In The Next 5-10 Years, The Coaching Industry Will Be Obsessed With Grief
In the next 5-10 years, the personal development industry is going to be obsessed with G R I E F.
And it’s going to a good thing; a great thing.
Move outta the way toxic positive psychology, and the 1000 latest nervous system hacks to #liveyourbestlife.
(which primarily help you “manage” your emotions so you fit into the oppressive capitalist structures like a good little over-achieving, productive human 🙃)
We need more G R I E F coaches rather than Life coaches IMO.
There is no outrunning grief.
When we avoid grief, we avoid life.
When we suppress grief, we suppress life.
We stagnant,
we silence our truth,
we remain in cycles of toxic stress and sickness.
We live contracted in fear, never fully expanding into the truth of who we are…
It’s no longer a time to placate sacred rage and ancient heartbreak.
If you’re actually connected to humanity, your heart should be breaking.
Revolutionary Grief is not here to break us down though;
But rather, to break us O P E N.
To shake us awake into embodied action.
To make us wake to the next iteration of our leadership that’s needed on this planet 🔥
We’ve just come off an intense decade of collective awakening…
…and yes there’s been some serious issues in integrity as the coaching and wellness industries have sky-rocketed into multi-billion dollar industries…
But overall, it’s been pretty cute.
Us humans remembering who we are and trying to work it all out on the physical plane 🙊😅🥹
Healers and mystics coming into their own, and tearing down life as they knew it to rebuild a life aligned with truth where they can share their gifts as guided with their community 🫶🏼
I have compassion for us.
I believe we’ve done well
*annnnnnd*
I believe we’ve got work to do.
In fact, we’re only just getting started.
The last 10+ years was our personal preparation for what’s ahead.
Those who only ever got into “coaching” as a way to lead a laptop lifestyle and make quick money have long faded from the scene.
Those who were *actually* born to be the wayshowers of this time to help usher in this change right now on this planet are still here.
I see you 👀
Some of you are hiding…
scared of your own power.
Some of you have refined your gifts over the past 10 years whilst healing your own wounds…
but still don’t know how you fit into modern day marketing (so you still aren’t living your destined role and helping your community in the way you know you’re meant to be).
Some of you have found a level of success in your healing business or helping profession…
Yet you know there’s a deepening for you (and your clients/community) available.. you just haven’t quite worked out what it is yet.
I see you 👀
You haven’t failed.
You haven’t missed out on your chance.
You’re exactly where you’re meant to be.
Now is your time.
If you were waiting for a sign, this is it 😉
As higher consciousness continues to actualise into physical reality; lower consciousness is clinging and trying not to die.
The world as many people know it, is on fire.
Systems of control are intensifying oppressive and divisive tactics.
There is more uncertainty, fear, suffering, rage and GRIEF than ever.
Despite a million self-help books, wellness podcasts and health experts >>>
Mental health and chronic physical health conditions are still rampant.
Anxiety and depression have gone nowhere.
Systemic issues, poverty and unmet basic needs remain unresolved.
Healers, Mentors & Leaders >>>
We’ve got work to do.
It’s time to get out of the stars and onto the ground, and into the hearts of your communties.
We don’t just need your love and light or your latest shadow work method or anxiety hack…
We need Healers, Mentors & Leaders who can sit with the totality of the human experience, and not run away from it.
We need Healers, Mentors & Leaders who have metabolised and transformed their own suppressed Grief into True Power, True Love & True Self Expression…
… so they can innovate and lead healing initiatives in their local communities with confidence.
We need Healers, Mentors & Leaders trained beyond modern psychology, surface-level coaching and new age spirituality trends…
… who have unraveled from oppressive systems and can walk with others from a place of embodied wisdom, humility and equality in power.
This time is what you’ve been initiated for 🔥
You’re at the final frontier.
I know you might be feeling exhausted from your quest.
But you didn’t come this far, to come this far!
You’re *so* close to landing in the exact place you know you’re meant to be.
There is just one final hurdle for you to walk through to complete.
Welcome to your grand finale.
Your true return home and *full circle* moment…
Your Revolution ⭕️ awaits.
✨There will come a time when you believe you’re at the very end… That will be the beginning✨
Hi 👋🏽
I’m Tessa.
First class honours in psychology student, turned rebel against the system & mental health industrial complex.
