I will hit a million brick walls before I ask for help. I’ll go through the mud, run myself into the ground and cry into my pillow at night, because somehow all of that feels less scary than asking someone and hearing no.

This week I’m getting honest about my hyper independence. “I’ll figure it out” is basically my life motto, and it should probably be printed on every T-shirt I own. For years I called it strength, and everyone around me called me strong and resilient. But when I dug underneath it, I found something less flattering: a worthiness wound telling me I’m a burden, and that if I ask, I’ll be rejected.

I share what this looked like during my separation. There was the second house move, when I didn’t want to bother anyone, and the girlfriend who looked at me and said, “Are you kidding me? Why haven’t you asked me already?” I even asked my ex for help, which felt terrifying. Between the four of us, we got it done in one day.

If you’re going through separation or divorce, you’re facing a to-do list as long as a toilet roll: finances, lawyers, leases, schools, co-parenting. And you’re still trying to be the rock for your kids. You don’t win any awards for doing all of that alone.

I also share some news. Once a month I’ll be bringing an expert onto the show, starting with money and financial empowerment, so you don’t have to learn everything the hard way like I did.

This week’s journal prompt: What am I stuck on right now, and who could I ask for help? And if you don’t know who to ask, who do you know who might know someone?

If you liked this episode and want to support the show, please like, share, and give it a 5 star review. Your support means everything to me!

Download The Create Yourself Free App: https://subscription.createyourself.co.nz/library

Find me on my socials:

Instagram: @createyourself.nz

TikTok: @itsrachthomas

YouTube: ItsRachThomas

Learn more about working with me:

Website: https://www.createyourself.co.nz

Email: Rachael@createyourself.co.nz

This wasn't the episode I had planned to record. My son woke up with a terrible chesty cough, slumped on the couch with no energy, and I had a call to facilitate with a group of learners that morning. I had a choice to make: try to make school work somehow, or keep him home and just figure it out. I kept him home. In this episode I share what that actually looked like for a real working mum, including the moment mid-session when I heard a crash downstairs, followed by "Mum, Mum, Mum!"

I also get into the mum guilt and professional guilt that so many of us carry when our kids are sick. A few years ago I would have panicked about being seen as the solo mum who can't get her act together, and worried it would cost me work. For most of the women I know, it's the mum who stays home when a child is unwell. So why are we still pretending we're not parents at work? I talk about owning that reality, setting boundaries around our time, and trusting that we're just as capable and professional as anyone else.

At the heart of it, this episode is about letting go of perfect. For a couple of days I allowed myself to be a good enough mum and a good enough business owner, and I was genuinely surprised at how little stress I felt. When we stop fighting what is, the problem shrinks. Surrendering isn't giving up. It's letting go of control, and it feels completely different in the body.

If you're having one of those weeks where nothing has gone to plan and you feel like you're failing, this one is for you. I finish with a journaling prompt: Where am I fighting what is, and what would it feel like to surrender?

The Create Yourself app is now live! Download it free for my full library of guided visualisations, my writing, this podcast and bonus episodes: https://subscription.createyourself.co.nz/library

If you liked this episode and want to support the show, please like, share, and give it a 5 star review. Your support means everything to me!

Download The Create Yourself Free App: https://subscription.createyourself.co.nz/library

Find me on my socials:

Instagram: @createyourself.nz

TikTok: @itsrachthomas

YouTube: ItsRachThomas

Learn more about working with me:

Website: https://www.createyourself.co.nz

Email: Rachael@createyourself.co.nz

I Manifested This Moment (And Didn’t Even Know It)

This week I'm sharing my magical experience at Becoming, the event I co-created with three incredible women to help midlife women see this next chapter as something to embrace rather than fear. As I stood at the side of the stage, headset mic on, listening to our MC introduce me, I had a full body chill moment. It hit me that I had manifested that exact moment without even realising it. On the vision board I made at the start of last year, there's a picture of a woman speaking on a stage, and there I was, about to step out and live it.

I also share some news I'm so excited about: my free app is now live! From the very beginning, I've wanted what I do to be accessible to everyone, no matter what's in their bank account. The app brings all of my guided visualisations, my writing and this podcast together in one place, and I can't wait to share guided visualisation with the world in a way that's genuinely within reach. There's also a special launch price on the paid subscription, and if you sign up before January, that price is locked in forever.

