The Who, What & Why of Messy Life Coach

Hi, I’m Debbie, and if you’re reading this, I’m so glad you’ve found me.

Right now I’m a menopause coach, workplace menopause consultant, professional speaker, and someone deeply interested in why so many capable women suddenly stop recognising themselves halfway through life. 

But it wasn’t always this way.  I’ve been –

• A people and performance manager for over 20 years
• The woman who stayed in toxic work environments even though it was destroying her
• The exhausted wife and mother convinced she was failing at both roles
• The woman who slept most of the weekend to recharge after the unappreciated week at work with a 1hr commute each way
• The woman who was so numb she felt dead inside, every time she was still showing up with a smile

So how did I get here?

Well 3 years ago I landed my dream job.  Managing people and driving performance again.  My homeground.  And this time, extremely local.  And the thrill of arriving in a new workplace highlighted everything I’d given to previous roles and not got back – time, balance and calm.

But all dreams sour, and mine started to curdle under the weight of long COVID and perimenopause and 3 bosses who didn’t know how to run a business but who absolutely wanted to meddle in what I was trying to do (my job, Karen, I was trying to do my job).

I realised the version of me who could push through absolutely anything had disappeared.  And as the stress grew, I could feel myself literally falling apart – 

• The increased need for sleep, and an exhaustion that no sleep could fix
• The effort of talking to people and being positive and bubbly when all i wanted to do was lock myself away in silence
• The inability to absorb an email or information unless I printed it out and hovered over it with a highlighter
• The wrong words spilling out of my mouth at the wrong times, making me sound like an incoherent fool
• And all the mistakes I was suddenly making in my work and the fear of how many I WASN’T spotting

Every day was an effort to hold myself together.

When I realised I couldn’t continue like this (and it took way longer than it should), my request for reasonable adjustments turned into an inquisition that felt more like a disciplinary, and I realised it was time to go.

I had no plan.  Not even a whiff of one.  But I knew I had to leave if I wanted to protect myself.

So I stepped away, out of a fight I couldn’t win, and within a week a new world opened up to me.

A world where all I wanted to do was help women like me.  Women who had spent their whole life giving and had no idea of the price they were going to have to pay for that.

Because once I started talking openly about what had happened to me, women started telling me their stories too.

• The high performers secretly crying in toilets.
• The women waking at 3am convinced they were losing their minds.
• The women considering leaving careers they had spent decades building.
• The women who thought they were broken when actually they were depleted, unsupported and hormonally overwhelmed.

And I realised this wasn’t a personal failing.

It was a pattern.

And the more I delved into it, the more it sucked me in.   Menopause is BRUTAL.  It’s a fucking reckoning, when all our “crimes” of the last 20 years are laid bare before us –

• Why did you never put yourself first?
• Why did you spend every drop of energy on people who didn’t appreciate you or give the same energy to you?
• Why did you think you could do it all?
• Why did you accept running the household was primarily your responsibility?
• Why did your husband get more “off” time than you?
• Did you think you could continue like this forever?

Yeh, I really did.

As women, we build a whole identity on COPING, on being the one who always shows up, who gives, who nurtures, who supports, who soldiers on.

Who is “fine”.

Until very suddenly she is not.

And that’s what perimenopause and menopause do to us.  The symptoms (the wonderful fucking symptoms) bring us to our knees.  Not to destroy us, but to highlight the price of a lifetime of service.

Yes, you read that right – a lifetime of SERVICE.  Serving everyone else before ourselves. 

Menopause lasts 10 times longer than pregnancy, and is far less exciting.

Perimenopause can start as early as 35.

1 in 10 menopausal women leave the workplace because they just CAN’T anymore.

And I so don’t want that to be you.

So I got educated.  I got me a 900 hour diploma (not a “do it in a weekend piece of shit diploma”).  I followed people.  I read.  I learnt.  I connected.  I engaged.

And what I learnt was this.

For 20 years, as women, we try to live 2 lives in one.  We are the wife, the mother, the household manager, the cook, the laundrymaid, the diary scheduler and I could go on ….. (just as our neverending list of household jobs does).

And at the same time we are working a full-time job and building a career.  The same job where historically, men would return home, as if from war, pour a scotch and read an oversized newspaper in the armchair whilst the wife got the perfect children ready for bed (quietly).

And when we combine both lives for 20 years we get chronic stress and nervous system dysregulation.  A wired life in a wireless world.  A life in a kaleidoscope of service to others.  Being everything to everyone, all at once.

And when perimenopause enters the chat for shits and giggles, and starts creating hormonal havoc like an orchestra conductor on acid, it finds a landscape that is already depleted.  A body that has been running on empty for years, proudly wearing an “I’m Fine!” t-shirt.

And so my love, yes you are facing hormonal disruption on an unprecedented scale, but the reason it is hitting you so hard is because your nervous system crashed somewhere between the 4th load of washing and planning the family holiday.

And you were so busy, you didn’t even notice.

And that’s where I work.

In my head, I call you Julie.  And, Julie, I want to help.

I want to show you how this (peri) menopause arrived to bring you to an epiphany, one that you wouldn’t have listened to any other way.

I want to teach you what I wish I had known 10, 15 and 20 years ago.

I want to give you permission to put yourself first and establish some hard and true boundaries.

I’m going to show you how to LET GO of all the bullshit and feed your mind and body with what you need now.

I’m going to show you how trying to be Superwoman was the dumbest thing our generation ever tried to do.

And how that’s now over for you.

Because you’ve learnt self-love.

Because you’ve learnt acceptance.

And because you finally believe that your needs are as important as anybody else’s.

So, join me, Julie, as we rise from this perifire.

Join me as we come together to make sense of this experience.

And join me as we rejoice, and revel in what it was always trying to teach us if we would only just fucking stop for a minute …. and listen.

This is your (peri) menopause.  And hidden inside all this chaos is the woman you were always supposed to become.

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Hi!

If you’d like to connect further, you can find me here – 

LinkedIn – Debbie Taylor – Messy Life Coach – https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-taylor-messy-life-coach-264b7733/ 

Facebook – The No BS Menopause Club – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1537012547486267