hi - I’m Ellie and here is why I do what I do.

For most of my life, I have performed.

I have stood on stages, sang my own songs, made art from the inside out. But ever since I can remember, I was doing it all whilst being, well, pretty terrified.

Every single time I had to share my work or my voice, nerves overtook. We all experience nerves, but this was not the normal, helpful amount of nerves. These were the kind where your legs stop working (I literally had to be carried on stage once). The kind where words that had been sung hundreds of times completely evaporated. Where the overwhelm became so strong that cancelling the gig, retreating, hiding was the only option left. The fear playing out in my body was all consuming; this was my nervous system’s love language. It was trying to keep me safe, for whatever reason (no doubt based on past experience) but it was acting as if I was staring death in the face.

I loved creating, but I was undone by being seen.

Those that know me well will recognise how I spent years swinging between moments of confidence and a kind of subtle shame I couldn't quite name. It was a sense that I was, simultaneously, too much and not enough which meant that I looked to others for reassurance that I was doing it right, being it right, living it right.

And let me tell you, when you are looking to others for validation, or worse, permission, life starts to look a little like like someone else’s. Especially when the life I was wanting to lead actually looked very different to most of the people around me. I have never enjoyed traditional, conventional ways of doing things, but you would never have known this by looking at how I was living my life.

Then in 2020, I had my first Conscious Connected Breathwork session.

I have never found the right words for what happened during that session. Something cracked open. I felt joy and love in my body in a way I hadn't accessed before. I witnessed my own heart scatter green emeralds across my chest (yes - seeing colours can happen when moving energy in the body!) and I released what felt like a lifetime of pent up stress.

And the more I leant into my breath, the more I recognised that I had been disconnected from myself, my needs, my wants and my deepest well of creativity for a very long time. So I continued to breathe. And the more I did, the more I was left with a feeling of being connected to everything. Heart open, mind still. I tuned into my intuition, and a lot of hope. It also left me with clarity.

That one session changed the direction of my life.

After finding the right school, I trained in Conscious Connected Breathwork, deepened further into Reiki, studied Human Design, completed my Masters in Creative Practice while leaning back into the transformative power of language on the psyche from my Masters in English Language all those years ago. All the while learning, through direct experience, what it means to come home to yourself through the body, and then open yourself up to the life you’re meant to lead.

I began to apply a new kind of objectivity to myself and to my art. To be present and curious in the uncertainty rather than plagued by it.

I noticed that I stopped needing the outcome to be perfect in order to feel safe enough to begin. This is where perfectionism goes to die.

I now stand on stages and I love it. I now do talks on breathwork and creativity and I thrive in this. I now guide groups of people during breathwork sessions and feel at peace while doing so.

And this is not because the fear has completely vanished, it is still there. But I have found enough presence to be able to witness what is happening beneath the surface, take steps to meet the discomfort, and begin to find enough safety through my nervous system to enjoy the challenge and growth.

the body is the doorway.

The body. The breath. The felt sense of your own aliveness in this moment, right now, before the story of your life kicks back in.

When we learn to live in the present, in the truth of our own direct experience, away from the stories we have grown up with and into, the old narratives begin to lose their grip. Creativity flows not because we forced it but because we finally got out of our own way enough to truly SEE and FEEL the world around us.

Confidence becomes embodied and it stops being performed. And this is where we find OUR voice. Not someone else’s. 

We are living in a time that is in need of a different kind of energy.

The world has long been shaped by those who lead with force, with dominance, and with the kind of power that takes, rather than tends. And in that world, many of us have learned, whether consciously or not, to make ourselves smaller. To doubt the validity of our own intuitive knowing and to seek permission before we speak, which is not a coincidence. And it is not your fault.

But here is what I believe: those who have done the work of coming back to their own source, who have learned to speak from presence and authenticity rather than performance or learnt narratives, from truth rather than fear, are some of the most heart-led revolutionary forces on earth.