Hi, I'm Shona

Entrepreneur, life coach, mother and manifestor of all things wonderful.

Ask, Believe, Receive!

Shona-Louise

My name is Shona-Louise. I have two wonderful children, who have children of their own, and have spent most of my working life in local government in a variety of roles.

I retired in 2020 as part of a wider plan to live more authentically.

Prior to this I was I was working full time, in a long standing relationship, with my life revolving around my family. My needs were not being met. I know this now, I didn't at the time of course, locked in a world that I had created for myself. My relationship had become toxic, my work Life had stalled, by children were practically grown. It was that moment of clarity when you go 'is this it?'

I know this happened for my ex partner resulting in a very destructive affair. If nothing else, this gave me the kickstart I needed to rebuild my life. I was shocked to realise how lost I was, and how much of myself I had given away. I was trying to be what everyone else expected me to be. I was being inauthentic to myself.

I realise now, that I was ‘settling’. I had an okay life, an okay job, okay relationships, okay friends, all okay? It wasn’t thrilling or passionate, but it was comfortable. I thought I was happy.

It took the traumatic event of his affair to shift me from this position. Moving from the comfortableness of ‘okay’ was frightening, but, in the end so worth it, to be genuinely happy.

Importantly though, to be happy, we need to first know ourselves. We need to be happy with who we are, to like ourselves. It is about getting to know yourself and learning to love all parts of ourselves, the parts we hide from the world for fear of judgement; our ego, guilt and regret.

Most of what we know, and who we show the outside world, is based on social conditioning. From our parents, teachers, peers. Basically the social norms that we adopt to fit in.

To be able to grow we need to face the real us. Our fears, shadows and trauma's. We need to look at them head on. This includes forgiveness. My forgiveness of those that hurt me and forgiveness of self; of decisions made, lack of judgement, of hurting others. Maybe sometimes making it sound easy, but I must admit it has been a long and emotional journey for me to say, ‘I forgive those that have hurt me’. My journey started when I was 13, my first traumatic experience. The breach of trust was of course challenging at the time, but I didn't realise until I was much older, that this event would tarnish my future relationships. So, apologies to those that took the brunt, you know who you are!

I can now forgive those that caused me pain because it made me who I am today, stronger, wiser, and more compassionate to the journeys of others; but it took a while. Those that break your trust and cause the most damage tend to be the ones that proclaim to love you. I don't suppose these people even know how much their actions traumatised you or others. It is important to be able to eventually forgive. Not to excuse the action of others, but for our sanity.

I have gone through the gamut of emotions to reach forgiveness. I have grieved, both the childhood I lost and the loss of my former life and what it meant to me. Thankfully, I had considerable support through this process from my family and friends - who I affectionately call, 'my tribe'.

The ending of my previous relationship was the first step in my transformation. Picking through and analysing this relationship, enabled me to see for the first time, that I didn’t like the person I had become. The happy, fun loving, adventurous parts of me had disappeared. I was living a part in someone else's life, not my own. I had lost myself along the way. I really wanted to find myself again, take more risks, to open myself up to new experiences and ultimately, happiness.

The rest came as I started to understand myself. Why I did the things I did, reacted the way I did. How I thought of myself, in terms of being worthy or not. How my life had impacted the who I am today.

So, why am I telling you this? My current work is based from this learning. It is my journey, my evolution, my transformation that has resulted in the creation of my recent work.

This work has been created to aid you in your journey, to make it quicker and easier than mine has been. I hope you find it useful.