I spent ten years as a psychotherapist working with clients navigating depression, anxiety, relationship difficulties, and addiction. I learned what it looks like when a nervous system has been running beyond its capacity for too long — and what it actually takes to change that.

Then I stepped into the corporate world. For over a decade I held senior leadership roles in global financial services — managing teams, building brands, navigating the pressure of high-stakes environments across multiple international markets. I understood the demands from the inside. The relentless pace, the expectation to always perform, the way the work slowly becomes your entire identity without you ever quite deciding that was what you wanted.

What I noticed — in myself and in the people around me — was that the skills that made us effective were the same ones making it impossible to stop. The drive, the standards, the ability to push through: all the things that built the career were also quietly dismantling the person.

SPIRA was built from that recognition. Not as a theory, but as a lived understanding of what high performers carry — and what it actually takes to put it down.