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Debbie Thompson - The Stone in my Shoe

@thestoneinmyshoe

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You’ve built a good life… so why does something feel missing?
🎙️ The Stone in My Shoe Podcast
🌿 A space to come back to yourself

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Have you ever felt like nothing is wrong, but something is off?

That's the stone in your shoe. An old belief or pattern, so small you stopped noticing it, quietly shaping how you walk through life and how you feel.

I've spent the last year asking women about theirs on The Stone in My Shoe podcast. Grief, burnout, loss, reinvention, and underneath all of it, the quiet beliefs about who we think we're allowed to be.

So this November, I'm doing something I've never done before. Ten women, four weeks, one honest, safe space, built entirely around finding that stone.

Not one on one this time. A group, on purpose. Because when another woman names the thing you've never said out loud, something shifts. You realise you're not the only one carrying something.

And what waits on the other side? More joy. More play. More creativity. More connection. More aliveness. More authentically you.

If that's landing for you, all the details are in the bio and the comments below by @thestoneinmyshoe

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18 days ago

I’ve been reflecting on this a lot lately.
Everything looked good on paper…
but underneath, something just felt a bit flat.
I know I’m not the only one who’s felt this.
#midlifewomen
#somethingismissing
#findingyourself
#authenticliving
lifetransitions
rewiredandradiant
thestoneinmyshoe by @thestoneinmyshoe

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6 months ago

This is the hardest place to be.
Because nothing is actually wrong…
so you just keep going.
But that quiet feeling doesn’t go away.

#midlifewomen
#lifereflection
#authenticself
#innertruth
#personalgrowthjourney
thestoneinmyshoe
womensupportingwomen by @thestoneinmyshoe

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6 months ago

Becca Francis was about five when her mum said it.

"You're much better with male friends than female friends."

She describes her mother as lovely, and is clear she didn't mean to implant anything at all.
Becca then spent decades not trusting women, with difficult relationships in every job she ever had.

What keeps returning to me is how small the original thing was. Nobody did anything wrong, and it was almost certainly forgotten within the hour.

I've said things like that about my own children, lightly, usually while they were standing right there, believing I was only describing them.

A child doesn't hear a description, though. She hears a fact about herself, from the person who knows her best, and she keeps it.

How much of what we believe about ourselves began as somebody's passing remark?

Becca's full conversation is on The Stone in My Shoe, link in our bio.

Featuring @thebeccafrancis

#selfabandonment #limitingbeliefs #selfworth #thestoneinmyshoe by @thestoneinmyshoe

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2 days ago

Why do we hesitate when it's something just for us?

We'll spend on everyone else without a second thought, the kids, the house, a birthday gift for a friend, and then when it's for us, we pause and quietly talk ourselves out of it.

I know that feeling well. Years ago, when I was first starting out, someone gave me a free place on a course, and it changed how I saw myself and what I thought was possible.

It's stayed with me, so every circle has free and reduced-price places, because I don't want money to be the reason someone misses out.

If a woman came to mind as you read this, I'd love you to pass it on to her.

Who came to mind?

✦ Working With the Stone
A four-week online circle for women who've built a good life and sense it could be richer, more honest, more theirs.

Together we find your Stone, the subconscious pattern you've been walking with, so you can live more by choice and less by pattern.

Four Wednesdays on Zoom from 4 November, with circles for Australia, Europe and North America.

Free and reduced-price places available.

See if it's for you, check the link in our bio

Comment STONE or send me a message.

#thestoneinmyshoe #womeninmidlife #midlifewomen #nextchapter #payitforward by @thestoneinmyshoe

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2 days ago

How many times have you said you don't know what you want?

It might be the safest sentence we have.

If we never name the thing, we never have to want it out loud.

Nobody gets to watch us not get it.

And we get to call it uncertainty rather than fear.

Becca Francis uses a process she learned from Amanda Francis, and it takes about four seconds. You ask what you want. You answer, I don't know. Then you ask the follow-up. But if I did know, what would it be?

Something always arrives, which rather suggests it was there before the question was asked.
In her words, "I can't con myself and say, well, I don't know what I want, because that keeps me safe."

So, if you did know, what would it be?

Catch Becca's clip, then find her full conversation on The Stone in My Shoe through the link in our bio.

Featuring @thebeccafrancis

#selfabandonment #confidence #findingyourself #thestoneinmyshoe by @thestoneinmyshoe

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3 days ago

Have you ever noticed a belief that quietly makes your decisions for you?

For some of us it sounds like, I have to keep everyone happy.
For others it's, I have to be the strong one.
For me it was, my worth comes from what I achieve.

So I kept busy, kept proving and kept going, and for years I didn't even see it.

It doesn't have to be a big stone to change the way we walk, and when we finally stop and look, we don't fall apart, we expand.

Which one sounds a little like you?

✦ Working With the Stone
A four-week online circle for women who've built a good life and sense it could be richer, more honest, more theirs.

Together we find your Stone, the subconscious pattern you've been walking with, so you can live more by choice and less by pattern.

