A conversation with Dalia Kemble on choosing authenticity over approval

There’s a moment many women encounter, often quietly and without fanfare — the moment when doing everything “right” still doesn’t feel right.

In this episode of The Reinvention By Design Podcast, I spoke with Dalia Kemble, a life and mindset coach with a background in Psychology and Organizational Behaviour & Development. On paper, she had followed the expected path: academic achievements, the right credentials, a life that made perfect sense from the outside.

But after completing her master’s degree, she found herself asking a question that many high-achieving women keep buried:

If I’ve done everything I was supposed to… why don’t I feel at home in my own life?

That question led her on a solo trip that became something more than travel. It became a rupture in the script she had been living. She began to wonder what success truly meant to her, and why she had been living by rules she didn’t consciously choose.

Living by Expectations vs. Living by Design

Dalia shared that one of her deepest struggles wasn’t failure — it was success that didn’t feel like her.

She knew what it was like to:

* Be the “good one,” the reliable one, the one who follows the script

* Seek approval through perfection

* Silence her own desires in order to meet expectations

* Feel misunderstood, even when everyone around her believed she was doing great

Her words echoed something I’ve seen over and over again: it’s entirely possible to look like you belong while feeling deeply disconnected inside.

That’s the tension so many women live in, especially those who have learned to people-please, to overachieve, to blend in even when their soul wants to stand out.

Walking Away from the Script

What I appreciated about Dalia’s approach is that she doesn’t frame reinvention as a dramatic act of rebellion, but as a gradual reclamation. A quiet choosing of self over expectation.

She now works 1:1 with women who, like her, have checked all the boxes but still feel like the black sheep in the story of their own lives. Women who are tired of defending their choices, tired of explaining themselves, and tired of living lives that make sense to everyone but them.

Looking forward, Dalia envisions The Pink Sheep Society: a community space for women who have always felt different but are finally ready to see that as a gift, not a flaw. A space for the women who were never meant to blend in.

The Courage to Choose Yourself

This episode isn’t about running away from responsibility. It’s about recognizing the moment when responsibility to others has overshadowed responsibility to yourself.

Listening to Dalia talk about the tension between being who you’re expected to be and being who you actually are, I was reminded of something important:

Belonging doesn’t come from fitting the mold.Belonging comes from finally deciding to stop shrinking to fit it.

🎙 The full conversation with Dalia Kemble is available now on The Reinvention By Design Podcast.

Connect with Dalia Kemble

To follow Dalia’s work or explore her upcoming community space for women who are done apologizing for who they are, you can find her here:

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daliakemble/

* Resource – The Black Sheep’s Guide to Breaking the Rules & Living Without Regret: https://citytohippie.kit.com/596406f9a2

There are moments in life when fear no longer shows up as a warning. It shows up as a doorway. For some, fear becomes a barrier that keeps life small. For others, like Chelsea Goucher, it becomes the very thing that ignites a deeper awakening.

In this episode of The Reinvention By Design Podcast, I sat down with Chelsea, an intuitive coach, psychedelic facilitator, and founder of Awakening Chandra, to talk about what it really means to transmute pain into power.

Her path wasn’t carved through comfort. It was shaped by survival, by overcoming addiction, escaping abuse, and refusing to settle for a life that looked fine on the surface but felt lifeless at the soul level.

“I turned my pain into gold,” she said. “Fear became alchemy. It stopped being something I ran from and became something I moved through, and that changed everything.”

Choosing Fire Over Numbness

Chelsea shared openly about the moments fear tried to convince her to shrink, to stay quiet, to settle. Instead, she chose movement. She chose spiritual rebellion. She chose to walk toward the fire rather than away from it.

What struck me most was her relationship with fear, not as an enemy, but as a teacher.

She’s now exploring that through her newest project, The Fear Files, a seven-week guided exploration into how fear shapes our connection to sex, money, power, success, God, and self.

It’s not about erasing fear. It’s about learning to source power through it — to recognize where we’ve collapsed our energy in the name of safety, and where we are being called to rise.