Grief has been my sacred teacher of Life, Love & Truth on this planet since watching my mum die from cancer before my eyes when I was 10.
I dedicated much of my professional life to front line work in social welfare where my heart broke again and again for the humans in front of me, and the brokenness of our systems.
Witnessing my dad die from cancer five years ago, was the beginning of the end for me in my initiation into Grief.
Over the last 20+ years, I’ve found myself unexpectedly consistently ahead of wellness trends.
I’ve come to learn my particular leadership path initiates me in collective consciousness themes early. Sometimes months, sometimes years, sometimes decades.
I never felt it was truly my place to take up space in any one of the fields I had journeyed…
Until now.
Last April I got moved so deeply and greatly by a consciousness moving through me that everything changed…
R E V O L U T I O N A R Y G R I E F
And now, I get to bring it to you.
This… is different.
For this… I will be taking up space.
I will be loud.
I will be persistent.
I will be banging on about grief I until I cannot speak or type anymore 😂
NOT grief in the way it’s currently spoken of…
which is largely
>>> bereavement-focused & event-specific (rather than a life-long relationship with impermanence, change & loss)
>>> shaped by a lack of consideration of the capitalist-colonist nexus of grief, and systemic disconnection from our true nature
>>> lacking multidimensional depth and misunderstanding of it’s true transformational power
The truth is most of us have grown up without adult role models who have expressed grief regularly and healthily.
Until we identify our Internal Grief Template and understand how to evolve it, we will subconsciously recreate cycles of suppression (as role modelled to us when we were younger) 🔥
This is what we’ll be diving into in REVOLUTIONARY GRIEF.
We’ve got work to do.
So let’s get to it.
“If you feel you don’t fit into this world, it’s because you’re here to help create a new one.” - Jocelyn Daher
R E V O L U T I O N A R Y G R I E F
We Cannot Out-Run or Out-Smart Grief
To avoid Grief, is to avoid life itself.
We exist in a world where change is inevitable; everything is temporary.
And with all change comes loss.
With all loss comes… Grief.
So, Grief too is inevitable.
Yet we rarely speak of it, get taught about it, or know what to do with it.
Grief is never just one emotion. It’s a complex cocktail of conflicting and overwhelming emotions…
And because we don’t get taught about it, and because our capitalist culture likes to undervalue emotions and deny the sacred passageway of loss in general…
We often either become consumed by Grief, or we deny it…
We push it way down into our psyches and bodies thinking it’s gone away forever.
But, it hasn’t.
Avoiding grief shows up in other places. Always.
We cannot out-run or out-smart Grief.
I don’t think I’ve ever met a client in the past 15+ years who didn’t have unresolved grief impacting on their current challenge they presented with.
The thing is Grief doesn’t just exist for the big tragedies or major experiences of heartbreak in our lives…
Grief is omnipresent.
Grief exists in the everyday, in the small; in the unseen, in the unspoken.
Everything changes, everyone changes, we constantly change…
And so we (on some level whether known to us or not) constantly grieve too.
I wish I understood the depth and breadth of Grief 20+ years ago.
I wish I had been given a frame for Grief that extended beyond 5 stages, or only associated Grief with big tragedies and losses.
I wish I had of known Grief was everywhere all of the time; and that my willingness to experience Grief would expand my capacity to experience Love. And my capacity to truly experience Life.
To experience l o v e,
is to experience
Grief.
To experience l i f e,
is to experience
Grief.
Tell me what your relationship to Grief is like…
and I will tell you what your relationship to Love and Life is like… (and where your “blocks” and self-sabotaging patterns actually come from) 😉
Grief is a grand teacher of Love and Life (when we allow it to be).
Grief is our constant loving reminder that all of this is temporary…
A reminder that one day we will no longer be here.
A reminder that one day those we love will no longer be here.
A reminder that this is it…
This life, this moment right now…
It’s all we ever truly have.
Grief is the cost of being alive.
^^^
Although it may feel like a high price to pay….
Grief doesn’t ask of us much; but what it does ask is confronting.
Grief asks us to Feel.
Grief asks us to be present to the impermanence of Life.
Grief asks us to open, when we would rather close.
Grief asks us to take this all in…
To truly Live, to truly Love.
Grief asks us not to take this for granted.
In my experience, our relationship to Grief can either stifle us slowly from the inside… or liberate us.
