Episode description

Holly Louise Ditchfield found out she was pregnant at thirty-seven weeks. Not a missed period, not a hunch - thirty-seven weeks, with three left to go, after she'd poured water on the test hoping it would lie for her too.

Eight years later she built a business, Lash Lounge, from her bedroom, fitting clients around school pick-ups. And in 2024, at twenty-nine, she went on Married at First Sight and became the woman a lot of the country remembers for remembering who she was as she wrote 'Leave'.

In this conversation, Holly talks about what was really happening behind that decision, what the show didn't show, and the six months between filming ending and it airing, when no one around her knew where she'd been.

Holly also shares something she's never spoken about publicly before - a loss, and what happened on the exact same day one year later.

Now engaged to Aaron, training to be a midwife, and expecting twins, Holly talks about the difference between chasing fame and choosing yourself.

Show notes

Holly Ditchfield became a mum at sixteen with no warning at all, built a beauty business from her bedroom as a young single mother, and later became known nationally through Married at First Sight - a process she says she'd never repeat.

This conversation moves from a Greater Manchester and Yorkshire childhood through the relationship she left at twenty-one, the years spent building Lash Lounge from nothing, the reality of what happens once the cameras stop rolling, and a loss she's never spoken about publicly before - up to where she is now, expecting twins and training to become a midwife.

Themes:

• Becoming a mother with no run-up, and what it costs to grow up in public
• Building a business alone, and the "mum guilt" nobody warns you about
• What reality TV is actually like once the cameras are off
• Remembering who you are under public pressure and public opinion
• Loss, timing, and choosing to try again

If this one landed, send it to a woman who's ever had to remember who she was before she could move forward. Leave a review, or send us a message and tell us what stuck with you. And if you're new here, hit follow - Notes from the Not There Yet is out every two weeks.

Key takeaways

• Losing yourself in a relationship or a role doesn't mean you can't find your way back - it might just take one decision, made quickly.
• "Great in a crisis" isn't the same as okay - the strength people see from the outside is often the least of the story.
• You don't need qualifications or permission to build something; a passion will push you through the hours nobody sees.
• Public opinion is built on an edit, not on you — the people forming it don't know what you know about your own life.
• Not every loss needs to be shared right away. It's allowed to wait until you're somewhere safe enough to say it.

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Episode description

Faye Roddy is a strategic business coach who built one of the UK's biggest cleaning franchises from nothing and sold it in a single thirty-minute meeting. But the version of Faye people see today didn't start in a boardroom. It started on market stalls in Salford, counting pennies for her mum at ten years old.

In this conversation, we go back to the decision that shaped everything, leaving school at fifteen, and the year that nearly broke her: becoming a mum at twenty-two, a medical emergency with her baby son that changed how she saw the world, and walking away from her marriage with £10,000 and nothing else. We talk about the fourteen years she spent building a flagship franchise business while quietly carrying a cancer diagnosis she kept from her own children. And we talk about the "ice queen" mask - what it costs to be the strong one, and what happens when you finally put yourself on the list.

Faye Roddy went from waiting tables in her mum's café at eight years old to building one of the UK's largest franchise businesses - and then walking away from it, twice: once when it was sold out from under her, and once by choice, on her own terms. This conversation moves from a Salford childhood built on graft and independence, through single motherhood and a secret cancer diagnosis, to the moment she handed her life's work to her team in a thirty-minute meeting - and what she's building now, for herself and for other women.

Themes:

• Growing up "old-headed" - independence as both a gift and an armour
• Becoming a mother, and nearly losing a child, at twenty-two
• Rebuilding a life from a £10,000 car sale and nothing else
• Building a flagship business while carrying a cancer diagnosis in secret
• The "ice queen" mask, and what it costs to always be the strong one
• Choosing to sell, choosing to develop others, and choosing freedom

If you've ever been the one everyone else leans on, send this to someone who needs to hear it. Leave a review, or send us a message and tell us what stuck with you. And if you're new here, hit follow. Notes from the Not There Yet is out every two weeks.