Finally, I open up about my decision to niche into coaching women through separation and divorce. It's been such a natural progression. Women navigating separation have kept finding their way to me, and having walked this road myself as a solo mum, I know how lonely and terrifying it can feel to rebuild your life from scratch. I share how one guided visualisation carried me through the hardest part of my own separation, and why it feels like the universe has been nudging me here all along. It's a true fit for my purpose and my passion.

If you liked this episode and want to support the show, please like, share, and give it a 5 star review. Your support means everything to me!

Download The Create Yourself Free App: https://subscription.createyourself.co.nz/library

Find me on my socials:

Instagram: @createyourself.nz

TikTok: @itsrachthomas

YouTube: ItsRachThomas

Learn more about working with me:

Website: https://www.createyourself.co.nz

Email: Rachael@createyourself.co.nz

This week I'm talking menopause, and more specifically perimenopause, which is the longest part of the whole thing and somehow the least talked about. For years the only story we've been told about this chapter is that it's hard, miserable and something to just get through. I want to flip that. October is Menopause Awareness Month, and this Thursday night I'm part of an event here in Auckland called Becoming, which is all about reframing midlife as the most exciting and powerful chapter of our lives. I share why an event like this needs to exist in the first place. We get a roadmap for puberty. Nobody hands us one for this.

I also get honest about my own perimenopause story. Back in 2023 my periods were all over the place, I wasn't sleeping, I had a really short fuse, and I couldn't cope with noise in the car (sorry, son). I thought my PMS had just gotten worse. So I did what so many of us do. I lay in bed at night running through a list of everything I was disappointed in myself for, and went down a rabbit hole of energy supplements. Then I listened to a Mel Robbins episode with a menopause expert and realised I had almost every symptom she described. Maybe I didn't just suck at life. Maybe my hormones were shifting. That episode turned out to be the permission slip I'd probably needed my whole life to stop people pleasing.

So what do I know now that I wish I'd known at the start? When estrogen dips, so does that pull to nurture everyone, and honestly, that's a gift. It's a chance to finally ask what I want and what I need. I talk about why perimenopause is like recovering from surgery without the sling (my shoulder taught me that one), why strength training matters so much right now, why my gym membership is a gift to my son and not an indulgence, and how my true voice showed up once the good girl left the building.

Whether you're still in your baby-making years, just starting to notice changes, or well into menopause, this one's for you. I finish with a journal prompt to sit with this week: what do I need to do to give myself full permission to go after the life I deserve?

The Mel Robbins episode I mention: https://www.melrobbins.com/podcasts/episode-157

If you liked this episode and want to support the show, please like, share, and give it a 5 star review. Your support means everything to me!

Download The Create Yourself Free App: https://subscription.createyourself.co.nz/library

Find me on my socials:

Instagram: @createyourself.nz

TikTok: @itsrachthomas

YouTube: ItsRachThomas

Learn more about working with me:

Website: https://www.createyourself.co.nz

Email: Rachael@createyourself.co.nz

This week I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I've spent the last week trying to solve the Rubik's Cube that is getting hacked and locked out of my social media accounts, and spoiler alert: I'm still locked out, and it's not looking promising. So this episode is about what I do with that. I walk you through the process I've built over years of navigating big change and major problems, from letting myself move through the grief cycle, to finding acceptance. Because if I fight acceptance, I stay stuck in the problem, and I've worked too hard to stay stuck.

Then I get into the mindset that gets me moving again. It comes down to one simple question I'd give any coaching client: what's one thing I can do? Victim or victor, it's two sides of the same coin, and the "it's not fair" story keeps you exactly where you are. The irony isn't lost on me that my business is called Create Yourself and here I am, creating myself all over again. I've done it before and I'll do it again.

I also share why all of this was the little push from the universe I needed to rejoin the gym, and what moving my body every day last week has done for my energy (honestly, a revelation). Plus a few practical tips to lock down your own accounts so this never happens to you.

You can find me on my new Instagram at @createyourself.nz

If you liked this episode and want to support the show, please like, share, and give it a 5 star review. Your support means everything to me!

