have the space for it.

And going for a walk, even if it’s just to the corner. The duration doesn’t matter. It’s about going outside, getting the vitamin D and resetting.

Can we touch on accountability? When we go to work, when we’re in-house or part of a team, we have those in-built structures. But as self-employed people we have to engineer those. How successful have you been in creating those structures?

For me, it’s still a work in progress!

I think it’s still a work in progress for me as well. I use systems like Trello and I time block in my calendar which really helps.

But sometimes things still go awry. As you say, the accountability when you’re working in corporate or in-house, you’ll get chased a lot more for things.

But I love what I do. I do really enjoy working.

I use Pomodoro as well. If I want to write a blog, I spread it over multiple days because I know I don’t have a whole chunk of time. I’ll simply put my Pomodoro timer on for 25 minutes and write one paragraph or outline it, and I’ll break it down into more manageable chunks.

And what else do you have in place to support your mental health and lessen the impact of anxiety?

That’s great.

I’ve come to believe work can be a source of joy or a source of harm. And obviously there’s places in the middle where it’s more neutral. But what are your comments or experiences of this? What do you have in place to make work more joyful than harmful?

So as somebody quite driven, I can push myself pretty hard. I think one of the challenges I face when I’m in employed work is it’s harder to back off.

Now I try to remind myself: I’m not feeling 100%. I need to scale back.

I’ve worked out that, at a certain stage of the month, I tend to be less likely to follow through with my posts. So now I recognise, okay I’m pushing too hard, I need to dial it back.

To be honest, working brings me joy. There are elements that are a bit more challenging than others, but I try to balance it as a work in progress.

I love that analogy! All the plants are going to get nurtured at some point, so trust the process. Okay, I haven’t been able to water this exercise plant, say, but I know that that’s coming up later in the week.

What is it about work that you find joyful? What are the factors of work that give you that joy?

When I worked in science, it was very analytical and that’s part of who I am. But there’s also the creative side and I really missed that.

And now through marketing and through email, I can be both analytical and creative. So I can be more myself by balancing those two parts of myself.

Sometimes I think if we go back to in-house, the work is really specialised. You’re expected to stay in your lane. But when you work for yourself, you can veer off and be a bit more creative today, or more analytical today.

You can explore and experiment with those different parts. And I loved how you said that it’s allowed you to be more yourself. I can imagine that feels really fulfilling for you.

Absolutely. I’ve done the Gallup Strengths, and I scored high in ‘Individuality’. I’m a firm believer society benefits from us all being different. I don’t believe in putting people in a box because I don’t fit well in a box. So why would I want to make somebody into somebody that they’re not?

Another strength is Input; I collect information like a librarian!

It sounds like the work you’re doing now honours your different strengths. Maybe not on the same task, but definitely within the week or the month.

What would you like people to know if they feel like they don’t feel fit that traditional or popular mode of being in business? How would you like to speak to the other introverts or the other people that might experience anxiety? Maybe they want to start a business or they’re imagining a different way. What would you like to say?

Absolutely. You don’t need fixing and you’re not broken. Your worth is not tied to your productivity. And, if you do need to take your foot off the gas, it’s safe. It doesn’t make you any less worthy or lovable as a human being.

And it’s all right if you don’t have it all together because a lot of us will say that we’re a work in progress. Business brings that out of you. It pushes you on a journey of self-discovery.

You need to find these ways to align your mindset and work in a way that suits you. You don’t have to follow the blueprint you have in a workplace. You can find the path that works with your brain.

What do you know now which you wish you knew when you first started in business?

Are there people you look up to in business and why?

Locally, I’m a big fan of Rachel Klaver, Identify Marketing. She doesn’t dim her light for anybody, and she leans into who she is. She obviously loves email as well. So, we have that in common!

And then, overseas, Emily Ryan, Alex from Copy Posse and Jenna Kutcher. All those creators who have worked in marketing and email and built a business for themselves.

Why do you love email marketing? And if you could talk to the impact of email marketing, if people are not sure why they should be doing it.

It’s completely underestimated. If it’s done with consent and isn’t one-sided, and it’s delivered in a way where you’re showing up and providing value, whether that’s promotional or educational, it’s a powerful piece.

Everybody wants visibility, everybody wants attention, and then they also want sales. But email marketing is the thing in between which gets overlooked, even though it’s really powerful.

And so, I think email marketing is the underdog of marketing. People think they don’t have time for email because they spend so much time on that visibility piece. But there’s ways to make it part of your process where it’s not adding that load. And I think there’s lots of misconceptions about email.

We’ve touched on this already. But are there other rituals and supports you swear by?

I’ve got my mental health ones which are yoga and walking. I’ve got systems which include repurposing and using Trello.

And the support from friends! Like as much as I’m an introvert, I really enjoy speaking with people in the right environment. You and me have caught up at networking, and we’ve chatted online. I really enjoy that connection.

Yes, I’m an introvert, but it doesn’t mean I’m anti-social.

Do you think another myth pushed around being successful in business is having to get up on stage and public speak? For some people, they will never get to that space, or they’re never interested in getting to that space?

Absolutely. There are very successful people out there that have not gone on stage. They are happy being in the background. They might talk in a smaller group, or they might be completely behind the scenes.

I feel like remote working has really opened up the world of business for people that are more introverted. It’s become a lot more acceptable to meet online and not have to worry about traffic and all the things that need to come into place. I think video calls have made it much more accessible.

Absolutely. The one advantage of COVID is it opened up those opportunities. People have realised you can connect online. You don’t have to hop in your car. And for people with anxiety as well, adding that extra layer of trying to find a park, driving in town, traffic…I hate driving in town.

And there’s more of a push to get back out in person. But you can still structure that in a way that feels comfortable.

What would you like people to know if they resonate with your story? Any final words of encouragement you’d like to share?

Stay connected with Tiffany

Subscribe to her Substack.

Grab her freebie: A checklist of 47 ways to grow your email list without giving all your money to Google

Next guest interview - Fibromyalgia coach, Deb Thompson

I am excited to share Deb’s interview with you in a few weeks. Watch this space.

If you want to be considered as a future guest for this series, or you know someone who’d be a great fit, please send me an email: katie@katierickson.co.nz

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You being here is absolutely enough - but if you’d still like to support me financially, please click the button below.

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A new connection recently bought my pocketbook. They’re a parent of an adult child with bipolar.

Here’s some of the message they sent me. I’ve removed any identity markers to keep them anonymous.

“They’re looking for another job right now but it’s tricky finding a job that suits when managing bipolar. We’re hoping they can start up their own gig so they can call the shots on their hours based on energy.

It always makes me so happy to see people who are living with bipolar, working, juggling family life, as it’s such a good example.”

If you live with bipolar, you may have been told – or you may have told yourself – that your diagnosis can stop you from holding down a job or finding meaningful work.

You may have been told you’re unreliable, inconsistent, not resilient enough, too emotional and your performance is subpar. I know because I’ve heard versions of all these before.

You may have felt like the unpredictability of your energy levels or mood or ability to focus above the intrusive thoughts keeps you from participating in a world that can provide autonomy and purpose. I know because I’ve told myself versions of these before.

You may believe that you can only take certain jobs – jobs that are easy, comfortable, predictable, but boring. You may shy away from any challenge or opportunity, petrified it will trigger stress and cause you to become unwell again. You may choose to avoid paid work altogether and feel like bipolar is too much of a hurdle to landing your dream job.

This way of thinking is not all in our heads. Statistically, we know that people with bipolar are often unemployed or underemployed. We’re often passed up for promotion.

We’re genuinely afraid to share our diagnosis during the hiring process and even when we have been in a role for months or years.

And what about the extra time off we need to take for appointments and hospital stays?

Although employers aren’t allowed to discriminate, they may – and sometimes sadly do – use performance management strategies to force you to leave.

Before I was diagnosed with bipolar, I worked at a major bank as a Paraplanner (I wrote investment plans for people with lots of money) and then an Account Manager for clients with managed funds investments.

As is the norm for a large-scale corporate, I worked a schedule designed for someone else – if I’m being blunt, a neurotypical male someone else.

Working here was a major source of stress and made me dangerously unwell. I often felt like the odd one out as I couldn’t keep my emotions in check. Every day I was hurting myself trying to follow someone else’s values, ideas and targets. The environment was inflicting real pain on my psyche and soul and made my then undiagnosed bipolar worse.

Staying in the wrong type of work can mean the difference between life and death. We know the suicide risk for people living with bipolar is about 20 times higher than the general population. From experience, if I’m trapped in the wrong employment, suicidal ideation is an hourly battle.

According to a report from the Workforce Institute at UKG, our workplace has a significant impact on our mental health – more so than our doctors and therapists, and around the same as our partners or spouses. For someone living with bipolar, changing our workplace environment can save our lives.

I’m not being dramatic. This was the case for me.

I believe work can be a source of harm or a source of joy.

The wrong work can trigger suffering. In my case, panic attacks, suicidal ideation, abusing my medication because I couldn’t find any relief, and violent swings between mania and depression.

On the flip side, the right work can be a great source of healing and hope. It can bring us agency, purpose, inspiration, fulfilment, and a potent joy in contributing to society in a way that feels right and meaningful.

And, of course, it gives us the financial means to not just scrape by, but thrive and give back. The right work delivers dignity.

You’ll read some of my employment history to consider what was it about my work in the bank that made it harmful. What were the conditions that made my mental distress even worse and nearly even pushed me to end it all?

And what is it about my business now that it has become a crucial part of my recovery, healing, and ongoing sense of wellbeing?

What are the specific criteria, supports and systems that got me and keep me well?

A voracious reader, I’ve devoured several books about business and self-actualisation. I cherry pick the parts that work for me and set aside what feels irrelevant. With that in mind, it’s important for me to be clear what this book is not.

It’s not about hustling or feeding the capitalist machine. It’s not about “get rich quick” or follow these six steps for a six-figure business. It’s not about business bros and burning the candle at both ends. Although, if wealth accumulation is one of your goals, I’m not going to say you shouldn’t chase it, but please make sure it feels sustainable for you.

I’ve struggled to find books about bipolar that talk about your power to create a life and living that you love. Even though bipolar has been touted as the “CEO’s disease”.

But when people with bipolar can work and want to work - and this is an important distinction to make because this book is not about forcing people into employment at all costs - we’re doing society a huge disservice if we don’t create the conditions for people with bipolar to thrive.

It’s not just people like me who are missing out, it’s others who don’t get to benefit from our lateral thinking, our creative expression, our hard-won resilience, and our deep empathy and compassion. While I won’t go so far as calling it a superpower, living with bipolar is not all doom and challenge and hardship; it can also forge and nurture gifts, talents, and expertise.

The power’s in the reframe. Reframing the way we see success in life, reframing the way we see our brain, and reframing the paths to achieve our goals that make entry (or re-entry after extended leave or hospital stays) into work more accessible, more worthwhile, more equitable.

While writing this book, and as I’ve been promoting my pocketbook, I’ve met other highly successful entrepreneurs with bipolar both online and in-person. Some who share their bipolar story openly; some who prefer to keep it private. Whether you choose to disclose your bipolar is none of my business.

My point is there are many examples of success in the world of entrepreneurship. I find this heartening. I hope you do, too.

As you’ll read, it took me a while to receive a formal diagnosis of bipolar type 1, and I had several years of intense struggle.

We’re taught that a 9 to 5 job is more stable than self-employment. So much so, that entrepreneurship is rarely talked about at school as a career pathway. But Alicia McKay has argued this stability is a myth and I agree with her.

If you’re employed, you can be made redundant and then you have no other clients to fall back on. When you’re self-employed you can diversify, so you don’t have only one source of income. If one contract falls over, you have other clients who can support your living. You can even spread your wings into new markets and pick up overseas clients more easily.

When you’re employed, your job opportunities can be stymied by your manager; you can be unfairly passed over for promotion; your training opportunities are limited by the budget and what your department values. But when you’re self-employed you get to decide what networking opportunities you’ll pursue, what professional development courses you will participate in and who you want to work with. All these things are far more valuable to me than conventional stability.

This is not about work for work’s sake

In David Graeber’s “Bullshit Jobs” he writes about the factors that make work bullshit: including pointless tasks and meetings; moral injury from knowing you’re actually harming people instead of helping; being employed solely to make your boss or your workplace look more important; and not having enough work to do and still being told off if you don’t appear busy at all times.

