Introduction
- Ingrid Bayer
- Dec 29, 2025
- 5 min read
Standing in the Storm
“The storm doesn’t always ask permission.
It just arrives and waits to see who you’ll become.”
Ingrid Bayer
I’m a child of the sixties, born in Bankstown, a working-class suburb in Sydney’s west. Mum was just twenty, fresh from Bathurst Teachers College, and Dad was twenty-three, about to start his career as a Qantas flight steward. It was a glamorous job in those days.
For the first three years of my life, we lived in a converted one-bedroom garage behind my grandparents’ place in Bass Hill. Mum and Dad were determined to save for their first home, and eventually they did it. Our new brick house in Mount Colah felt like a palace compared to that tiny garage. By then I had one little brother, another soon to follow, and Mum finally had a proper house to raise us in.
Growing up in the 60s and 70s in Australia was a different world altogether. We spent our days outdoors, roaming the bush that backed onto our quarter acre block, building cubbies, catching tadpoles, and riding our pushbikes through stormwater drains without a care in the world. I was fascinated by fairies and elves, convinced they lived under rocks and tree roots (of course, it never occurred to me that snakes and spiders might too.) Life was simple, unfiltered, and delightfully messy.
We had a black-and-white TV with only a couple of channels, but no one cared. Life happened outside. And looking back, I think that’s where resilience started - in the dirt and the scraped knees. If something went wrong, you didn’t wallow or look for someone to blame. You just dusted yourself off and got on with it.
That kind of stoicism wasn’t taught; it was part of our ether… and it definitely stuck with me. That early conditioning built the foundation for strength, endurance, and self-reliance - lessons that would become essential in the storms that I would face in the future… and the truth is that storms are inevitable.
When I look back over the chapters of my life, I can see so clearly that every major turning point began with a storm I didn’t choose but had to survive. And as much as I hated those moments at the time, each one carried a strange gift: the invitation to begin again.
The Gathering Storm Clouds
The thing about storms is that they don’t consult your schedule before they land. They don’t check whether you’re emotionally prepared. They arrive abruptly and unapologetically, tearing through the structures you’ve built and leaving you staring at the debris wondering, “What now?”
One of my fiercest storms arrived in the form of workplace bullying. Subtle at first, then sharp, then brutal. It eroded my confidence grain by grain until I barely recognised the woman I’d become. It dragged me into a darkness I’d never experienced before, one that terrified me.
But it also handed me the keys to my next chapter… and as devastating as it was, it became the catalyst for everything that followed. Because in the rubble, a tiny voice inside me whispered, “Enough.”
And that was the moment I knew I had to reinvent myself.
One night, after yet another workplace bullying incident, I began searching for a way out. I stumbled across something new and almost unheard of working from home as a self-employed Virtual Assistant. It sounded radical, maybe even reckless. But it also felt like a lifeline. I started small, dabbling after hours while still employed full-time. Within three months, I had enough work to allow me to walk out of that law firm for good and launch my own business.
It wasn’t easy. There were long nights, steep learning curves, and moments of sheer panic. But there was also freedom. Purpose. Life. I felt like I could breathe again.
Leaving that toxic workplace didn’t just change my life. It set off a ripple effect I could never have predicted. I rebuilt my confidence. I reclaimed my voice. I rediscovered my strength.
Between 2008 and 2017, I’d built a thriving home-based admin business. But something deeper was calling me. I wanted to create a place where women could learn, launch, and grow their own home-based business with guidance instead of guesswork. That’s the reason VA Institute was born.
It wasn’t just a business. It was a movement… a lifeline for women who, like me, needed a fresh start - a place to redefine their career, a place to rise.
The Storm Within
Not every storm arrives from the outside. Some build quietly inside us.
My next storm arrived disguised as burnout.
Launched in 2017, VA Institute became a roaring success but running a national business - while being exhilarating and meaningful - equated to having a workload that was absolutely relentless. I ignored the signs, pushed through the exhaustion and told myself I’d rest later.
That was until June 2025 when my body stepped in.
First it was surgery and a skin graft for skin cancer. Then, only a few weeks later, emergency spinal surgery after a disc shattered into fragments. With no warning, my once healthy back had literally broken under the weight of my life. The result was instant… I couldn’t move, couldn’t work and definitely couldn’t pretend anymore. Stopping wasn’t optional. It was enforced.
For the workaholic I’d become, rest felt foreign - almost insulting. But in that stillness, I discovered something unexpected: clarity. Beneath all the noise and ‘busyness’, a truth emerged. This wasn’t the end; it was the reckoning before the rebirth.
The Eye of the Storm
Storms strip you back. They peel away your titles, your roles, your carefully curated identity. They leave you standing in the raw truth of who you are without the armour.
It’s uncomfortable and confronting. But it’s also sacred.
Because when there’s nothing left to hide behind, you finally get to meet yourself all over again.
And in the harsh light of my new reality, I didn’t have answers. I didn’t have a 90 day sprint up my sleeve, or even a one-year plan. I only knew one thing: I couldn’t go back.
That was the moment my old life cracked open, allowing space for something new.
This, I later learned, is what Carl Jung was talking about.
Not a crisis, but a shift.
Not the end, but the beginning.
Not falling apart but being rearranged for something more aligned.
Midlife storms don’t just dismantle us. They uncover us.
If you’re here, reading this, chances are you’ve survived storms of your own. Some loud. Some quiet. Some still healing. You’ve carried people, responsibilities, heartbreaks and hopes, and somewhere along the way, you lost pieces of yourself while holding everything else together.
This book is about picking up those pieces… not to rebuild who you were before… but to rise into who you are now.
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