Dearests,
You may have noticed a difference in my energy lately… I think it started becoming noticeable early in the year, and now as the months go by, it keeps compounding.
I’m at once more grounded and alive, more grateful and excited, and my capacity to create and share and connect is getting bigger.
A coaching client just asked me what was causing these changes, and I shared with her the story. I thought you might like to hear it too.
You see, I’ve been on a healing quest for a while now. It started a few years ago when I tried out Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Z, my genius assistant at the time, had a very handy degree in Psychology, and we had this conversation:
💙Z: “I notice you aren’t in a great space right now. Are you still going to therapy?”
🦄Me: “I was… but it was making me spiral even more. I started second guessing all my thoughts and myself. I thought CBT was supposed to be gold standard, I don’t know if I’m doing it wrong.”
💙Z: “Oh… it’s gold standard for NEUROTYPICAL people. For neurodivergent people, it can worsen symptoms.”
🦄Me: “Well. SHITTTT. What is gold standard for a neurodivergent person then?”
💙Z: “Here’s the thing… there’s no gold standard. There’s not enough research on neurodivergent people. It’s more of a pick and mix bag of what is helpful to YOU. Some people find Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helpful. Some people find equine therapy helpful. Some find somatic therapies helpful. It’s really about working out what works for you. What has worked for you previously?”
🦄Me: “I’ve always found intuitive healing and mentoring with people like Kerry Rowett and Hiro Boga to be hugely helpful… but I somehow started thinking I SHOULD be doing CBT instead because that’s more real and scientifically validated somehow?”
💙Z: “If it works for you, that’s completely valid. You can just claim that and do that instead.”
🦄Me: “Wow. I wish every neurodivergent knew this.”
Z is a very very smart human, and I’m SO GRATEFUL we had that conversation, because it was a real turning point for me.
I signed back up with Kerry to do regular sessions with her and started clearing through the energetic dross I’d built up. Nine months ago, I signed up with a new mentor and mastermind, based on this deep intuitive knowing that it was needed. That intensified the healing journey for me even more.
Here’s what I realised: I needed to heal my relationship to fame and success. I had barnacles on my spirit built up from it. You see, I’d experienced a small amount of fame and success, and I’d experienced the duality of it… both the blessings and the challenges of it. I’d experienced the abundance and the fulfilment, and I’d also experienced projections, trolling and conflict. I didn’t know how to hold the duality at the time, and so I see so clearly how I retreated. In 2017, there was a moment when I looked at my young children and dear husband, and I chose them.
I made a decision to put an invisibility cloak of sorts over myself and my business to create an impermeable sanctuary for me and my family. I decided I just wanted to work with clients who knew me and loved me. I knew I could run a small, streamlined business that brought in a million dollars a year and that I could run with a part-time assistant. So that’s what I did, and it was the perfect thing to do. I got to still create and share and do my work in the world, and it was easy and abundant and filled with joy. And I homeschooled my kids for a few years and I watched them bloom and grow, and we made the happiest, sweetest, gentlest family life we could. I will never, ever regret that decision. A 10/10 life choice.
And then, and then… I felt inside me that I wanted to experience expansion again. Experience business growth, share my work with more people. And now I’ve been doing the work of healing my relationship to fame, success and business growth. I’ve written letters and burned them. I’ve worked on deepening my understanding of why people have behaved the way they have, and why I behaved the way I did. I’ve made healing art. I’ve done rituals. I’ve forgiven people. As a Scorpio, learning forgiveness is a revelation – one I didn’t think possible for people of my ilk. And yet, there it is. I can forgive. All of it, all of this, so deeply important and needed.
Next, I realised I needed to shift the way I thought about expansion. When I thought about growing myself and my business, I immediately worried about my nervous system and how it could stay regulated during it. For many years, I have relied on contraction and strong boundaries to keep my nervous system regulated. I said no to most things. I constrained my work hours and my social activities. I thought it was the only option I had.
And then I realised that there was another way to consider nervous system regulation. That I could work on *expanding* my capacity instead. That instead of doing less to cope, I instead worked on my nervous system’s ability to regulate to a new level. Instead of retreating, I could use other tools like breathwork to regulate.
I also discovered serendipitously that I had unresolved primitive reflexes. One of my dear friends is an Occupational Therapist, and one night as we went out for dinner, she told me all about the latest conference she had been on about primitive reflexes. Say, for example, the startle reflex that infants have? That reflex resolves for most people. But for a variety of reasons, it doesn’t resolve for everyone, and they can cause a range of neurological and physical issues. I was fascinated, and she showed me the physical test you can do to see if someone has an unresolved Moro reflex (this is the startle reflex that you see in infants).
And as I did the test, my arms immediately began to flail wildly and uncontrollably. “Don’t be an idiot!” she laughed at me, thinking I was faking it. “I promise you, I’m not doing this on purpose!” I told her, wide eyed. “Damn, Lones… that’s a really significant unresolved reflex you’ve got there. That reflex would be going off for you constantly during the day without you even being aware. You may not have the full physical arm flail happen, but your stress receptors would be going off in your brain. So if you were at the grocery store, any loud noises or beeps or bright lights could be setting off your startle reflex and causing a huge amount of stress for you. But… there are things you can do to resolve this reflex as an adult.”
I stared dumbfounded at her. That’s exactly how I felt in stores. My brain would feel on fire from being in one. I attributed it to being an Autism symptom that I’d never be able to heal. And now I was discovering it was something that could be fixed? Wild.
So at the beginning of this year, I made the decision that 2025 was the year I resolved my primitive reflexes. There’s a range of different ways you can do it, including working with occupational therapists. I ended up doing a bunch of in-person sessions with Dr Sharon Williams who is a chiropractor/kinesiologist/witchy woman with a million healing modalities. And let me tell you… they have made a huge, huge difference in my life. It is absolutely WILD. And I feel like this was a really important part of helping my nervous system to regulate.
So much so that when I was away for our business mastermind retreat, I couldn’t believe that I didn’t experience overstimulation or overwhelm during it. Usually after a full day of socialising or intense activity, I am glazed over and non-verbal by the evening. And at retreat? I was not. Even my friends noticed. “Leonie… you’ve CHANGED. You’re managing this so well! I’m so impressed and happy for you!” I think it’s testament to all the healing work I’ve done on this.
And then bringing all of this healing and expansion into my business and work. The level of my work has deepened and become so much more powerful because of it. And I’m able to create and launch and hold space at a level I’ve never been able to do before. Just this year I’ve birthed 2025 Dream Quest and then led the most amazing circle of women through some deep soul work in Creative Goddess Embodied.
Last month I ran Big Money, Big Impact – a 21 day coaching container with hundreds of students and incredible results… and after such an intensely wonderful experience, I would ordinarily need 1-2 months of quiet time to recover. This time? None. I was chomping at the bit to create the next thing. And I did! I created Backstage Pass, and am enjoying the absolute bejeezus out of that. And I’ve got Momentum Mastermind starting soon, and I’m astonished at how much my capacity has widened.
I feel so incredibly grateful for the healing and miracles I’ve experienced during this journey… and so very excited for what’s next. What an absolute blessing!
I offer this story up to you in the hope that it reminds you that growth, healing and expansion are always possible.
Big love,