The place where my nervous system could finally exhale

🦒

If I had to summarise my life in one sentence, it would probably be this:

I've spent years learning to respect my nervous system.

Ever since I was little, I knew I was sensitive.

I'd spend a week at summer camp making friends with everyone, talking nonstop, soaking up every experience. I loved it. Then I'd come home and completely crash. I'd get a high fever and be in full-blown exhaustion for days.

Back then I didn't understand how this could happen from simply having too much fun, being too excited and too curious. I simply didn't have the language for it.

Today, through Human Design and years of working with women, I understand that many of us carry opposite parts within us. One part longs for adventure, connection and new experiences. Another longs for quiet, spaciousness and time to simply be.

For years I thought I had to choose one or the other—that one of them simply had to be wrong.

Long before I ever knew about Human Design, I used to explain to my clients that our mind and our body often have completely different opinions.

Our mind says,

"What a brilliant idea!"

Our body quietly whispers,

"Not today."

I still catch myself doing this.

Someone invites me to a wonderful party. My mind immediately says, YES!

Amazing people. Great conversations. Dancing. Laughter. Of course I'm in!

But then I place my hand on my chest, take a slow breath and ask my body the same question.

Sometimes it answers with just as much excitement.

Other times, I feel an almost suffocating sensation across my chest. My nervous system is clearly asking for space and quiet.

Space to move at my own rhythm.

Space to hear myself think.

Space to process life.

My nervous system had been trying to guide me for years.

I simply wasn't ready to listen.

I was busy proving my worth.

At eighteen, while working as an au pair, I lost my period.

Years later, when becoming pregnant didn't happen as easily as I had hoped, my body spoke again.

Then, after returning to my brand strategy career following maternity leave, I reached another breaking point.

Every month, around my period, I felt as though I had the flu.

I was exhausted. Disconnected. Living in survival mode.

My three-year-old son was growing up so quickly, and more than anything I wanted to enjoy those precious years instead of rushing through them. I wanted to pick him up from daycare and be fully present for his never-ending stories about dinosaurs and his day.

Then, suddenly, life surprised me.

My husband received a job offer that would move our whole family to London for six months.

The minute I heard it, I knew that if I stopped being so busy for six months, I could never go back to living the way I had before.

It felt freeing and terrifying at the same time.

And if I'm completely honest, it also felt like relief.

I didn't have to tell anyone at work that I wasn't happy.

I could simply blame my husband.

I saw my exit.

And I took it.

London turned out to be everything I didn't know I needed.

We'd go to the library every week to listen to nursery rhymes with my son, read all the fabulous Harry and the Dinosaur books, have wonderful lunches together at Sticks'n'Sushi, and in the evenings prepare dinner for my hardworking husband.

Life was simple.

Grounding.

A couple of months later, I started getting a glimpse of the woman I wanted to become.

Three feeling words kept coming to me.

Grounded.

Centred.

Alive.

From that point on, every decision became about those three feelings.

Whenever my son napped, I'd dive into entrepreneurship books like The 4-Hour Workweek and Quiet, trying to understand what kind of life could give me those feelings.

I stopped drinking coffee because it took me further away from feeling grounded.

I planned little weekend trips to Notting Hill and Brighton because they made me feel alive.

Every small decision seemed to bring me a little closer to the place where my nervous system could finally exhale.

Sometimes distance allows us to hear ourselves more clearly.

During those months, I realised there was only one thing I truly missed from Finland.

My reflexologist.

One afternoon I wandered into the Waterstones bookshop on Oxford Street and came across a beautiful baby-blue book about reflexology.

That was the moment something shifted.

What if I could do this?

What if I stopped resisting my sensitivity and instead made it my greatest strength?

What if the very thing I'd been trying to manage was actually the gift I was meant to build my life around?

I bought the book.

For weeks, I carried it everywhere I went.

I hardly ever opened it.

Looking back, I don't think I was carrying a book.

I was carrying a new identity.

I was simply giving my subconscious time to become familiar with a completely different version of me.

Me...

A healer?

I remembered something my reflexologist, and later my mentor, Maaria Brusila, used to say:

"In this work, you can't be busy."

The idea that my profession would actually require me to honour my own rhythm felt almost too good to be true.

Before we even returned to Finland, I had already signed up to study reflexology at the very same school where my mentor had trained.

For the first time since maternity leave, I knew exactly what I wanted.

Or so I thought.

Because the moment we landed back in Finland, I stopped asking,

"What do I want?"

Instead, I started asking,

"Will anyone even want me anymore?"

"Oh shit... I don't have a job."

I'd spent six months in London as what I called "only a housewife."

Somehow I'd convinced myself that nobody would take me seriously anymore.

The truth was...

I hadn't yet learned to take myself seriously.

Within a month of returning home, I had promised three different agencies that I'd do brand strategy work for them while studying reflexology.

My first reflexology exams were approaching.

And instead of immersing myself in this exciting new path, I found myself thinking about yet another brand strategy.

I had completely prioritised what everyone else expected from me.

My own dream had been pushed to the back burner.

I had abandoned myself.

Not all at once.

Quietly.

Almost without noticing.

One small compromise at a time.

One "yes" to someone else.

One "later" to myself.

Until the life that had felt so alive in London had quietly slipped through my fingers.

Thankfully, life had one more course correction waiting for me.

We travelled to Hong Kong to visit my father-in-law's family.

For the first time in months, I found myself surrounded by people who listened to my dream with genuine respect, knowing that reflexology was part of ancient Asian wisdom.

One relative even bought me a book about reflexology written in Chinese.

I couldn't read a single word.

But that wasn't the point.

Someone had heard my dream.

Someone had taken me seriously.

It was time I did the same.

Sometimes one person believing in us is all it takes until we're able to believe in ourselves.

Somewhere between the warmth of that family and the space I finally gave myself to think, another question surfaced.

What if I stopped asking,

"Am I good enough to fit in?"

...and started asking,

"What kind of life do I want to wake up to every morning?"

The answer had been there all along.

I wanted a life where my nervous system could finally exhale.

So I came back to Finland with a heart full of hope and a newfound sense of connection.

I resigned from all three jobs.

I went all in on reflexology.

The following summer, I built my first company.

I called it Rauha.

Peace.

It was my grandmother's name.

She had also been an entrepreneur, and I often felt as though I was borrowing a little of her courage.

But looking back, Rauha became more than a company name.

It became a promise.

A promise that I would never again build a life my nervous system couldn't live inside.

Looking back now, I realise that every important decision I've made since then has really been the same decision.

Choosing the life my nervous system was asking for all along.

Perhaps that's what success has come to mean for me.

Because perhaps the greatest success isn't building a life that impresses other people.

Perhaps it's building one your nervous system can finally live inside.

So today, I simply want to leave you with this.

Give yourself permission.

Permission to leave.

Permission to change.

Permission to become.

Permission to disappoint people.

Permission to honour your sensitivity.

Permission to build differently.

And to trust that something inside you already knows.

❤️

About Tiina

I help women entrepreneurs find success and fulfilment by being themselves.

Through Human Design, mindset coaching and practical self-discovery tools, I help women reconnect with their inner compass and trust who they are.

If you'd like to explore your own path together, you're welcome to book a 1:1 session.