You asked to go...
WAAAAYYYY BACK TO THE BEGINNING
Is this far enough back for you?
Maybe a bit too far back?​
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If you are more of a play-in-the-shallows kind of person ~ that's great too.
Click here to go back to the shoreline of my life
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If you're like me, you are fascinated by the in-depth version of everything.​
​So let's get an inch wide and a mile deep.
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*LIFE REVIEW ~ CONNECTING THE DOTS
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​For some of you, getting to know me in-depth is a really important step before trusting me to help.
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I totally get that.
Obviously I cannot fit my whole life here, but it covers enough of my story to becoming your Transition Coach that you should be able to decide if I am, or not, the right person to help at this point in your life.
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This is reflective of one of the Transition Tools that I offer in my programs & coaching.
It is called a Life Review and this one is written through the lens of Transition (surprise, surprise!)
I used this tool for myself when beginning to realise that life is not only one big transition (birth to death) but is also made up of many natural transitions along the way that are constantly happening ~ some big, some small, but all shaping the way we live and ultimately the way we will die.
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As you explore my story, feel free to get a piece of paper & write down your reflections on your own life.
Or if you are ready to go, click here to book your coaching call so we can do your life review!​​
I've officially been keeping it weird since 1988.
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I was born in Ontario Canada & grew up as part of large extended family who all lived in one city. My life came with several transitions at an early age ~ from deaths to divorce, moving schools & houses.
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At age eleven my small immediate family moved to the UK. This was a major transition for all of us, moving where we knew no one & immersing ourselves somewhere new. This turned out to be a formative experience for me, as I grew up between two countries and cultures with opportunities to travel both in Europe and beyond throughout my teen years.
This exposure to diverse environments, activities, people, places, animals, opportunities both at home and away, helped me become​ more adaptive, accepting & adventurous. It also helped me understand that although we live in one place, we have an impact on other parts of the world and as a global citizen, I have a responsibility to care for other people, places, animals & the world around me.
This was the beginning of my life-long dedication to environmental & social responsibility.
I'm always looking for meaningful ways to give back and support efforts around the world making positive change, whether with my time, money or my voice.
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I experienced all the usual challenges of being a teenager ~ transitions of health, self & belonging. I also experienced several significant family illnesses that meant becoming a caregiver in my mid-late teens. Although I had experienced deaths during my childhood, this was my first real understanding that our time here isn't guaranteed and death is a part of every life. It was in my teens that I really started to understand the importance of having balance between professional and personal life. I was very dedicated to my academics and part-time work, but my recreational activities were vital for me.
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This became highlighted when I faced my choices of what to do after high school. Although I applied to go to University to study history, it wasn't what I was passionate about and I ended up dropping out right before it started. This is one of many times my parents demonstrated the importance of commitment while also reminding me that I have the right to change my mind and to choose another path. Most importantly they taught me my ultimate responsibility in handling consequences of my choices. I'm eternally grateful.
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I took a year off to work, travel & explore "what I want to do when I grow up"...
It makes me laugh now to think that we put so much pressure on ourselves at that age.
Almost twenty years later & on what feels like my 16th career, I'm still not sure.
All I have ever known is that I want to help in some way.
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I worked a range of jobs, learning that each and every one came with challenges & opportunities. I began to realise there isn't really a wrong choice, because they teach us something that proves to be useful later.
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I came to realise that learning what we don't want to do
is just as important as learning what we do want to do
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After some extensive solo travel and good conversations with my most observant teachers, family & friends...
I decided to take step in the direction of my passions ~ travel, social change & environmental responsibility.
I applied to study Geography at University.
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I've heard every joke about this ~ I have a degree in using maps and colouring in. I own that. I love both.
(If you know anyone at Crayola... I would absolutely love to be sponsored!)
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At the time, I saw this path as a way to travel more ~ to see the world and experience different environments.
​What I came to realise later is that Geography is really a degree in curiosity ~ it's about studying anything and everything ~ seeking to understand the world around us and our relationship with it.
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But even though I had made this decision & was excited, the transition to this path came with handling my first big professional rejection... turned down by the University of Oxford in a letter on Christmas eve. Ouch.
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What if rejection can be protection?
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With hindsight this couldn't have been a better "detour" on my path because I ended up realising this rejection was protection ~ it mean I went to the University College of London ~ a school heavily focused on in-field research and adventure, located in the heart of one of the world's biggest cities, full of opportunity.
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I experienced so many transitions during this time ~ personal & professional.
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From moving to a big city and living on my own, to being responsible for my time and work, the start and end of my first serious relationship, learning to cook and pay my bills, experiencing sexual assault and academic stress, friendship shifts and several experiences of loss that kick-started over a decade of transformation.​
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At the age of twenty, I experienced the death of seven family members & friends in one year.
This included my first experience of providing palliative care & being present for the final moment of someone's life. This was a pivotal catalyst for my dedication to living fully & never taking life for granted.
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I had my first experience of overwhelming, life-changing grief.
