My story so far…

I wrote this initially for the About page on my website and realised it was far too long! 

I wanted to share my story though, as I went through a lot of challenges a few years ago that a lot of people are going through now, transitioning from a corporate life in ‘the matrix’ towards something much more spirit-centred. It also just feels really good to write it down and offer it to the world in some way, like I don’t have to carry it any more now it’s somewhere in cyberspace.  

I hope my adventures along my soul journey will be resonate with your own soul in whichever way can serve you best.  

My life (In a nutshell…)

Growing up

I grew up in the Netherlands and then Scotland, exploring the world with an adventurous spirit and strong imagination. I found yoga in my teens, attending a very traditional Sivananda yoga class held by a tiny eighty-year-old Scottish lady in my local college gym long before even Madonna made yoga fashionable. Back then it was still pretty weird and also wonderful, and it opened up a lifelong love affair with spiritual practice. 

At eighteen, I moved to London to study Philosophy and Economics at the London School of Economics, full of a thirst for finding meaning and understanding, but also heavily aware of the rigours of the modern capitalist system, and determined to succeed in the world, having been one of the less affluent students at a fancy boarding school. 

Having graduated, I met my first long term partner, who was older and had a lot of financial freedom, and we commenced a golden few years of travelling the world, sailing our yacht around the Balearic Islands, attending parties, eating wonderful food and enjoying our lovely homes and friends in London and Barcelona. It was a glorious time in many ways but I equally was slowly being crushed as I was lost in it all. Lost to myself. I needed to be me, with my own money and career and friends.

Corporate Life

I returned to London just in time for the economic rollercoaster of the credit crunch. In the midst of it, I somehow started an eight year career in corporate London, not really sure what to do, bouncing abound various marketing agencies and roles, basically whoever would employ me, until I was headhunted by Microsoft to work in their media team as a Program Manager. I wasn’t convinced it would suit me but for a while it actually was quite fun travelling around the world to various offices and working on such a high-profile platform. 

As time went on though, I increasingly felt the weight of how much I was like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. Everything about how I approach things seemed alien there. I was strung out, living an unhealthy lifestyle, completely out of touch with my real needs…the usual story. I needed to leave. I simultaneouly started having visions of sitting on mountains meditating, and reconnected with my yoga practice. Almost out of nowhere, I bitten by the spirtual and wellness bug that would consume most of my waking and sleeping hours to this day.

Teaching

I don’t know how I managed to work so hard at that time but I was intent. I still had a full time job but before long, I was trained in yoga and mindfulness (as well as a Personal Trainer, Pilates Instructor, Holistic Health Coach, NLP Practitioner and probably a few other things I’ve forgotten!). I was terrified to quit my well-paying job and all these certifications were also a comfort blanket for me. Eventually though, I worked up the courage and plunged into the abyss of self-employment. 

At first I sank. The few yoga classes I’d lined up fell through, and I had a huge personal crisis as my next boyfriend of already five years fell into near-suicidal depression and we went through a break up. My attachment to him was out of so much of my own wounding it hit me really hard. What’s more, I was going through what’s being called in some circles as an ‘eco-awakening’ - the intense emotional reckoning that can happen when you fully register the devestation of our natural world and reorientate your identify towards a wider sense of Self. I managed to cobble together some classes in those early months but in between them I was a disaster, often sitting in my car in tears between classes or just numbing out watching Netflix and drinking wine.

After a while, though, I turned it around. Soon, my calendar was full, I’d cried the tears, sobered up, and I was thriving as a popular modern yoga and mindfulness teacher around London, finding myself in wonderful studios, members clubs, companies, festivals, hotels, as well as working with a whole host of private clients. Over the next six years I reached a lot of people and shared my enthusiasm for these practices with love. I trained in sound healing, continued to deepen my own practice through many trainings and retreats, and I became really strong. 

