About Me

I grew up in Liverpool in the 1970s, the youngest of six. As a child, I loved being outside. We had a big garden and I spent a lot of time outdoors with my dad – looking back now, this is definitely where my love of nature began.

During the 1980s I went to work in London for the summer and ended up living there for 18 years. I got my degree from University College London and also worked in various pubs and clubs, and eventually became a qualified youth and community worker. 

I also lived in Sweden for a year as part of my undergraduate degree, learning the language and falling in love with the forests and the spectacular landscapes. 

When I was 28, I travelled around South East Asia and ended up in Chiang Mai, Thailand for a year. I studied with the SunDo Taoist School with a pupil of Master Hyunmoon Kim. I also met and studied with Daniel Read, the author of ‘The Tao of Health Sex and Longevity’, a book that had an enormous influence on me. The Taoist practices I learnt in Thailand changed my life forever.

In 2006, I began my three-year training in shamanism with Alberto Villoldo. Alberto has written many books of his travels and apprenticeship with the Laika tribe in Peru. This initial training was beyond description and blew my naturally sceptical mind out of all its limiting beliefs.

I immediately decided to leave London and travel the world studying the shamanic remnants of the past. I went to South Africa and found a teacher there who took me meditating in caves with ancient wall art. I travelled on to Australia, and sought out the wisdom of the aboriginal people in museums and exhibitions; I then went to the smaller, remote Polynesian islands and found ancient standing stones and tattooed natives.

I travelled on to Los Angeles and then drove through the deserts of California, Arizona and New Mexico, finding out as much as I could about the indigenous people of those lands. I fell in love with the landscape and the stories of the old ways.

Finally, I travelled to Canada and soaked up the cosmology of the tribes of the Northern natives. As I travelled, I found that animism - the experience that everything is alive – and shamanism – the spiritual practices of animists – were to be found the whole world over. I was fascinated, yet saddened – why did my society not educate me in this? Why have we lost this power and connection with nature? How can we bring it back and start living in right relationship with our beautiful earth again? 

Upon my return, I trained as a yoga teacher at the Sivananda Ashram in the mountains of Tyrol in Austria. I started to teach yoga and also got a job as an Oral Historian for National Museums Liverpool, collecting hundreds of life stories. I continued to study with Alberta Villoldo, travelling to Holland, Germany, Peru, Bolivia and California. I spent time working with the Laika shamans of Peru. My fascination with these ancient practices just grew and grew. 

I have continued to train in shamanism with various schools over the past 15 years and I am also a qualified Sivananda Yoga Teacher since 2007 and an Integral Eye Movement Therapist (IEMT). 

I am also a qualified advocate for children and vulnerable adults and worked for 3 years for The Children's Society as an advocate for children in care and those on child protection plans.

I have worked as a shamanic practitioner now for 7 years and have taught workshops and courses in shamanism since 2017. 

Over the last few years, I have developed the Somatic Shamanism therapeutic practice.

I offer a safe and sacred space to those who wish to undertake the deeply personal journey of self-discovery and healing through the process of Shamanic Shamanism

Somatic Shamanism™