I didn’t arrive here in a straight line…life has handed me my fair share of lemons.

I grew up in a family where unpredictability was a daily certainty. My father who was a Vietnam Veteran living with severe war related PTSD. In that environment, I learned early to read the room, manage other people’s emotions, be good so I didn’t trigger an overreaction. I learned to adapt to what was happening around me.

At 15, I was groomed and sexually abused by a much older man, who was considered a protector of the community.

I grew up, raised a family, built a successful business and became very good at being capable. From the outside, I looked like someone who had it all going on…And in many ways, I did.

What I didn’t understand was that some of the ways I’d learned to survive hadn’t simply disappeared because the danger had passed.

They followed me into adulthood - particularly into relationships.

I would lose my voice. Override my instincts. Over-accommodate. Stay when something didn’t feel right. Understand everybody else’s needs while abandoning my own.

For a long time, I couldn’t understand why lost connection to myself in relationships but was very capable in the rest of my life.

Eventually, I realised these weren’t character flaws. They were patterns.

And once I began understanding the unconscious mind and nervous system processes beneath them, why I did what I did made a lot more sense.

That discovery ultimately changed the direction of my life - and became the foundation of the work I do today.