Ep 24: Iona Holloway

The struggle with our own self-worth, external expectations and needing healing is a universal experience. Everyone goes through these, even those who appear so strong and seem like they have the perfect life. My guest for today is one of those people who experienced this invisible struggle.

I’m so glad to have crossed paths with Iona Holloway. She’s the best-selling author of Ghost: Why Perfect Women Shrink, a coach, speaker, and creator of the Soul Breathwork app. She helps strong women do the inner work to find their blind spots so they can burn brighter and braver in their lives, work, and relationships. 

In this episode, Iona holds nothing back and dives deep into her life story, starting from her childhood, growing up with the implied expectation of perfection, moving from Scotland to the US, struggles with her body and self-worth, and how she ultimately found her healing, which led to her helping countless women today.

“I think that we kind of come in the way we are, and we’re supposed to be adventuring, but sometimes, we have to get into pain in order to heal, and really become more of who we are.” - Iona Holloway

 Out of the many little nuggets of wisdom in this episode, here are three thoughts worth digging in to: 

• We come to this world as who we are, but we are also shaped by our environment and experiences
• In our own way, we struggle with expectations and ideas of who we think we’re supposed to be
• If we’re so out of touch with and unkind to ourselves, experiencing moments of kindness and openness feel strange and fake

If you were to ask anyone who knew Iona as a child, she would be described as complicated and smart. A prodigy, but somehow contrary. She was a gifted girl, a straight-A student, an international competitive athlete, a winning artist. But in hindsight, she saw that she was someone who didn’t know how to deal with her emotions, who lived with the implied pressure that she was supposed to be perfect, and that her perfection was supposed to come easily. She struggled with having the perfect body, using sports and eventually CrossFit as the shield to achieve it. 

“I don’t wish a rock bottom or a reckoning on anyone, but I love the hell out of that moment, because it forced so much clarity.” - Iona Holloway

She did not like who she was, or who she thought she was supposed to be. She numbed down her emotions and shut down. She was so deprived of nutrition for food that her body just forced her to binge eat for survival. One day, she received the news that she was going to be an aunt, and that caused a shift in her world.

Iona went through a coaching-based inner work healing journey. She hired coaches, gave up dieting and listened to her body, and she changed her life. In this journey, she discovered breathwork. It was life changing and she connected with it so much so that she trained to be a breathwork coach, and now teaches it through her Soul Breathwork app.

“I remember waking up one day, and actually being happy to be me.” - Iona Holloway

Not all of us were child-prodigies or have as bright a personality as Iona, but we can all see reflections of our own story in the ones that she shared, and we can all find our healing. Listen to the whole episode to hear her story and learn from her life.

Connect with Iona

Website: https://www.bravething.co/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soul.breathwork/ https://www.instagram.com/ionaholloway/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ionaholloway/ 

Ghost: Why Perfect Women Shrink by Iona Holloway: https://amzn.to/3Fzb6G2 

P.S. Want to dive deeper into your personal Emotional Expedition? Join me and an intimate group for an 8 week LIVE virtual book study of Brené Brown's book, Atlas of the Heart. This book will be our roadmap to understanding ourselves & others better, learning the language to better express ourselves & ask for what we need, and coming together in community & connection. For more information: Atlas of the Heart Book Study