Refusing Mediocrity

One thing Chelsea said stayed with me long after our conversation:

“I refuse to live a mediocre life — not because I need something grand, but because I know what it feels like to be disconnected from purpose. I won’t go back to that.”

This wasn’t ambition talking. It was aliveness.

So many women know the feeling of living on autopilot — performing versions of themselves that make other people comfortable. Chelsea’s story is a reminder that awakening doesn’t always come through light. Sometimes it comes through fire.

Fear as Alchemy

There’s something powerful about hearing a woman say, “This was painful — and I turned it into something sacred.” Chelsea is proof that fear doesn’t always mean stop. Sometimes it means pay attention. Sometimes it means there’s life on the other side of this.

🎙 The full conversation with Chelsea Goucher is available now on The Reinvention By Design Podcast.

Connect with Chelsea Goucher

To explore Chelsea’s work or inquire about 1:1 coaching, you can connect with her here:

* Website & 1:1 Coaching Inquiries: https://awakeningchandra.com/contact/

Chelsea describes her work as alchemy — turning fear into fire, pain into purpose, and awakening into a lived experience.

There’s a particular kind of frustration that many women know well…the experience of going to a doctor with a real concern and being met with a casual dismissal.

“Just take Tylenol.”“That’s normal.”“It’s probably stress. Come back if it gets worse.”

In this episode of The Reinvention By Design Podcast, I sat down with Alison Patchett, known as The Vag Hormone Naturopath, whose entire career change began with that moment — the moment she realized no one else was going to find the answers for her.

As a teenager, Alison experienced chronic headaches and was told to simply keep taking painkillers. Years later, in her 20s, her period stopped completely after coming off the contraceptive pill. Once again, she was met with shrugs and non-answers.

But instead of accepting that, she did what so many women quietly do when the healthcare system fails them: she went looking for her own answers.

From Burnout to Advocacy

Alison spent nearly 20 years in corporate and non-profit roles, witnessing firsthand how stress and burnout shape the body, especially for women. When her own health finally reached a breaking point, she made a decision — she wasn’t going to normalize suffering as a part of womanhood.

She retrained, moved into naturopathy, and built The Vag Hormone Naturopath with a clear mission:👉 to help women who feel dismissed, stuck, and tired of being told to just “manage” their symptoms.

Especially in areas that are still brushed aside as too personal, too messy, or too uncomfortable to talk about — vaginal health, perimenopause, hormones, thrush, stress, sexual health, and the emotional load women carry behind closed doors.

Having her first child at 41, while in perimenopause, further shaped her work. Her experience navigating postpartum recovery and hormonal shifts without the standard script reinforced what she already knew:

Women deserve real answers not dismissal in a prescription pad.

A Voice for the Things Women Are Told Not to Talk About

What I appreciated most in our conversation was Alison’s directness. She brings language to the unspoken, making room for women to ask questions they’ve been carrying quietly for years.

Her work is about educating, validating, and equipping women to advocate for themselves in rooms where their concerns may not be taken seriously the first time.

Because for many women, it’s not just about symptoms. It’s about being heard, taken seriously, and given full access to their own health story.

🎙 The full conversation with Alison Patchett is now live on The Reinvention By Design Podcast.

Connect with Alison Patchett — The Vag Hormone Naturopath

To learn more about Alison’s work or inquire about support around hormones, perimenopause, vaginal health, or stress-related burnout, you can connect with her here:

* Website: https://thevaghormonenaturopath.com.au

* Instagram/Facebook: @the.vag.hormone.naturopath

* Free Resource: Alison has a free guide on why over-the-counter thrush treatments often don’t work. You can email her at [email protected] or send a DM if you’d like a copy.

“I love supporting women who know something is off. They just haven’t been given the language or answers yet. That’s where we start.” – Alison

Some people talk about reinvention in big, polished phrases. Others live it quietly, steadily, in the way they respond to the real-life challenges that disrupt everything familiar.

