about me
Storytelling has been used for centuries as a tool for healing. By sharing our stories, we can feel heard, validated and empowered, leading to healing. I wish to create a world where talking about trauma and mental wellbeing is not a taboo anymore.
So here is my very personal story…
Storytelling has been used for centuries as a tool for healing, providing a safe space for us to share our experiences, process emotions, and find meaning in our struggles. By sharing our stories, we can feel heard, validated, and empowered, leading to healing. I wish to create a world where sharing our personal stories, talking about trauma and mental wellbeing is not a taboo anymore.
So here is my very personal story…
my journey to here
my journey to here
I just want to add that even though some of what I am about to share does not exactly sound positive, I do not blame anyone specifically for how things turned out in my life. Letting go is part of the healing journey. My journey has made me who I am today and I am proud of myself and thriving. I took responsibility for my own life and realised that I am the hero that I have been waiting for, and that is where my transformation began. Everything that has happened to me and that I have managed to overcome and heal and experience has really given me the foundation for the work that I’m doing now.
I grew up in the woods on the edge of Bratislava, which was a significant grounding experience for me in terms of understanding our connection with nature. I was the barefoot forest kid but the story wasn’t all rosy. I was raised by my mother as a single parent. My father’s notorious infidelity led to my parents’ nasty, dramatic and drawn-out divorce. At the end of the divorce, I was five and my brother was eight.
My mother took very badly to being abandoned by my father with two children on her own in the middle of nowhere and succumbed to periods of drinking and taking downers to be able to cope. My mother had to have multiple jobs to make ends meet and for a long time was on the verge of a breakdown. Sometimes, my brother and I were involved in the divorce arguments and fights, which had a really bad effect on both of us. Later in our lives, we both developed addictions to narcotics, lost the ability to cope with stress, developed anger management issues and were not able to maintain healthy relationships. My brother ended up worse off, as he is currently in prison, following years of drug addiction and violence.
I left home early, at the age of 16. I moved to California, where I lived for almost four years. To be fair, now I look back at the past and I really see that my leaving was really a way of escaping my home life. My brother was always a problem and was the centre of my mother’s attention. Back then, we were not even aware that he is bipolar and a narcissist. Our home was mostly a battlefield. I ran.
My first experience with the use of medicinal plants was using cannabis for cancer patients. My husband and I were the holders of one of the first medical cannabis licenses in the state of California, and we supplied medical cannabis to the Oakland Medical Club. We had a successful business, even though we both still battled addictions. In textbooks, we were what you would call ‘functional addicts’.
Eventually, I had to leave California to change scenery and get away from drugs. Sometimes it takes moving to another continent to save yourself. I moved to England, got away, and started afresh! I did well, studied hard and against all the odds managed to get into a really good school. I studied natural sciences, obtaining a Masters of Natural Science from the University of Cambridge.
I was the only Slovak in the whole year of 600 students. The system viewed me as an orphan because I left home so early, and I got a full scholarship, waived fees and an apartment. I specialised in Ecology, the interconnectedness of all organisms and their environment. Connection and interconnectedness of all things weave their way through my life story.
In my family, many women close to me have experienced or are currently experiencing physical and emotional abuse – mostly by men, including fathers, brothers, and sons. Additionally, there are cases of ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolarism, narcissism, psychosis, drug and alcohol addictions, incarceration, violence, tragic divorces, infidelity, stabbings, tragic deaths, and suicides. I could write a book. Trauma runs deep in my ancestry.
Most of my own healing journey started conventionally with psychodynamic psychotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy. I experienced multiple stillbirths and miscarriages. I was really struggling with my emotions, my unresolved anger and pain and I felt suicidal. My therapist introduced me to mindfulness, and I later became interested in meditation, which led me to study meditation and attend meditation courses with the London Buddhist Centre and later Vipassana.
In 2016, I had the opportunity to participate in a healing ceremony with a Mexican healer in Prague, which was a deeply transformative experience for me. I became closely involved in organising group retreats and healing ceremonies. For years, I was bringing Mexican healers to Europe and going to Mexico myself. I organised retreats for hundreds of people and to date have held space for over 400 ceremonies.
I also trained as a Kambo practitioner with IAKP and studied the use of sound healing, in conjunction with other healing modalities at The Sound Healing Academy in the UK. I am also a professional musician, singer and producer. I have released multiple albums and toured the world, gracing stages worldwide and having my music played on national radios globally. Music and art expression have also been very much part of my healing journey and that is why it is so central in my transformational guidance work.
Over the years, I have developed my own method of transformative journeying that I use in my guiding practices. My practices combine storytelling, fasting, meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, sound healing, Kambo and other natural holistic plant-based medicines. I believe that everyone has the innate capacity to heal themselves, and my role is to guide people through that process and help them let go of limiting beliefs, negative habits, traumas, and suppressed emotions. I help people remove anything that stops the flow of life through them and that causes stagnancy in their life, anything that creates a veil or a shadow through which they cannot connect to the authentic self and to their purpose, joy, inner peace and happiness. I show people their own power, and I believe that healing and growth begin with self-awareness and the ability to discern what works best for oneself.
I think that essentially the work that we’re doing when we healing ourselves is really just connecting ourselves to our body and to our authentic selves, getting to know who we truly are (before our parents, school, society, and culture labelled us), what we truly want to do with our life, and the way we truly choose to show up in this world. Healing ourselves is also about connection to others, to nature, the cosmos, the universe and beyond. And I guess what I’ve worked out through my own healing journey and holding space for over seven years now is that essentially connection is the key and the liberation comes through removing everything that stops us from feeling connected and removing obstacles to the flow of life force through us.