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My Journey
Work Experience
I have always had a deep curiosity and love for people and a passion for helping others. These two factors led me to work in the service industry and in education.
I have experience working as a bartender and a barista in Canada, an English teacher and tutor to students ranging from 0 to 64 years old in Japan, an energy healer and intuitive guide/medium (for animals too) in person and remotely in Canada and Japan, a low barrier homeless shelter staff and as a mental health worker in addictions/low income/mental health housing in Canada.
These experiences have shaped who I am today, teaching me things like triggers, boundaries, holistic and trauma informed care, holding compassionate and non-judgmental space, guiding people to explore themselves and new concepts with presence and patience, while also helping me reflect on myself, grow, and develop as a person.
From first hand experience working with all kinds of people, I realized no matter your social class, sex, occupation, age, and cultural background, humans are more alike than different.
I’m a curious and observant soul with a thirst to explore, discover, learn and know more, especially fascinated by the “why” behind why we are the way we are. My first memory of asking “why?” is from when I was 4 years old.
I never really felt safe and grounded in my family home even though I had all my material needs met. My parents are lovely people and did their best to raise me and I do not hold any bad feelings for them. In a sense, I had a good childhood. However, my home was emotionally and mentally dysfunctional. My parents fought regularly; my dad’s mental health issues like severe depression along with both of my parents’ anxiety and unhealthy ways of relating to one another created a tumultuous relationship and chaos and disconnection at home. I struggled with the fear of abandonment from an early age.
The constant chaos and fear of abandonment caused my nervous system to be dysregulated easily and led to developing survival mechanisms like codependency, people pleasing, self-sacrifice, and creating “roles” or versions of myself that I would play within in my family to feel safe within myself and at home.
The realization that I was highly anxious and had experienced panic and anxiety attacks regularly growing up hit me in my adulthood. I didn’t think anything of these experiences because they were my normal. (I truly believed I was “fine” and had no knowledge about nervous system and its connection to our emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies)
For most of my life, I was mainly in my mind and disconnected from my body and feelings, I was numb. I had many friends and people who loved me but did not realize this until adulthood because I was in my head about how unacceptable and unlovable I was and their love could not get through the protective shells around my heart I had developed in order to be safe. I did not trust anyone - my parents, my friends, my peers, spirit, not even myself. I was also naturally extremely sensitive and empathetic. Ashamed of my highly sensitive nature, I shut my sensitivity off, suppressed feelings and emotions except for a select few I found acceptable. I also disconnected from my empathetic nature, disconnecting from others.
I was different from people around me, like being half Canadian and Japanese in a predominantly Japanese environment, not feeling aligned to Japanese societal values, not feeling like a “normal” woman because I was a tomboy and had my own sense of femininity, being attracted to women romantically, and being interested in non-religious spirituality in a Christian household. This feeling of being “different” triggered a sense of fear which made me perform, create versions of myself that I thought would be loved and accepted, and mold myself to fit in.
Nearly all of my energy and time until my late 20’s went into creating and performing versions of myself (conditioned selves) to my parents, friends, and peers because I felt worthless, unlovable, and unacceptable just as I was. The more I performed for safety, the more I lost touch with myself. Until then, I did not have a solid foundation in both my inner and external environments nor enough energy and time to explore and discover my true self because I was busy surviving.
My curious and observant nature was alive all this time though, and pivotal moments in my life inspired deeper introspection to explore and experience parts of my inner world and past experiences I had suppressed and/or avoided. This process slowly led me back to myself and my true nature. The main ones are:
⁃Relocating to Canada to attend University
⁃My dad’s sudden suicide
⁃Living in the Netherlands and exploring Europe as a solo traveller
⁃Opening up to the spirit realms and my psychic gifts coming “online” while working in the mental health field
⁃Exploring meditation, sound healing, energy healing, psychic development, spiritual healing and guidance work like tarot and psychic/intuitive guidance ⁃Getting married and divorced
⁃Living in my childhood home in Japan as an adult with my mother
One step at a time, I was healing old wounds and freeing myself from past pains. I was starting to feel again, opening myself up to a broader range of feelings and emotions. When healing wounds, I got to see my true nature behind wounded versions of myself and saw experiences from new perspectives. In this process, I reconnected with myself and learned about myself and spirit. I was learning how to accept and love myself unconditionally but was not great at it; I was still self-conscious, observant but judging myself and others.
