My Journey of Heart and Soul Living

Living a Heart and Soul led life is not straight forward and definitely not always full of the joys of Spring! It can be really hard work. Living Spiritually is a collective experience for us humans, with Divine Lifeforce at the root of everything. But at the same time living it is a completely unique and individual experience. You can learn from others, journey with them, but the path you walk is your own. No one will know better than you or be able to do it for you. We have to be our own guiding light.

As a Spiritual Human I have found the deeper you go, the more the challenges you face that don’t make logical sense, are so subtle, hard to get hold of and can be easily missed. As well, the tools and beliefs that you think you have finally found that make you, You, that you have worked so hard to develop up to this point and would have got you through anything, can be stripped completely from you! You can find yourself in places that feel like you’re right back at the beginning; isolated, lost and really uncertain again, no matter how many years you have dedicated to Self-Awareness and Purpose.

Walking a real Heart and Soul led path takes continual openness with courage, vulnerability, conscious awareness, wisdom and real trust and faith in yourself.

What you do get though, a million-fold, is the most expansive, deepest, attuned and aligned learning and growth, giving you such an inner sense of Integrity, wholeness, peace, presence and contentment. You experience magical and mystical levels of yourself and Spirit beyond words and experiences beyond space and time.

Walking this path has been my life’s meaning and purpose in itself and of which I am eternally grateful, humbled, inspired, privileged and in awe.

And so, my story I’m sharing is long! You might want to get yourself a cup of tea and somewhere comfy to sit if you want to read it.

I have always been a deeply intuitive soul, naturally an Empath and Seer. I easily relate with people and their stories, able to see through to underlying core issues and the healing needed.

I am very much at peace in the natural world and continually fascinated and in awe of Consciousness, Spirit and who we truly are.

I have worked hard to be where I am now and feel so blessed to be living my calling, able to facilitate Self-Transformation and help empower, inspire and align people in living their unique Soul Journeys and potentials.

My own life path to Awakening was challenging. Now, I am able to see how it was all part of the grander vision and scheme, all supporting my healing, growth and development; my wounds being the catalyst and medicine for discovering my True Self and walking the path I do now.

We need to realise that the Universe is always with us, guiding and supporting and giving us whatever we need for our highest good. Without these challenges, I would never have searched so deeply for who I am and would never have had the ability to hold the depths and darkness I have with so many people. I would then never have been my whole Self or found my true calling. And so, for this all, I am truly grateful. This thing called Life really is profound and full of magic; in the essence of Roald Dahl “… if you know where to look …”.

Growing up in the ‘70’s with all its “etiquette”, I was very much detached from my Truth and Soul Nature. I lived in a very much 2:4 life up until around age 9 and following on from my parents’ divorce and the wider family dissolving, in order to cope with the fallout, shame and loss, unconsciously, I disconnected from myself. Misunderstood, I was seen as a “drama queen” as well as too much and not enough. I felt broken, “less-than” and a “black sheep”. What I know now is that I was an “old soul” and actually probably came into this family to necessitate healing.

My parents were withdrawn, managing the split and our lives. This was also a time of keeping up necessary “facades” and so, unknowingly I adhered to and lived how I thought I should. I didn’t know then but I was also carrying deeply ingrained unconscious ancestral and karmic wounds that began acting out through my teens and into my twenties. I had no idea who I was, no sense of self-worth or direction and had a constant visceral nagging fear in the pit of my stomach, that kept me alert, on edge and in fight/flight. At times I hated myself and often yearned to “go home”. I didn’t understand and didn’t like the world and how it worked. It felt difficult and cold.

At 24, I had the opportunity to go travelling. One of the most amazing times of my life. And, as the plane lifted off from Heathrow, bound for India, I noticed a tightness around my chest loosen and waves of anxiety and dread floated away. I could breathe. I hadn’t even known this was there. This was my first real taste of a sense of “Me”, the rest was buried deep under many, many layers, which would then take me decades to fully uncover.

My trip away was cut short somewhere in Australia and I came back to England, nearly two years later, to say goodbye to one of the dearest people I had known. My friend had taken his life aged just 18 and somehow his Mum had stepped in for all us teens. Her and I became very close, with me visiting pretty much daily until I went away. She restored me and cultivated in me love. I managed to get to the hospital as soon as I landed and the next morning she was gone. Some said she waited for me.

