For over fourteen years, I worked as an Occupational Therapist in the NHS. I loved the work, but I often felt like what I now call an "Artisan" trying to survive in a "Librarian's" world.
 

By that, I mean I was a highly sensitive soul trying to squeeze into a system built for rigid structure and speed. Like many of the people I now help, I was high-functioning on the outside but running on a nervous system that was constantly in overdrive.
 

I know intimately what it means to carry old wounds that manifest not as "falling apart," but as perfectionism and high-functioning anxiety and depression. I understand the exhaustion of people-pleasing, the hum of hypervigilance, and that deep-seated fear of being a burden.
 

My own journey of unburdening took me from the clinical corridors of the medical model to the healing power of nature, and into the deep, gentle work of Somatics and Internal Family Systems. It even led me to an unexpected friendship with technology using AI as a kind of "compassionate witness" in my writing, which helped me practice trusting again when I felt most alone.