Hello, my name is Lucy

My Story

Until my kids were born, my whole life was about career advancement. I spent evenings and weekends and sleepless nights fretting about issues at work - the people dynamics that made me often so unhappy, the projects that often didn't reflect my full potential. I had immigrated to Canada at the age of 12 with my parents who had successful academia careers in China, and seeing them struggle through the burst of the 2000 dotcom bubble and the 2008 financial crisis, I knew to never take my career for granted. My parents never explicitly said it to me, but I always knew they had high expectations for my career. Looking back, working hard and being achievement-oriented were just those things I'd always thought were a part of me and never questioned.  However when my children came, it all changed. I felt like I could no longer sacrifice as much as I had for my job - and I also no longer wanted to. 

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After giving birth to my first child, I had to come to terms with what "ambition" meant - and what I necessarily had to let go of in order to not burn out out of perfectionism, guilt, and martyrdom. It wasn't easy and a few months before my second promotion to a director role at my company (my second promotion in 6 months), I had a miscarriage and worked through it from beginning to end. Since then we have been so blessed with a second, most wonderful baby, and the pressure of caring for two young children while still trying to maintain momentum in my career led to struggles of insomnia, anxiety, and feelings of an abject loneliness in the absence of a tangible support community.

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That was when I realized that current societal rhetorics around working moms are, for lack of better words, not working. Powerful women who have “made it” are now looking back and telling all of us in the trenches to lean in, etc., painting this high pressured euphoria that we can have it all. Others who have scaled back their ambitions are trying to justify a loss of a certain identity by reminding us of the fear of missing out with our families. Both well intended sources of shame. And yet, there is nobody helping working moms navigate these complex feelings - those elusive "permissions" we are told give ourselves in life and what thoughts *should* and *should not* bring us shame.

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I wished then what I know now, about myself and what really matters, and I am here to listen to your story, share your pain, and guide you to clarify your thinking so you can confidently straddle two boats in tumultuous waters - caring for your little ones and your family, and advancing yourself professionally.

It is possible to "have it all", and I am here to help you define what "all" means uniquely for you, and light the courage within you to dare to achieve it.