“Success” vs Significance

5 December 2025 - The Creative Stone Company

For those who have been following my journey, I want to introduce myself properly. That means being honest. Raw. Unfiltered.

My name is Ali. Some know me as Alleycat. Some as Mama Gold, a name given to me during a Gold TV series that stayed with me. My close friends know me as Jessica, my middle name. Jessica is lighter, freer, more playful. Alison can be serious. Ali is warm, open, and less guarded.

For a long time, I didn’t believe my story mattered. I didn’t believe my voice mattered.

In 2025, I received harsh criticism from family about my visibility. It broke me more than I expected. I retreated for months into silence, into safety, into healing. I had to look myself in the mirror and ask myself whether being visible was worth the cost.

Visibility had already taken courage. It meant telling the truth about the shame I carried for over thirty years, around those I had let down. The shame that lived in my body through emotional eating. Shame that fed anxiety, depression, and constant overthinking. Fear ruled my life. What will people think? That question shaped everything.

In my fifties, after a severe internal fraud, I reached a breaking point. I had to find a different way. What followed was not just a health journey, but a spiritual one. A journey that reshaped my identity and confronted the deep belief that I was never good enough.

Today, in my silver years, I am living a second chance.

A second chance to be a better wife, mother, mentor, and leader. A second chance to live with more simplicity, more presence, and more freedom.

Insecurity once made me fearful and judgmental. Social anxiety followed me everywhere. I avoided being seen. I hated photos. I felt like an embarrassment in a sporty family where I never quite belonged. Hiding became my protection, but it also kept people at a distance.

Freedom came when I stopped fighting my body and started listening to my soul.

I am no longer defined by a scale. I have not weighed myself in seven years. I no longer eat my pain or wear my shame. I moved from being a couch potato in my fifties to an athlete in my sixties. Not through discipline alone, but through healing.

I didn’t change the shape of my body. I changed the shape of my soul.

Writing about second chances changed everything. As I shared my story, joy returned. Purpose became clear. I am living my “second marriage”, my second chance. I am not the woman my husband married and I rejoice in that! Growth has redefined me.

The past 18 months, I have been on twenty one global podcasts. Every time I learnt, I grew.  

If that sounds glamorous, it was not. It was often alone at midnight. Every time my heart was hammering in my chest. Sometimes I botched things. Sometimes I felt raw. At other times I left the screen in the early hours feeling an elation, an aliveness I had never felt in my entire life. A sense of knowing. Of living my message.

Something shifted over this era, it was as if the world was telling me my words mattered. Not because I am great. The very opposite. Because I was so deeply vulnerable. Every single time. Because I was willing to speak and write without armour.

In the past 18 months, I have written articles or been interviewed in 82 publications, most of which are global.

That has deepened my identity as a writer, living in the scary terrifying magnificence and mystery of second chances. 

My words seemed to matter not because I am exceptional, but because I was willing to be so vulnerable.

Facilitating spaces where people feel safe to share their stories has become my true calling. When someone tells me that hearing me speak stopped them from taking their own life, I know this is not a career. It is a calling.

So my vision for 2026 is this:

To live fully visible, fully embodied, and free from shame.

To choose love over fear and courage over condemnation.

To help others believe that a second chance is possible, no matter their age or season.

To write, speak, and live in a way that invites people to know that their story matters.

There will always be critics. But living alongside critics is far easier than living in self-hatred. I did that for too long.

In 2026, I choose love.

I choose courage.

I choose helping others to rewrite their story.

A story they never thought was possible. 🤍