A JOURNEY
From empty suit to authentic life.
How burnout and my journey of recovery reshaped my life and inspired me to support others on their journey
When you look fine on the outside, but experience emptiness inside
Perhaps you have built a professional career that looks successful from the outside, but on the inside you are wondering where the enjoyment, energy and life fulfilment has gone. Perhaps the outward persona you have created hides anxiety, chronic stress and something like burnout.
I’m Jeremy Tomlinson. I spent years in that very place myself. My years of disconnection, stress and striving to be what I believed I ought to be became burnout.
My journey from that dark place to authenticity, integrity and balance is the reason I now do this work.
Doing what seemed “right”, and losing myself in the process
Like many people of my generation, I chose my career less from inner conviction and more from conformity.
I trained as a chartered accountant, and my career took me into senior management and leadership roles across the health, legal and education sectors. I followed a path that seemed sensible, respectable and safe, shaped by external expectations and a desire to do the “right thing”. From early childhood, my compass was set for me, not by me.
Outwardly, I appeared calm, competent and in control. But internally, I was in turmoil.
Over time, the pressure of responsibility, combined with overthinking, perfectionism, workaholism and people-pleasing patterns, created a constant underlying strain. Each day seemed like a never-ending struggle to hold everything together.
Like many professionals, I became highly effective at appearing “fine”. But inside, emptiness and malaise invaded every aspect of my life. Caffeine consumption went through the roof. Sleep fractured. Concentration faltered. Functioning required more and more effort.
Burnout was not simply the mental exhaustion and fractured emotions resulting from working too hard. I experienced apathy, reduced self-confidence and detachment, along with a steady decline in productivity, competence and powers of judgment. Loss of self-esteem was accompanied by painful physical symptoms that became impossible to ignore.
In 2007/08, I reached my crisis point.
Burnout became my body’s alarm system: the wake-up call that saved my life.
Looking back now, I no longer see that period as a breakdown.
I see it as a rite of passage.
The twenty years since then have been a wonderful transformative experience of learning to live and developing my natural strengths and skills. I explored therapy, coaching and various transformative techniques and I began to understand the patterns that had shaped my life.
Gradually I discovered something I had never truly understood. An authentic life isn’t something we are given. It is something we can rediscover and reclaim.
That is what I now offer others.
Experience you can trust
I bring together professional experience, coaching expertise and lived experience.
Professional experience:
- chartered accountant
- former finance director
- senior leadership experience in the NHS, legal sector and independent education
Coaching expertise
- ICF-accredited transformative coach
- ICF-accredited somatic trauma-informed coach
- certified hypnotherapist
- NLP practitioner
- Insights Discovery practitioner
- Extensive experience as a practicing executive and career coach
My experience of professional life is not theoretical. I have lived and breathed the pressures of responsibility, leadership, performance and expectation from the inside, as well as what can happen when those pressures become unsustainable.
A different kind of space
My work with men is not about fixing, diagnosing or forcing emotional disclosure. It is about creating a calm, confidential and trauma-informed space where you no longer need to feel the pressure of performing strength all the time.
The space we create together is a place where:
- you can move at your own pace
- the nervous system matters as much as the intellect
- strength and vulnerability are not treated as opposites
This is not about losing who you are. It is about reclaiming yourself beneath the role you’ve been carrying.
What I believe about change
I don’t believe people need to be fixed.
I believe that many highly capable people have simply become disconnected from parts of themselves that have been suppressed, neglected or adapted away in order to meet the demands of life.
I believe meaningful change begins with understanding rather than judgement. That means creating enough safe space to become curious about what is happening beneath the surface, and honesty to recognise what is no longer working or sustaining.
My coaching is therefore:
Relational – because meaningful change happens in relationship.
Trauma-informed – because our past experiences can shape how we respond to pressure, relationships and ourselves.
Somatic – because the effects of past experiences can be held and expressed through the body and nervous system.
Transformative – because the aim is not simply to change what you do, but to understand what has shaped the way you live, rediscover what matters to you, and open up new possibilities for how you want to live.
Empowering – because meaningful change gives you the freedom to make choices that are truly your own, aligned with your values, integrity and the life you want to live.
I create the conditions in which you can understand what has shaped you, reconnect with yourself, transform what no longer serves you, and reclaim the freedom to choose how you want to live.
How I show up
Curious, not judgemental.
I seek to understand rather than assume.
Honest, without being harsh.
I will gently challenge you when something important needs to be seen.
Compassionate, without rescuing.
I support you while respecting your responsibility and agency.
Respectful of your pace.
You remain in charge of what you explore, when you explore it and where the journey takes you.
Working with leaders and schools
My professional career has included extensive senior financial, leadership and consultancy roles within independent education, and I continue to work with school leaders and independent schools.
Alongside my individual coaching work, I offer executive coaching for school leaders and support schools exploring more trauma-informed approaches to leadership, wellbeing and workplace culture.
A particular word to men experiencing burnout in silence
As a man who spent many years carrying distress privately behind competence and responsibility, I understand how difficult it can feel to acknowledge vulnerability without fearing loss of identity or respect.
If that resonates, you may wish to view Behind the mask: a message for men
for the pace of real change.
Based in the UK. Working online with clients internationally.