In this episode of The Reinvention By Design Podcast, I had a conversation with Dawn Marcotte, CPRC — an author, Certified Professional Retirement Coach, autism mom, marathon runner, and someone who has had to rebuild more than once.

Dawn said something that stayed with me:“When I face a problem, I research, figure it out for myself… and then I write a book to help someone else going through the same thing.”

There’s no performance in that. No branding language. Just a grounded, practical approach to resilience: learn what you need to survive then turn around and leave a path for the next person.

A Life Built Through Starting Over

Dawn’s story isn’t one linear path of progress. It’s a life marked by multiple restarts:

* Parenting a child on the autism spectrum while navigating systems that weren’t built for families like hers.

* Losing jobs and having to find her footing again.

* Watching her husband lose his job multiple times and rebuilding as a family.

* Moving through the uncertainty of a global pandemic while still choosing forward motion.

* Becoming a Certified Professional Retirement Coach and shifting her work to help others prepare not just financially — but emotionally — for identity transition.

Most people would call that a lot. Dawn simply calls it life.

Writing as a Form of Service

What sets Dawn apart isn’t just her resilience; it’s what she does with it.

She doesn’t write from theory or from a distance. She writes from lived experience. When something knocks her down, she researches, rebuilds, and then creates something that others can use as a resource.

She isn’t trying to be a guru. She’s trying to be useful, and that intention comes through clearly in every story she shares.

A Different Conversation About Retirement

One of the most powerful parts of our conversation was Dawn’s perspective on retirement. We tend to speak about retirement in financial terms — savings, planning, investments. But Dawn works with the other side of retirement, the emotional and identity shift that can catch people off guard.

When the title goes away, when the role is no longer there — who are you now?

That’s the work Dawn is doing: helping people prepare for that moment before it arrives.

She mentioned during our conversation that any listener who reaches out and includes the name of the podcast will receive her new book at 50% off — a simple, generous gesture that reflects her desire to make support accessible.

Quiet Strength

This episode isn’t about dramatic transformation or flashy reinvention. It’s about the quiet strength of someone who keeps showing up for her life, one challenge at a time, and then makes it easier for someone else to do the same.

🎙 The full conversation with Dawn Marcotte, CPRC is now available on all podcast platforms.

Connect with Dawn Marcotte, CPRC

To learn more about Dawn’s work or explore her resources on navigating life transitions and the emotional side of retirement, you can connect with her here:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawn-m-marcotte/

* Filling the Blank Page: How to Build a Retirement of Passion and Purpose - available on Amazon

There’s a moment in every woman’s life when she feels the quiet pull of something more. For some, it arrives like a whisper. For others, like a fire. And often, that moment comes not when life is wide open and carefree, but when responsibility, routine, and “shoulds” are stacked high around us.

In this week’s podcast conversation, I had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Sandy Breece, founder of School Founders Academy and a woman who embodies what it looks like to answer that call, even when no one else sees the vision.

More than 30 years ago, Sandy was a teacher and a mother of a middle schooler who didn’t quite fit the traditional mold. A kinesthetic learner, her son needed movement, hands-on learning, and a school environment willing to adapt to the child, not force the child to adapt to the system.

She had a radical thought for that time: What if I just build the kind of school he needs?

When she shared that idea out loud, others dismissed it. People she respected, colleagues, friends, other educators, told her it wasn’t realistic. That it had “already been tried.” That she should be grateful for the job she already had.

But here’s the part that stopped me:

She didn’t argue. She didn’t debate. She didn’t try to convince them.She simply placed one small classified ad in the newspaper. Just a few words, unsigned:

“Are you concerned about your middle schooler? Let’s talk.”

That single act of quiet courage drew in the very thing she needed…not approval, but community.A handful of parents called her. They didn’t know her plan, but they shared her concern.That was enough.

Those parents became the first circle.The circle became a movement.And that movement became a fully functioning school called Telesis Center for Learning, Inc., which still thrives 33 years later.

Thousands of students have walked through its doors.Teachers have been transformed by it.And what began with one woman and a classified ad became a living legacy.

