Welcome to My Story
Psst. If you’re looking for my qualifications and credentials, they’re at the end- so scroll down if that’s what you’re here for. I haven’t skimped on sharing my story with you-I’ve gone deep, it’s how I roll.
Poetry was the only thing that made sense to me as a tiny child.
I had a complex relationship with my grandmother.
One of the things that I am the most grateful for is her showing me I could take words and create micro universes of thoughts and ideas with them.
She spoke only Urdu so I would speak out poems in Urdu and she would write them down for me.
I was six years old.
As I tiptoed through the years, I learned that words could hold my angst, my pain, my terror. They became my refuge. I started writing poetry in english-entering a different realm, one where I could pen all the feelings I couldn’t speak out loud or share with anyone.
Here’s my first poem that I wrote in English when I was 12 years old-
Yearning for Connection
Let’s fast forward to a decade later.
In my last year of university in 2007, I looked online for a place where I could support people anonymously on the phone.
I’d seen it in a movie as a teenager and knew instantly that’s what I wanted to do.
That led me to the Toronto Distress Centre. Volunteering there changed my life.
I’ve been able to see people’s true emotions and feel them all through my life. It used to be very confusing, because it was so dissonant with how people acted- they worked so hard to hide themselves (I understood why later).
I’m one of those people- the ones who random strangers come up to, to share their very personal and intimate stories and secrets with.
For the most part i’ve welcomed it, because I’m fascinated by other humans and what lives inside them, just as much as I am with my own inner worlds.
But, here’s the thing, I’m not exaggerating when I say that volunteering at the Toronto Distress Centre changed my life.
I did it because I knew that here is where people would feel safest to be their real selves.
I was hungry for raw, real connection, without pretence.
I started off on the phone lines, and over ten years, I continued to hold space for people in crisis.
But within that time, I’d simultaneously started doing grief facilitation to support survivors of suicide and homicide loss there for eight years and that reshaped me completely in a way I couldn’t have imagined.
It taught me how to fully be with grief- to sit in the depths with someone where there is absolutely no real relief incoming from the reality they are in.
There is no loss I have personally tended to that has ever been as brutal as parents that have lost a child to that kind of violent death.
The survivors I worked with have a deep place in my heart- they are part of my membrane.
I Cracked Open
Early on in those years, I was floundering in my own life- unsure of what I was doing, feeling completely untethered.
I didn’t know if I’d ever have a career. I was so scared all the time.
I started working at IBM. It wasn’t my thing, I quit in less than a year.
But before I left, someone who I felt the most intense connection with brought me a crash landing of heartbreak and confusion.
Oofh, it was excruciating.
Grief swept me right toward my own healing.
One of those things that people call a hidden blessing.
I’m very grateful to him for the experience.
But Wait- Could That Be…My Path?
Here’s the thing. By that time, the Distress Centre had already given me the biggest gift it possibly could.
The people I supported gave me a glimpse of something beyond the endless loop of trauma, conditioning, and survival patterns.
They made me feel hope. And possibility.
Because seeing how brave and resilient the people I spoke to on the Crisis line and then later the survivors of bereavement from violent loss that I supported showed me that connection goes both ways.
From there, my path took me through so many places-trainings, workshops, endless hours devoted to my own healing, deep relationships, life experiences. I do this work because with every fiber of my being, I believe it matters.
Because I have witnessed what it does. How it reshapes how we relate to ourselves, to our lives, and to each other.
The deeper I’ve descended into the cavern of my own psyche, the more I’ve made space for what brings me joy.
Here I am
It’s taken years for me to understand my own inner landscapes- how complex childhood trauma shaped my brain, coded my relationships, and compulsively pulled me toward certain experiences.
But it also shaped my strength. It gave me skills that would become the foundation of my work.
I learned that this sensitivity wasn’t just something I carried. It’s something I could use.
It helps me track the nervous system, attune empathically to where people are at, and understand how to best support them.
