About me

I created True Nature Coaching & Education after two decades of searching for answers to a deep sense of things not being right within myself and the world. This showed up as social anxiety, panic attacks, toxic shame, depression, loneliness, failed relationships, and perfectionism. 

These experiences could have attracted many labels: social anxiety/phobia, depression, attention deficit disorder, autism, borderline personality disorder, among others. I now know that what I experienced was early developmental trauma as a result of growing up as a highly sensitive child in a family with unhealed trauma. 

I felt a calling to the healing arts at the age of 13 when my friends and I would have sleep overs, staying up for hours having ‘deep and meaningfuls’. 

At the age of 28, I decided I wanted to become a psychologist after working with children in a London hospital and feeling so much empathy for those who I could see were sad and anxious. 

Psychology would have been my path had the approaches really gone to the heart of what causes emotional suffering and distress. I even started a masters program in Melbourne to discover a few weeks in that I didn't align with the biomedical model of mental illness that were the basis of the course. So I left.

I went on to study a PhD in psychology instead and worked in mental health research and education for twelve years.

This provided the opportunity to delve deeply into the research on trauma, attachment, parenting, and human development. Through this experience, I came to realise the profound importance of emotions and relationships for wellbeing (elements that are left out of clinical psychology training).

Outside of work, much of my spare time was focused on seeking answers to healing my own trauma. It was when I discovered the work of Stephen Porges and polyvagal theory that a huge light bulb went off. Finally, here was an explanation of mental illness that described its root cause. This was a pivotal moment. I knew I had found information that held the answers to real healing and transformation.

For the past five years, I’ve been engaged in nervous system education and practice with Master Somatic Practitioner, Irene Lyon. In June, I completed Level 1 of her advanced mentorship program, the Scientuive Practitioner Track, and blend this knowledge with psychological principles and lived experience wisdom to support people to build regulation and cultivate an empowering relationship with difficult emotions.

My psychology training instilled a strong professional ethic that sits at the heart of my practice. I chose the path of coaching over psychology after bumping up against limitations in current approaches to mental health and discovering modalities that were much more transformative in my own journey of healing and recovery.

It is my calling to now support others in their healing journey and reclaim the wellbeing and flourishing that is our birthright.

Curious to learn more? I offer a free 30-minute connection call where we can chat and discover whether working together would be a good fit. No pressure, just human connection.

Warmly.

Sophie