Still with no direction and now filled with deep grief, something so familiar to me and a sense of an identity even, I sought counselling. It was something I’d not previously been unaware of and was very much seen as taboo in my family. This was on top of the grief not properly experienced from my family separation and for my friend, as well as two other friends who had died, one that same year and one when I was 15. Bless their hearts. I think at that time it was just all too incomprehensible. It took me 10 years to get over the guilt that my friend took his life, I had been late picking him up from work. Had I been sooner, he may still have been here. I know now that is not true. I was just 18. I often think of the many friends and loved ones that have passed, especially all the beautiful souls who have died too young.

Learning about death and loss from an early age enforced in me to never take life for granted. To always tell people how much you love and value them. To take risks and make the most of life. It taught me to not be afraid of the dark and to be able to delve to the depths (so that you can then also reach the highs).

And so, counselling, at age 27, was to be a very necessary and crucial step to take and I didn’t know then that it was the beginning of my search for Self.

Trying to find belonging and roots internally and externally, I settled in Watford, Hertfordshire, in 1998. I ended up living there for 18 years. Though for many years I still felt displaced, I loved it there and made many friends, acquaintances and work connections, many of whom I am still connected with now.

It really wasn’t until I moved to Devon, with my daughter, in 2020, that I finally felt like I had actually found a physical place I felt like I belonged and could call home. Even now there are stirrings to find a home abroad too. Spain or Portugal are calling. I have visions of mediterranean days and evenings, surrounded by nature and the locals, sipping wine or tea, chatting and laughing, living life and writing my books!

So back to England, late nineties and I was introduced to a lovely lady who shared spiritual healing and meditation groups. I was in Heaven. This was food for my soul and started my fascination with consciousness. This lady then connected me with my next teacher and guide, an amazing Transpersonal Psychotherapist who took me under her wing. I worked with her for 6 years and had never felt so seen and cared for. She saw the potential in me and went over and above to help me grow.

One evening, in 2001, sat at a friend’s house chatting I suddenly realised I wanted to do the work my therapist did. It came out of the blue, now what I know to be a “download, from my Higher Self and Spirit, but then, I just knew, immediately, the penny dropped, it was what I had unconsciously been searching for. Looking back it is easy to see how these meetings all linked up and guided my way.

I fell into Financial Services work after my A Levels, working as a PA for various companies. Brilliant at my job, but so unfulfilled and nowhere near my potential, which, at that time, was still completely latent.

A week after the “download” experience, the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education (CCPE), based in Little Venice, London, had an open day and I attended. Walking through the big wooden doors of this beautiful Georgian mansion and into the energy of the Sufis and Transpersonal, I felt I had come Home.

I started their Foundation Course in January 2002, in the Fundamentals of Counselling and Psychotherapy, gobbling up all the learning! Surrounded by like-minded peers, tutors, gifted therapists, supervisors and mentors. All with the same desire to support and encourage people in their healing and growth. I was in my element. I was eager, committed, devoted, so grateful for this new path that resonated so deeply.

I qualified at the end of that year for their 4 Year Diploma in Transpersonal Psychotherapy. This was like being in a magical sweet shop, full of wonders and curiosities all about who we are and going beyond our ordinary awareness. The teachings were full of creativity, imagination, the Soul, Consciousness. Learning about amazing Pioneers of therapies and philosophies, working alongside with Nature, Dreams and Source, all deeply grounded in the psychological development of the human psyche.

We were taught how to truly listen and hold space for a person, how and when to support and facilitate so that they were seen, heard, valued and empowered for real healing to happen. I was blessed to have amazing placements working with Age Concern, The Peace Hospice and Bereavement Counselling, later on Place2Be for young children and Signpost for teens and young people. All of which formed the foundation of the work I do with people today.

All the while my own very wounded Ego was deeply healing and transforming. I was finding my Truth, my voice, my passion, my wisdom, my Higher Self, my Soul Nature, my Essence and for the first time ever, my connection with the Divine.

I worked diligently day and night to complete the requirements necessary and grow and learn in myself. I had finally found my calling and path. The teachings I seemed to recognise viscerally somewhere deep inside, though I couldn’t explain it, nor was I able to communicate it, but they spoke to me and awakened something in my Soul. It has taken me many, many years to understand this ancient inner knowing and wisdom and be able to translate, communicate and use its wisdom.