This book’s not about chasing jobs that feel pointless or cause you moral injury. In fact, it’s the opposite.

It’s about believing you can pursue roles that are satisfying, fulfilling and aligned with your values. Moral injury, boredom, cognitive dissonance can all be incredibly damaging to our psyche.

A roadmap that puts your wellbeing, values, strengths, desires, and values at the heart of your work.

This book is for you if you live with bipolar. You may be undiagnosed, recently diagnosed, or diagnosed for several years. As a mother, I speak from sometimes painful experience about early motherhood and hormones, but there’s plenty of insights that will make this book helpful for people who aren’t parents, and for men and non-binary folk.

As the saying goes: “Once you’ve met one person with bipolar you’ve met one person with bipolar.” Even though we share similar experiences, everyone is individual. I am white, able-bodied, middle-class and come from a supportive family. This has given me certain privileges – even when I’m stuck sitting on the shower floor barely able to move from depression, I’m still privileged. I’ve been able to access help, and I can afford to see a counsellor once a month. I’ve got a degree which means I can think critically and advocate for myself (most of the time).

This book is as much about life as work. I wonder if the distinction is really a myth to get you to perform more like a machine than a human. And in the age of AI this concern is becoming even more frightening. I’ve always struggled with the ideas of “good vibes only”, “leave your problems at the door” and “showing emotions at work is unprofessional.” We aren’t tidy compartments. As much as we’d like to be able to turn on the professional switch and contain and control our emotions, sometimes that’s impossible.

So much of what keeps me well is found in my relationships – my village, my support team, my family and friends and pets. Bipolar can be a lonely condition but it doesn’t have to be.

I want this book to be hopeful and practical

I don’t want you to compare your struggle to mine or to others who seem worse or better off.

I don’t want you to be trapped in a cycle of “what if” or “why me”

I don’t want this book to merely be some form of cheap catharsis.

By the end of the book, I want you to see a clear pathway to building a life and living you love.

Whether you live with bipolar, or you love or support someone with bipolar, you are not alone. And there is hope.

There is a way.

Welcome if you’re new here and welcome back if you’ve been here a while!

This is our space to chat about mental health, moodiness and messiness, motherhood, mahi and more.

Who I’ve been listening to

I’m loving working to Jacob Alon’s songs.

Graham Norton introduced me to their music. Beautiful!

What I’ve been doing

Since we last spoke, I’ve been up to a fair bit.

Last Thursday I spoke at the Helensville Paper Plus Book Lovers Club.

I’ve pitched another idea to a publisher (the beauty of a popcorn mind – I’m never short of ideas).

And I’m starting to scheme over this Substack: what do I want it to look like in the next six months or so?

I may even decide to migrate to Ghost (like some of my other favourite creators have already done) but I’m just considering the logistics of it all.

I went to Briscoes on one of the very few days they didn’t have a sale. I know, dumb, right? But I needed to panic clean for my uncle and auntie visiting from the UK and I didn’t leave enough time.

I hope I wasn’t hypomanic; I might have been hypomanic.

I loaded my boot with rubbish bins, a mop, duster with extended arms to reach those cobwebs on the high wooden ceilings, soap dishes, a basket for magazines and library books, toothbrush holders.

I don’t mind a good panic clean every few months or so. But sadly the house has already resumed its usual state of dishes on the bench, mail on the couch, clothes overflowing from baskets longing to make their way onto hangers and wardrobes, and wrappers colonising any available surface.

I think as I edge closer to my 40^th (mere months away now) I’ve come to terms with my mess. I still need an excuse to panic clean though!

What I’ve been reading

I’ve recently finished these two books:

Beartown by Fredrik Backman – got me thinking about misogyny and racism and what it takes to be a real hero and how we don’t believe victims when their testimony ruins the image of those we pedestal. And, how we Other people.

“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes much easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unit a group isn’t through love, because love is hard. It makes demands. Hate is simple.

So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that’s easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe – comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy. There are many ways of doing that, but none is easier than taking her name away from her.”

The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins – sure this book has its shortcomings, but it got me thinking about how the soundbites and Instagram reels don’t talk about the second part of this theory: Let Me. How this book has the potential to be more community-oriented than I assumed.

And, let them think my house could do with another panic clean. Because it could (and are you volunteering?)

“Let Them doesn’t mean leave them alone…Here are some examples of things you can do: show up at their doorstep, drop off dinner, help them clean up their apartment, fill their fridge with healthy food…send them podcast episodes that will help give them hope, send them care packages filled with thoughtful and nurturing things…

When you say Let Me, you focus on providing support without taking over while creating the environment and tools necessary for another person to get better for themselves. Believe in their ability to heal, and create an environment where change is possible.

And I’ve started these two:

The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr – got me falling in love with God again by thinking about original goodness (which is explicit in the Bible) rather than original sin (which is not named in the Bible; Jesus never mentions it in the Gospels; yet it’s become a central tenet of Western Christianity) and how we have sucked all the life and joy and inherent goodness out of faith and how we can return to life and joy and goodness when we act with humility, contemplative practice and love.

And I’ve found a hack for getting big box retail to send me encouraging affirmations by email. Add The Universal Christ to cart. Abandon cart. Three days later receive email with subject line “The Universal Christ is waiting for you.”

“Creation – be it planets, plants or pandas – was not just a warmup act for the human story or the Bible. The natural world is its own good and sufficient story, if we can only learn to see it with humility and love. That takes contemplative practice, stopping our busy and superficial minds long enough to see the beauty, allow the truth, and protect the inherent goodness of what it is – whether it profits me, pleases me or not.

Every gift of food and water, every act of simple kindness, every ray of sunshine, every mammal caring for her young, all of it emerged from this original and intrinsically good creation.”

Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose - got me thinking it’s not the book count that counts but how carefully and precisely I read.

“With so much reading ahead of you, the temptation might be to speed up. But in fact it’s essential to slow down and read every word. Because one important thing that can be learned by reading slowly is the seemingly obvious but oddly underappreciated fact language is the medium we use in much the same way a composer uses notes, the way a painter uses paint…it’s surprising how easily we lose sight of the fact that words are the raw material out of which literature is crafted.”

What I’ve been feeling

I’ve been feeling the highs and wobbles of being more visible. But I’m learning to be more compassionate towards myself in this. I’ve been feeling vulnerability hangovers and then the gratitude of meeting up with a friend for delicious food and company and walks around the botanical gardens. I’ve been letting myself cry and not hurting myself for feeling so intensely.

I knew I needed to have a cry after my talk at Helensville Book Club. I was happy with how I presented myself but I still felt raw after sharing my story.

I am trying to model to my daughter that crying in and of itself isn’t wrong. I am trying to be specific about what kind of tears they are.

These are tired tears

These are frustrated tears

These are afraid tears

These are overwhelmed tears

These are happy tears

These are proud tears

These are feeling angry tears

These are nostalgic tears

I used to physically hurt myself when the emotional intensity got bad. Not severely. But I would dig my nails into my thighs or thumbs as a pressure valve.

I’m trying really hard not to do that anymore. I’m trying to find other ways to bring me back into my body. Last week I sat on the front deck on the top stair and the air was cool and there was a light drizzle and I could see the stars and hear the night birds and I was able to bring myself back without my vicious nail technique.

It felt like a big victory. It felt like a Let Me moment. Let Me respond in a way that doesn’t hurt me, others or objects.

It felt like something I could control when I can’t control what I’ve done in the past, or how people receive my story, or how the world can seem so overwhelming and frustrating and sad and anger-inducing.

What I’ve been thinking

I can’t stop thinking about the emotional and mental toll of being un/underemployed. I’m speaking from experience and have seen several of my beautiful talented friends be out of work for months now. And it’s not for lack of trying.

I would like to do a future Substack on: How to be un/der employed in 2026. I’d like to know the routines and rituals that are keeping you sane. I also have a lot of compassion for you if you feel like you are not staying sane.

If you’re willing to share your story with me, please reach out. I can share your insights anonymously or credit you. Whatever feels most comfortable and right for where you are at now in your job search.

On a more positive note, I’m chewing over this quote that I read in a Flow Magazine: “Live each day as if it was your first.” And I can’t help thinking that this could be an answer to the world’s troubles.

What if we acted like tomorrow was our first day and not our last? I think we’d live with more wonder and awe and curiosity.

I feel there’d be less violence and pressure and shame because we’re not competing to win, but playing to learn.

I feel like we’d adopt more of a beginner’s mindset. We’d be more humble, less resentful.

Maybe we wouldn’t be so extractive and hard on ourselves and the planet. We’d have more compassion for ourselves, the planet and each other. Maybe I could hand on heart say, “I’m at peace with my pace. What’s the rush?”

We might pick up on the smaller details. Linger over a daisy in the cracks and the wrinkles in our skin and the bruise of a peach. Sensations and colours would be noticed. We wouldn’t need to escape ourselves and our opinions wouldn’t be interpreted as fact.

We’d ask more questions and listen intently to the answers.

I think we’d be more appreciative of what is rather than tie ourselves in knots of what could, should or would be. We wouldn’t fret over our enough-ness or contemplate our worth. I think we could be more inquisitive and creative.

Living each day as your last brings so much pressure and heft – what do I prioritise? Who do I prioritise? How can I pack enough in – regardless of how and present and kind I am. It’s all about doing it all and FOMO.

Living each day as if it’s your first might allow us to slow down and read every word, to seek and celebrate the inherent goodness that’s all around us.

And that doesn’t let bad behaviour off the hook, but maybe there’d be less bad things if we were more loving, humble and reflective?

To mark World Bipolar Day on 30th March, join me — writer, editor, mental health advocate and self-published author — Katie Rickson, as I share my bipolar story.

In 90 minutes we’ll have the chance to cover all this and more:

1. My story

2. What bipolar, mania and depression can look and feel like.

3. Ways to reframe bipolar – including neurodiversity and a strengths-based lens.

4. Creating kinder & more inclusive workplaces.

5. Live reading from my pocketbook (only a couple of sections)

6. Q and A.

If you’ve always wanted to attend one of my lunch and learn sessions but haven’t had the opportunity, this event is for you.

I’ve deliberately kept ticket prices low to make this event as accessible as possible.

Although I’m based in Aotearoa New Zealand, my hope is that we will have a truly international audience. If you can’t make it live, don’t worry this event will be recorded.

Monday 30th March 2026. 12-1:30pm NZ

Where: Online. You’ll receive a Zoom link within 24 hours of the event.

A recording will be available if you can’t make it live (or can’t stay for the whole time).

Tickets: Standard tickets NZD $29 or $19 for concessions

Bring: A journal and pen and an open and curious mind

This is for you if:

– you follow me on social media and haven’t had a chance to come to one of my in-person events

– you live outside of Auckland

– you’ve been eyeing up my workplace training but maybe you’re self-employed

– you want to learn from the comfort of your home

– you’re looking for something low-price and high-value

– you want to do something different for World Bipolar Day

– you’re interested in a lived experience perspective of bipolar (I’ve learnt all my insights and strategies the hard way, believe me!)

About Business in the Bath

My mission is to be a relatable voice for bipolar: encouraging and demonstrating how to create a life and living you love.

Business in the Bath exists to help people with bipolar – and those supporting us – see and believe that a meaningful, flexible and rewarding lifestyle is possible.

My vision is to contribute to a compassionate, informed, destigmatised world – a world where you’re no longer considered brave if you share you’ve got bipolar.

What’s the significance of World Bipolar Day?

Since it began in 2014, World Bipolar Day has been observed on 30th March, the birthday of Vincent Van Gogh (one of my favourite artists). After he died, Van Gogh was diagnosed as likely having bipolar.

Please send this to your family, friends and colleagues

Please feel free to forward this email to as many people as you like! The more the merrier.

So, I did what any anxious, bipolar-diagnosed human does and put all these recommended books on hold at the library for some not-so-laid-back summertime reading.

Your Auckland library items are ready

But was I?

When I got back from a beautiful holiday, I had four books waiting for me at the library including Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, winner of the 2023 Booker Prize.