I also had my first experience of having my grief questioned, disrespected & challenged.
My research and how I lived my life significantly changed.
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For my BA Geography dissertation, I focused on the intersection of human-environment interaction ~ exploring how when we are connected to nature deeply we are motivated to take action for it's protection.
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I didn't realise at the time that this echoed how I felt about care for one another as well.
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After witnessing multiple lives end in what I considered to be the first "half" of life (20s - 50s) earlier in the year, I chose to shift from focusing my research on theory to reality & planned my first-ever expedition ~ leading myself and two fellow students on a remote ocean canoeing research trip in Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island. This was a formative trip for me, bringing so many different obstacles and opportunities. From wildlife encounters to survival circumstances, inter-personal dynamics to physical exhaustion ~ demanding new levels of adaptability.
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It brought me two shifts in perspective that changed my life at it's core.
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HISHUK ISH TSA'WALK ~ EVERYTHING IS ONE
The first was inspired by my work with the Nuu-Chah-Nulth people who taught me that everything we do, wherever we are, is directly connected to what happens elsewhere on the planet & the universe. That we are directly responsible for our impact through the choices that we make each and every day.
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LEARN TO BE COMFORTABLE UNCOMFORTABLE
The second was that life is really made up of both changes & choices.
That we are always going to face challenges that are voluntary & involuntary.
But the one thing we always have is the choice over how we respond to them.
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I began to learn how to be comfortably uncomfortable ~ mentally, emotionally, physically & spiritually.
This formed the foundation for what has been the rest of my life so far & what I offer through Re~Creation.
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I began to look for more opportunities to explore & hone my ability of how to be comfortably uncomfortable.
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I continued on to do a Masters of Science at UCL in Environment, Science & Society ~ researching how we as humans find optimism to act despite fear in the face of big environmental threats like climate change. This later became central to my role as an international public speaker of social & environmental responsibility as well as organiser of large-scale international community engagement events on plastic pollution.
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I looked for local ways to bring together my passion for adventure with environmental & social responsibility. I took part in a diverse range of physical challenge events raising money for charity. This even included stand up paddleboarding for the first time to complete a SUP Marathon covering 42 km of the Thames River... a similar choice was made to sail for the first time by crossing the Atlantic Ocean a few years later.​
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You might be sensing a theme...
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At the same time I signed up for expeditions that I knew would challenge me mentally, emotionally & physically ~ leading to my participation in The Lost World Project, a student filmmaking expedition with two BBC cameramen to capture the unique threats to Mount Roraima and the tepui region of Venezuela. As well as meeting some pivotal people in my life, this trekking expeditions challenged me in new ways and ultimately shifted how I saw the world but how I wanted to help others see it as well.
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Falling in love with filmmaking, I decided to open my first business while completing my masters.
Mistake? No.
Challenging? Most definitely.
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Your Frontier Film Company was born!
In keeping with my ethos for life it was a community interest company in the UK dedicated to capturing international social & environment responsibility projects.
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Once again illness & loss found a way to catalyse transformation in my life.
The first film project was a tribute to one of the camera-men who had encouraged us to start the company.
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This company included extreme highs and spectacular lows. Financially on paper it would appear to be a failure, but in terms of my own evolution, it was an incredible success. It taught me so much about myself, about other people, business and the world. It took my business partners and I on incredible adventures, we won awards, met wonderful and challenging people, learned about taxes & how to communicate through film.
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It taught me to redefine what success & failure meant to me
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After graduating my Masters and trying to go full time on my business, I had to admit that I needed a job.
This led me back to the place that had rejected me previously ~ The University of Oxford.
I took a job in the Environmental Change Institute helping arrange events for the UK Energy Research Centre.
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It reminded me that just because something isn't right for you now...
it can still become right at a future point in time
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As I balanced a full time job with running a business ~ filmmaking on evenings and weekends, I became addicted to being busy, thinking my worth came from being productive. Because of my fear of missing out on all the opportunities in life before I die, my pattern became to say 'yes' to everything. Not pausing to ask whether it was really right for me or if I would be able to do justice to what I was involved in.
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It is important to preface what comes next with ~ "I have no regrets".
I think in many ways I'm able to live a life feeling ready to die because I have lived it to the brim.
That being said, I do wish sometimes I could have slowed down to soak it all in a bit more.
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Over the next 10 years, it looked something like this...
Completed 7 new professional certifications
Set up 2 more businesses and 1 not-for-profit
Worked 15 different jobs in many different sectors
Led, co-led & coordinated 10 international expeditions
Sailed over 10,000 nautical miles across oceans & seas
Coordinated 1000+ group community engagement project
Showed my films at over 25 international festivals & locations
Gave 2 TEDx talks & over 100 presentations internationally & nationally
Sat on 3 different international, national & regional Boards of Directors
Sat on 6 different national & regional Committees and Advisory Councils​
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I was living a mile wide but also trying to live a mile deep with these experiences too.
For example...
