I’ve been living in Bali for a little while now – just over four months – and something in me is softening, deepening, and reorienting.
There’s something about the texture of life here and the sentience of the land that invites you to come back into your own field. It’s lush and alive, yes, but it’s also slow in all the right ways. Spacious. Sensual. True. The sacred and quiet here has been teaching me as much as the aliveness and energy.
I’ve found myself reflecting a lot on the kind of leader I’ve become over the last 10 years of doing *this* soul work thing, as well as the versions of me I had to outgrow to truly hold what I hold now.
There’ve been a few times in my entrepreneurial journey when I was constantly overgiving.
Not just in the obvious ways – too many hours working, too many clients, too little left for myself – but in the subtle energetic ways that are so easy to miss.
I was constantly merging with other people’s emotional landscapes and holding what wasn’t mine. Preoccupied with how others were feeling, and contorting myself to manage it.
From the outside, it looked like care. But inside? It was actually co-dependency.
It felt noble. It felt spiritual. But it wasn’t sustainable, and it wasn’t clean.
My boundaries were constantly being crossed (this looked like: clients expecting full access to me all the time, surrogating me as an emotional support animal, or some telling me they’d love to work with me but couldn’t afford my programs, then go on to join programs with a higher price point…) – but this was all happening because I was the one crossing my own boundaries first.
My energy field was Swiss cheese.
Interestingly, I progressed through that stage early in my entrepreneurial journey with guidance from skilled coaches and practitioners. But lo and behold, last year as my business moved through a cycle of winter/death, I found myself back in the very same place (well, not exactly the same, but it felt like it). Over-giving, working weekends, grinding myself into endless productivity. Wanting to hide and maybe quit, and not wanting to be seen.
The fact is, these sensations are quite common among empaths. Especially the ones who are also here to lead.
We feel so much. We care so deeply. But unless we know how to root ourselves in the clarity of our own bodies and energy fields, we can end up leading from depletion, trying to serve from a centre we’ve abandoned.
There was a moment in this journey, a real tipping point, when I once again realised: this isn’t leadership. This is martyrdom.
And this moment opened a portal.
I began anchoring back into myself, again and again. Literally. I’d visualise a grounding point at the base of my spine – my tailbone – and practice staying rooted there when I felt myself floating out into someone else’s energy. It was simple, but powerful.
Over time, it changes everything. My presence. My income. My capacity. My magnetism.
I started spending more time alone, especially in nature, where I could expand my field right out into the cosmos, and feel myself without the interference of others’ energy – or of tech and other noise. I’d just sit or stand, breathe, and be, until I could remember what I felt like. Not anyone else.
And that gave me the clarity again to know when something wasn’t mine, and let it go.
I shared more about this shift recently on my Youtube channel – from overgiving empath to embodied leader. It’s a story I’ve never told in quite this way before, and if you’re walking a similar path, I think you’ll feel seen.
I hope it meets you where you are – and gently reminds you that you don’t have to push harder, or try to fix the world through self-sacrifice.
With love from the light-soaked mornings and the sacredness of Bali!
