And Authentic Self grew out of years of listening to people.
My work probably looks a little unusual when you first see everything together.
But to me, they've never really been separate things.
The thread running through all of them is people.
Where we are.
What we're carrying.
What matters to us.
And what happens when we finally have enough space to hear ourselves properly.
I've worked with people for most of my adult life.
For more than ten years I ran my own salon, and hairdressing taught me something I probably didn't fully appreciate at the time:
People talk when they feel safe.
They talk about relationships.
The things they're excited about.
The things they're frightened about.
And sometimes the things they haven't really said anywhere else.
My job was obviously to do their hair.
But the human part of that work was always just as important to me.
Listening.
Not judging.
Remembering what mattered to somebody.
Creating a space where they could simply be themselves for a while.
Looking back, that thread never disappeared.It just changed form.
Sound has been part of my life for many years.
Long before Authentic Self had fully taken shape, I was drawn to instruments, vibration and what happens when we stop trying to think our way through everything.
That eventually led me to train professionally in Sound Therapy.
What I loved about sound was that it offered something conversation couldn't always provide.
Quiet without silence.
Space without needing an answer.
An experience you didn't necessarily have to explain.
Sound remains a big part of Authentic Self today — both as something people can experience in its own right and as one of the practices I can draw upon within wider Wayfinder work.
My own spiritual life has also shaped the way I work.
The old paths and landscapes that help us make sense of where we are.
These things matter to me.
But I've never believed that everybody who works with me needs to believe exactly what I believe.
Your spirituality might look completely different from mine.
You might not describe yourself as spiritual at all.
That's okay.
For me, spirituality isn't about handing somebody another set of rules.
It's another language we can sometimes use to explore meaning, connection and the things that aren't always easy to put into words.
As my wellbeing and spiritual work developed, I became increasingly interested in counselling and the more grounded ways we understand thoughts, feelings, patterns and behaviour.
That led me into counselling training and further study, including CBT.
It gave me another lens.
A way of asking:
What do we actually know?
What are we worried might happen?
What pattern keeps appearing?
What matters here?
Is there another way of seeing this?
And I realised something important.
I didn't want to choose between the grounded and the spiritual.
That's the slightly tongue-in-cheek way I describe it.
A space where reflection, counselling skills and CBT-informed questions can sit alongside intuition, sound, Reiki, symbolism and spiritual exploration.
Not everything in every session.
Just what is useful for the person in front of me.
Wayfinder wasn't something I sat down and invented because I needed another service to sell.
It grew out of everything that came before it.
Hairdressing taught me to listen.
Sound taught me that not everything needs more words.
Reiki taught me about stillness and presence.
Spiritual work gave me another language for meaning, symbolism and connection.
Counselling and CBT learning helped me stay curious about thoughts, patterns, evidence and different perspectives.
Coaching brought questions about direction, values and what comes next.
Eventually I realised I didn't need to keep all of those things in separate boxes.
I've always been drawn to paths, trackways, crossroads, landscape and the idea of finding rather than being lost.
There's something very human about reaching a point where the old direction no longer fits but the new one hasn't appeared yet.
My spiritual work with Elen of the Ways has become part of that symbolism too — paths, thresholds, journeys and the places where we have to find our own direction.
But Wayfinder isn't about me becoming the person who knows your path.
Quite the opposite.
I'm not the Wayfinder for you.
The Wayfinder is you.
I might walk alongside you for part of it.
Ask a question.
Offer another perspective.
Create some quiet.
Bring in a useful practice.
Or help you notice something you hadn't seen before.
But your path remains yours.
I'm not particularly interested in pretending I've got life completely figured out.
And I'm not interested in sitting opposite somebody acting as though I understand their life better than they do.
I'm curious.
I listen.
I ask questions.
I can be practical.
I can be spiritual.
Sometimes we'll go quite deep.
Sometimes we'll laugh.
Sometimes a session needs reflection.
Sometimes it needs sound or stillness.
And sometimes somebody just needs to say everything they've been carrying without somebody immediately trying to turn it into a solution.
I take the work seriously.
But I don't think that means everything has to feel heavy.
I don't see my role as handing somebody a map.
I'm closer to somebody walking alongside you for a while.
I can help you look at the landscape.
Notice what's there.
Question something.
Slow down.
Explore possibilities.
And perhaps see where a next step might be.
I don't see my role as telling someone who they should become or which direction their life should take.
I can listen. I can ask questions. I can notice patterns. I can offer another perspective and draw on the approaches I'm trained in when they're useful.
But the aim isn't for you to become better at listening to me.
It's to create enough space for you to hear more of yourself.
That belief sits underneath Wayfinder and the wider work of Authentic Self.
Eventually our paths separate again.
That's important.
Because the aim isn't for you to need my voice every time you reach another crossroads.
You don't have to see the whole path to take the next step.
The way I work has grown through both formal training and lived experience.
My background brings together sound therapy, Reiki, spiritual counselling, coaching and mentoring, alongside counselling training and ongoing study in CBT.
But I don't believe a collection of certificates tells you everything about how someone will work with you.
For me, the important part is what happens when we're actually sitting together.
My learning continues too. I regularly undertake further study across counselling, coaching, complementary wellbeing and spiritual practice, allowing the way I work to keep developing rather than becoming fixed.
Person first. Tool second.
Years of sitting with people.
Running a business.
Working with clients going through major life changes.
Supporting people whose appearance and identity mattered deeply to them.
Learning when to speak.
Learning when not to.
Learning that the same thing doesn't work for everybody.
And learning that sometimes the most useful question isn't:
“How do we fix this?”
It's:
“What's actually happening here?”
Formal training matters to me.
So does knowing the limits of that training.
But I also think experience teaches us things that can't always be reduced to letters after a name.
The name came before Wayfinder, but they fit together rather well.
Authentic Self isn't about discovering some perfect, polished “true self” hiding underneath everything else.
For me, it's simpler than that.
It's about creating enough space to notice:
What feels like you.
What doesn't anymore.
What matters.
What you're carrying because somebody else told you that you should.
And what might need your attention now.
That can change.
We change.
Our direction changes.
Our understanding of ourselves changes.
That's part of being human.
My personal work includes:
These are spaces for people exploring something in their own lives.
My professional work includes Business Mentoring for heart-led and value-based business owners and managers.
Because I've spent years running businesses as well as working directly with clients, that part of the work feels just as natural to me.
Different paths. Same principle.Start with where you are.
I also work with heart-led and value-based business owners and managers who want to build something sustainable without turning themselves into somebody they're not.
We can explore positioning, offers, boundaries, client journeys, visibility, structure and the practical realities of running meaningful work.
It's mentoring and coaching, not financial advice.
You don't need to know which service you need.
You don't need to arrive with the answer.
And you don't have to have the whole path figured out.
Tell me what's bringing you here.
We can start from there.
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