"No, I don't have work life balance, but that's my fault" 🫠

Hello beautiful soul

In 2010, I sat across from my first ever coach and and eventually asked what I really wanted to know, “How can I make him love me more?”

I was there because something “didn’t feel right at work.”

I was talking about my first husband, an almost 12-year relationship at that point. Like many people who are being abused, I didn’t know I was living in domestic abuse. 

I actually wasn’t there to do anything about my marriage. I was there trying to improve me, so that I could win my husbands kindness.
I thought if I worked harder, gave more, stayed stronger… it would get better. That he would get better.

I had so internalised the cruelty I was experiencing that his anger felt like my fault. My job to solve.

But a hard truth is this: that is exactly how abuse works when it’s done “well.” It makes you believe you are the problem.

It takes a pretty conniving human to make the person who is suffering the most feel like it’s their fault.

And that same sickness doesn’t just play out in relationships.
It shows up in our workplaces too.

How many times have you asked yourself:
“How can I be better?”
“How can I make them take me seriously?”
“How can I change to fit in?”

I sit across from so many of us each week, and on some level, each and every one of us feels like we might be the problem. Even if rationally we can see differently.

It takes a pretty conniving system to make the people who are suffering the most believe it’s their fault too. 

And yet, we DO blame ourselves. The line I have probably heard the most is: "No, I don't have work life balance, but that's my fault."

From hundreds of conversations with women, I hear almost uncanny echoes of the same pain which almost always end in some form of self blaming.

So here's what you might want to remember if any of these sound like you:

→ “I just stop and I don’t continue. I don’t know how to stop people when they talk over me.”
[patriarchy trained us ALL not to take women’s voices seriously, including our own.]

→ “I wanted to be this calm energy… but sometimes I mute myself.”
[we’ve been taught composure equals silence.]

→ “I come across very friendly and collaborative… not everybody sees this as a leadership trait.”
[collaboration IS leadership, but the system refuses to see it.]

→ “A lot of times they don’t pick me because they have a guy they want to give the role to, even with less experience.”
[the system is groomed to centre and celebrate men.]

→ “I kind of lost myself during motherhood… I wasn’t expecting such a big change.”
[the system is wholly unsupportive of mothers, while celebrating fathers.]

These aren’t personal failings.
They’re patterned.
They’re systemic.

Your job is not to twist yourself into knots to survive inside a broken structure.
Your job is to remember your worth, reclaim your voice, and lead in your own way — even if that means out of that structure.

But we also have to be vigilant about how we’re participating in the very structure that harms us.

I heard a phrase recently that cut me deep: “woman-on-woman violence.” It was about the way women experience each other in the workplace.

It shows up in backchannels, in withheld support, in cutting comments, in silence. And yes — it causes harm.

We love to tell ourselves women support women. But if we’re honest, that isn’t always true.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard women say: “The worst boss I ever had was a woman.”

And while I can extend grace — I understand how oppressed people can turn on each other inside a toxic system — I won’t excuse it.

Because when we turn against each other, the system wins.

Women didn’t invent patriarchy’s playbook, but we need to be intentional if we want to change it.

Patriarchy is a system that trained us to doubt our own voices, to compete for scraps, to police each other into Good Girl™ behaviour.

And when I say patriarchy, I don’t mean men.
I mean the system we’re all living in — and upholding, knowingly or not.

And to my white sisters reading this — we carry more privilege and power inside this system than other women do. And it’s on us to use it. To speak up, to redistribute access, to open doors and name bias where we see it. To stop protecting our own proximity to power and start protecting each other.

Because if we aren’t using our voice and our privilege to actively support our sisters, then we’re complicit in the very system we say we want to change.

Here are three big invitations, from me to you:

First — stop pretending you are fine in the moments you really aren’t, even to yourself. Deal? 

Second — I want to invite you into my FREE Sisterhood community, an exclusive space just for women.

Each month we’ll gather for a reset, honouring the rhythms of moon and holding up the mirror to ourselves. What stories are we telling? What needs to shift? How can we move a little closer to the women we want to be?

I’ll also be opening up my yoga practices for free inside the community. This is my experiment and offering as we move towards the end of 2025 — a way to see if these rituals nourish you as much as I hope they will for you, and for me to see what is possible when women come together.

Click here to join us.

Third — please make sure you are cheering women on in every way you can.

Women-owned businesses.
Women stepping into male-dominated spaces.
Women just starting out who need support.
Women who are seasoned and reinventing.

Because women supporting women isn’t a slogan. If you like a newsletter, share it. If you see a post that resonates, like it. If something moves you, drop a comment. 
It’s survival. It’s revolution. It’s the only way forward for us.

Half my vision for Bloom is literally this: to create a world where women are safe, serene, surrendered, sacred, and sublime.

Rooting for you — and for us — always
Ruth x

Ps. And don't worry, my story really did have the happiest of happy endings. Here is me just this week, safe, serene, surrendered, sacred and sublime... living in a home I love and in a career that feels like it was made for me. Which is WHY I want that for you too!

If you’re reading this and living through abuse, please know you are not alone. In the UK, call the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247. In the US, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline on 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). There is support, and there is a way through. And I will always make time to speak with you too.