Hello and welcome.
I'm Alison.
And I'd like to share with you,
If you're interested,
A little bit about my personal life and how I came to share the offerings that I share.
We all have things that are integral to us and our individuality from the moment we're born.
And if we are alert,
We can also look back on our lives and identify that rather than a sequence of events,
Experiences,
And achievements,
There have been threads in our lives that have developed these integral parts of us,
Kept us authentic,
And brought us to where we are now.
Rather than discrete achievements.
I have come to see life,
Mine and others,
As a collection of continuous threads,
And perhaps you see your own life this way too.
Things that have always been there from your earliest memory and how these connected you to people,
Places and experiences.
I'd like to share with you some of my threads.
This is how I can see a clear path being laid by the daydreaming mystical child that I once was.
Who was fascinated by the mystery of being and also by people,
Stories,
Imagination and possibility.
My particular sense of the something more,
And the mystery that was so vital to me from my earliest days,
Although growing up in an atheist family.
And the sense even when I was a little child that these interests would shape my entire life.
I've often been described as determined.
But to me,
A more appropriate description might be someone who trusted her instincts and her internal guidance.
I felt instinctively guided by my passions and fascinations.
And maybe you can relate to this.
From an early age to use writing and words as a medium for my creativity and self-expression.
At university to study human sciences from philosophy and sociology to spirituality.
To travelling the world.
To becoming a BBC radio producer and journalist.
Where I spent a career of 20 years listening to people's stories and exploring what mattered most to them and continuing to express my creativity in audio content.
To find myself unexpectedly on a path that would teach me the most important lessons about life,
Healing and growth that I know and continue to carry with me.
Through my diagnosis with multiple sclerosis at the age of 26.
Learning that the deepest healing can begin at the moment illness strikes,
And developing my most profound belief that everything in life can become a great teacher.
A decade later to discover yoga.
And recognized,
So never having struck a yoga pose in my life before then.
I know this feeling.
This deep embodiment,
This experience of my energy being beyond my physical body.
Having my daughter and discovering more of my heart than I'd previously knew existed.
In all of this meeting people,
Important people,
Co-mentors who saw me and I them and that way contributed to each other's gifts and talents and reminded each other to trust in the journey and trust in the unknown.
Moving on a personal instinct more real and pressing than I've ever felt from the UK to Australia with my husband and daughter,
Where I am today.
Where I was drawn to deepening my yoga journey in a teacher training that became a life-changing life training.
That opened everything up that was inside me and had been waiting patiently since those earliest days to be brought to life.
Leading me to meet teachers and mentors,
People who could guide me and teach me skills and show me my gifts and how to hone them and work with them.
The privilege of being personally mentored for two years by the late Dr.
Lauren Roche,
One of the world's greatest experts on meditation,
And being the first teacher in Australia to be certified by him in instinctive meditation.
And leading to a lifelong friendship.
Lauren,
Who showed me I had been meditating instinctively all my life,
And who said to me,
This is innate in you,
You already know how to do this,
And I can support you with some skills,
Including how to stay healthy and happy while you share what you know.
And he gave me two mantras,
One in Sanskrit,
Amrita,
Meaning ambrosia,
The elixir of life,
And one in English.
He said,
Say to yourself every day,
The world is so beautiful.
Having repeated experiences from a very early age,
For some reason of how people would come to talk to me about things they claimed they had never spoken out loud to anyone before.
And eventually realising there was something I was meant to be doing or being more professionally.
Some touchstone for people to open a space for them to hear from those inner voices that might be embodying things like shame and fear and insecurity,
But also holding wisdom,
Creativity,
Love and connection to all life's goodness.
Being led to study with the best of the best,
Working in the fields of neuroscience,
Psychology and the healing arts.
And there's more,
Of course,
And you can check my professional biography for all my credentials.
But that is a snapshot of the underlying currents.
What I now know is that life often guides us through threads rather than plans.
Looking back,
I can see how trusting my curiosity,
My intuition and my sense of wonder repeatedly led me to the right people and places.
The mentors who helped me see my gifts.
The experiences that challenged me.
The moments that changed everything.
The move from England to Australia.
The people who appeared at exactly the right time.
The unexpected invitations,
The doors that opened when I was willing to follow what felt alive.
My work in all its forms,
Whether I'm teaching,
For example,
Self-compassion or nervous system regulation tools or guiding a meditation.
Is about remembering and returning.
I don't think life is always easy.
It certainly hasn't been for me.
Some of the most difficult experiences of my life.
Have become the richest sources of growth,
Wisdom,
Compassion and connection.
Over time I've come to see suffering differently,
Not as evidence that I'm wrong or something has gone wrong.
But often as a doorway.
A portal inviting us into a deeper relationship with ourselves and with life.
One of the things I care deeply about is helping people discover that they can trust themselves.
That beneath the noise,
The fear,
The self-doubt and the conditioning,
There is something wise within them.
Something good.
Something trustworthy.
And we can get excited about that.
Again and again in my own life,
I have found that healing doesn't happen through criticism or force.
It happens through relationships.
Through kindness.
Through curiosity,
Through learning how to be on our own side.
I believe that learning to regulate ourselves is one of the most important skills we can develop as human beings,
But not so that we can become perfect or eliminate struggle.
So we can remain available to life.
To love,
To beauty.
Connection.
To possibility.
To magic.
To the extraordinary experience of being human for a while.
And perhaps this is why gratitude has become such an important part of my life,
And I find myself looking for what is right more than what is wrong these days.
Looking for the beauty,
Looking for the miracle,
Looking for the golden threads running through ordinary days.
I don't mean pretending everything is wonderful.
I mean becoming willing to be amazed by the everyday.
There are astonishing things constantly happening all around us.
What matters most to me is connection.
Connection with ourselves.
Connection with another.
Connection with life.
Again and again I have found that when people feel genuinely seen,
Appreciated,
Accepted and loved,
Something remarkable happens.
They soften.
They trust themselves more.
They become braver,
More creative,
More alive.
People have often told me this is what I do best,
Helping them recognize what is already good and worthy within themselves.
Helping them remember who they are.
Helping them feel more at home in themselves.
And that is the thread that runs through everything I offer.
The meditations,
The talks,
The courses,
The coaching sessions,
The professional trainings,
The workshops,
The writing,
The conversations.
They are all invitations.
Invitations to return to yourself.
Invitations to trust yourself.
Invitations to explore the wonder that is living as a human being.
Because you are a human being and life is extraordinary.
Let's explore it together.
