From Wallflower to Wildflower

There was a time in my life when I truly believed I was just… part of the background. Not invisible because people saw me. Not unwanted because I was welcomed into the room. But selfishly (or so I believed), I was never quite center stage.

I was the one who showed up with a soft smile, who knew exactly when to nod, when to laugh, when to play my part. I learned how to take up just enough space to belong, but never enough to be fully seen. I would quietly step back, almost instinctively, letting others bask in the spotlight while I lingered somewhere along the edges. And deep down? It felt like I was standing just outside the glass of my own life, watching moments unfold, hearing the laughter, feeling the energy, but never quite inside it. Like everything meaningful was happening around me, brushing past me, always meant for someone else.

The Wallflower Years

Growing up, I always felt like I belonged, but not in a way that made me feel seen. I was there, woven into the spaces, included in the circles, standing shoulder to shoulder with everyone else. In friend groups, in dance class, on the field, even within my own extended family, I had a place, but it never quite felt like mine. I wasn’t the rose people paused to admire. I wasn’t the sunflower stretching boldly toward the light. I was the wallflower.

Quietly rooted on the sidelines, present, aware, taking everything in. I watched the laughter, the confidence, the way others seemed to move so naturally through their lives. I absorbed it all like sunlight. I didn’t quite know how to reach for myself, and I clapped, genuinely and lovingly, for everyone else’s moments. All the while, carrying this soft, lingering question in my chest: When does my life begin?

The Water Within Me

I’ve come to understand something about myself, something that, once I saw it clearly, made so many pieces of my life finally make sense. I’m a Cancer. A water sign. A crab. Which, according to astrology, means I move through the world with softness, depth, and a quiet kind of intuition that feels everything, and protects it, too. I carry a shell, not to hide in, but to hold myself when the world feels too loud, too sharp, too much. At my core, I am an introvert. The kind of person who finds peace in stillness, and who craves the quiet magic of my home. I love the feeling of soft blankets, warm light, something baking in the oven, the hum of comfort wrapped around my family and me. I could spend an entire day tucked into my own little world, dreaming, creating, simply being, and feel completely full. Completely content.

And yet…

There’s another side of me. A switch I can flip. A light I can turn on. I can step out into the world, smile wide, connect deeply, hold space, laugh, and shine in ways that surprise even me. I can be the energy in the room, the warmth people gravitate toward, the presence that feels both open and alive. But it’s not where I live, it’s something I offer, because the truth is, I’m an introvert living an extroverted life. That quiet, constant contrast, the pull between retreating inward and rising outward, has shaped so much of who I am, how I love, and how I move through this world.

The Safe Space I Didn’t Realize I Was

Here’s something I’ve always found both beautiful, and a little exhausting. People tell me everything! I can sit beside someone, during a massage, at a hockey game, in a waiting room, and within minutes, I know most of their life story. Their heartbreak. Their struggles. Their family dynamics. It’s like something in me quietly says, “You’re safe here,” and they feel it. Even in my 9–5, people come in with a reason, a form, a question, something practical, but often? They just want to talk. To be heard. To be seen. To be held in a moment of understanding. The old version of me, the wallflower me, thought this meant I was just the background character in everyone else’s story. But now? I see it differently.

Not a Background Role—A Grounding Presence

Being a safe space is not small. It’s not quiet in a way that fades, and it’s not passive in the way people sometimes assume. It’s powerful. It’s the kind of presence that softens a room. The kind that gently lowers shoulders, slows racing thoughts, and invites people to finally take a full, unguarded breath. It’s the energy that says, without words, “You don’t have to hold it all together here.” It’s the space where stories spill out, sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes all at once, because something in them recognizes something steady in you, and maybe that’s why I’ve always been drawn to this work. To coaching. To supporting. To simply hold space.

Honestly, I don’t just hear people. I feel the pauses between their words. The weight behind their stories. The emotions they haven’t quite found language for yet, and in those moments, more than anything, I want them to feel what I can already see so clearly: Their worth.

The Shift: When I Became My Own Soil

Leaving my past relationship didn’t just change my circumstances; it unravelled everything I thought I knew about myself. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t being shaped by someone else’s expectations. There was no voice guiding me, no subtle pressure telling me who to be, how to act, where I fit. There was no script to follow. No role to slip back into. No one to compare myself against.

Just… me.

And the quiet that came with that? It was deafening. It felt like standing alone on a stage after the lights had gone out, unsure of where to move, what to say, or even who I was without the performance, because when you’ve spent so much of your life as the wallflower, blending in, adapting, shrinking, stepping forward into your own life doesn’t feel freeing at first. It feels raw. Exposed.
Excruciating. Like learning how to exist in your own skin for the very first time.

Learning to Plant Again

At first, my seeds felt brittle in my hands, dry, fragile, almost forgotten. I didn’t know where to plant them. I didn’t know what soil would hold them. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure they deserved to grow. There was a hesitation in me, a quiet doubt that whispered, “What if nothing comes of this?”

But still…

Gently, uncertainly, I began to plant anyway. A seed for a new home, something safe, something mine. A seed for stability, roots I could finally trust. A seed for my children’s laughter, their experiences, their joy. A seed for my health, my body, my energy, my well-being. A seed for my confidence, soft at first, but stubborn enough to stay. I pressed them into the soil with care, not knowing what would take, what would bloom, or how long it would take to see even the smallest sign of life. Then, over time, in a quiet, almost unnoticeable way, the seeds began to sprout.

Becoming the Wildflower

The seeds I planted were never meant to grow into perfection; they weren’t destined to become the polished, picture-perfect dream I once imagined. Instead, they became something real. This is where my field of wildflowers began to grow. Not all at once.
Not in neat rows or predictable patterns. But slowly, organically, in its own time. A field of wildflowers, stretching in directions I hadn’t planned, blooming in ways I didn’t expect. Beautiful in its colour. Messy in its becoming. Unique in every single piece of it, and so undeniably alive.

