I grew up in country Victoria surrounded by more animals than people—horses, dogs, cats, cows, sheep, and even the odd captured insect or mouse I insisted on adding to the mix. Weekends were when our extended family supported our little entrepreneurial ventures—buying eggs and homemade lemonade from stalls we’d set up in the house yard, manned by our two loyal dogs and us kids in swimmers and gumboots.

 

I also had my best friend who lived close enough that I could fang it on my palomino Arab, who loved to run, all the way to her house. Every time she stretched her legs out on the last straight to Lucy’s gate, I felt like Alec from The Black Stallion. All I wanted to do and think about at school was getting home to be with my horse and all of our animals. So innocent, so beautiful. My sisters and I spent hours running bareback through paddocks, diving into our tadpole-infested pool to make whirlpools, then racing back to the horses again until dusk. It was a childhood of freedom, imagination, and connection, the kind that etched itself deep into who I am today.

 

But life didn’t stay so simple. By my mid-teens, I began having experiences that changed how I saw the world. I learned distrust far too early, questioned my own values and morals, and carried things that no young person should have to. Yet we all seem to carry an array of bad decisions or painful exposures that we eventually have to deal with later on—some more significant than others. For me, that meant clutching at people and relationships while my self-respect slipped away, feeding cycles of bad choices. These years were formative, shaping, and confronting. As I continue to peel back the layers of “what it meant for me to be human,” I can see how these lessons come full circle with my own life cycle.

 

Becoming a mum at 28 was another unexpected turn—twins, no less. I’m not ashamed to admit that my pregnancy was a complete shock, but it was the moment everything shifted. Like much of my journey, I hadn’t planned it, but it has been the most grounding and transformative chapter of my life. If motherhood has taught me anything, it’s to trust myself, back myself, and accept that there’s rarely one “right” answer—only the choice that feels truest at the time.

 

Today, my work is informed by all of it: my upbringing, my experiences, my exposures, my connection with animals and nature, and my role as a mother. Horses in particular have always been my safe place, my mirror, and my teachers. They bring a presence that is grounding, honest, and healing in ways words can’t always reach. This, woven together with my counselling practice, is how I hold space for others: not with judgment, not with all the answers, but by offering a place to pause, reflect, and reconnect with your own strength and your own way forward.