I now also believe our Love becomes r e v o l u t i o n a r y on this planet when we allow our relationship to Grief to become r e v o l u t i o n a r y ♥️🔥🌹
There is no coming to know and embrace your True Self, without coming to know and embrace your relationship with Grief.
“You cannot buy the revolution,
You cannot make the revolution,
You can only be the revolution.
It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
~ Ursula K Le Guin
R E V O L U T I O N A R Y G R I E F
Bali, Bikinis & Breaking Up With The Coaching Industry
Originally written March 2024
I’ve spent a lot of time questioning why I do what I do
And whether it’s necessary to continue.
I’ve been working in the fields of mental health and transformation for 16 years now….
- Maybe in that time our our care systems have improved?
- Maybe the rapid rise of integrative therapies, of the coaching industry and of trauma-informed care mean there is no more problem for me to solve?
- Maybe the insane level of free/low-cost psycho-education people have access to now across social media, apps and podcasts mean people are happy, and free of anxiety, depression and burnout?
Over the months leading up to me moving back to Sydney I actually fantasied a lot about slipping back into my “old life” in many ways…
full-time employment in the social care sector
part-time uni for post-grad research
dating with the aim of long-term partnership, becoming a mother and creating a family.
My last 10 years were such an unexpected chapter in my life…
“what do the next 10 years get to look like?” I’ve wondered.
I believe it’s healthy to explore these things.
To ask yourself what your current desires are, and if they’ve changed…
To be willing to let go of things or ideas you have about yourself…
To be willing to disappoint others…
so you can align deeper with your truth
and walk the path you’re truly here to walk.
These explorations also came after my trip to Bali in October last year.
Where on paper…
I was “living my best life”
co-hosting a retreat I had fervently dreamed of co-hosting one day.
And yet…
in my heart
something felt profoundly off.
Somewhere in between swanning about in my bikinis and favourite kimonos, “opening people’s heart chakras”, and innocent children being bombed on the other side of the world…
I found myself in a fiery pit of honesty, desperately grappling with my place in the world.
“What the h e l l am I doing here?!”
“Is this actually my d r e a m…?”
“Didn’t I leave my career in psychology and social welfare on this grand adventure so I could find a new solution for mental wellbeing and t a k e i t b a c k?”
This all led to an unexpected 4/5 months off social media….
me traversing the most sacred passageway of my Hero’s journey yet…
while I contemplated,
while I conducted extensive research into Phd programs, the current state of the sector, the current needs of those who are seeking therapy or coaching services,
while I consulted with clients and non-clients about what they need, what’s working well for them, what’s not working well.
I’ve listened to people’s struggles in finding the right psychologist,
In being on a waitlist for months and months with no support,
In their financial struggles, cost-of-living-crises and inability to prioritise payments to a therapist or coach
In feeling overwhelmed by social media and the vastness of self-help resources, not knowing where to start.
In feeling embarrassed they done ‘so much healing’ like still feel trapped in survival and repeating patterns.
During this time I have humbled myself into deeper layers of service…
I have gotten back to the heart of what I love and what I’m good at (without all the hypey hype of the coaching industry).
I have recognised more clearly than ever the gaping hole between clinical mental health support and the coaching industry.
… and I have acknowledged that what I was guided to understand and create over the last 10 years (Open-Hearted Psychology) is what many people are exactly seeking now.
So I got to work on aligning more deeply with my unique path and part I’m here to play in the world.
This looked like:
- untangling myself from the coaching industry, and it’s misuse of power (acknowledging I am part of the problem)
- reimagining my business from the ground up…
- deciding to finally fully unpack my bags and set up my home in the space between the clinical mental health sector and coaching industry.
- laying the groundwork for the Open-Hearted Psychology Community Clinic
- exploring options for greater community integration (ie registering as an NDIS provider, hosting youth work/community services training)
- remodelling my level 1 program from a 4 month to 6 month program with increased levels of support, and new payment options (and all-year round enrolment)
- remodelling my level 2 practitioner training program from a one year to a two year learning and development pathway
- lowering my 1:1 session prices for my existing l clients who have done my level 1 program (one of the best things I’ve ever done)
This has taken months to work this all out…
And to be honest -
This last week I’ve been in a place of such deep awe…
Seeing it all *finally* come together 🥹
Enrolling new clients into Wildly-Authentic Superheroes (level 1),
Understanding that if I didn’t dare undertake my grand adventure into the unknown…
I wouldn’t have become the Wildly-Authentic Superhero of my own life first…
Nor be so well placed to be of genuine support and offer this transformative work to others long term 🤯🥹
To trust our unique path is truly an awe-inspiring adventure.