Four Wednesdays on Zoom from 4 November, with circles for Australia, Europe and North America.

Free and reduced-price places available.

See if it's for you, check the link in our bio.

Comment STONE or send me a message.

#thestoneinmyshoe #womeninmidlife #midlifewomen #selfawareness #personalgrowth by @thestoneinmyshoe

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3 days ago

How many things have you started, waiting for one of them to feel like the right one?

Becca Francis spent fifteen years doing exactly that, alongside a corporate job she could barely sit in.

Wedding planning. Jewellery. Dog products.

It would be easy to call that indecision, and I don't think it was anything of the sort.

Years earlier she had learned that her own read on things wasn't safe to act on, so she kept looking outside herself for something to confirm what she already knew.

Every new idea was really the same question asked again. Is this the one? Will this finally feel certain?

What stays with me is how capable she looked the whole time. Good job, real ability, nothing visibly wrong.

I wonder how many of us are on our fourth idea for the same reason, still waiting to feel sure before we let ourselves begin.

What would you do differently if you decided you already knew?

Watch Becca's conversation on The Stone in My Shoe through the link in our bio.
Featuring @thebeccafrancis

#selfabandonment #confidence #findingyourself #thestoneinmyshoe taken in Australia by @thestoneinmyshoe

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4 days ago

How much of your life are you actually choosing?

I've been wondering about that a lot lately, because so much of what we do each day isn't really a decision at all, it's just the way we've always done things.

We say yes when we'd love to say no.
We keep busy because slowing down feels uncomfortable.
We put ourselves last and call it being sensible.

I've asked more than 40 women on my podcast what their stone is, and many of them couldn't say at first. They just had a quiet feeling that something was a bit off.

So if you can't name yours yet, you're in exactly the right place, because that feeling is usually where it starts.

How much of your week would you say is choice, and how much is pattern?

✦ Working With the Stone
A four-week online circle for women who've built a good life and sense it could be richer, more honest, more theirs.

Together we find your Stone, the subconscious pattern you've been walking with, so you can live more by choice and less by pattern.

Four Wednesdays on Zoom from 4 November, with circles for Australia, Europe and North America.

Free and reduced-price places available.

See if it's for you, check our website > Link in bio

Comment STONE or send me a message.

#thestoneinmyshoe #womeninmidlife #midlifewomen #nextchapter #personalgrowth by @thestoneinmyshoe

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4 days ago

Have you ever written off a room you've never actually walked into as yourself?

We decide a place is unfriendly.

We go quiet, take up less space, leave the odd parts of ourselves at home.

We give nobody anything to react to.

And then we read the distance that follows as proof we were right.

Becca Francis had difficult relationships with women in every job she held, so she made herself smaller and harder to notice. Then she tried the opposite, and started bringing what she'd always left at home into the office. Oracle cards in her bag. Essential oils on her desk.

The same women who'd given her the hardest time began queuing at her door.
In her words, "they couldn't even see me, because I was trying so hard to be small and not a target."

Where have you made yourself small, without ever testing whether you needed to?

Catch Becca's clip, then find her full conversation on The Stone in My Shoe through the link in our bio.

Featuring @thebeccafrancis

#authenticity #selfworth #findingyourself #thestoneinmyshoe by @thestoneinmyshoe

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5 days ago

Who's the person you'd least like to watch you fail?

It's rarely the harsh one.

We can survive being judged by someone who was always going to judge us.

What we can't take is being watched by someone kind.

Someone who'd say, that's okay, try something else.

So we keep it to ourselves, and we tell ourselves we're protecting them.

Becca Francis spent fifteen years starting things, looking for a way out of a job she could barely sit in. Each time something quietly stopped working, she said nothing to a husband she describes as unconditionally supportive.

In her words, "we can build shame up to be something that kind of eats us alive."
Is there something you're not telling someone who'd probably just say, that's okay?

Watch Becca's clip, then find her full conversation on The Stone in My Shoe through the link in our bio.

Featuring @thebeccafrancis

#SelfAbandonment #SelfWorth #FindingYourself #TheStoneInMyShoe by @thestoneinmyshoe

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6 days ago

Candice Olivier corrected me on my own podcast this week, and I've been thinking about it ever since.

I said that being authentic would of course be kind and joyous along the way.

She said sometimes being authentic isn't kind and joyous. Sometimes it looks like saying this is not for me. I don't have capacity for that right now.

I said, no, but doing it in a loving way. That's what I mean.

She let me have it. I don't think I was right.

Because I can't seem to let something honest stand on its own. I attach something to it every time. Kindly. Gently. In the right tone.

And I've always called that being a kind person.

Some of it is. Some of it might be making sure nobody is uncomfortable with what I just said.

Which is a different thing wearing the same clothes?

Catch full episode with Candice Olivier, link in our bio.

Featuring @candicejadeolivier Co-Founder of @sociallyempoweredva

#Identity #Authenticity #SelfWorth #SelfCompassion #TheStoneInMyShoe by @thestoneinmyshoe

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9 days ago