My Story

If you’d like to listen to me tell my story in my own voice, feel free to listen here.

I don’t think that my story is all that unique, and that’s exactly why I’m sharing it. It’s so easy to become disconnected these days – from each other, and from ourselves.

My hope is that by sharing the journey that I’ve been on, that you feel seen, understood, and can then get onto a path of healing that is shorter and more efficient than mine was.

As a Physiotherapist, I’m always asking people to describe their symptoms or pain, and they’ll often say “I’m not sure”, “I guess I haven’t really thought about that”, or “I guess I haven’t paid attention”.

And I get that, because I spent most of my life feeling disconnected as well. Numb. Weak. Disconnected from my own internal body sensations and emotions, from my own basic needs, from how to take care of myself, how to rest, how to put myself first, and from my own definition of success and who I truly was at my core. 

I lived in Toronto for years, and while there I was moving at a furious pace - constantly striving for the next goal, the next course, the next qualification, the next accomplishment and striving towards goals that were never really my own. At the same time, I kept finding myself in environments that had me feeling like I was “too sensitive”, “too caring”, weak and fragile, or broken. I thought that somehow, if I just kept powering through, put everyone else first, and went the extra mile, that one day I would reach the top of the mountain, I would be successful, and I could finally relax.

As a long-time hiker, I know how tempting it is to keep focusing on where you're headed. I had done that all my life. I just kept striving towards some elusive goal, and got so entrenched in the habits of “powering through” and ignoring my own body signals and intuition, that one day I finally shut down. I realized that I was never actually going to arrive at some “peak” of the mountain or end goal that would fix everything - I only had the present moment. I hadn’t taken the time to look back at how far I had come or appreciate where I currently was.  

I realized I could no longer move at the pace I was going. When I finally started listening, my body was desperate to be heard. For me, this looked like vague digestive symptoms, migraines, hives, food sensitivities, and inflammation. There were lots of signs, and oftentimes they were things that medicine didn’t have an answer for. Other examples I’ve heard from patients or clients, include chronic aches and pains, disturbed sleep, feeling anxious, fatigue and lethargy, heart palpitations, skin rashes or eczema, and joint swelling without a known injury. 

Trying to find answers for my symptoms left me even more disconnected. As a patient myself, I have often felt unheard, misunderstood or dismissed. Even if it wasn’t said outright, the message I heard was “it’s all in your head”. It left me feeling like I couldn’t trust what my body was trying to tell me, and that I couldn’t even trust my own instincts about how to take care of myself. 

All of this was a wakeup call, and initially I tried to make drastic changes to my habits around sleep, diet, exercise and rest. But, even with the best intentions, making a massive shift in my daily habits and routines all at once, was really hard to maintain. I was wired to just keep “powering through.” I was still disconnected – still in my head, and trying to fix things in a logical way.

It wasn’t until I found yoga and started a daily meditation practice, that I began to really understand what it meant to pay attention.
To get connected to my feelings and sensations.
To get connected to my heart instead of my head.
To heal my mind-body connection.

Let me tell you, it was a challenging place to go initially, and it’s still something I’m working on years later, but it was the key to unlocking better health and the life I desire. In this way, I was able to move out of survival mode and into a more aligned way of living. I had to go through a process of deconditioning - unlearning all of those old habits, regaining my own sense of self, and creating a life that made sense for me.   

I’m not here to tell you that I have some quick fix or magic pill or secret solution. What I can tell you though, is that the basics work and the recipe is different for everybody. Taking tiny actions, making small changes to your habits, and even minute shifts in your mindset, can accumulate over time to create massive change.

I am grateful for the medical care I’ve received over the years, and fully appreciate that sometimes the answers aren’t clear, but one of the reasons I am the Physiotherapist I am today, is because I’ve been a patient. I’ve been on the receiving end of feeling unseen, and I never want someone to feel like that in my office. 

My story has unfolded over many years (and continues to) and it’s made me passionate about helping others to find the path for themselves. To help you understand yourself better, understand your body, and improve your mind-body connection, so that you’re able to recover more quickly, take care of yourself more effectively, and truly lean into the life that you desire.