Before even reading the words, you know this book is going to be different. With only a whiff of paragraph breaks, dialogue without quotation marks, and several sentences longer than a UK January, this book throws you into an immersive, claustrophobic, unrelenting and intensely dystopian (but so painfully recognisable) world from the beginning.

As Minnesota news guards my feed. As David Farrier reports on ICE agents on the ground in his Webworm newsletter.

As I see memes that read: “Make Orwell Fiction Again”, I’m reading Lynch’s words below:

I can feel the dissonance dripping out of my pores, as I read the words of an Irish mum’s anguish in keeping her family safe and together and alive under fascism, all while I’m kitten sitting two gorgeous gingers at my sister’s house.

At night I’m lying in the guest room of my sister’s house reading this book under a lamp while my blonde-haired-blue-eyed-nine-year-old is sleeping beside me. I’m shook and I’m crying. But trying to do so quietly so as not to wake her. Her anxiety levels are creeping up too lately, even though I’m trying to protect her from the news and my horror as much as possible.

The state-enforced violence in the book and the systemic gaslighting is never gratuitous, but it takes take your breath away and hurt your heart.

I’m not the first to say this book should be required reading for every policy maker, every leader, every trade minister, and diplomat, anybody who works with and for refugees.

This book should be read by anybody who thinks the “boat people” (how would we feel if we were minimised to the term, plane people or uber people) are getting an easy ride and are subhuman and should be treated with disdain. For anybody who thinks humans are “illegal” or “aliens” or worse names still.

This book made me even madder about the state of the world right now. It’s bleak. But the writing is also so captivating in its intricate, human details.

But one reviewer said where there’s no hope in the novel, it’s up to us to deliver the goods in real-life.

And I think that’s all about:

In how we care for refugees today.

In how we choose to speak of Palestine and its people.

In how we see and hold and show dignity to people who have been violently displaced from their homes because of vile policies, and genocide, and climate change.

In how we choose to watch what’s going on in Palestine, Minnesota, Ukraine, even closer to home with anti-immigration protests and the rise of the far right - to not look away, to not numb ourselves, to not doom scroll but to keep reading the hard but real reads, to keep believing that we can and must do better.

Far from leaving me feeling relaxed, this book did not leave me feeling broken and despondent, either.

This book lit a fire in my belly to keep showing up with as much kindness and hope as I can muster.

Cheerful chick-lit this aint; a modern-day must-read, it most certainly is.

I went to her school hui in the morning and one teacher talked about the power of “yet”. That sense of resilience and hope that keeps us going back and trying again when we are beginning something. When it still feels hard, when it still feels lonely, cringe, awkward or clumsy.

Adding “yet” to the end of your sentence can help you face many challenges.

I’ve not made any friends, yet

I haven’t landed my dream job, yet

I’m not comfortable talking about money, yet

I haven’t mastered the bar, yet

I haven’t had the hard conversation, yet

I haven’t found a therapy I can stick to, yet

I want Zoe to listen to her body. And, yet, (ha) I want her to also honour her commitments and know when it’s okay to push through the discomfort and when it’s okay to stop. I got the sense that she would feel better if she went to gymnastics than if she spent the evening on her computer. So I kept on encouraging her to go.

It was a struggle getting her out the door.

I needed back-up.

My husband, Mike, helped by taking Zoe outside and he jumped on the trampoline with her for ten minutes. I admired him for this warm and non-confrontational technique.

We did get her in the car eventually. Zoe made it to class only five minutes late.

After 2.5 hours of gymnastics - such a physically demanding activity but one that helps her feel strong and capable and confident in her body’s ability to flex and stretch and leap - Zoe was buzzing.

Zoe is now tall enough and old enough to sit in the front passenger seat - and daily battles to get her into her car seat are a distant memory. This is such a treat for us both. I love how we can chat properly about our day on the drive home. Zoe found it cool when I told her about the body releasing natural happy chemicals like endorphins and serotonin after exercise. Her face lit up when I said that exercise can actually give us more energy when we’re a bit tired (and I know I need to take more of my own advice, okay?!)

Another time Zoe hopped in the front seat was after I dropped her friend home after a playdate. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club came up on my playlist and we drove two circuits of Helensville with the music blaring full-blast, complete with air guitar from Zoe and me on terrible vocals.

It made me think about the power of side-by-side chats to connect and re-connect. Chats on road-trips, chats while walking along the beach, chats while doing another activity, like sports or arts and craft. These chats allow us to open up and can be less confrontational than sitting opposite each other.

I think that’s a reason why walking therapy is becoming popular. Even if you have great rapport with your therapist (which I’m lucky to have with mine), it can be challenging to sit opposite someone for a full hour and pour out your soul. Walking therapy can change the power dynamics and put you on a more equal footing (sorry, not sorry).

Walking meetings are trendy, too. And I think it’s as much about the opportunities that are opened up by being side-by-side as it is about getting your steps in and being out in nature. You might feel more creative and willing to share what’s on your mind when you don’t have the added pressure of trying to maintain eye contact.

Read more

The reason? Thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign through PledgeMe, I’ve just self-published and launched a pocketbook.

When I was 11 and told my Nan I wanted to be a writer she said: You’ll have to live in a garret.

Jokes aside, Nan was always so supportive of my writing ambitions.

Grandad too - he left me his 1951 burgundy Parker Pen.

“TO FILL”, the engraving goes in assertive capitals, the kind of capitals you’d see on long-form newspaper ads of the 1950s, “PRESS RIBBED BAR FIRMLY 4 TIMES HOLDING PEN POINT DOWN, WIPE WITH SOFT TISSUE.”

High-maintenance pen, but so pretty.

What does it take to fill you?

Me? It’s a mix of great conversation, pretty stationery, the right kind of sustainable success at work, good food (oh this one is so high on my list of priorities - see beautiful cupcakes, below), great people in your corner (and you in theirs) soft lighting - preferably festoon or fairy lights - feeling close to my daughter and hubby, more of life’s glimmers than triggers, and feeling enough pressure I don’t succumb to days on the couch, but not too much pressure I’m forced to spend days on the couch.

My launch party for my pocketbook on Saturday ticked all the boxes. And added another box which you might not expect at a launch party - cartwheels.

It was important that our 9-year-old daughter come to the party.

On the day of, she sat down to write a speech at my sister’s dining table, after we had bulk-bought cookies and mandarins and corn chips at the ridiculously busy, but reasonably affordable, Costco.

Zoe stole the show and the hearts of my friends with comedic one-liners like this: “I don’t know much about bipolar, but what I do know about bipolar is mum definitely has bipolar.”

She also spent more time talking about another book about bipolar, “Up and Down Mum” than she did mine. Granted Summer Macon’s book is a beautiful resource for children who have a parent with bipolar. It talks about the highs and the lows and the potential time spent in hospital in a gentle, clear and age-appropriate way.

She wrapped up her sassy speech with the ultimate showstopper - a cartwheel. This made an impression on my friend Kellie who said: “Katie’s daughter is a beauty and can turn a mean cartwheel, just what every book launch needs.”

The launch party wrapped up a busy fortnight

of talking about my book and life with bipolar. During Mental Health Awareness Week, I spoke at Drowning Prevention Auckland about creating kinder work for bipolar folk, had two radio interviews (watch here and here) and spoke at a church in Massey.

I also featured in award-winning playwright’s newsletter, Kathryn Burnett, where I talked about the difference between writing from the scar and writing from the wound. Check it out, it’s a great read and totally worth subscribing to Kathryn’s monthly newsletter for all things writerly, including writing opportunities, workshops and Q and A’s with established authors.

Coming up, I’ll be featuring on a couple of podcasts - the recordings for these were also done this month. Keep an ear out for my interview on the Champion Mindset Collective podcast with Anthony Dahya and the YouTube channel @smashingselfemployment for yarns about life and work with bipolar - and particularly the rhythms, routines and rituals that work for me.

Would you like to get your hands on a paperback copy of my pocketbook?

I’ve got to say, I’m really loving hand-wrapping each pocketbook that I pop in the post. Not only is it slow and mindful, it’s a great excuse to make pretty paper tax-deductible.

Thanks heaps if you’ve already gone and bought a copy of my pocketbook. If you’re still on the fence, here are three recent reviews:

Right now, you can buy my pocketbook directly from me in paperback or PDF format. Let me know if you’d like to bulk order some copies for your organisation and I’ll make this happen for you.

Buy pocketbook

My pocketbook is very-nearly-almost-but-not-quite available internationally, through print-on-demand. I’m just waiting for the proof to come back from the printers, and then I’ll let you know where you can buy your copy if you’re not Aotearoa-based.

May your cupcakes be soft, your stationery pretty, your fountain pens filled, your speeches sassy, and your cartwheels precise.

One of the many good things about being a parent is it’s harder to fall apart. You have a living breathing gorgeous incentive — an incentive which depends on you to be emotionally regulated and provide three meals a day and clean laundry and drive her to gymnastics and tuck her in with a tickle — to keep life in motion.

One of the many hard things about being a parent is it’s harder to fall apart. When you need to process something or to release an emotion, it’s harder to carve the time and space.

Over the last few years, I’ve stayed home during a handful of school holidays while my hubby and daughter visit family in the South Island. I stay home for practical reasons — two cats to feed, uninterrupted time to work, technically more time to write, and we save on the extra airfare.

But I’ve realised there’s an emotional element too. Over the last few staycations, I’ve spent at least one day on the couch watching Grey’s Anatomy re-runs, crying, staying in my pyjamas and ordering a curry deal — Lamb Rogan Josh medium, plain Naan hot and wrapped in tin foil, Jasmine rice, a can of something sugary, and, if I’m really pushing the boat out, a chocolate mousse in a plastic pottle — to be delivered to my door from the local Indian takeaway. Sometimes I push the two couches together to create my day-bed and blanket myself from the world.

Potato days. That’s the name me and my daughter give days spent on the couch watching a screen.

I could choose to view this choice as rather shameful and wasteful. By myself and on my schedule, I’ve got all this freedom to go on long nature walks, progress my book, catch up with friends, do an extra bootcamp class, read one of my many (overdue) library books. Return my many overdue library books. I could see it as indulgent: who am I to feel sad when my life is so privileged compared to so many?

But I’ve decided to reframe it.

I’ve given it a new name: my scheduled sad-sack Saturday. I give myself full permission to wallow, to marinate in melancholy, to eat the comfort food, and to lounge in my pyjamas. To make it cosy and self-indulgent and, like, proper cry. I’m talking sobbing. I’m talking wailing. I’m talking snot that comes out in torrents.

TMI?

I mean what’s the worst that can happen if you have this crying container once every 12 weeks when you’re alone? You get a headache? You’re a tad dehydrated? You’re not hurting anyone, and I’d argue it’s much healthier than keeping it all bottled in or lashing out.

I’m not sharing it on social media — so I know it’s private and not performative.

Crying and feeling sad is not inherently wrong. We’re not made to be positive and sunny all the time and it’s natural to feel the pain of the world.

There’s something great about doing it alone as well. You don’t have to apologise. You don’t have to worry about being too much (unless you’re a super crier and the windows are open). You can wipe your face on your nightie if you really want to go all in. You don’t have to worry about somebody else taking on your pain or trying to hurry the tears along.

I mean you don’t have to cry alone all the time. In fact, it can be very comforting and appropriate to cry around other people.

But I think there’s a case for crying on your lonesome when you can. Allowing yourself to open up the floodgates temporarily. Trusting that you will not remain stuck in that space.

That being said, I’ve put up some guardrails so this crying sesh doesn’t blow out into a major depression.

These are my guardrails.

• Don’t add alcohol or other substances to the mix.

• Plan something for the day after. Give yourself a reason to get dressed and leave the house and be around people.

• Watch a tear-jerker: I usually find it better to focus on a fictional character’s suffering rather than pick at my own emotional scabs.

• Keep it contained. Bring your focus back onto why you’re doing it (to release something that’s bunged up) rather than allow your brain to go off-piste and bring back every past hurt.

• Take my meds as I would normally. This is about processing; not giving the black dog a free pass.

Talking of dogs, I had something unexpected pull me out of my crying sesh on my Spring sad-sack Saturday.

While half-heartedly watching Gone Girl, I picked up my phone and saw four texts from my neighbour. They’ve got a puppy who’s recently figured out how to jump over their fence. They were stuck in the city watching a show but had noticed, through a phone app, that their dog had got of the house and into the garden.

