From Melbourne to Mexico City
Let’s start at the beginning - not, like, I-was-born-in-a-small-Australian-mining-town beginning - but at a point in my life that gives you a bit of context and maybe helps you decide if the stuff I bang on about could be useful for you, dear reader!
I’m a bicycle loving, skin-care enthusiast that made her way from the beautiful coasts of Australia to the flavourful ones of Mexico.
I’m also a yoga & mindful movement teacher and holistic health coach.
To give you the TLDR version: in 2017, I packed up my felt tip pens and left my design gig in Melbourne, Australia, with a one-way ticket to Mexico in hand.
Actually, that’s not exactly true - I bought a ticket to San Francisco with my boyfriend at the time but in a classic plot twist, a month after leaving Australia I walked into Tijuana from San Diego with not a boyfriend in sight and a feeling that you can only feel when you’ve got nothing to do and nowhere to be - complete freedom.
It was the beginning of an epic journey that took me all over Mexico and to many of its neighbouring countries. I cut my Spanish-speaking teeth in Durango, a cowboy city in Mexico’s north. I learnt to drink mezcal and developed a healthy tolerance to chilli. I embarrassed myself in salsa clubs in Cuba, swam in a purple Caribbean sea at sun set in the Dominican Republic. I was rescued by the Panamanian firefighters after a solo hike/sprained ankle incident, walked through dark jungles on car-free islands in Nicaragua, and drank colourful, potent Quetzalteca in Guatemala.
Along the way, I also completed my first yoga teacher training in Tulum, which kick-started another epic adventure, one I’m still on. The meeting point of these two things - yoga and solo adventures - was actually more profound than I realised at the time, as these things often are.
You see, there was a time when I was younger where I didn’t think I’d ever be able to:
get on top of my mental health
depend on myself
have far-flung adventures
…the list goes on.
I’ve had OCD and anxiety since I was a little kid and over the years, I’ve tried lots of different things to keep it in check - psychology, psychiatry, medication (the big pharma kind), other medication (microdosing and natural supplements), and EFT tapping to name a few.
It was this pursuit of peace that first led me to the yoga mat because I figured it had a pretty good rep for bringing about bliss and serenity and surely all I needed to do was bust out a few sun salutations, develop a meditation practice and I’d be on my way to complete, unwavering mental health, right?
WRONG!
It took me a few years plus a whole lot of courses and training to really get the body’s role in overall health but since then, I’ve developed a healthy obsession with this innately intelligent, built-in toolkit we each possess.
This means that a lot of my work, practice and content is focused on befriending the mind and body, nervous system regulation, and somatic tools to support emotional, mental and physical health.
BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME FOR NOW.
If you like what you’ve read - if you want to learn tips and tricks on all things holistic health, if you’re interested in developing and/or strengthening your mind-body connection, if you’re a human being who’s ever experienced stress or anxiety - I think we’re gonna get along just fine!
I’d also like to give you a little somethin’ somethin’ as a way of thanking you for being here - a guide to 5 x body-based anxiety hacks.
