Looking back over the past 40 years, I can see that healing has been a huge part of my journey. Healing from past trauma and learning to feel content in my own skin. I spent most of my life feeling anxious, nervous, insecure, and generally lacking confidence and self-esteem. The way that this manifested in my life was through chronic digestive issues.

After hearing for years that my problems were “all in my head”, I was finally diagnosed with IBS in my mid-twenties. My doctor prescribed SSRIs, antispasmodics, acid-reducing medication and plenty of fibre. At that time there was little or no advice on diet (apart from the fibre, which left me with severe stomach cramps).

I experimented with various exclusion diets, over the years until I finally discovered the FODMAP diet. This diet improved my symptoms to some degree but I always had a gut-feeling (pardon the pun) that my IBS symptoms were connected to my mental health challenges, though this was never confirmed by my doctor.

I trained as a teacher and spent 34 very satisfying years in the education sector. As the years progressed, I observed a growing trend in the levels of anxiety and overwhelm among my students.

My desire to understand better what was going on for them and to offer some help and guidance inspired me to train as a Person-Centred Psychotherapist in 2006, an NLP Practitioner in 2008 and a Wellness Coach in 2010.

I also became certified as an Innate Health and Resilience Trainer (iHeart) to provide mental health and wellbeing education to teenagers, and I developed a program called “Resilience4Kids” to equip younger children with tools and techniques to deal with anxiety and build resilience.

In 2018 I decided to retire from teaching and dedicate myself fulltime to helping people deal with mental health challenges. I took further training to become a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist and a Certified Havening Practitioner.

I chose Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy because I experienced a massive reduction in my IBS symptoms after undertaking a course of treatment. On completing my training with the UK College of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy, I decided to specialise in digestive health issues and took further training to become a HypnoIBS® Practitioner.

I chose the Havening Techniques training because it had a significant impact on me in terms of helping me deal with traumatic memories, anxiety, and low self-esteem and I found that successfully dealing with these issues had a positive knock-on effect on my IBS symptoms.