The Radical Happiness Movement Blog

Essays on health, performance & human flourishing after 40.

Exercise, Depression & the Nervous System: Exercise for Mental Health Aug 10, 2026

I’ve spent the last six months watching the wellness industry quietly backslide into something we should have left behind a decade ago.

GLP-1s pushed as the miracle that help women maintain an unrealistic level of thinness (flashbacks of fen phen, anyone?). The return of “skinny at all costs,” just in better packaging. And a new wave of content telling women in perimenopause that cardio is “junk volume,” that running or CrossFit will make them fat, and that the only legitimate training is li...

Losing Your Identity After Trauma or Burnout and How to Reclaim It Aug 01, 2026

Have you ever lost the thing that made you feel most like yourself — and instead of grieving it, quietly spent years telling yourself you were “too old,” “too busy,” or “just not that person anymore”?

Me too.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, after coming out of the genuinely traumatic haze of 2025. While it is easy to ask myself “where did the wheels come off the bus” instead I’ve taken a gentler approach with myself, thanks to Positive Psychology.

While we will get to the science I would lov...

The Brain-Body Biofeedback Loop: Why Stress Gets Stuck in the Body Jul 07, 2026

Have you felt as though you are doing everything right and yet you aren’t making sustainable change in your nervous system? We’re often told that stress is a psychological problem. I think that’s only part of the story.

Earlier in my career, I worked as a mental health counsellor while also running a successful personal training studio (Yes, I’ve lived a lot of lives in one!). A serious injury forced the closure of my studio — I herniated my L5-S1, tore my bicep tendon and my labrum, at a ti...

Why “Resilient” High Performers Burn Out the Hardest Jun 30, 2026

If you’ve spent your whole life being the strong one, I want to tell you something before we go any further: some of what you call resilience might actually be self-abandonment wearing a more acceptable name.

I’ve been fascinated by resilience for as long as I can remember.

Not in the abstract, academic way — although that came later. In the very specific, very personal way that a kid gets fascinated by something because their own life is immersed in the reality of it.

I grew up in a...

Why You Can Understand Human Design Authority and Still Not Live It Jun 29, 2026

This article is for the high performer who desperately wants to live in alignment — and can’t figure out why they continue to meet resistance.

Not because you haven’t tried. Not because you don’t understand the frameworks. You’ve done the work. You’ve been in therapy, in coaching, in personal development of genuine depth. You understand your nervous system responses. You’ve studied your patterns. Many of you understand your Human Design, your inner authority, what intuition is supposed to f...

The Grief & Relief of an Adult ADHD Diagnosis in High Performers Jun 25, 2026

You didn’t get this far because you had it easy. You got this far because you are extraordinarily good at compensating. At pushing through. At finding a way. At making it look manageable from the outside while quietly running on fumes on the inside.

And then you got the diagnosis.

And something shifted — in a way that was more complicated than anyone warned you it would be.

The Two Things That Happen at Once

Most people describe an adult ADHD diagnosis as arriving with two feelin...

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