I'm passionate about helping people build a connective 

relationship with their body. I firmly believe that our body is always trying to do the best for us - despite how we treat it. Even when we dislike it, don't listen to it or actively work against our body, it STILL keeps trying to communicate with us and help us.

 

Despite this, I completely understand how difficult it can be to believe that. When it feels like your body isn't how its meant to be then how do you begin to trust it, never mind build a connective relationship with our body?

 

For many years I hated and punished my body for not being what I thought it should be, and not doing what I thought it should. I put up with a long term eating disorder, anxiety, and panic attacks for many many years. The last thing I trusted to help me recover was going to be my body. In my eyes it was the thing that I needed to get to grips with and sort out. THEN I'd feel better. 

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However, by a bizarre turn of fate, I ended up in a yoga class and something weird, scary, and also ultimately amazing happened. I connected with my body in a non-critical way and felt things I'd never felt before. And for a few moments it felt good to be in my body. This one class opened up enough of a change that led to me eventually getting help with my struggles. The combined support of a psychotherapist and a movement therapist helped me to unwind long held patterns of tension, and limiting beliefs about myself and I built myself up from the inside out. I came to understand how I had been keeping myself safe by disconnecting from my body, emotions and feelings. I gradually formed a healthy core of self-esteem and a nourishing relationship with myself, and with my body.

This is how I come to the work that I now do, and that I am passionate about. Since 2009, I have been studying and training in somatic and psychotherapeutic based therapies and integrating them in my practice. I believe there’s a place for talking, and a place for movement, so I don't see them as separate in my practice. 

 

I have formed a specific interest in helping others recover from disordered eating and lack of feeling safe in their body. Since 2016 I have been supporting individuals in their recovery.

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I am incredibly proud of the education and presenting work that I do with my business associate, Jody Phillips, on movement and exercise therapy within eating disorder recovery. More information on this: MOVE-D

When I'm not working I can be found trotting round the Pentland Hills, weaving through the mountain bike trails in the Scottish Borders or in my own wee world either reading, writing or drawing.