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This week I had a 3-day migraine. And if I’m honest, it scared me. Not just because of the pain itself… but because it immediately reminded me of a version of myself I used to know so well. The version of me who lived with chronic migraines and chronic pain every single month. The version of me who would spiral into fear the second symptoms appeared.
And even though logically I knew this was the first random migraine I’ve had since December 2024 (a VERY long time!!!) … my mind still wanted to panic. Because that’s what the brain does when something reminds us of an old painful chapter.It searches for danger. It searches for certainty. It searches for proof that we’re somehow going to be stuck “back there again”. But here’s what I had to remind myself this week: One hard moment DOES NOT erase all the healing, growth, work and progress you’ve made. One setback does not mean you’re back at the beginning! And I think this is something so many women experience during seasons of transformation and personal growth. You start changing your habits. You begin to set boundaries for yourself and others. You start healing. You begin reconnecting to yourself again. You feel stronger, clearer, more grounded. And then suddently the worst happens...You have an anxious week. You overthink again. You emotionally react. You feel exhausted. You doubt yourself. You fall into old habits or old fears. And immediately the mind says:
But healing and transformation were never meant to be linear. Growth isn’t a straight line upward where you never wobble again. Real transformation looks more like:
The difference is not whether you ever experience another difficult moment...  The difference is who you are now when the difficult moment arrives.Years ago, when migraines and chronic pain were a regular part of my life, I didn’t have the support system and awareness or tools I have now. Back then, I felt powerless inside what I was experiencing. Mainly because no one could help me understand EXACTLY WHY I was feeling the way I was feeling. It took me a long time to find the right support and enlist the help of my own body's intuition to get to the root cause and find a solution to my pain. But this week, despite the major discomfort, I noticed something important:
And perhaps most importantly… I trusted that this moment would pass. That is growth. And growth isn't perfect. It dips, ebbs and flows. If you're in a moment (or season!) that feels like a backwards step, remember this:YOU WILL MOVE FORWARD AGAIN! Be open to meeting yourself differently when you do. I think many women unknowingly measure healing by asking: From : “Why is this still happening to me?” But a far more powerful question is: To : “How can I support myself through this?”
Because transformational change often requires us to stop identifying with the old version of ourselves every time life gets hard. A difficult week does not mean you are broken. A setback does not mean you failed. An emotional dip does not erase your progress. It simply means you are human. And sometimes the greatest sign of healing is not that you never fall backwards emotionally… It’s that you no longer stay there. You recover faster. You become more self-aware. You stop abandoning yourself during hard moments. You stop turning temporary setbacks into permanent identities. One step forward and two steps back can still be progress if you keep moving. Because you are not the same woman you were before. You’ve learned. You’ve grown. You’ve built emotional tools, awareness and resilience along the way. And even if this season feels heavy right now, that doesn’t mean you’re stuck there forever. You’ve already proven to yourself that you can move forward before!! You will move forward again. What is within my control today? -Janel Briggs 
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 If you’ve been feeling more anxious, reactive, or emotionally fragile lately, it’s easy to assume you're just not coping as well as you 'should be'. Lashing out when normally we’d be more rational. Taking things more personally and becoming overly sensitive to other people’s comments or opinions. At work, letting doubt set in after small interactions, or assuming the worst in situations we’d usually handle with perspective. Over time, we internalise these reactions as a mindset problem. But it's not, it’s more often a sleep problem. When our nervous system is simply running on empty, it can affect how we think, react, communicate, and interpret the world around us. Think of a toddler who dropped their nap and is overtired? They become the most irrational crying-screaming human being on the planet! Think of a 5 year old who is overstimulated? They become as difficult to rangle as a herd of cats! Adults are very much the same, we just get better at masking it. One of the very first things I help women with in coaching is untangling the sleep puzzle. Because when we can establish a more regular sleep pattern, the shift in emotional resilience and day-to-day steadiness can be surprisingly profound. Sleep is emotional regulation, not recovery alone. Have you ever had a terrible night’s sleep that turned what is normally a manageable day into an emotional rollercoaster?? Where one small inconvenience sparked so much frustration it lead to tears and total overwhelm? Yes, I see you - I've been there too. Why on earth do we react like this?! Research from Harvard Medical School shows that sleep plays a critical role in how the brain processes emotion. During sleep, particularly REM sleep, the brain integrates emotional experiences and lowers their intensity. However, when sleep is compromised:
