From Empty Suit to Authentic Life

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.

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.

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.

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.

Along the way, I’ve become fascinated by the relationship between psychology, philosophy and the way we actually live. This has led me to explore philosophical traditions such as Taoism. One idea that has particularly influenced me is the Taoist principle of wu wei – my preferred translation being “effortless effort”. It has profoundly shaped the way I think about stress and striving, inspiring a more natural and harmonious way of living.

I’m also endlessly curious about psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy. I enjoy exploring the different theories and ideas they offer, using them to deepen my own understanding, reflection and personal growth, and drawing on relevant insights and learnings where they can enhance my coaching practice.

And then there is life beyond all of that. I have a broad and active interest in travel, music, walking, yoga and, perhaps my most quirky indulgence, model railways!

Life is for living, after all.

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.

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 read:

If something in this story feels familiar, you’re welcome to arrange a private conversation. There is no expectation beyond an initial discussion.

Based in the UK. Working online with clients internationally.