I love that no matter how much I dare to question…
I am always guided into deeper levels of *me*.
There truly is no competition when we are walking our true path.
For those ready to trust themselves,
to walk the path only *you* can walk in this lifetime,
and become the Wildly-Authentic Superhero of your own life…
Come find me.
Out beyond ideas of the mental health industry and the coaching industry, there is a field.
I’ll meet you there 😉
WILD-Authenticity (noun); a way-of-being in which one displays raw, untamed courage in embracing and expressing their truest self, heart's desires and intuitive calling for ALIVENESS.
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Wildly-Authentic Superheroes
Wildly-Authentic Superheroes is Tessa's flagship identity-work program within the Institute. The program unites Tessa's 15+ years of experience across worlds of psychology, health, coaching, creativity, spirituality and social work to deliver an unforgettable experience to participants to help them break free from their minds, open their hearts and transform their lives.
Please note: This program is no longer available as a stand alone offering. It is now offered as a self-paced option with community calls facilitated by Tessa as part of the 12-Month Open-Hearted Membership (available July 2025). It will also be offered as foundational education in The True-Self Expression Clinic (opening July 2025) where you will be supported 1:1 by a trained OHP Mentor.
Join the waitlist for Open-Hearted Here or The True-Self Expression Clinic Here.
The Importance of Undergoing Our Hero’s Journey for Mental Health
originally written March 2024
the r e t u r n to Sydney, the end of a 9-year mythical quest & a w h o l e new world
[+ the importance of undergoing the heroes journey for mental health]
Here I am, back in Sydney.
Here I am, back where I burned my life down 9 years ago after becoming severely disillusioned with modern day psychology and our social care systems.
Here I am, back where I began my grand adventure, determined to uncover a new way to genuinely support the mental health of the humans I worked with.
Here I am.
Starting over.
Starting again.
Starting w h o l e.
After dedicating myself to publicly sharing the rawest insights from my journey over the last decade, this last chapter has been for me - and me alone.
The last few months of 2023 leading up to my move back to Sydney were the most challenging, most dark, and most deeply s a c r e d of the entire 9 years.
This passageway required me to apply all of the lessons and skills I had developed along the way...
In the face of burnout, I was asked to heal myself and trust in my body.
In the face of suffocating self-doubt, I was asked to break through the limitations of my mind and trust in life.
In the face of heartache, I was asked to keep my heart open and no matter what, trust in love.
It was mythical.
It was initiatory.
It was brutal.
And I’m so grateful. 🥹
It was everything I needed.
Everything I prayed for.
Yet nothing what I had expected.
I received the final pieces required to complete the puzzle I have been working on for 9 years…
The final puzzle pieces which allowed for the grand re-union of my perceived seperate parts of my psyche into a felt sense of wholeness.
The final puzzle pieces which fulfilled my understanding of “Open-Hearted Psychology” and its purpose in the world.
It was actually 9 years ago when I left Sydney that I serendipitously stumbled upon the “Hero’s Journey’ concept.
Understanding how mental health (and illness) maps onto the psychological adventure of the “Heroes Journey” (Joseph Campbell) has been at the core of my work in developing OHP over the last decade.
But it wasn’t something I could learn via a textbook.
I was asked to live and breathe it.
I was initiated into the healing arts, my mystical gifts as a modern-day practitioner, and psychology (in a way my psychology degree never taught me).
I was asked to undertake my own journey into the underworld of my psyche, in order to uncover this “new way” I had been so desperately seeking.
I had to be willing to lose my mind (and dance with the absurd) to follow my heart.
As John Breeding PhD writes in his article ‘The Danger of Refusing The Call of The Heroes Journey’ -
“Madness and unproductivity are necessary ingredients of deep change, yet they are discouraged and often punished in our society, very often with labels and psychiatric drugs.”
He also writes about the fruitfulness of embarking on the heroes journey with full support - not just for the mental wellness of the hero but for the benefit of the community.
