I was born under a lucky star on a Saturday of a full moon a long time ago!!! My mother was too young to have me really and couldn’t cope with a young baby /child and having been abused herself - her rage and anger were out of control. What I remember of my childhood was one of fear and insecurity. But I had my lucky star and I knew from a very young age that I was here to break a lineage of abuse and that I would always be taken care of one way or another. And I always have been.

When I was 17 yoga found me and I knew that this would be the primary path for my healing it felt like spiritual healing practice for me. This would be the journey that changed my life in so many ways. I was obviously here to serve in one way with the children with special needs that crossed my path and the other with being a guide to help people to open their hearts. I didn’t know that then but I do now.

By this time I had met my first real love. I left to live in France to be with him. On one of the journeys back to the UK to yet again rescue my brother and my mother because she had done another attempted suicide, he had a fatal car accident. I was utterly devasted and the yoga wasn’t yet strong enough in me to help me to manage that time. I used alcohol and drugs to blot out the pain.

When I was 20 I boarded a plane for new york mainly because my addiction to cocaine was so bad I probably would have died if I hadn’t left the life I was caught in. New York allowed me to slowly heal. I could be me, I found my yoga teacher whose first words I heard was ‘use your body as a vehicle of prayer’. The late seventies and eighties were an extraordinarily creative time to be in new york. There was so much going on musically, artistically, and in all ways. I‘m not someone who has ever followed one path or been in one crowd - and that time gave me the pathway to explore Jazz, Studio 54, Warhol, CBGB’s, the Hari Krishnas, Yoga, actualisation, photography, John Lennon, the event of MTV, music video, etc etc etc.

I was working with a couple of girls where we sold music shows internationally for TV - and we travelled, met mad people, and generally had a lot of fun. We had money and we lost money. I was homeless for a little while hanging with the Hari Krishna’s with my dog until a friend gave me their sofa. I spent a year in Jamaica hanging with Marley’s crowd.

Then in the mid-80s my mother had taken herself to San Francisco and was dying of cancer. I flew over to take care of her and got her strong enough postoperatively to bring her back to the UK. It was time to head back to the UK. I needed to spend time with her trying to heal and. Make sense of the massive physical and emotional abuse I had taken from her over the years before she died. By this time I had met a man who invited me to live with him in London and so I did. He is the father of both my children. We married and divorced 14 or so years later.

Resettling in the uk was hard. I wasn’t the person I was when I left 10 years earlier. But slowly I found my path. I met teachers and healers along the way and many families with children with special needs. In 1992 my first daughter was born

By then I was producing feature films and hated the lack of humility and spirituality in that world. 3 films later I said goodbye to that side of my life and took up yoga as my path.

Just after my daughter was born I experienced early menopause - I was 37 and that took me on another whole journey to heal my relationship with my body. In 2002 I adopted my younger daughter who had severe attachment disorder and unquestionably is on the autistic spectrum. She was so difficult to raise but I knew that we had old karma to heal in this life time. She is now 20 and in her second year at uni and COVID is working for her because no one can go out partying so she is not so different!

In 2003 I opened special yoga. I could no longer treat children at my home and there were almost too many for me to manage with the adoption of Lily

Special yoga became their second home. And the journey of special yoga goes on.

I now realised in this mad time of COVID that the only thing we have to focus on is keeping a high vibration as much as possible - not by bypassing our humanity but through using our human experience to honour and develop kindness and compassion.

Our hearts are the gateway to a higher consciousness. This is my path. I work daily and regularly to heal myself from my traumatic childhood

4 years ago I moved to the sea and that has changed my life. I live closer to nature. I swim regularly in winter and summer most of all I am grateful for my story because it has made me who I am today

~ Jyoti ~

~I am Light ~