I came into this work nine years ago,
I was deeply depressed and chronically anxious, my entire experience was consumed by self-criticism, and I thought this was normal.
I also had cancer spreading through my body and a one-year-old daughter I was struggling to love. This seemed less normal.
When I realised with heaviness and a sort of relief that I did not want to survive, some part of me nudged me out of the the shame I felt and into a phone call with my lifelong friend and alternative practitioner Ian Watson.
And through his seeing me in my wholeness and the subsequent work I did with Ian and his colleague Carol Boroughs I experienced a massive shift in perspective. Which was all that was needed to have a completely different experience, and what I now facilitate in others.
And with my daughter, and I started living as me.
Paradoxically, despite the nature of my disease and the joy I had connect to I felt less need to control everything. I breezed through cancer treatments with little attachment to the outcome.
I believe this was instrumental in my recovery. That loving ourselves deeply and allowing ourselves to BE fully is the best thing we can do for our health.
I found I could give myself permission to live, to love, and to feel and not only would I survive my feelings, but I would thrive.
EVERYTHING changed -
I fell in love with life!
Images top to bottom - Radiotherapy for brain tumour, immunotherapy infusions, snowy Christmas on steroids