About Me

I am a woman, a mother of one adult son, I am a dog and cat lover, a gardener, an artist and a serial house-renovator and home-maker. I enjoy making things, sewing, eating and growing food, being immersed in nature. I live in rural Suffolk where I enjoy the beautiful and nourishing environment, coastal and country walks with the dog, paddling in the sea, picking wild berries just feeling at one with my surroundings.

Career-wise, life divides neatly into two halves. Before illness it was an arty, creative life, after school I went to art college and then earned a living freelancing as an illustrator.

In my forties I became very ill for many years, understanding my illness and recovery was the key to finding balance. As my recovery progressed I started retraining in Hypnotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Life Coaching (Dip. Clin. Hyp, NLP, Life Coaching). Now in my sixties, with much life experience I am helping other people recover from chronic illness.

If I had to pick just one word to describe myself I would want to say ‘loving’ or ‘kind’ and all sorts of other lovely things ….But actually the most apt word would be survivor. I have survived so much that it sometimes surprises me when I remember it all. One day I will write that book but for now my work is essential to me. 

I care deeply for every person I work with. I talk on the phone, or in video calls or in my own videos for many hours a day and feel that being in a ‘state’ of caring is positively beneficial to my health and wellbeing. There are many ways to care for ourselves and others and when we do, we change our body chemistry. It is what I call a ‘chosen way of operating’ and as such can be accessed at any time. In other words, it’s not just down to luck, the weather or the state of the economy!

I would say our ‘state of being’ is a way of describing how we feel, what we know to be real, our sense perceptions and our experience, all rolled into a ‘feeling’ about how things are at this moment.

My work and life are dedicated to making a choice through knowledge and understanding, to maintain a balanced state, achieving what I call your inner and outer harmony. The posh medical word is homeostasis. The body and mind need to be in this state to function well.  So not only can we enjoy and even revel in our own life, we can create a life that we don’t want to escape from too. 

We have no need to escape into telly or scrolling or gaming, let alone escape to food, alcohol, or drugs. Dare I say, escape to the country, or escape on holiday. If this moment in this life, as we experience it, is just lovely, if we feel the calm with balance,  compassion and an appreciation for this moment, escape becomes completely irrelevant.

So my top priority is be in that state myself as much of the time as I can. (I am not perfect or remotely zen at all sometimes!) But if I prioritise this, I am then more likely to be able to do all the other things that will make me and my world a better place.

My second mission in life is to help others realise they too can learn how to recover their health and become the real authentic being that they are, experiencing life with more joy too.

The Dalai llama says his religion is kindness. For years I struggled to understand what he meant, but now it makes perfect sense. Being in a physical ‘state’ of kindness means thinking kindly of ourselves and others, so it is a good healthy state to operate in. It is the kindness that seems to be there already, the compassion we have within ourselves that often gets overwhelmed or drowned out by all the noises and stress and speed of the busy lives we lead.

It’s not the kind of hard work or effort needed to force ourselves to be nice or kind, to do better, work harder at being a good human. It’s a compassion that is already there in every one of us and arises spontaneously. We just need to learn how to let go or step away from all the obstacles that are in the way.

That’s why I started the Recovery Programme