The personal behind the professional….

I am a woman with an empowered feminist spirit.

I was born in the countryside; and now live in the city.

I am passionate about learning, with a curiosity about human beings, and an intrigue about the world.

I am in awe of nature. I love it when the light changes, nature is my nurturing.

I have committed to knowing myself better through yoga and psychology; a continual process of ‘becoming’….

I am a very reflective individual, always thinking about thinking.

I explore creativity through the arts and music; writing is my catharsis.

I am human too, with a strong sense of yin and yang; my eternal mission to find balance.

I have my own therapy… and sometimes I feel ‘the work’ is never done.

I believe in constant growth and transformation.

I connect to contentment through rest, play, fun and love.

I meditate and I move; it’s my medicine.

I commit to deconstructing my white privilege, advocate for social justice and anti-racist action.

I am a Scorpio… if you know, you know!

What’s my story?

Firstly, thank you for sharing an interest in me and my work. To share with you a little about my background…

I grew up Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. My context and story comes with a lot of visible privileges. My background also carries emotional burdens. As a white, female working within the healing profession, I feel it is imperative to explore and unpack our own stories within, in order to best be able to support others. For we are all a person within the professional.

With an interest in human behaviour, a curiosity about the mind, a wonder in exploring worldly cultural differences and a passion for learning, I was pulled towards pursuing a path in clinical psychology. Studying Psychology & Sociology at Leeds University encouraged me to understand more about individuals and groups as part of a larger web of cultural contexts and societal narratives. Following graduation, and various volunteer placements abroad (teaching in Kenya; orphanage in Bangkok; Mother Theresa’s psychiatric hospital in Kolkata) my academic learnings expanded to understand and appreciate human behaviour, beliefs and values across different cultural contexts. This formed the foundations of the lens in which I see the world, and how I understand mental health experiences.

Upon moving to London in 2010, I delved into the world of NHS working in various mental health services, from forensic inpatients and acute psychiatric wards, to specialist schools and third sector organisations, alongside assisting research at London’s leading universities and further postgraduate studies.

Following a stay in a Sivananda ashram in India in 2013, there was a yogic seed planted which captured my heart and ignited my spirit. As this desire blossomed, I completed Yoga Teacher Training (200hrs YTT) in 2014 and my new love of yoga happily sat alongside clinical psychology. Yet the more I practiced the two separately, the more they mirrored one another. Mind and body, body and mind - it’s all about the inner work and healing processes.

During my clinical psychology training at the University of Hertfordshire, I unhealthily avoided my own personal therapy. Oh, the irony. I hadn’t realised it at the time, yet my new ‘addiction’ to yoga was subtly healing me on the inside, in a way that was much more than performing postures. Yoga was my therapy before I was able to give words to my experiences. It enabled me to reconnect, come back in, ground and settle It was exactly this soothing that then supported me to go to the depths of talking therapy. I already knew that yoga and psychology were complimentary, yet now it really personally resonated. Initially I kept these two identities and professions very separate; yet the more I developed skills in each, the closer they became, with my values for both being parallel in practice.

The next few years happily wearing my Drs hat I continued NHS work supporting children, young people and families with psychological therapy, alongside teaching yoga across London, from a range of studios, gyms, community classes, corporate programmes and NHS staff wellbeing projects. In 2016 at a psychology conference, I was mesmerised by a talk by Heather Mason, founder of The Minded Institute, speaking about the therapeutic effects of yoga on body and mind. It was a lightbulb moment, an epiphany, and awakening. I had not realised that Yoga Therapy existed - this was a calling for me to combine my two passions and integrate my professional roles for the next step in my career. In 2018 I embarked on Yoga Therapy training… an incredible journey exploring how yoga can heal, founded on the science of physiology, neuroscience, anatomy, psychology and Buddhist philosophy.

The last couple of years working in yoga and psychology have led me to work with incredible people and inspiring business, with projects including co-founding the MoreMind project with Liz Joy Oakley and the MoreYoga Wellness team, delivering trauma-focused consultations and bespoke trainings for mental health charities, lecturing for training programmes and establishing a client base in independent psychological therapy and yoga therapy.

As a qualified Clinical Psychologist, Yoga Teacher and Yoga Therapist, I am sharing the gifts of yoga and psychology with you….

Calm mind. Strong body. Open heart.