Sandy went on to write about her journey in the anthology “Power of Community — Courage, Compassion, & Collaboration Leads to Success” (March 2024), and now leads School Founders Academy, guiding others who feel the same pull to build something that doesn’t exist yet but should.

Dr. Sandy Breece🌐 schoolfounders.academy🔗 linkedin.com/in/dr-sandra-k-breece📌 facebook.com/schoolfoundersacademy

There’s a particular kind of performance that many women learn early; the art of holding it all together on the outside, even when everything inside feels like it’s cracking.

In this episode of The Reinvention By Design Podcast, I spoke with Chandni Arora, Certified Mindset Coach and founder of Inner Calling Coaching, whose story is a powerful reminder that success without self-connection still feels like loss.

Chandni grew up in India, witnessing firsthand the suppression of women…their voices, desires, and emotions filtered through what was considered acceptable. At 14, she lost her mother, and while her world changed overnight, life around her kept moving. Like so many girls taught to be strong by being silent, she learned to continue, to function, excel, perform, and keep going.

Years later, she moved to Australia alone at 18, built a corporate career she stayed in for 19 years, got married, had children, and from the outside, she had created a good life. But becoming a mother without a mother brought grief back to the surface in a way she couldn’t ignore.

“I looked like I was thriving, but inside I was carrying so much I had never given myself permission to feel.”

The Moment She Chose to Stop Holding It All In

Like many women, Chandni was doing midnight feedings, scrolling out of exhaustion, trying to hold herself together in quiet grief while staying productive, composed, and grateful.

One night, she did something that changed everything…she signed up for a coaching program at 2 AM while feeding her baby.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a breakdown. It was a moment of quiet rebellion.

“I couldn’t keep living like I was fine. I needed a way back to myself.”

Through coaching, not as a business venture at first, but as a personal lifeline, she finally began releasing what she had carried for decades: grief, anger, abandonment, and the belief that being strong meant being unaffected.

Fifteen months after becoming certified, she left her 19-year corporate career and stepped fully into her coaching practice to hold space for women to finally feel.

Helping Women Remember Who They Are

Today, Chandni’s work is about emotional truth.

She helps women release suppressed emotions and limiting beliefs to remember who they were before they learned to shrink.

Because sometimes reinvention isn’t about becoming more.It’s about becoming honest.

🎙 The full conversation with Chandni Arora is now live on The Reinvention By Design Podcast.

Connect with Chandni Arora — Inner Calling Coaching

To explore Chandni’s work or access her free guide on overcoming limiting beliefs, you can find her here:

* Website: www.innercallingcoaching.com

* Instagram: @innercallingcoaching

* Free Guide: Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs — available on her website as a resource for women ready to let go of what they’ve been carrying.

“You don’t have to keep holding it all together. You’re allowed to feel what you never had space to feel.” – Chandni

Not every turning point in life arrives as a breakthrough. Sometimes it arrives as a breakdown, the kind that doesn’t look like a new beginning at all.

In this episode of The Reinvention By Design Podcast, I spoke with Melanie Stevens, a former HR Manager who had followed the expected path. She had all the right qualifications, career stability, doing everything “right.” Until the moment that path fractured.

At 28, Melanie experienced what she describes as a nervous and emotional breakdown. It was the kind of inner collapse that forces a question few people are willing to ask out loud:

“If I built this life by following all the rules… then why does it feel like it’s suffocating me?”

That breakdown led her to a spiritual life teacher, and she describes it as the moment she began waking up — not in a loud, dramatic way, but in a steady return to herself.

Following the Nudges Instead of the Rules

Years later, in 2019, Melanie began learning Reiki. From there, she followed a series of intuitive nudges…small yeses that didn’t make logical sense but led her quietly toward a new path.

She eventually walked away from her HR career completely and stepped into her spiritual work full-time. Today, she teaches spiritual healing, shadow work, past life integration, energy healing, and awakening through a series of online courses and her teachings now reach students in over 90 countries through Udemy.

“I found my freedom in following what made no sense to anyone but me.”

