Finding Treasure in the Scars
The Breakdown
In September, life threw me an unexpected curveball. My body hit a hard stop — a complete physical and emotional breakdown after months of pushing, striving, holding, and coping. Pain and sickness left me no choice but to pause my work, my plans, and much of my daily life to begin tending to what had been quietly unravelling beneath the surface.
Pausing my life — especially my sound work, so early in its unfolding — was painful and confronting. I worried about losing momentum, stepping away from community, disappointing people, missing opportunities. But the pause was necessary.
The Stillness
The stillness of those long days was unlike anything I had known. Unable to move through the world in the ways that usually steady me — walking, singing, playing music, being in nature, creating — I found myself sinking inward. It felt empty and dark.
In the deep quiet, I began to see how I had been living: rushing from one commitment to the next, booked up weeks and months ahead, trying to be everything to everyone. I had launched my therapeutic practice straight after one of the most transitional and stressful years of my life, carrying an undercurrent of anxiety, tension, and depletion. Even summer — which I had hoped would be restorative — was packed with festivals, gatherings, holidays, and responsibilities. And beneath it all lived a deeper ache: a longing to return to where my creativity first began, before qualifications and circles and responsibilities — to writing, singing, and making music simply because it brings me joy.
The Rebuild – Radical Self Care
Healing began slowly and quietly, almost imperceptibly. Like a seed held beneath the frozen ground in winter, nothing appeared to be happening on the surface, yet deep inside, life was reorganising itself; roots forming, structures strengthening, energies gathering. I began to rebuild myself with a huge focus on nutrition, rest, hydration, breathwork, boundaries, gentle movement, and removing anything that overwhelmed my system. Gratitude became a quiet anchor, softening the darker moments and helping me notice small sparks of hope.
This has been a complete recalibration of my life: what I eat, how I move, how I rest, how I spend my time, where my energy goes, and what truly matters. I’m healing slowly, steadily, listening more closely than ever before. The blessing in this enforced pause has been the spaciousness to notice how I feel — physically, mentally, spiritually — and to reconnect with myself with an honesty I’d been avoiding.
The Treasure – A Lifestyle Shift
As I’ve softened into this new rhythm, I’ve discovered a different kind of richness: slow mornings, nourishing meals, tending to my home, resting without guilt, and allowing life to feel gentler and more spacious. I’ve stepped back from plans and commitments that stretch me too thin. I’m beginning to centre my own needs — not out of selfishness, but out of necessity and self-respect. I’ve also returned to healthy self-soothing practices like saunas, meditation, swimming, and of course - sound work. Humming to soothe my nervous system, playing instruments for immersion and joy, singing to reconnect with life-force! These practices have reminded me how deeply sound therapy can nourish our holistic wellbeing — body, mind, and soul.
Just like the Japanese practice of kintsugi — where cracks are filled with gold so the object becomes more precious for having been broken — this season has shown me that my own fractures carry wisdom. The gold, for me, has been the slowing down, the listening, the nourishment, and the return to musical creativity. What felt like breaking has become a doorway into deeper alignment, and slowly these golden seams are helping me rebuild a life that feels stronger, softer, and more authentically aligned than before.
Kintsugi - the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold
The therapeutic power of sound
This experience has deepened my desire to create spaces where we can pause, soften, breathe, listen inwardly, and reconnect with what matters through the transformative medium of therapeutic sound. My recovery has offered insights into wellness and growth that I’m weaving into everything I offer — from therapeutic sound sessions to drumming circles, vocal circles, and the immersive live-music experiences I’m dreaming into being as a singer-songwriter. As I return to holding sound therapy sessions in South East London, I’ll be bringing this slower, more intentional and deeply grounded approach into all of my work.
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Thank you for being here with me on this journey.