Diary of a Working Woman
Passionate, hard-working, fearless Educationalist, Psychologist and mother, Johnette Barrett talks to a selection of working women who have gone through many challenging experiences, often having to undergo many conflicting roles. Johnette unravels the secrets of being a successful woman in today’s world.
Diary of a Working Woman
Trading Pain for Peace: An Educator's Life-Changing Move to Bali. Part One
What happens when you realize the career path you've dedicated a decade to no longer aligns with your wellbeing or values? Lauren Allen faced this pivotal question after experiencing both the physical limitations of fibromyalgia and the professional frustrations of unfulfilled advancement promises as a senior education leader.
The turning point came unexpectedly during a wellness retreat in Bali, where Lauren discovered that yoga, meditation, and breathwork – practices she'd never previously incorporated into her life – provided remarkable relief from her chronic pain symptoms. The tropical climate itself seemed to ease the constant tension she carried in her body. This revelation sparked a radical question: what might happen if she completely redesigned her life around her wellbeing rather than institutional expectations?
Lauren's story isn't simply about escaping career disappointments or seeking paradise. It's about recognizing when your sensitive soul and moral compass no longer fit within systems that have become increasingly business-focused. It's about acknowledging when you've hit glass ceilings despite exceeding expectations and winning awards. Most powerfully, it's about asking yourself: "If I worked as hard for myself as I do for other people, how far would I go?"
Now trading full-time from Bali, Lauren has found holistic remedies that have virtually eliminated her fibromyalgia flare-ups and reclaimed control over her destiny. Her journey reminds us that sometimes the most profound healing happens when we have the courage to step completely outside familiar environments and reimagine what our working lives could be. Follow Diary of a Working Woman for Part 2 of Lauren's inspiring story and discover how taking charge of your own path can transform both physical health and career fulfillment.
A new podcast in which Johnette Barrett, educational psychologist, seeks out inspirational working women who have transformed their lives and that of others through their courageousness and compassion.
The conversations that follow are sometimes eye-opening, sometimes heart- breaking and sometimes humourous.
Diary of a Working Woman (DOAWW) is hosted by Buzzsprouts .com.
Email: diaryofaworkingwoman@yahoo.com
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Website: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2227789
Welcome to the Diary of a Working Woman podcast. I'm Jonette, your host On this podcast. I'll be speaking to women from all walks of life, of different ages, and the thing that they'll have in common is that they will work in some way or another. Their stories will be motivating, inspiring, empowering. I just know you're going to enjoy it. Please follow me on Diary of a Working Woman to receive all the latest episodes. Tune in. Hello everyone, welcome to the next episode of Diary of a Working Woman. Today, I'm absolutely ecstatic to be speaking with an ex-colleague of mine and very dear friend who has done something extraordinary, I think, with her life.
Speaker 1:Lauren Allen is an ex-senior leader in education. She decided that she wanted to have a complete change in career direction, so so, in March 2023, she decided to learn how to trade. That's a massive change from being an educationalist to learning how to trade full-time. In June 2023, lauren decided to go on a spa retreat in Bali. During that time, something amazing happened to her, because she decided that she was going to quit everything that she knows about life and move to Bali. And just a few months later, she made that tough decision and moved to Bali. So she's joining me here today from Bali, where she now lives. So I am dying to hear more about her journey and what inspired her and how it sort of panned out. So I'm going to stop speaking and introduce you all to the lovely, gorgeous Lauren.
Speaker 2:Allen, hi Lauren, hi Jeanette. So nice to see you boys. It's so lovely to see you. I'm really good. Thanks, how are you? I am brilliant.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I have listened to your other guests and they're all so inspiring, so I feel like I'm in a really good group of passionate and dedicated working women being part of your podcast series, so thank you so much for inviting me on.
Speaker 1:I'm honoured, I'm glad you're here. I just wish I was there with you in Bali instead, right?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you should come one day.
Speaker 1:I don't have to Great skies as always Mishable, drizzly rain but you're in the beautiful. I can see all the tropical plants in the background. I'm so jealous. So jealous, yeah, but it could start raining at any point, jeanette, so it could turn grey and there could be a thunderstorm, that's the tropical storms that we get here, but they're over quickly and dry up quickly. So, exactly, and you've got that beautiful glow, so you know, let's launch. So what inspired you to move to Bali? That's what I really want to know why? Why?
