Like so many of the women I work with, I spent years looking strong on the outside while quietly unravelling on the inside. I was in a marriage that looked successful from the outside, but was emotionally and psychologically destructive. I gave everything- to a partner, to the many businesses we owned and ran, to the idea of perfection- and eventually I lost myself in the process.

During that relationship, I went through ten rounds of fertility treatments. Ten. Each round brought with it hope, heartbreak, and a slow unravelling of the vision I had always held for my life. I grieved silently- not only for the children I never held, but for the version of myself who had dreamed so fiercely. That grief was invisible to most people, but it lived in my bones.

Years later, in a moment I didn’t see coming, I lost my dog Pepper- a German Shepard mix who had been my emotional companion, protector, and quiet witness through all of it. She passed suddenly and unexpectedly, just as my life was beginning to change for the better. Her death cracked me wide open.

But in that pain, I heard something clear as I drove home holding my pup’s leash…