— A SIX-SESSION ONE-TO-ONE COACHING PROGRAMME
What About
You?
One-to-one coaching for women who are ready to include themselves in their own lives again.
— WHERE ARE YOU IN ALL OF THIS?
You've been capable, dependable, and caring for a long time
And it's worked — in a way: things get done, people can rely on you, life keeps moving forward.
But there's a deeper question that might have started to surface — perhaps in the gap between one responsibility and the next, or in a moment that was supposed to be yours: where are you in all of this?
Perhaps you're managing a career alongside caring for grandchildren, or supporting elderly parents, or both. Perhaps the weight of it has been building so gradually that it's become the background noise of your life.
And somewhere underneath it all, a thought keeps surfacing — one you've said more times than you can count.
“
Taking care of yourself doesn't
mean putting me first,
it means me too.
L. R. Knost
I can't keep going like this - but I can't see how to stop.
— NAMING THE PATTERN
How it tends to happen
Most women don't set out to carry everything. It builds, gradually and steadily, over years.
You step in because
something needs doing.
You organise things because
it's just easier if you do it.
You stabilise situations
because you can
Over time, something shifts:
Handling becomes
ownership →
Ownership becomes
expectation →
and eventually it becomes
tied up with who you are
From the outside, this often looks like strength. Inside, it can feel quite different. You might notice:
A constant background hum of anticipation — always thinking ahead, always preparing for what comes next
A sense of being stretched persistently — and tired in a way that sleep doesn't fix
Moments of resentment, quickly followed by guilt — with the guilt often weighing heavier than the resentment itself.
The same questions you keep returning to: Why is it always me? Why don't others notice this needs doing too?
A feeling of being less present in your own life: busy managing everyone else's while not fully living your own.
And gradually, without quite noticing when it happened, there's a sense of being outside your life rather than at the centre of it.
— A DIFFERENT APPROACH
This isn't about doing or caring less
There are plenty of approaches that encourage you to set limits, do less, or immediately change how you respond. And while those ideas have their place, they can be surprisingly hard to sustain when responsibility has built up through patterns and identity that have formed over years — not just habits that can be exchanged.
What About You? works differently. Rather than starting with behaviour, we start with understanding — how responsibility has gathered in your life, what has been keeping it in place, and the emotional experience that has developed around it.
From that understanding, something shifts. And as it does, the way you respond begins to change more naturally — not because you're forcing it, but because you're seeing your situation differently.
“
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
Carl Jung
Rather than forcing change, you begin to experience change.
— ABOUT THE PROGRAMME
Six sessions, tailored to you
What About You? is a six-session, one-to-one coaching programme. Each session lasts approximately 60 minutes, takes place online via Zoom, and is tailored entirely to your situation and what's happening in your life at the time.
Sessions are typically spaced weekly or fortnightly, so there's time to reflect and notice shifts between our conversations.
What we explore together
Although every programme is shaped by the individual, the journey tends to move through a progression.
❶
Understanding the pattern
How responsibility has gathered in your life over time, and the beliefs and identity that have formed around it.
❷
Recognising the emotional weight
The cycle of anticipation, resentment, and guilt — and what sustains it.
❸
Beginning to include yourself
Noticing where you've been absent from your own thinking and decisions, and exploring what it might feel like to be included.
❹
Responding differently
Working through real situations in your life, and developing greater clarity and conscious choice in how you respond.
❺
Finding a more grounded way
Relating to responsibility in a way that is sustainable — and that includes you.
Each session builds on the last, while remaining responsive to where you are at the time.
— ABOUT CELIA
I know what you're experiencing
I created this work after my own experience of gradually taking on more and more responsibility and finding myself feeling increasingly absent from my own life. From the outside, everything looked fine, but inside, I was managing an uncomfortable and persistent pull between responsibility, resentment, and guilt.
It was through a period of reflection that I began to understand the patterns and identity that had formed around being the dependable one. The most important shift was recognising that I mattered too — within my own life, not just in relation to everyone else's. That understanding didn't remove responsibility, but it changed how I related to it.
This is what I do now: I help women recognise similar patterns and reposition themselves more centrally in their own life. Living from the centre, rather than the sidelines, means being fully present in your own life — not just managing everyone else's.
