I’m a certified practitioner in a multitude of emotional, mental, physical and spiritual health and wellbeing modalities amassing thousands of in person classroom hours across the globe and countless in research.
I’ve been to more conferences, workshops, events, and ashrams than I can recall, and studied with and questioned some of the most prolific names on the planet. I’ve worked on cruise lines, and luxury hotels internationally, and owned a very successful studio in Lake Como Italy, serving The creme de la creme of Italian society including; athletes, footballer’s wives, surgeons, doctors, and high end fashion designers, to name a few - The Truth is life challenges don’t discriminate, and sometimes regardless of how much we think we know life has other plans..at least it did for me.
The world, and my path is as much my classroom as my professional training; The pain, beauty, trials, and triumphs; the people, cultures, and customs I meet along the way are my lessons and my muse.
I’ve loved and hated my life, I’ve lived it and almost lost it. I’ve endured more than my fair share of challenges, adversity, extreme trauma, and mental health; Faced death, violation, violence, tragic loss and much of it…and I’ve ultimately learned to live side by side with them. I’ve witnessed joy, beauty and healing….and I’ve been grateful for them.
It’s been incredibly liberating and empowering taking the ultimate level of responsibility for my life, regardless of what’s been thrown at me, from whom, and from where. I’ve gained so much in surviving those challenges, believing every experience from the profoundly painful, to the miraculously magical have helped me become the compassionate, curious, perceptive, candid, Way shower, Truth Sayer, and Helper I am today.
Whatever decision or challenge you are facing I hope I can help you find the light in the darkness.
Sometimes saying something out loud lets the world know WE count.
I’ve had an intimate relationship with Trauma my entire life. Although I was deeply loved by my family, I came out of the womb with PTSD and could go from zero to a gazillion in a millisecond. Turns out I was challenged by undiagnosed Autism/ADHD and a genetic component of BPD. My eldest brother of nine years was very sick, and equally as challenged as me; between the two of us my home was usually like an unintentional war zone.
After losing my father tragically at age 14 I seriously lost my way, at the same time I was still an undiagnosed Au/ADHD and BPD though I was privately diagnosed by a psychiatrist with Eating Disorder, and Obsessive Compulsive tendencies. While living abroad I was violently raped, assaulted and hospitalised with injuries. My brain did what was the best thing to do at that time...close down...later that would come back to haunt me with a passion.
I suffered with DP/DR, for years experiencing the most terrifying symptoms of being disconnected from the world on recurring occasions. Suffering from repeated nightmares, and flashbacks, I was gripped in psychological terror, but determined to fight and fit in I ‘dysfunctionally’ coped dreading the thought of anyone finding me out. I wore my mask well, living a global and successful life helping people connect to their truth….but as much as I was doing things to ‘find’ myself, I couldn’t connect to mine.
It doesn’t make us weak, damaged, failing, or incompetent, if we get it ‘wrong’ or we seem imperfect. It just means we are struggling in that moment. No-one is ‘less than.’ Remembering at any given moment it could happen to us, is what makes us human, and how we handle it is not always how we think, or hope. I’m humbled in that thought.
DEBS
Imy late twenties and early thritoes I endured three second trimester miscarriages. On the thried one I also sat with my eldest brother John as he slowly died in Intensive care. At the age of 38 he lost his fight from major organ failure due to septicaemia.
I was in therapy a few years but disillusioned I left, Turning back to my spiritual roots I became more involved with mysticism, positive thinking, and Law of Attraction Gurus. Unfortunately the reach for infinite potentialities or manifesting my deepest desires, were just a step too far - virtually impossible to achieve and eventually doing nothing but feed my already deep trauma shame. ‘I’m not good enough.’ ‘It must be me’ I thought.
I remained quiet determined to fit in, yet I didn’t even like the world I was trying to fit into…the spiritual world had become exclusive not empathetic ‘If you’re not awake or Vibing at our level we’re not engaging’ was the covert message.Torn inside unable to align the truth, and slowly worsening I was already starting to spiral out of control. I made a decision that would change the course of my life, and left my very successful studio in Italy - Fate is a powerful drug and it seemed the Universe was about to force my hand. I was going to deal with my trauma, and disorder once and for all. I just didn’t know it yet.
Going back to my hometown and intending to stay for just a few months, the next chain of events transpired that would determine a long seven years - Systemic inflammation from a chronically overworked nervous system left me with severe anaemia, and a severe skin disease lasting years. I had two dissociative seizures, dislocated my shoulder, smashed my coccyx unable to walk for two months ,and lost the use of my pelvic floor for around 6 long months. My mental health symptoms and unresolved trauma, had been internalizing, not gone. I went from 100k a year to zero, lost virtually all of my money, my work, confidence...
They say we all have a real breaking point and I finally met mine on a Sunday afternoon. Years of pain, masking, and mishandling had left me unable to think clearly, yet as I was about to end my life something else was equally invested in keeping me here. I must have lost around 6 hours because it it was now late afternoon and there I was in a bath clothed, with a knife on the floor.I was screaming down the phone having no recollection of picking up the phone or dealing a number. A psych would say i'd dissociated as and technically that would be true, but it doesn't take away from the fact I knew something had happened that day. Apparently some deeper part of me wasn't giving up on me... again.