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I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean as filmmaker for a team researching plastic pollution & ended up spending 6 years showing my film & presenting internationally about care for nature ~ from the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington DC to the Royal Geographical Society in London UK. I went on to lead multiple international sailing expeditions & work as crew with Pangaea Explorations, covering over 10,000 nautical miles in 5 years.
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Moving back to Canada, I co-founded an outdoor recreation business that served over 14,000 people in 8 seasons. I became a wakeboard and paddleboard instructor, later training coaches, and sitting on national boards and councils. We had incredible staff over the years, becoming not just a destination but a community. This business focused on sustainability and accessibility, bringing watersports to people from age 3 to 93 and receiving recognition for it's dedication to sustainable tourism, customer service & care of nature.
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After witnessing plastic pollution in the Oceans, I came home to co-found a not-for-profit focused on the health of the Great Lakes. We run outdoor educational immersive experiences & events designed to connect people to our shared backyard, love it and find unique ways to protect it. We began an annual community engagement event that has seen 1000s of group across the region & on both sides of the border take action while raising awareness for our responsibility we have to care for our home. This event is in it's 10th year.
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If someone wasn't regularly telling me I was crazy when I told them what I was up to next, I felt like I wasn't living to my full potential
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As I navigated all of this and more, I was striving to have a normal social life, a good relationship with my family, maintain a significant relationship, be a primary caregiver for my grandmother, navigate the pandemic with the rest of the world...
As with all things, they come to an end.
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In 2021, as my grandmother's health declined and care needs increased, I reached burnout.
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I had to make some really hard choices & to finally say no, for the first time in a long time.
​I closed businesses. I left committees. I resigned from boards. I cancelled projects.
I streamlined my life so that I could be fully present to care for someone who had cared for me.
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As with all choices ~ there are always consequences & changes as a result.
Some of my worst fears about making these choices came true.
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I lost relationships, I lost community, I lost identities, I lost the sense I'd made of my world.
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In the wake of these choices & changes, I experienced a deep depression in the silence.
I hit my rock bottom.
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I no longer knew who I was in the world without who I had always been.
My sense of self, my worth, belonging, community were gone.
I no longer trusted myself to make good decisions.
I felt like I was drowning in my emotions.
I had incessant re-entrant thoughts.
My fear was ruling my life.
I became quite unwell.
I felt lost.
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I had never experienced this level of loss & grieving from something other than death.
I had never been unable to navigate my fears and felt powerless to control my thoughts.
I had never felt so at a loss for who I was or my purpose in, and service to, the world.
I didn't know how to care for myself so I focused all my energy on caring for others.
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This became my understanding of the core experiences of transitions
~ fear, self, loss & care ~
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Over the next three years I rebuilt my life through changing my relationship with these four foundations
~ my sense of self, with my fears, my losses and with my notions of care ~
I found talk therapy, CBT & EMDR.
I found meditation & mindfulness.
I found silence, stillness & solitude.
I decided to help others find that too.
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I found little pockets of relief.
I discovered how to build resilience.
I realised despite it all I could find renewal.
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I slowly rediscovered who I was under all the labels, the stories & opinions.
I slowly realised I could change my core beliefs by simply choosing new ones.
I slowly realised that through practice & perspectives I could find new possibilities.
I found new friends, new community, new jobs, new worth & new recreational activities.
I found new ways of being that felt good to me, new ways of caring for myself that felt sustainable.
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As I became healthier, my grandmother's health declined.
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I was able to be fully present with her for the last 3 years of her life ~ each and every day.
Through the smooth times and crunchy times as her brain & her body changed.
I was able to be with her every hour in the final weeks & days of her life.
I was able to be there with her every moment as her body slowed.
I was able to be there when she took her last breath.
It is the one death where I know I did my best.
Because of that, I have no regrets.
The next step was clear.
​​This is when I became a Transition Coach
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The decision to do my end-of-life doula training was an easy one.
There are so many tools I wish I'd had during my time as a caregiver for those dying.
Also for myself so I could have shown up for myself & others with greater care.
But I choose to live my life with no regrets.
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Instead, I am grateful to discover these tools now, to make them available for those who are dying and their circle of care ~ but to also be a part of making them available to anyone & everyone who wishes to change their relationship with their experience of transitions throughout life, including death.​
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As you now know from diving deep into my story ~ I have diverse experience, training & certifications that reflect my unique life. You have your own story ~ and I would be honoured to witness it & be a part of it.
Whether sailing across an Ocean, trekking up a mountain or paddling remote regions unsupported, setting up businesses and not-for-profits, filmmaking or public speaking, experiencing diverse personal transitions from birth to death a most things in-between ~ I've learned through first-hand experience that is takes mental, physical, emotional & spiritual training to thrive through life's adventure.
My background of exploration in my personal, professional and recreational worlds has lead me to want to help you discover your own path through, and to, what feels good for you.
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​​​​​​​​​​​​Here's to your unique life adventure,
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Phew!
If you got to the end here you now know me better than most people on the planet.
Feeling ready to work together? Let's get started!
Not sure yet?
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