My Journey
I have always been passionate about living my best life and sharing whatever tools I find along the way. Like a dog on a scent, I’ve been sniffing out the best holistic practices for physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. It has been a wandering and wonderful journey that has culminated in the development of a unique set of skills, with a depth and breadth of both esoteric and mainstream wisdom, along with a generous capacity to hold space.
I created Whisper Within – Healing Dialogues as a platform to offer what has become a unique combination of competencies and gifts. I have simplified and synthesized multiple healing perspectives, providing a distinctive blend of contemporary healing approaches alongside holistic and esoteric models. I’m inspired and encouraged by the advances in modern science and medicine that increasingly affirm the efficacy of the eastern teachings and mystical practices. I see myself as a bridge between the teachings of the ancient sages of the east and the modern sages of science in the west.
Nature has always been a place of solace for me. As a shy child, I spent as much time as I could playing outside, surrounded by trees and often climbing them in my family garden or at the neighbourhood park. Now, you can often find me out in the mountain forests of my home town, whatever the season, filling up my cup to overflowing. I incorporate elements of nature in everything I do, whether directly or indirectly. Daily nature breaks help me to bring a breath of fresh air into my work.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve asked big questions about life: what is the purpose of life, why do we suffer, and how do we find our way back to wholeness? I come from a family of healers and teachers, so it’s no wonder I find myself drawn to a combination of these professions.
When I was in my 20s, my father became ill and died from cancer. Even though he was a medical doctor, he was helpless in healing his own malaise. I had an intuitive sense that the challenges and trauma of his childhood had something to do with his illness. I have a very clear memory of him telling me not long before he passed away that if there is such a thing as reincarnation, he would like to be born into a family that had a mature understanding of the power of emotions. My father was well-loved by his patients because he would talk to them as a caring friend and ask them about their lives. He was a good listener and noticed that their illness would often coincide with stressful events. In hindsight, I can see that my father’s wisdom as a healer was shaping my vocational and life choices more than I knew.
As I grew in my work as a yoga therapist, Meditation teacher and holistic life coach, I began to notice that symptoms (my own or my clients) might often begin with or could be traced back to an unconscious thought, belief or an unresolved event. I realized that if we listen to the early nudges or whispers from within, in the form of symptoms, the symptoms would often abate and even eventually disappear entirely.
I would run gentle experiments on myself at first, and then with my clients, exploring a working hypothesis that symptoms act as a messenger from within as a doorway to healing by communicating an unmet need or unintegrated event. My own challenges over the years with difficult emotions, chronic pain and insomnia were ripe opportunities to investigate and tweak these findings.
My spiritual practices began in my late teens with Samatha Vipassana meditation through a local Dharmadhatu Center in Vancouver, where I grew up. After moving to Banff, Alberta in my early 20s, I found my spiritual “home” in the meditative path of yoga. I am deeply grateful to the many teachers and models I’ve studied over the years, including Kripalu Yoga, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy with Michael Lee, The Wave Work with Sandra Scherer, and the non-dual teachings and practices from the Integrative Restoration Institute and iRest Yoga Nidra with Richard Miller, to name a few. My work has evolved into a beautiful synthesis of all that I have studied, along with the deep intuitive whispers of insight that spontaneously arise out of the work. I celebrate the healing that I witness daily, for myself, my students, and clients.
