My Truths and Why I Do What I Do

Nothing but light. Transmuting pain to life.

Childhood was wild. Central America, barefoot, living in a van with my mentally unwell, radical feminist mother. She was traumatised. I was free on the outside, inside I was developing a nervous system that never felt safe.

If I’d done things “by the books” this whole time, I’d probably be dead. I learnt how to stay alive.

I’m a survivor. I’ve survived things people haven’t even seen in movies.

At 24, my diagnosis and brain scans confirmed Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Developmental trauma affected the way I perceived the world and moved through it. How I felt my body in space, my boundaries, my sense of self. How others then received me and perceived me.

I lived without a mother from 17. Before that, I was parentified and treated as a scapegoat. The few male figures disappeared. No male protection.

The only brief maternal presence was my godmother, Joy - my middle namesake - cut away early. It’s her name I carry in Chelsea Joy Wellness, a reminder that love and guidance always come from spirit, and even lost connections can be living symbols of grace.

I’ve triumphed.

I put myself through three university degrees around the world and a host of wellness and holistic health trainings. I’ve moved to a multitude of cities across four countries alone, and built mini-businesses across wellness and luxury. I acknowledge this partly as an escape mechanism - but the fact is, it was all on my own.

I now immerse in further trainings across Europe in psychedelic therapy integration and Holotropic Breathwork to assist others in healing trauma. To deepen the methods I can support others with.

I’ve had an intimate relationship with pain. And have mastered transmuting pain into life.

To truly support others in their healing, you must have met your own pain head on and conversed with all parts of it. Because as a therapist, you can only guide people as far as you’ve gone yourself.

I’ve swum in the depths of darkness so I know the light. I’ve carried people through that same darkness. And through it all, what I know, what I’ve come to embody, is this:

At the end of it all, there’s nothing but light.