Today I am an inspired contributor to children globally and the world is my classroom. I am an author of multiple books and founder of The Kids Life Studio® with representatives in 19 countries. A world-class Kids Life Coach and a devoted wife. A proud aunty to 1 witty, kind and intelligent nephew and 5 beautiful, smart, savvy nieces. Most importantly I am simply me. Perfectly imperfect and I am okay with that.

On my journey, I have devoted over 20 years to the study and practice of harnessing success in children. Through attending hundreds of seminars, reading countless books, and interviewing experts from a variety of fields, I have uncovered specific universal principles for achieving the best in children and I have also applied these to my own life. As a result, I enjoy a phenomenal level of success as a leading authority on peak performance in children.

On my journey, I have always been a high achiever. The one who smiles. The life of the party. The person who works hard. Strives to be in the limelight. Then I started losing myself in amongst the sea of approval seeking and recognition gaining. Simply because I had a fundamental choice taken away from me . The choice to be a biological parent.

Since 2003, I have dedicated my life to helping other people’s children, yet I could not hide under the radar as friends and family started their own families. I couldn’t fake the fact that my deepest yearning was to be a biological mom yet I wasn’t able to fulfil that. I felt judged. Alone. Desperate. Resentful.

I was forced to stand on the outside looking in with judgement as I witnessed so many parents wasting their opportunities with their own precious children. I felt desperate to shake them and wake them up. To tell them how lucky they were to be parents. Instead, I withdrew.

This led to my mental break down and in 2010 and again in 2012 I was hidden in a Psychiatric ward fighting for my life. Suicidal, completely lost and at the time mentally ill and incorrectly labelled as Bipolar. All because I couldn’t fit in and go with the status quo of being a parent.

For 8 years I hid the fact that I was on antipsychotic medication and antidepressants. I visited countless Psychiatrists and psychologists who left me feeling worthless and helpless. I even travelled to another continent to start a new life and hide. I dedicated my time to healing so that I could share what I learnt to heal the children of the world in return.

Today I am successfully medication free and label free. The journey has been long and lonely and only now as I whisper my secret out loud do I truly feel at peace. Only now do I know that I needed to walk the road so that I could be the tour guide to support others in doing the same.

My life is now dedicated to building the largest and most reputable network of world-class Kids Life Coaches to extend my work in to their local communities. So that children can grow up knowing that they are okay being perfectly imperfect. That they are a work in progress and they have people supporting them along the way. Parents, teachers, sports coaches.

As The Secret Parent, I know that it takes a village to raise a child. Not a perfect village where everybody is smiling and laughing and getting it right. But a team of supporters who walk the walk and talk the talk.

This is what my life is about. I am now the mother of many children. I never gave up on my life because of the voice inside my head. I didn’t listen when the doctors said I should be on medication my whole life. I didn’t give up on my dreams to impact on children around the world. I chose to rewrite my script and create a new beginning.

So what is my point here? Well, I believe we all create our own reality. It has taken me years to master the fact that I am in charge of where I go and how I get there. Yes, life will throw me a few curve balls that force me to duck and dive…bob and weave, but ultimately I get to make the final choice of how my life plays out.

You see a few years ago when I departed to live in England, I did so with little more than two suitcases filled with clothing. I had lost my business, many friends and most importantly my self respect. Being a perfectionist, I felt such a failure and my mental health was a good indication of how far out of control I had spiralled. I had faced trauma, bad things had happened to me and what I didn’t realise then was that I was playing the victim. I had made a choice to focus on what I didn’t have rather than on counting my blessings. So my reality was nothing more than a constant struggle.

Fast track to today and I have rebuilt a brand new business with a global network of Kids Life Coaches who represent my programmes and methods and support children. This is nothing short of a miracle since multiple times, for weeks on end I have not gotten out of bed and spent hours crying instead of working. I hid from the world, afraid to be vulnerable and scared of judgement. I wore a mask so tight that nobody could tell who I really was. In fact that mask was so constricting that it squeezed my personality into a tight little ball.

Every now and again I would see glimmers of my old self and I started noticing a pattern. A really interesting pattern. When this happened, I had stopped focusing on “poor me”. I was instead looking at my big “why”. When I started focusing on the bigger picture and my bigger purpose, my mind and my life shifted.

I became clear on what I wanted and stopped focusing on what I had lost. I allowed myself a mourning period to get over my grief of not having children. I cannot tell you what a glorious gift that was for me. The consequence is that I started attracting the right people into my business and I had the confidence to say goodbye to those who weren’t a good fit for my values. This took courage but my saving grace was that my light in my heart for being an inspired contributor to children globally has never dimmed.

Tell me your story by mailing me on zelna@kidslifestudio.com