I always felt a bit different and found it difficult fitting in. My entry into the world was both terrifying and heart-breaking. I was taken from my mother at birth to be given up for adoption. This no doubt contributed to my hyper-sensitivity, and despite being taken in by very loving and generous parents, I often felt that something wasn't quite right or was missing. Going to boarding school at 8 years old further compounded my sense of loneliness and abandonment, and I was prone to bouts of social anxiety and depression growing up. While I was naturally quite joyful and curious about life, I often perceived myself to be an outsider in group dynamics and I tended to become aloof and withdrawn when upset. I soon learned to take on the role of a people-pleaser in order to fit in and not to feel alienated.
This led to me following the 'cool' kids, getting expelled from school at 17 years old, and I ended up going off the rails a bit. This greatly affected what I ended up studying at university and my subsequent career path. I felt very lost and overwhelmed into my twenties, and even into my thirties I had no real sense of direction. It took me years of trying various jobs - including moving abroad to Valencia, Spain where I worked as an English Teacher for 7 years - before I finally realised that I needed to do some deep soul-searching and healing before I could move forward with clarity and purpose.
Over the last decade or so, I've been in a profound transformational process, which has included re-uniting with my birth mother. I have spent time with various meditation teachers and attended loads of retreats and online courses. I've also immersed myself in a variety of practices and therapeutic modalities, culminating in receiving Craniosacral Therapy. This was a game-changer for me as I'd never felt so heard, relaxed and whole before. I also found it fascinating and it led to me wanting to train formally in it. Gradually I've started recovering my authentic self by slowly releasing the deep hurts, repressed emotions, limiting beliefs and patterns held in my body/mind. I can now look back on all the diffculties I've experienced with a fresh perspective to see how all my experiences were the perfect set-up for me to learn and grow through in order to discover who I truly am and what I am here to embody and bring forth in the world.
This adventure is ongoing, but now I feel much more comfortable in myself and aligned to what I sensed as a child, but was taught to doubt: The mystery and wonder of life, our interconnectedness with all that is, and the love that is always here within and without despite any seeming evidence to the contrary.
Why TouchTones?
The name came to me out of the blue one day towards the end of my Cranio-Sacral Therpay (CST) training. I had been learning more about frequency, resonance and harmonics at the time, and I have always been deeply into music - I play the drums, guitar, piano, and I also love to dance. I had heard several people talk about 'feeling tones' and I loved the way the word 'tone' can be used in relation to the body, as well as in music and colour.
The name TouchTones sounded like the perfect description for how, as a therapist, I tune in and listen carefully to the various qualities (tones) in the client's system, and how, by way of gentle touch and an attuned, calm presence, I facilitate a co-resonant field that then naturally starts to harmonize anything that is out of tune.