About Nancy

Who Am I?

I’ve always been soft and sensitive by nature, with an open heart and a playful spirit. I’m intuitive and have a strong connection to my gut feelings which have served me well over the years. I’m married and a mother to three sons; I was born and raised in London and in 2010 we moved out to West Sussex where we enjoy being closer to nature.

At age 46 I made one of the best decisions of my life, which was to stop drinking alcohol. While my drinking looked manageable from the outside, possibly even ‘normal’ considering the UK drinking culture, I knew that it was no longer right for me. It was taking more than it was giving me and I was finding it hard to say no even when I didn’t really want to drink. The last 6 years have been an incredibly healing journey and an opportunity to begin again. It is through my personal work with the Compassionate Inquiry approach that I’ve come to know, trust and love myself in a way I never did before.

Addiction, in its various forms, has been prevalent in my family of origin and while I was seeming to function ‘normally’ from the outside, my relationship with alcohol helped me to realise that I was no exception.  Addiction is a process that is alive in me, to a lesser and lesser degree these days but without doing the inner work I would be using food, substances and behaviours in ways that don’t align with my life or my values.  The mantra of my teacher Dr Gabor Mate is this “The question is not why the addiction, but why the pain.” 

Everything I have learned from him, as a student, a practitioner and as a client in Compassionate Inquiry, has given me a deep understanding of that pain and its origins.

Over the years I have revisited my childhood experience in order to understand and ultimately free myself from the beliefs, patterns and behaviours that developed as a consequence of my early environment.  Along with that understanding I’ve been able to cultivate new feelings of compassion.  Not just for myself, but for both of my parents and the generations that came before them.  My father passed away suddenly in November 2021 and at the same time my mum’s Alzheimers was progressing rapidly.  I became intimate with the feelings of grief and loss, sober and un-medicated I felt it all.  Sessions with my Compassionate Inquiry practitioner gave me the safe space I needed to feel and express my emotions, while developing the capacity to stay present to the pain and not turn away from it.  

When I began my training in Compassionate Inquiry in February 2022 I began to wonder if I’d taken on too much.  I was grieving, going through perimenopause, a part time carer to my mum, and raising two teenagers at the time.  It was a lot, but it was a gift!  My mantra became “the only way out is through” so I dug deep and opened my heart to feel everything.

The most important role of my life will always be as a mother. We began shifting our parenting paradigm back in 2012 when I was pregnant with my youngest son and I had a sudden awareness that my stress levels were not good for any of us. In that moment my gut instinct took over and I began to reclaim power as a mother, dismissing the well meaning advice I got from my mum, who raised us on the advice of Dr Spock. I shifted from being my mothers obedient daughter, to my children’s mother. With some mama bear energy I turned towards respectful, attachment parenting styles. Finally mothering felt peaceful and natural. I’d discovered and grown into the mother I was always meant to be.

I’m now a mother to two teenagers and a 12-year-old. Understanding generational trauma, what it looks like and how it has been passed on, means that my husband and I have a responsibility to our children to at least try to break the cycle. We heal our own wounds so that we don’t pass those wounds on; we face our own pain so we don’t inflict it on to others. 

Through the Compassionate Inquiry approach I have learned to become the mother to myself that I always needed and probably the mother that my mother, and her mother needed too. I am called to support people in ways that mean they can heal and recover from what life has thrown their way.

My own recovery journey has been one of finding my way back to me, back to my wholeness, and I’m here to support others to do the same. The passing down of family dis-ease does not have to be inevitable but where it has been, please know that healing is possible.