She's Honestly Mental

13. Saying no to more so I could say yes to me

• Corrina Rawlinson - Mental Health Advocate • Season 1 • Episode 13

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Have you ever built something that looked great on the outside, but didn’t feel right inside?

This episode is about the uncomfortable magic of accidentally pivoting, and finally doing business in a way that feels like you.

This one’s part confession, part clarity bomb. I recorded from a Surf Club storage room, sipping cacao, processing the chaos of scaling back my meds, and admitting something out loud, I’ve accidentally rebranded my business.

You'll hear how a single client session opened the floodgates for doing business differently. Not the shiny, perfectly packaged way… but the messy, deeply human, wildly aligned way. I talk about the pressure to “do all the things”, the cost of leading with people-pleasing, and what it’s looked like to choose my zone of genius over obligation.

If you’re navigating change, burnout, or wondering if you’re allowed to shift gears without burning it all down, this one’s for you. I’m talking scaffolding sessions, real mental health maintenance, and the joy of being seen for your actual self.

Are you listening to your body or just following the plan? DM me on Instagram @sheshonestlymental, I’d love to hear how this one landed for you.


In this episode we cover:

  • Recording from the Surf Club Storage Room with actual cacao
  • Reducing meds and the messy middle of it
  • Laughing more, crying more, and riding the emotional wave
  • A big realisation from a conversation with her financial strategist
  • Stepping back from a leadership role to protect mental health
  • Starting to follow joy, not just responsibility
  • Accidentally rebranding the business by helping a friend (now client)
  • The shift from coaching to strategic scaffolding sessions
  • Doing business differently as a neurodivergent woman
  • Wanting to outsource life admin during harvest season
  • Dreaming about Haus of Collab and the $400k building
  • Realising that seeing people clearly is the real magic
Corrina:

