As much as I would love it if I did! I wasn’t born with any magical healing abilities, I am not psychic and there is nothing abnormally special about me.

I am just like you, which means you also have the capacity to tune into your intuition and feel energy like I do, once you build a connection with your body.

Ten years ago you would not have caught me doing anything ‘woo woo’, I didn’t believe in anything unless it could be logically proven. And I was completely unaware of myself, disconnected from my body and my emotions.

In 2018, I was living a busy life in London — working in a successful corporate job, traveling overseas constantly, living for my weekends, drinking and partying way too much. Living the dream, right? The life everyone wants. Or so I thought.

But then I began having panic attacks, crippling anxiety, sleepless nights, heart palpitations, unexplained pain in my body, inflammation of my joints, gut issues — the list goes on. I was exhausted all the time, but I still wasn’t listening to the signals from my body to slow down. Until it was too late, my body shut down, and I didn’t have a choice anymore. I was forced to take notice because I couldn’t function anymore, I had adrenal fatigue. I went to see the GP but was told that I was ‘fine’, my blood tests were normal.

It was before 6am one Saturday morning and I woke up startled, gasping for breath, having a huge panic attack. I called the EAP line which I’d heard about through work and, for the first time in my life, spoke to a psychologist. She proceeded to lay down some hard truths — if I didn’t slow down and reduce my stress, I might find myself having a heart attack in my 30s like one of her other patients. I had to start listening to my body.

It was this that prompted me to decide that I couldn’t keep living the way that I had been, it was time to start making a plan to move home to Australia and create a less stressful life for myself. This was the catalyst for the devastating breakup of my relationship and the decision that I probably wasn’t meant to continue in the stressful corporate career I had spent years building.

It was the end of 2019 by the time I landed back in Australia, feeling like a broken human, completely fragile and drained of all energy. Jobless, homeless, single, and feeling very, very lost. I didn’t know who I was without those things to define myself by. The persona I had created disappeared and my ego-self didn’t know how to cope. And then 2020 hit, in all its glory! And I had a full blown breakdown. Call it what you will — a dark night of the soul, an existential crisis, a midlife crisis, a spiritual awakening.

Being in Melbourne, the lockdown capital of the world, I was forced, for the first time in my life, to sit with my feelings. To face it all. All of the emotions I had been running away from my whole 20s — numbing with alcohol, drugs, parties, food, travel, relationships. There were no distractions, no ways to avoid it, and I leant all the way in. I did intensive psychology sessions, joined the Holistic Psychologist’s Self Healers Circle, read hundreds of books about wellness and spirituality, dredged up memories of my childhood, had huge realisations, re-parented my inner child, filled dozens of journals, meditated, did breathwork, yoga, energy healing — you name it, I did it.

It opened the floodgates of emotion and every feeling that I had repressed for a whole lifetime came flooding out. I cried every day, for years. It felt like there was a never ending well of sadness and tears within me. It was cathartic but also, the hardest time of my entire life. At times the pain felt excruciating and overwhelming.

Over the next few years I saw dozens of practitioners — psychologists, healers, shamans, reiki practitioners, naturopaths, Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors, EMDR facilitators, the list goes on. I was trying to find the person who could fix me, so that I could get back to my life. Through my desperation for answers, I became open to things I never would have considered in the past and experienced a huge expansion of my consciousness.

Ultimately, I learned that there was no one else who I could outsource my healing to. No one who could fix me, because I wasn’t broken. Only people who could hold space for me to go through the process. And the more I tried to resist it and rush my healing, the longer it took. There is no magic pill, there are no quick fixes in healing — it is a long and winding road, but it is absolutely worth it when you come out the other side feeling whole within yourself.

I had to build the connection with my body to rediscover the parts of myself that I had pushed down into the shadows. I had to feel the emotions that I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in the past so that energy could be released. At the core, there was so much shame, feelings of not being good enough. And over time, I came to develop deep love for myself. Through showing up for myself with acceptance, respect, and compassion.

Now, after spending years dedicating myself to getting certified to practice incredible healing modalities, I’m so grateful to be able to share the tools that helped me the most in my healing. To be able to hold space for other people to go through their process. And to be able to offer people a nurturing, safe environment where they are accepted unconditionally.

I hope it has helped hearing a little bit about my healing journey. I’ve been just where you are, I’m just a bit further down the road and have the map now of the way to go.

If this resonated with you, book a session to start your own healing journey. I really look forward to working with you and supporting you along the way!

Steph