Meanwhile I channeled my climate grief into activism. I attended one of the first ever meetings of a group called Extinction Rebellion, and we went on to have an important impact in terms of raising awareness of these issues. It was all going great! And then…

Wandering

Covid hit. My work dried up overnight so I quickly adapted and created an online wellness platform called As We Live and Breathe, through which a friend and I began running online meditation, yoga and other wellness classes and events online. It was a good little business all things considered and we were beginning to build traction with corporate clients as well. But the Universe had other plans for me.

I started feeling these very palpable ‘zaps’ of energy that felt like they were coming from the sky and hitting my crown. At the same time I met my Mentor for the next few years, who was trained in the depth psychologist Bill Plotkin’s work around Soul Initiation. This prompted me to do a ‘Vision Quest’ - a five day solo fast in the wilderness. This was a powerful pivot time for me, and it catalysed the next phase of my journey. During those surreal credit crunch days, it felt even more like I was tumbling down the rabbit hole as I was called into the psychospiritual ‘Underworld’ of deep transformation. 

For me, this rite of passage took the form of buying a van I could live in and fit as much of my stuff as possible (including my precious gongs and singing bowls!). It also involved not having a clue where I was going from day to day, building my relationship and trust in my own inner guidance. It was far, far out of my comfort zone, and it was a magical adventure, and I found myself having incredible experiences travelling around the UK from Devon to the Scottish Highlands and Islands. I’ll save the details for another time, but eventually, after a couple of years of travelling, I ended up being guided to go to Brazil by a tribal Ayahuasca shaman who I met in Wales. 

Peru

After a few more colourful zigs and zags, I found myself in the Andes of Peru. Spirit stepping in once again, I was sychronistically guided to work with a shaman, spiritual teacher and magician, who was actually from London of all places, and who works with Ayahuasca in an non-traditional way. Informed by nondual tantra, we were working with esoteric yogic practices and deities such as Kali, Shiva, Ganesha, as well as deities from other traditions (or rather, those aspects of our own consciousness that take those ‘forms’). 

It was powerful work, and for two years I hungrily attended every class, retreat and ceremony, grateful and inspired to be given access to these potent technologies. Through him and his teacher, I learned magick and Daoist arts, healing techniques and secret tantric practices. I received countless empowerments and I found my energy system beginning to transform, as Kundalini started to rise within me and all my channels and chakras started to open up. It was a wild time, both intensely powerful and really wonderful, almost like a dream. 

Until it wasn’t, and the dream turned into more of a nightmare. The interpersonal dynamics at that Centre unearthed all my own deepest wounds. Yes I suppose it served my greater healing, but in a brutal way, and I found myself being swallowed up by covert power dynamics and repressed psychological shadow aspects to the point where I was a total wreck. I had virtually no self esteem left, no personal power, and was carrying a lot of psychic garbage and toxicity from doing ‘medicine work’ in a place where psychological shadow work was not being handled consciously. 

A big initiation for me was fighting my way out of that, and slowly, after a year and a half of intense healing through deep meditation, self-inquiry and work with various healers, plants and other modalities, I was finally back on my feet. Not the same. But wiser for sure.  

Back on the move

As my connection with Spirit has developed my life has taken on more of a cocreative nature with divine guidance. This means my decisions often may seem to make no sense, as the spiritual guidance can be mysterious and in it’s own timing.

I’d been desperate to leave Peru, but something was holding me back, making sure I faced all the darkness and karma around the whole situation before I could move on. But by February 2025, I finally received the green light, and was called to go to Indonesia on a kind of mysterious spiritual mission.

So I arrived in Yogyakarta, Java not knowing anyone but having a Facebook contact of someone who knew some spiritual Masters out in Java, which seemed to be aligned with my new focus. I based myself in that vibrant city and learned Indonesian, and trained with some of the mystics there. Then I travelled through Java and Bali, following guidance to connect with sacred sites and nature spots and carry out rituals, much as I’d done in my van days several years before. Bali welcomed me with such open, loving arms I instantly felt peaceful here. 

New beginnings

I’m feeling a new stage of life opening up now, where I’m ready to once again being called share my passion for healing and wellbeing more widely. I am much wiser now, more psychically open, and have cultivated access to tremendous healing power. These are the fruits of all the challenges and adventures. I’d be honoured to share them with you!