FREE TO BE ME

Before you explore

Acknowledgement of Country

Sovereignty was never ceded. No treaty was ever signed. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waters on which this work is made, and that does not become less true with time, legislation or silence.

FREE 2B ME acknowledges Elders past, present and emerging. This body of work exists because systems cause harm when they ask people to become easier to accommodate. No community in this country has been asked to do that more often, or for longer, than First Nations peoples.

We hold that as a matter of practice, not sentiment.

FREE TO BE ME phoenix Tanya HicksFREE 2B ME Enquire

About Tanya

Meet Tanya Hicks

I spent years becoming easier for the world to hold.

  • More capable.
  • More accommodating.
  • More explainable.
  • More useful.
  • Less inconvenient.

Eventually I stopped organising my life around becoming more acceptable.

Tanya Hicks smiling, in a white shirt and sparkling tie, against a watercolour background

I started building what I could not find: places, practices and pathways where people could belong without becoming less of themselves.

As a late-identified AuDHD woman living with disability, chronic illness and trauma, and as a single mother of a transgender daughter, I know something about what happens when difference becomes a problem to manage.

I also know how much life can disappear when belonging depends on being easier to understand, easier to support, easier to employ, easier to parent, easier to treat, easier to accommodate.

That isn’t the whole story. I’m a mum. I played hockey for Australia Country. I write, dance and sing because I love it, and I love MCing because I get to help other people have their moment. I can speak on an international stage and still need help finding my way there.

Mindfulness and yoga taught me acceptance. Acceptance for all of me, not just the parts that are easy to show.

Being yourself isn’t only a personal decision. Relationships, workplaces, services, money and discrimination can all decide how much room a person has. So I build the conditions, not just the encouragement.

Tanya Hicks on acceptance · Empowering Women Expo, Sunshine Coast, 2026

Open the Acceptance story

Read the transcript

…and one of the beautiful things about mindfulness is acceptance. Acceptance. Acceptance for all of you.

So instead of trying to squash this little bit here that you don’t like, and you kick it and try and boot it out the door, accepting, getting the heart bigger, and accepting all of it. And that’s what I’ve been on a journey to do, and I’ve had an amazing team of different people that have helped me in doing that.

That became FREE 2B ME.

Less fixing. More living.

What I built from that

FREE 2B ME is not one program.
It is one promise expressed in different places.

  1. The Nest

    A place where therapeutic practice, shared interests, relationships, support and community life can exist together.

    A place where different participation still counts as participation.

    Visit The Nest

  2. The Practitioner Pathway

    Developing practitioners who can carry neuroaffirming practice with capability, humility and accountability into real work.

    Not just the language. The practice.

    Explore the Pathway

  3. Books and tools

    Language for recognising experience, understanding what matters and building support around a life that still belongs to the person.

    Explore the books

  4. Learning and organisational work

    Helping teams, services and organisations examine what their practice is asking people to carry, and what becomes possible when the conditions work differently.

    Explore organisational work
Tanya Hicks in her Australia Country hockey uniform, holding her stick on the field

Why this matters to me

I did not build this because I found a perfect model.

I built it because I became less interested in asking:

How do I become easier to manage?

and more interested in asking:

What would make more of this life possible without requiring me to become less of myself?

That question changed the direction of my work.

  • What I noticed.
  • What I built.
  • What I stopped accepting as inevitable.
  • What I wanted for my daughter.
  • And what I began to believe other people should be able to expect too.
My story is about turning lived experience into infrastructure so our daughters inherit more than encouragement. They inherit different possibilities.
Tanya Hicks leaping joyfully in a Paris street with the Eiffel Tower behind her

Not just: be yourself.

  • Places that leave room for it.
  • Practitioners who know how to support it.
  • Organisations that take responsibility for the conditions they create.
  • Communities where difference is not the price of entry.
  • Workplaces where contribution does not depend on disappearing inside the effort.
  • Books and tools that give people language before somebody else defines the experience for them.

That is the work.

Where I stand

Women’s inclusion includes trans women. Queer, non-binary, gender-diverse, intersex and questioning people belong across the wider FREE 2B ME work.

Belonging is not meaningful if some women have to negotiate their right to be there.

Experience & contribution

What I bring to it

  • MC and speakerHosting, keynotes, panels and workshops, with a love of helping other people have their moment.
  • Counselling and behaviour support practiceSpecialist Positive Behaviour Support Practitioner. Counsellor registered with the Australian Counselling Association at Level 2. Master of Counselling candidate. Ongoing supervision and professional accountability.
  • AuthorEight books. Two perspectives. Four begin with the person, four take a professional perspective, and each stands alone. Publication is forthcoming.
  • Practitioner developmentThe Practitioner Pathway, built around capability that can be observed, not attendance alone.
  • Organisational and systems workAccess, conditions, reasoning, implementation and what organisations make possible in ordinary practice.
  • FounderFREE 2B ME, and The Nest in Caloundra with Neurodivergent Empowered.

You were never the only thing that needed to change.

That belief still shapes the questions I ask now:

  1. What does this leave room for?
  2. Can the person remain themselves here?
  3. What becomes possible when belonging is not something they have to earn by becoming easier?

Those questions run through everything I build.

FREE 2B ME

Read the books Understand the Practice Speaking and media Work with Tanya

Less fixing. More living.