I was born in Barcelona and have called Portugal home for the past 5 years. My path here has been anything but linear, and I’ve come to see that as one of my biggest strengths. I spent over 25 years as a teacher, starting with preschoolers, then training in Montessori and founding a bilingual Montessori nursery at 28. Later I moved into teaching English to adults, specializing in in-company training. Alongside my career, life was teaching me its own lessons. I married at 22, had my son at 24, and divorced at 27. I’ve always been driven, curious, and hungry to grow, and even in my early twenties I knew there was more to life than working hard to pay the bills. I wanted to understand myself, my relationships, and what real fulfillment looked like. Years later, in a second marriage that also wasn’t right for me, I decided to train as a nutritionist; health has always fascinated me. At the same time, I started personal therapy with a Gestalt therapist, mostly to help me figure out whether to stay married or not. Three months in, I knew: Gestalt was my calling. I walked away from nutrition school and spent the next 3 years training as a Gestalt therapist. It changed everything. I’ve now been a therapist for 10.5 years, and I truly found my ikigai. Working 1:1 showed me how powerful this work is and also how limited my impact could be one client at a time. So I set out to build a group program that could reach more women. I’ve been developing it for the past 3 years; the women who’ve been through it have loved it, and I haven’t yet cracked how to bring it to a bigger group. I know in my bones this work can transform hundreds of lives — that’s the mission I’m here to fulfill. 🙏

What would change if you gave yourself permission to rest without guilt? How do you balance action with the time to simply be? As founders, we always have things to do. But learning to read your body and take time to rest and recharge will support you to endure on the long term. Here are three practices that have helped me balance ambition with rest: 1.⁠ ⁠Feed your action time with recharge time. Your ambition needs fuel. Schedule rest and creativity as intentionally as you schedule meetings. Spend time in nature, do something just for fun, or even do nothing, without guilt. It's what makes the work sustainable. 2.⁠ ⁠Feel what's there to feel. Don't push through everything. Emotions are part of life and they can get intense in the most busy time. Practice noticing your emotions, give them space, and become comfortable feeling and expressing them. Try journaling about them, talking to someone you trust, or use movement to help them go through your body. 3.⁠ ⁠Nurture your personal connections. Business can be consuming. But the relationships outside of work, the people who ground you and nurture you, are what make the journey meaningful. Protect that time and feed your soul with those who love you the way you are. Do these tips resonate? Do you have other practices that support you? Let's share the community wisdom here in the comments! Wishing you a nourishing summer! ☀️

Hello ladies! I need some help/advice. I want to choose an email marketing tool that I can use to open a wait list for a program I am running in the late summer, and then continue to use to build a list outside of Substack (my current newsletter) and I'd love to hear about which ones you use. I've been thinking of using Mailerlite, as my web designer suggested, but she also mentioned I need to register an official email address with my website domain and it seems a bit complicated and an extra cost. So, my question to you is, which email marketing do you use that is cheap and easy to set up? And if you have an email with your website domain, how/where did you get it? I am quite newbie to these matters so any input will be valuable! Thank you!! Ana

Morning ladies! If you've attended a Female Founders Breakfast before, we'd love to hear from you! We're putting together our first Annual Impact Report, and your feedback is essential. The Founder's Happiness Index (FHI) survey helps us understand what our community truly means to founders like you, and what we can do better. Take 3 minutes to complete the survey and get €5 off your next event! https://form.jotform.com/261895120156053 It would be super amazing if you could share your honest thoughts. Your feedback helps us grow and shape our impact. Thank you! 💜

Hello Ladies This summer, we're taking time to reflect on how we can bring you and your business forward. We'd love to hear directly from you: Which of these community formats sounds most valuable to you right now? Leave a comment if you have other suggestions. Thank you for voting!