I have always been interested in human connection and the healing that comes from that. In my twenties I studied Medicine, gained a degree as a doctor and worked in Torbay hospital, down here in Devon.. I left the profession as I had become disillusioned and felt unable to authentically connect with patients the way I wanted to, within the medical system. I went on to manage a holistic health centre and then train and practice as a craniosacral therapist. I developed and deepened my skills, particularly in nonverbal communication, deep listening and holding a safe space for people to rest in to.
A few decades later, I underwent a huge initiation with the death and dying of my father. He endured intolerable pain with pancreatic cancer. As I sat alongside him in his dying, my capacity and resilience to not turn away from suffering but to stay present, open-hearted and connected became clear. My father meant the world to me, and I knew that if I could stay in connection with that degree of pain and suffering, with the person I loved so much, then my place was with those who are in their dying. I had become an “Amicus Mortis – a friend in death.”
As well as offering one to one support for people facing the end of their life, and their dying, I run monthly death cafes and grief tending spaces in the community, understanding the importance of normalising death and dying and bringing it back in to the community where it belongs.
I am the founder and director of Dying with Grace CIC, which offers community events related to death and dying to the local community, weaving together knowledge, wisdom and creativity. For more info see www.dyingwithgrace.co.uk
I love to walk and swim in wild nature, connecting to these lands and seas, and to spend time with my family and friends.