If you have read this page before, please re-read it if you have the time.  Since launching this website a few years ago, I have had to edit this "about" page because I have learnt a great deal about myself in that time...I have grown, and know even more about who I was, who I am, and indeed who I want to be...this time next year, I hope I have learnt even more...

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There’s no doubt about it, turning 40 catapults many people into a state of depression and makes them sad to think that life is all downhill from here.For me, this was not the case and I am so insanely grateful that for some reason turning 40 was my ticket to adulthood…the permission I was waiting for (unknowingly) to stand on my own two feet.I woke up on my 40th birthday and realised that I was doing this whole ‘life’ thing wrong! It occurred to me that I was enabling myself to live a life well and truly out of alignment with my soul…out of alignment with MY values and it was dragging me down.

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It’s fair to say that I have lived my life as per the rule book…I was perfectly mannered as a kid, I maintained good grades throughout my entire school life, I grew up in a supportive, loving, devoted family, I played multiple sports and was OK at them, I never experimented with drugs (although I did, and still do, enjoy a few too many drinks with friends on the odd occasion), I went to university, got my Bachelor of Architecture degree, then got married and had three beautiful kids, including a set of boy and girl twins, started an architecture firm with my architect husband and have saved enough money to feel reasonably comfortable that the bank won’t ever be able to take our home away from us…AND I did all this in a body that I hated, that I was ashamed of and that I desperately tried to manipulate on a daily basis.So…?

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Then it happened…I turned 40 and the heavens opened up (I'm not "religious" but that phrase just fits so well here)…I realised that although I was living by the rule book, it was not MY rule book!

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I spent the first 25 years of my life living on 40 stunning acres, and have lived on 5 acres surrounded by bushland for the last 5 years, so I have been fortunate enough to have benefited from the gift that nature has to offer pretty much my entire life.  That said, it wasn't until I moved to my current property that I was mindful enough to fully appreciate the therapeutic value of simply immersing one's body in nature.  What I have come to realise is that regardless of the pace I set, or how high my heart rate gets, or how long I go for, my soul is always happier after a dose of connecting back to nature.  It has taken me 40 years, but I have learnt that exercise is not something I need to fear, or force myself to do.  Exercise, or MOVEMENT as I prefer to call it due to the stigma that is associated with the word "exercise", is simply the quickest way to connect to mind, body and spirit all at once.  For so many years, I put pressure on myself to not only exercise, but to exercise HARD!  I had been conditioned to believe that my worthiness was directly proportional to either my weight, and/or my effort to lose weight - exercise and dieting.  As a result, I placed so much emphasis on exercise and dieting, that I loathed it and loved it...it consumed me and became my identity.  If only I had been insightful enough years ago to switch my emphasis from losing weight, to just feeling good...nothing more, nothing less.  After-all, we strive to lose weight so that we can feel good, right?  So why not save ourselves all the potential self-hate, guilt and worthlessness that comes with the goal of losing weight, and skip straight to the goal of simply feeling good and respecting ourselves?  Of course, how we physically move our bodies is only one part of the equation.  Our thoughts create our reality, so mindfulness and spirituality must also be considered.        

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The second major part of the equation is "diet"...whether it is referred to as "healthy eating", Keto, Paleo, Whole 30, Weight Watchers, low fat, low carb, low sugar...call it whatever you like...if deprivation and food judgement is involved I believe it can be damaging and work against your desire to feel good.  When did we stop trusting our bodies to know what they needed?  When did our bodies stop trusting us to provide what they needed?  The answer?...when we grew old enough (possible as young as 2 or 3) to be influenced by the incredibly strong pull of weight stigma, fat-phobia, and diet culture.  Media, social media, society, well-meaning loved ones, ourselves...all contribute.  It has taken me over 4 decades to even be aware of my own lack of trust in food.  I can't pinpoint what changed for me, and why I started seeking to find genuine peace with my body, as opposed to conditional peace with my body.  Perhaps it was the podcasts I was listening to, or my daughter reaching an age where I could see how I was influencing her well-being, or perhaps I just reached an age of maturity where I realised there was so much more to life (an me) than how my body appeared.  My mindset started to shift when I read the book "Health at Every Size" by Linda Bacon...which lead me to read the book "Intuitive Eating" by Evelyn Tribole, Elyse Resch.  These two books/movements not only intrigued me (probably because they challenged everything I was conditioned to believe), but they started to release me from the all-encompassing stronghold that weight stigma had over me.  For the first time in my conscious life, I stopped actively trying to lose weight. 