A 2019 study from the University of California, Berkeley, aptly titled “Overanxious and Underslept” found that insufficient sleep can trigger up to a 30% increase in anxiety levels the following day. What's even more eye opening? The same research showed that deep NREM sleep acts like a natural anxiety inhibitor. During this stage of sleep, the brain calms the emotional centres, lowers physiological stress responses, and prevents anxiety from escalating. In simple terms: deep sleep helps your brain stand down from 'threat' mode. For me, this is proof that sleep isn’t just a “nice to have”. It’s a foundational part of the equation and a practical tool we can use to care for and protect our nervous system. That’s the mindset shift I want you to take away today. Sleep is where emotional experiences are processed - without it, emotions stack up like bricks in a wall. There are only so many bricks we can carry before the wall cracks. Why anxiety spikes when sleep drops When our sleep is discupted, activity increases activity in the amygdala, the brain’s fear and threat detection centre, while reducing regulation from the prefrontal cortex. In real life, this looks like:
This is why women who are already high-functioning, capable, and driven often feel more distressed when sleep drops. Your system is doing its best, but without enough deep sleep, it simply doesn’t have the resources. When I started sleeping better, my anxiety didn’t totally disappear - but it became more manageable again. I seemed to have more resilience and the world felt less against me. Rest is important, but it isn’t the same as sleep Many people believe they’re "resting" while laying on the couch or in bed, but their nervous system disagrees. If you're scrolling, binge-watching TV, or working from bed this still keeps the brain stimulated. The body may be still, but the mind is still processing and remains on alert! True rest (for mind and body) requires disengagement. Generally, reading a book is the lowest stimulation for resting compared to screens, but it still engages the brain. Whether it feels restful or activating comes down to what you’re reading and why you’re reading it. More likely to be restful:
This kind of reading can help the nervous system downshift, especially in the evening and right before bed. Reading that is more likely to be stimulating:
This keeps the brain in processing mode, even if your body is still! If you love personal development books, my advice is always to read those in the morning or during the day, so your brain isn't stimulated at night thinking about all of the things you've just learned. If your body is resting but your mind is still ‘on’ then your system hasn’t stood down. 3 Practical Ways to Support Deeper SleepHere we go, now we're getting into the good stuff. First off, you don’t need a perfect routine but you do need consistency. These three changes alone often create noticeable shifts for my clients: 1. Cut caffeine (and sugar) earlier than you think Caffeine can remain in your system for up to 8 hours. If anxiety or racing thoughts are an issue, aim for no caffeine after 1pm to give your nervous system time to downshift and process the caffeine. That means coffee, green tea, matcha, chai, and most soft drinks. It’s also worth being mindful of heavily sugary foods and drinks. Sugar creates a quick energy spike followed by a slump, which often leads to craving more sugar or caffeine stimulation to “perk up” - keeping your nervous system in a cycle of highs and crashes rather than settling into rest. 2. Remove your phone from the bedroom If you're in the habit of middle of the night wake ups, where you reach for your phone to check emails and notifications during the night, then my number 1 non-negotiable to break that habit (to help you get better quality sleep) is to place your phone in another room when you sleep. Go back to using a traditional alarm clock for your morning alarm. Leave your phone in your en-suite or outside your bedroom door. Even brief screen exposure can spike alertness and make it harder to return to deep sleep. 3. Create a work and screen buffer before bed Aim for no phone at least one hour before sleep, and no work two hours before bed. This creates a healthy boundary around technology and work that sends a clear signal to your brain that the day is complete and it’s safe to rest. Many women also find that a short, guided sleep meditation helps close down the “open tabs” in the mind and relax the body into deeper sleep states. Here's one I recorded for you: "Peaceful Sleep Guided Meditation" No working from bed either! Think of your bedroom as your place of rest, we don't want the brain to be "on" think, think, thinking about all the things happening at work and our to-do list when you're trying to sleep. The mindset shift: Deep sleep is essential for stress, anxiety and emotional resilienceSo how many hours of sleep should you aim for each night? Ideally around eight hours. But if you’re currently averaging closer to six, don’t try to overhaul everything at once. Build your sleep in small, sustainable steps. This week, aim for 6.5 hours and focus on consistency: similar bedtimes in the evening and similar wake-up times in the morning. Small shifts done consistently are what retrain your nervous system. Over time, those half-hour gains add up to deeper rest, steadier emotions, and a version of you that feels far more like yourself again.