They were worried he was going to escape and run out into the night.

It was dark out except for the stars. The moon was a waxing crescent.

I put on my pink coat and my scuffed shoes and headed down the driveway.

The kids at the house closest to the road were still playing on the trampoline.

One of the kids, let’s call him Alfie, is an old classmate of my daughter’s who was there for a sleepover. He said “Hi”.

I asked them if they’d noticed a dog run down the driveway. One of the boys said, “Yes, I saw something run across the road to the rugby fields.”

Together with this motley bunch of kids, I crossed the road to the rugby fields and started calling out the dogs’ name. Singing his name to entice him to come to us. This pup is beautiful with eyes I’ve never seen on a dog before. Both a different colour. His right eye a crisp and striking blue. The kind of blue that you’d see on an iceberg.

We called out his name into the dark. One of the kids had her dressing gown on. It felt like an adventure. It felt purposeful. We’re going on a pup hunt.

Their dad joined us with a stronger light, but what we thought was a dog was actually a trick of the light.

After a wander through the boggy rugby fields, my white sneakers getting wetter and muddier, we decided it was too hard a task to try and find the dog on foot. I said I will go home, take my car, and see if I could see the dog with my headlights.

At home, I checked my phone again. Something I should have done before we went on our search.

There was another message from my neighbour, “Don’t worry a friend has got him.”

It turns out, the dog never even jumped the fence, and what the kid saw on the rugby fields under the line of trees was not a dog (or at least not the dog).

But this intermission extracted me from my funk. The cool air, the stars, the shared mission, the adrenalin of worrying about someone else. And, of course, the complete relief that the pup with the iceberg eyes was safe and warm.

As I went to bed that night, I felt myself relaxing and thinking, “That’ll do. I don’t need to be sad anymore. I’ve done my dash for now. My body feels better. Sad-sack Saturday’s closed for the season.”

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first Māori Language Week, Te Wiki o te Reo Māori.

That’s why you’ll see some kupu/words dotted in this Substack.

I’ve been a freelance copywriter for roughly nine years now — give or take postpartum mental health stuff — and this year has been one of the quietest for my paid mahi/work.

I’m doing all the right things — I think. I’m following up, networking, doing 10-day marketing challenges, appearing on podcasts, focusing on my mindset and looking after my Hauora/wellbeing. I even signed up as a member of the newly-established Workplace Wellbeing Professionals Aotearoa. AND pitched a story to a couple of journalists (I’ve never done that before).

Despite things being quiet, I had to give up a client a few weeks ago (doctor’s orders). It wasn’t that the client wasn’t kind, and that I wasn’t getting paid on time — the opposite, in fact, I was getting paid every Friday. And I had a lot of respect for him.

It was because I found the pace too much and the subject matter didn’t light me up. My instinct, or rongo ā-puku, was telling me I needed to leave, and it was my doctor who gave me the push I needed to make the call. I was starting to slip — self-care was becoming harder, my sleep was suffering, and I was more teary than usual.

Still, me and my whānau/family are feeling the financial hit.

I have to remind myself: I can’t make any money if my mental health is in the bin. I have to trust that the tide will change and clients will return. I have to trust in timing and in my capabilities.

I’ve since decided I’m in a season of planting seeds.

I’ve had to make this reframe for my sanity. My kinder voice is saying: “Hei aha atu”. “Don’t worry.”

Like reframing bipolar as neurodivergence, seeing this as a season of planting seeds gives me hope and a sense of agency.

This is also a season to focus on my creative projects, like my pocketbook.

My pocketbook out in the wild at an Auckland LinkedIn local event. Photo credit: Geoff Salisbury

Pocketbook

I belong to a Facebook group for people whose lives are touched by bipolar. Recently, there was a post from a fed-up parent saying they don't want to read another long, theory-heavy book on bipolar to better understand how to support their son.

They want something practical, short, and user-friendly.

This is one of the reasons why I wrote: "30 Things I'd Like You to Know About Bipolar".

It is concise: I can fit it into my small handbag pictured above.

It is practical: It talks about how you can help as a loved one, a manager, a caregiver, or policymaker.

It is user-friendly: It's split into five clear parts, it's beautifully designed and can be skim-read. You'll not get lost or bamboozled by the language or the layout.

I fully believe in the potential and power of this pocketbook and want to get it into as many hands, homes and organisations as possible. It's clear there's an urgent need for this book….which leads me to….

My PledgeMe campaign (running until 22nd September).

To help me get my pocketbook printed, I launched a PledgeMe campaign.

Here’s the link.

I’ve already achieved my first goal of $1,300. I’m now edging towards my stretch target of $2,500. If I hit my stretch target I can:

• Print 200 copies instead of 100

• Get an ebook format designed - making it even more accessible

• Put some money towards marketing and promotion.

If you’ve already pledged, ngā mihi nui ki a koe (huge gratitude to you)! If not, there is still time.

Maybe you’re not in a position to pledge. Would you be happy to share my campaign with your friends and whānau instead?

You’ll also see some great rewards in there - including a personalised poem in time for Kirihimete/Christmas.

AND if you know of an organisation who hasn’t sussed out their plans for Mental Health Awareness Week (October 6th to October 12th) if they pledge by 22nd September, they will get a lunch-and-learn from me, a shoutout on here and socials, and ten signed copies of the pocketbook. You’ll see a special price for not-for-profits there, too.

Before you go, here’s an Insta reel of me reading a section from my pocketbook!

Kia maiea tō rā!

Have a fulfilling day!

It doesn’t matter if others can sleep easy at night. If an issue keeps you awake, then it’s valid.

It doesn’t matter if others can tolerate the heat in the kitchen. If it burns your heart, take notice.

It doesn’t matter if it’s common sense to others. If you need to ask for more concrete information, then ask.

It doesn’t matter if the world deems it easy, tells you to compartmentalise, asks you to suck it up, you be true to yourself.

It doesn’t matter if people can feel better on sun and food and love alone. If the pills keep you safe, keep taking them.

It doesn’t matter if the world tells you to hurry up, speak up, stand up, get up, move up, speed up, you need to be at peace with your own pace. And run your own race.

I call it the bipolar tax.

Things that might not stress out other people can have an impact on you. Things that glide over others can stick with you for years.

This doesn’t make you weak or broken or too much or over sensitive. It means you live with a lifechanging diagnosis and you’re doing the very best to make the most of this one beautiful life, be present with the people you love, change your sheets, brush your hair, even when your brain feels against you, even when your thoughts are too loud, even when getting out of bed feels like treacle.

It’s ok to be aware of this and make changes. You don’t have to justify it, mask it, pretend it isn’t there.

As many of my good friends have said: if it costs you your mental health, it’s too expensive.

It’s ok to plonk the potato down if it’s giving you third degree burns.

I recently had the privilege of spending some online time with the incredibly creative and entertaining Jesse Ratner, whose very first job as a copywriter was writing a poster insert in Rolling Stone magazine for Howard Stern's biopic Private Parts.

He went on to write taglines for other iconic films including Saving Private Ryan and The Talented Mr. Ripley, and has a long career as a copywriter and marketer, working for many major brands, including Google, Uber, Samsung, and many more.

Jesse talked so openly with me about his mental health struggles. Initially misdiagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, he was recently re-diagnosed with bipolar 2.

I first met Jesse on LinkedIn last year, when he was sharing his experience of losing one of his major copywriting clients. With over 12,000 LinkedIn followers, Jesse appreciates how LinkedIn has become less corporate, more playful.

What follows is our powerful chat about childhood and divorce, managing bipolar, substance abuse and sobriety, AI and human creativity, and Jesse’s overwhelming love and curiosity for people in all our various guises.

Jesse, let's crack into it. I’m intrigued to hear your backstory – your LinkedIn profile and career trajectory are impressive.

My parents – if I can start back there – are American. They met at Cal Berkeley as college students, married, and soon after moved to England to start a business – a magazine distributorship where they sold newspapers and magazines to newsstands and bookstores.

My dad was an aspiring journalist, and he knew the young Jann Wenner who founded Rolling Stone magazine. Coincidentally, my very first job as a copywriter was writing a poster insert in Rolling Stone for Howard Stern's biopic Private Parts, which I wrote the tagline for.

My parents moved back to the States when I was about five. We lived in suburban Los Angeles. For a long time, we were in Tarzana, which is named after Edgar Rice Burroughs’ story Tarzan, King of the Apes – this fantastically racist depiction of a white saviour figure who goes to Africa.

Then we moved to Woodland Hills, and I lived there through high school.

As a teenager, I was always a good student. I read a lot. I wrote my first story with my mom when I was five about a dog named Sparky who was abandoned, and the family took the dog in. It was very sweet.

I was really into sci-fi and in my teenage years I was into philosophy. I read through all of Nietzsche.

But I also had fun (I had a little too much fun at times). I was a scholar athlete and played on the baseball team. I had a girlfriend all through my senior year of high school, and we travelled Europe for the summer after our senior year, after we graduated.

My parents had a rocky relationship. They were separated when I was 12. And 13 my dad moved back home.

Anyway, when I was in Europe, I called home, and my brother says, “Mom just threw all dad's clothes in the pool. They're getting a divorce. You should come home.”

I came home. And that was a week before I went to Oberlin College, in Ohio, where my daughter now attends.

At college, I started really isolating myself and getting involved in a lot of drug use, mostly marijuana.

It wasn't that they were psychotic experiences, but they were definitely abnormal experiences where I was seeing things that weren't there.

I took a semester off after a year. I was just not keeping up. And I really had a hard time in college. When I went back from my sophomore year, within a few weeks, something happened.

I’d been getting high a lot – and so were most of my friends. We had a whole culture around it; it was pretty prevalent throughout that school, at least in my friend group.

This one night, in my sophomore year, my friend and I took mescaline and rode out into the fields. Oberlin’s a small town, and you get to the country pretty quick. Fields and fields of corn.

I was going into a psychotic state where I was paranoid my friend was controlling my body.

And when we got back to the dorm, I felt people could read my mind. It wasn't happening for me in a good way. And I was terrified. The stuff eventually wore off, but I didn't sleep for the next three weeks.

This precipitated a tremendous mental health crisis and, eventually, I dropped out of school.

How old were you at this point, Jesse?

I was 19, and it was the spring of ‘91. So I dropped out of school and moved back home to Los Angeles.

And eventually I went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me as schizoaffective.

What were you experiencing?

I had the symptoms of hallucinations, paranoia, things would come and go. I was hospitalised once for a few days.

Then I went to the local community college and Santa Monica College. I was starting to really thrive and doing well as a student. I was also getting high all the time.

Eventually I transferred to UCLA. I got in there as I had a good academic record.

There was a Christian group that kind of took me in. I grew up as a Jewish person, although my parents weren't observant. And I think a facet of mania is I just dove headlong into this sort of cultish experience.

I remember memorizing gospels. And eventually I ended up wandering around Westwood, and I called home and my dad, who was dating a woman he would later remarry, came and got me.

I dropped out of UCLA, dropped out of school again. I stayed home. I spiralled.

Do you think the drugs and the alcohol induced mania for you or do you think you were self-medicating?

I think they're intricately, intimately related. Having been sober for a while, I understand the root causes of my mental health issues are both biological and environmental. And the environmental influence of the drugs exacerbated the underlying instability that I had.

If I'm not sober, I have problems and sometimes I don't know it for a long time.

Once my dad and his wife gave me an ultimatum, I ended up at a recovery house in West Hollywood where I lived with 24 other guys, six to a room, for 18 months and got sober.

I’d go to school with all these young students having fun. And I’d go back to the recovery house and go to an AA meeting and study.

How did you get your first copywriting job?

I had my first copywriting job in ‘95. I was an English major at UCLA and there was a flyer in the English department office saying they were hiring intern readers for a literary journal. I applied and got the job (unpaid).

The editor said, “Here's a stack of papers from the slush pile. Read them and write a short summary on the title page. Let me know if it makes the cut or not.”

It turned out this editor was also a founder and partner at an ad agency called BLT Communications, which still exists. It's one of the preeminent movie advertising agencies.

After a few months, I’d graduated from UCLA, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. As a senior, I was pretty aimless. I rarely visited the career centre on campus. I was complaining to the BLT partner, and she said, “Have you ever thought about being a copywriter?”

