Chance Marshall

As a therapist, I've done thousands of hours with clients. The secret to good mental health? Easy pal. Just follow this simple checklist:

Have a good birth. No stress. A secure attachment to a mother who did yoga through the third trimester.

Have a happy childhood. No trauma. Not even a little bit. No divorces, no death, no dads with anger issues. Just Montessori.

Surround yourself with loving, emotionally intelligent friends, family, and a partner who goes to therapy and does inner child work.

Find fulfilling work. But not too much. But also be ambitious. Earn lots. Don’t chase money. But do be financially secure. Have a side hustle. And a pension. And a passion project.

Set manageable goals.
Smash them. Be humble.

Sleep 8 hours. But only after reading fiction. No blue light. No screens. Unless it’s a meditation app. Or the Calm sleep story narrated by Idris Elba. Eat a balanced diet. Paleo-vegan-Mediterranean. No gluten, no sugar, no dairy, unless it’s raw. Ideally harvested by monks.

Gym four times a week.
Lift heavy. Do Hyrox.

Then run a marathon for your inner child.

Cold plunge. Sauna. Alternate until you question everything. Bonus if it’s in a Scandinavian hut.

Slap yourself with nettles. On purpose. It’s ancient. It’s healing. It’s £95 on ClassPass.

Take magnesium, valerian root, ashwagandha, vitamin D, and three things you can't pronounce but your podcast recommends.

Track your glucose, your heart rate, your soul.

Limit ya doom scrolls. But grow your brand. Be authentic. Curate vulnerability. Post your nervous system regulation routine in under 60 seconds.

Go to therapy. Not just talk therapy: IFS, EMDR, somatic, psychedelic-assisted, trauma-informed, attachment-focused. Weekly. Fortnightly. Daily.

Start a Substack. Call it “Soft Power“ or “The Inner Work Dispatch.“ Charge £6 a month for reflections on shadow integration and oatie flatties.

And if none of this helps: try tapping. Or a new notebook. Or Bali.

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Like, share, give me something to feel enough.
Comment, invite me to your engagement pod.

I’m logging off the socials today after this little post, it’s just too bloody painful. If you too are in the Dead Mum Club, I’m thinking of you. And sending you love.

Alive or dead, connected or estranged: the mother-child relationship is one of the most powerfully bound-up relationships we experience as humans. It's rarely straightforward.

It’s a bittersweet one for me. But there’s a cup of joy for every taste of sorrow.

And Mim (my wife, I know, I’m f*cking punchin’) brings more joy than anyone or anything. Becoming parents together and watching her mother, has been proper reparative.

The tight hugs at drop-off, the grape-cutting, the wrestling, the fort building, the floor is lava, kisses on grazed knees, the beans that she heats up only cool back down to room temperature, the kitchen discos, bedtime stories:

She does them with love.
She is home to our boys.

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P.s. companies, treat the mums in your orgs better.

Don’t just do posts on Mother’s Day. Give them flexibility. Respect their boundaries. Promote them. Pay them properly. Make space for their grief, their growth, their whole selves.

Being a mum isn’t a soft skill, it’s a masterclass in leadership, logistics, and love. And it deserves more.

Be kind to yourselves ❤️

Six years ago, we opened the world's first on-demand mental health service on the high street. Therapy, in person, 7 days a week.

Sitting in that old converted stable in Shoreditch, a little ramshackle paradise with an outside toilet, we never imagined reaching the tens of thousands of people we reach today.

Profitable since year one, we self-funded Self Space until earlier this year.

It got to a point where our ambition and drive to reach more people outweighed the monies we had in the bank. We chatted with three potential investors, and Redrice Ventures were clearly the best partner for us.

It wasn't their incredible portfolio of investments that swayed us, but their genuine belief in our mission, trust in us — and a willingness to back a therapist-led business, an underdog in a market filled with tech-bros and tech-driven solutions.

So, what does the investment mean? Well:

• We've got an incredible leadership team to guide us through this next phase of growth.

• We open our 4th London site next month at Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross.

• A much more seamless and intuitive booking system. Therapy within 1 hour, in person or online.

• This October, we'll launch our digital platform that will allow us to support and engage with our B2B and B2C communities. They'll access live, human-led events, meet like-minded others and learn from shit-hot, evidence-based content.

• Next year, we'll open five more sites. Four small therapy spaces in London Boroughs (think Walthamstow, Peckham) and a 3,000 Sq Ft 'Self Space School': a home for all things mental maintenance. Group therapy, workshops, talks, off-sites, and large-scale events.

• More wide-scale, national and international mental health training programmes for businesses. We've signed some incredible household names this month (big up sales team! More on these soon).

I could go on, but this is getting lengthy now.

In short: more sites, more reteats, more therapists, more services, more access. More people having a good conversation with a qualified person.

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A massive thank you to each and every one of you for your support. Every share, comment and booking. Every friend or business you tell about us. Every word of encouragement: it all means the world.

Drop me a line if you want to find out more, or get access to this for your people.

#mentalhealth #startup #fundingjourney