Noona Nafousi - Life Coach

Happy birthday to my baby sister! Roxie Nafousi

The one whose nappies I changed, who came to stay with me when I was at university on her Easter holidays and who moved in with me in London.

The one who’s made the Nafousi name known, whose my icon and who I just adore so so deeply.

I’m honestly so blessed to have you as a sister, a friend and a confidant.

May this year bring you all that you wish for and more sis and can’t wait to see your new book make it to the best seller.

Keep inspiring, keep shining and have so much bloody fun while you do it.

Love you and have the best day. Wish I was celebrating with you today.

Love, your big sis,

Noona Da Best xx

Woman in their mid forty plus are not to be ignored…

Which one speaks to you the most?

It’s the last slide for me..

❤️

I never knew that I wasn’t choosing me..

But there were clues:

- silently thinking what to say to try and impress
- feeling that needy energy inside of me, pick me, see me, hear me (eurgh I hate how that feels in my body)
- the sense of frustration if things weren’t said in the way or tone of voice I wanted and desperately needed.

In all honestly it was exhausting but I didn’t know that’s what it was.

I thought it was them, they didn’t love my enough, like me enough, appreciate me enough…

I thought it was me, I needed to try harder, do more, be more impressive, be kinder, be this be that.

And guess what, nothing I did was enough. And if I’m honest nothing anyone else did was enough either.

Because the missing ingredient wasn’t from getting anything from anyone one.

Of course it was from me.

Choosing me means:

- being OK if someone’s not happy with me. The closer they are the harder this is, it’s also the most freeing.
- understanding that feeling good about me and my life can only be generated from me ( as an ex class victim player this was a hard one but also the one that created the biggest positive impact)
- I spend more thing thinking about my needs and personal nourishment (can still feel selfish at times)

This is not a once done thing.

What I’ve come to realise is the more I grow, the better I feel that deeper I need to go in nourishing myself.

It’s not easy.

But as I said to one of my clients it’s about choosing our hard.

I’m so here for my choosing me era.

It’s a bandwagon I wish for everyone to jump on…

Two of my favourite things in life…

My babies and adventure.

I made the kids a promise this year that I would show them the world!

After what these little ones have had to endure over the last few months (any myself) I cannot wait to take them away and show them that no one knows how to have fun like their mum and that the world is a place to be enjoyed and discovered.

I danced onto the plane this morning and they didn’t call me cringe…..so I’m taking that as a win!

Off to Athens for a couple of days before I meet all my siblings in Crete (god I’ve missed them) and then Hamburg for a 50th with all my boys (my 4 besties from uni) and their families for a 50th. (So grateful to be aging to see this age- getting older is a blessing denied to many)

Happy summer my loves.

I intend to make this the best one ever had.

In the words of my daughter….LET’S GO!!!!

☀️

Every time a peer pushed work onto her, she took it on. Every time a colleague scheduled a call in the middle of her night, she showed up.

Every time she had something to say in a meeting, she swallowed it.

On our first call she looked exhausted.

I knew that feeling. Nothing used to eat away at my confidence like keeping my mouth shut when my whole body wanted to say something. My throat would burn. My fake smile would hurt my face. 

The anxiety wasn’t the problem. It was the symptom.

The more we push our emotions away, the more they fester. The more they fester, the louder the anxiety gets. We were never taught to feel our feelings. 

We were taught to manage them, suppress them, perform through them.

So that’s where we started.
Four weeks later she changed her calls to fit her time zone. She stopped overworking to prove her worth. She started speaking up in meetings.
When redundancies came, she made it through.

That is what happens when you stop running from what you feel.

I have two 1:1 spots left on my Limitless Leadership Programme. DM me FEEL if you want to know more.

The other night, my nine-year-old called me from a sleepover.

“Mummy, I don’t feel myself.”

So I went to pick him up.

The moment he got into the car, he took a deep breath, smiled and said,

“Ahhh... I feel better now.”

Later that evening, he told me he’d been lying there staring at the ceiling. Nothing had happened. He just knew something didn’t feel right.

And because we’ve always encouraged our children to listen to their bodies, he trusted that feeling enough to act on it.

It made me stop and think.

Every week, I work with senior executives who ignore those same signals.

They push through exhaustion. Silence the anxiety. Dismiss the tightness in their chest. Convince themselves they’re “just busy.”

Until their body stops whispering and starts shouting.

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned to override ourselves. We became so focused on performing, producing and pushing through that we stopped listening to the one thing that’s trying to protect us.

My son reminded me that this isn’t something we’re born without. It’s something we’re taught to forget.

Your body is speaking to you every single day. The real question is...how long will you ignore it?

If you are ready to learn the art of listening to your body and how to show up in moments like these, start here. Link is in bio.