Meet Mary Nel
I help women find their way back to themselves.
I'm a life coach, NLP and CBT practitioner, and author based in Cape Town, South Africa. I work with midlife women who have done everything right and still feel like something essential is missing, and I help them find it, the wabi-sabi way.
Mary Nel is the founder of The Wabi-Sabi Life Coach and supports purpose-driven women navigating midlife transitions, identity shifts, overthinking and quiet burnout.
“Wabi-sabi isn't about brokenness being beautiful. It's about the cracks being where the light, and the honest story, comes through.”
Three lenses. One clear picture.
My practice draws on three evidence-based frameworks, each chosen because of what it does for you, not because of how it sounds on paper.
Together they create a coaching space that is both warm and rigorous: a place where you can be honest about where you are, build the tools to move, and trust that the direction you find is genuinely yours.
NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming
Helps you interrupt the patterns you've been running on autopilot, and choose ones that actually serve you.
CBT, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Gives you a method for naming the stories you tell yourself, testing them against evidence, and writing kinder, truer ones.
Mindfulness
Returns you to your body and the present moment, where real decisions are made and real change begins.
Qualified to go deep
NLP Practitioner
Neuro-Linguistic Programming
CBT Practitioner
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (Burns method)
Mindfulness Facilitator
Mindfulness-Based practices
Author
Mary Nel Unleashes, Amazon best-seller
I didn't plan to learn this the hard way.
I spent years building a career in IT, software testing, mostly, armed with big, audacious goals and the kind of certainty that convinces you you've got it all figured out. And for a while, I did: a career, a life, a version of "success" I'd worked hard for.
Then came 2008. The housing market crashed, and I lost the things I'd built that career around, the financial foundation I thought was permanent, the identity that came with it. I didn't handle it gracefully. But in what was left, I found something I hadn't expected: the realisation that a much smaller, much more honest life could still be a good one.
That's when wabi-sabi found me, not as a design trend, but as a way of making sense of imperfection, impermanence, and starting again without a five-year plan. I trained in NLP and hypnotherapy, then went further: a Diploma in Modern Applied Psychology, CBT, Life Coaching and Counselling. I wanted tools, not just a new mindset.
I live in Cape Town with my husband, Hylton, who has heard every version of this story and still laughs at the parts that are supposed to be funny. I coach women in midlife because I know exactly what it is to lose the version of yourself you built so carefully, and to find, underneath it, someone more honest.
“I don't coach from theory. I coach from having rebuilt more than once, and found the rebuilding more honest than the original plan ever was.”
Beyond the coaching room
- After two continents, four countries and seven cities, Cape Town is the one that finally stuck.
- I found NLP through a Tony Robbins box set left next to a bin in the late '90s. Best piece of "rubbish" I never took out.
- I'm a lifelong reader who's become an audiobook convert, my Kindle still has more books wearing the "new" badge than I'll admit to.
- K-dramas are a legitimate form of self-care. I will not be taking questions on this.
- Sticky chicken wings fix most problems. My husband Hylton, my favourite human, wholeheartedly agrees.
- I've traded my "IT chick" status for a Diploma in Modern Applied Psychology, CBT, NLP, Life Coaching and Counselling, but I still speak fluent software-tester.
Ready to find out where you are?
The Clarity Compass takes three minutes and tells you exactly which crossroads you're standing at, and the first wabi-sabi step through it.
Questions
Mary Nel is the founder of The Wabi-Sabi Life Coach. She's an NLP practitioner, CBT practitioner and mindfulness facilitator based in Cape Town, South Africa, who helps midlife women navigate transitions, self-trust, burnout and life direction.
Warm, direct and practical. Mary blends Wabi-Sabi philosophy with NLP, CBT-informed reflection and mindfulness, tools drawn from a Diploma in Modern Applied Psychology, not just personal opinion.
Mary rebuilt her own life after the 2008 financial crash cost her the career and identity she'd spent years building. She works with women in midlife because she knows first-hand what it takes to start again without a five-year plan.
No. Coaching is not therapy, diagnosis or mental health treatment. It's forward-focused support for reflection, clarity, self-trust and action. If you need clinical mental health support, Mary will point you toward an appropriate professional.