Speaker 2:Bali, bali. And why then? Okay, so, like you said in your introduction, I had been working in education for a long time it had been 10 years and I was asked by a friend if I would join her on a trip to Bali. And I hadn't even thought about going to Bali before and I said that I really wanted it to be a purposeful trip. So if we're going to go to look for a retreat, that would be really beneficial to us and our lives. So we had a look online and there were so many retreats that are available, but I narrowed it down to one that sounded perfect for what both me and my friend needed.
Speaker 2:So we headed out to Bali.
Speaker 2:We were here for 10 days, 10 nights, and it was a life-changing experience.
Speaker 2:So there was yoga and meditation and breath work, and these are things that I hadn't practiced before in my life and I didn't know how beneficial they would be for me in terms of my body, because I do have fibromyalgia.
Speaker 2:So just being in that climate and some of the meditation and especially the breath work, helped release a lot of physical tension that I was holding onto and freed up so much space in my mind as well, and I thought, if I've had this experience, after just 10 nights the retreat itself was actually, I think, six nights what could I do if I was to come back and do a year? So I decided I'd already left my job at that point and I'd started studying trading full-time, and it was going slowly, and it does go very slowly. I'd actually started looking at trading uh, I think 2017, 18, um, but it'd been on and off. Obviously I was working full-time and to let you know how hard it is to as a teacher, to do anything outside of it, because you've got planning and marking, so I wasn't spending as much time as I wanted to on trading.
Speaker 2:So I thought, okay, I'm gonna trade full-time. And um, when I got back from the retreat, I just knew that if I really wanted to give myself the best opportunity to have a future that I designed myself in terms of trading full time and being healthy as well, managing my fibromyalgia symptoms then I really believed, and still do believe, that Bali was the best place for me. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:My goodness, I'm going to pause it. To pause because I know an awful lot would have happened between the time that they've made the decision to move and those three months and movies. I'm going to slow us down a little bit. But first of all, I guess I'm really curious about fibromyalgia. I don't really know what that condition is. Are you willing just to share a little bit of what that is and how that affects you on a day-to-day?
Speaker 2:basis. Yeah, okay, so you're not alone, jeanette. Not a lot of people do know what fibromyalgia is, and even in the medical industry it's not fully understood. There is no diagnosis. You can't take a blood test and be diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It takes for a lot of people a very long time to get the diagnosis. It did for me.
Speaker 2:I started experiencing pains in my joints. That was the first symptom that I had, and I actually had the pain for and I thought it was just my body was sort of every now and again would I'd have painful knees and shoulders, but it actually became something I couldn't ignore after a couple of years because I was a young mum and it was impacting my life more and more. And so I went to my GP and that really got the ball rolling. I had some blood tests, although they weren't thinking fibromyalgia at the time, but they did some blood tests. I did some physiotherapy and then there was an assessment of where I get the pain and what the pain is like, and that's how I was then able to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia. So before I moved out to Bali, it wasn't just the pain, it was also fatigue and feeling really down. The depression would come on as a symptom of the pain. So obviously I'm in pain, I can't do everything that I want to do and I'm feeling really tired.
Speaker 2:I had started taking Tramadol, which was prescribed to me straight away. I couldn't drive on it, I couldn't concentrate, I was at uni at the time and so I had to come off the medication and I realized I really need to kind of find a way to overcome this kind of myself, because taking painkillers for the rest of my life just wasn't an option and my nan was really good at looking at sort of newspaper and magazine articles, things that I should and shouldn't eat. I found that exercise would help and also that the cold weather triggered my fibromyalgia. So I am always warm, as warm as I can be. So in the UK I had an electric blanket on the mattress of my bed and an actual electric blanket I would wrap around me and I'd just have to be warm all the time, and sometimes, you know, if I was cold, I would just get pain to my shoulders or my knee and it would then spiral from there. After a few years I was able to sort of catch myself and see where these symptoms were going, and it didn't affect me as much. It was more kind of like mind over matter. This is what, how I have to live, and I just got on with it.
