About
When we moved countries for the fifth time, I was 13 years old. As an only child, used to being ‘the new kid’, I learned that the easiest way to be accepted was to be quiet, agreeable, and very, very good at school.
Success, for me, was simple. Put your head down, learn what’s required, do the work, deliver the result.
When I became pregnant, I approached motherhood in the same way. I read the books, gathered the equipment, organised logistics, laminated my birth plan (yes - really!), and learned what to expect physically.
I was deeply resourced externally, and completely unprepared internally.
I didn’t know about the identity shift - the profound restructuring of how I experienced myself, my priorities, my emotions, and the world around me.
I had prepared for the baby. I had not prepared for becoming a mother.
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For a long time, I couldn’t understand why the strategies that had worked for me before, no longer did. Why effort, planning and structure weren’t enough.
Then, in 2025, I discovered the word Matrescence, and everything shifted.
Matrescence describes the profound transformation a woman experiences in her transition to motherhood - psychological, social, emotional, physical, economic, cultural and spiritual. ​
Everything I'd felt, struggled with and questioned came into focus. I felt different because I was different. The skills and strategies that had driven my success before could no longer apply in the same way. I needed to learn to trust my own voice, my emotional intelligence, and intuition to find what I really needed to excel at this motherhood thing.
Many programmes focus on the ‘return to work’ period, and it’s true that women can absolutely benefit from guidance during this time.
But by the time that moment arrives, something far more significant has already happened.
Maternity leave isn’t ‘time off’. It’s the time when women experience the monumental shift of matrescence. Yet, so often, this period is misunderstood:
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“How was your holiday?”
“You must have enjoyed your time away?”
“Bet you wish you hadn’t come back”
Just a few of the questions I was asked on my return.
Motherhood is not a break. It’s a stepping back from the life we know. The life we built with such pride. It’s taking leave of our agency, our ambition and our sense of self. We are no longer just ‘I’. From this point on, we are ‘We’.
I firmly believe that walking alongside women through this transition into motherhood is the most important commitment we can make. Because when you understand and integrate this transformation, everything that follows becomes clearer - whether that’s returning to work, making decisions, re-orienting your life, stepping into who you are now….or simply getting out the door with both shoes on and a tiny bit of makeup, if that’s your thing!
Path to Pink provides structured support across this transition with regular touch points, space to reflect, and guidance to help you recognise what is changing and how to harness the new you that is emerging.
Together, we sit with the woman within the mother. The capable, intelligent, resourceful and evolving woman. The one who is still learning, growing and becoming.
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