My Story
When my mum died suddenly in 2013, I was 24 and completely unprepared for how grief would turn my life upside down. I struggled with anxiety and depression, and I felt like my life was unravelling before my eyes. I felt lost and alone, like the support I had didn't quite meet the unique experience of losing a parent at such a pivotal life stage.
Through a series of losses that followed, I learned that grief extends far beyond bereavement – it is woven through all the ways we navigate change, loss of identity, and life transitions that leave us feeling untethered.
Over the following decade, I found my own way through it. I went to therapy, read lots of books, listened to podcasts, explored spiritual practices like meditation and breathwork, and discovered grief tending. It took me a while, but I eventually learned that grief isn't something to overcome, but something to learn to nurture and live alongside.
When I lost my Dad in 2023 at the age of 34, becoming an 'adult orphan' was an even deeper initiation into grief. I realised that grief would forever be part of life, which deepened my passion to support others in the ways I wish I'd received myself.
I became a Grief Counsellor
because I needed one
Before all of this happened, I worked in the corporate world in Human Resources. I'd been to uni, got the graduate job. But when my mum died, it made me question everything. Not just my sense of self, but my sense of purpose. I found myself wondering what really mattered, and whether the path I was on still felt like mine.
When I was made redundant a year or so later, it was the push I needed to change direction - so I retrained as a Counsellor and qualified in 2019.
Since then, I've supported hundreds of clients with many different issues - anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, and life transitions. I also worked part-time for NHS Talking Therapies, supporting people to navigate work alongside their mental health (something I could relate to from my own experience).
But grief work was always my 'why'. I knew it was where I wanted to focus. I just needed time to understand my own grief first.
Along the way I discovered breathwork, which became an anchor for me. I began bringing it into my client sessions, noticing that working with the body mattered just as much as working with thoughts and emotions, and went on to train as a Breathwork Coach.
Then, around the time I lost my Dad, I found grief tending. Being in community with other grievers brought such comfort and normalised my own experience. It led me to train as a grief tending facilitator and I began holding grief tending circles, online and in person.
Now, my work brings all of these things together and focuses on supporting people through grief and loss of all kinds, with a particular passion for those who've lost a parent young.
Qualifications & Training
❂ Level 4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling (CPTA - Counselling & Psychotherapy Training Academy)
❂ Online and Telephone Counselling training (Counselling Tutor)
❂ The Art of Grief Tending (with Nici Harrison - The Grief Space)
❂ Level 3 Award in Breathwork Coaching (Bedfordshire Centre for Therapeutic Studies)
❂ Ongoing specialised grief training and CPD (such as supporting traumatic and sudden loss, grief and neurodiversity)
"The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them."
- Francis Weller
So that you know you are in safe hands, I thought it would be helpful to know...
❂ I'm a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), and my work is guided by their ethical framework - so your safety and best interests are always at the heart of what I do.
❂ I take part in regular supervision, which supports and strengthens my work with clients.
❂ I'm committed to keeping my skills and knowledge current, with regular training in the areas that matter most to this work (and you'll usually find me with my head in a book or a podcast of some kind).
❂ And because holding space for you means looking after myself too, I have my own personal therapy and keep up my own self-development, spiritual practices, and regularly tending to my own grief.
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