Speaker 2:But coming out to Bali I actually met someone, a friend of mine, and she sort of heard me talk about fibromyalgia. She hadn't heard someone sort of explaining all the symptoms but in her work she does holistic remedies. So she had a look online, put my symptoms into a computer system, I think that she has and she's able to sort of say these are the symptoms and what would be a good remedy for it. So she had her son coming over to see her in Bali and she had ordered a remedy to her son and her son then brought it over from the States and I started taking that.
Speaker 2:So whenever I feel a symptom, I just had two sugar pills under my tongue, let them dissolve and from the first time I took that remedy until now so that was probably maybe about a year, just under a year ago I have not had what I used to call a flare up, which would be, you know, maybe days or weeks of intense pain and fatigue. As soon as I feel the symptom, take the pills and that's it. It never comes on again. So I'm super, super happy to have found that, but also doing yin yoga out here as well and having massages to release the fascia on the muscles, which is new research that's come out about fibromyalgia and I read about it and I found somewhere in Bali where they do a special type of massage, so I incorporated that as well and, yeah, I've been almost pain free the whole time I've been here other than one flare up.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting, isn't it? Because you wanted to take charge of your body, which obviously affects your mind and it's, you know, all linked your mind, your body and feel and you were able to find a remedy. You know, not not just something a sticking plaster go to the doctor, you get pills but something, a life-changing habit that will alleviate the pain, and that's remarkable. But how did your family first react when you first needed the idea of moving to Bali?
Speaker 2:because I can imagine that you probably would have come across a little bit of opposition perhaps I did, yeah, but, um, it was out of love, so I'm not mad about it. So most of my family know what I'm like and I will sort of make a decision about something, and it seems sort of out there and they're used to me doing that. So when I said I'm moving to Bali, I think they understood, because they understood my journey in terms of working and the sort of issues, disappointments, maybe ceilings that I came across when it came to working and how that was actually impacting my lifestyle. So they were most of them were really supportive, I think, maybe worried a little bit about me making such a big decision.
Speaker 2:My brother, who I'm super close with, probably found it the most difficult, because, you know, we were living together at the time and saw my life going a certain way, which is the way that I always saw it going as well, and so for me to just change that completely, and for him it was a worry. He wants me to be safe and secure and have stability, and as long as I'm in the UK, no matter what I do, he's there to provide that for me, even if I can't get it myself. So I think that was the biggest worry, though, and so, as I said, it came from love, so it was great. But by the time I left, I had a going away party and everyone saw me off and it was. It was amazing and everyone's been really supportive since.
Speaker 1:That's really good to hear. I want to talk about a couple of things you mentioned at the time. As well as your physical symptoms, I think you mentioned um, disappointments and ceilings, because obviously it's this diary of a working woman. So could you just say a bit briefly what were the disappointments? Was that in personal relationships, in work, in both? So disappointments and ceilings as a um, you know, a woman of color, maybe in the work environment, and maybe a bit of disillusionment, maybe not going too much into it, but maybe just giving us another perspective as to what could have led to this life changing move to Bali, although now I believe approximately 400,000 expats from, you know, british expats moving to Bali. So what were the disappointments? Perhaps on the ceilings that contributed to your decision to move to Bali.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, as you know, I was a senior leader in education and I kind of think that the higher that I got in education, the more I saw that sort of going to uni and getting my teacher's qualification. I had no idea that these things would happen and it's not terrible things necessarily, but I think I've just got a really sensitive soul. Think I've just got a really sensitive soul and and I guess maybe my moral compass wouldn't allow me to engage in certain conversations and maybe the way teachers were treated and you know it wasn't as I said, I don't want to sort of bad talk the education system or any schools that I worked with at all, but it was maybe more ruthless than I expected it to be, because schools are businesses now and there is that expectation and I understand that.
Speaker 2:I had some really good experiences. But then also I felt, just before coming out to Bali, that I worked so, so hard to meet multiple girls, to meet multiple girls in my my last job, um, with an expectation, based on conversations that had been had, that after a certain amount of time, certain things would happen and I could progress. And it didn't happen that way and I thought, you know, I put in the work and I achieved what needed to be done. I won an award. You know, I I felt like I did all that I could and more, because that's just the person that I am, yeah, um, and then the other side of the bargain wasn't held up, and for me it was. I no longer, I just, I just made a decision. I no longer want my life and the lifestyle that I lead to be dedicated, to be dictated rather by somebody else making a decision either yes or no, especially when the decision can be yes and it's just no. Can I ask you a question?