Key takeaways

• Being independent from a young age can be both the reason you succeed and the reason you struggle to let people in.
• You can hold a business together while your personal world is falling apart — but it has a cost, and it's worth naming.
• Selling something you built isn't a single ending. Sometimes you have to let it go twice.
• Developing other people's confidence can be the thing that finally sets you free.
• Freedom isn't the reward at the end. It's a decision you make on the way there.
  

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Not lost, not arrived, just not there yet.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Gemma Lees is a performance poet, journalist, facilitator and fine art installationist from Bury - and a proud Romani gypsy. In this episode, she talks about growing up in a creative, self-employed Romani family, multiple breakdowns and period of homelessness in her early twenties, being diagnosed as dyslexic and dyspraxic at 21 and autistic at 41, and living with fibromyalgia after years of being dismissed by doctors. We talk about what people get wrong about Romani and Traveller identity, why she turns insults into material rather than shame, and how creativity - protest art, poetry, performance - became both her advocacy and her survival. She wants her work to make people "laugh till they cry, and cry till they act."

SHOW NOTES

Gemma Lees is a performance poet, journalist and installation artist who has spent her career turning her own story - Romani identity, late diagnoses of autism and fibromyalgia, a breakdown and homelessness in her early twenties - into work that dispels myths and refuses to be quiet about it. This conversation moves from an oral storytelling childhood through a difficult chapter at university, to the funeral that brought her back to creativity, to the advocacy and installation work she's building now.

Themes:

• Romani and Traveller identity, and the myths that surround it

• Late diagnosis (autism at 41, fibromyalgia after years of being dismissed)

• Creativity as both advocacy and catharsis

• Rebuilding after a breakdown, one decision at a time

• Turning insults and stereotypes into material, not shame

  
  

Key Takeaways

• You don't have to look like what people expect your identity to be for it to be real.

• Creativity isn't a luxury - for Gemma, it's advocacy, protest, and catharsis all at once.

• A late diagnosis doesn't erase the years before it. It just finally explains them.

• Rejection can become material instead of a verdict - turn the insult into a t-shirt.

• "Not there yet" can mean building something, one decision at a time, with no fixed finish line.

If this episode moved you in some way, please send it to someone who's ever been told they don't "look like" what they are. Leave a review, or send us a message and tell us what stuck with you. And if you're new here, hit follow - Notes from the Not There Yet is out every two weeks.

Find Gemma Lees:Website: https://gemmaleesartist.co.uk/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gemmathepoet/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gemmathepoet83Find the The Not There Yet Project: Website: https://notthereyetproject.co.uk/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notthereyetproject/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethanydwrightSubstack: https://thenotthereyetproject.substack.com/Not lost, not arrived, just not there yet.

Episode Summary

Jenny Marshall has spent close to twenty years in mental health and seven years in private practice, working with people at every point on what she calls "the spectrum" - from quiet, low-level dissatisfaction to something far more serious when it's left unheard.

In this episode, Jenny takes us back to the school reports that called her a "classic underachiever," through the acute eating disorders unit she walked into at 23 with no idea what she was signing up for, to the traumatic birth that made her, for the first time in her career, the person in crisis instead of the one holding it together.

We talk about the marriage, the senior NHS role and the M&S-stocked fridge that looked like having it all and felt like nothing at all, and why she walked away from all three at once. Jen also takes apart the stereotype of the older man with a notepad and a couch, and makes the case that you don't have to be falling apart to deserve a space to talk.

Show notes

Integrative counsellor Jenny Marshall spent her career being the calm one in other people's crises until a traumatic birth put her on the other side of the bed and forced her to look at why "coping" had always come so easily.

