Or How a Childhood Decision Kept Me Striving for Decades.

One thing I love about this work is that it never stops. No matter how much experience we have, there is always another insight waiting to be uncovered.

Recently, whilst recovering from burnout, I had a Time Line Therapy® session that helped me understand something that had been quietly driving me for decades. It started with a memory from when I was seven years old.

Growing up, we weren’t a family where you simply got given pocket money. If you wanted money, you earned it. I’m grateful for that lesson; it taught me responsibility, independence, and a fantastic work ethic. One day I wanted to earn some money, and my dad offered me £10 to paint the outside of the house. My dad may have been onto something. Why pay a professional when you have an enthusiastic child willing to work for ice cream and £10?

He got a freshly painted house, and I got a life lesson that lasted forty years. There are times I wonder whether he was teaching me responsibility or simply taking advantage of cheap labour, but to be fair, it was the 1970s.

What I remember most is how huge the task felt. This wasn’t a little fence panel; it was the extension of our five-bedroom detached house. To seven-year-old Samantha, it felt like an enormous mountain standing between her and her £10 note.

During the session, I realised that somewhere along the way I had made an unconscious decision: If I want something, I have to strive for it. Work harder. Push more. Keep going. Don’t stop until the job is done. The more I reflected on it, the more I realised this wasn’t really about painting a house. It was one of the first pieces of a much bigger story.

Around the same age, I watched my eldest brother build a successful career in sales. He had the sports cars, the smart suits, and all the things that looked exciting through the eyes of a young girl. I remember thinking: “One day I’ll be like that.” Without realising it, the same message kept being reinforced. Work hard. Achieve. Keep going.

Years later, I found myself working in sales, too. And here’s the thing: it didn’t feel like stress. It felt like excitement. Drive. Ambition. Momentum. A constant sense of moving towards the next thing. In many ways, it helped me achieve a lot, but it also contributed to my many burnouts. My husband often calls me the Tasmanian Devil and, if I’m honest, he’s not entirely wrong. Once I get going, it can be surprisingly difficult to stop.

It wasn’t until years later, when I travelled to India and began studying Raja Yoga, that I experienced another way of living. Through meditation, pranayama, and daily practice, I learned how to slow down.

How to observe. How to be present. Over time, my mind became quieter, and life felt less like a race and more like something to experience. The challenge came when I returned home.

It’s one thing to practice in a simpler environment. It’s another when you’re back in the UK, working, paying bills, juggling responsibilities and living in a culture that rewards speed and achievement. Although something profound had changed, some of the old patterns eventually found their way back in. Not as strongly as before, but they were still there.

During the recent Time Line Therapy® session, another piece of the puzzle became clear. The therapist invited me to look at the memory from a different perspective. Instead of seeing an enormous house that needed painting, I saw a seven-year-old girl desperately trying to get to the finish line. Working to earn her £10. Striving to get the job done. Aiming for the reward. And I realised something: she wasn’t enjoying any of it.

So I changed the experience. This time she stopped. She had an ice cream; she laughed; she enjoyed the sunshine; she enjoyed painting the house instead of rushing to finish it. And something shifted. Not because the event changed, but because the meaning changed. Now, whenever I catch myself falling back into old habits of striving and rushing, I remind myself:

Stop and enjoy the ice cream.

The work will still get done.

The goals will still be reached.

Life will keep moving forward.

But life isn’t waiting at the finish line; it’s happening while we’re painting the house.