Adviser uses breathwork to manage her health – and others' well-being too
When broker Katy Lehman co-founded her own mortgage business, with a turnover of tens of thousands of pounds a month, she should have been on top of the world. But behind the positive face that Lehman presented to her clients and colleagues, she was struggling hugely, and rapidly descending into burnout.
Lehman has been in the mortgage business for around 22 years and, by anyone’s standards, is successful. At the aged of 19, she secured an underwriter’s role that saw her travelling around Europe. Mortgage adviser roles followed with a number of firms and Lehman thrived on targets and pressure, always scoring highly.
All seemed to be going well until her co-owned brokerage was set up in 2019. Within eighteen months, Lehman was in a downward spiral. “I had a plan to grow it quite organically, and then Lockdown hit,” she said. “So there was no furlough for me. It was constant survival, then all of a sudden, with the Stamp Duty holiday, the property market obviously went boom, which was amazing.
“It should have been everything that I wanted - everything was coming to life. So, whilst the business was flying, and we were opening our office, and I was technically achieving all that I'd ever dreamed of, I honestly wasn't coping with it. I didn't have the tools. I didn't have boundaries for myself - everything was ‘business, business, business’. I was working until 2am, but actually feeling like I wasn’t getting much done. My health was really taking a nosedive - I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating, I was burnt out.”
Lehman believes that anyone looking at her social media posts at the time wouldn’t have realised how unwell she really was. “You wouldn't have had a clue,” she said. “When I look back at the pictures of me on the day that we opened the office, no one knew what was going on apart from my husband, and he didn't know what to do. There was an external mask, with an internal battle, that took its toll over time. I was getting quite forgetful and I think I my business partner knew that my memory was going. I was just in a constant, prolonged, heightened, chronic state of stress and feeling that inside I was burning. I wasn't listening to the signals.”
Hardest of all perhaps for Lehman, as a professional broker, was that she wasn’t giving her best to her clients. “I felt like I was dragging myself through cement and I was not being as present with them as I would normally be,” she said. “I was very passionate about being attentive with my clients - I really got to know them on a deep level, but I felt my empathy was slipping a little bit.”
Finally, things came to a head for the troubled broker. “I remember I was driving and the thought came into my head that it would just be so much easier if I wasn't here,” Lehman said. “It was like someone had run over me with a bus. It was the biggest red light. That's when I listened. I remember walking into my house and saying to my husband, ‘Something's got to stop now - it's spiralling.’ And that's when I started making changes.”
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Recovering from burnout
Key to her recovery, Lehman believes, was breathwork – which involves intentional breathing techniques focussed on channelling and controlling breath. These have been used for thousands of years in Eastern medicine, to promote relaxation and balance in the body. Those practising the techniques believe they can benefit their mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being, reducing stress and anxiety, while improving concentration and focus. Lehman embarked on breathwork, choosing it as an alternative to the antidepressants and a long NHS waiting list for counselling services, that her GP suggested.
Lehman views her introduction to breathwork as a lightbulb moment. “I did it and it was like, ‘Wow, okay’. I was coming back to myself,” she recalled. “It literally blew me away, and saved my life. I was like, ‘Oh my God, how the Hell can you like feel so differently just from breathing in a certain way?’”
Lehman has since become a trained breathwork practitioner and sold her 50% share in the brokerage but retains her client base, and is still practicing as an adviser. Much of her time now is committed to her new venture, KJF Lifestyle, of which she is director, working as a nervous system and embodiment coach. She is focused on helping mortgage professionals cope with the stresses and strains that working in the sector naturally brings.
How big an issue is broker stress in Lehman’s view? “I think it's potentially huge,” she said. “I help prevent people getting to the stage that I did, tipping into that point of burnout where it's really quite severe, health-wise, and actually helping people who have already tipped over with their recovery,” Lehman explained. “Looking after yourself in a way that's tangible and makes sense is ultimately the goal because there's so much pressure on all of us. Aside from being a mortgage adviser, in society itself, there's a lot going on. I'm very passionate about getting this work out there to brokers, to support them, to be able to grow or maintain their business in a way that they can enjoy.”