Awakening Not as an Aesthetic but as a Lifeline

What I loved most about Melanie’s story is that her awakening wasn’t curated or aesthetic. It wasn’t about branding or creating a persona. It was about finding a way back to life after things had quietly fallen apart.

She speaks about spiritual awakening as a return, a realignment after years of living in responsibility but not in resonance.

Now, she continues to expand her work through new studies in herbalism and ancient plant medicine, following what she calls an “old remembering”, a sense that some wisdom travels with us through lifetimes, waiting for the moment we’re finally quiet enough to hear it.

🎙 The full conversation with Melanie Stevens is now live on The Reinvention By Design Podcast.

Connect with Melanie Stevens — Spiritual Teacher & Guide

To explore Melanie’s work or her spiritual courses and offerings, you can connect with her here:

* Website: www.melanie-stevens.com

* Spiritual Courses (Udemy): via her website

* Facebook: Melanie Stevens Spiritual Guidance & Healing

Melanie’s work reminds us that sometimes the path to purpose begins the moment we stop trying to control everything.

Some life changes arrive gently. Others feel like a collapse, a dismantling so complete that there’s no going back to who you were before.

In this episode of The Reinvention By Design Podcast, I spoke with Amy Huggins, founder of Ascension Wellness, who describes her journey through trauma, loss, and grief as the catalyst that finally brought her home to herself.

Amy didn’t just experience one moment of hardship. She experienced a wave of losses, one after another: being disowned by her mother, enduring further abuse from family, losing all three of her beloved dogs, and watching her marriage end. Each time she tried to get her footing, another blow would land.

Eventually, she said, it felt like her life shattered faster than she could rebuild it.

“I wasn’t just in grief. I was gone. I was living completely in my trauma identity.”

When Trauma Becomes Identity

Before her breaking point, Amy was already working in wellness coaching, training in holistic life, career, and executive coaching, and later became a Trauma Recovery Coach. She was helping others transform, even as parts of herself remained unhealed and disconnected.

Like many of us, she learned how to function in pain, to perform through it.

But trauma doesn’t ask for performance. It waits. And when everything finally broke, what she found wasn’t emptiness. It was truth.

“Once everything was gone — every illusion, every role, every defense — what was left was me.”

That moment wasn’t polished or empowering. It was raw. But it was real. And from that place, Amy rebuilt through deep reconnection.

Rebuilding a Life That Fits the Soul, Not the Mask

Today, Amy supports coaches, wellness professionals, and entrepreneurs in building businesses that reflect who they really are, not who they became to survive. She teaches how unresolved trauma shows up in business, leadership, and identity, shaping how we serve, communicate, and show up in the world.

She describes her work not as strategy-first, but truth-first because you cannot build something aligned if the person building it still feels like they have to hide who they are.

“Trauma disconnects us from ourselves — healing reconnects us to truth.”

🎙 The full conversation with Amy Huggins is now live on The Reinvention By Design Podcast.

Connect with Amy Huggins — Ascension Wellness

For those who want to explore Amy’s work or connect to her trauma-informed resources and community spaces:

* Website: https://www.ascensionwellnesslife.com/

* Thriving Entrepreneurs Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thrivingentrepreneursandcoaches

* Podcast – Becoming & Belonging: https://www.ascensionwellnesslife.com/becoming-and-belonging-podcast-a-journey-of-identity-and-culture/

* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ascensionwellnesslife

* Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dragonfish0221/

Amy’s work is rooted in the belief that once we stop living from trauma identity, we can finally build lives that reflect our truth, not our patterns.

Here’s the truth: reinvention doesn’t start with a 90-day plan or some big dramatic leap.

It starts with a whisper.

That little nudge in your body that says, “This isn’t it,” or “Go this way instead.”

And the problem is… most of us have been taught to ignore it.

My Story: When Intuition Spoke Loud and Clear

Back in college, I was doing all the things that looked right on paper. Classes, responsibilities, following the “safe” path everyone expected of me.

