Hey, i’m thao!
I built a successful business called Don’t Tell Charles selling designer buttercream cakes and teaching people around the world how to make them.
Then, I had a baby and everything changed.
As life got busier - business, family, motherhood, identity crisis - I got really good at life optimisation. Efficient systems, reliable routines, productive schedules, 30 minute meals, etc. You name it, I got it.
But…
I became so focused on managing life that I stopped noticing what made me feel alive.
For a while, the efficient version of me looked impressive.
She was productive.
She was reliable.
She kept everything moving.
But she was tired.
Not just physically.
Soul tired.
Because when every part of your life becomes something to organise, fix, improve — you start relating to yourself like a project too.
Somewhere along the line,
I stopped treating my life like something to feel
and started treating it like something to solve.
Rest began to feel lazy.
Creative pursuits felt impractical.
Slowly, without even meaning to, I made my life so neat that there was no room left for the messiness that makes it real.
No room for art.
No room for music.
No room for doing something just because.
The truth is, I did not lose myself all at once.
I lost myself in tiny, acceptable ways.
In being responsible.
In being useful.
In being the one who could hold it all together.
I didn’t disappear in some dramatic way.
I just became a person who left no space for herself.
I’m on a quest to make space for myself again.
I want to create room for the parts of life that cannot be measured.
The slow parts.
The creative parts.
The honest parts.
The unfinished parts.
The parts that do not perform well, but feel like mine.
step into this with me
Letters from me
A handwritten letter from me arrives in your letterbox each month.
You sit down, a cuppa in your hand. You read my letter and for that moment, two humans connect in a real, authentic and magical way again. Perhaps, you see yourself in my words. Or perhaps, you gain a fresh perspective for your own journey in life.
events
You enter a room full of humans of different ages, backgrounds and professions but you know you belong. You eat, drink, watch, talk, laugh, cry and never feel alone again.
I’M SEARCHING FOR CONNECTION
If you have been feeling a little numb,
a little over-managed,
a little too polished to feel real,
maybe, your life does not need tighter control.
Maybe, it needs more room to breathe.
Maybe, you do too.
I am learning that connection does not come from getting everything right.
It comes from coming back to what is real,
to what is present,
to me.
With love,
a mum, a creative, a business owner, and a woman learning to stop managing life long enough to actually live it.
