Early Life and Striving for Perfection

Born to a Lebanese father and a Dutch mother, I grew up in The Hague as the youngest of three children. I always felt a bit different from my siblings, but I didn’t understand why. I figured there was probably something wrong with me, so I learned to repress my fears and feelings and adjust to the social standards around me. Over time, I took on the role of perfect daughter, sister, student, friend, lover, colleague, partner, and mother — until my constant striving for perfection pushed me into burn out.

Recognizing Burn out

It was when I was reading my daughter a bedtime story and the words suddenly started flying off the pages that I knew something was off. Of course, I went back to business as usual the next day, but it wasn’t until I saw my pale face on the Zoom screen and felt myself on the verge of fainting that I realized it was time to take a break.

Navigating Burn out: Challenges and Realizations

In the days and weeks that followed, there were periods when I couldn’t read, think, speak, hear, or sometimes even move. I had been pushing myself to keep going for so long, and now my body hit the brakes for me, forcing me to pause. The scariest thing was no longer being capable of executing all my roles perfectly. I dreaded that nobody would love me anymore if I didn’t. "Who am I without these roles, and what’s left of me to love?" was a genuine question I asked myself. It was the loneliest I had ever felt. Hardly anyone around me had been through something similar, so it felt like nobody really understood me. Everybody wished for me to get better (and seemed to know how), which was very sweet and well-intended, but it made me feel like I was failing them once again. My strategies for survival made it impossible to ask for help, and my burn out made it impossible to do it all myself. Failure upon failure, exhaustion upon exhaustion.

Transforming Burn out into Growth

My burn out - or burn away, as I like to call it - turned out to be a great gift. It brought to light and burned away all the layers that were no longer serving me, leaving behind fertile ground for my own seeds to sprout and my true self to emerge. It was in the darkest of places that I found myself and truly learned how to love myself fully and live my own truth without needing to be or do anything to earn anyone’s approval.

My Personal Transformation

Thanks to my burn out, I discovered a path to living authentically. I've become more attuned to my needs and desires, allowing me to establish and communicate boundaries clearly, regain agency and make different choices. Embracing my true self, I've learned to let go of others' expectations and perceptions of me. I now trust my intuition and have grown confident in my capabilities. This journey has led me to attract like-minded people, and I cherish being authentically myself above all else.

Holistic Healing and Coaching Journey

Throughout my recovery journey, I explored various therapies and coaching methods. I discovered that ‘talk therapy’ often overlooks much of what’s occurring in the nervous system. It wasn’t until I incorporated my body and subconscious into my healing journey that deeply repressed childhood experiences surfaced, explaining my sense of being different and igniting patterns of overextending myself. Everything then started to fall into place and make sense.

Emerging from burn out, I was determined to help women reconnect with their inner wisdom and authentic selves—without needing to experience burn out themselves. I graduated as a trauma-informed somatic (body based) coach and mastered many amazing holistic tools and processes to delve deep into the psyches of women that are ready to meet the parts of themselves that are subconsciously running - or should I say ruining - their lives. So that they can start (re)gaining agency and make choices that are in alignment with their true selves, calm and confidently.

Supporting Others Through Shared Experiences

As I spoke to other women that were or had been through burn out, it seemed that the hardest thing, time and again, is the deep darkness and loneliness one can experience. And I figured that apart from the inevitable inner work, all we really need is someone that gets us, that understands what we’re going through and that tells us we’re not crazy and everything is going to be okay. Someone to be with us while our world turns upside down and we (re)orient ourselves and navigate some of the hardest and most transformative times of our lives.

So I am here to offer you just that. 

And if you want to go deeper, we can.

With compassion and support,

Sharifa