Episode Summary

Jenny Marshall has spent close to twenty years in mental health and seven years in private practice, working with people at every point on what she calls "the spectrum" - from quiet, low-level dissatisfaction to something far more serious when it's left unheard.

In this episode, Jenny takes us back to the school reports that called her a "classic underachiever," through the acute eating disorders unit she walked into at 23 with no idea what she was signing up for, to the traumatic birth that made her, for the first time in her career, the person in crisis instead of the one holding it together.

We talk about the marriage, the senior NHS role and the M&S-stocked fridge that looked like having it all and felt like nothing at all, and why she walked away from all three at once. Jen also takes apart the stereotype of the older man with a notepad and a couch, and makes the case that you don't have to be falling apart to deserve a space to talk.

Show notes

Integrative counsellor Jenny Marshall spent her career being the calm one in other people's crises until a traumatic birth put her on the other side of the bed and forced her to look at why "coping" had always come so easily.

This conversation moves from an underachieving childhood to an inpatient eating disorders unit at 23, through a marriage and NHS career that looked right on paper, to the moment Jen chose herself instead. Along the way, she and Beth take apart what people get wrong about therapists, and why "not there yet" isn't a crisis point - it's a spectrum.

Themes

• Being "great in a crisis" as a learned response, not a personality trait
• The gap between a life that looks right on paper and one that feels right underneath
• Why therapy doesn't require a crisis to be valid
• The stereotypes that keep people from asking for help
• Choosing yourself as an act of showing your children something, not just yourself

If this one lands, send it to the friend who's always the calm one in a crisis. Leave a review, or send us a message and tell us what stuck with you. And if you're new here, hit follow - Notes from the Not There Yet is out every other Tuesday.

Key takeaways

• Being "great in a crisis" can be a learned response you don't recognise until something forces you to stop performing it.
• You don't need to be falling apart to deserve therapy - not there yet exists on a spectrum, and it's easier to hear early than late.
• A life that looks right on paper and a life that feels right underneath are not the same thing, and you're allowed to notice the gap.
• The fear of being perceived as having failed is often bigger, and more paralysing, than failure itself.
• AI and social media can be a front door into therapy but they were never meant to be the destination.

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Episode description
Janine Isaacs spent decades as a high-level medical negligence lawyer and property developer. Then at 60, she staged a revolution. She walked away from a 23-year emotionally damaging relationship, retrained as a transformative life coach, and decided to find out who she actually was underneath the decades of clay she'd built around herself.

In this conversation, we talk about the Golden Buddha - and why we spend half our lives covering ourselves in clay just to survive. We talk about the avalanche, and how to tell which way is up when your world is shifting beneath your feet. We talk about age being a myth, and why 60 is actually a brilliant time to be a newbie. And we talk about the grip of the messy middle, and how you can find your way back to yourself just by breathing.

This episode is for anyone who has ever lost themselves slowly, without knowing when it happened - and wondered whether it's too late to find out who they actually are.

Show notes:

In this episode, Bethany sits down with Janine Isaacs - transformative life coach, former medical negligence lawyer, and someone who made the most radical decision of her life at 60 - to explore what it really means to start over. Janine's story is not about a dramatic single moment of collapse. It's about the slow, process of losing yourself, and the equally slow, deeply intentional process of finding your way back.

Themes explored:

• The golden Buddha - why we build layers of clay around ourselves and how to strip them back
• Fear as the driver - how people-pleasing and avoidance lead to self-erasure
• The night everything changed - and what it means when the walls close in
• The avalanche - navigating complete chaos without knowing which way is up
• Finding stillness - why doing is the wrong response when life falls apart
• Age as a myth - starting a business and a new life at 60
• Perspective from professional grief - what working with tragedy teaches you about gratitude
• Finding the gold - and why the gold is always love

If this conversation resonated with you, share it with someone who is navigating their own messy middle right now. And if you've ever found yourself making yourself smaller to survive - this one is for you.

Key takeaways:

• The clay isn't you. Everything you've built around yourself to survive can also be dismantled - by you.
• Doing more is not the answer. Find the stillness. Start being, not doing. Breathe.
• Fear of being too old is just another layer of clay. Your years are a qualification, not a handicap.
• Perspective doesn't come from success. It comes from sitting with other people's pain.

• You can't think your way out of an avalanche. You have to feel your way through.
• The gold underneath all of it is love. That's where the digging leads.

Episode Description

We often look at tech founders as polished, unflappable architects of success. But before Tracey Longbottom co-founded Forsyte, disrupting the legal sector with her high-growth AI firm, she was a self-described childhood troublemaker kicked out of her home at 15. Facing £40,000 of university debt, Tracey backed herself, built a staggering sales career, and eventually built a powerhouse company. Yet behind the commercial metrics lies a raw, unfiltered story of massive personal trade-offs.

In this deeply honest conversation, Bethany and Tracey unpack "Mulberry Gate" - the exact moment a luxury handbag purchase triggered a divorce two months after marriage - alongside the reality of the domestic power dynamics that shift when a woman makes more money. Tracey shares her raw experience with severe postnatal depression, the claustrophobia of feeling like a "vessel" during pregnancy, and why she proudly put her daughter into childcare at three months old to reclaim her mind and her career. We also dive into what it means to be a direct, ambitious woman in a male-dominated tech space, and why true success requires accepting that you simply cannot have it all.

This conversation is a supportive, un-sanitised hug for any woman who has ever worried that her fierce ambition makes her a bad version of what society expects a woman to be.

Show Notes

Bethany is joined by Tracey Longbottom, co-founder of Forsyte, to tear down the sanitised myth of the "perfect female founder". Moving from her working-class roots in Bradford to high-stakes legal tech boardrooms, Tracey reflects on how early family rebellion prepared her to break corporate rules, how financial independence shifts relationship dynamics, and the immense mental load of balancing a scaling business with motherhood.

Themes Explored

• The Roots of Rebellion: Growing up as the anti-authoritarian "black sheep" in a traditional police officer’s household.
• The Independence Drive: Viewing financial freedom not as a status symbol, but as the essential tool required to make your own life choices and escape £40k debt.
• Shifting Power Dynamics: Unpacking "Mulberry Gate" and the relational friction that occurs when a woman's professional success outpaces traditional marital roles.
• The Vessel Trap: Facing the loss of professional identity during pregnancy and navigating the unspoken realities of postnatal depression.
• Embracing the Underestimated Self: How showing up with curls and vintage fashion in male-dominated tech boardrooms can become an elite corporate strategy.
• The "Can't Have It All" Truth: Rejecting performance-driven hustle culture to acknowledge that scaling a business requires conscious, daily trade-offs.

Key Takeaways

• Financial Independence Means Freedom of Choice: Money isn't about luxury; it is the tangible asset that ensures you are never trapped in a domestic or professional situation against your will.
• Being Underestimated is a Superpower: Walking into an environment where people make assumptions about your appearance allows you to control the room the moment you display deep, undeniable credibility.
• You Cannot Have It All (And That is Okay): Trying to score a 10/10 across business, parenting, and relationships is a direct path to burnout. True sustainability requires choosing your compromises consciously.
• Reclaiming Your Identity is a Maternal Right: Choosing early childcare or opting out of societal pressures like breastfeeding are completely valid personal choices if they protect your mental health and autonomy.
• Sales is an Act of Integrity: True commercial success isn't about being a "hit-and-run" salesperson; it relies entirely on extreme accountability, building deep human networks, and standing by your word when things break.

If you are currently navigating your own messy middle, feeling torn between the ambitions in your head and the expectations of society, please share this episode with another woman who needs to hear that she is not alone.