Along the way there’s been more poetry, art a welcome surprise in my early 30’s. I used to be the kid that felt horrified because I could never colour within the lines. I felt incredible amounts of shame from looking around at everyone else’s colourings- so neat and within the lines. And then there was dance, the thing that helped me feel at home in my body when nothing else could reach.
Initiation into the Deep Feminine Mysteries
They found me while I was, you guessed it- in the midst of a really bad relationship.
There was emotional abuse and the reactions I had after a while to repeated disrespect, manipulation, projection and gaslighting was reflected to me as being abusive.
I experienced myself in yet another cycle of self abandonment and wasn’t able to hold my own boundaries.
But this time there was an interruption.
A healer who had been a part of my journey for many years was going through her own profound initiations in the deep feminine streams.
Working with her rooted me back into myself.
She guided me towards a deep feminine mystery school that I enrolled in.
And while I continued in that relationship, on and off again for another year, it brought me the most staggering lessons in sovereignty.
When I walked away I was complete, and intact in my boundaries.
Being an initiate and student of the feminine mysteries has taught me how to root into my own depth, my nourishment, my center.
To value myself in a way that all the trauma healing in the world wasn’t accomplishing.
It has reshaped my work-because at its core, my work is a channel for creative expression and healing.
It’s taught me how to hold power in myself.
But most of all, it’s helped me stop looking for a saviour outside myself.
Coming Home
I feel my own center.
I wander sometimes. And fall often.
But again and again, I come home to myself.
I do work that lights me up, work that I am devoted to, work that makes me feel fully engaged.
I have friendships and community that hold me.
I go through hard things, but I am resourced through them.
I make mistakes. I learn. I have more capacity for it.
My creativity holds me. My body knows it has the right to take up space.
I know, deep in my bones that I am valued, not for what I do, but for who I am.
It’s everything.
The safety I feel in my own being is hard-won. It is treasured. It helps me show up as my most genuine, full self in almost every situation.
Six year old me hadn’t imagined she’d get here, and I feel her next to me right now as I type this, grinning, her arm interlaced with mine saying wow, we did all that? And me, I’m right there with her grinning back patting her on the back, because she’s the heart root of this reality that we’ve created together.
Over the past 18 years, I have trained extensively in trauma-informed coaching, somatic embodiment, energy healing, and creative facilitation. Here’s the list of stuff I’ve done.
Academic & Foundational Training
BA (Hons) in Sociology, Double Minor in English & Philosophy – University of Toronto
Post-Graduate Certificate in Book & Magazine Publishing – Centennial College
2 Years Post-Graduate Training in Holistic Healing Practicum & Spiritual Psychotherapy – Transformational Arts College
Trauma & Crisis Support Work
Grief Facilitation for Survivors of Suicide & Homicide Loss (8 Years) – Toronto Distress Centre
Crisis Line Responder (10 Years) – Toronto Distress Centre
Survivor Support Facilitation for Sexual Assault & Gendered Violence – Dandelion Initiative
Trauma-Informed Relationship Coach (5 Years) – Relationship Hero
Somatic & Body-Based Training
Somatic Embodiment & Regulation Strategies – Linda Thai
Movement for Trauma (Level 1 & 2) – Jane Clapp
Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Training – David Treleaven
Hakomi Proskills (10+ hours) – Donna Martin, Hakomi Institute
Hakomi-Informed Somatic Coaching Certificate – Embodywise
Body Oriented Coaching Program- The Somatic School
Creative Facilitation & Expressive Arts
Advanced Creative Facilitation (150+ Hours) – PYE Global
Feminine Mystery Training
Feminine Mystery School (Year 3) – Jumana Sophia, Her Mystery School
Year of Feminine Magic – Seren Bertrand
Energy Healing & Integrative Modalities
VortexHealing Energy Healing ® (Merlin’s Grace Level, 500+ Hours)
ThetaHealing
Hypnotherapy Training – Debbie Papakadis, Hypno-Healing Institute
Reiki (Master Level) – Dan Miron
Integrated Energy Therapy (Basic Level) – Anita Knight
Additional Certifications
Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) – EASE Inc