Half an hour later the police and triage arrived, and eventually I was officially diagnosed. A few weeks later lying in bed I knew beyond any doubt I was not alone and I knew I was meant to stay on this plane. That day I believed I was touched with the hand of compassion and grace I could give so easily to others but could not give to myself. Something changed. Acknowledging my fear and the road to recovery ahead, I knew I wasn’t going to leap or positive think my way out of this but I'd been through enough to know I could do this so ‘I think I’ll start again.’ I said. And I did.
With intense work I gradually found an internal dialogue I could connect with as I started to re-learn how to live. Eventually I learned to gradually focus on the capacities I already possessed and the positives and possibilities of my Conditions. I began to trust and believe in the incredible life, perceptual and observational skills I’d mastered living an intense life. As I started to become more present and grounded within myself, I began to untangle myself from the masses and create an inner safety and stability I could rely on.
For all of my life I’d hidden so much of who I was, and the things that had been done to me for fear of being judged. I hid my diverse brain and pain until I didn’t know who I was anymore, and until I really didn’t want to be here anymore. Intuitively aware of how a label of mental health even innocently clouds judgment, I was afraid people would use the imperfect in me to cast a shadow on the beautiful, kind, compassionate, humorous, empathetic, creative, perceptive, intelligent, good, and yes ‘joyful’ I so easily and authentically was.
Don’t misunderstand. I make no excuses for my own behaviour, I know that it can't have always been easy being around me, so apart from what life threw at me, admitting my imperfections, connecting with my shadow side has proved one of the hardest tasks of all.
Many conditions are to this day highly misunderstood, misinterpreted and stigmatised, but I kind of ‘get it’ as much as I don’t like those stories - There are innate tendencies and knowings within humans and animals - It’s a Nervous System thing, so what people don’t understand or intuitively ‘recognise as similar’ they fear, and what people fear they either fight or turn away from - even unconsciously and (innocently). In the same way it’s an innate and primal need within us to be socially accepted. It’s a hard place to be when you’re stuck in the Netherland, and I know both of these discriminations.
What I’d longed for was for people to see me in my fullness as much as my sometimes brokenness, my wholeness as much as my wounds, my fear as much as my courage, my joy as much as the down times. Regardless of how completely fragmented I was I still needed people to see my strengths, amazing capacities, depth, wisdom and smile; Likewise, I needed people to really connect with me and witness the burden I carried, yet that compassion was hard to come by.
For those who knew me less they saw me as unsuccessful, struggling, broken, negative, erratic, confused, on a lower vibe, and lost. For those who knew me well, they saw me as joyful and courageous, therefore something that would pass in an instant, I realised how difficult it was for even the most gifted of people, therapists and healers to hold those opposing energies.
What I know to be true in my heart, is life is so much more than this set of rules and guidelines, called ‘functioning’ which we agree to from birth to death. It’s an endless web of knowledge, felt experience, essence, simplicity and love. What I also know is our humanness applies to even the most ‘spiritual’ of us, and what makes us sanely human and profoundly spiritual, is understanding the path is also much more than seeking some grand version of love, its about learning to meet humanity in our struggle, in our differences - coming together not turning away.
DEBS
I understood the countless healing sessions and therapies I’d had over the years weren’t necessarily ineffective, they were just ineffective for me - at that time - because they took out of context my internal and external environment; my support system - and they were unable to hold me in my totality.
In this, my commitment is to see you as all of you - To witness and recognize the pain, fear, wounds, and questions as much as the fullness, completeness, courage, wholeness, and answers that are equally there.
My life looks radically different to what I thought it would look like as a child, and I continue to grow, persist, hope, thrive, and seek the essence, ‘energetic aliveness’ and presence of the moment, and the ‘felt experience’ of life.I’ve learned sometimes you have to face the death of what you thought your life would look like to invite something more beautiful and brighter in. I have a new found love for my spiritual roots, bringing it alive in a much more grounded way, which I can equally bring into the work with my clients. I’ve found a sustainable way of living side by side with challenges, and still loving life simultaneously.
It’s been a long and humbling journey, and looking back I wonder if I could have done anything to change the timeline or course of my path, yet I essentially stayed so close and true to my journey, that I know there was a greater reason - I can see that now. I can see now how much more than my professional experience, it’s the experiential journey, sheer intensity of challenges, the success and the failures, and the innovations within them, which are the most transformative to the level of understanding, wisdom, intuition, presence, depth, and leadership I provide to my clients in their challenges and questions.
So here I am standing bravely, resilient and owning everything about me. No mask, no pretence, simply showing up in the moment and the felt sense of being alive and present.
My role is currently with private clients but I have huge aspirations to be part of business culture and speaking roles. I many have been the one hiding in the dark, but I was made for this and I'm not going anywhere -)
So this is me and my mission for this lifetime - The world allows us to connect wherever we are so may our paths cross so I can help you from foundation through transformation, as you become a life hopeful - living, loving, exploring, ‘resilience - ing,’ opening, embodying, and evolving…Your way…The way it’s supposed to be!