My earliest memories aren’t of joy at all, but of trying to make sense of a world that felt unpredictable and unsafe. My mum struggled with debilitating anxiety, and when I was nine, she took her own life.

No one talked about it. Not at home, not at school, not anywhere.

So, I learned very young how cope. How to hide pain, how to keep going, how to turn myself into the “good girl”. But inside, I was terrified. I was numb. For years, I carried that fear of instability, of abandonment, of not being enough. Without having the language for it.

And alongside that, there was also a lot of love.

My grandparents and my mum’s friends stepped in and held us in ways I’ll always be grateful for. We moved between homes – during the week, midweek nights, weekends – and while it was confusing and at times chaotic, it was also filled with care from people doing their very best.

There wasn’t the kind of support for children then that there is now, but the people around us pulled together. They showed up. And I wouldn’t have got through it without them. That love has stayed with me just as much as the loss.

And yet, even then, there were sparks of something else.

In my grandparents’ house, I would create little shows, direct other kids, set up a “library” in the shed and tell stories. I built worlds where people came together, laughed, played and forgot their problems, even just for a moment. It made me feel safe. It made me feel alive. I didn’t know it then, but this was the beginning of using imagination, performance and music to reconnect people to themselves.

As I grew older, drama and education became my outlet. I trained as a teacher, then as an actor, but I was always drawn back to workshops, communities, schools and prisons. Places where drama was more about transformation than performance. I saw teenagers on the edges of society light up when they were encouraged to play; I saw hardened young offenders soften during a rehearsal; I saw carers exhausted from grief rediscover their laughter in a two-minute exercise. Over and over, I witnessed how creativity restores dignity and confidence. It felt like magic, but now I know it’s science: joy, laughter and creative expression all have measurable effects on stress, connection and resilience.

But while I was leading people into joy, I was struggling privately.

I pushed myself relentlessly, driven by a fear of not doing enough. Anxiety was the constant hum beneath everything. I didn’t recognise it as trauma until much later. I tried to outrun it with busyness, achievements, and yes, for years, with over-indulgent partying. When I finally cut out the drinking, it was like the ground fell away. Every feeling I had buried came up at once. It forced me to face my own emotional landscape with honesty for the first time. I learned what it means to soothe, to regulate, to speak to myself with the gentleness no one had offered me as a child.

Around the same time, something else began to open in me: a curiosity about spirituality, mind–body practices and meditation. I travelled to India, not once but repeatedly, staying in ashrams for weeks at a time. Until eventually I lived there for a year, directing shows with the international school and delivering staff training. It was there that I discovered the simplicity and power of presence. I experienced what calm feels like in a nervous system that had known only survival.

Eastern philosophy helped me reshape how I see people. I learned that joy comes from being able to hold both light and dark at once. It taught me compassion, groundedness and a kind of hope that isn’t naive but deeply human.

And then, Joyworks! was born – almost accidentally.

After years of directing drama in communities and prisons, someone asked me to run a session “just for a laugh.” I brought a box of props and improvised activities rooted in theatre, movement and play. Something extraordinary happened: people who arrived depleted left with energy, colour and connection. I felt it too – the sense of being “on top of the world,” the same feeling one of the young offenders had described after performing. Within weeks, organisations were asking me to bring the same experience to their teams. Coca-Cola became one of my first clients. Joyworks! took off.

For several years, I travelled the world delivering workshops, speaking at conferences, and helping thousands of people rediscover joy.

But then, like so many, my world changed dramatically with COVID.

I became severely ill. Unable to breathe, unable to speak, alone in my flat for months. At times, I didn’t think I would survive.

Recovery took two years. During that time, I had to rebuild myself from the ground up. I learned to walk again without holding onto walls. I learned to sleep without medication. I learned how fragile and how strong a human can be at the same time.

When I eventually returned to Joyworks! I was not the same person. I was more grounded, more attuned. My joy wasn’t as loud anymore. It was more centred, more compassionate.

My 360º Joyworks! Method is the culmination of that journey: a whole-person, full-circle approach.

Today, everything I teach, whether in corporate leadership rooms, public sector teams, third-sector communities or joy seekers in The Joy Academy, comes from lived experience. I know what pressure feels like. I know what burnout feels like. I know what chronic illness is like. I know what disconnection feels like. And I know, intimately, the transformative power of joy, compassion, breath and creativity.