Find Your Words
Got something you're trying to get hold of, work through, say or bring into the world?
I work one-to-one with people who need useful questions, someone to spot the thread and another brain in the room.
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When Playing It Safe Starts to Feel Risky
If life isn't quite working out the way you thought it would, you're probably in the right place.
When Playing It Safe Starts to Feel Risky
If life isn't quite working out the way you thought it would, you're probably in the right place.
Intro
Hi, I'm Kali.
Author of Dare to Break Free: Drugs, Sex & Serendipity.
For all the years I've spent coaching, studying psychology and doing more personal development than I can even account for, it was somewhere around revision 21 of my memoir that I began to really understand my story, and how much of it I was still censoring.
I'd always been told, “Don't air your dirty laundry.” Instead, I'm letting mine fly free. Why? Because I will no longer let shame have a hold over me.
What happened to us matters. So does what we made it mean. Sometimes that stuff is still having a say in our lives long after we thought we'd dealt with it.
I'm not pretending I've got the answers. I've learnt a lot along the way, but I still get stuck, trip myself up and have to find my way through things I thought I'd already figured out.
The Memoir
Dare to Break Free started as an idea in 2009 and took seventeen years to finish. Two degrees, a few businesses and a lot of life happened in between.
It isn’t a polished redemption story. It’s my story.
Choose Your Starting Point
The Journal
The book ends. I didn't.
This is where I write about life now: midlife, ADHD, work, ambition, shame, sex, relationships and whatever else refuses to leave my brain alone.
Read the journal
Speaking
If you're looking for someone to speak who isn't going to give you a polished story about overcoming adversity and then pretend everything worked out perfectly afterwards, let's talk.
Invite me to speak
There’s no dictionary definition of Dare to Break Free. I made that bit up. But this is what it means to me.
The dare is the question: ‘Are you up for it?’
Breaking free doesn’t have to mean blowing your life up and starting again (although it could).
I’ve found, and I’m still finding, that I can stay caught in something for months, sometimes decades, before I realise how much it’s getting in the way of how I want to live.
And then there’s another thing to break free from.
Latest from the Journal
When nine minutes of Netflix takes an hour and a half
An hour and a half into Netflix, I realised I’d watched only nine minutes. A funny moment that points to a lifetime of ADHD clues, self-blame and finally understanding how my brain works.
I just want this day to end
When a hard stretch starts to feel permanent, a tired brain can narrow the possibilities. A reminder that how you feel now is not the whole story.
Knowing isn't the same as doing
But understanding and changing aren't necessarily the same event.