So, in the mid-90s I got into writing taglines for movies. I wrote a bunch for some iconic movies.

Nice! Which ones?

Saving Private Ryan. The Talented Mr. Ripley. Private Parts. Devil's Advocate, a couple others.

The Hollywood Studio would call me and message me the script and then they’d have me fax – these are the days before email – the copy exploration back to them.

Typically, they’d hire as many writers as the budget would allow. And my lines got used quite a lot. They accepted some awards with my name on it and didn't tell me about it.

I got paid $300 and the job said you're going to write these taglines for a Rolling Stone poster insert. It turned out they used the tagline for everything. The theatrical release, the VHS,, the book, everything.

For Saving Private Ryan, they attributed the line to a more accomplished writer. So not only did they not tell me about it, but they basically credited somebody else.

I was really pissed, and I burned the bridge. But I loved the work – it was really interesting reading the scripts. It was a lot of fun while it lasted.

How was your mental health tracking while you were doing that work?

It was really good. I was sober. I was in a relationship with my wife – who I’ve been with since 1995. I was pretty stable for a long time.

You mentioned that you initially got the diagnosis of schizoaffective. How did the bipolar diagnosis come about?

Many, many, many years later – I wasn’t diagnosed with bipolar until 2024.

Me and my wife moved to the bay area in 2001/2002 and then we moved to San Francisco in 2005, the same year our daughter was born.

I had a psychiatrist from 2005, but he retired, and I didn't really follow up with him.

I wasn't in touch with a psychiatrist until I started going again last year because I had an episode come back.

I met with him and after a couple of sessions he said, “They misdiagnosed you. You don't meet any of the criteria for a diagnosis of schizoaffective.”

“You’ve never had persistent conditions for more than months at a time. You have the criteria for bipolar two.”

What I've learned is I’m more hypomanic than anything else. I don't have too many depressive episodes.

I have this image in my head:

What did it mean to be misdiagnosed and then re-diagnosed?

The misdiagnosis was really troubling. When I first found out about my re-diagnosis, I wanted to reach out to the Beverly Hills psychiatrist and tell him he was wrong. Like, how could you?

I think for a long time I felt very stigmatized by it. I think it was self-stigma and silence. I didn't want to talk about it with anybody. Ever. I never told anybody that I had been through these episodes in college, I had recurring things, I had this diagnosis, and I had been taking medication.

In my professional career, I didn't tell anyone ever. And it was very stigmatized because I was quiet about it.

The re-diagnosis made more sense to me in terms of my symptoms and the mood swings. Although, I mostly have the symptoms of mania.

I have boundless energy. I'm very self-confident. I think I can do anything, you know, delusions of grandeur.

Although not that grand. More like I can take on 10 clients at once. Not that I’m the best copywriter of all time. I can have little sleep and still be very high-functioning and active, not necessarily snowed or tired. All that stuff seems so true to my experience.

I want to change direction a bit now. I'm really interested in how work can exacerbate unwellness, but it can also be important for our recovery. How do you work as a freelancer and manage your mental health?

Carefully. Sometimes not as carefully as I should. I need to be mindful of not sleeping, or overdoing things.

I really have a hard time with that, because I often feel so good and so energized and I can take on more and more and more. Today, I was up at 5am and I worked on an urgent client request.

And then I wrote a LinkedIn post and went on a walk with my wife and our dog on the beach.

I had a meeting, then worked on a blog, a script, some Google Ads, a case study – and for me that’s a light day.

I try and get a good night's sleep. I aim to get out for a walk in the morning – that’s something my wife and I do every day.

I don’t feel I need to wear the crown of bipolar. But I’m trying to figure out what the signals are and how to best manage it. How to be aware of when I really need to slow down.

It used to be that my thoughts would race when I was younger, in my twenties. And when I wasn't in a full-blown psychotic episode, I would still often have racing thoughts. I couldn't slow down.

I’m in my fifties now, so things are quite different. A lot of the social anxiety I don't have anymore, which I think also contributed to the paranoia in some ways.

But I do have a persistent drive, a lot of energy. I'm constantly working on things and I'm sure I would drive my wife nuts half the time!

You're writing a novel called The Origins of Anxiety, which you're serializing on LinkedIn and on Substack. How has that experience been for you? It seems you channel a lot of yourself into that.

Also, can you share the difference between copywriting and writing fiction? Has writing fiction been cathartic?

I enjoy copywriting because I find arranging words on a page to persuade very interesting. When I'm writing for a client, I'm helping them make it exceptional and persuasive or informational, or whatever the case may be.

I want to write to their voice standards and in a language that helps their business. So that's one thing.

That's completely different from when I write creatively. So, I got an MFA in Creative Writing. I went back to school in 2002 through 2006, and I started writing the novel – the one that became The Origins of Anxiety – back then. It was in a completely different form. It started out with a script format because I had this experience of reading scripts as a tagline writer.

The first part of the novel and the last part of the novel were in script format. So, I wrote this as my MFA thesis and worked with the professors there. I got it into a good state and then I rewrote it again once I graduated. But I couldn't get an agent, so I shelved it. A few years later I took it out again and I got a writing coach, and I reworked it again, sent it out again, but still couldn't get any traction.

Last year I got an editor, reworked it again, and I felt it was really strong. I had submitted a couple of chapters to different journals, and it wasn't getting traction there either.

And at some point, I thought, I have quite a large following on LinkedIn. What have I got to lose? Maybe an agent might read it, maybe I'll get some traction that way, or maybe I'll reach some people.

The book is largely autobiographical. And the process of writing really helped me understand my childhood and some of the trauma I've been through. It helped me understand my relationship with my wife, too. We have quite different backgrounds culturally. She's African American and grew up in a rather poverty-stricken environment. We bring a lot of different experiences into our relationship. Writing most of the book is about our relationship in a way.

You’re so prolific on LinkedIn, sometimes you share more than one post a day. How do you find it as a medium? Can you be playful, or do you find it frustrating or bizarre? How do you feel about LinkedIn as a place to be creative and authentic?

Sometimes it's exhilarating and sometimes it's frustrating. And part of it is because, it's a similar experience that I've had with the novels where I haven’t been able to get an agent.

I have folks who read my writing and say it’s raw and powerful and it could reach a wider audience, but I can’t seem to figure out how to do that.

There's definitely a shift in the LinkedIn spirit. It's become less corporate, which is great. And it's become more open to people sharing their whole lives and their whole selves instead of their corporate selves, which is wonderful.

I have great respect for what Nick Power is doing on LinkedIn. His style is very concise. It's like fortune cookies. But there’s a powerful message underlying it. He’s exhausted by corporate America. He’s just done with it. And he’s going to show us why. But he’s gonna make it funny.

I agree. He’s got something to say but I don't get any bitterness from it. Sometimes I get tired by the cynicism of some LinkedIn posts. But with Nick he’s not bitter about it in his critique.

Yeah, I want to cultivate that more. Even when I’m being satirical, I want to demonstrate a great compassion and empathy for people.

Maybe this is part of my mania. I have great ambitions for reaching a wider audience and I haven't quite figured out how to do that. So that's sort of an abiding, persistent, sparrow in my ear, just chirping away.

I don't think it's about the number, but the impact. I want The Origins of Anxiety to not only get picked up by a publisher and be distributed and widely read, but to change the conversation about race. At least in America, which is very troubled right now. We have a very polarized society, and our leadership is very polarizing in that regard.

My bigger goal is to have some effect on the conversation in a positive way. Underlying everything I write is a great love and curiosity for people in all our various guises.

Thanks Jesse, that’s a beautiful way to end our conversation.

Oops a short correction - it’s actually split in five parts.

Plus, you’ll be the first to know once the crowdfunding campaign is live.

To get your hands on the digital download, please click here.

And look back at old photos

Red coat, dark hair, flushed cheeks, white teeth, slim frame, thin eyebrows

Tall glass, vodka and orange

I'm young, so young and I didn't know it then.

Then, it could be ten years ago, or three years ago or twenty years ago

Then could be corporate me, or single me, or travelling me, or drinking me

Then, even then, I was thinking when.

When I have a different job

When I'm married

When my body is different

When my pay is different

When I'm a mother

When I'm free

When I have options

When I can sleep

When I can do hard things and not feel so much.

When I live close to the sea

When there's finally world peace

This when is like fog smeared across the Mackenzie hills

It's thick but I can't touch it

It's out there but I can't reach it.

It's all about grasping at perspective

Pinching peace when I can

I always wake up with dread

I never bound out of bed

I put this down to a few things

One white, one yellow, two orange.

It gets better when I force myself out of horizontal to vertical

I can't count back from three.

I can't let them.

I say when I count to 100, I'll get out of my warm bed, put my feet on the carpet, greet my daughter and my husband, feed the cat, boil the jug,

Lady grey in the morning.

I read tonight about a story of a heart transplant between two nine-year-olds

I sob because I realise this is real

And that what's in my head feels real

And I'm not denying the pain of it

But it puts it in its place

This is metaphorical heartache

There's nothing wrong with my heart as an organ - the atrium, the valve. The heart as an organ is ticker tee boo.

I want to not have to feel so deeply all the time

Although maybe it is some kind of gift

Or what they call superpower

Like embossed stationery

Like this is my watermark

And when

When.

When is now. When is that time in the morning when I reach 99. When is their patience and love.

And I put my feet on the carpet

And I plod.

I plod to the people I love

And who are OK with my nostalgia, and my morning sadness.

Their lady grey is only that way for a little while.

She needs warming up.

Come 10am.

I am.

Red coat, purple mind, flushed cheeks, grey flecked auburn hair, sharp blue eyes, soft soft belly, kind smile, stories,

Hands on a keyboard, a pen, a book, another hand.

And my lips, my lips speak of when and then and now.

And the tips of my fingers - the tips of my fingers they fight and flight and freeze. They jive. They jive with questions and with hurt and with hope and with love.

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Strengths-Based, Heart-Centred Leadership

Christopher Miller helps couples, coaches, and executive leaders of larger organisations build a strengths-based, heart-centred culture and grow their business or practice by harnessing their natural talents.

I recently spoke with Christopher to hear his inspiring story of entrepreneurship and living with bipolar.

Christopher, thanks for being here today and for generously sharing your story with me. I'm intrigued to hear how bipolar has shaped you and impacted the way you run your business and your creative projects. Let’s begin by introducing yourself and your career so far.

I grew up in Canada with a very warm, loving, supportive family. We moved around a lot because my dad was in the Navy. I was a straight-A student and into music and sport.

I graduated with two degrees in Canada: an undergraduate in Life Sciences, then an MBA in Health Services Management. When I graduated, my dad was on a military posting in London, and so I moved there too and got a job as a pharmaceutical sales rep.

That was the beginning of my 12-year career in sales and marketing in the pharmaceutical industry. Later, my parents got posted back to North America, while I stayed in the UK.

I met my wife, Fiona, in Glasgow in 1997, and after we married, I shifted my career from the south of England to Scotland.

Towards the end of my pharmaceutical management career, I had the opportunity to attend a coaching course. As a result of that course, I fell in love with coaching and realised that’s what I wanted to do. I no longer wanted to stay in pharmaceutical marketing.

I trained in the UK in coaching before Fiona and I immigrated to New Zealand. Here, I joined a business coaching company, and I coached small to medium-sized business owners for three years, mostly on strategic planning and entrepreneurial mindset. I was later offered a job with Gallup, the management consulting firm that does CliftonStrengths assessments and employee engagement. I was their senior consultant for seven years, working with mostly New Zealand clients, with a few in Australia. During that time, I absorbed Gallup and loved it.

Towards the end, though, I realised the client base was mostly big government departments, dairy companies, and all the big corporates of New Zealand. I was missing small business.

This led me to establish my own coaching and mentoring practice in September 2017. From that point on, I returned to small business. I now serve three typical clients: couples who own a practice or a business, where I coach the couple and the business or practice; other coaches around the world, mostly strengths coaches, but not always. I mentor them on their coaching and facilitation skills, as well as the commercial skills of running a financially successful practice. Finally, I serve larger organisations at the executive level, where I do strengths-based team building and culture change.

I’m now the author of two books. My first is called The Joy of Finding FISH, which captures the story of our family and my coaching philosophy.