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Have you ever had that sinking feeling that life, as you know it was crumbling beneath your feet?Yes well, that’s exactly what I've felt this year. I most certainly did not have a “Lifequake” on my bingo card for 2024. Predonimantly caused by a decision my family made to move from my beloved Singapore in Asia, to Florida, USA for my husband's job mid-year. Navigating this move seemed easy on the "outlook". But throw in a steep learning curve on natural disasters as we were thrust into two major hurricane evacuations upon arrival, a lengthy furniture shipment delay leaving us in an empty house, two personal injuries (one after the other!) that had me hobbling for weeks, AND just last week a bout of emergency surgery for my son's appendicitis... I'm just about all out of "sanity" by this point! The bigger issue here - all of these challenges have meant I've needed to pause and take time off launching my coaching into the USA timezone to reacquaint my nervous system with: a) my new environment, and b) this ever evolving version of myself If you’ve ever felt or experienced something like a “lifequake” before - you'll know there is only one way to explain it... It’s extremely UNCOMFORTABLE! And of course, life must go on, so you do your best to keep things together. While feeling like the LIFE you had carefully constructed is slowly but surely falling apart under your feet.  What is a Lifequake? A lifequake is more than just a life change; it’s a deep, pivotal shift that redefines your path and perspective.
Lifequakes tend to mark the start of a transitional phase, one that can last months or even years, where you’re adjusting to a “new normal.” How to Recognize When You're In A Lifequake Transition From my personal experience, the first step to navigating a lifequake is to recognize that you’re actually in one! Sometimes we’re so caught up in the busy stress of every day life that we don’t even realize we’re going through a transformation. Here are some signs you may be in a life transition:
 My biggest learning from this entire experience... Lifequakes, as challenging as they are, have a way of guiding us toward growth and new possibilities. Even if they don’t reveal the full picture right away. This transition can feel overwhelming, but please know it’s also an invitation to perhaps rediscover yourself and redefine what truly matters for you at this stage of your life. In my blog next week (yes, there is a Part 2!)... I’ll share simple mindset shifts you can make that will help you find more clarity, resilience, and purpose as you navigate through this season of change. It's the exact things I’ve been doing this year that have helped me immensly.  If you enjoyed reading this blog, subscribe to my email today and get the next one straight to your inbox!
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 Wow - it's a big Mindset Monday for me. Celebrating 5 years of Thrive Mindset Coaching! It blows my mind that I have been helping women to transform their mindset and their lives (busting fear and anxiety) for five whole years. This has by far been the most rewarding career I’ve ever had. But it wasn’t something I planned, I literally fell into it after my own life was transformed by an NLP trained mindset coach. 5 years ago, I met a woman who breathed life into me. She showed me I was deserving and worthy of so much more than I was showing up for in my life. She saw a light in me that I didn’t even know existed. My light had been dimmed to dark for so long from “just surviving”. All it took was for 1 person to say “I believe in you, your story can help people” for me to wake up. People (friends and family) probably thought I was crazy; in the 3 years prior to launching Thrive Mindset Coaching, I had quit my lucrative 15-year corporate career and built 3 online businesses that were all flailing... along with my anxiety and mental health. Plus, back then no one even understood what a mindset coach was or did! You want to be what… um ok are you sure??  Early days finding my feet on Instagram Linkedin and You Tube. But, no matter what people thought or said I couldn’t shake the burning desire in me to help support people. To pay forward the gifts of knowledge, belief and hope I had been given. That is why this milestone feels so incredible. As a person who often gave up when conditions weren’t perfect or if the voice of my inner critic told me I was going to fail. “Who are you to do this work? You’re no expert! Your life isn’t perfect.” I NEVER gave up! 5 Valuable Lessons Learned in 5 Years of Coaching:
To my incredible coaching clients, every course participant, journal customer, workshop attendee and my tribe over on Instagram, Linkedin and Facebook - thank you for every video you watched, post or blog you've read! Your presence means the world to me. Cheers to the next 5! Janel Briggs.  About the Author: Janel Briggs is a NLP and Timeline Therapy Practitioner on a mission to support women across Australia and Singapore in overcoming their professional anxieties, imposter syndrome, fears and insecurities to build unwavering confidence and self-belief. Mindset Coaching is about learning how to become fearless and level up your life and career! Connect with Janel on social media via Linkedin or Instagram.  Subscribe to my weekly Monday Mindset Magic email and be the first to know about this new product for anxiety relief launching soon!
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Phew... well, this past week has been A LOT to process, hasn't it? I've felt it too, the sense of confusion, helplessness, and overwhelming emotions from witnessing a world and people in crisis. Sick to my stomach reading and listening to the news, hearing the division and clash of words, opinions, and beliefs all over social media on topics that are far away and closer to home. As we’ve seen for hundreds and thousands of years, division brings destruction. Sadly, I have no solution or answers for you. But I do know that we’ll never be able to right the wrongs of the past with the same thinking that got us here. Often in times like these, when the world-fear and anxiety storm rages I get a little quieter. I go inward to reflect, process my emotions, pray for humanity and peace, and I count my blessings. I also put in place a few essential practices that assist my mindset:
If you're struggling with feelings of hopelessness and sadness from the weight of division in our world I recorded a special meditation for your this week. It's based on an ancient practice that cultivates goodwill and universal friendliness towards oneself and others.  After I have done all I can to tackle my emotions and educate myself on a tough problem, this recording helps me to re-focus my mind and nurture my spirit. Then I'll perhaps take a walk, listen to music, meet a friend for a chat, eat something nutritious, read a good book, go for a bike ride or take a nap. These are all constructive ways to support my mindset to fill time that might otherwise have been wasted on worry about all the uncontrollable's in our world today. Take care, JB
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 Have you ever found yourself wishing that someone in your life would change, thinking it would make everything so much better? Many women experience stress, mental and emotional strain as a direct result of the other people's behaviours and actions. "IF ONLY he/she would do THIS, then everything would be OK!"
