I used to think there was something wrong with me.
The way I'd cycle through periods of deep rest, then sudden clarity, then this burning need to serve, followed by what felt like complete dissolution. Even a total collapse. Relapse. I'd judge myself for the inconsistency. Why can't I just be steady? Why does my energy feel so... cyclical?
Then I realized: I wasn't broken. I was just human.
More specifically, I was a woman moving through what I now call the S.A.L.T. cycle, Sleep, Awaken, Lead, Transform. And once I recognized it, stopped fighting it, and started working with it, everything changed.
If you're a purpose-led woman who's ever felt like you're moving through seasons of expansion and contraction, of clarity and confusion, of service and solitude, this is for you. Because what I've discovered is that this isn't a flaw in our design. It's the design itself.
The Sacred Cycle We All Navigate
Here's what I know to be true after facilitating breathwork for individuals and groups, my own healing journey of nervous system regulation, and years of living this cycle myself:
Freedom isn't a mindset. It's a nervous system state.
And that state, true embodied freedom, can only be accessed when we understand and honor the natural rhythm our bodies and souls are already moving through. The S.A.L.T. cycle isn't something I invented. It's something I observed, mapped, and learned to navigate consciously.
Let me walk you through it.
Phase One: Sleep (The Necessary Surrender)
This isn't just about literal sleep, though that's part of it. This is about the season of rest, integration, and what looks like "nothing happening" from the outside.
You know this phase. It's when you feel called to slow down, to stop producing, to turn inward. Maybe you delete Instagram for a few weeks. Maybe you can't stomach another webinar about scaling your business.
Maybe you just want to read novels and take baths and pretend the outside world doesn't exist.
This phase is not laziness. It's recalibration.
During Sleep, your nervous system is literally rewiring itself. Research shows that women's hormonal cycles directly affect our sleep architecture and capacity for rest; estrogen and progesterone don't just regulate reproduction, they regulate our entire nervous system. When we honour this phase instead of pushing through it, we create the foundation for everything that comes next.
Phase Two: Awaken (The Clarity Emerges)
Then something shifts. You wake up one morning and the fog has lifted. You remember who you are. You remember why you're here. The vision that felt so murky during Sleep suddenly has edges again.
This is Awaken, when your regulated nervous system has the capacity to receive clear information. Not the frantic, caffeinated clarity that comes from forcing yourself to figure it out, but the deep knowing that emerges when you've actually rested.
Awakening isn't a one-time event. It's a phase we cycle through again and again.
Each time you return to this phase, you're accessing deeper layers of truth. What you thought you knew before gets refined, expanded, sometimes completely rewritten. This is why so many spiritual entrepreneurs feel like they're constantly "changing their niche", they're not flaky, they're evolving.
As a seasoned communications strategist, I used to berate myself for missing what I felt was the basics - audience, message, niche. I couldn't quite get it right (even though this was how I made a living) and kept pivoting. I now see the delicate balance that must be struck between giving yourself space to grow and expand... and pivot, while also building your communications strategy on a solid foundation of self-awareness that extends to the audience you'll be serving.
Pivoting between offers is one thing, but you need to get the audience right from the start (something I struggled with too). Thankfully I have a way to help ensure you get your audience right, right from the start (so you can expand and create in other ways).
It's called your Unique Service Fingerprint™.
Phase Three: Lead (The Service Impulse)
Once you're clear on who you are and why you're here (and who you are here to serve), the next phase emerges naturally: the impulse to serve. To lead. To share what you've discovered during your time in Sleep and Awaken.
This is where you start showing up online again. Where you launch that program. Where you write that post that feels scary but necessary. Where you step into visibility not because you should, but because you must.
But here's what nobody tells you about the Lead phase: it's not the destination. It's the bridge.
The moment you start leading, really leading, from that deep place of service rather than ego, you enter what I call The Space Between.
The Space Between (The Sacred Recalibration)
Oh, this place.
This is where I spent years of my life, thinking something was wrong with me.
The Space Between is that gap between stepping into leadership and fully embodying your transformation. It's where you feel the tension between who you were and who you're becoming most acutely. It's where you might question everything, even as you continue to serve others.
This phase is not a detour. It's an initiation.
Here's what happens in The Space Between:
- You feel simultaneously expanded and contracted
- Your old identity doesn't fit anymore, but your new one hasn't fully formed
- You might feel like a fraud, even as you're doing your most authentic work
- You serve others beautifully while privately struggling to trust your own path
- You have moments of profound clarity followed by periods of complete confusion
I lived in this space for years. And I kept thinking that if I just worked harder, figured out the right strategy, found the perfect mentor, I'd finally "arrive."
