Experience & Training

"You used to have a proper job...what happened?"

Let me explain....

I was a nurse. Along the way I moved into management roles. And then big strategic projects. I spoke at national meetings, I was involved in really significant organisational change. I was an ‘expert’, a go-to person.

And sometimes that felt really great. Sometimes I could witness myself doing these huge things and think ‘yes, I’ve got this’. And sometimes it felt like I was walking on a crumbling cliff edge, anxious, terrified.

And although in those days I didn’t know about ’embodiment’ I did know when it felt good to inhabit my body, to feel totally in my natural flow. And, when it actually felt really awful and I didn’t know how I would get to tomorrow without falling apart.

Mostly I appeared supremely competent. Mostly I was. What I sometimes did not feel was…confident.

I most definitely didn’t have all the skills I needed to support me in making a choice about how I related to and responded to my world.

I would probably have carried on, in the NHS career, had it not been for a time when nothing was going well, despite my best efforts. I had the moment. “My life isn’t supposed to be this way.”

I fell apart, I put myself back together, with help, with love. And this time it really did have to be different. I started making profoundly different choices. I spent money on myself, on courses I really wanted to do. The beginning place brought me back to my nursing expertise, work that supported people dealing with sexual difficulties. And I delved into tantra, for my own understanding and nurture of myself. As a being in a body – being in my body.

My work first became about supporting people in relation to sexuality. And then a subtle shift. People came to me for all sorts of reasons, and it always came back to confidence and feeling safe in their bodies.

And all the training and experience I had fitted perfectly.

So now I could be offering a session about how to do really well at interview for a new job, how to feel different about body image, how team members relate to each other, how to resolve a sexual issue. The skills I’ve gained to support people to connect to their body, their lived experience from their body, pretty much translate to all aspect of life.

That’s how it happened. How I used to have a ‘proper job’. And now I am an embodiment and confidence coach.

I do this work because I passionately believe in the power of combining talking within a supportive framework, and somatic (body based) practices.  I am delighted and privileged to support others to grow in confidence, and to develop greater different relationship with themselves and their world.

I love working with people – on a one to one, with those in relationships, and with groups. I especially love taking people on a journey of growth and self-acceptance, at a pace to suit them, appreciating that what might seem like the smallest change can also be the biggest challenge. And in this I respect and honour your life experience and your desire to make changes, to feel enlivened.

And then there’s the fun of exploration, the joy of discovery, in supporting people to play with those parts of themselves just itching to come out, safely and with consciousness and insight.