My Journey

A Path Less Travelled

When I was at University in the 1980s stress and trauma started to take its toll on my life. At that time a dear friend introduced me to meditation and from then onwards I have had a daily meditation practice. When pregnant with my second child I added yoga to my self-care routine and went on to qualify as a teacher of both. I have an MSc from Bangor University in Mindfulness Approaches, (MBSR &MBCT) and several yoga diplomas.

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Yoga and meditation taught me how to steady myself and navigate the internal thunderstorms and floodgates of emotion. It wasn't until much later that I discovered why some areas of  my life were tumultuously difficult while simultaneously I was developing a successful business career, and becoming a capable mother.

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The autonomic nervous system has an impressive set of default actions to help humans survive trauma; at 50 I learnt that mine included the usual fight, flight and freeze (in spades) but also the capacity to disconnect or 'dissociate' and, for me, this included losing my memory of traumatic events in my childhood.

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My journey to understand myself, and these events, has included learning about and experiencing many approaches to therapy. In addition, I started studying trauma and abuse and completed my PhD in applied psychology in 2023.

I weave my learning through my work as a person centred therapist. 

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 I consider myself incredibly fortunate that meditation found me before some of the more self destructive supposedly 'helpful' things  took hold, teaching me grounding and steadying techniques . And that therapy helped me understand, and process parts of me that were causing me pain. Through the routes I learnt to integrate new ways of being.

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For me, building relationships of trust with the people I have worked and studied with, people with their own lived experience plus my therapists has been the key to my ever increasing well-being.

This has convinced me that it is within such a trust-relationship my clients can find the safe space they need to explore the things that trouble them the most.

I offer a space to listen to your inner tensions no matter what they are: sadness, shame, guilt, grief, anger and disgust (to name but a few of the bigger emotions) start to loosen their hold when they can be spoken out and heard in a compassionate way. Confusing events of life can be understood when they are explored together. Then the grip of difficulty which may have been holding you back can start to melt away.

Within such a relationship we can discover what makes your heart sing, what your true values are, and how to live in a way that honours them. 

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