I have had different body issues over different periods of my life, but at least twice, my nervous system collapsed, such that I could not stand straight or walk properly, and just trying to move one finger would bring excruciating pain. I was in and out of acute body crises and there was a time where I lost my ability to move from my neck downwards. I also recall needing to be carried to the car, and stay in session with an acupuncturist for three hours just to ease me slightly away from what I was experiencing. Over the years, I have had rounds of trying to cope, face setbacks, re-set, and I can say, without doubt, that I have been to hell and back many times. 

Looking back, l realise that stress, sadness, anxiety had a lot to do with my body collapsing, and I was suffering from bouts of unprovoked spinal disc herniation. Life’s stressful situations, work challenges, struggles with relationships, childhood traumas came together and had a massive onslaught on my body. And the bodily effects in turn created a myriad of negative feelings; fear, hopelessness, distress, frustration, depression.

This mutually-affective relationship between the body, mind and life is being proved and explored in the neuroscience, psychology and medical worlds today. Back then, I had to do a lot of self-learning about my body, my mental state and what was happening in my life and how they came together to affect my health. What I learnt, I will keep for the rest of my life: achieving balance, positivity and wellness is constant work-in-progress.

I am grateful for the help of amazing professionals - doctors, osteopaths, massage therapists, acupuncturists, body-work therapists, counsellors and psychoanalysts. I am thankful to have benefited from alternative medicine, yoga, feldenkrais for yoga and meditation under the instructions of experts. Through this experience, I have come to know that there is not one way to heal the body. In fact, the body needs different approaches and many ways to help it restore. It is why I decided to bring together all that I have learnt and experienced to help others.

Thank you for reading my story - and if you’ve read up to here, perhaps you too are in search of better balance, wellness and resilience?

If so, I would urge you to make yourself a priority. How and what we eat, sleep, exercise, and care for ourselves, our work, our relationships are constantly making an impact on our body. While the body does not know whether it is a holiday, a celebration, or an argument that’s happening, it absorbs all the impact that any of these events can create in our brain, gut and nervous systems, and gets into any mode necessary to ‘survive’. Of course, the same event can have very different effects on each of us because our own body is unique. So, the message is to be mind, body and life-aware, do not wait until a small issue becomes a challenging one because taking care of ourselves is an everyday practice.