At 44, I Left a 24-Year Corporate Career and Everything Changed
This is the story of how burnout, grief and learning to heal changed my life and led me to create Infinity & Flow.
The Day Burnout and Grief Caught Up With Me
It was October 2018, I was 44, 520 miles and eight hours away from home, sitting on a pebbly beach in Brighton. I had just stepped away from a 24-year career in corporate leadership, and suddenly, I felt completely stuck, exhausted and overwhelmed.
When Mental Health Reaches a Breaking Point
That day on the beach, my mental health was at the lowest point it had ever been. I needed clarity. I needed to slow down. Sitting there, listening to the waves crashing on the shore, I wished they could carry away my worries, my fears and my tears.
I had my eyes closed, trying to enjoy the warmth of the late evening sun on my face, imagining myself somewhere else entirely, a sunny beach, a brief moment of escape. Instead, all I could feel were the cold, hard pebbles beneath me, the sharp breeze on my cheeks and the taste of sea spray on my lips, a stark, cold, physical reminder of my reality, hit me hard in that moment.
My mind was racing. No matter how hard I tried to slow it down, it felt layered with questions, worries and fear.
At the same time, my personal life was unravelling. My husband had been diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer in 2015. My dad died in 2016 after a long battle with early onset dementia, only to later discover he’d also had lung cancer. In that very same week, my husband was told his cancer had spread to his brain and that he needed immediate radiotherapy.
My children were 13 and 11. They needed me. My husband needed me. But I was also the main breadwinner, the career woman who had always held everything together.
The guilt was overwhelming.
Had I let everyone down? Who did I think I was? Was I good enough? Should I have worked less, been more, done something differently? The seeds of self-doubt took hold quickly.
I didn’t know it then, but all those unanswered questions weren’t just living in my mind, they were being stored in my body too.
That very moment became a significant turning point in my life.
Stepping Away From a Secure Career
Leaving the comfort of a regular income and a career I’d built over decades was absolutely terrifying. It meant facing every limiting belief I held about money, security and identity. But something inside me knew I couldn’t go back to the life I had been living.
What followed wasn’t instant clarity, it was learning. Over the last seven years, I have pushed myself further outside my comfort zone than I ever had before, immersing myself in a significant learning journey. I researched the psychological and physiological impacts of mental health, the mind-body connections, emotional intelligence and regulation. What I discovered was that there were so many alternative healing practices available and I’d been far too busy being busy, to notice before. I committed myself to training and becoming an expert in the energy based healing techniques that spoke loudest to me, learned how to release emotions and beliefs that were being held deep within my own body, and slowly began to rebuild myself from the inside out.
Learning to Heal Through the Mind-Body Connection
The learning that began during one of the darkest periods of my life led me to change my career path entirely. Using all the learning in healing and energetic techniques now, at 51, my life looks completely different, way beyond what I could ever have imagined. I’m living my best life, spreading joy across the world, my passion, soul purpose, allowing my inner wisdom and unwavering self trust to lead me.
Why I Created the Infinity & Flow Collective
This is why I founded the Infinity & Flow Collective, an online global community supporting women who feel unseen, exhausted and just over it all. Guiding them to feel alive and and reignite that inner spark that has been dimmed by the world around them.
Looking back, that cold day on the beach didn’t just mark the end of my corporate life, it was only the beginning of a deeper, more meaningful one. Stepping out of my comfort zone didn’t feel brave at the time. It felt necessary.
I trusted myself and it changed everything.
