I graduated from university but did not have clarity. I had discarded my lifelong aspiration to be a doctor (disillusioned by allopathic medicine and having spent too much time in the hospital watching my father die) but had not yet understood what I wanted to do with my life. And then I found yoga—which was love at first sight. This meeting was to change my life and opened up a whole new world from that which I had grown up in. Yoga has been my constant companion since that time. During the following years I explored all types of eastern and western natural medicine, phytotherapy, sacred plant medicine, nutrition, qigong, women’s studies, psychotherapy, trauma healing, meditation, tantra, shamanism, somatic therapies, esoteric studies, astrology…..you name it. I studied and experimented with it all, strongly motivated by the need to heal and find inner peace. All of these studies pointed the way home, each in its own way, back to myself.
My relationships with both men and women, my family of origin, and my own children are where I learn daily about myself and the parts of me that are not in alignment with my True Self. Over the years, I have become more and more aware of the parts of me that are unresolved, fearful of intimacy, and distrusting of others as it has been mirrored back to me in my relationships. As I have had to really understand and accept that I cannot change others, inevitably, I have had no choice but to look inside myself for the source of my ‘dis-ease’. Relationships have given me the opportunity to take radical responsibility for my own feelings and to learn how to make space to contain my inner experience instead of projecting it onto others. It is an ongoing practice! Committing to taking this kind of radical responsibility is an incredible journey that has taken me into the structure of my personality, defence strategies, early childhood wounding, trauma, attachment issues, coping mechanisms, and greater understanding about the healing potential in every relationship. It has also helped me to feel genuine compassion for myself and inner little girl and to appreciate my own uniqueness and beauty just the way I am. Relationships help me remember who I am.
