Why I believe strength, movement, play and science all point in the same direction.
Have you ever driven somewhere you've been hundreds of times...
...and arrived without remembering the journey? Got to your destination and wondered how you got there?
One day I realised my life had begun to feel like that too.
I still got everything done. I still showed up. I still smiled, although it was that plastic kind of smile that a Stepford Wife would be proud of.
For years people have asked me one simple question.
"What do you do?"
I've never struggled because I didn't know.
I've struggled because the obvious answers describe what I do. They don't explain why I do it.
I'm a nervous system coach.
A strength coach.
A yoga teacher.
An author.
A course creator.
Those are the tools I use.
They aren't my work.
My work is much simpler.
I teach people how to reorient themselves so they can always find their way home.
I love science talk. This is unlikely to be a surprise if you have found yourself reading this article. One of the things I love most about science is that it begins by defining its terms. So that we are all on the same page, let's define Home. Home isn't the absence of storms. It isn't never wobbling. Never grieving. Never feeling heartbroken. Never worrying about money. Never needing repair.
Home is the quiet confidence that, whatever the weather, you know how to find your heading again.
Sometimes that means resting in harbour.
Sometimes it means repairing the boat.
Sometimes it means sailing headfirst into waves you thought you could never face, with hair plastered to the side of your head.
Something incredibly important to know is that home is never the harbour itself.
Home is a knowing that you carry with you.
My job is to hold your hand while we assess the storm, check the damage, make the necessary repairs and then continue on course. My job isn't to rescue you from the storms. It's to sail beside you for long enough that one day, when the weather changes, you instinctively know how to assess the damage, make the repairs and find your heading again.
Why I teach through movement.
I have coached for hundreds of hours, mainly women, but not exclusively. I have seen them arrive at sessions scared, socially at odds with others in the class because they are new or this is a strange session for them to attend. Cautious because they haven't done anything that is societally recognised as a physical challenge in years. She knows how strong she is in so many ways. She holds the family together. She goes unseen, unnoticed and unappreciated. She runs a business, a team, or is the workplace shoulder to cry on. She thinks these things make her weak. The world rarely calls those things strength. I do. She has simply lost sight of who she is, not who she is supposed to be. My job is to let her see that her needs matter just as much as everyone else's. To give her the confidence in her voice to make herself feel that grounded sense of home. To let her strength show in every way I can. This comes through many avenues.
She is the woman who tells me she can't hang from a bar, until she does. She's the woman who tells me her hips are far too tight to do a side plank toe hold, then she holds her foot all the way to Lizard, at the races, in front of her friends because she was so chuffed with her new party trick. She is the woman who definitely won't do a handstand… ever… it's terrifying… and then one day, quietly, has the most elegant, beautiful hold in class. She's the woman who used to sit on the beach and watch her family snorkel, swim and surf, chanting the warrior's cry of 'I'll look after the bags', until one day she was carving a windsurf board across the bay like she was born of the sea.
My work isn't to become the place you always return to.
It's to stand beside you until one day you realise you're sailing by yourself.
You haven't looked back.
You're venturing into waters you never thought you'd explore, reading the movement beneath the surface and knowing that you can trust your craft.
You know your heading.
And wherever life takes you...
you know the way home.
Why science?
Over the past few decades I've become fascinated by the growing science of how movement, play, uncertainty and connection shape our brains and nervous systems.
For me, science has never diminished wonder. Quite the opposite. It has given me a starting point. A heading. A compass. A way of testing ideas, finding links between systems, broadening my thinking and allowing me to ask questions I might never have thought to ask.
It gives me another language for understanding why, and how, finding our way home is possible.
So where do we begin?
There isn't one path home.
Only the one that makes sense for where you are today.
Learn
Use one of my self guided courses to start learning more about yourself
My thoughts, hints, tips and tools. If you like stories about real life, emerging science, dogs, Disney and how to get back to sleep at 3am when the thoughts won’t stop, I got you.
Read
Put down the bags and come and have an adventure with me. This is where you find yourself exhaling the breath you didn’t know you were holding.
Experience
Some of my ladies say that they would like me in their pocket all day. i am small but not that small, so I wrote a book that will fit in your handbag instead.
The Book
Move
I already know how strong you are …let’s see what else you can do.
The place where you are Seen but not noticed. The place that calls you even when you have had a long day, not because you ‘have to’ because you get to play, laugh, balance and take your shoes off like you are at home.