The first time I realised that the practice of self-fidelity was what was missing in my life was in 2010.

At the time I was a corporate high-flyer.

From the outside, my life looked great, but inside it was a completely different story. I had been secretly struggling for decades, stuck in patterns of behavior that did not reflect the real me.

These problematic behaviours – my unhealthy striving, proving, competing, pleasing, appeasing and overworking – often felt like a compulsion.

I was working so hard, yet nothing ever felt like enough. I never felt like I was enough.

My career felt like a roller-coaster ride that was getting faster and faster. I desperately wanted to stop the ride and get off, but I had no idea how to do that.

The turning point came at a leadership retreat when I realised that so many other high-flying leaders were struggled with the same heavy, secret burden of not-enough-ness.

Hearing the story of one particular woman at the retreat changed everything.

This leader ran the emergency department at a large hospital, so she was quite literally saving lives every day.

To my astonishment, she shared that she too was struggling with the exact same shadow I was – the shadow of not feeling like she was enough.

With tears in her eyes, she confessed that she felt like she had no value in the world.

In that moment, I realised that there was no promotion, no corner-office, no salary package, no big fat bonus, no accolade, no perfectly-delivered-project or fancy job title that was going to make me feel like I was yearning to feel – like I was enough.

I realised that my sense of enough-ness had to come from inside of me – not from outside.

For the first time I understood that I could never achieve my way to worthiness.

And so, the seed of my self-fidelity practice was planted – the snowball was formed.

It took many, many years of inner work, reading, therapy, yoga, retreats, deep thinking, unlearning, and learning for the practice of self-fidelity to come together.

It took me three years to distill and organise everything I had figured out about the practice of being true to our essential nature into my first book Self-Fidelity, released in 2020.

It has taken me a year to co-design a 10 week online learning experience How to Be True to Yourself at Work to teach the practice of self-fidelity far and wide (more on this coming soon!).

12 years on from that pivotal moment at the retreat, I sense the snowball effect is happening to the practice of self-fidelity.

Momentum is gathering, and something that started small is getting bigger.

Here are seven wonderful things that have happened so far this year:

• Self-Fidelity was recognised as a top 3 finalist in two different categories of the Australian Business Book Awards (Best Health & Wellbeing Book and Best Personal Development Book)
• I received this heart-warming message on Instagram out of the blue from someone I have never met “I have just picked up your book at an Airbnb and it really spoke to me. I just felt very seen … for once the problem didn’t seem to be me; it’s the disconnect between who I am and what my workplace expects me to be. Thank you for writing it. “
• One of Australia’s largest children’s charities engaged me to develop and embed a Self-Fidelity program (rebranded as Self-Leadership) to all their leaders across Australia
• An organisation who engaged me to design, deliver and embed a Connected Leadership program (incorporating the concepts of self-fidelity) placed a order for 10 books for a new cohort of leaders going through the program – see post
• I received this message from someone I have never met who bought my book after listening to a podcast I was a guest on “Reading your book today I had both goosebump & lightbulb moments! Thanks Cassie – I’m excited to get into the juicy bits ahead.“
• My dear friend Jasmine shared this fabulous post of LinkedIn about how she is being true herself while running and tapping into a new, renewable, uplifting inner energy source – her true essence
• A friend who did my Uplift program some time ago told me that she recently had a difficult career decision to make, so she re-read the Letting Go section of my book (in the bath) and it really helped her

If you are on the path from self-betrayal to self-fidelity and might benefit from a little guidance and support, click here to see how I can help.

If you are interested in being part of the pilot for my upcoming online learning program How to Be True to Yourself at Work, please reach out on info@self-fidelity.com