I won
- Feb 13
- 3 min read
By Lorien Byrne
Five years ago, if you had asked me what success looked like, I would’ve said winning new freelance clients, keeping everyone happy, pushing through the exhaustion. Earning just enough to survive another month, I was freelancing day and night as a single mom, juggling deadlines, school runs, and emotional overload.
From the outside, I looked capable. “Well done, Supermom, you’re so strong. You’re Winning.” On the inside, I was quietly unraveling. ADHD, anxiety, burnout, people-pleasing, and a nervous system permanently set to high alert. Surviving on caffeine, nicotine, cortisol, adrenalin and alcohol. I didn’t know how to say no.
I didn’t know how to rest. I didn’t know how to choose myself.
My whole identity was built on surviving, not living.
And then came the loss. My life became unmanageable.
Anxiety, defensiveness, addiction, burnout… it all caught up with me at once. I was exhausted from holding up a life that didn’t feel like mine anymore. I was trying to be everything for everyone. When the survival mechanisms I had been using for years stopped working. I had to surrender.
That breakdown, as painful as it was, became the doorway to everything I have today. What I didn’t realize then is that sometimes the collapse isn’t the rock bottom, it’s the beginning of a whole new reality.
Letting go of the ‘survival identity’ became my biggest win. I had to rebuild slowly, gently, and honestly. My healing wasn’t glamorous. It looked like therapy, AA meetings, reading about healthy boundaries, learning how my hormones and ADHD influenced my behaviour, and letting myself rest without guilt for the first time in my adult life.
Over time, I started showing up differently. Clearer. Calmer. More rooted. Breathing deeper.
And with that shift came a new definition of success.
Today, success looks like steadiness. It looks like a regulated nervous system. It looks like choosing peace over performing. Curiosity over defensiveness. It looks like working in a way that’s aligned with my health, not against it. It looks like building a business that allows me to thrive instead of merely cope.
I now run my own freelance video editing company partner with global brands, and the part closest to my heart, I founded Grounded Wellness. A women’s health and mindset community created from everything I learned in my own healing.
Grounded Wellness is for the woman who’s been holding everything together for so long she’s forgotten what she needs. It’s for the woman who’s overwhelmed, burnt out, hormonal, overstimulated, and tired of pretending she’s fine. It’s for the woman who wants to feel steady again. Things look the same from the outside, but inside she’s screaming.
Through simple practices, supplements, tools, emotional education, and community, I help women reclaim calm, confidence, and clarity. I show them what I wish someone had shown me earlier: you are allowed to slow down, to regulate, to rest, to have boundaries. You are allowed to be a whole person, not just a strong one.
That is the modern win I’m committed to spreading. A success story where women don’t have to break themselves to build a life they’re proud of. We can say no without shame or guilt.
My biggest mission now is helping other women win too. They don’t have to hustle their way to worthiness. Winning is being steady. Winning is choosing yourself. Winning is living a life you don’t need to numb your way through.
And that is a victory worth building a legacy on.
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