Shaynna Blaze reveals how she took time out to reset ahead of Selling Houses Australia return

When Shaynna Blaze’s second marriage of 18 years had ended in betrayal, the broken-hearted TV star threw herself into work — until she had to make a brutal decision.

You can’t tell by the brightness of her sparkling green eyes, or the slick of red lipstick amping up an ear-to-ear smile.

There’s a hint in her trim waist or toned, sun-kissed arms but it’s when you take a closer look at Shaynna Blaze’s work diary that a portrait of a very different woman emerges.

This time last year, The Block and Selling Houses Australia favourite was living and working on pure adrenaline – overcomitted, overwrought and over it.

From her personal life to her professional direction, the 56-year-old interior designer found herself “in a hole” and all she could think about was staying there.

Her second marriage of 18 years had ended in betrayal, with a broken-hearted Blaze throwing herself into work – on the road constantly, working on four TV shows (including Nine’s Buying Blind and Foxtel’s Deadline Design) as well as a private design business which took her interstate and around the world.

It was her body which told her to stop.

“I was probably running on empty for two years before it hit me but when everything collides – personally, financially – your health is the first thing that will really pull you down,” she tells TV Guide/Watch.

“I couldn’t actually stop … I was on that rat wheel for a long time. But it was this time last year when I was really forced to take a step back and say not to a lot of things, simply because I just had to.”

Shaynna Blaze was running on empty before she stopped overworking. Picture: Supplied

Floored by high-grade inflammation “that collects disease,” Blaze admits her life and health were out of whack.

But anyone who knows TV’s energiser bunny will tell you, you can’t keep this good woman down for too long.

Making the hard decision to scale back her design business (“I used to have eight staff, now I have one”) and focus on the essential self-care many women neglect, she prioritised her health and the world started to return to colour again.

Ironically, a TV show would be part of her saving grace – finding a kindred spirit in Oprah Winfrey’s spiritual guide, Brene Brown, whose Netflix special Call To Courage dropped just when Blaze needed it most.

“It just came at just the right time for me, but it seems it’s come at the right time for others … it’s just that sort of thing.”

The inspirational lecture by the TedX wunderkind and social research professor examines “how bravery can arise from engaging with our deepest vulnerabilities.”

For Blaze, it was permission to exhale.

“You reach a point you think you’re never going to hit and sometimes it’s okay to just sit there and go ‘I can’t get out of this hole I’m in for a while but I can reach out to people when it gets too bad to pull me out of this swamp.’”

For a woman who has all the design answers, “with Brene Brown, I learned to do things ina different way. It was a start … hopefully it takes you down a new path and teaches you a different way [of life] … at least it was for me, and that’s great.”

An essential part of redesigning her life has been working alongside her adult children, Carly Anne and Jesse Keneally to produce a film on domestic violence they hope will make real social change.

TV star Shaynna Blaze. Picture: Supplied

“I was MC-ing a candlelight vigil a few years ago and had written a speech about domestic violence. It was for Safe Steps, which is one of the first port of calls for women fleeing. At the end, they had a roll call of all the women and children that had died [to DV] that year and it really affected my kids. I was a single mother and anything that’s in that realm … you’re so protective of your kids.”

While Blaze says she was never a direct victim, she is quick to add: “there are lots of people I know who have been through it. It’s just a collective of stories and what they’ve been through that makes you want to stand up. By everybody being silent, and not knowing what to say, it’s allowed people to keep doing those sort of things. It now becomes a personal responsibility.”

Acting as executive producer for The Fort, Blaze explains the thriller “is about family violence, the coping mechanisms families use to escape violence, and the cycles of abuse that, if unchecked, can scar a family for generations.”

Watching her children pour their heart and soul into the project for the best part of two years has filled their mother with pride.

“Oh Holly, I have my heart in my throat so many times, watching what they do. To see them grow as creative people and humanitarians … see them as adults who produce stuff that’s going to make change in the world, well, I’ve done my job.”

* Selling Houses Australia, 8.30pm, Wednesday, Foxtel Lifestyle.

Originally published as Shaynna Blaze reveals how she took time out to reset ahead of Selling Houses Australia return