I was born in western Canada, and have moved around a lot, first as a child and a teenager, then as a young professional.

I have lived and worked in London, New York City, Amsterdam, Sierra Leone and Uganda and more recently Barbados. Over the past decade, I’ve moved abroad with my young children and repatriated with them as teenagers, driven by my husband’s job with the United Nations. This has allowed me to claim the “accompanying spouse” title. It’s been a roller coaster!

Super challenging, thrilling, fascinating, deeply lonely, boring and everything in between.

I have navigated multiple external identity shifts and perceptions from corporate professional to diplomat’s wife to PTA parent. It has been challenging to hold on to the core ME in a soulful and determined way, while balancing various roles and expectations placed externally.

There is no pay off to pretending, I can assure you. Pretending delight or intrigue or contentment or pretending outrage and despair — it gets you nowhere. This expat life is not an experience to be “handled” it is an experience to be experienced. All the feelings are relevant and naming and understanding them will help you influence your experience in positive way.

When I was an undergraduate in British Columbia, I did a student work abroad program for a summer in London and loved loved loved the adventure of living abroad and connecting dots for myself personally in an accelerated way and realizing there really is a big wide world. When I graduated from University, I couldn’t wait to move back to London and start living.

 
 

I have a BA in Philosophy from the University of Victoria, and hold a Master’s degree in Culture and Communication from NYU, where I also earned my coaching certification.

I am psychologically-minded and have seen the power and value in coaching and group support to help you ask for what you want and need and share what you think and how you feel.

Code of Ethics

You are in good hands — your own! Asking for help and guidance is an excellent predictor of success. As your coach, I will not solve your problems or give you answers, but I will do my very best to ask you questions that will help you understand where/how you want to go with your expat experience. I am not a therapist, I am a certified coach — as such I will ask you questions designed to help you expand your understanding of what lies within your power, land in that knowledge and set your course/intentions. I want to help you make shifts in awareness that will help you in the fashioning of a self, using this expat experience to expand internally. I will always be honest and I will aim to always be helpful.

I will not judge you, nor will I judge your feelings. I don’t care if you want to work outside the home or ditch your professional life altogether. I will not encourage you to approach your experience full throttle in a “go get ‘em” way nor will I encourage you to surrender, go with the flow and grab another cocktail. I will encourage you to own your own experience, make it real for you, with intentionality, and with compassion for yourself. Your flow has to be your own. I will encourage you to hold on tightly to yourself — as separate from your spousal and parental roles. I will hold space for your process with patience and I will always do it with compassion and respect. You do the internal work; I hold the space.