This conversation moves from an underachieving childhood to an inpatient eating disorders unit at 23, through a marriage and NHS career that looked right on paper, to the moment Jen chose herself instead. Along the way, she and Beth take apart what people get wrong about therapists, and why "not there yet" isn't a crisis point - it's a spectrum.

Themes

• Being "great in a crisis" as a learned response, not a personality trait
• The gap between a life that looks right on paper and one that feels right underneath
• Why therapy doesn't require a crisis to be valid
• The stereotypes that keep people from asking for help
• Choosing yourself as an act of showing your children something, not just yourself

If this one lands, send it to the friend who's always the calm one in a crisis. Leave a review, or send us a message and tell us what stuck with you. And if you're new here, hit follow - Notes from the Not There Yet is out every other Tuesday.

Key takeaways

• Being "great in a crisis" can be a learned response you don't recognise until something forces you to stop performing it.
• You don't need to be falling apart to deserve therapy - not there yet exists on a spectrum, and it's easier to hear early than late.
• A life that looks right on paper and a life that feels right underneath are not the same thing, and you're allowed to notice the gap.
• The fear of being perceived as having failed is often bigger, and more paralysing, than failure itself.
• AI and social media can be a front door into therapy but they were never meant to be the destination.

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Episode description
Janine Isaacs spent decades as a high-level medical negligence lawyer and property developer. Then at 60, she staged a revolution. She walked away from a 23-year emotionally damaging relationship, retrained as a transformative life coach, and decided to find out who she actually was underneath the decades of clay she'd built around herself.

In this conversation, we talk about the Golden Buddha - and why we spend half our lives covering ourselves in clay just to survive. We talk about the avalanche, and how to tell which way is up when your world is shifting beneath your feet. We talk about age being a myth, and why 60 is actually a brilliant time to be a newbie. And we talk about the grip of the messy middle, and how you can find your way back to yourself just by breathing.

This episode is for anyone who has ever lost themselves slowly, without knowing when it happened - and wondered whether it's too late to find out who they actually are.

Show notes:

In this episode, Bethany sits down with Janine Isaacs - transformative life coach, former medical negligence lawyer, and someone who made the most radical decision of her life at 60 - to explore what it really means to start over. Janine's story is not about a dramatic single moment of collapse. It's about the slow, process of losing yourself, and the equally slow, deeply intentional process of finding your way back.

Themes explored:

• The golden Buddha - why we build layers of clay around ourselves and how to strip them back
• Fear as the driver - how people-pleasing and avoidance lead to self-erasure
• The night everything changed - and what it means when the walls close in
• The avalanche - navigating complete chaos without knowing which way is up
• Finding stillness - why doing is the wrong response when life falls apart
• Age as a myth - starting a business and a new life at 60
• Perspective from professional grief - what working with tragedy teaches you about gratitude
• Finding the gold - and why the gold is always love

If this conversation resonated with you, share it with someone who is navigating their own messy middle right now. And if you've ever found yourself making yourself smaller to survive - this one is for you.

Key takeaways:

• The clay isn't you. Everything you've built around yourself to survive can also be dismantled - by you.
• Doing more is not the answer. Find the stillness. Start being, not doing. Breathe.
• Fear of being too old is just another layer of clay. Your years are a qualification, not a handicap.
• Perspective doesn't come from success. It comes from sitting with other people's pain.

• You can't think your way out of an avalanche. You have to feel your way through.
• The gold underneath all of it is love. That's where the digging leads.

Episode Description

We often look at tech founders as polished, unflappable architects of success. But before Tracey Longbottom co-founded Forsyte, disrupting the legal sector with her high-growth AI firm, she was a self-described childhood troublemaker kicked out of her home at 15. Facing £40,000 of university debt, Tracey backed herself, built a staggering sales career, and eventually built a powerhouse company. Yet behind the commercial metrics lies a raw, unfiltered story of massive personal trade-offs.

