My Background
I make people cry...
That's how my husband describes my job.
And he's right! I help total strangers to connect to themselves, their bodies, and their emotions. And tears of relief and healing happen. Like it's the most natural thing in the world. To be real, to be human. And all burdens fall away. Old wounds and nagging thoughts disappear. Demons of the past dissolve. Power and security grow.
Sometimes all it takes is to connect in a safe and secure setting. Practice self-regulation, learn a few tools, release some trauma, and bloom! Want a good cry?
Welcome to my office!
So, why am I doing what I do? Primarily I collected all the tools and techniques for myself and my own healing. Yet my growth and change, my fulfillment and happiness on all levels, was so radical, that I can’t help but pass this forward! I feel it would be unethical to hold this back! If I could heal – you can heal too! I walked the jungle, I sketched a map of my ‘Terror’-tory, and now I am happy to walk with you.
And no, healing doesn’t mean everything in life is perfect now, I’m fixed or cured and never will feel triggered again. That would be perfectionism in disguise!
I’m not perfect - I am a real person! I am human and nothing human is alien to me!
I grew up in a dysfunctional family where anger was everywhere. My parents were meaning well but grew up during WW II. Emotional regulation was not their number 1 concern. Survival was! And when they lost one of my elder sisters in a car accident, they had no tools to deal with the grief and guilt. I was born as the replacement child and felt it was my job to make my parents happy.
Did I have a chance? No. Did I try anyway? For sure!
I was trying soooo hard to be a good daughter and make my parents feel good, I lost myself in the process. I felt empty and wrong. Disconnected from myself and my feelings. And puberty hit hard.
Who am I? Why am I here?
I was failing miserably at my 'make-them-happy'-job. My parents were fighting and shouting constantly, my dad was angry and choleric, my mom was angry and depressed... And I felt lost and miserable. I had no clue how to live life.
How do adults do life? I tried to dampen my pain and fill my emptiness with food and drink and romantic relationships.
'If only I could...'
I went to varsity, got a degree, found a partner, and got three babies, and still had no clue how to fill the inner emptiness. What to do with my bad feelings? It must be somebody's fault! Who is to blame? And if I couldn't find anybody to blame, at least I blamed myself and felt miserable. I felt depressed and lonely and knew... something was not right!
This cannot be IT!
We moved to South Africa, to the middle of nowhere, and there in nature, in the sun and outdoors I felt relieved, enlivened, and free. I still didn't feel connected to myself, my husband, or my feelings, but at least I felt some fresh curiosity for life.
Can you believe it?
I started to study psychology because I wanted to understand myself and life. I wanted to know what was wrong with me, and more importantly - what to do about it. Thank goodness I had to work in practice almost immediately. I joined a charity organization with a free-of-charge counselling hotline. And there, in the deep and dark jungles of human trauma and despair, I finally found what was going on with me. I had been ‘running on empty’ because my emotional Self had been neglected! I was totally disconnected from myself and had abandoned the real me to fill a role I never could fulfil. I had never learned how to feel, express, or regulate my emotions. I didn’t know about trauma, developmental trauma, and the scars on the nervous system that stay long after the harm is gone. I didn’t know that I had inherited the ‘survival mode’ from my parents and added a new version to it. Bingo!
Proud to say, I healed! And the best part is, I keep falling in love with life deeper every day.
And now I offer all I have learned to you!
The tried and tested best and most efficient tools and techniques that helped me and that will support you in being your best you!
The real one 🤍