My coaching credentials include an EMCC-accredited Coaching Professional Apprenticeship Level 5 and an ICF-accredited qualification in Business and Personal Coaching.
Celia Burns
Coach and Founder
The most important shift was recognising that
I mattered too —within my own life, not just in relation to everyone else's.
— WHAT CHANGES
What you might start to notice
When you live from the centre of your life — knowing that you matter too — life doesn't necessarily look different from the outside, but internally, things change. Here’s what you might notice:
A different relationship with responsibility — where it's a part of your life, not your whole life
A loosening of the conflict between resentment and guilt, and the ability to say no when you want to
The ability to pause before automatically stepping in, and to ask: Is this responsibility actually mine? Do I want to do this? Do I have the capacity right now?
Doing things because you want to, not just because you feel you should — whether that means saying no, or still saying yes but for a different reason
A sense of agency — beginning to consider, perhaps for the first time in years, what you want
Being able to voice what you need, rather than staying quiet about it
An identity that isn't built solely around being the dependable one
A sense of being in your life, rather than managing it from somewhere outside of it
A greater sense of calm and presence in your life
A lightness — as a weight you've carried for years begins to lift
Time, space and energy for things beyond responsibility
You won’t disappear from other people’s lives. You’ll just stop disappearing from your own.
“
We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own to-do list
Michelle Obama
“
Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation.
Audre Lorde
— LET'S TALK
“
There's no obligation — it's simply a conversation.
Let's have a conversation
If any of what you've read has resonated, I'd be happy to speak with you before you make a decision. A discovery call is a chance to talk about where you are, what's been happening in your life, and whether this programme feels like a right fit. There's no obligation — it's just a conversation.
— INVESTMENT
What About
You?
Investment
The What About You? programme includes six 60-minute coaching sessions conducted online via Zoom, spaced at a pace that works for you. We'll talk through the investment when we speak. If you'd like to discuss a payment plan, just mention it then.
— FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Each session is a conversation — focused on your life, your situations, your patterns. We explore what's happening and work together to develop greater clarity and conscious choice in how you respond. There are no worksheets or set homework, but if you find reflection useful between sessions, there's plenty to sit with.
Most women experiencing this are managing well on the outside — and that's part of what makes the experience so hard to name. You're not falling apart; you're coping. But internally, something has shifted; there's a growing sense of absence from your own life, or a thought that keeps surfacing: I can't keep going like this — but I can't see how to stop. You don't need to be at breaking point for this work to be relevant. The feeling that something needs to be different is enough.
No. Coaching and therapy are different things. This is a forward-focused process — we explore where you are and where you'd like to be, rather than working through past trauma. If at any point it seems that therapeutic support would be more appropriate, I will say so.
That's a question worth bringing to the discovery call. It gives you the chance to talk through where you are, ask anything you'd like to ask, and get a sense of whether this feels right — without any obligation to commit.
Not necessarily. Sessions are typically weekly or fortnightly, but we can agree a rhythm that suits you at the start, and adjust as needed.
No. This is not about caring less. It's about changing your relationship to the responsibilities you carry — so that you're included in your own decisions, rather than absent from them. You can still step in, you can still care deeply; the difference is that you do so consciously, from a place where you matter too.
Many women also notice that as the emotional load eases, they have more energy — not because the responsibility changed, but because of how much had been going into carrying it.
We'll talk through the investment when we speak on the discovery call.
Sessions take place online, over video call, so you can join from wherever suits you, without the added logistics of travel.
Each session lasts around an hour, and the programme runs across six sessions in total, usually completed within four months. That gives enough time for the patterns we're working with to surface properly, and for something to genuinely shift, without the process stretching on indefinitely.
Let me know with at least 24 hours' notice, and we'll find another time that works. Sessions cancelled or missed with less notice than that are normally treated as used, simply because the time had already been set aside for you. If something unexpected comes up, do get in touch and we can talk about it.
Yes. What you share with me stays between us, and I treat every conversation with care and discretion.
This work is for women who are feeling the build-up of responsibility, even when everything looks fine from the outside. It isn't designed for acute crisis support, and if it seems that therapeutic support would serve you better, I'll say so early on. It's also not a fixed framework to follow — the work moves at the pace of what's actually happening for you.