Hi, I’m Vanessa. I’ve experienced burnout and breakdown, and come back to be stronger than ever. I’ve learned the hard way that looking after myself isn’t selfish, and it’s a necessity not a luxury. And I’ve learned that this ‘selfcare’ is the key to my physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
I’ve at last learned to listen to the signals and messages my body sends me, and as much as possible try to act on them. I walk my talk to the best of my ability, and won’t be sharing anything on here that I haven’t at least tried for myself.
So I invite you to join me on this journey and exploration to greater wellbeing and fulfillment in our lives. Let me guide you from my experiences, and we’ll learn together too – the journey continues for me…
If you’re interested to know more about my background, I’ve worked as a health care professional for about 20 years in the NHS, social care and hospice care in the UK. Rewarding and stressful work. I’ve endured bullying and harrassment in the workplace, and in 2008 that resulted in me having a breakdown, at a time when mental health was still not discussed, and such things had more of a stigma about them than they do now.
It felt a long road back from that, and I was fortunate to have great support both personally and professionally. My interest in wellbeing stemmed from experiencing a great lack of it!
Having recovered from that breakdown I then trained as dance movement psychotherapist, using the body and movement to help people work through emotional issues. More recently I refocused my body-based work into embodied coaching (see my Coaching page).
And I work part-time as a manual handling trainer.
Making Time for Me 