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Rejecting diet culture and weight stigma, and exploring my own fat-phobia (which was not easy to recognise) have been some of the hardest challenges I have ever embarked upon (and I have raised twins!). That said, I can't begin to explain the freedom it has given me to truly love and respect my self and my body...unconditionally, exactly how it is.  For 44 years I devoted myself to eating healthy...I honestly thought I had overcome my body weight issues when I settled into a lifestyle that was based on "healthy eating" and regular exercise.  When I first launched this business and website, I thought I had done enough work.  My friends and peers often praised me for the willpower I had...put me on a pedestal for making myself exercise.  Don't get me wrong, I lived for the praise and admiration, and I felt fantastic about myself and learned to accept my reflection...what I didn't recognise was that this acceptance was only evident as long as I was maintaining the "healthy"habits and I was not getting any larger.  It was the moments when I saw photos of myself looking larger than I thought I was...or put outfits on that felt a bit tighter than last time I wore them...or felt/saw my arms wobble when I waved...or felt extreme guilt for indulging in more sugar-free carob than normal...or those times when I left the house feeling great because I was doing everything "right"until I caught a glimpse of the fatty in the reflection, that catapulted me back into a state of self-hate. They were the times that made me realise that I still had a LOT of work to do on self-love and body-acceptance. Although I am in a better place now than I was, I understand that 44 years of conditioning can't be reversed in a few months...I expect my future will always contain an element of re-conditioning around body-acceptance and self-love.  I am at peace with that and I actually appreciate it.

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Today I move and feed my body intuitively from a place of love not shame.         

  

I am currently about 162cm tall and somewhere between 70 and 80kg - I don't know the exact number because I don't care what it is.  This isn't to say that I don't care about my physical well-being, it just means that I rely on my instinct (not rules and conditioning) to know what I need..physically, emotionally and spiritually. The point of me revealing my height and weight (something I would NEVER have done before) is to demonstrate that I am by no means thin, lean and super-toned...but you know what I am?  I am strong, I am fit, I am confident, I am a work in progress - and intend to be for the rest of my life.  I battled my weight for 40 years...now, regardless of my physical form, the battle is over.  I don't hate exercise anymore and I'm no longer pissed at the world because my body doesn't feel the way it "should" - actually on the rare occasion I do get a bit pissed because I am human after-all.  I too have good and bad days, but I can genuinely say that the good days far outweigh the bad days.   

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I want to inspire you to question YOUR mindset around weight and body-acceptance, reveal and overcome obstacles you didn’t even know you had, and maybe even open up a few cans of worms that have been trapped inside for years! I want to work with you to lift the heaviness (metaphorically) that you so bravely carry around, and walk with you on a similar journey to the one that I have been so lucky to embark upon myself. I want to change people's perception of diet and exercise...I want everyone to realise the potential power they have over their own lives harnessed in their own minds - your thoughts create your reality, both psychologically AND physiologically. 

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Armed with my Holistic Life Coach & Mind-Body Practitioner Diploma, my very own nature’s clinic, as well as everything I have learned from my own journey, I know I can make a positive difference in people’s lives.  I have a particular interest in helping people transform their mindest around exercise and well-being.  Notice I didn't say I wanted to help people lose weight?  I am not about putting people on restrictive diets, or setting regimented exercise programs in an attempt to find temporary worthiness that comes with a shrinking body.  Instead, I am about working with people to change the way they choose to live their lives, so that they are their own source of inspiration and motivation which they can take with them for the rest of their lives...not just while their body looks the way they think it should.  Don't get me wrong, health and well-being is key to reaching the level of contentment that we will be striving for, but they are vehicles we will use, not the destination we are trying to reach. I just want to give people the freedom and contentment they deserve simple because they are living human beings.  I want my clients to wake up every morning with the emotional resilience and inner strength to get everything they deserve out of life.    

 

We only have one life, why would we want to spend that one life living according to someone else’s values and expectations?

It’s time to rediscover and reconnect with that pure version of you…before it got pushed, pulled, tainted and moulded (usually unintentionally) by those around us.

 

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