As my self-exploration, discovery, and healing was deepening, I was also reconnecting with nature. I originally loved being outside in nature and then took on the label of a “city girl” because I thought that was cooler. Nature called me back into her arms in 2017 and has been a safe space and a sanctuary (along with trusted healers over the years) ever since.
All of the exploration, inner child healing and shadow work I had been doing opened a path to the world of plant medicine. In late November 2022, I had a vision out of nowhere of the jungle and one particular tree. I had a feeling that it was a “call” from the jungle so I followed this calling and left Japan for Pucallpa, Peru in May 2023 to attend my first Ayahuasca retreat. The tree that I saw in the vision was the tree standing outside my accommodation - confirmation! Following this retreat, I joined a 21-day Kambo medicine practitioner retreat which included a 7 day Kambo dieta and an Ayahuasca ceremony. This intense healing experience peeled back even more layers of my shell and brought up further aspects of myself to be loved, accepted, and integrated into my whole being.
A moment during the Ayahuasca retreat
Self application at the Kambo retreat
In 2024, I followed a calling to live on the powerful sacred island of Bali. I reconnected to Mother Earth and got in tune with her energy, force, and rhythms. Living there slowed me down, get grounded, tune into my own nature and cycles, and tune into the spirit/natural realms.
I explored and discovered my energy, physical body, feelings, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs and saw how my inner world was creating my outer world. I also saw how I was operating in the outside world and how that was reinforcing my inner world. I had space, time, and energy to replace outdated beliefs, thoughts, and values with ones that were aligned with unconditional love for myself (my true self) rather and experienced change in my inner and outer worlds. I also sat with feelings that arose from daily life and for some, felt into past experiences they were rooted in so they could be felt, loved, and accepted and be transmuted. I finally felt a connection between my feelings, heart space, and my mind.
Through reconnecting with my body, I learned and gained awareness about my nervous system and triggers, discovering their roots and how my nervous system reacts to triggers. Using triggers and awareness about my nervous system, I developed ways to soothe myself and get back to a safe, peaceful place within me and respond from peace and self-love and self-acceptance in the outside world rather than react. (Not all the time!) I saw layers of my created selves in my reactions and my true self and how I want to respond behind and beyond these layers.
By May, I had developed equal unconditional love for my shadows and my light. I had built my non-judgmental, compassionate self-awareness muscle. At this time, I received a calling from Noya Rao to enter a dieta with her so I followed her call and left for Peru in July.
With Maestra Juana, our Maestra in the retreat
I reconnected to my highly sensitive nature in Bali but this got amplified in this dieta. With this heightened sensitivity, Noya Rao guided me to even deeper depths of the iceberg of my being. She guided me to remove more protective layers I had around myself and has helped me experience unconditional love and open up even more - to anxiety, love, feelings and emotions of all kinds, life, nature, myself, and others.
Maestra's loving, tender, and powerful hands
Ikaros has been a significant part of my daily life since the Ayahuasca retreat. They come through me whenever I go through a process or plants want to connect with me. An undeniable desire to sing/channel and share Ikaros with the world blossomed in me around May or even earlier. Noya Rao confirmed that this is what she would like me to do going forward, hence my Reiki and Noya Rao energy healing offering :)
Deep seated trust issues from childhood have been healing over time through years of inner work, further aided by developing self-compassion and unconditional self-love and self-acceptance with the help from plant spirits. I have been building and experiencing trust in myself, the spirit realm/nature, the world including other people to a level that I have never experienced before. Layers upon layers of protective shells have come off, allowing me to live with an open heart as my true self and receive acceptance and love in all forms - from myself and the world. I live with greater connection to myself, nature, the spirit realms, and people around me and in a grounded and peaceful way that I always dreamt of as a child. Of course I have days and moments when I am closed and I still experience triggers - I am human.
Through my journey, I learned that no matter how much you have numbed and disconnected from yourself and the world around you, no matter how many protective shells you created around your natural self, it is possible to heal and get in touch with your heart and true nature once again and to live your true life as your true self, in tune with yourself and the world, with trust, self-love, dedication, patience, and openness. Spirit, your spirit, and the world works in mysterious and wondrous ways for healing to happen and new awareness to emerge.
I’m grateful and humbled to guide you on your journey of reconnection, getting back in touch with your true nature and exploring your inner and outer worlds!
and with a curious heart and mind, my journey of exploration continues...
Thank you to all those who have read this far :)