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I asked her: "What will happen if you don't get the emotional release you're looking for?"
She looked me straight in the eye and said:
"Bree, I cannot see my life lasting much longer beyond this moment if I don't get it. I simply cannot — NO, I WILL NOT — continue to live my life like this. This is the last hope for me. I am ALL in."
After a lifetime of people turning away from her, every single day felt like fresh evidence of how broken she was.
Her husband had left. She'd lost contact with her grown children. She was stuck in a job she hated, in a small town where everyone knew everything — she couldn't sneeze without someone knowing about it.
She felt like a reject. Unlovable. Unworthy of anything good in life.
She had spent years trying to feel better about herself. In and out of specialists' offices, trying to heal the past so she could move forward. Telling the story over and over and over again. But nothing had worked. Maybe, she thought, she was just destined to live a miserable life.
It was that feeling of hopelessness that brought her to me.
Within two sessions, using a deeply effective emotional transformation process developed specifically for women, my client was free.
Free from the emotions that had kept her trapped. Free from the story that had told her she was worthless. She didn't even need to talk about the story!
She had a new lease on life. One full of possibilities, choices and options she'd previously been completely blind to, because she was so consumed by her story of circumstance.
Six years later, she is still living life with passion.
I wish I could tell you she was the only woman I've worked with who felt that hopeless.
She's not. Not by a long shot.
Over the years, women have trusted me with the depths of their darkness. Feelings of worthlessness, self-loathing, anxiety, depression, anger, shame, guilt, resentment, betrayal, hopelessness. The list is long and heavy.
And here's what strikes me every single time: these are women who, from the outside, appear to have no reason to feel the way they do. Professionally successful women. Women in loving relationships. Mothers. Single women. Women in their 20s and women in their 70s. Every walk of life.
Many have spent years seeking help. Therapy. Medication. Programs. Courses. And while those things may have offered some relief, it was never permanent. Whatever they thought they'd addressed had a way of coming back. In the negative self-talk. In the stories they told themselves. In the feeling itself returning.
Here's something that doesn't get talked about enough.
A substantial number of researchers continue to study exclusively male subjects, ignoring women entirely, despite the fact that men and women show real differences in neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and emotional processing. (Source: PMC — Is It Important to Consider Sex and Gender in Neurocognitive Studies?)
What this means in plain language: most of the emotional healing tools and therapeutic models that exist were developed from research that didn't account for how women's brains actually work.
Women have been found to respond more strongly to negative emotional stimuli - a difference that has been linked to increased rates of depression and anxiety. (Source: ScienceDirect — Sex differences in brain activation to emotional stimuli)
And yet the tools designed to help? Built on male data.
It's a bit like trying to run Mac software on a PC and wondering why it keeps crashing.
Some methods can help reduce the intensity temporarily, and there are tools I use myself for day-to-day emotional resets. But they rarely get to the deep root of where the emotion or belief actually originated.
The process I use, developed specifically with the female brain, hormonal cycles and emotional extremes in mind - doesn't just manage what you're feeling. It gets underneath it. To the source.
And then, often more swiftly and painlessly than you'd expect, it releases it.
No matter how long you've been carrying it. No matter how many things you've already tried.
If you're over it, genuinely over it, you're ready.
If you've read this and thought "that's me", I want you to know something important:
The fact that nothing has worked so far doesn't mean you are broken. It may simply mean that what you've tried hasn't been built for the way your brain actually works.
There is another way. And it starts with a single conversation.
No pressure. No commitment. Just an honest conversation about where you are and whether I can help.
Written by Bree Stedman — women's mindset and emotional transformation coach helping women in their 40s find their way back to themselves.