But The Space Between isn't a problem to be solved. It's a process to be honoured.
This is where true transformation happens, not in the comfortable clarity of Awaken, and not in the confident action of Lead, but in this messy, uncomfortable middle where you're simultaneously holding who you've been and who you're becoming.
Phase Four: Transform (The New Integration)
And then, if you don't exit too early, if you stay present to the discomfort of The Space Between, you arrive at Transform.
This isn't the ego's version of transformation (the dramatic before-and-after photos). This is embodied integration. This is when your nervous system has fully reorganized around your new capacity. When serving others doesn't drain you because you're operating from a place of overflow. When your work becomes an expression of who you are rather than something you do.
In Transform, you don't just know your purpose, you are your purpose.
But here's the thing about this cycle: it's not linear, and it's not a one-time journey. You'll move through S.A.L.T. again and again, each time at a deeper octave. What transforms in one round becomes the foundation for the next round of Sleep.
This is why trying to hack your way to permanent transformation doesn't work. Transformation isn't a destination. It's a way of being.
Why Breathwork Is the Bridge
So why breathwork? Why is this the technology I keep coming back to, the one I've built my entire framework around?
Because breathwork doesn't just calm you down or give you a spiritual experience (though it can do both). Breathwork literally changes your nervous system's capacity to move through this cycle.
When your nervous system is dysregulated, when you're stuck in survival mode, you get trapped in one phase or you cycle through them chaotically. You might stay stuck in Sleep because Awaken feels too overwhelming. You might jump from Awaken to Lead without proper integration and burn out. You might avoid The Space Between at all costs and never actually transform.
But when you have a practice that directly regulates your nervous system, you develop the capacity to stay present to each phase. To honour Sleep when it comes. To trust Awaken when it emerges. To serve from Lead without attachment. To navigate The Space Between with grace.
Breathwork is the bridge because it works with your autonomic nervous system, the part of you that's been running the show all along.
It's not about positive thinking or willpower or grinding harder. It's about creating the internal conditions where your natural wisdom can emerge and guide you through this sacred cycle.
The Runway to Freedom™
This understanding, that freedom is a nervous system state accessed through conscious cycling rather than linear achievement, is what I call The Runway to Freedom™.
It's not just a coaching framework. It's a way of seeing yourself, your business, and your purpose as interconnected expressions of your nervous system's capacity to hold more truth, more service, more love.
When you understand that:
- Freedom is embodiment (not a mindset or achievement)
- Regulation is the foundation (not a nice-to-have add-on)
- Breathwork is the technology (not just a spiritual practice)
- Service is the natural outcome (not something you force yourself to do)
Everything changes. Your relationship to your cycles. Your relationship to your business. Your relationship to your purpose.
You stop trying to hack your way to transformation and start honoring the organic intelligence that's been guiding you all along.
Starting Where You Are: The Space Between
If you're reading this and thinking, "Yes, this is exactly where I am": if you recognize yourself in The Space Between phase: I want you to know something:
You're not behind. You're not broken. You're right on time.
The Space Between is often the most uncomfortable phase, but it's also the most important. It's where the real work happens. It's where you learn to trust your own process instead of comparing it to everyone else's highlight reel.
This is why I created The Space Between: a guided breathwork experience specifically for this phase of the journey. Because if you're going to navigate this sacred recalibration, you need tools that work with your nervous system, not against it.
The Space Between isn't about pushing through or speeding up the process. It's about learning to breathe in the tension. To find your center in the chaos. To trust that this phase: like all phases: is temporary and necessary and holy.
Your Invitation
If this resonates, if you feel the recognition in your bones, if you're tired of fighting your own cycles and ready to work with them instead: I invite you to start here.
Download The Space Between and give yourself permission to be exactly where you are. To honor this phase. To breathe into the gap between who you've been and who you're becoming.
Because here's what I know: the world needs your transformation, not your performance.
Your journey through the S.A.L.T. cycle: messy and non-linear as it may be: is creating you into the leader, the healer, the change-maker you came here to be. And that process is sacred, even when (especially when) it doesn't look like anyone else's path.
The runway to freedom isn't a straight line. It's a spiral. And breathwork? Breathwork is what helps you trust the turns.
Ready to begin? Start with The Space Between and let your nervous system guide you home to yourself.