I learned quickly that you gained the most from this training by working on yourself too, to be able to really appreciate, learn, internalise and deepen in the knowledge, process and wisdom.

During the day I still worked full time as a Personal Assistant, the skills from which (and the friends I made) still an integral part of my life now running my own business!

Evenings and weekends I worked on my Diploma and with clients. As I worked through my Third Year Diploma, there was an opportunity to take a Masters and specialise in Child, Adolescent and Family Psychotherapy. I was clever, but not the most academically gifted and so it was my heart, integrity and conscientiousness that was my driving force and led the way to me achieving this accolade.

I transitioned to their Two-Year Masters training, affiliated with De Montfort University, in 2005 and began studying to become a Child Psychotherapist. The workload and learning was huge with written assignments and the in-person course, the practice itself, as well as placements, supervision, client work and the required book reading and study necessary to understand, integrate and be able to practice this art.

In 2006, I had gone to working part-time in the Finance Industry, with the gap significantly widening with the work that I was doing in my “day job” and the study, training and clients I was working with outside. It was hard to hold both. Something that has stayed with me from then was a Senior Manager telling me I was “too honest for this job”. I knew then, I could not straddle or hold both worlds any more, that kind of work place was not for me. I didn’t “fit” anymore. I had changed as a person.

So, while my friends were settling down, getting married, buying houses and on track for promotions, I was renting a room in a house and investing thousands of pounds and hours into my training and potential future Self and Career. I can remember a time in my room in the dark, feeling really alone, fearful and doubting. I couldn’t go back and I didn’t know where I was headed. I listened to the rain outside which made me feel part of something bigger and I felt held.

In October 2006, I finally handed in my notice at work and went fully Self Employed. I had £60 in my business bank account, credit cards at the ready, a ton of study to get through and a new business to build. I was 35, still based in Watford, elated, terrified and had a very long road ahead of me. But I had started! I had finally flown the nest. I was walking my own path, my own way.

People ask me how I built my business, which did become extremely successful and I am blessed and privileged to have helped a lot of people. I respond, saying, that it took about 10 years of continual determination, networking, telling everyone what I did, with great gusto and passion and working all the hours I had. I gave and still give this work my all.

In fact, really, I live and breathe this stuff. It is my joy. I have found and followed so many amazing people, teachers, guides and mentors along the way. Those that just share their journey, experience, courage and vulnerabilities, including my amazing clients, peers, colleagues, friends. They have all inspired, guided and taught me so much. Those souls who are on the path of awakening too, sharing groundbreaking discoveries about our lived experience and who we truly are as multidimensional beings, having physical, earthly existence.

In February 2007, I moved out of the shared accommodation and rented a small maisonette, still in Watford. My business was still very young and my studying was full on with upcoming dissertations, exams, vivas and hundreds of necessary client hours. At one point I was paying for my rent each month with cheques from my credit card. There were only so many hours I could work and my studies took up the rest.

I finally graduated in 2008 with a Diploma and Masters as a Child, Adolescent and Family Psychotherapist. I felt very proud. It had been a long, transformational journey of which I had stayed the course. I think, not so long after, out of my year group, there was only myself and one other that were still working in this field. And I was the only one self-employed with a full time private practice.

I was completely hooked into the Transpersonal, Transcendental and Spirituality and read as much as I could. I had books galore and loved every one of them! I took up varied trainings, learnt Reiki, attended all sorts of CPD experiences, all of which expanded and deepened my ability in myself and, therefore, as a Therapist too. From the off, I knew I wanted to share anything I discovered in the field of self-transformation with my clients, so that we all grew.

The realities of working for yourself were starting to hit home once I no longer had the distraction of studying. Initially, people don’t come flooding to your door and sometimes there are more lean times work wise. I learnt over the years to ride it all out. Not focus on the ups and downs, just in the ride and journey itself. It was 2008 and I knew I had to get another source of paid income to support my growing seedling of a practice.

I actually don’t know to this day how I found Hartbeeps, but it was to be the most amazing, wonderful 3 years of my working life. Hartbeeps provided multisensory music workshops, groups, for parents and their babies and small children up to 3 years old. It was all about magical, sensory development. I was taught and encouraged to run my own classes.

