For a long time I believed I had to become someone else to finally arrive.
Self-leadership does not begin with more discipline.
It begins the moment your nervous system feels safe enough to be yourself.
I’m glad you’re here.
The fact that you are reading this tells me that a part of you recognised itself in me. Let me tell you my story.
My name is Pauline Pruggmayer –
For years I functioned on the outside – while inside I was searching for something no one could give me. I carried losses I had never processed. A tension that never fully eased.
And that quiet, constant feeling: It cannot go on like this.
I grew up in a family of doctors. In a home where achievement was a given – and weakness rarely had a place.
Even as a child I understood, without anyone ever having to say it out loud: whoever functions is seen. Whoever is strong is safe.
So I learned to be strong. To carry responsibility before I was old enough for it. To quiet my own needs so I could be loud for others.
And I was good at it. Really good. Maybe that is exactly what deceives the most:
From the outside it looked like strength. Inside it was a fine, constant holding of breath.
I built a life that looked free and beautiful – on the outside. A “successful business”. A relationship. The ability to work from anywhere in the world. A structure that functioned.
What no one saw back then: how I lost myself in a toxic relationship, betrayed myself so many times – and that my business and I were carried by something I could not yet fully understand: a survival identity that always had to keep going in order to feel safe.
I carried losses I had never truly grieved. I was in relationships in which I preferred to lose myself rather than risk closeness. I lived with dynamics that left me dissatisfied and unhappy. And above it all lay this quiet sentence I hardly ever spoke out loud:
So much achieved – and still never fully arrived.
For a long time I believed I just had to understand it all a little better. Reflect more. Be more disciplined. One more book, one more coach, one more answer.
And I did understand – where my patterns came from, why I reacted the way I did, what my story had done to me. But my body stayed tense.
Until at some point it made a decision I could no longer override. It stopped playing along.
It was not a dramatic breakdown in front of an audience. It was quieter. And precisely because of that, so clear. My body became loud where for years I had only listened to my head.
And for the first time I had no other choice but to listen.
Do you recognise yourself?
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In that time I grasped what carries my work today: understanding alone changes nothing at depth.
So much within us is steered by old experiences and patterns – often without us noticing. We believe we decide freely, while our nervous system has long been reacting in the old mode.
Real change only began where I stopped trying to optimise my mindset and started working with the biology of my nervous system. Not as a technique. As lived experience.
I learned to no longer overcome my body, but to listen to it – to take it for what it is: the most honest compass we have. Mindset and growth are part of it.
But they only truly carry when the body comes along – and above all, when the body is safe.
I don’t believe our imprints define us. I believe our relationship to them does.
I believe we can heal ourselves from within. And I believe that much of what we think belongs to us is changeable.
I believe real change does not come from pressure – but from safety. In the body. In relationship. In yourself.
The mind only takes us to a certain point – from there, the body may be heard and the emotions may be felt.
I feel very comfortable with you and truly understood. I now see my sensitivity as a strength — and much more consciously. I am ready to look at and let go of some themes.
Today I accompany women who are often very similar to me. Women who had to take on responsibility and be strong early on. Women who have achieved a lot and worked on themselves a lot. Therapy, coaching, trainings – they know their patterns, they can explain them. And still, a base tone of tension remains in the body.
What most of them have in common: they never truly allowed themselves to break down. Never allowed themselves to briefly not function. Never allowed themselves to be held, instead of holding everyone else.
That is exactly where my work begins. I hold the space in which your system is allowed to slow down. A space in which nothing has to be achieved. In which your body can begin to trust again – that joy, softness and success are not a danger, but your greatest power.
I don’t work with methods. I work with presence. With resonance – and the intelligence of your body.
Ready to understand the language of your body?
If you sense that your next level will not come from more knowledge, but from more somatic capacity – I look forward to meeting you.
Let’s talkWrite to me about what moves you – I read every message myself and answer personally.