And then, out of nowhere, I felt this overwhelming knowing: I need to leave.

I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t have a plan. But the pull to move back home was undeniable.

It was scary. Nobody around me understood it. Honestly, I didn’t even understand it. But that single choice ended up changing the entire trajectory of my life.

I share the full story in this week’s podcast episode because it’s the perfect example of how intuition doesn’t always make sense in the moment, but it always has your back.

Your Body Always Knows First

We’ve been taught to lead with logic. To think things through. To make the “smart” choice.

But your body? It always speaks first.

That tightness in your chest when you say yes but mean no? That little rush of energy when you’re excited about something? The goosebumps that come out of nowhere?

That’s your intuition talking.

In Human Design, we see intuition come through in two main ways:

* Gut Instincts (Sacral): The “uh-huh” or “uhn-uhn,” the sense of expansion or contraction.

* Survival Instincts (Spleen): Quick, fleeting nudges — a whisper, a shiver, a knowing that something is off (or right).

We all have access to both. But how you experience them depends on your design.

Why We Tune It Out

Here’s the thing: most of us were trained not to listen to these signals.

We were told:

* Be logical.

* Don’t rock the boat.

* Do what makes sense to everyone else.

So what happens? We override that inner knowing, and years later, we feel stuck, resentful, and disconnected.

How to Start Trusting Your Intuition Again

The good news? You can rebuild this trust. And you don’t have to wait for a huge life decision to start.

Here are a few ways:

* Pause before answering. Don’t rush. Give your body space to speak.

* Ask yes/no questions if you’re Sacral. Your gut will answer.

* Catch the first whisper if you’re Splenic. That’s the real deal.

* Notice the patterns: expansion vs. contraction, energized vs. drained.

* Start small. Lunch, workouts, shopping, even TV shows. Small decisions build trust for the big ones.

The Bottom Line

Reinvention doesn’t start with a plan.

It starts with a whisper.A gut pull.A fleeting instinct that says, “This way.”

When you start honoring those signals — whether it’s your Sacral’s gut response or your Spleen’s quiet knowing — you stop outsourcing your life to everyone else’s expectations and start living the one that’s actually yours.

✨ That’s where reinvention begins.

Want the full story of the decision I made in college — the one that didn’t make sense but ended up changing everything? Listen to this week’s episode of Reinvention by Design.

Until next week, Jenny

The Real Reason You’re Still in a Job (or Business) You Hate

Have you ever caught yourself saying, “I should just be grateful”?

On the outside, you look confident, capable, maybe even successful. People assume you’ve got it all together. But inside? You’re drained, second-guessing yourself, and wondering: “Is this really all there is?”

Here’s the thing: you’re not broken. You’re not lazy. And you’re definitely not alone.

Most women think they’re stuck because they don’t know what they want. But that’s not the real reason. The truth?

👉 You’ve been taught to trust everyone else’s expectations instead of your own voice.

That’s why you stay in jobs or businesses you’ve outgrown. That’s why every Sunday night feels heavy. That’s why you spin in indecision — afraid to make the wrong move.

But there’s another way.

This week on the podcast, I share how Human Design can help you stop second-guessing yourself and start making decisions that actually feel right. Because your design already knows the way forward — it’s just waiting for you to listen.

✨ If you’re ready to begin, here are two next steps:

* Get your free Human Design report: Becoming Her Blueprint→ It’s the best place to start if you’ve never seen your chart or you’re ready for a fresh perspective.

* Join Momentum Makers:→ My monthly membership where we apply Human Design to your real-life decisions so you can keep moving forward — with less overthinking, more confidence, and a supportive community of women walking the same path.

Because you don’t have to keep doing work you hate. You don’t have to keep ignoring your voice. And you don’t have to figure it out alone.

You already have the answers…they’re in you. Human Design just helps you hear them more clearly.

XO,JennyP.S. Imagine where you could be 3 months from now if you stopped second-guessing today. That’s the power of Momentum Makers — small, steady steps forward that add up to big changes. Don’t wait for “someday.” Join us now