Instagram: @createyourself.nz

TikTok: @itsrachthomas

YouTube: ItsRachThomas

Website: https://www.createyourself.co.nz

Email: Rachael@createyourself.co.nz

Imagine waking up one day to find that something you love has vanished. There might be a way to get it back, but the only route is a quest through an endless maze of robots, and not one of them will listen to you, because they've already decided you're the bad guy. That has pretty much been my week. After my son's eighth birthday party, while I was lying in bed not even touching my phone, my Facebook, Instagram and Messenger accounts were suspended and then permanently disabled, all within about five minutes. Seventeen years of photos, my contacts, and the Create Yourself community I've spent years building, gone. And no human anywhere to talk to about it.

This episode sits with that feeling of total powerlessness, when something big has happened and there's nothing you can do to change the outcome. I talk about lying awake at night thinking "what am I going to do", why I refuse to slide into "why me", and how I ended up fighting a robot with a robot.

Then my son went back to his dad's, and the sadness hit hard. I've been co-parenting for over five years and that moment still doesn't get easier. First you crave a bit of space, then you feel guilty about it, and then there's a hole in your heart the second they're gone. Solo mums, you'll know this ache.

Fair warning: this one is full of expletives and a good dose of existential crisis. So strap in for a bumpy ride, and maybe pop your AirPods in if the kids are around.

Please leave a review and rate the show if you liked the episode! Your support means everything to me!

If you liked this episode and want to support the show, please like, share, and give it a 5 star review. Your support means everything to me!

Create Yourself Socials:

Instagram:
@createyourself_co

TikTok:
@createyourself_co

Website: www.createyourself.co.nz
Email: Rachael@createyourself.co.nz

Watch On YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy3wfPEnmJb6befgQYOnTpA

Welcome to this week's episode. It's a little bit different, and I'm so excited for you to experience it.

It's the school holidays and my son's birthday, so I have less time at the mic this week. I wanted to find a way to offer you something special while still honouring my time with him while he's off school. The idea that came to me was to gift you a sample of one of my guided visualisations. So this episode is 50/50: half of it is me talking, and the other half is an original guided visualisation for you to experience.

This one is all about connecting with your future self and imagining the life of your dreams. It is incredibly powerful, and when you use it with some regularity it has even more potency and potential to create real change in your life. How do I know? It's very similar to the guided visualisation I listened to for a whole year while I was in a really challenging time, trying to rebuild my life. It made a huge difference for me, and it's what got me hooked on visualisation as a tool for coaching and for changing your life.

I've talked about what I do in previous episodes, and today is your chance to actually experience it. I'd love to hear how you find it, so please send me any feedback. There's another one dropping next week with a similar flavour, but until then, I hope you have an awesome week and I'll see you next time.

If you liked this episode and want to support the show, please like, share, and give it a 5 star review. Your support means everything to me!

Create Yourself Socials:

Instagram:
@createyourself_co

TikTok:
@createyourself_co

Website: www.createyourself.co.nz
Email: Rachael@createyourself.co.nz

Watch On YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy3wfPEnmJb6befgQYOnTpA

Welcome back to the Create Yourself podcast!

This week I'm talking about something I've wanted to cover since day one: beauty, and the mask I've worn around my appearance my whole life.

Growing up as the redheaded, freckled, skinny kid who didn't look like her three sisters, I copped some pretty intense bullying, first as a young girl, then all through high school from the boys. It shaped how I felt about myself for decades.

It wasn't until my late thirties that I actually started healing that wound and figured out what beauty really means to me. This week I get into that journey, and I unpack the impossible standard women are held to: stay thin, stay young, stay beautiful, as if our only value is how we look.

It's personal, but I think it's going to be relatable for basically every woman listening. If you've ever felt insecure about your appearance, this one's for you.

If you liked this episode and want to support the show, please like, share, and give it a 5 star review. Your support means everything to me!

Download The Create Yourself Free App: https://subscription.createyourself.co.nz/library

Find me on my socials:

Instagram: @createyourself.nz

TikTok: @itsrachthomas

YouTube: ItsRachThomas

Learn more about working with me:

Website: https://www.createyourself.co.nz

Email: Rachael@createyourself.co.nz