I worked at a local Café in Watford called Cha Cha Cha and got to know the staff really well. I loved it there. I used their back room and would set it up with cushioned mats, coloured fabrics, magical lights, scented sprays of essential oils. The floor was covered in soft toys, musical instruments and dress up. The music was crafted by Sarah, the business owner, an amazingly creative lady and we would have themed sessions weekly. Singing, dancing, movement, role play and then at the end, the lights would go off and the room would be filled with bubbles and feathers as we sang lullabies.

It was 3 years filled with love, joy and so much healing. I was in my element. I loved those sessions and the people that came. I am still connected with some people and the children are now turning 18!

I was able to work this alongside my growing psychotherapy practice. I think in the end I had about 35 sessions each week!

In 2010, the greatest gift of my life arrived, my daughter. In unforeseen circumstances, I ended up splitting from her Dad and managing the pregnancy and parenting on my own, as well as being self-employed. I am not going to lie, I really struggled at times. It was really hard being a single parent. Though I had lovely friends and sometimes family dipped in, I was often on my own. I had 3 months maternity leave and then worked 2 days a week until my daughter went to school.

For about eighteen months I had to go on benefits to support my income. I was really grateful for this supplement. I stopped benefits when my daughter went to preschool and focused again on building up my business. It was a huge gap to bridge but I was determined and persevered. My Child Psychotherapy training, my own therapy and work supervision really supported me during this time.

At 39, my intention and focus was to be the best mother I could and focus on my own healing, transformation and development. This now included Transgenerational Inheritance and all the childhood trauma that having a baby and becoming a parent can bring up.

In 2014 my Dad passed away and due to the difficult relationship we had, I felt then that I could actually now spread my wings. I designed a new website for my business, put my fees up for the first time since finishing training and felt the value and worth of who I am. This was the start of really flourishing and believing in myself and as a Therapist and my work grew, attracting the loveliest clients.

My daughter and I stayed in that one-bedroom maisonette in Watford, until she was nearly 6. I used to see clients in the lounge at home and then also rented rooms in Bushey as my practice built. It was a very snug existence, but it worked and I was so grateful that everything was working out.

By 2015, we had outgrown Watford and I knew that I wanted us to be somewhere more in nature. The next move came out of the blue again and we were drawn to Tring. It was the best of both worlds. I earned enough for us to rent a home there with 2 bedrooms, it was in nature and I was able to keep my growing Hertfordshire-based practice. By now I was working 4-5 days a week and was beginning to have “word of mouth” clients. A real sustenance for any small business. From Tring, I was able to drop my daughter to school and commute to the rooms I was renting in Bushey for work. We stayed in Tring for 4 years and I ended up having clients there as well.

Around 2017 I wanted to find somewhere we really belonged. My work was going from strength to strength. A local school had contacted me and I was working there with a few clients. I had a waiting list and was doing amazing work with parents, children and adults.

I was starting to earn enough money to get a mortgage and so with every opportunity, my daughter and I would go on little trips around the UK, with the intention of seeing if we liked a place enough to live there.

In 2017 too, I started a Shamanic Energy Medicine training with a wonderful teacher, Cissi Williams. Again, like with CCPE, I was in my element. I loved this training, so deeply grounded and somatic and yet so ethereal and miraculous. I trained again through until the Masters stage and came away having learned Shamanic Healing, Soul Retrieval, NLP and Spiritual Soul Coaching. This was a deep immersive experience, shared with amazing like-minded individuals, all on our unique journeys. We spent many weekends at the beautiful Charney Manor in Oxford; a cooking-pot of the dark and light, traversing the medicine wheel, learning, healing, breaking and transforming. I finished my training in 2019, totally inspired and transformed again.

The Shamanic training all dovetailed with my Transpersonal Psychotherapeutic training, which was and is the foundation of all my work. My toolkit and abilities were expanding, interlinking with my personal development and natural Empathic and Intuitive sense, I was really honing my craft as a Therapist and Healer in my own way.

I can remember early on at CCPE, we were taught to learn from the teachings, but to take what spoke to us and leave the rest, all the while, the purpose was for us to tap into and develop our own unique style and way of working. All theories learnt, are just that, someone else’s theory. There is no one right way. We too are all unique individuals on our unique Soul journeys and will all bring something different to the table. We will all see things from our own unique perception and perspective.

