My Story and background

Where it all began

I was born in the Netherlands in 1990. I was a happy kid, the one you could rely on for a good laugh and fun time. I was always annoyingly positive and able to see the bright side in any situation. I never had any problem making a fool out of myself by doing or saying things that may be considered socially unacceptable. I was and am still known for being very honest and open with people, especially having no problem talking about things most people find hard to talk about. I made strong connections with people of all ages and I’ve always been able to have deep conversations that were well beyond my years. My gut feeling and intuition grew very quickly as I got older. I tried really hard to make choices based on what felt right versus what I “should” be doing. School was always a constant struggle for me. I didn’t want to sit at a desk and learn things I wasn’t interested in. I wanted to get up and follow things I was passionate about. In 1999, my parents, 3 siblings and I moved to Canada. This was a fairly big shock to my life given that I knew no English and left all my friends and extended family behind. These changes definitely set me back in the social world. I made fewer friends and became more reserved while trying to figure out my place in this world. This was a good base for a future introvert. At 14 I focused all my energy on working hard and saving money for all that was to come.

My spiritual soul story

Let’s go back a few years. In early 2018, when I was still working for the school board, I had started seeing a naturopath who was helping me deal with some health issues, dietary restrictions, self love and acceptance, control issues (who knew), anxiety struggles and truly introduced me to the world of spirituality. She taught me to look for the meaning of life and how my mind, body and soul were dying to work together as a team to create a beautiful life full of peace for me.

I began working really hard on myself to heal past wounds and get to know myself and what I needed out of life. What did happiness look like to me? How do I love myself fully and feel good enough? How can I be the strong woman that my daughter needs to see in me? How can I show her that mom loves what she sees when she looks in the mirror? How can I help her understand that life sometimes gets hard, but that’s ok? How do I model to her that mom cries and is able to pick herself back up again? Showing her, my husband and myself that we can get through anything! It was cool shit, I’m not gonna lie. I loved every second of learning these things and also hated it too. It’s hard to actually DO the work for positive change and healing, let alone recognizing the need for it. After a few cold months back in Alberta we set off in the spring for the west coast. No jobs you ask? Nope, still just living off savings and trying to grasp where we saw ourselves setting down our roots next. Warning, no one said I had perfected my skill of giving up control, right? The universe gave me a massive challenge when after many months of trying to make a baby, I was finally pregnant again. I had carried baby Rain for 4 months before my body started falling apart from the inside out. Leaving us in and out of hospitals for weeks while traveling.

But I was on this self-love and discovery journey which meant that if I wanted to stay true to myself. I’d have to sit in this awful grief and feel it all rush in from the moment I opened my eyes to falling asleep wondering why this was happening to me. As hard as it was jumping from hospital to hospital, it was really amazing being in the mountains with no one’s schedule but our own. My body didn’t allow me to go on hikes but I pushed it anyway just to feel slightly in control. Unfortunately things with my body didn’t go well and we decided to head back to Alberta where my family doctor was. We then could discuss further options with some more consistent health care. A few hospital stays, surgical procedures, blood work, IV’s and bottles of antibiotics later and we were finally getting somewhere. My body had started to heal. We had decided to leave my parents, siblings and their families, to go against what they wanted and were on our way back to Ontario. Back to the exact same town where we had sold our house in the year prior. But this time we made all our decisions based on what felt right in our gut and let that run the show. We bought a 30+ acre property in the middle of the woods and built ourselves a house. I had also just discovered that I was pregnant again. If you have ever experienced a pregnancy loss, then you know the amount of intense anxiety a new pregnancy brings to the table. I was a mess! And so began more healing, grieving, learning and processing. Fast forward 9 months, it was now May of 2020 and out came a beautiful little girl in the waters of my blown up pool on my rented living room floor. I had worked my ass off to get to this beautiful natural birth, I’d done all the journaling, all the learning, all the growing and all the letting go of control. Just kidding, still working on that one. That month we were set out to move from our winter rental  into our new home but the day after my second daughter’s birth it unfortunately caught fire and we had some rebuilding to do. So there I was with a 5-year old and 1-day old, husband gone to rebuild the house and me left to make the best of an awful situation. I gained some more strength, we picked ourselves back up, refinished the house and eventually moved our family of 4 into our dream home.