Hi, I’m Fiona
I always struggle choosing what to share in this section, even though I must’ve written an about page or a bio fifteen times, it doesn’t seem to get much easier! But here goes, I’ll do my best. Maybe hunker down for 5-10 mins with a cuppa!
Like all stories, yours included, mine follows a challenge (or two, or three!), a journey to face this and get to know its roots, and a return, back to the body, back to a sense of familiarity of self and yet everything is inherently changed.
I was diagnosed with scoliosis young and spent my entire adolescence in a Boston spinal brace. It was one of the darkest seasons of my life and it left wounds I wouldn't fully be able to reckon with for years. For a long time I did what many of us do, I ran. As far and as fast as I could from everything that had kept me small.
But I reached the point I could run no longer, and this was the best thing that ever happened to me.
At eighteen I left my home city of Athens, Greece for the University of Glasgow to study psychology . I thought this would be the first step toward understanding what had happened to me and why - spoiler alert, it didn’t do that directly but led me to begin seeking other pathways, people and places that spoke to my soul.
There, in an obscure little teahouse at the bottom of an old bohemian lane, I met my partner, David. He opened doors I hadn't known existed: the way of the warrior, somatic bodywork, ceremonial plant medicine, Zen meditation, tantra and healing love. I walked deep into every one of them. Alongside these I kept my art practice alive, and went deeper into dream interpretation, symbol study, tarot and the inner work of reconnecting with intuition, but nothing truly transformed me like pregnancy and the birth of my first child.
Motherhood has been the most complete self-initiation of my life.
My children have taught me things no training could touch. That you cannot rush what is ready to unfold in its own time. That watching a baby take their first steps, after so many attempts and falls and getting back ups, requires only awe. That deep learning goes into the cells, into the body, into the DNA and nothing can replace that immediate, lived experience.
I learned how to be with pain rather than fix it. How to allow people, especially the little ones, to be fully themselves, to make their mistakes, to find their own way. I learned that play is where the real growth happens, that creativity is something we are born with and slowly taught to distrust.
I also learned that I am not built to go with the flow when the flow runs against nature. Becoming a mother made me braver about that. I have chosen unconventional pathways for my healing and for my children's that have made people close to me uncomfortable. I have learned to stand up, to walk away from fear, to trust what my body and my instincts tell me even when the systems around me say otherwise.
This is what I bring to this work. Not a protocol. Not a pre-formed mould, rather a deep, lived trust in the body's own intelligence and in yours.
My Approach and training
I don’t believe that qualifications in and of themselves carry more weight or power than the experience and integrity of a dedicated practitioner. In fact most of my learning has come through direct learning such as apprenticeship and genuine curiosity as well as grit to keep going and dive deep even when times get tough and not give up on my crafts. Ten years down the line I am doing pretty much the same thing! Though I have added many more strings to my bow.
I began this journey when at university studying a Bsc in Psychology. This turned into an MA in Philosophy so that I could graduate early and pursue a year long training in Somatic Bodywork with Ateeka who developed a style of Yoga and Somatics called yoga-somatics, you can find her work here.
At the same time I was in a 9 month apprenticeship in holding ceremonial spaces and working with plant medicine. I felt this time in my life was a major truning point. A definite death and re-birth of greater proportions that defined the trajectory of the rest of my life. I was in this phase that I became pregnant with my first child and begun the long journey of motherhood.
Since then I have spent years studying the Tarot, Jungian psychology, Daoist and Tantric philosophy and practice, art as creative healing modality and diving deeper into yoga teaching with Restorative Yoga- again training with Ateeka- and undergoing Reiki 1, 2 and master practitioner placements with Lorna MacLean as well as a cupping therapy practitioner training with Suzy at White Rabbit.