Coach, hypnotherapist and professional detangler of life’s messy stuff.
I help capable, successful people understand the patterns, beliefs and inner voices influencing how they think, feel and behave — particularly the ones that once helped them cope but are now leaving them exhausted, stuck or disconnected from themselves.
I’m warm, curious, straightforward and not particularly interested in pretending life is tidier than it really is.
Hi, I'm Michelle
Warm, honest and gently challenging
My clients often tell me they feel seen, heard and able to talk about things they didn’t expect to say out loud.
I listen without judgement, get curious about what is really happening and gently challenge you when you are disappearing
down a familiar rabbit hole.
There will be compassion.
There will probably be laughter.
And occasionally there may be a lovingly delivered, “That’s complete bollocks.”
Because sometimes that’s exactly what we need.
You don’t need the perfect words
You can arrive confused, conflicted, emotional or with absolutely no idea where to begin. We’ll work it out together.
You won’t be forced through a formula
The work has structure, but it is shaped around you rather than expecting you to fit neatly into a predetermined box.
You will be gently challenged
I won’t judge you, rush you or tell you what you should do. But I may ask the question you have been carefully avoiding asking yourself.
I know what it’s like to be the capable one
I grew up caring for my disabled mum and younger brother, so being responsible, useful and the person who coped became part of who I was very early on.
I became a doer, a fixer and someone other people could rely on.
Those qualities served me well.
I went on to spend more than 30 years working in the NHS, eventually moving into leadership and practice management. I led teams, managed change, solved problems and kept things moving — including steering a GP practice merger at the beginning of the COVID pandemic.
From the outside, I looked capable and successful.
And I was.
But being capable was no longer simply something I could do. It had become the only way I knew how to be.
I could support everyone else, manage the pressure and deal with whatever landed in front of me.
What I found much harder was stopping, asking for help or admitting that the way I was living was costing me far more than I wanted to acknowledge.
Eventually, something had to give...
Burnout didn’t arrive with a flashing neon sign pointing helpfully towards the problem.
It crept in.
Exhaustion. Over-giving. Irritability. Numbness. Losing touch with what I wanted and needed.
And because I was very good at coping, I kept coping.
After my third significant experience of burnout, around the age of 50, I finally had to admit that continuing to push through was not the answer.
Something had to change.
Coaching helped me understand that there wasn’t something fundamentally wrong with me.
There were patterns.
Old expectations.
Ways of coping that had once been useful.
Parts of me that had learned to keep going, stay responsible, hold everything together and make sure everyone else was all right.
I began understanding why I did what I did
instead of simply criticising myself for doing it.
That changed everything.
It eventually led me to leave my NHS career in 2023, retrain and build the work I do today.
Understand
Untangle
Choose
Why I do this work
I now help other people understand the things that keep them overwhelmed, stuck, second-guessing themselves or living according to rules they didn’t consciously choose.
We get curious about what is happening beneath the surface.
We make sense of the patterns, beliefs and inner voices involved.
We challenge what no longer fits.
And we create enough space for you to decide what you actually want and begin doing something differently.
Depending on what is most useful, I may draw on coaching, Voice Dialogue, NLP, hypnotherapy and other approaches.
But I’m far more interested in what will help you than forcing you through one particular technique.
Insight matters. But the real point is what becomes possible once you understand yourself better.
Experience Matters
My approach brings together professional training, decades of leadership experience and a very human understanding of what it means to keep coping long after something needs to change.
My background includes:
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More than 30 years working in the NHS, including leadership and practice management
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Professional training in coaching, hypnotherapy, NLP, Voice Dialogue, trauma-informed practice, embodiment and mindfulness
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Ongoing professional development, supervision and reflective practice
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Recognition as Best Empowerment Coach — Nottinghamshire in the 2026 UK Enterprise Awards
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Recognition as Best Empowerment Coach - 2026/2027 Corporate Live Wire Global Awards
Qualifications Matter
They help me work responsibly, ethically and with a broad range of tools.
But a collection of certificates is not what makes someone feel safe enough to tell their truth
That takes trust, curiosity, honesty and a willingness to meet the person in front of you without judgement.
And outside the coaching room…
I’m a wife, mum, friend, lifelong learner, reader, crafter and enthusiastic chatter-to-strangers-in-supermarket-queues.
I’m fiercely loyal, slightly kooky, naturally curious and have a rebellious streak that tends to respond to “you can’t do that” with “watch me.”
I love learning, exploring how people tick and finding practical ways to make complicated things feel more manageable.
I don’t have everything sorted and I don’t expect you to either.
But I do believe we can understand ourselves better, stop automatically living by old rules and create lives that feel much more like our own.
“Michelle is an excellent and experienced coach who is empathetic and has a gentle, supportive and holistic approach.
She draws things out that I might not have expected to feel happy talking about, but which I have really benefited from discussing, while also holding me accountable for putting things into practice outside our sessions.”
Kate - Coaching Client