HOW DID I GET HERE?
1999 – Graduated with a 2:1 Psychology/Biology Degree and went on to train as a Secondary School Teacher.
2000 – I qualified with a PGCE and started teaching in an inner city school in Liverpool, England. I realised pretty quickly that my passion and interest was in the emotional and psychological well-being of the teens I worked with, rather than in the Science I was teaching them. This became a key focus of my career for many years as I took on various pastoral leadership roles supporting young people, teachers and parents with their emotional and psychological well-being.
2005 – I was feeling pretty disillusioned with life in the UK and wanted to do something brave and courageous so I quit my teaching job to go travelling in South America. It changed everything for me and challenged me in many VERY memorable ways. By the end of my trip I had decided to go back to University to do a Postgraduate Degree and train as a Counsellor & Psychotherapist.
2006 – Began an intense three year stretch of Counselling and Psychotherapy training in the Person Centred Approach. It required me to undergo many hours of personal and group therapy, thousands of words of essay writing, reading and research and hundreds of hours volunteering as a trainee counsellor at various charities in the UK.
2009 – I knew I wanted to bring together my teaching experience and my newfound love and passion for Counselling and Psychotherapy and so I did both. I worked as a Counsellor with the NHS (National Health Service in the UK) and I taught on an Integrative Counselling Degree Programme supporting trainee counsellors in Skills Training and Personal Development.
I was loving my professional life but at the same time was still feeling the need to get out and explore the world….
2011 – I took a job setting up a Counselling Department at an International Boarding School in Malaysia and I found the perfect balance…travelling and exploring the world AND doing the counselling work that I loved. I continued along this trajectory for 9 years working as a Counsellor in a number of International Schools throughout Asia and the Middle East.
2019 – Everything began to shift around me. I found myself becoming increasingly irritated by ‘school politics’ and I was beginning to hate going to work. With reflection I recognised that I wanted to work at a deeper therapeutic level with people and so honouring my intuition I took the plunge and left my job working for others and started my private practice in Vietnam, which began thriving almost immediately.
2020 – The massive shifts happening for me continued as I faced coming to terms with my infertility and the end of my marriage. At this time I knew I needed to further heal the limiting beliefs and the blocks and patterns within me that were causing me to suffer and that were preventing me from living in an openhearted and authentic way. And so I made a commitment to myself and fully embraced my own healing journey, slowing down my life so that I could mindfully invest in my own process and transformation. I shifted away from trying to manage ‘my issues’ in order to feel ‘good enough’ to mindfully, compassionately and lovingly being with myself whilst I processed what my being was experiencing.
Fast forward to 2024 and my private therapy practice is still thriving, though mostly online these days AND I am now thriving within myself. I know, love, support and understand myself so deeply that I am able to be in the world as my most authentic, intuitive, loving and compassionate self.