Tracey Leslie Coaching

Here's a tighter version, trimmed further so it comfortably clears the limit with room to spare.

They see 25 years in water and wastewater engineering. They see the pivot into coaching, helping women in STEM find ease and self trust.

It's real. But what they don't see are the years I'll never get back.

Let me tell you about one moment.

I was halfway through a major project. The lead left, and I took over. The second I realised it was on me, instant panic.

"I don't know if I can do this."
"What if it all goes wrong…"

I was so disconnected from my body I couldn't tell you what the panic felt like physically. Just fog. Overthinking. Worry on a loop.

My nervous system decided before my brain caught up: outsource it, get it off me.

I never sat down and said, "I'm not sure what the next step is, can we talk this through?" I didn't ask for help. I didn't admit I was uncertain.

Somewhere in my wiring, asking for help meant I couldn't handle it. It meant weakness.

So I made a costly decision in isolation. Not because I chose to, but because my nervous system had already decided vulnerability was more dangerous than anything else.

That moment wasn't one time. That was years.

Years of deciding alone. Carrying the shame of "I should know," while projecting confidence on the outside. Years of declining health, missing real connection, too afraid to admit I was quietly falling apart.

The years I'll never get back aren't the years I spent in engineering.

They're the years I spent believing asking for help was weakness, when it was actually the most competent thing I could have done.

No one told me the fog and the anxiety weren't me failing. It was my nervous system running a program I didn't know was there.

The way out wasn't another course. It was the thing that felt most dangerous: vulnerability. Asking for help.

If you recognise yourself in this, hear me: you're not broken. It's not a competence problem. It's a nervous system program.

Asking for help isn't weakness. It's the way out.

I just wish someone had told me sooner.

I couldn't eat a carrot without my body reacting. That's how bad things got before I found this.

Fatigue, headaches, nausea, food sensitivities out of nowhere. I tried managing my stress, controlling my emotions, thinking my way out of it. None of it worked.

So I tried something different. Whenever an emotion came up, I just let myself feel it. No fixing, no pushing it away. Just noticing where it sat in my body and letting it pass.

A few months later, my symptoms eased up. My anxiety got quieter. I softened. I actually opened up to my friends instead of hiding how I felt, and those friendships got closer.

Turns out resisting an emotion is what keeps it stuck. Feeling it is what lets it move.

Next time something comes up, pause for 60 seconds before you try to fix it. See what happens.

Comment "CALM" if you want to learn more about how to manage your emotions without letting them take over.