My Story

A journey from disconnection to joy, belonging, and remembering

Have you ever felt like you didn’t quite belong?

Not just in one room, one school, one workplace, or one community — but in the world itself?

That feeling has shaped much of my life.

I grew up in a small rural town in South Africa, surrounded by wide open skies, farmland, strong community structures, and all the unspoken rules that can come with small-town life. I often felt different. Sensitive. Curious. Restless. Like there was a part of me that couldn’t quite squeeze itself into the shape that was expected.

I longed for approval, so I followed a path that looked successful and acceptable. I became a Chartered Accountant and built a career in Banking and Finance. On paper, it made sense. It gave me independence, resilience, confidence, and many valuable lessons in leadership, responsibility, teamwork, humility, and trust.

Over the years, the pressure to perform, fit in, achieve, and hold everything together began to take its toll. I lived with anxiety and depression through my twenties, and in my early thirties I experienced burnout so severe that I could no longer ignore what my body and mind had been trying to tell me. During this time, I kept coming back to my anchors of healing; dance, nature, meditation and ritual

I had spent so long trying to belong to the outside world that I had lost my connection to myself.

There was a painful turning point — one of those moments where life strips away the performance and shows you the truth. I realised that nothing outside of me was going to rescue me. Something had to change, and that change had to begin within me.

That was not the end of my story. It was the doorway.

The beginning of healing

My healing did not happen overnight. It was not glamorous, linear, or easy.

It began quietly.

I sat in nature.

I allowed myself to be still long enough to feel what I had spent years running from. I listened to the ache, the shame, the fear, the anger, the grief, and the small sparks of hope that were still there beneath it all.

Dance, Yoga and Mindfulness became one of my first anchors. Learning about the brain, neuroscience, and the nervous system helped me understand that healing was not about forcing myself to be better. It was about gently strengthening new pathways: self-awareness, self-compassion, presence, and choice.

Nature reminded me that I was not broken. I was cyclical. Human. Alive. Part of something larger.

Then, when I felt strong enough, I returned to the things that had always brought me joy: movement, music, yoga, dance, ceremony, community, and the quiet wisdom of the earth.

I danced my way back into my body.

I breathed my way back into the present.

I remembered that joy was not dependent on everything being perfect outside of me.

Joy could be cultivated from within.

It could be found in bare feet on grass, music in the breeze, hands around a warm cup of cacao, laughter with strangers who become soul friends, and moments of honesty where masks fall away.

The search became a remembering

For many years, I searched for practices, teachers, tools, traditions, and healing spaces that could help me make sense of myself.

I explored yoga, meditation, Nia, conscious dance, Reiki, kinesiology, mindfulness, nature connection, cacao ceremonies, women’s circles, shadow work, mantra, chanting, ritual, and many different healing modalities. Some became daily practices. Some supported me for a season. Some opened doors I didn’t even know were there.

Eventually, I realised I was not searching because I was empty.

I was searching because something ancient in me was calling me home.

I began to understand spirituality not as something outside of me, but as a relationship — with my body, my ancestors, the land, the unseen, my community, and the sacred pulse of everyday life.

I also began to see how many people feel spiritually untethered, especially when we live far from the lands, stories, songs, rituals, and rhythms of our ancestors. We may not always know what is missing, but we feel the ache. And so we search through practices, nature, art, movement, silence, prayer, ceremony, and the body itself.

For me, the search slowly became a remembering.

The birth of The Hummingbird Life

The Hummingbird Life was born from that remembering.

It began as a desire to share the tools, spaces, and practices that had helped me heal. Over time, it became a living, breathing body of work: cacao ceremonies, women’s circles, conscious dance, retreats, spaceholder trainings, mindfulness, private sessions, corporate wellbeing, and earth-based rituals.

I wanted to create spaces where people could feel deeply held, but not dependent. Inspired, but not instructed to abandon their own truth. Supported, but empowered to trust themselves.

Because one of the biggest lessons of my journey is this:

You already carry the medicine you are searching for.

Ceremony, community, sacred tools, movement, and nature do not give you something you do not have. They help you remember what is already within you.

Why I do this work now

Today, I know that my story is not separate from my work. It is the soil my work is rooted from.

I hold space because I know what it is to feel alone.

I teach mindfulness because I know what it is to be trapped in a mind that feels unsafe.

I guide movement because I know how the body can lead us back to truth.

I hold cacao ceremonies because I know the power of the safe plant medicine as a sacred alley, and the need for safe spaced.

I create women’s circles because I believe we heal when we are witnessed, seen and heard, not fixed.

I lead retreats and pilgrimages because I have experienced how land, myth, ritual, and community can initiate us into new chapters of our lives.

I train space holders because I believe the world needs more people who can hold transformational spaces with integrity, humility, sensitivity, and presence.

And I speak about joy because joy saved me — not as a shallow sparkle, but as a deep, embodied devotion to life.

My life now

My life today is colourful, imperfect, grounded, playful, sacred, and very much alive.

I am still a student, always learning, always growing.

Not from a place of lack, but because I know the inner work never stops. Being curious, willing to learn and gaining deeper self awareness is what it means to be human

I still return daily to the practices that keep me connected: meditation, movement, nature, community, ritual, and honest self-reflection. Some days that looks like stillness. Some days it looks like dancing in my kitchen while preparing cacao. Some days it looks like walking under trees with my dog, Jasper.

Some days it looks like holding a circle under the open sky and remembering, once again, that healing is not solo work.

I no longer believe belonging is something we earn by becoming acceptable.

Belonging begins when we stop abandoning ourselves.

When we feel whole enough within, our connections become more authentic. We no longer cling to community from fear. We meet it from truth. We become part of something, not because we are trying to be chosen, but because we are finally willing to arrive as ourselves.

That is the heartbeat of my work.

To help you come home to yourself.
To help you remember your joy.
To help you reconnect with your body, your spirit, the earth, and the people who see you clearly.
To help you live with more truth, courage, softness, and magic in your bones.

This is my story.

And perhaps, in some small way, it is an invitation back to yours.