It feels hugely symbolic that it will be 10 years this month since I set up my coaching business and I’m writing this post to share that my book, “TRUST”; a story of my holistic healing journey back to me (following a cancer diagnosis in 2020) is finally finished after 4 years and currently being reviewed and edited.

It’s been 10 years since I made the decision to train as a Coach and pivoted my life in a completely different direction.

It’s been 10 years of learning and growth and as I reflect on all the practices, skills and training  I’ve embodied, I feel immense gratitude and pride.  And I feel honoured to have met and worked with hundreds of wonderful clients and grateful for the learning they’ve also enabled in me.

It’s been 10 years of personal development and deep healing, enabling me to shed layer after layer of mentally constructed limiting beliefs and untrue and unhelpful perceptions which were keeping me small and making me ill; layers of untrue nonsense created as a result of stuck and suppressed energy in my body, stopping me being in flow and in homeostasis.

And it’s 10 years since I started to realise I was the only one standing in my own way of being, doing and having what I wanted in my life.

So, as I stand here, on top of this “mountain” that I’ve metaphorically climbed, and I look at this symbolic time of my life, I am looking back at how far I’ve come; where I am now versus where I was 10 years ago.

That terrified 43 year old travelling up to London to embark on a Postgraduate in Business and Personal Coaching, wondering what on earth she’s doing in a room full of Academics and clever people.  That terrified 43 year old who was scared to speak up in front of the clever Academics in case she sounded stupid and that terrified 43 year old who found herself spontaneously saying “stay safe and don’t take any risks” in response to the question “what was your family moto as a child”.

A “moto” which I learned to recognise as a “life script” that I’d unconsciously been following up until that point.  A “life script” that I decided to start to re-write from that point onwards.

I always used to say to clients, when showing them the ‘High Challenge-High Support’ model that coaching is based on, nothing ever grows in your comfort zone.  I used to say it’s fine to be in your comfort zone much or some of the time but it’s not how we learn and grow and develop ourselves; it’s not how to discover who we really are and what we’re really capable of.

And 10 years of choices that have pushed me out of my comfort zone brings me to where I am now.

10 years that have involved heart-wrenchingly difficult choices which I knew I had to make to steer me onto a path where I was listening to my heart and to my intuition.  And 10 years that have involved some of the most amazing choices I’ve ever made.

But after all that growth and pretty intense healing, I’m starting to recognise that my comfort zone is not a bad place to be.  It is in fact, a very important place for me to be.

I’m starting to recognise that I am a fully grown tree – standing proud as the perfectly imperfect human that I am.  And whilst I don’t feel I need to grow any taller at the moment, I do believe I can nurture the leaves and the buds on my tree and grow into a fuller version of me.

Learning is a core value and I am constantly learning from my clients, learning how to develop my practice and learning about me.  And that feels like a nice safe space to be.  It feels like I’m growing in my comfort zone and no longer feel the need to scare myself to do it!

The more I’ve trained in and practised deep healing work, the more I’ve learnt that healing has to be done slowly and gradually and it is usually most powerful when done in relationship to others.

When you’re a highly sensitive person (not that I need a label) you absorb a huge amount of sensory information in your environment.  You’re taking in every flicker of someone’s eye, the tap of a foot or the tension in someone’s jaw, the words they’re saying and the words they’re not saying, as well as their tone of voice.  You’re taking in the voices of the people behind you and the smell of a vape in your vicinity, and the noise of traffic on the street outside and the distant rumble of a train.

For me, all that sensory noise can drown out my own thoughts and feelings and my own truth, if I’m not careful.  As one of my heroes, Gabor Mate, said “I write to hear myself think.” Not surprisingly, I start to feel overwhelmed if I have too much sensory information to process after a while, and it has an impact on my ability to be fully present and grounded in the moment.

It’s taken many years of healing to learn how to reinstate healthy boundaries to keep myself safe – physical, emotional, mental and energetic boundaries.  To manage my time and energy and also to recognise the types of environments where I’m just not going to thrive.

It’s taken me many years to take off the masks I felt I had to wear to pretend I was ok in those types of environments, whereas in actual fact, I just had a whole lot of unhealthy coping strategies going on to be able keep up that pretence.

Opening our hearts and telling people who we really are and what we need is vulnerable. Being real is vulnerable but vulnerability is strength in a world where people wear masks.  Our longing to connect often conflicts with our drive for survival, which stops us leaning in to connection and opening our hearts.

I’ve had to learn how to feel safe to be me – how to love and accept all that I am – and when and where I’m likely to feel safe because sometimes survival wins over vulnerability – not everywhere is safe!

I’ve had to learn how to be fully present, grounded and trusting in my ability to be feel and release whatever emotion arises without suppressing it or projecting it onto someone else.

And for me that means one foot in my comfort zone and one foot out of it!

So is it true that nothing ever grows in your comfort zone?  I don’t believe so anymore, no.

I’m keeping one foot firmly in my comfort zone as I move towards the growth and stretch-zone of getting my book published.  For the time being I’m not growing taller, I’m going to nurture the leaves and buds and see how flowery this tree can get.

Sign up here to be updated on my book being published and here’s to growing in your comfort zone!

With love as always

Sarah xx