Hello magnificent being

I trained as a Medical doctor in Cape Town (UCT) and specialised in Psychiatry in London. Despite my excellent training, I did not always believe our patients were becoming the happiest, healthiest versions of themselves.

I witnessed that psych medication could stabilise mental health, but side effects like emotional numbness, weight gain & impact on sexuality increased suffering.

The field of psychiatry is advancing with research into brain-gut health, genetics, psychoneuroimmunology, mindfulness and plant medicines.

It was only until my father, who was a prominent surgeon, was dying of cancer that I explored the revolution that was taking place in medicine and explored a more holistic view of healing.

I focus on the Designed Life pillars of wellbeing to restore mental health:

• Down-time (optimising restorative sleep, expansive practices for healing, harnessing choices which soothes the nervous system.
• Divinity (this is not religious but relates to fanning the divine spark within you and having awe for your place in creation)
• Diet (restoring gut-brain health and balancing the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis)
• Detox (Optimising the body's protective processes & reducing environmental toxin exposure.)
• Diagnostics (deeper dive into more complex causes of auto-immunity)
• Doing the Inner work (trauma, sexuality, boundaries, relationships).

My adventurous spirit has taken me on a quest to uncover many alternative healing arts. I lived with shamans in the Amazon 15 years ago, have been on retreat to Costa Rica, and participated in initiation ceremonies in the deserts of Africa. I balance this with keeping up to date with cutting-edge medical innovations.

I am passionate about learning how to reclaim our self-healing capabilities. Our over-stimulated, over-medicated, and disconnected society limits our ability to attain higher states of awareness. Returning to our natural connection with the earth, the cycles of nature and one another is the fastest route to whole health.

I thus founded Anassa luxury Retreats for conscious leaders to experience healing of depression, insomnia and anxiety through evidenced-based scientific modalities, nutrition and non-ordinary states of consciousness, e.g. meditation, breath work, sound, and ecstatic dance.

My search for wisdom and truth has afforded me opportunities to officiate many wedding ceremonies and motivational talks.

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