FISH stands for: fulfilment, inspiration, success and happiness. The idea is you give yourself a score out of ten to see where your life is tracking in each area.

Sadly, Fiona was diagnosed with a brain tumour in June of 2020. I wanted to finish the book while she was still alive, but she passed away and I finished writing the book about five months later. The last half of the book was about grief, love, gratitude and resilience. It was super hard, and it is a different book to what I set out to write.

When I lost Fiona, I used FISH coaching on myself. I was scoring myself a number from 0-10 every single day on fulfilment, inspiration, success and happiness. And I was using my FISH score to determine whether my life was getting better or worse.

So, you were using your coaching philosophy on yourself?

100%. I was my first client for all the material that I've come up with.

How did you find the strength and courage to finish writing your book five months after Fiona died?

I believe grief is a reflection of the love you held for someone when they were alive. Completing the book was an investment in capturing my love for Fiona on paper. At the beginning of the book, I talk about scoring yourself ten on all four elements or zero on all four elements.

During the book, I talk about my worst days and the fact that none of them were a 0-0-0-0 month or day — even on the day Fiona passed away, because of my role as a dad to our sons. The spiritual significance of Fiona passing away was so high that my fulfilment was not zero. My fulfilment was much higher than zero. But my happiness was definitely zero. And my feeling of success was zero, for sure. And I'm not sure there was that much inspiration that day.

But I also wrote about 10-10-10-10 days — the best days of your life. The perfect days. I close the book with my top 10 days with Fiona. I included these perfect days to demonstrate what that looks like.

The process of writing is so cathartic. And it's fascinating that the book that you set out to write was quite different in the end because of your loss. How important is the act of writing for solidifying who you are and what you believe in? What meaning do you garner from that process?

I didn't know I would enjoy writing as much as I did. So professionally, I'm a good email writer. I'm a good report writer. In CliftonStrengths terms, I have high communication, so I can get my point across. But I never had the aspiration to be an author. I never knew I had a book in me. And now I'm writing my third.

You're right, writing is cathartic. To finish my first book, my editor held my hand through the process. She was so gentle, supportive and encouraging — she guided me in the right way. There was no pressure or deadlines. It was me who needed to finish the book, not my editor or my publisher. I've always defined myself as a coach and now I'm an author.

Now, I’m more than a coach, and now that I’ve written the books, I bring the philosophies and teaching to life for my clients.

That’s amazing. Tell me more about your second book.

Book two is more commercial. It's called Finding FISH in a Strengths-Based Practice: Fulfilment, Inspiration, Success, and Happiness in a Life Well-lived. It's about how to run a coaching and mentoring practice through a strengths-based lens and how to be commercially successful at it — how to earn good money doing it. So that was really rewarding because my first book didn't really have a strengths lens. To invest in a book all about strengths has been huge.

Book three will be all about love. And that's a whole other story.

Excuse my bipolar brain, I want to go off on tangents. Something that interests me with the score of the zeros or the tens with FISH. I feel quite suspicious when I'm a 0-0-0-0 or 10-10-10-10. I wonder if I’m depressed or manic. How do you separate your bipolar from those scores and those emotions? How do you get to a place where you can trust your emotions as a guide and tool?

It’s funny. That's never crossed my mind. My 10-10-10-10 days are positive and grounded. I wouldn't attribute any of those days to mania. They are my exceptional days because of the relationships I had on that day, my achievements, or the celebrations I’m having.

For some of them, in retrospect, I probably was a little elevated. But I wasn't manic. I wasn't out of scale.

Again, the low days in retrospect, there's probably more of those that have a hint of depression or a hint of more than a low mood. I would say that my only 0-0-0-0 days were the five days I spent in a mental health ward in Brisbane because I was comatose. I had no interaction with my family. I was cut off from society. I don't have any recollection of them.

I think as long as you're able to score something above a zero, there’s hope. Although low mood and depression can be attributed to my lower scoring days, there was always something to be hopeful for.

Hope is such a big part of the picture. It's interesting that even when you were in the depths of your grief, you still had some scores above zero on those days.

I've had mentors of mine who love to say that hope is not a strategy. And my reply to them is, when you are suicidal or depressed, hope is the only strategy.

Wow — yes! Hope that it's not permanent and hope that it can be changed. Hope that there is some action, whatever small you can take to make it better.

I have Maximiser in my CliftonStrengths — which is all about continuous and never-ending improvement. It's my number one theme. All I'm looking for is for tomorrow to be a little bit better than today.

That's so powerful what you said about hope being the only strategy. I'm going to cling on to that quote.

Do you structure your days or your weeks differently to accommodate your bipolar? How does that look like as a business owner?

I have a loose schedule that my practice manager and I try to stick to. My Mondays are generally admin days — working on projects, catching up on emails. Tuesdays to Thursdays are client days. Fridays are for business development. It does move about, but that's a loose structure.

I break the rules occasionally, but I'm pretty disciplined about dinner with the boys at six. Not a lot of screentime after dinner, going to bed early, not filling time until 11 o'clock. I'm really disciplined about good sleep habits.

Recently in the last six months, I've committed to a lot of walking. I'll find a way to fit in 7,000-10,000 steps a day.

Were there any parts of your pharmaceutical career that you feel were either helpful or detrimental to your mental health? I know for myself, working a 9 to 5 wasn't great for me, and feeling like I couldn't pick and choose the work I did or who I was working with. I find I need to work with people who are aligned with my values. Was there anything about working for others that you found either helpful or detrimental?

I didn't get diagnosed until 2009, when I had a break from reality at a personal development event and ended up in hospital. I hadn't been in hospital before that, and I haven't been in hospital since. Up until 2009, I was unaware and undiagnosed.

In retrospect, there's only a couple of negative incidents that I would attribute to bipolar symptoms. I had a mini breakdown when I was asked to make people redundant. I was a manager of a large team at a biotech company, and the director above me made it clear that I was making a bunch of people redundant. Emotionally, that was brutal, and I did not respond well.

The flip side of that, I had one of the most amazing managers in my entire career when I was working on the south coast of England, while Fiona was living in Edinburgh. My manager at the time did everything in her power to allow me to flex my week to be with Fiona and continue contributing to the company. There was such a sense of mutual gratitude. She was grateful for me and my talents, and I was super grateful to the company and to her for backing me. In the right supportive environment, there was no bipolar to notice.

Yes, I can relate to that. I worked in different departments at a corporate, and in one department, the boss was just so supportive. She would challenge you, but she was always very direct and fair; I thrived in that environment. But when I moved to a department with a totally different manager, that's when I started to deteriorate. Everybody needs that support, don’t they? But especially with bipolar, it’s very important to feel like you're getting that support.

Yes, it’s the sensitivity to stress. If you're under stress or pressure or receiving negative emotions from a colleague or a boss, it eats you up. It eats you up, and you don’t know what to do about it.

I’ve found it doesn't even have to be negative stress. Sometimes positive stress can be a trigger as well. A positive life event, like even planning a big celebration can cause some episodes. But I think that comes down to what you said earlier about the discipline, about having that routine of sitting down with your boys at six for dinner and coming off devices. I think managing stress is a key one for me. If a working relationship crosses a line and doesn't feel comfortable anymore, it's safer for me to politely finish the arrangement than carry on and let that stress eat away at you.

You haven't been hospitalised since 2009. How would you describe how you are now?

My mental health’s good. And it has wobbles.

There aren't many people who have published a book, let alone two. There aren't that many people who have run a private practice for eight years. I’m proud of what I've accomplished and how I managed my bipolar through the grief of losing Fiona.

Any episodes I do have are shallow, brief, temporary and manageable. They're very manageable because very early on in 2009, I was put on two drugs that I tolerate very well. Both work the way they're meant to; they're not inhibiting. They’re not tranquillising me to the point where I can't create.

When I experience a drop in mood, I'm very aware. The first half of last year, I was slightly elevated for most of six months, and it was easy to diagnose that after the fact. Much harder to diagnose when I was in it. But being slightly elevated for six months had consequences.

At the back end of last year, I was not my normal self.

As a single parent, my health and well-being are the stability for this family. I can't afford hospitalisation. I must be as stable as I can. Compared to seven or eight years ago, the amount of tinkering I do with my medication is way, way lower than it was. I know what the impact of half a dose up, half a dose down has on me — to almost the milligram, I can tell you what my body will do.

Self-compassion has been such an important part of my recovery and for keeping me well. And I know that love is a very important feature for you and for your work. How do you extend the same love that you give to your clients to yourself? Because when we're in a depressive state, the inner voice is so mean sometimes. What practices do you use to override that mean voice to bring yourself back to that grounded space?

A few things have come into my life in the last year, especially. I am a disciplined meditator. I use Insight Timer — there’s such a variety of content on there, and I will find a self-love meditation. Sometimes, I follow the breathing meditations.

I love just playing around and seeing what’s available with Insight Timer. But when I need self-love, I will deliberately choose self-love meditations that have a positive impact.

A year ago, I was seriously neglecting my health. My weight, my cholesterol, my sugar levels — everything was going in the wrong direction. Everything. But in the last four to six months, thanks to my discipline around walking, my diet (low carb, low sugar), I've turned all my negative markers around.

When it's raining, windy, or a pain in the ass to go out and walk the dog, I go out and walk the dog — that’s self-love and self-care for me.

My goal is to lose 10 kilos and if I can get past that, my goal is to get lighter than my eldest son, which he’ll be pissed about! But it's very motivating for me to be lighter than my 21-year-old son.

I'm also aware of how much energy I give and receive from others. I’m pretty good at not onboarding negative or difficult clients. My clients love my service because of the relationship.

And I love my service because of the relationship. I had a strengths session recently with an extraordinary business coach in Tauranga. She's an amazing human being, and I just felt deeply privileged to spend an hour giving her my talent as a coach and having an impact on her life — that was super meaningful.

So, I find when I give love, that's also self-care.

Meaningful work has been such an important part of keeping me well. I tell a story in the book I’m writing of when I’m in hospital, I notice a lady who cleans the Milo and coffee station every day. And one day, I think I'm helping her out by cleaning it myself. She gets really upset with me. I think every human wants to contribute in some way to make other people or their environment better. And I find that when you're working and doing what you love, and you're genuinely giving back, that is such an important part of being and staying well. Do you relate to that as well?

Oh, 100%.

I do a lot of coaching around purpose and fulfilment. I think people feel lost when they have lost sight of their purpose. I think what a lot of people don't reflect on is the fact that human beings are the only living thing on the planet with the ability to choose a different purpose every single day.

As a dad, as a husband, as a coach, as an author, as a member of Wellington's community, as a dog owner — I can come up with a new purpose every day to feel fulfilled. I can have an almost do-nothing day and still feel fulfilled because all I have to do is define a purpose that suits.

But people get locked into a purpose, or they struggle to articulate a purpose and then they're not fulfilled.

And sometimes that stress and unease come from not knowing your purpose or finding yourself in a situation where you're doing things against your purpose. Like that cognitive dissonance of doing stuff that doesn't feel right. Having autonomy, being able to decide what your purpose is, and having the energy to fulfil that is important too.

A lot of workplaces are in strife because they don't have a conversation about purpose. The purpose of the organisation, the purpose of the division, the purpose of the team, the purpose of each individual, are they congruent? Are they real? Can people live it? The reason people sit in a job, do nothing and are bored and unmotivated is because there’s no alignment to purpose.

Purpose has become a buzzword. But it's so fundamental, so critical and I'm glad it seems to be moving more in that direction, and there's people like you doing this work because happier people lead more productive lives as well. It's totally a win-win for everyone.

You're very open about your bipolar. Has there ever been a time where you've felt stigma or the regret of sharing? Have you ever faced any pushback in a professional sense?

Not very often. When I was hospitalised, I had a very challenging year. Immediately after hospitalisation, I felt like a zombie. I was functioning just well enough to stay employed, but it was not pretty. It was not pretty at all. And then the very first year or two of my management consulting role, I deliberately told my boss before they hired me. That was a heart-stopping moment when I had to disclose to an employer. Luckily, they hired me anyway.

And I had three or four different managers during my seven years at that management consultant firm. They all knew my diagnosis because I needed them as a safety net. I only called in sick twice in seven years, but I needed them to be aware of the context if I had to call in sick.

