I started my own business 15 years ago… completely by accident!
It is the best thing I have ever done and I love the work that I do. This is how it happened…
There were already a lot of changes happening in my life at this time. I was a new mum to my daughter and a restructure in my full-time employment lead me to taking redundancy. I was also pregnant with my second child.
There I was with a 10 month old baby, another on the way and no employment. I have to admit my timings weren’t brilliant, but it was at that stage that I took the decision to set up my own business working in the world or learning and development as a freelance trainer.
In the early days I wrote and delivered courses on subjects such as diversity/inclusion/unconscious bias and understanding domestic abuse, as this had been my background before self-employment. Gradually, as my client base and demand for my training increased, I wrote courses, and continue to do so around everything psychology, mind and behaviour. This includes subjects such as assertiveness, mindfulness, emotional wellbeing, mental health awareness, generally any learning connected to people, that an organisation asks me for.
A few years in to running my own business, I felt massively overwhelmed, stressed and anxious, juggling work and two young children was a real challenge. Instead of offering myself compassion, the negative voice in my head would have me convinced it was because I was ‘not good enough’ or I was failing somehow.
With this in mind, my solution, in order to sort out my stress and overwhelm, was that I needed to work harder, learn more, do more and be more busy….Maybe you relate to this? It is certainly not a strategy I recommend to clients now!
My ‘doing more’ was to become a coach as well as a trainer so I decided to attend an NLP course (neuro-linguistic programming) to gain more qualifications.
It changed my life!!
This course was the beginning of my journey into my own personal development and it tapped into my passion to work with and help others with their psychological wellbeing so they could become more balanced both personally and professionally.
On a personal level, it helped me understand myself more. I could see how I could limit myself with my own beliefs and how I could hold myself back with negative self-talk. As a result of this awareness it helped with relationships, communication, parenting and was the beginnings of me becoming a psychotherapist, a coach and all the new learning became part of my training work.
I love NLP and still use and train in it to this day. However, I felt that to be able to help people at a deeper level, with more complex life struggles, it was important for me to become a psychotherapist. I studied Transactional Analysis (TA), giving me an advanced understanding of psychology. In addition, experience of working with individuals couples and groups over the years, has given me the practical skills to help others. Not to mention, spending time in therapy myself, unravelling my own processes, which has an immense impact on how I work.
My learning about myself and others doesn’t stop here. I continue to read, attend events, listen to podcasts and seek out new concepts in all things therapeutic to up-date my practice and continually work on my own self-improvement.
I’m a great believer in following your dreams, passions and creating your best life, whatever that looks like for each individual. Even if this means sometimes stepping outside your comfort zone and facing fears. From the beginning of my personal development training I dreamt of having a safe, comfortable space of my own to run workshops and see clients. In 2013 I made this my reality. I opened Blend Centre which is wellbeing hub for running my programmes, providing therapy for my clients and creating a place for other practitioners to work from with their clients. (click here for more information).
My Philosophy
The narrative and stories we tell ourselves can massively affect how we feel and function. It can impact on how we see ourselves and our relationships with others. Sometimes those stories lead to thinking about ‘not being good enough’, shame and generally being hard on ourselves.
I am not about fixing you, because you are not broken (although it might feel that way sometimes). I work with you to find out more about you and to give you tools to take away and use in the future. I believe that everyone has capacity to change, learn new things, and develop a positive mindset it is because of this belief, I do what I do.
Research shows that the success of therapy is mostly about the relationship between the client and therapist rather than the training and qualifications they have. More importantly, it is about the client feeling respected, accepted, understood and cared for by the therapist. This is at the heart of my work.
My training
I have a degree in psychology and criminology and for two decades I have been working with people therapeutically. During that time I have continually gained experience, attending courses (too many to mention) that inform my practice.
I’m a qualified Transactional Analysis therapist but use a mix of psychological approaches such as Mindfulness, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and CBT. I am also a NLP Master Practitioner and accredited trainer.