Meet Carolina

One of my earliest memories is not of a person. It’s of a globe of light floating over my crib, shifting colours, changing shape, playing with me until I laughed out loud. The moment my mother stepped into the room, it disappeared. That wasn’t a one-time thing. I had many moments like that: laughing at empty corners, babbling into open space, as if I always had company. 

As I grew up, that sensitivity didn’t make me charming. It made people uncomfortable around me, and it made me hard to place.

I knew things I couldn’t have known. I felt moods and emotions with an accuracy that made people uncomfortable, especially when they weren’t ready to admit what was true. And because I was a child, I couldn’t yet distinguish between a thought that belonged to me and a message that didn’t. Information arrived suddenly. Clearly. With cutting precision.

It made me the odd kid. Then the odd adolescent.

I heard “too much” more times than I can count. Too bright. Too witty. Too weird. Adults didn’t know what to do with it. At school, it made me an easy target. And like most adolescents, I wanted one thing more than I wanted truth: I wanted to belong.

So I made a decision that was both intelligent and heartbreaking: I started suppressing my spirituality. At first I suppressed it. Over time, I disconnected from what I thought was the spirit world. I made myself rational. Level-headed. Unemotional. “Professional.”

What I didn’t understand then, is that I wasn’t only cutting off spirit communication. I was cutting off a part of myself. And once you learn to adjust and filter yourself to belong, you don’t do it in only one area. You make it a template.

At work, I dialled down my femininity. I chose grey suits, I removed my second earring. I banned anything that looked too soft, too expressive, too alive. I learned to distrust my gut feeling because it couldn’t be put in a spreadsheet. If I couldn’t prove it, I treated it as if it wasn’t real, even when my whole being was saying otherwise.

I learned fast that self-sacrifice and over-functioning got rewarded, so I did what was expected. I worked relentless hours, took on more responsibility. But I was in constant survival; and wouldn’t pass a day without some kind of overwhelm. I would ignore my body when it was asking for rest, ignore my loneliness when it was asking for connection, ignore my Soul when it was asking for care. I did not have time for that, I needed to perform, to climb. And I didn’t even really know what for.

That is what Rat Race means to me: old programming. Automatic behaviour absorbed so early and so deeply that they feel like they’re the only way to live.

In my early twenties, the wall between my corporate world and my spiritual nature broke unexpectedly. I walked into the coffee corner at work. A colleague stood at the machine. I opened my mouth, and the words came out about how sorry I was about her dog passing away the night before, and I asked how she was. She froze, and then she turned around with rage in her eyes: she hadn’t told anyone, not even her children.

I didn’t plan to say it. I didn’t decide to “reveal” anything. It just came through. From that moment, people treated me differently. Weird. Woo-woo. Witch. The carefully curated reputation of rational, level-headed, unemotional Carolina was pulled out from under me.

After that day, it was impossible for me to ignore how numb I had become. That day, I began my journey back to myself. And people noticed the positive change; the confidence, the steadiness, the genuine presence, the clarity.

That’s when people began telling me, repeatedly, that I needed to become a coach.

I listened.

I started my first Tony Robbins coaching certification, and I founded my coaching company in 2010. Clients came in steadily. Eventually I couldn’t do corporate and business at the same time, so I quit and went all-in. I finally felt like I could breathe. What I didn’t know yet was that the old programming would come back, just in a different form.

And then, about a year and a half later, the ease disappeared. My recurring clients were stable, but attracting new clients became increasingly difficult. As my numbers fell, my confidence fell with them. Unconsciously, I slipped into self-sacrifice and over-functioning again.

Without noticing it at first, I reached for the “professional” version of me, because that was the old programming. I started adjusting myself again, and replaced my colourful outfit with a boring grey jacket. I replaced my intuition with tools. I tried more tactics. Longer hours. More ‘hard skill’ training. Nothing helped. 

Until I hit that 80-hour workweek, and I finally woke up: I had built a business for freedom… but was trapping myself inside a prison of corporate life all over again.

That day, another return began. I stopped treating my spiritual nature like something optional, something I could “use” only when it was convenient. I made it the foundation.

I changed how I worked so I couldn’t override my intuition, my body, and my truth again. I sought extra support from my coach, and made non-negotiables real: the things I don’t debate with anymore if I want to stay true to myself.

But I could feel it: structure alone wouldn’t be enough if I didn’t shift the beliefs and patterns underneath my behaviour.

That’s when I remembered what had helped me most before. During my Family Constellations training with Bert Hellinger, something in me finally moved at the level where talking and willpower don’t reach. I could see the pattern behind my choices with painful clarity: who I was still trying to please, what I was afraid would happen if I stopped pushing, and why I tightened the moment I chose myself.

This wasn’t a new crisis. It was another layer of the same onion I had started peeling in corporate. And once I could see the pattern clearly, I realized it wasn’t a flaw. It was something I could release.

I came back to myself. My excitement returned. Conversations became genuine again. And yes: new aligned clients also started coming in again.

The old Rat Race programming still tries to overtake me on rare occasion. The difference is: I don’t obey it automatically anymore. I notice it, and I listen to what it’s showing me: the old programming I’m about to reenact.

That programming always asks for the same payment: self-abandonment and disconnection.

What gets pushed out is never small. It’s the most essential part: the part that carries your truth, your sensitivity, and your inner signal.

When that part is included again, clarity returns. Your voice gets strong. Your presence gets stable. The right clients start happening again. You start making decisions from guidance, and your business follows.