Mythologising My Psyche: A Love Letter to the Women Who Live in My Head

Meet Diana - part Diana Ross, part Xena, entirely unstoppable. She's the voice that says 'breathe deeply' when everything's going tits up.

Mythologising My Psyche: A Love Letter to the Women Who Live in My Head

There's a whole council of women rattling around my brain, and yes, they're the ones keeping me gloriously sane. This vivid, imaginary-yet-real circle of inner voices has helped awaken me to a handcrafted life, which frankly, at 50, is no small feat.

I found that in a crisis, one voice got a bit too big for her boots. When my nervous system went tits up and I was weeping over fuck knows what, in marched Stella (you’ve met her in my earlier posts) with her clipboard and terrifying competence, shoving everyone else aside because 'this is an emergency and I've got it handled.' Sharp, strategic, controlling-as-hell, and absolutely convinced she was saving the day. Which she was, sort of, except she'd gagged all the other brilliant women who actually knew how to live. The difficulty with Stella was that she shut down softness, fun, even love, if it risked chaos.So with help from my coach, I named Stella, thanked her for her service, packed her off on a beach holiday, and reawakened the cast of inner women who'd been waiting patiently to have their say again.

I thought you might like to meet 4 others.

DIANA The warrior woman. Calm. Grounded. Think Diana Ross (fabulous hair, a regal stance) meets Xena: Warrior Princess. Rather than barking orders she anchors the room and reminds me that strength can be silent, and still fierce as hell.

Diana never left the gym. Even when everything fell apart, she was there: steady, present, bracing me for the heavy lifts with "one more rep." Diana doesn’t panic, doesn’t spiral, doesn’t scream over the chaos. She simply stands up straight, breathes deeply, and gets on with it.

I didn’t know then that she could exist outside the walls of the gym, but now I see her everywhere. Making the bed each morning, my declaration that the day begins with order and intention. Sitting through difficult conversations, or starting them, without flinching. Holding steady in grief when I want to run. Taking big projects one day at a time, not pushing for unrealistic deadlines but moving forward with grounded discipline. Diana is bravery in motion, approaching life with presence, patience, and power.

JULES Is courageous, electric. Fierce in her decisiveness, but also deeply wise — she holds space for the harder, quieter acts of courage too.

Jules is the one who gets me moving. And not in the "get to work" sense — I mean literally moving. She’s the woman who packed up her life and moved countries three times, on her own. The one who jumped out of a plane with zero hesitation. The one who sits confidently at the local restaurants in Rome and relishes in a three course meal for one like it's a damn celebration.

She’s also the one who left the jealous romance mid holiday, damn the consequences, she would have a better time on her own  . She doesn’t mess around and doesn’t waste time. She doesn’t tolerate drama. Jules gets things done because she trusts herself. Always has.

And lately, she’s been showing up in subtle ways. She’s the one who helped me rebuild a life that acknowledges and fulfils my needs.. She helped me give up caffeine to see if it would shift perimenopausal anxiety (it was decaf for over a year), and while we now compromise with a Greek coffee — about a third of the caffeine, and tastes fantastic — it was her call. She helped me set boundaries, end unhealthy dynamics, and have the hard conversations I used to tiptoe around.

She’s there in the quiet moments, like when I sign up for art classes, or join a theatre group,  reminding me that joy isn’t frivolous but essential to a full life. She’s also there when I take a deep breath and trust my intuition to make decisions that feel aligned, even when they terrify me. She stands beside me as I show up vulnerably with others honouring the courage it takes to be myself. And if what I get back is unhelpful, Jules doesn’t care.

And most of all, she stood beside me as I let go of ways of being that no longer served. She’s the force behind every brave step I take toward living a life quite differently. Jules is always brave. But now she’s also wise.

JANICE I adore Janice. She’s the mischievous antidote to all the heaviness. She roasts life with spark, sass, and impeccable comic timing.

Janice is the joker, the entertainer, the inappropriate cackler at the back of the room. Her motto is that “Life sucks often, so let’s at least make it entertaining.” For years, she was nowhere to be found. All that perfectionism and emotional suppression left her gagged and locked in a basement.

Then she made a glorious entrance. I’d catch my reflection and she’d pull a ridiculous face; while folding laundry, she’d blast a playlist so 80s you’d cringe. She had me naming my houseplants — Queen Latifah the Kentia and Señor Banderas the Monstera — because apparently mythologising my psyche wasn’t enough; now I was naming the damn flora too. But the more absurd it got, the lighter I felt.

Janice pops up in texts to friends. Like when I messaged, “Remember that agency party when we were practically naked except for neon body paint and three rogue feathers? How the hell did we win best dressed? We should have won best not dressed.” She slips her irreverence into my writing too, with the odd well-placed swear word or a reminder that sometimes the absurd is the whole point. She’s the reason a bad day can still end in a cackle and the mundane feels ever so slightly wicked.

Janice has zero tolerance for self-seriousness. She’s allergic to doomscrolling and dull routines. She wants the wink, the sharp jab, the muttered “oh, fuck it” under my breath that snaps me out of it. And when things feel heavy or impossible, she’s my secret weapon, dropping a biting comment or a wildly inappropriate snack suggestion because not everything has to be so bloody deep. Sometimes laughing really is the deepest thing we can do.

MAGGIE Is the one who gave me permission not to know, the undecided one. She’s the wise fog. The stillness. She doesn’t need certainty to feel safe.

Maggie came and sat by me gently. She taught me to pause and let me stay in bed when heartbreak hit like a freight train. She doesn’t push. She just keeps company.

Maggie made it clear that rushing to know, to solve, to decide, was no longer serving me. That it was okay, more than okay, to sit in the not-knowing. She’s the one who helped me realise that waiting might not be wasting time, that perhaps it is honouring time. Trusting that the answers will come, that movement will happen, but only when I’m ready.

She helped me pull the pressure valve off decision-making, to take a breath before saying yes, to say “not yet” with confidence. She got me through grief, through big change, through shaky attempts at rebuilding and with no blueprint for what’s next. Just presence and a whole lot of permission.

This piece has taken its sweet time to birth. Stella popped back in for a visit, clipboard in hand, making it tricky to ground myself in this tale. But the girls rallied, each in her own way, and here I sit, gently finishing it off, knowing this is another step toward a version of my life I wouldn’t be living without them.

It was my brilliant business coach, Claire Salvetti (look her up, she’s most excellent), who first encouraged me to try mythologising my psyche. Bumping into forgotten parts of myself in unlikely places — and remembering, with awe and a healthy dose of crazy, that I’d once been whole in this way — has taken a couple of years. And the funny thing is, I keep meeting more of me: up to 21 parts so far, each with something to say.

These inner characters might be mythical, but their impact is massive. They’ve kept me steady, made me laugh when I’d have otherwise sunk, and reminded me that courage can be found anywhere: in a meal alone in Rome, a conversation I once would’ve buried, or a cringy 80s playlist blasting while I fold laundry. Some might think this sounds like a gimmick. I’d say they’re mythic, yes, but also practical, deeply felt, occasionally inappropriate, and never boring. In naming them, honouring them, and letting them mouth off again, I’ve made friends with myself in a way I wouldn’t trade for anything.

May they never shut up.