Welcome to She's Honesty Mentor, a podcast for women who are done pretending they're fine when they're falling apart on the inside. I'm your host, Karina Rollinson, ADHD Brain, Medicated Mind, and Proud Mental Health Hospital alumni. Still here, still showing up somehow. This is a space for the fillers, the fixers, and the ones who carry it all and still wonder if it's enough. We talk about the chaos, the connection, and everything in between because silence nearly killed me. And these conversations save lives. Alright, cacao in hand, headphones on, chaos semi-contained. Let's get honestly mental. Welcome to another episode of She's Honestly Mental, but I feel like this is it's more like welcome to another episode of the In the Surf Club storage room series. I don't know. For me, it's like been really fun, and this is just what works for our family right now is trying to make the podcast happen wherever we happen. And today we're coming to you from the Esmerits Coulfield Surf Lifesaving Club Storage Room. Oh man, I actually really do have my cacao in hand today, which is just divine. And that's the joys of getting up early, bringing the kids out to the beach, and just kind of having a space to create, I suppose. This week I've been reducing my medication, and it's not something that I like to do lightly. I feel like there's a lot of judgment around it, particularly if my moods go a little bit skew if things don't seem really settled, if I don't seem to be handling things as well as what I normally would be. Of course, the first question is that my family asks is, have you been taking medication? And yeah. Not properly. Because sometimes that's what happens. And I've noticed a few things, is I've been laughing a lot more, which is so fun. I've been on the verge of tears a bit, but then I've also remembered that I've got my period. So, you know, there's that. And I do this with great caution because for me, taking medication has always been about quality of life. It's never been, you know, like I'm not trying to stop taking it because I don't want to be putting it in my body. I don't give a shit about it going in my body because having that medication has been essential for me to be able to be here, be now, and be exactly where I am. So yeah, I'm okay with where I'm at. I'm being more conscious about things that I'm eating and exercise and things that I've committed to. And it was funny because the last week, and oh my gosh, the amount of people that are listening to this, and I know blah blah blah, people are always saying, Karina, like why do you do so much? And it's just because I actually can, because I've got the skills to be able to do a lot of the things. And it was only last week that Vicky, my financial strategist, was saying to me, Karina, you do all these things, right? But do you actually need to? Do you actually like doing it? And it's tricky because there's one committee that I'm involved in, and it's probably been the most the one that's caused me the most pain the last eight, eight months. And it's like when I'm in the meeting or when I'm at the actual place, I really struggle because there's people that are very my way or the highway, and I am the opposite to that. I mean, I definitely do get very passionate, and I think that's something that we've got to be aware of is that when you have people in clubs and committees, the passion can sometimes make things a bit heated. But if you've got the same clear direction, it makes it a lot easier. Like, you know, you make it, you make it work. And so I'm on the school board for my kids' school. And I think next year I've I've done this 12 months as the chair, and it's been amazing. But I've also just kind of come to the realization that I don't really want to be the chair next year. I'm just happy to be a voice. I don't need to be the one that does all the things. And instead, kind of like what I want to be able to do is work more clearly, kind of on some the marketing and the branding and the story that the school shares with the public to try and then help the school get more funding and assistance for things that it needs. And I'm like, that's my talent, that's my school, and that's the thing that actually brings me joy. And so then I don't know what I'm gonna do about this other club situation. It's really tricky because I really, really, really do love it and it's been a part of my life for a very long time. But I know that literally from the top down with this organization, that there is some serious leadership issues. And I have tried to like fix, I suppose, not fix, but like I've tried to give suggestions around the strategic side of the bit, like the strategic side of the organization, the compliance side of the organization. And I think like there is only a certain amount of time and energy that you can put into something before you realize that it's really not working, and you've got to walk away. But that was the thing for me was years and years ago, because I feel like I'm so old, is that I didn't know where to draw the line, and now I'm learning. And I'm not learning at the cost of my mental health anymore. So yeah, there's that. But for me, being at Surf Club, this is like my literal paradise. I'm here, it's 10 past six in the morning. The view is amazing. It's incredible. If you follow me on Instagram, you would know just how beautiful it is here. But it's my happy place. So record this episode, potentially do another one, and then go for a dip in the ocean. Warm up with my cacao, and then shower, head home, and head to work. If you've been around for a while, you already know my mornings don't start without my cacao. I've been drinking Invictus Apocalypse ceremonial cacao since 2020. It's literally been everywhere with me, across Australia, up to Broome, and even in my inpatient hospital stays. It's my one little moment of sacredness each morning, usually brought to me Made with Love by Jared. Bless him. The beautiful humans behind it, Jody and Ben, aka the Captain and the Crew, also run Naturally Esperance, their gorgeous local store and dispensary. They've been part of my world for years, and I'm honestly so grateful for what they've created. And now they give me a little something for you, my Cheesonestly Mental fan. You can get 10% off their 250 gram and one kilo cacao in store and online using the code SHMFAN, or one word. Just head to Invictusapochery.com.au or pop into naturally esperants if you're a local. The last kind of couple of weeks at work have been absolutely incredible. It's been wild. And I feel like for the first time, I am actually me doing like I can't get the smile off my face. I am doing something for me and holy smokes. And it's not even what I kind of thought. So a few episodes ago, I would have been speaking about permission to be human, which was a program that I was building to offer to the world to work with women around building foundational support for their mental health that really suits their brain, which is totally the thing that I still love doing. But I've kind of reframed the business accidentally. It didn't even happen on purpose. So my beautiful friend, now client, Chrissy, from Grow Advantage, I had been kind of watching her on social media for a while, as you do, you know, you're fully friends. And she's got this point with her business where she wanted to be able to, like, I kept looking at going, Oh my gosh, Chrissy, like it'll be so cool. Like if you split Girl Advantage off strategy-wise, as like its own kind of social media stuff, and then you have you as your own personal brand. And she messaged me and she's like, and I hadn't said this to her, but she messaged me. She goes, I'm really thinking about splitting them. And I said, Oh my gosh, yes. Absolutely yes. I've been thinking this for weeks. And she goes, Karina, this is what you need to be doing with people. I was like, okay, all right, all right, okay. I went through the effort of trying to launch permission to be human. I even was like, let's have a founding five, like first five members, you get at half price, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of this, sell, sell, sell, be this, and be the coach and have all the pretty things. And of course, it all came around. And then there was like crickets, literal crickets. And I didn't listen to myself. I didn't listen to my body at all the entire time. Because it was like, why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? This is weird. This is not with you. This is not, this doesn't seem right. And it's a lesson, I suppose, in learning to listen to your body. But yeah, I did this session with Chrissy, like where she was my client. It felt like playing schools or something. But we've been through and we've worked through the brand of building the story behind Chrissy L and then the story behind Girl Advantage, and how we've got now like a bit of a more of a strategic plan on