From business loss and burnout to NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer, Anne Unsworth is helping people understand themselves, change behaviours and step into the life they actually want.
There are some women who talk about transformation because it sounds good. And then there are women who have lived it, fought through it, rebuilt from it and now use everything they have learned to help other people do the same.
Anne Unsworth is very much the latter.
Today, Anne is an NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer, working with individuals, students and businesses to help people understand the way they think, communicate, behave and lead. But her journey into wellness did not begin in a glossy training room or behind a perfectly polished brand. It began in the middle of real life. The messy kind. The kind that tests your relationship, your resilience, your finances, your identity and your belief in what comes next.
And that is exactly what makes her story so powerful.
Before NLP became the work that lit her up, Anne and her husband Neil had another business together. In 2006, they opened a children’s indoor play centre, a family venture they had both wanted to bring to life. The business started well. It was successful, busy and full of promise.
Then the financial crash hit.
Like so many small businesses at that time, they were caught in something much bigger than them. The impact was brutal. Eventually, they had to close the business, and what followed was not just the loss of a company, but a huge financial burden that would shape the years that came next.
Anne says, looking back, bankruptcy may have been the easier route. But life is rarely that simple. There were family considerations, other people involved, young children to protect and a home to keep secure. So Anne did what so many women do when everyone else is depending on them. She carried on. She worked harder. She put her head down and made sure the bills were paid.
For years, life became a relentless routine of work, family and survival. Her two boys were heavily involved in gymnastics, training for hours every week, which meant Anne’s days were stretched to their limits. She would leave home early, work a long day, collect the boys from training, grab a small window of family time, sleep and start again.
It took its toll. The pressure affected Neil’s mental health, and it put strain on their marriage. But they got through it. They are still together, still moving forward, and Anne is honest about the fact that the tools she later learned through NLP played a huge part in helping her understand herself, communicate differently and support the relationship in a healthier way.
“A big part of the journey that we are still on together has been because of what I now know and what I have learned with NLP.”
Running became the outlet. NLP became the turning point.
During those difficult years, Anne found her outlet in running. It gave her space. It gave her release. It gave her somewhere to put the pressure that had built up inside her while she was busy being strong for everyone else.
But by 2018, she knew she needed something more. Life had been hard for a long time, and Anne found herself asking what else could help her move through it. Through a friend connected to her personal training, she was introduced to the idea of NLP – neuro-linguistic programming.
At that point, Anne had no idea what NLP was. What began as a conversation about whether it could help her personally quickly became something much bigger. She was fascinated by the psychology of the mind, by resilience, by mindset and by the way our internal language shapes the way we live.
In true Anne style, she did not just book a few sessions. She decided to train. Partly because she wanted to understand it deeply, and partly because, as a businesswoman, she could see the value in investing in something that could help her and potentially help others too.
In March 2020, she completed her Coach Practitioner course. She walked into the eight-day training programme in what still felt like a normal world. She came out into queues outside Aldi, empty shelves, uncertainty and the start of lockdown.
For some, that timing might have stopped everything. For Anne, it created space. No commuting. No rushing from place to place. Her sons were older by then, and she suddenly had more time to study. So she carried on. She completed her Master Practitioner training, and in 2021, while the world was still moving in and out of lockdown, she took two flights to Athens to become a trainer.
That tells you a lot about Anne. When something connects with her, she does not dabble. She commits.
“It changes you internally. It brings out the best of you and really brings to the fore what you are capable of doing.”
Anne now works with people who feel stuck. Stuck in a career. Stuck in a rut. Stuck in a version of life that no longer feels like theirs. Some know they want to do something different but have no idea what that looks like. Others are at the beginning of their working life, coming out of university and realising the path they are on may not be the right one.
Her work helps them get underneath the noise and look at their values, beliefs and patterns. What do they really want? What are they telling themselves? What behaviours are keeping them where they are? What opportunities have always been there, but they simply could not see before?
It is not about changing who a person is. Anne is clear on that. It is about changing behaviours, internal representations and the language people use with themselves. Because the way we speak to ourselves has a huge impact on what we believe we can do, what we attempt and what we quietly rule out before we have even begun.
For Anne, this work is not fluffy. It is practical, powerful and deeply human. It is about helping people become more congruent, more balanced and more energised because they are no longer fighting against themselves every day.
“When you are working towards the life you actually want, you feel congruent. You feel balanced. You have so much more energy.”
Taking NLP into business
Anne also brings NLP into the corporate world, and this is where her experience in leadership, communication and people management comes into its own.
She works with businesses through one-day and two-day workshops, as well as more in-depth training, helping teams understand how people communicate and how they like to receive information. In workplaces where misunderstandings, conflict, grievances and tension can quietly drain energy and productivity, Anne believes NLP gives people the tools to understand themselves and each other earlier, before situations escalate.
She has seen first-hand how powerful this can be. In one case, someone who had reached a difficult point in the workplace went on to complete NLP training and completely shifted how they showed up. Rather than losing a long-standing employee with years of knowledge, the business gained someone who became a valued go-to person again.
That is the kind of change Anne is interested in. Not surface-level team building. Not tick-box wellbeing. Real understanding. Real self-awareness. Real communication that changes the atmosphere in a room and the future of a person.
She also runs practitioner courses three times a year in Bolton, keeping public groups small, usually around eight to ten people, so the experience stays personal and meaningful. For someone at a crossroads, it could be the beginning of a completely new path, just as it was for Anne.
A woman practising what she teaches
What shines through when Anne speaks is that she is not teaching theory from a distance. She is living it.
At 55, while working full-time, building her own business, going through menopause and managing a very full life, Anne has set herself a new challenge: running her first marathon in Palma, Mallorca, on 18 October.
She has always been a runner, but for years she saw herself as a 10K runner, sometimes a half-marathon runner, but not a marathon runner. That old belief has now changed. She is training three days a week, spending two or three days a week in the gym and doing exactly what she encourages others to do: choosing what she wants and backing herself to do it.
There is also a deeper reason behind the run. Anne plans to raise awareness and funds in support of her dear friend Billy, who has recently been diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. It is another reminder that, for Anne, purpose and action are closely linked.
“I have a desire and a want to do the marathon because I have always said I wanted to do one. I can do this.”
The future looks bright
Anne is still in the transition stage, balancing full-time employment with the business she knows she wants to grow. Anyone who has built something alongside a demanding career will understand how hard that is. But listening to her, you get the very strong feeling that it is not a question of if she makes that leap. It is when.
Because this work matters to her. You can hear it in her voice. You can see it in the way she talks about the people she has helped, the teams she has supported and the lives that open up when someone finally understands that change is possible.
Anne’s story is one of resilience, reinvention and quiet determination. It is a story about surviving the hard years, learning from them and then using that experience to help others find their own way forward.
And that is exactly why she belongs in Women in Wellness. Because wellness is not only about green juices, retreats and perfectly curated calm. Sometimes wellness is rebuilding after loss. It is learning how your mind works. It is communicating better with the people you love. It is finding the courage to step out of survival mode and into possibility.
Anne Unsworth has done that for herself. Now she is helping others do it too.
Connect with Anne
Anne Unsworth is an NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer working with individuals, students and businesses across the North West and beyond.
