My Story

I came to yoga and fitness during a time in my life when things felt out of control and it gave me the structure and control over my life that I was craving and couldn’t find anywhere else.

When I was young I was very active, gymnastics, lacrosse, football, swimming, you name it I was into it but when I was still in primary school I was diagnosed with a heart condition called ‘Supraventricular tachycardia’ or SVT for short, essentially when I would have an ‘episode’ my heart muscle would contract so fast that it can’t relax properly between contractions, this reduces the amount of blood being pumped around the body, which can make you feel dizzy, short of breath or in some circumstances faint. Safe to say, I couldn’t play sport or participate in much physical activity after that. Being an absolute ball of energy however I did find it incredibly difficult to restrain myself, I couldn’t even join in with PE classes or be part of a sport team or even run for the bus.

When I was 16 I had a heart operation to cure my irregular heart beat and thankfully it went really well, I was cured, which if you’ve ever had any kind of illness for a prolonged period of time you’ll know recovery can be a real head f*ck and that thing that has consumed your life for all these years is suddenly GONE. That was really hard for me to handle, I would have phantom SVT attacks, convinced it would come back or the surgery would have failed.

This here lies the birth of my anxiety, isn’t that something, this amazing surgery that’s supposed to give me my life back ended up leaving me feeling more isolated and alone and this is how I first came into the fitness space. I was seeking something to fill a hole, something that I could take charge over and essentially gain back some of the control I think I felt I had lost when I “lost” my heart condition.

As you can imagine this wasn’t a great or healthy way to enter the fitness space, I soon became absolutely obsessed with how I looked, eating “clean” and training “hard” was all I was interested in. I lost a lot of weight and became consumed by my training, running everyday, barely eating anything but salad leaves, I felt more confused and out of control then ever and then while I was at university I saw a video on YouTube of this amazingly fit woman lifting a barbell and I thought “wow, what are they doing, that looks amazing, also wow and WOW!” Turns out what I was watching was a clip from the 2014 CrossFit Games. I was instantly a fan of the sport, I went back and watched all of the Games from that year and I was so into the idea that you don’t have to specialise, you can run, swim, jump, throw up a barbell, do gymnastics, all in the same sport. From there I contacted a few CrossFit boxes in my area and one of them said I could come in and see what it was about and even do a workout to figure out if it was for me. I went along in some yoga leggings because that’s all I owned and running trainers, feeling completely out of place, and I was put through my paces by the owner with two movements; rowing and burpees, I was instantly hooked. That was a real turning point for me, from then I started to think about strength first and looks second. How I felt and how physically capable I was rather than the size of my jeans or how I looked in a picture. I believe it changed my life forever, took me from the path I was on U-turned me, leading me to recovery, eventually to this, to you, to this wonderful website and everything that’s next.

Now! I am currently working full time as a CrossFit coach and personal trainer. I have my CrossFit Level 2, CrossFit Kids and my 200hr Yoga teacher training certificate. I live to educate and help others and I hope my story will help others to know there is light at the other end and “recovery” can look different on everyone.

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