In this deeply honest conversation, Bethany and Tracey unpack "Mulberry Gate" - the exact moment a luxury handbag purchase triggered a divorce two months after marriage - alongside the reality of the domestic power dynamics that shift when a woman makes more money. Tracey shares her raw experience with severe postnatal depression, the claustrophobia of feeling like a "vessel" during pregnancy, and why she proudly put her daughter into childcare at three months old to reclaim her mind and her career. We also dive into what it means to be a direct, ambitious woman in a male-dominated tech space, and why true success requires accepting that you simply cannot have it all.

This conversation is a supportive, un-sanitised hug for any woman who has ever worried that her fierce ambition makes her a bad version of what society expects a woman to be.

Show Notes

Bethany is joined by Tracey Longbottom, co-founder of Forsyte, to tear down the sanitised myth of the "perfect female founder". Moving from her working-class roots in Bradford to high-stakes legal tech boardrooms, Tracey reflects on how early family rebellion prepared her to break corporate rules, how financial independence shifts relationship dynamics, and the immense mental load of balancing a scaling business with motherhood.

Themes Explored

• The Roots of Rebellion: Growing up as the anti-authoritarian "black sheep" in a traditional police officer’s household.
• The Independence Drive: Viewing financial freedom not as a status symbol, but as the essential tool required to make your own life choices and escape £40k debt.
• Shifting Power Dynamics: Unpacking "Mulberry Gate" and the relational friction that occurs when a woman's professional success outpaces traditional marital roles.
• The Vessel Trap: Facing the loss of professional identity during pregnancy and navigating the unspoken realities of postnatal depression.
• Embracing the Underestimated Self: How showing up with curls and vintage fashion in male-dominated tech boardrooms can become an elite corporate strategy.
• The "Can't Have It All" Truth: Rejecting performance-driven hustle culture to acknowledge that scaling a business requires conscious, daily trade-offs.

Key Takeaways

• Financial Independence Means Freedom of Choice: Money isn't about luxury; it is the tangible asset that ensures you are never trapped in a domestic or professional situation against your will.
• Being Underestimated is a Superpower: Walking into an environment where people make assumptions about your appearance allows you to control the room the moment you display deep, undeniable credibility.
• You Cannot Have It All (And That is Okay): Trying to score a 10/10 across business, parenting, and relationships is a direct path to burnout. True sustainability requires choosing your compromises consciously.
• Reclaiming Your Identity is a Maternal Right: Choosing early childcare or opting out of societal pressures like breastfeeding are completely valid personal choices if they protect your mental health and autonomy.
• Sales is an Act of Integrity: True commercial success isn't about being a "hit-and-run" salesperson; it relies entirely on extreme accountability, building deep human networks, and standing by your word when things break.

If you are currently navigating your own messy middle, feeling torn between the ambitions in your head and the expectations of society, please share this episode with another woman who needs to hear that she is not alone.

Episode Description

To celebrate our landmark 20th episode, host Bethany Wright delivers the ultimate guide to the messy middle of adulthood, synthesising everything learned over the first seven months of powerful, honest conversations. Moving past the multi-millionaire overnight success stories that feel entirely out of reach, this special solo episode explores the real, day-to-day psychological transitions we all face when life looks great on paper but feels disconnected underneath.

We walk through the six distinct themes defining modern adulthood - from breaking made-up societal timelines and overriding our biological fear of uncertainty, to managing identity shifts and choosing human presence over digital validation. Bethany frames this phase not as a midlife crisis, but as a midlife awakening. This episode is for anyone who has ever done well on paper but found themselves asking: Is this really the life I want?

Episode Summary

In this special 20th milestone episode, Bethany reflects on the first seven months of Notes from the Not There Yet Project. Sharing the raw story of her own emotional breakdown in Scotland that catalysed this platform, she maps out the collective wisdom gathered from 19 past conversations. This solo episode reframes the messy middle as an ongoing, evolving journey through adulthood, offering a strategic toolkit to help you navigate pivots with clarity and intention.

