My story is not one of having found all the answers.
It is a story of extreme situations, endless curiosity, and both painful and beautiful lessons.
It is a story that began with a lot of darkness.
Addiction. Depression. Violence. Domestic violence. Toxic relationships.
But also movement and repeatedly, curiosity!
Because throughout my life, curiosity has been one of the things that allowed me to find movement where something seemed stuck.
To question what I thought I knew. To look again when the way forward seemed to have disappeared.
And sometimes, to find my way out of darkness and back towards the light.
Having to find another way forward when the way I knew no longer worked…
Do you want to read more...?
Some of that began when I was around seven years old, I experienced intense anger and suicidal thoughts, which continued for many years.
Over the years, escape took many forms:
Food.
Cannabis.
Alcohol.
Sigarets
Hard drugs.
Sex.
Gambling.
There were periods of deep depression and powerlessness.
Relationships in which I loved, lost myself, was cheated on and experienced domestic violence.
There were moments when I reached out for professional help, only to discover that I didn’t meet the criteria or that the help I needed would not become available until months later.
So, again and again, I had to look for another way, because sometimes waiting no longer felt like an option.
And so I became curious.
Why do we do the things we do?
Why do we hurt ourselves & each other?
Why do we return to things we know are hurting us?
And why, even in some of the darkest moments of our lives, does something in us keep searching for another way?
That curiosity followed me everywhere.
Into toxic relationships.
Into addiction.
Into sexuality.
For four years, I worked as a sex worker, an experience that brought me into intimate contact with desire, shame, vulnerability, loneliness, pleasure and the enormous distance that can exist between what people feel and what they dare to say out loud.
And then there was dance.
Dance gave me something words never could…
Freedom!
A place where I did not have to explain myself.
Where I could close my eyes, stop deciding what movement should come next, and allow my body to answer the music instead.
Not everyone understood that freedom.
Some people celebrated it.
Some joined me.
Some were visibly uncomfortable with it.
And somewhere in that contrast, I learned something about being yourself:
even at your most joyful and most free, someone may still disapprove.
So I kept dancing.
And eventually I began inviting others into that experience.
Shoes off.
Eyes closed.
Stop thinking about how you’re supposed to move.
Listen.
Feel.
Move.
Over the years, thousands of people have danced with me this way.
While I was finding my own way through life, people began finding their way to me;
friends, acquaintances and sometimes complete strangers, carrying questions, pain, dreams and uncertainty.
I listened, questioned, shared what life had taught me, and remained curious about what I didn’t understand.
For more than twenty years, this happened without me ever thinking of it as a profession, it simply became part of who I was.
My Inner Compass
Over the years, certain parts of life have repeatedly asked for my attention.
Not because I was looking for answers.
But because they kept inviting me to look again…
Do you want to read more...?
Communication.
Addiction.
Sexuality.
Dance.
Each has challenged me in a different way.
Each has changed the way I see myself, others and the connections between us.
My compass doesn’t tell you where to go.
It helps me stay present while you discover your own.
What I Carry With Me
For more than twenty years, people have come to me with their stories/challenges and desires.
Sometimes with questions they could not yet put into words.
Some had already spent years receiving professional care.
Some came to me while experiencing suicidal thoughts or feeling they had nowhere left to turn.
I never saw that as a reason to stop being curious.
Because when someone sits or walks beside me, I don’t only listen to the words being spoken.
I observe.
The pauses between those words.
The change in someone’s voice.
I notice non-verbal communication…
Do you want to read more...?
How someone moves.
How they breathe.
None of these observations gives me an answer on its own.
They are simply variables.
Pieces of information that may help us become curious about how someone arrived where they are today.
Because sometimes, the body seems to be telling a story the mind has not yet found the words to understand.
And within that space:
Nothing is too strange.
Not the thought you have never dared to say out loud.
Not the desire you fear someone might judge.
Not even the part of yourself you would rather hide.
I am not interested in deciding whether your experience is normal.
I am interested in understanding what it means to you.
That does not mean everything needs to be solved.
Sometimes recognition is enough.
Sometimes understanding why something exists changes our relationship with it.
And sometimes we are simply not ready to let something go.
But sometimes there comes a moment when staying where we are becomes heavier than the comfort of our comfort zone.
That is where I become curious about movement.
Not by forcing an answer.
Not by replacing your truth with mine.
But by looking together for the space in which another perspective might become possible.
Twenty years of conversations have taught me a great deal, including how much I still don’t know.
I still learn.
I still question.
I still discover my own blind spots.
I still change my mind.
I still get things wrong.
And I have learned not to be frightened when a truth I once believed no longer survives a new observation.
Sometimes that is precisely where another possibility begins.
What I carry into InnerGuide is therefore not a fixed route.
Not a promise to fix you.
Not an answer waiting for your question.
But experience.
Presence.
Observation.
Questions.
Curiosity.