The question I get asked most is how I do life regardless — regardless of what life throws, regardless of starting over more times than I can count.
It was not always this way. Not even close.
From as early as I can remember, I experienced the world differently — both physically and emotionally. My body was a puzzle I couldn't solve. The world felt louder, more intense, more overwhelming than it seemed for everyone else. What followed were years of trying to find relief from the intensity of being in this body and mind — packed into a backpack, headed for what I imagined would be my personal "The Beach" escape. Divemaster in Thailand and Australia, happy-go-lucky on the outside, barely holding together on the inside.
What rebuilt me wasn't a single moment. It was years of layering — bare feet on the earth, a 6-month intensive yoga teacher training in Brazil that finally worked with my joints instead of against them, a short but deep dive into physiotherapy and anatomy in Germany, then four years working, studying and living at the European Academy for Ayurveda. Travelling to India various times to study. Slowly understanding diagnoses that had shaped my whole life: Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, PCOS, MTHFR. Each piece of the puzzle falling into place.
I like to think that my Capricorn rising started to have a dialogue with my nomad Sagittarius and called me to the German Alps. I moved into a little cottage — the place that still is my base today — and built the Ayurvedic department of a large hotel whilst growing my own private clinic. Alongside my work I regularly travelled to the UK for further Ayurveda internships and various women-centred trainings and courses. For the first time I felt solid and content.
Then four hand surgeries limited my hands-on work. I could no longer do what I had built — so I did what I had always done when life forced a change. I adapted. And this time I used my feet.
The UK.
Between the cliffs of Cornwall and the Highlands of Scotland, leading hiking tours — 99% barefoot — I found my zest for life again. And I knew: all of this had been building towards something.
By 41, I have nothing I'm trying to escape. A simple life — barefoot in nature, foraging, sunrises in the mountains. A real purpose.
I know what it is to piece a life together. To find structure when everything feels overwhelming. To build health, clarity and purpose — not through one big transformation, but through quiet, consistent, grounded steps.
That is what I bring to RETURN. And this September, it begins.