There was no perfection in it. Just growth. Just truth. Just life unfolding in the most honest way it knew how. And the most magical part? For the first time, I wasn’t standing on the outside, admiring what could be. I was standing right in the middle of it, and I finally saw myself as one of them.

Love, Growth, and Shared Seeds

Then I met the love of my life, and something in me softened even more, not in a way that made me smaller, but in a way that finally felt safe to grow. We started planting seeds together. Not just for me, not just for him, but for our family. Seeds of stability.
Of laughter. Of shared dreams and quiet, everyday moments that slowly turned into something meaningful. For the first time, it didn’t feel like I was losing pieces of myself to make something work. It felt like I was being met, fully, gently, as I am, and that’s when I realized something even deeper: The right kind of love doesn’t ask you to shrink.
It doesn’t ask you to become less. It gives you room. Room to breathe. Room to grow. Room to become more of who you’ve always been. Because when love is real, you don’t lose yourself in it. You expand! And the greatest growth of all was falling in love with myself, because it was from those roots that the love I invited into my life could truly bloom.

Trusting the Rain (and the Storms)

Here’s what I’m still learning, you don’t control the rain. No matter how carefully you plant, no matter how much you hope or plan or prepare, some things are simply not yours to manage. Sometimes the rain comes softly, a gentle mist that kisses the petals and nourishes what’s been quietly waiting beneath the surface. Sometimes it arrives all at once, heavy, relentless, soaking everything in a way that feels overwhelming, almost too much to hold, and sometimes, It turns into a storm. The kind that rattles your roots.
The kind that makes you question everything you thought was steady, everything you thought would last, but the rain always comes, and guess what? So do the wildflowers. They don’t brace against the storm, they don't try to control it, and they don't question whether they're ready. They lean into it. They trust that even the storm has a purpose, and that even the heaviest rain is feeding something deeper. And in that quiet surrender, that's when they grow.

Boundaries, Blooming, and Being Both

There’s another layer to this journey, one I’m still gently growing through. Boundaries. Not the rigid kind that shut the world out, but the loving kind that wraps around me and keeps me safe, grounded, and secure. When you are someone who naturally holds space for others, when people feel safe with you, when they open up easily, when their stories find their way to you, it becomes incredibly easy to give more than you meant to. To stay a little longer than you needed to. To say more than you planned to. To open your heart before checking if it feels safe to do so. Somewhere in all of that giving, you forget that your energy is sacred, too. I’ve had to learn, softly, sometimes the hard way, how to protect my field. Not by building walls, but by choosing where my energy flows. To honour my need for quiet. To listen when my body asks for stillness. To recognize when it’s time to step out and shine, and when it’s time to gently retreat back into my shell.

That's the beauty of who I am. I can be the warm, open, welcoming wildflower, the one who makes others feel safe enough to bloom, and I can also close my petals, turn inward, and rest without guilt. Both versions of me are real. Both are worthy. Both are necessary. Growth doesn’t come from constant openness. Sometimes, it comes from knowing when to soften and when to protect your roots.

A Gentle Reminder (For Me Too)

Recently, I planted another seed. My book Be Kind, Rewind: A Millennial Manual for Retro Confidence. It has finally made its way into paperback, something I once dreamed about, something that quietly lived in my heart long before it ever became real, and yet, I caught myself rushing right past it. Barely pausing. Barely celebrating. Barely allowing myself to sit in the moment I had worked so hard to create. It was like I was already reaching for the next thing before fully holding the one I had just brought to life. It was in that realization that something gently settled over me. A quiet reminder. Even wildflowers, no matter how strong, how resilient, how used to growing through anything, need to pause, to breathe, and to turn toward the light and actually feel the warmth of the sun on their petals. Growth isn’t just in the becoming, it’s in the noticing, too.

From Wallflower to Wildflower (Your Turn)

If you feel like a background character in your own life, like you’ve spent more time observing life than actually living it, if it feels like moments pass you by, like laughter, connection, opportunity somehow land just outside your reach. If you’ve ever sat in a room full of people and still felt like you were standing on the edges of your own life, If you’ve told yourself you’re too quiet, too soft, too sensitive. too “different” to ever fully belong in the center of your own story, please, pause here for a moment, and really hear this: There is nothing wrong with you. Not in your softness. Not in your stillness. Not in the way you feel things deeply, notice everything, and move through the world with a quiet kind of awareness. Your softness is not your weakness; it is your depth, your empathy, your quiet power. Your presence is not accidental; it is intentional, grounding, and more impactful than you realize. Your story is not secondary; it is rich, meaningful, and worthy of taking up space.

You were never meant to shrink yourself just to fit into someone else’s version of belonging. You were never meant to live on the sidelines of your own life, and you are not, nor have you ever been, “just” a wallflower. You are the pause in the noise.
The calm in the chaos. The one who feels, who holds, who understands. You are the beginning of your own becoming, and you are allowed to step forward, take up space, and bloom in your own time, exactly as you are. 

🌸 Final Thought

You are the safe place, the quiet exhale someone didn’t know they needed. You are both the storm and the stillness, the depth that feels everything, and the calm that knows how to hold it. You are the seed and the bloom, the beginning, the becoming, and everything in between. The truth is, you don’t have to become louder to be seen. You don’t have to harden yourself to be taken seriously. You don’t have to change your nature to take up space. You just have to allow yourself to grow. To trust in your own timing. To honour the seasons, and to believe that even in the unseen moments, something within you is unfolding, sprouting, growing. Wildly, without apology, gently with compassion, and always, always… in your own perfect timing.

Cheers, 

Coach Jo <3