how to split these two brands. But the key thing here is that I've been able to help Chrissy do that at a really human, human level. And I even now I feel like, oh my gosh, but other people do it too. And I'm thinking, but like, why does the fuck does it matter? Why does it matter if other people do it too? This is the like looking at the big picture of things, looking at the strategy of things is what makes me froth. And so then it's kind of then organically happened with some other people that have got businesses that have been wanting to, you know, get from that like startup phase, or they've been in their business for a little while and they're just needing some clarity around things. And they don't want to sign up to a massive coaching program. They don't want to go and spend $20,000 on a coach. They literally just want to work with someone that can give them some clarity around it, that understands what it's like to be neurodiverse, what it's like to have ADHD, what it's like to be a creative, but not have the skills to be able to build the business up. And I've been doing that for like 25 years, my whole entire life. My parents have had businesses and I've been able to see from a distance what works and what doesn't work. And so that's what I've been doing is these scaffolding sessions, literally 90 minutes, and helping these creatives and business owners get their shit together, like in a way that suits them. And it was so cool. I had one yesterday with a lady who's over in Melbourne. She's an amazing artist, writer. The stuff that she's showing me, I'm like, far out woman. I'm like, let's get your publishing deal, let's get your social media sorted, like, let's do all these things. And she goes, This is the first time anyone's actually been able to see me. And yeah, it's so freaking cool. It's so, so cool. So I wanted to just say to every person that's ever sent me a message after listening to the podcast or seeing something on my social media, to the people that have stopped me in the street, thank you so much because you're the reasons why I keep going. So cool. So yeah, I've done this full kind of I hate it when people like a full 360, I've done like a 180 where I've gone from focusing on how to be a coach, instead I'm more around how to be a person that sees people and I'm doing what works for me. And I'm so annoyed because Jared goes to me, he's like, Yeah, obviously, Karina, this is what you're supposed to be doing. This is what you're really good at is business operations and strategy and marketing. Obviously. And so I said to him, Well, why didn't you say this to me earlier? And he goes, Well, when you're in a mood, I can't talk to you. Oh, right oh. So harvest we've had rain here this last week, and harvest has slowed, which means Jared has been home. Annoying for the farmers for sure, because they're now waiting to get this crop off and it's too wet, and it's less money in the bank for them. But it's meant that we've been able to sit down and just kind of recalibrate, reset, sort our lives back out, kind of thing. And it's been nice and it's been really settling because harvest just grinds my gears so much. People don't understand that for us, we start when the first person starts harvesting and we finish when the last person finishes harvesting. So it's a really long period of time to have our family so disjointed. And I'm grateful for it. Don't get me wrong, because it definitely pays the bills. But it's something that I know next year going into harvest that I'm gonna be even more organized because there is no way that my husband's not going to be doing it. It's just not a thing. So I really want to find a housekeeper, someone that can just come around and help tidy things up in the mornings for me. And those kind of things, like outsourcing those kind of things, I would rather do because then I can go and A, they don't light me up. I know that they're chores, but B, because I know that I can go and do the things that really light me up. And in this day and age, the things that light me up also happen to make me some dollars. I see that often, especially in businesses and that kind of stuff, where people are so tied down having to do all the little things that if you were to outsource them, you could actually A, go and have more fun, and B bring more income in. I know what I'd rather do. Not do the dishes. We're almost at the end. Uh no we've got a few clients that have said 10 days of beautiful sunshine and they'll be pretty much done. But we've also just had five days of rain, so that's been a whole other situation. I would say there's still probably another three weeks, which means most people will be finishing just before Christmas, which is ideal because we like to get to Christmas. Most people are done, and then we can go on break. Bring it on, sister. So there's been some little developments with my co-working space. House of Collab. Interesting because I've put it out there publicly. So if you are in Esperance and you're looking for a co-working networking space, please follow House of Collab on Insta. It's H-A-U-S. Because you know, fancy. There's a little form on my socials that you can fill out to give me some more information about what you actually need. But I was looking at a little space and it was really small. It's about 48 square meters. And so I could do the hot desk setup, but then I wouldn't be able to have my podcasting studio. Turns out there's actually an amazing place already here in Esperance. It's not for lease, it's for sale, but it's got recording studios in it, it's got offices in it, it's already got space in there where you can hot desk. But somehow I need to find $400,000. So if you wanted to make a donation now, I've got some ideas, but I need to get the data first and actually see if it's something that I can pull off, which I have no doubt it is that I can, but I've learned these days not to do the whole ADHD fully commit to things, unless it's actually a for sure thing. So that's why I love working with Vicky because I'll message her and be, hey, this little program's come up, or this is whatever, and she'll go, No, Corina, that is actually a really smart strategic thing to spend your money on. Or I see a little bright, shiny, sparkly ADHD stuff going on here. And Corinna, I really don't think that's a smart movie right now. So it's actually really fun having someone in my corner that's saying, hey, yes, and actually no. And then I think Jared really loves it too because he knows that I'm not just wasting dollars on different bright, shiny things. So what I've realized when it comes to my capacity is that I've been doing this work with other people around seeing their whole entire picture, their brand, their business, and whatnot. And it's when I've realized that me trying to stretch myself with permission to be human, then with also the messy middle, and then with also the chaos letters, and then showing up on social media, showing up on Instagram, showing up on TikTok, showing up on the podcast. It's like, how far do I want to stretch myself? And so I've decided that the messy middle is going on pause. The chaos letters are being rebranded to notes from the middle. I'm just gonna focus on the podcast, and that's about it, really. Because this is my favorite, this is my actual favorite thing and how to show up. So that's some things that I've really noticed, and I think whether that's gotta come down to by reducing some of my medication, it's taking away the I always really want to say like it's as if having a cast on your like a whole leg cast, right? When you're taking a really high dose of medication. And so now that I've reduced it, it's instead of being a whole leg cast, it's just below the knee. So I've got the movement of the knee. So I feel like my brain has now got a little bit more movement in it that it's been able to realize that okay, doing all of these things isn't actually necessary. Yeah, it's been a week, it's been hectic and And I'm actually really excited because the next episode is going to be around the anniversary of my first admission into the mental health facility. So thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in. I am again so grateful. And if any of this has resonated, please reach out to me, send me a message on social media, drop a comment, or whatever. I really, really don't think you guys understand just how much this means to me. Thanks for hanging out with me on She's Honestly Mental. If today's episode cracked open something inside of you or gave you space to exhale, come say hi over at Instagram at She's Honestly Mental. Or send this to someone who needs to hear that they're not alone. And if you haven't yet, hit that follow button so the next episode lands in your messy feed right where it belongs. Until next time, take care of your brain. You're not broken, you're just honestly mental. And all the best people are.