If they would just make "this change" then our life would greatly improve, and I could stop worrying. I know, how amazing would it be if the people we cared about would do what we want them to all the time!! But here's the sad truth: You can't force anyone to change.No matter how much you want it for them or love them, what you say or do for them... only they can DECIDE to make changes in their life. You cannot control their choices or outcomes. And all that pushing will ultimately cause you more resentment, heartache, stress and pain. Which I know is a super hard to hear. I've been there too. I have multiple people in my life today I would LOVE to see change their ways - but a decade of trying to change them broke me and I had to learn to let it go. I've also seen this frustration in a few of my past coaching clients' relationships. Where women who have journeyed on the path of self-discovery for themsleves now want the same for their partner, sibling, child, or partent. However, in attempting to push them to "see the light" and change their habits and behaviours, they've ended up causing themselves angst. This is what I can share: You can't change them, but you can be the inspiration for their change. Perhaps even a catalyst, by showing them what is possible. The decision for someone to change their life has to be their own, otherwise the transormation may be fleeting or won't stick long term. If you can't walk the path for them, what can you do? Continue to focus on your own personal growth and well-being. Be the light in their life. From my experience it takes patience, but in time you may notice small shifts and improvements both in your life and theirs. Here are 5 actions you can take:
True power is found in changing ourselves and inspiring the change we wish to see in others. 
About the Author: Janel Briggs is a NLP and Timeline Therapy Practitioner on a mission to support women across Australia and Singapore in overcoming their professional anxieties, imposter syndrome, fears and insecurities to build unwavering confidence and self-belief. Mindset Coaching is about learning how to become fearless and level up your life and career! Connect with Janel on social media via Linkedin or Instagram.
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 *TRIGGER WARNING* In honour of World Suicide Prevention Day (Sep 10th 2023) This email talks about grief in losing a loved one to suicide, and how you can support someone you love through a mental health crisis. Three years ago, I tragically lost my dearest friend to suicide. A beautiful fun-loving soul, the kind of woman who had a smile and laughter that lit up the room. We connected on a deep level, even though she was 12 years younger. I think it’s because we shared similar personal, life and spiritual values. We had an interest in so many of the same things, from learning and travel, to cooking and our love for animals. We loved nothing more than to go for lunch in a cosy cafe and sit chatting for hours over cups of tea. Her tragic death taught me many lessons about life, the world, the medical system and myself. I've come to realise the hardest part of grief, in losing someone you love to suicide - is the guilt. Could I, should I … have done more? The answer in the mind is always yes. If I had my time again of course I would do so many things differently. But, in my heart I know I did the best I could at the time. Part of the healing process has been to look at my actions and reactions in this event with my mentor and she taught me something extremely important: Hindsight is a beautiful thing, but no amount of overthinking it will bring peace or bringher back. Acceptance is the key to healing. I’ve come to realise that my fear of “losing her” in her mental and physical health battle kept my mind clouded and captive. My voice of fear said: “What if I say the wrong thing and she dies? I don’t know the answers for how to help her in THIS pain”. Instead of tuning into my voice of wisdom: “You can never say the wrong thing when it comes from a place of love. What if you say the right thing and she lives?”. This is why I am so passionate about helping women with anxiety to learn how to quiet their voice of fear and tap into the loving kindness of their intuition, their voice of wisdom. By encouraging, understanding, reaching in, and sharing experiences with others, Suicide Prevention Day is about giving people confidence to take action to prevent suicideGrief, as you probably know if you've experienced the it, has this way of stripping your heart bare to the darkest depths of your soul. And somehow over time your heart begins to slowly mend the cracks. I guess is the power of healing and love. But, you are for sure never the same person again. The anniversary of her passing each year coinciding with World Suicide Prevention week every September I know as a message for me to remember to, and not be afraid to, tell her story. I will continue to bring light where I can to the darkness. She is worth it, and so are you.  This is a message for anyone who has a loved one or friend who struggles with their mental health.  HOW YOU CAN HELP SOMEONE YOU LOVE IN A |
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