About Me

I remember when I was in high school in Germany, our art teacher once introduced us to a print by Paul Klee. It was titled 'Haupt - und Nebenwege', which in English translates to 'Highway and Byways' (I've posted it below).

I was a teenager then and remember looking at Klee's print with a great deal of respect and awe, wondering to what degree it might be a metaphor for life and foretell the nature of things. Looking back, I can say that I have found myself thinking of the print almost every time I am met with an unexpected curveball or challenge within my journey. It makes me smile and still gives me calm grounds for acceptance and faith into a higher order of things.

Nowadays, the unknown byways are a reliable and delicious constant in my life. They compound and rely on solid forms of discernment every day. There is no one clear highway. All I am still following is a trajectory of change that I have felt into over the years and learned to trust.

It takes discipline, intuition, overcoming, pain, love, wisdom, patience... and surrender... but also the courage to change your mind and learn from your mistakes. To turn around and try again.
 

Arguably, the byways of my life have led to seeming dead ends, points of despair, and hilltop views that were lush, intoxicating, and full of promise. I have been a refugee, a wealthy person, a wife, a divorcee, a traumatised child, and a human being that now consciously tries to choose truth and love over the imposition of will, chaos, rigidity, and forms of escapism... every day. 

I have seen the abyss both as a 'dark thing' that could swallow me up, as well as the most stunningly beautiful opening that nature could conjure up. There have been many lived cliff edges and moments of re-emergence... Moments that shaped me and that I could never have foreseen as such... I treasure these moments for their uplifting magnitude and healing nature. Somehow, a new path has always opened up again in the deepest moments of despair. 
 

Of course, the byways I experienced did not unfold in a vacuum. They were shaped by the context I was born into. It is fair to say that my family experienced generationally nurtured lessons that were shaped by survival and the prizing of atheism 'mind over matter'. Lack of trust became a method of coping - sometimes accompanied by the emphasis on wits and pride. 
 

I don’t know exactly when I realised that self-awareness held the key to my change. It was somewhere between experiencing intense bouts of illness, chronic disease, bitter career endings, heartbreak, relationship breakdowns, and what I would later call a spontaneous spiritual awakening. 
 

I have worked many jobs: I've been a shelf-stacker at Boots, Portrait Photographer, Programme Manager in Higher Education (shout-out to Imperial College), a Jazz Pianist, 'Air-Separation Plant' Tag Number Auditor, Newspaper Intern, LGBT Support Group Facilitator, Video Editor, Teaching Assistant,... the list is long.

However, the calling that stayed with me most was my practice as a counsellor and sensorimotor psychotherapist. It was my gateway into the world of healing, a vocation that 'stuck' for almost two decades and never got old... until I realised that there is more to the universe than meets the eye. 

Throughout my careers, I was a 'sponge' for learning and was fortunate enough to complete degree after degree (there are six fancy certificates catching dust somewhere...). It felt like it was never enough. Now, I know more than ever that knowledge does not equate to wisdom. 

The pursuit of heart-mind-based wisdom will always be an important part of my life. I don't expect to reach the end of the line with it but I enjoy the walk. I have integrated so many modalities and teachings in my work that the 'shoe' of the classically trained, scientism-oriented psychotherapist simply no longer fits. This is why I am tentatively, in my flawed human ways, calling myself a healer. 
 

I suppose it figures - as a child, I was the sort of person that other kids in the playground would spontaneously approach to share their struggles. For a while, I took pride in that and built my identity around it. These days, I look at that part of me with compassion, knowing that what once felt like strength also held my shadow: a tendency to self-abandon, to identify as a rescuer rather than as someone who simply creates an environment for change.

Each day I wake up aware of how much I still have to learn, feel through, and discover, yet I could not imagine a life without the joy of discovery itself... It's such a beautiful form of existence that can come through the experience of healthy relationships, self-awareness, growth, and trust. Just as I invite my clients to challenge their perspectives and expand their horizons, I live by that same principle myself.
 

So as you read this, I hope you find some form of resonance in my story. And if it doesn’t speak to you, perhaps take a moment to look at Paul Klee’s print and ask yourself: Where is your journey taking you? Are you at a cul-de-sac, on a byway, at a hilltop, or somewhere entirely different?