In Part One, I wrote about the wobble: that quiet destabilising many exceptional women in leadership describe. Not confidence, not self-esteem, not self-efficacy. Security. I ended with questions rather than answers. 

I took this to our Ebb & Haven Community and a rich and fascinating conversation surfaced. 

This is me, reflecting on the generous sharing, sensemaking and discussion, still thinking in draft. It's the thread I've been pulling on: where security actually comes from, how it's tangled up with bravery, and the question I'm left holding at the end of it all…

Not confidence. Not self-esteem. Not self-efficacy. Security. 

Women in senior leadership roles rarely arrive there by accident. They have usually achieved remarkable things. More often than not, they are talented, effective and capable. They have worked hard, navigated complexity and earned their place through years of commitment and contribution. 

A recent conversation with my dad has stayed with me and got me thinking…

I have been thinking… reflecting… wondering.

A few weeks ago we had our virtual meet up for the Ebb & Haven community. As usual, Sara and I had met and prepared a foundation for the session, something drawn from our emerging thoughts, stories and musings from previous conversations, the Ebb & Haven intent, our clients and our own lives.

We brought a story into the room. It aimed to lead us into the idea of the second arrow.

In a nutshell, the concept is: it’s not the pain itself that causes suffering. The suffering is created by our stories about the pain. One arrow hurts. Two, three arrows… that’s where the suffering grows.

Sometimes a room full of women just collectively exhales.

In that breath, something shifts. The noise quiets. The doing softens. What remains is just us, present, honest, and for a moment, unscheduled.

That is what happened in our most recent Ebb & Haven gathering. Before a single insight was named or a single question fully answered, something seemed to move through the space. A collective exhale that reminded me of the kind of wisdom that alights after the breath.

A core theme of Ebb & Haven is that we are always transitioning.

As the Ebb & Haven Community grows and our conversations deepen, curiosity keeps leading me back to reflection. I find myself sitting with questions that feel both personal and shared: what parts of ourselves are emerging as we move through transition? What enables us to flourish? And what, sometimes quietly, holds us back?

The end of year brings time to connect with our networks and reflect on the year that was. This year, these conversations have raised a deeper question for me and many others: What does it mean to lead when life and work collide?

Because they do collide. They disrupt, burst in, and refuse to stay neatly contained. Humanity doesn’t wait politely at the door while we pursue our careers. It pushes and prods. It makes calls you can’t ignore. It demands space. 

Our careers and our humanity belong together, but can they live in harmony? 

Perhaps the truth is this: our humanity is what might keep our careers aligned with our true north.

Change has a way of showing up on our doorstep, whether we asked for it or not. For women especially, those shifts often land in our bodies and our lives in ways that are layered, tender, and not always visible from the outside. I invite us to look at those moments differently. Not as something to brace against, but as something that can reshape us into who we’re becoming.

It all started with a conversation between two colleagues. We quickly saw a need to create a community for women leaders that wasn’t all about leadership development and wasn’t all about self-care. What if there was a space that recognized it all belongs in the same container? This was our “why” in starting Ebb & Haven Retreats.