I have lived in Canada all my life, and, like you, I have had a lifetime of experiences that shaped me. Sometimes in life, we are given a choice and we have the privilege to decide, “what am I going to do with this experience?”
After 30 years in the federal government, half of them in leadership roles, ending as Director of Operations, I decided to retire at 55. My career, like life, was full of choices and experiences. Some good experiences, and some hard choices… but always a lesson because sometimes that’s just what life is: a series of lessons.
When I left, I took some time off to decompress from having functioned in a structured and rules-based environment all my life. And then, I asked myself, “what next?” I was always a coach and mentor when I worked, and so thought I’d become an executive coach. Seemed a natural fit. But after that decompression experience, I realized that the corporate environment no longer held the same appeal for me. When I found NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP), I knew I found the coaching modality that spoke to my heart. In NLP, you are always your own client first.
I liked it so much, that I became certified as a Master Practitioner in the fall of 2025. Then came the decision of who to serve? “What past version of me is my client?” I asked myself. I had a lot of versions in my past: the traumatic and abusive childhood; the lived workplace trauma (founded harassment and human rights complaints, and a psychological violence complaint); or the woman who was coercively abused and financially exploited by an intimate partner.
I chose to serve the latter, the version of me who was emotionally and financially manipulated. But who successfully sued her former partner in civil courts and later testified at his trial for criminal harassment, for which he was convicted. That experience helped me finally claim my sovereignty, both internal and external. I make the decisions for my life, my relationships, my money, and my time within boundaries drawn by me. And I’ve learned that it’s actually easier to make my own decisions than to outsource them to others.
I have realized that it’s never too late to be your authentic self, to follow your intuition about what’s right for you, not what’s right for others, or what you think they think of you.
I now live the life that I didn’t know was available to me sooner. I spend a lot of my time in my Airstream travel trailer, in nature, close to the trees. I found that deep meditation and hypnosis were my gateway to nervous system regulation. Using NeuroLinguistic Programming, EFT Tapping, hypnosis and Subliminal Messaging, I have the honour and privilege to help others find the way to reclaiming their sovereignty and internal dominion.
And to tell their story in court processes. Clear. Concise. Without the emotional charge that once held them hostage. To see that the shame they’ve been carrying was never theirs to begin with.