Iona Holloway is an author, coach, and speaker -- but most importantly, she’s a recovering “perfection addict” who put her mind, body, and spirit through the wringer to maintain a superhuman level of success. Her mission is to help high achieving struggling women stop shrinking their bodies, worth, and power. How? Vulnerability, creativity, and breathwork. Why? Because everyone loses when brilliant women play small. This world needs your gifts.

Iona’s new book, Ghost is a brutal, haunting, vulnerable piece of work that explores the intersection of high-performing perfectionism, food and body, and imposter syndrome. She teaches women how to break the cycle and begin the hard work of letting go of “perfect.”

In today’s episode, Iona shares her journey from the two decade long war with food and her body, to stepping into her vulnerability and mission. Her experience of shrinking was complicated, and the expectation to be perfect and competent caused a huge amount of pain her life. Iona believes so strongly that everyone loses when brilliant women play small, and that this world, now more than ever, needs its women to be not only strong, but also embodied and empowered so that all women can share their gifts with the world. As Iona shares, when we bravely and boldly show up as ourselves in this world, we give other women permission to also be that brave. Iona’s learned through writing Ghost that through her own vulnerability, she’s allowing, helping, and supporting other women to be seen too, both by themselves and by the people who love them.

“What I’ve learned is that the more human we can be about what we have experienced, the more we give permission to other people to also be themselves in this world. Something else I’ve realized is that the more we let go trying to be perfect at things, the more space we leave for the true gifts that we have in this world to shine through.”

— Iona Holloway

Tune in on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7bZHrtjAzbksbLWNaak1NM

Tune in on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stories-of-inspiring-joy/id1510488632

To learn more and connect with Iona visit her website https://www.ionaholloway.com/ via email info@ionaholloway.com and on Instagram @Ionaholloway and you can find her book Ghost - Why Perfect Women Shrink here

Stories of Inspiring Joy is a production of Seek The Joy Media and created by Sydney Weiss. To learn more and submit your story, click here.