For many years I didn't fully understand how meaningful that name would become. It took me much of my adult life to begin truly living by it. I spent around sixteen years working in creative communications, branding, and marketing in Tokyo and London. From the outside, I had built a successful career and a busy life. Yet underneath, I was carrying grief, unresolved experiences, and a growing sense that the way I was living was no longer sustainable.
Eventually, I reached a point of deep burnout and began asking questions that could no longer be ignored: Who am I beneath everything I have been taught to be? Where do I come from? Why am I here? Those questions led me back to something I had been fascinated by since childhood: ancient civilizations, spirituality, consciousness, and the wisdom traditions of our ancestors.
A profound encounter with a shamanic healer and teacher in London became an important turning point. Through that experience, something within me that had been dormant began to awaken. I started to remember a relationship with the unseen world and with nature that had been present in me since childhood, but which I had gradually learned to suppress in order to fit into the modern world.
In 2017, after a period of profound personal change and my mother's illness, I returned to the Netherlands and consciously chose a different direction. Coming from a lineage of healers and spiritual practitioners through my grandfather, who was an apothecary and medicine man, and my parents, who were spiritual leaders of the Nichiren Buddhism practice in the Netherlands, I began a much deeper journey of study, practice, and self-discovery.
Over the years, my understanding of healing has changed. I no longer see healing as becoming someone different or fixing something that is “wrong” with us. For me, healing is a process of remembering — remembering our connection with ourselves, with one another, with nature, with Spirit, and with the deeper wisdom that already lives within us.
My own journey has taught me that healing and service are deeply connected. One of my teachers often says: “You cannot give what you do not have, or what you have not yet embodied.” This has become an important principle in my life. The more deeply we learn to meet ourselves — with honesty, compassion, humility, and love — the more naturally our presence can become a source of support for others.
I don't believe we need to be perfectly healed before we can serve. We are all continually learning and growing. But I believe we have a responsibility to remain conscious of our own process, to continue doing our work, and to recognize where our own wounds may still influence the way we relate to others. For me, service is not something separate from the path. It is an expression of the path.
My hope is that people leave our work together not only inspired, but with tangible tools and lived experiences that support them in making conscious choices, deepening their relationship with themselves and the world around them, and walking their path with greater confidence, authenticity, and alignment.
My heart eventually led me to the medicine and cosmology of the Andes, where I found teachings that resonated deeply with the way I had come to understand healing, consciousness, nature, and our relationship with one another. For many years, I have studied with teachers, medicine people, and wisdom keepers from different Andean lineages, including Master Puma Fredy Quispe Singona, Don Mariano Quispe Flores, Wilbert Salas Atasi, and other respected teachers and knowledge holders.
I have undertaken extensive studies in Andean cosmology, energy medicine, sacred ceremony, shamanic practices, and the Q'ero traditions, and continue to learn through ongoing study, practice, pilgrimage, and relationship with my teachers. My education has also extended beyond shamanic traditions. I have studied basic medical and psychological knowledge, Jungian psychology, herbalism, plant medicine integration, and the healing arts, because I believe that a responsible practitioner should remain curious and continue learning from different perspectives.
I consider myself first and foremost a lifelong student. The Andean concept of Kamachi Time — the Great Learning Time — beautifully reflects this for me. There is no point at which we have learned everything. We continue to refine ourselves through experience, humility, relationship, and service.
Selected Teachers & Trainings
Andean Cosmology & Sacred Ceremony, Noqan Kani
Q'ero Teachings & Healing Practices, Global Paqo School
Pampamesayoq Earthkeeper Training, Serena Anchanchu
Shamanic Energy Medicine, The Four Winds Society
Jungian Psychology, Karen Hamaker-Zondag
Foundational Medical & Psychological Knowledge, Energy School
Phytotherapy & Herbalism, Herba Sanitas
Alongside my private practice, I am a co-founder of Shamans Directory, a global nonprofit platform dedicated to connecting people with authentic shamanic, earth-based, and lineage-based wisdom traditions. Through Shamans Directory, I work with teachers, healers, elders, and practitioners from different traditions to create spaces for learning, healing, ceremony, and meaningful connection. I also organize online courses and facilitate sacred pilgrimages in Peru, creating opportunities to learn directly from teachers and communities while experiencing the living landscapes, sacred sites, traditions, and cosmology of the Andes.
My work continues to evolve. I teach, I facilitate, I organize, I learn, I travel, I listen — and I continue to ask the same questions that began my journey many years ago. Who are we beneath the layers we have accumulated? What does it mean to live authentically? And how can we bring our finest love, wisdom, action, and energy into service of life?
I look forward to welcoming you and to sharing my medicine practice and sacred space with you!