I was more careful who I told amongst my colleagues, and I was definitely careful of who I told amongst clients.

Having written my first book where I disclose my diagnosis, all my current clients are aware. Most new prospects that I onboard become aware because they read my book.

I’m open and transparent about the high-performance aspect of bipolar and how I mitigate risk by having a safety net, which allows me to share with confidence. As a result, I haven't faced a lot of stigma. If you're unsure of yourself, if you don't know how to describe your condition, if you don't know how to ask for help, people are going to make assumptions, and that's where the stigma comes from, I think.

I think you’ve got to be discerning about how you share it and who you share it with, and the level of information you share with each person. I interviewed for a job a few years back, and I reached the second interview phase, and felt it was the right time to disclose my diagnosis. But after I disclosed, I felt vulnerable and exposed. I feel like I mucked up the rest of the interview. I didn't get the job. But it's a fascinating thing, when is the right time to disclose? How much information should I share, and how is it going to be received?

Katie, it's interesting because I can remember the recruitment process for the management consulting firm that I joined was super rigorous. Very early on, I made the decision that I would disclose, but not until they offered me the position.

They needed to witness me as I am first. I decided that if I am successful in the recruitment process, I will say, “Just so you're aware, I have bipolar.” That was a strategic decision.

Did you get advice, or did you instinctively know that was the right thing to do?

No, that was my intuition. I didn't have any advisors at the time.

I think with bipolar, we can have heightened intuition and empathy. Walking into a room, you can pick up people's energy almost straightaway. Do you get that same sense with your bipolar?

I've always read a room well. Prior to my hospitalisation in 2009, I was in a personal development event that triggered a break from reality and a deep oneness experience for somewhere between 20 minutes and an hour. I can't remember how long in retrospect, but that sense of oneness, I’ve never experienced it as profoundly as I did in 2009.

But when I'm coaching someone, I sense it; I feel it. We are there for a reason. We are connected. And in CliftonStrengths language, I have connectedness as number three in my sequence.

Connectedness is all about everything happens for a reason. There are no coincidences. And so, when you talk about intuition, when you talk about reading energy, I know a good person from a bad person a mile away. And I don't even have to hear that much out of their mouth. I can just feel it.

What you're saying resonates with me, and I think there's a power when I'm either facilitating or coaching. I'm in touch with my intuition about what to ask, what to do next, how to engage.

That experience of oneness in the personal development event, how did you relate to it? Was it a positive, enjoyable experience for you?

In the moment it felt positive, but it’s now tainted by the consequences, which was the hospitalisation. For 20 minutes to an hour, I was experiencing all knowing, all seeing, all being. I was feeling connected to the universe, and at the time, I was the universe.

Now that sounds very grand. The dilemma is that when you disconnect from it, your brain doesn't know how to cope. The brain goes, “Ah, you just experienced oneness and now you're back to reality,” and it was part of a bigger process. The personal development event was very high octane, it was full of high-energy activity, spiritual stuff, meditation stuff. It was designed to trigger my oneness experience. However, not that many people in the audience experienced what I experienced.

My brain couldn't cope with the disconnect from reality, and that's what led to my hospitalisation and my bipolar diagnosis.

Does it feel okay talking about it now? What’s it like to talk about it?

I probably couldn't have done it five years ago. But I'm stronger now. I'm more objective.

The experience is what it is. It gave me a unique vision of the world. I'm a different person because of those 20 minutes in oneness. There was a piece of me in the months and years that followed where I was seeking to repeat the process, like an addiction. I wanted to recreate oneness in me, and there are organisations around the world who promote it and who have processes to enable you to access it. But for the safety of my family, I know I can't pursue it because the unpredictability of my reaction to it is too big.

Family’s a massive motivator for me too. I don't want to go back to that heightened state for the sake of my husband and my daughter. The stakes are too high. But thank you for sharing that because that experience of real connection with God or the universe or a higher power is quite a common experience with bipolar. I experienced it myself.

Yes, some call it a spiritual emergency. It's not either/or, it's both. The medical model is for diagnosing bipolar. The spiritual model is an emergency — a spiritual emergency. And it’s different language to describe the same experience.

That's right. What I love about language is that it’s so expansive and you don't have to be stuck. For example, you could just be in the spiritual side and avoid medication, or totally believe in the medical side and ignore the spiritual elements of this experience. What I find so fascinating about bipolar is that it can be so rich if you let it be. But it doesn't mean that you necessarily want to be in those two extreme states. I'm just so fascinated by the depth of the experience and, like you say, it's not one or the other.

Every couple of years, I love to search the list of famous people with bipolar. There are rich examples of what is possible with bipolar.

I love the fact that I'm an author and I've created a beautiful website, and I love the fact that I'm pursuing love as part of my positioning. I don't think I would be achieving what I'm achieving without being bipolar. I would be living a vanilla life without the inspiration for creativity.

I also think experiencing bipolar gives you such a depth of compassion for other people when they're going through hard times. Because being hospitalised feels like the absolute pits. It feels like you can't really go any lower. I can empathise with people in their pain. I find that I can hold space for people a lot more than perhaps in the past.

Absolutely. And what I have found remarkable, given my disclosure about my mental health, is the number of clients who then feel safe enough to disclose to me is massive. I help normalise it.

It’s sent to you for a reason. You are learning things that you couldn't learn unless you had your diagnosis. My compassion, my understanding, my care, my sensitivity to a client who is sometimes depressed or suffers anxiety or ADHD. I can say, “I’m with you. I'm 100% with you. Because I know the journey.”

And the resilience. Not in a toxic resilient way, but although we can be soft and sensitive, we have a resilience and a faith that has been carved out of those times as well.

I've so enjoyed this conversation, Christopher. Is there anything else that you want to share about life with bipolar or that message of hope?

What the world needs right now is a truckload of love and hope. And your example to be public about your condition. My example, to be a little more private, but I'm still public about it, is about showing other people there is hope. That's part of why we do what we do.

And my investment in the Expansive Love website, the Let's Talk Love cards, they're about creating connection to give more people a safety net. The number of people living with mental distress who’ve never told anyone about it is massive. So how do we unlock those conversations?

How do we help someone ask for help for the first time? Through love and hope.

Thank you so much, Christopher. How can people connect with you if they want to find out more about you and your work?

My main website is christopher-miller.com and that summarises my coaching facilitation and my first two books. All my services and resources are available on that website.

Expansive Love tells the story of the next 10 years of my working life with a mission to lift love on the planet. If you're wanting a message about love, go to expansive.love. If you're wanting a message about building your best life, you can go to christopher-miller.com

Lovely. And can you please give the titles of your two books again, please?

Sure. So, the first one I wrote was called The Joy of Finding FISH, A Journey of Fulfilment, Inspiration, Success and Happiness. The second one is called Finding FISH in A Strengths-Based Practice: Fulfilment, Inspiration, Success and Happiness in a Life Well-lived. They’re both available to purchase as paperbacks and e-books via my website.

Thank you. Again, I really appreciate your generosity.

Katie, it's lovely to witness you really embracing your identity and, and who you are, who is behind the courage of what you're doing. It’s not Katie the bipolar, it's Katie the mum, Katie the business owner. Katie living life the way she's meant to live it out. Out and loud. That’s really powerful.

People might see mental health first aid as a daunting task. But it really is sacred. Sacred like birth and death. Meeting people at their most vulnerable and holding space for them. Mental health workers can be so overworked and undervalued. And last week I learned they are needing to strike over pay parity with general health colleagues, safe working conditions and cost-cutting within Health NZ – what’s that all about?

As I was driving home, I was thinking about some of the stats. One in four young people experiences mental health challenges. That’s a lot. But then I also think, what about the three in four young people who don’t? How do they stay well in a world that’s increasingly divisive, strange, isolating, overwhelming, and overloading?

A safe space

I love that the course was run at a church. We opened and closed the day with a karakia, and Vikki blessed the food. I didn’t want to leave. It felt like such a safe space. We talked about some intensely vulnerable, deep things. People shared their own stories, and brushes – no, that’s too weak, maybe hard knocks – with mental health challenges.

The course was only two days, but I would have sat there for a week to learn more about different mental health conditions and how we can support our tamariki and rangatahi. Often rangatahi are written off as reckless, rude and rebellious. When so often we forget that can be bravado, that can be a mask, that can be a – I have no idea who I am, I have no idea what is going on inside my body and my brain, I have no idea where I fit, where I belong. We need to cut our young people more slack.

De-escalation and understanding

I learnt we need to become good at de-escalation and patience. And asking the same question several times if you feel you are not hearing the full, truthful answer. We need to become better at acknowledging our own faults, shortcomings and mistakes. As parents, teachers, aunties, youth pastors we are never going to get it 100%. We’ve got to get good at repair. I’m sorry I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m sorry I shouldn’t have assumed the worst. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to listen.

I’m no expert. My daughter is only 8. I’m not a teacher. My interaction with young people is mostly at church where I facilitate a small group of intermediate-aged children. But I have a heart for people. And I’ve found that young people can be a group we demonise and write off instead of extending them much-needed grace and compassion.

It can also be dangerous to not be curious and blame every change on: “oh that’s just being a teenager”. But sometimes there’s much more going on.

Seeing the early warning signs

Often we ignore our instinct and the early warning signs. When they start missing school, or their hood comes up, or they stay up all night on devices or listening to music. Life is busy and full of distractions. We don’t want them to feel pushed in a corner or confronted when we ask them if something is going on. But that’s exactly what they need – a calm, compassionate and informed role model, someone who has authority and self-control. Someone who is not easily fazed or offended, who doesn’t take changes in behaviour to heart. Because we can make it about us, can’t we? We can easily – and understandably – jump to being defensive. We can also become triggered and reminded of our own traumas and struggles.

But young people need us to have the capacity, self-control and confidence to ask: “Are you thinking about taking your life?” “Do you have a plan?” They need us to have the capacity, self-control and confidence to say, “You’re not in trouble, I love you, and I’m concerned about you.” And to offer support in the way of: “Can I book you to see your GP or connect you with your school counsellor?” They don’t need to be patronised, demonised or chastised. But seen as a young human who needs extra love and support.

Advocating for your young person

And there’s the added challenge of knowing your young person needs help, advocating for them, booking appointments, chasing up referrals, and yet feeling like you’re fighting, fighting, always fighting. Parents and young people are forced to navigate a struggling, challenging, heartbreaking system. A system where people are dealing with bureaucracy and underfunding, compassion fatigue and burnout, and differences in opinions and approaches. A system where you’ve got to know what’s available to ask for it, and a system where you’ve got to know what language to use to be taken seriously and triaged effectively.

I love how there are so many people in the mental health workforce now who have lived experience. And slowly that is flipping the script. Of course, there is still tension and hierarchy between people with clinical backgrounds and those from a lived-experience peer-support perspective. We don’t need that tension or hierarchy – it’s corrosive. We know mental health support needs to be multifaceted and holistic – the imperfect phrase it’s not about the sort of disease a patient has but what sort of patient has the disease. Multiple agencies and multiple approaches are called for. This is not rocket science. This is not new. Yet this message still hasn’t sunk in with some policy makers.

It’s hard not to get political about this. But isn’t a mental health crisis inevitable when unemployment rises, when the cost of living rises, when homelessness rises, when crime rises, when social isolation rises, when violence rises, when misogyny rises, when racism rises, when despair rises, when negative stories rise? Young people are not stupid; they are sponges. They absorb what’s going on in their homes, schools, communities and around the world. They are not unaware; they are hyperaware. 24/7 devices and media and peer pressure make it so.

Creating cushions

But despite all this, I have to remain hopeful. I have to remain hopeful that we can create cushions for our young people – or protective factors. Cushions in kind, affirming words. Cushions in validating and believing and acknowledging their pain. Cushions in sport, and theatre, and arts, and community groups. Cushions in giving them the pride of their culture and language and ancestry. Cushions in a village of adults who they respect and trust. Cushions in faith communities. Cushions in hobbies and subjects that inspire them. All of these, and more, are protective factors for everyone – and especially our youth.

The course made me think – should I be looking at doing more in the mental health space? Do I want to pursue further education as a peer support worker? Do I have the capacity, control and confidence to step up in this way? Whenever I’m at a course, or a conference or symposium like this, I feel so inspired and moved. Yet, I also feel quite drained too.

