Joshua Tree Coaching

Everyone thinks shame is obvious.

Someone falling apart, coming undone where people can see it. It’s not. Most of the time it’s the woman who looks like she’s got it all handled.

It doesn’t look like shame. It shows up as being helpful and capable and no bother to anyone, and she gets thanked for every bit of it.

The women carrying the most of it are the ones you’d never pick out because they look sorted on the surface, but are running themselves into the ground to keep it that way.

If you found yourself somewhere in that list, please know you are not flawed. It’s just shame doing the one thing it’s good at…looking like anything but itself.

You already know who needs to read this. Send it to her 🌳🤍

You didn’t choose this.

You just never got asked.

The job. The kids. Your parents’ appointments. The prescriptions. The birthdays. Everyone’s moods...

It got handed to you one thing at a time. Nobody decided. It just always ended up you.

And now it’s yours. The one who copes. The one who doesn’t need asking. So capable nobody thinks to check.

You never agreed to any of it. You just stopped noticing there was a choice.

Notice it now.

And if you know a woman like this, send it because needs the reminder too 🌳🤍

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

Someone tilts their head, says it lightly, and your stomach drops through the floor. You’re still smiling, still making small talk, but part of you has already left the room, scanning for where they know you from and what they might have heard.

Then it turns out to be nothing. The school run years ago. A friend of a friend who can’t even place it properly. And the relief that goes through you is far too big for something that harmless.

That much panic over a stranger placing your face was never shyness. It’s what it feels like to carry something you’ve never said out loud, always half braced for the day it catches up with you.

There’s one small thing that takes the grip off in the moment, and it’s in the reel. It doesn’t have to stay this way.

If that landed a bit too close, you’re not the only one. Send it to the one person you’d trust with the real version. And if even that feels like too much today, my inbox is open, and there’s nothing you’d have to explain. 🌳🤍

Everyone thinks they know your story.

The tidy version. The one that starts a little later than the real thing, that quietly skips the years you don’t hand over to just anyone.

You’ve told it so many times it comes out smooth now. No pause. No tell.

And people believe it, because look at you. Look at the life you’ve built. From the outside you’re the woman who has it together, the one everyone assumes has always had it this way.

Only you know there’s a room in that life you keep locked.

A part of your past you’ve decided the world doesn’t get to see, because you’ve watched what happens to women when the wrong person finds out. So you manage it. You stay a step ahead of it. You’ve become very good at making sure nobody ever quite reaches the door.

It works. It’s worked for years.

But holding a door shut is not the same as being free, and underneath the capable woman everyone admires, you’re tired in a way that sleep doesn’t touch.

You are not the thing you keep behind that door. You never were.

And you don’t have to hold it shut for the rest of your life.

If you’re reading this and something in your chest went quiet, you’re not on your own in it. There are more of us than you’d ever guess, living the tidy version, exhausted behind it. You don’t have to say a word to anyone yet. Just know the door isn’t as heavy as it’s become in your head.

🌳🤍

£14.67…🤯

And now I’ve to find time to get to the post office to pay it by hand, which they’ll happily accept, because obviously that’s more secure.

Here’s what actually gets me though. Not the £14.67. It’s that I’m already carrying a fair bit right now, more than I let on, and this was one more daft hoop on a day with no room for it. And I’ll sort it. I always sort it. Which is sort of the whole point, isn’t it.

What unnecessary ‘rule’ had almost tipped you over the edge?🌳🤍

You know exactly why you do it.

You could talk me through the whole thing. How you go quiet the second someone’s annoyed with you. How you’d sooner be worn out than be the one who let people down.

And you still said yes to helping out on Saturday, on the one day you’d promised yourself a rest.

Then you’re awake at half two, raging with yourself for still being like this at your age.

All that understanding lives in the part of you that weighs things up. But the yes was out of your mouth before that part had got its coat on.

So there’s no point going back for more understanding. Saturday is where we’d start 🌳🤍

What have you agreed to this week that you didn’t really want to? ⬇️