The book Grit & Grace was launched this month, on International Women’s Day. This book is more than just a collection of stories, it’s a movement of strength, resilience and empowerment. Within the chapters of this book, you will find a collection of inspiring journeys of women who make a difference in our world. Grit and Grace is a testament to the strength, courage, and resilience of women everywhere. Within these pages, you’ll meet trailblazers who have turned challenges into stepping stones, fears into fire, and ideas into impact. These women have navigated paths that weren’t always paved, carving out their own space in industries, communities, and causes that matter.
I was honoured to be involved in the creation of this book, not only because every story in Grit & Grace is a testament to the power of women supporting women. More importantly, we have the chance to turn those stories into action as 100% of launch profits will go to Women’s Aid to support women facing domestic abuse. When you buy this book, you’re not just investing in inspiration, you are helping women rebuild their lives.
My Grit and Grace chapter is called ‘Wounds to Wisdom’ where I share my journey from being a Registered Nurse of thirty years, walking away from a professional career to birth my own business ‘Homebody Healing.’ A heart centred business where I help other women to create an aligned life and business of their own. Here’s a little snippet of my story.
After dedicating decades of my life to healing others as a Registered Nurse, witnessing trauma daily left me feeling emotionally and spiritually depleted. Nursing is often described as a calling, an active service that requires compassion, resilience, and unwavering commitment to patient care. Beneath the sterile hallways and the beeping machines, there exists an unspoken burden: the suppression of emotions. Nurses are expected to remain composed in the face of suffering, there to be a steady presence when patients and families fall apart. Yet, what happens when the very emotions we pack away begin to fester?
From day one, as a young nineteen-year-old student nurse, I was conditioned to prioritise others over myself. Training emphasised clinical competence, professionalism, and emotional restraint. Showing too much emotion can be perceived as weakness, a loss of control and highly unprofessional. In high stakes environments like busy wards, there is little time to process grief or fear. A patient passes, a family sobs, and within moments, a nurse must move on to her next task.
Over time, this suppression becomes second nature. Nurses learn to compartmentalise, to pack away their pain in the invisible storage of their minds, believing they will unpack it later, but later rarely comes. Instead, the weight of unprocessed sorrow and stress accumulates, settling in the body like an unseen illness. Pain has a way of shaping us. Trauma, whether sudden or prolonged, leaves its mark-not just on our minds but on our bodies, our choices, and the way we see the world. Trauma is more than just a painful memory; it is an imprint on the nervous system. It lingers in the body, manifesting as tension, fatigue, or illness. But trauma does not have to be the end of the story. It can be the beginning of something else-something deeper, wiser, and even more beautiful. Transformation is not about erasing the past but about alchemising it, turning suffering into strength and wounds into wisdom.
Leaving nursing was the greatest act of self-love I have ever done. And shedding the layers of emotional suppression and trauma, that had kept me disconnected from my true essence, happened through an unexpected journey, the journey through my womb. The womb is where we store our life experiences, emotions and trauma. The journey through the womb is a homecoming to wholeness, a sacred return to the essence of ourselves. Here’s the magic-that even if your womb has been removed, your womb space holds her energetic blueprint and all is for healing. Today, through my heart lead business, Homebody Healing, my soul purpose is to empower women by guiding them back home to themselves, helping women like you to sync with the natural rhythms of the female body, to create and birth an aligned life and business. Unleashing and igniting deeper possibilities and potential from the inside out for greater expansion.
The transformational journey of suffering to softness and wounds to wisdom is not easy but it is possible and on the other side, there is not just healing, there is a return to the wisdom that has always lived within you. There is wholeness. There is light. There is you, fully alive.
If you would like to read more of my journey you can buy your copy here, to stand with women and change a life.