It’s now been just over a week since the course; I’ve needed that buffer to sleep and recover before posting about it. I don’t know how easy it would be for me to let my own lived experience take a backseat so I can authentically and professionally hold space for others in a mental health challenge or crisis. I want to pray about it and keep this door open – hold this question lightly and humbly.

Sharing knowledge

For now, I feel like sharing my story is the right thing to do. I enjoy the sharing of knowledge and the teaching aspect of it. I like how I can dip in and out of the mental health space. When it all feels too much, I can focus my energy and writing on something else. It can remain a passion and a special interest, but it doesn’t have to become all-consuming. I don’t know how easily I can create the barriers and boundaries with someone else if I was to enter the mental health profession. I take my hat off to people like Vikki and the other attendees in the room who walk beside young people with mental health challenges every day. That takes real energy and conviction – thank you

(Psst, Grammarly, it makes me cringe when I type bipolar and you flag it as an error, pestering me to write bipolar disorder. Get with the programme: I’m choosing to omit the word: disorder. See below. Thank yeeeew.)

Here’s a snippet of my post before I started the challenge:

I decided to announce my challenge for a few reasons:

• I’m an obliger. I'm not gon' give up. I'm not gon' stop. I'm gon' work harder According to Gretchen Rubin’s The Four Tendencies, I have an obliger personality (the others are upholder, rebel and questioner). This means I’d rather disappoint myself than let other people down. I’m not saying this is a positive, yet knowing I like to oblige means I’m much more likely to follow through if I share my intentions publicly.

• Accountability: Every time I’ve succeeded at something in recent years, I owe it to being accountable to someone or a group. Whether that’s networking, getting a personal trainer, joining online groups to co-work, or messaging my friend Dawn every day with my ‘one thing’ I’m focusing on, accountability is a powerful motivator.

• For the buzz: I wanted to create some buzz around the challenge and invite people to come along for the ride!

The great.

The connections I made.

A highlight of the challenge was connecting with several other creatives and business owners. People like the big-hearted, high-performing Christopher Miller, coach and author of:

• The Joy of Finding FISH: A Journey of Fulfilment, Inspiration, Success and Happiness;

• Finding FISH in a Strengths-Based Practice: Fulfilment, Inspiration, Success, and Happiness in a Life Well-Lived;

and creator of the Let’s Talk Love card deck.

Christopher was kind enough to send me his books and card deck and let me interview him. During our video chat, he shared nuggets of wisdom like this:

I think “hope is the only strategy” should be a bumper sticker.

It proved there is an appetite for this work and my voice.

Several people commented on my posts or sent me private messages to say they have family members with bipolar or they live with bipolar. It touched me that my writing resonated with them or that it revealed fresh insights about the condition.

With social media, you receive almost immediate validation of your work. And when you make friends with people on the other side of the world, it becomes round-the-clock validation of your work.

I received plenty of beautiful comments, thoughtful messages, and people tagged me in their posts and subscribed to my Substack (thank you, new followers!) This feedback bolstered my confidence and proved to me that people are hungry for lived experience perspectives.

I didn’t receive a single scrap of negative feedback - thankfully, if people didn’t like what I said, they kept schtum. I can put this down to a few things: the people in my network are natural encouragers and supportive; I’m not quite big enough or viral enough to attract vitriol; I’m careful to say this is my experience rather than a universal truth - it’s hard to argue with that because you’re not in my shoes; although I was vulnerable, I don’t think I was adverserial or controversial (maybe that’s the obliger in me).

The good.

It taught me something about consistency.

In the beginning, there was Publer, and Publer was good. I scheduled a few posts in one go, and it meant spending less time on noisy and overstimulating LinkedIn.

But a couple of weeks into the challenge, I started winging it and posting some as late as 11:30pm (it still counts).

I proved to myself that I have what it takes to be consistent.

That’s a story I’ve held onto for a long time: I’m inconsistent. I struggle with consistency. Whether that’s introducing a new habit into my routine or keeping up with physio exercises, I start off strong and fizzle out. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t got the same accountability, or I don’t always give myself the scaffolding to succeed.

It was a useful exercise in demonstrating I can be consistent. I can let that unhelpful story I tell myself go.

YET….just because I can be consistent every day for a month doesn’t always mean that I should.

Whether I should or not comes down to: Why am I being consistent? What is the impact - both positive and negative - of consistency?

Funnily enough, the LinkedIn algorithm knew I was pondering these two questions as it fed me this piece by Col Fink (click on the image to take you to the original post).

Consistency and discipline are not bad traits to develop. But what happens when they tip to toxic and become a cage “that keeps freedom at bay” or an almost inevitable “path to exhaustion”?

The metrics.

When it comes to measuring stuff, I sit firmly on the qualitative side. I love data that’s rich in context, narrative and perspective. But I must admit, I got a thrill seeing my analytics improve - particularly my content performance and follower count - over the course of the 30 days.

While it’s clear I didn’t go viral - I didn’t see thousands upon thousands knocking at my LinkedIn door - my follower count grew, and LinkedIn showed my posts to more and more people.

Which is a natural segue to the gnarly…..

The gnarly

My highest-performing post, the one with the most “impressions,” started with a content warning.

It was a post about the loud and harmful thoughts I get - thoughts of hurting myself.

The high impression count on this post leaves me feeling divided. The positive is that it resonated with lots of people (2,200 or so, which is decent for me). People are open to this conversation.

The negative is that it was served to a lot of people by the LinkedIn algorithm. Most of us know that social media, LinkedIn included, favours posts with a strong visceral reaction: shock, rage, despair, and desire.

Does LinkedIn love vulnerability? And reward it? How safe is this? Do we try and show our lives, our wounds, and our fragilities for an ephemeral boost? When does my advocacy tip over from authentic to performative? Where is the line? Does this cause genuine harm to the writer of the post and the readers?

What about people who can’t afford to be vulnerable? Where does it leave them? What kind of vulnerability will be rewarded? And what kind of vulnerability will create contempt, leaving you called out and cut off? Some of us know instinctively where that line is, but there’s nothing official. By the time you’ve inadvertently crossed it, it’s too late. There’s a reason why so many people choose to remain silent lurkers on LinkedIn - they’re scared of crossing a line that nobody can agree on.

This blog is nearly a year old, but it rings true.

Just because it’s not Meta, doesn’t mean it’s not built to be addictive.

Yep, I became obsessive with LinkedIn. I got a jolt of dopamine every single time I got a notification. When I wasn’t thinking of what to post, I was thinking about what I did post - will it be read? Will people like it? Will people think worse of me? Why am I doing this?

Is stretching my digital footprint into the next shoe size the right thing for me to do? Is my voice - white, middle-aged and married - the right voice to talk about the bipolar experience? Is LinkedIn the place? Which voices are still not being heard?

It affected my sleep. I went to bed considerably later. I fell asleep with LinkedIn open and woke up to LinkedIn. I refreshed my feed more times than I can count. I was less present to the real world. Less present with my daughter and my husband. I felt relief when my phone died, and I couldn't refresh my LinkedIn feed.

Before you start yelling, “First world problems!” Consider this: Is this the price of visibility in 2025? Is this a safe and sustainable way to build a business or following?

What about the people who have vastly larger followings than me, and their comments sections are full of nasty, aggressive, abusive and misogynistic voices? What about when sharing your opinion and lived experience online leads to more than misunderstanding; it leads to death threats?

I’ve come to know that two things can be true at once. LinkedIn can be a great platform for challenging professionalism, toxic consistency, rigid ways of working, hostile working environments, and social and gendered inequities. I’m enjoying the weird and wonderful corners of LinkedIn. The subcultures and the subversive writers, the rallying cry to stay human amidst AI blandness and plagiarism.

Yet, by its very design, LinkedIn is not a lone wolf in social media. It’s not benign. It feeds into our most human of wants in an addictive and sometimes harmful way: to be seen, to be heard, to be validated, to be loved, to be acknowledged, to be revered, to belong, to be complimented, to be challenged, to be successful. When these desires are met by graphs, metrics, instant notifications, and the odd high-performing post which leaves us trying to win over the algorithm again, it can become insatiable.

Although the comments I received were heart-warming, the experience of spending so much time online for a month wasn’t a very grounding one for me. There were moments during the challenge when I felt quite unwell. Was my discipline becoming a cage? Was I martyring myself for the cause?

I think the real test of whether this experiment/challenge was successful is what comes next. How has it informed my values and the way I want to show up both online and off? Where are the best places to write long-form? How much nuance can be achieved on LinkedIn?

How will I nurture the connections I made? How have I contributed to the wider discourse?

What have I learnt and what will I do differently?

So, in typical Katie fashion, there are more questions than answers! I’m interested to hear your thoughts. How do you experience LinkedIn? How would you like to experience LinkedIn?

29th February 2020 was the due date that appeared on the sonographer’s screen for our second angel baby. It’s a date hard to forget. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to that scan for our first miscarriage - so 28/9th February for both of them it is.

They say grief is love with nowhere to go. I make my love material on the last day of summer. I love myself with good food, treat myself to stationery, sit in the sun atop North Head, write in my journal, count the birds.

I head to the beach and feel the sand and sea on my toes and calves.

When I can’t love on these babies who I never met earthside - they’d now be five and six - I love on myself. It feels indulgent, but necessary. Lavish, but healing.

Each year the mood is slightly different. I used to cry. In 2022 I wrote a poem in the bath:

I bought myself an orchid today
I sipped on chamomile tea today
Had a soak in the bath today
Lit a candle for you today

Now I mostly feel a peaceful gratitude. I feel grateful I can talk and write about my experiences. I feel grateful for the term “my one-and-only” which a friend shared with me. My daughter, Zoe, who is 8 now - my one-and-only. Not my, “just one” or “only child.”

When Zoe tells me she wants to be an older sister, it’s not the sucker punch it used to be. I can hold her questions and her desires more gently. And ask myself if she would like the reality of that statement. She likes her own space. We’ve had to cut playdates short because she’s hit the metaphorical wall.

She specifically requests a sister - not sure if you can preorder them. She has cousins she adores, but she likes retreating into her own world. She asked me if we could adopt a girl. She’s really not keen on a brother!

I know your lives and hearts are meant to expand with every child, but I feel like it’s simpler having one child when you’re navigating life with bipolar. I’m not being deliberately controversial; the postpartum emotional agony I went through is still a big reason for us not trying again.

I’m not convinced my medication didn’t play a role in my two miscarriages. I know I can’t fend off a repeat episode of severe mania or depression, but I know pregnancy, birth, postpartum, breastfeeding and sleep deprivation are major triggers for me.

Zoe is of the age she will remember her mum being sick and hospitalised. I feel like not trying again is a sensible choice for our family. But I also know everyone is different.

Women without children are asked when they’re going to have kids; women with one child are asked if they’re going to have more. Why in 2025 are we still asking these questions? We have no idea of the hidden heartbreak - sometimes it’s not our choice.

I know for sure I love being a mum of an eight-year-old. So often mums - when they’re not being asked insensitive questions - are told: just you wait. When you’re struggling with breastfeeding: just you wait until they’re a toddler. Just you wait until they’re a teen.

Just you wait until I write my Substack and call you out on your BS!

What I love about each passing year is our little human is growing, changing, learning, failing. And so too am I, as a mum. I’m far more confident - and gracious - now than when she was a toddler.

I’m far more capable of holding space for her big emotions than when she was three. I’m much better at saying sorry. While I’m slow to learn how to be fully present, I’m trying my best to give her my undivided attention. And just one more game. And just one more joke before bedtime.

Being a mum to one is great; being an auntie to many is too. I love seeing Zoe’s friendship with her cousins. Auntie cuddles are second best only to mum cuddles. I love that I have two nephews and five nieces (and maybe that number will grow). Not to mention honorary auntie status for my friend’s kids. Spoiling, cuddling and looking after your nieces and nephews - and handing them back to their parents - is an undeniable treat.

Loving them fiercely without the hormone soup of growing, birthing and breastfeeding them is marvellous.

I’m prone to nostalgia and “if only” moments - what can I say? I’m a writer. But I’m also old enough - and have been through enough - to know that what I’ve got is pretty sweet.

While I’ll always remember our angel babies, I love our family of three. And being an auntie!

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