The hero brings something back to society which is a greater contribution than they could have made without having taking their journey.
Since returning to Sydney and planning for the next 10 years…
I have been reflecting on what I am “bringing back” to contribute to society in a new way.
This led me full circle in reflecting on the very foundations of my work —-
My signature True-Self Transformation program:
Wildly-Authentic Superheroes.
I built out this program based on principles from
the heroes journey and drawing from over a decade of study and experience in psychology, mental health and complex trauma.
It unites the soul and science of psychology to help people break free from their minds, open their hearts and transform their lives.
For the better part of a decade now, I have coached and mentored clients through my Wildly-Authentic Superheroes program to help free themselves of low self-worth, general lack of fulfilment in life, and mental health diagnoses which they had never found true support for.
It is tried and tested, and much-adored.
To this day, I still have past clients reach out to thank me for this program…
For the impact it has had on them, and on their family and intimate relationships.
This is the program that has stood the test of time.
Today, I still see people struggling with the impact of a) not undergoing their heroes journey due to fear or social constraints or b) stuck in the darkness of their heroes journey, unable to integrate back into society.
In both cases, mental health is impacted.
I also see ongoing problems with the way our mental health system is structured; the over-focus on clinical intervention over community intervention, the over-pathologising, the limits of talk based therapy, the misuse of power within the industry at large, the challenges matching with a psychologist, the length of time on a waitlist, the lack of support whilst on waitlist… (I could go on).
I’ve deliberately taken time away from society over the last 9 years to truly contemplate these issues, and to test out different models and possibilities.
Over the past few months I’ve taken stock of what I’ve learnt and the problems I still see people facing, and how I can be of greatest service moving forward.
The truth is, I truly believe there is a soul-deep process for healing, inner-freedom and peace more intricate and profound than any instructions provided to us in a psychological textbook.
This is the stunning perfection of trusting Life as our greatest teacher,
of trusting the archetypal path of evolution our soul yearns to take,
of daring to undergo the psychological initiation into the “underworld” that our personal legend calls for.
This is what I wish for everyone who is forever struggling to make sense of themselves or where they fit…
Or is struggling with mental anguish, or anxiety, or burnout or a general lack of fulfilment living inside this socially-oppressive, capitalist, consumerist world…
I wish for us to have the support, education and resources to undergo the personal adventure of a lifetime —
The adventure of knowing our own soul;
Of expressing who we truly are in this lifetime.
My 9 year journey has taught me more about myself, healing and reality creation than my psychology degree ever did -
And yet I’m aware it was my professional experience and love for psychology that helped me navigate each ego-destructive, soulful step….
And innovate a new vision for psychology along the way.
Because of this all, I knew I had to explore a new long-term, sustainable way to share Wildly-Authentic Superheroes (level 1 Open-Hearted Psychology) with those too who are seeking deeper answers as I once was.
I’m excited to say that this new way is finally here.
Although the journey has felt intense and harrowing at times -
I would not change it.
I could not have ignored the call and stayed the same.
No Wildly-Authentic Superhero truly can…
The Wildly-Authentic Superhero knows deep down they must bravely run into the unknown.
They must listen to their heart as matter of life and death.
They must choose a life of truth over fear.
They must choose to truly know Love above all else…
Because at the end of the day…
All else will fade and all that will remain is the evidence of how much we truly loved.
Here’s to this wild, wild adventure called life, and the Wildly-Authentic Superhero inside all of us ♥️
WILD-Authenticity (noun); a way-of-being in which one displays raw and untamed courage in embracing and expressing their Truest Self, heart’s desires and intuitive calling for aliveness.
Wildly-Authentic Superheroes
Wildly-Authentic Superheroes is Tessa's flagship identity-work program within the Institute. The program unites Tessa's 15+ years of experience across worlds of psychology, health, coaching, creativity, spirituality and social work to deliver an unforgettable experience to participants to help them break free from their minds, open their hearts and transform their lives.
Please note: This program is no longer available as a stand alone offering. It is now offered as a self-paced option with community calls facilitated by Tessa as part of the 12-Month Open-Hearted Membership (available July 2025). It will also be offered as foundational education in The True-Self Expression Clinic (opening July 2025) where you will be supported 1:1 by a trained OHP Mentor.
Join the waitlist for Open-Hearted Here or The True-Self Expression Clinic Here.