Themes Explored

• Theme 1: Timelines & The Rules We Break – Recognising that traditional milestones are utterly made up and that it is never too late to retrain or start over.
• Theme 2: Tearing Up the Script – Understanding the neuroscience behind our fear of uncertainty and entering the highly creative "Neutral Zone".
• Theme 3: Identity - The Loss and Rebirth – Moving past identity foreclosure and utilising the "portfolio approach" to diversify self-worth across values and interests.
• Theme 4: Choosing Your Own Path – Rejecting the philosophical trap of living in "Bad Faith" to slow down and protect what actually matters.
• Theme 5: Redefining Success – Realizing your ladder of ambition might be leaning against the wrong wall and trading grand metrics for daily acts of aligned bravery.
• Theme 6: Community is Everything – Dropping the isolated "I'm fine" mask and prioritising human presence over digital validation.

If this conversation resonates with your current chapter, please share it with a friend navigating their own messy middle - let us stop navigating this space alone.

Key Takeaways

• The Milestones Are Made Up: You cannot hold yourself to outdated societal schedules anymore; you are never the wrong age to begin again.
• Fear is Biological, Not Factual: When you introduce uncertainty, your brain's amygdala treats it as an immediate threat—navigating transition requires consciously overriding our biology.
• Diversify Your Sense of Self: Pinned worth on a single role makes your identity incredibly fragile; use a portfolio approach across your values and interests.
• Deceleration Signifies Clarity: Choosing your own path isn't about moving faster; it is about having the courage to slow down and protect depth over constant output.
• Check Your Ladder: We often spend the first half of our lives climbing the ladder of success, only to realize at the top that it is leaning against the completely wrong wall.

In this episode, we talk to Lou Desborough, founder of Cosmic Kinship, about her transition from a 25-year career in design to becoming a professional astrologer. Lou shares the raw reality of navigating the "messy middle" - balancing the grief of losing a parent with the demands of motherhood and the internal "chatter" that tells us we aren't good enough to pivot.

We explore astrology as "The Mirror in the Sky" - a language for self-understanding that helps us navigate identity shifts and understand the "default settings" of those we love.

This episode is for you if:

• You feel like your life looks "perfect on paper" but feels unsettled underneath.
• You are navigating a career pivot or a "beginner" phase in midlife.
• You are curious about how ancient tools can provide modern clarity.

Episode Show Notes

Lou Desborough joins Bethany to discuss the "slow eroding" of her identity in her early 40s and how astrology provided the language she needed to rebuild. From the grit of the design industry to the depth of birth charts, Lou explores how we can use our "blueprint" to find balance and grace in the juggle of adulthood.

Themes Explored:

The "Sliding Doors" of Career: Navigating the path from Art School to professional astrology.

Grief as a Catalyst: How the vulnerability of a parent's illness puts professional "deadlines" into perspective.

The Perfectionism Trap: Moving from "1000% effort" to the mantra of "done is better than perfect".

Parenting without a Manual: Using astrology to recognize the innate nature of our children rather than trying to change them.

Key takeaways

• Astrology is a Language, Not a Sentence: It reflects our potential and patterns; it doesn't dictate a fixed destiny.
• The Cosmos as a Mirror: Planetary movements reflect our internal state, offering a way to look inward. Done is
• Better than Perfect: In transitions, the need for 1000% perfection can be a shackle; sometimes, simply "doing" is the breakthrough.
• Accepting the Juggle: It’s okay to run two careers side-by-side while you build your dream; the "limbo" is part of the process.

If this conversation resonates, share it with someone navigating their own messy middle.

Connect with Lou Desborough:Website: cosmickinship.comInstagram: @cosmic__kinshipConnect with The Not There Yet Project:Subscribe to our the newsletterRead the Reflections on Substack.Follow on Instagram: @TheNotThereYetProject