From Empty Suit to Authentic Life

There comes a point in many professional lives — often in mid-life — when achievement no longer brings meaning.

You may have done everything that was expected of you:

• Built a respected career
• Carried responsibility reliably
• Become known as capable, steady, and dependable

And yet, something essential feels absent.

What once motivated you now drains you.
What once felt purposeful now feels hollow.
The role continues — but you feel increasingly removed from the person living it.

This is what I call the Empty Suit experience.

Not a failure.
Not a lack of resilience.
But the moment when a life built on duty and conformity begins to ask for truth.

Many professionals come to this work believing they are simply burnt out.

But burnout is rarely just about workload.

It is often the cumulative effect of:

• Long-term emotional suppression
• Early conditioning around responsibility and approval
• Perfectionism and people-pleasing
• Living in constant “shoulds” rather than inner consent
• A nervous system that has been in survival mode for years

Over time, this creates fragmentation:

• A highly competent professional self
• And a neglected inner self carrying fear, exhaustion, or emptiness

Empty Suit Coaching addresses this at the root, not the surface.

You may recognise yourself in some of the following:

• You feel respected at work but disconnected from yourself
• You experience chronic stress, anxiety, or exhaustion that rest no longer resolves
• You struggle with imposter syndrome despite clear competence
• You over-function, over-think, or over-care — and feel resentful or depleted
• You feel emotionally flat, numb, or quietly despairing
• You sense that continuing as you are is no longer sustainable

If so, this is not a personal weakness.

It is often the cost of a life lived in adaptation rather than alignment.

Empty Suit Coaching is:

• Trauma-informed, without being clinical
• Somatic, recognising the body as central to change
• Transformative, rather than problem-solving
• Relational, grounded in safety and trust
• Paced, respecting your nervous system and readiness

It is not:

• Productivity or optimisation coaching
• Advice-giving or motivational pressure
• Crisis intervention or psychiatric treatment

This work supports deep re-alignment — not quick fixes.

Our work together may include:

Somatic Stabilisation
Helping your nervous system settle out of chronic alert so you can think, feel, and choose with greater clarity.

Parts-Based Exploration
Understanding the inner parts that drive perfectionism, over-responsibility, or emotional withdrawal — not to remove them, but to bring them into balance.

Trauma-Aware Reflection
Exploring how earlier experiences continue to shape present behaviours, without re-traumatisation.

Identity & Meaning
Reconnecting with values, agency, and a sense of inner truth beneath professional roles.

Integration
So that change is sustainable, embodied, and lived — not just understood.

This is work that unfolds over time, with care.

I bring three things into this work:

• First-hand experience of senior professional life, chronic stress, burnout, and identity collapse
• Extensive training in transformative and somatic trauma-informed approaches
• A grounded, steady presence shaped by my own long-term integration

I understand the professional world — particularly education — and I understand what it costs to live disconnected from yourself within it.

You will not be rushed.
You will not be judged.
You will not be analysed from a distance.

• A professional in education (or an aligned sector)
• Externally competent but internally struggling
• Curious about how earlier experiences shape your present life
• Ready for deeper change, not surface solutions
• Willing to engage honestly and steadily

It may not be right for you if you are:

• Seeking immediate productivity or career strategy
• Looking for quick reassurance without inner change
• Currently in an acute mental health crisis requiring clinical care

If you’re unsure, that uncertainty itself is welcome in a first conversation.

I’m Jeremy Tomlinson.

I spent many years as a Chartered Accountant and Finance Director in complex professional organisations, including independent schools.

From the outside, I looked successful.
Inside, I was deeply unwell.

Decades of perfectionism, emotional suppression and chronic stress led to burnout that nearly cost me my life in 2007/08.

That collapse became my turning point.

Through my own long journey of therapy, coaching and trauma-informed work, I learned to understand the deeper patterns that had shaped my life — and how to unwind them safely.

Today, I work with professionals who recognise themselves in that story and are ready to live with greater honesty, vitality and self-respect.

My approach is relational, trauma-informed, and grounded in real senior professional and education-sector experience.

I bring together:

• Somatic trauma-informed coaching
  Working with the nervous system to gently unwind chronic stress, anxiety and old survival patterns.
• Transformative coaching & parts-based work
  Helping you understand — rather than fight — the inner strategies that once kept you safe but now keep you stuck.
• Executive and education-sector insight
  I understand the cultures, pressures and unspoken expectations of senior professional life, particularly in schools and universities.

This work is not about fixing you.
It’s about restoring wholeness.

This may be right for you if you are:

• a senior professional in education, whether academia, finance, legal or business management
• competent, conscientious and inwardly exhausted
• questioning the life you’ve built — quietly, and often alone
• open to deep, whole-person change rather than quick solutions

It may not be right if you are looking for:

• performance coaching alone
• rapid behavioural hacks
• someone to tell you what decision to make

You can begin with a private, confidential 30-minute discovery conversation.

This is not a commitment.
It’s an opportunity to speak honestly, be listened to, and explore whether this work feels right for you.

(No pressure. Just space to speak honestly.)

Based in the UK. Working online with clients internationally.