I was starting to understand a deeper calling in me. That this was my purpose, to help people really find theirs. Not only finding who they are, but my niche was Soul incarnation and embodiment. Helping people fully inhabit their Soul Nature and from there help them find the path they want to walk, that best suits them in this lifetime.

All of the trainings, CPDs, passions, teachings and natural inner flourishing was weaving together inside of me and outwardly my work was transforming too as I became more and more true to myself.

In March 2019, looking at a friend’s photo on Facebook, of her dogs on a beach in Devon, my heart skipped a beat and I knew my daughter and I needed to go on another road trip. My Grandma had lived in Somerset but we had never really ventured into Devon or Cornwall. I booked little holiday in a caravan park in Looe, Cornwall in May 2019 and we went for the week to explore the surrounding area and meet up with our friends who lived nearby in Ivybridge, Devon.

As soon as we drove over the Devon boarder, my body tingled all over. I knew we were meant to be there. We spent the week driving around, going to the beach and hanging out with our lovely friends. I was hooked. Devon it was going to be. We spent the next few months driving up and down at the weekend, visiting different places in South Hams and finally settled on Plympton on the outskirts of Plymouth. I felt again like I had come home and now in a physical place to put down roots and belong.

Covid hit late in 2019 and early 2020. I had been working towards ending with my clients, giving them a year’s notice that we would be moving to Devon by around August 2020. I was nervous as I knew I would have to start from scratch in Devon and build up my business again and maybe get a job in the meantime. All of this I was prepared to do because I knew the move to Devon was right.

Due to Covid, the majority of my clients went online and from then I decided not to work face-to-face any more. By the time we found our home in September 2020 and moved to Devon in December, I still had a bustling practice full of all of my lovely clients and was still able to have my word-of-mouth referrals too. The Universe had really looked after us.

I did have to start again in Plymouth, but soon got up and running and for a couple of years I still loved the Psychotherapeutic Family work I was doing. In myself I was still expanding my own development and in 2022 I was recommended by a client to have a Psychic Consultation with a person at the College of Psychic Studies in London. I did and the person suggested I might enjoy and be good at the Psychic Mediumship training they offered, to enhance the intuitive abilities I already had.

As well as in person, the course was online and so in January 2023 I joined their Foundation Level and a new path began. Two years later I am still attending this training, now in the Professional group, where we develop our abilities with the subtle frequencies and resonances we encounter.

I did wonder in the beginning what this training was about for me, but as time has gone on, I have realised how much I have refined and developed in my communication with Spirit and my Guides, now having a more clear and direct access. I think this work still has a lot to show and teach me.

In 2024 I realised I wanted to focus purely on my Spiritual work, helping people incarnate, align in their Soul Nature, embody their potentials and walk their life-purpose path. Though I loved the Child and Family work, I had outgrown it and was being called, pulled again, to more the things I love and are my passion. And so, I stopped advertising as a Child Psychotherapist and changed my website again to reflect everything about the Soul Work I do.

Alongside, I also chose to relinquish my registration with UKCP, the regulatory body I had been with since graduating. Highly revered within the therapeutic community, it is not often the “done thing” to leave. It has a status with it, is aspirational and even mandatory now. But, for me, it no longer served a purpose. It felt restrictive and false, like ticking boxes, rather than a support and expression of showcasing my work.

The saying is when the student is really ready, there is no teacher! This is now my time to fully practice what I preach and walk my talk! I am reminded of The Hermit in the Tarot as he holds his lantern ahead of him, following his own light.

It does take a lot of courage and vulnerability to be in your raw truth and to follow the nudges, signs and opportunities of The Universe, especially when you are in the unknown and unsure of where you are headed. It also takes a lot of courage and faith to let go of a very successful practice, recognised by the mainstream, that has supported my daughter and I to live our dreams and then to replace it with offering something that is less recognised or understood, more niche and still in development within me!

But I know this work is what I was born to do. I know that my life and the paths I have taken have all been leading to this and beyond. This work resonates and moves me at such deep levels, it is beyond words. I am a work-in-progress as I work with amazing clients who are too!

I trust that the right people will find me as I show myself in a different way than ever before.

My next steps are to publish my first Self-Help book, which I started writing in September 2023. It too has morphed along the way.

My next dreams are to be working more with groups, sharing trainings, to help as many people as possible.