Speaker 1:Can I ask you a question?
Speaker 1:or not Because so many of us and I'm going to include myself in this stay in a job and we work, we work. We work Morning, evenings, times through the night, sometimes weekends, during holiday time, and yet the work that we do may be unrecognized by those above. Maybe we may feel a bit undervalued, overlooked for promotions, as you said, promised things that don't materialize, and there needs to come a point where you think, actually I'm better than this, I'm worth more than this, and if I just take control of my life, with my situation, then maybe I'll get a different result. So I need to applaud you and Lauren for being brave and bold enough to say enough's enough, and I'm now in charge of my own destiny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. So I think for me it was. I asked myself, if I worked as hard for myself as I do for other people, how far would I go? And I would never get that answer unless I did it right. So this is me doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what were your biggest fears at the time? Just making that move, because I know you're a bold and confident young lady, but did you have some fears and how did you overcome them? Because of the people listening or watching and be thinking I'd love to do something like that, I'd love to be bold enough to make a decision like that. But the fears you know, fears can be crippling, fears can really hold you back. What fears did you have at the time and how did you overcome them?
Speaker 2:well, the main one was leaving my son because, even though he was 20 at the time, if I just go back a bit, when I came home from the retreat I said to him let's move to Bali. And he, he was down. He said, yes, let's go. So I didn't have any fears at that point. You know what it's like as a mother if your child is there, you can't fear anything. So at first I had absolutely no fears. I was coming out here with my son and I was going to make sure that everything was okay.
Speaker 2:He then decided that he wanted to go back to uni and wasn't going to come to Bali with me. And that's when my fears kicked in, because I was like, okay, now I'm doing this alone, I'm leaving my son, um, and obviously it took a while for me to get everyone's full support. So that was a bit of a fear that. Is this going to impact relationships that I have at home? So my son he was amazing, you know. I said sort of like I don't want to leave you. How can I be in the country for a year without you? But he said, mum, you need to live your life and do what you want to do. You know I'm going to live my life and do what I want to do, and he's like get that from you, so just do it. You know he had no problem with it at all, so that put my mind at rest.
Speaker 2:Yes, he was super encouraging and then, as well, he wanted to live on campus, but then the decision was made for him to stay with my mum, and so that was a huge weight off my shoulders as well, because I knew that she would take as good care of him as I would if he needed it.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that fear was alleviated. Going back to the relationships, I was worried that I was going on a journey where I would develop as a person, and I knew that that would come with changes to my personality in some ways or at least I hoped it would because there was things that I wanted to work on on myself, and I was worried that people who knew me really well would see those changes, maybe feel like I was a different person. I didn't want to come back and maybe look at people and sort of see them in a different way, and so I really had to think about the purpose of me going out to Bali. Like I said, to develop, to become a better person, to focus on my health, to focus on my trading and, if anything, it was to come back as a better person for my friends and for my family. So that fear was alleviated as well by the time that I left, I didn't have any fears at all and I just took it day by day.
Speaker 1:And let's stop there, because this is the end of part one of this series. Now we understand a little bit about your story leading up to your decision to move from the UK to Bali full time. We understand all the pressures you were under at the time, your thought processes and, uh, your motivations for wanting to lead a different type of life. The loved ones that sort of maybe um had you second guessing what you believed you wanted to do, but be bold enough to know that they would be fine and that you would be too, and to make that decision to move to bali. Thank you, lauren, so much, and I'll see you for part two.
Speaker 1:Please do follow me at do a podcast to find out more about lauren's story and a life-changing decision to move from the uk to bali. Part two is out as well, so you can find that on youtube, on everywhere. So, um, join me then and share, share, share with your family and friends. Thank you, thanks for tuning in to diary of a working woman. I hope you found this episode as motivating and uplifting as I did. Please follow me at at do a podcast on TikTok and Instagram. For now, I need to say bye, bye, and keep striving to be the best version of yourself that you can possibly be, wearing all the many hats that working women do, sending you love.