ABOUT ANNA

I got my life back one ordinary afternoon at a time.

I'm Anna, a holistic counsellor and single mum. I live with my daughter, our horses and a lot of other animals on a farm in Yabberup, Western Australia.

Get the free guide

WHERE IT STARTED

Everything I'd built ended at once.

I left a twelve-year relationship suddenly, with my daughter on my hip. In a short space of time I lost my home, my livelihood, my marriage and the future I'd already lived a thousand times in my head. We stayed with my parents while I worked out what came next.

I knew the days you might be having now. The laundry on the couch. The dishwasher half unpacked. The 5pm coffee to make it to bedtime, and twenty minutes to myself before I fell asleep.

I also knew a lot about why I felt the way I did. I'd done the reading, the podcasts, the affirmations and the occasional meditation. None of it changed my afternoons.

THE TURNING POINT

I decided how I would spend my days.

At some point I saw that the shape of my week was something I'd inherited, not something I'd chosen. So I chose. I stopped arranging myself around what everyone expected. I skipped playgroup when it drained me. I moved friends, and even lawyers, to times that worked for us.

Then I filled the space with things that felt good in my body and that my daughter could do beside me. We walked the paddocks. We had dance parties in the kitchen. We collected rocks, built fairy gardens and went barefoot in the forest. Sometimes I played with her. Sometimes I just walked, with the sun on my skin and the breeze, while she pottered next to me.

Those walks were my regulation time. I didn't have to leave her to get it.

Training and background

Holistic Counselling

Mind Body Education

Holistic Integrated Creative Arts Therapies (HICAT)

Mind Body Education

Teaching

Qualified secondary teacher (Diploma of Secondary Education, University of Queensland)
Teaches early child development to tertiary student teachers, and sits on the university panel that assesses their readiness to teach

Equine-Assisted Learning

Equine Psychotherapy Institute

WHAT I BELIEVE

Understanding yourself is a start. Living it in your body is the change.

You have to embody it. Knowing your story, saying affirmations and listening to podcasts won't shift how your days feel. At some point you decide to be a different version of yourself, and you practise it with your body.

Women need their own way. So much wellness advice was built around men's bodies and men's days. Settling and restoring yourself as a woman, and as a mother, is different from what's commonly taught.

Change travels through the kids. Children learn by watching us. When they see their mum come back to herself, they carry that with them. That's why they're welcome in everything I do.

Choosing fun and mess with your child is not a distraction from the work. It's presence, it's care for the child you once were, and it's some of the best medicine a tired mum has.