MEET POLLY

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY...

FROM ADRENALINE JUNKIE TO COACH & GUIDE FOR VISIONARY OUTSIDERS

THE DRAMATIC ENTRANCE AND THE ROLLERCOASTER LIFE

I was born feet first under a full moon in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm.

(Talk about foreshadowing the life I was about to live!)

The trailers of "The Movie of My Life" include skydiving over Las Vegas, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, and flying the trapeze. The highlights reel shows 64 countries, five careers (including solo businesses), four mountain summits, three broken hearts, two dead parents, one near-death experience, and a life of wild experiments and risky moves.

It looked like freedom. Adventure. Courage. Success.

But the trailers didn't show was a grieving child. A teenager furious at life. A young adult making rebellious choices, the Black Sheep, the outsider. And a grown woman determined not to let her past define her future. Constantly moving, constantly reinventing, constantly chasing the buzz of feeling alive, looking for answers without knowing the questions.

THE DECADES LIVING IN SURVIVAL MODE

In my 20s, I partied hard and to be honest it's a blur, so we should probably skip to the next decade!

(I was learning how to numb, and using my body as a nightclub did the trick)

In my 30s, I took a leap of faith to follow my passion for travel and left a successful career in graphic design. I funded an eight-month, around-the-world backpacking adventure on credit cards (as a woman I met at a black-jack table in Vegas said, "You travelled around the world, and you charged it?!"). I'd been terrified of travelling solo, but with every mile, my confidence grew. I made friends in places I couldn’t pronounce and discovered courage I didn’t know I had. 

Later, I turned that leap of faith into a career as an adventure travel tour leader, travelling full-time for five years and becoming the second-highest-rated guide in the company.

(What I didn’t realise at the time was that courage and fear can live side by side. And that true resilience doesn't come from outrunning fear, but from learning to feel safe in your own body)

In my 40s, I walked away from a high-level travel product manager position generating annual revenues of $1.3M for the company to pursue photography, a hobby that had gotten out of hand, that fulfilled a deep need for creative expression. I hosted my first workshop for three attendees, feeling like a total imposter. But I kept going, honing my skills, regularly facing the fear of judgment and dealing with self-doubt, but trusting the process while building my reputation. I even published two books.

I turned my love for photography into a decade-long career as a multi-award-winning internationally recognised photographer, and a teacher to over 100s of students.

(I didn’t know it then, but I was still running on adrenaline. Every bold move looked like freedom from the outside. But inside, I hadn’t yet found the kind of freedom that comes with inner peace... I did get a taste of it once while on a ranch in the Australian outback sitting on a deckchair sharing a cold beer in the warm sun after day of herding cattle!)

THE TIME EVERYTHING CHANGED

In my 50s, I found myself feeling stuck and unfulfilled. While I wasn’t ready to completely give up photography (I published my third book), I knew it was time to shake things up again. Another risky move was loading!

So, in a state of high anxiety in the guise of "I'm doing this to honour my dad because he didn't get to live beyond the age I'm at now" - I gave up my home and left the country of my birth to go on a European adventure, intending to settle after a few months... but that journey turned into three years on the road.

(If there’s a thread running through my life, it’s this: I’ve always seen fear as a green flag! When something scared me, I moved toward it, regardless of whether my nerves were shot to pieces, because that adrenaline hit was calling my name!)

And this time things were different...

THE REALISATION OF THE "HEALING JOURNEY LOOP"

I'd spent a lifetime exploring the mind, spirituality, philosophy, psychology, metaphysics... I knew there was more to life than the life I was living, even though I'd had an incredible abundance of experiences (and the full range of emotions from depression to bliss).

I'd tried everything to feel better. Self-help books. Workshops. A full year in therapy. I had tools. I had insights. I could explain my patterns. But I was still living in the same life, just with different wallpaper.

I was stuck in what I now call "the healing journey loop" - endlessly processing, endlessly learning, endlessly trying to think my way out of something that lived in my body (but you can't know what you don't know, right?).

On the outside: still achieving, still moving, still looking like I had my sh*t together, inspiring others who looked at my life like I was living the dream.

On the inside: anxious, disconnected, disassociated,  running on adrenaline, frequently breaking down and exhausted from pretending I was fine.

THE BREAKTHROUGH

What had started as another wild experiment and risky move became something deeper... It became the classic "inner journey" with more "dark nights of the soul" than you could throw a journal at! I'd been doing it for so long alone and still in the loop, I finally knew it was time to ask for help. I worked with transformational coaches and hypnotists, and I did breathwork and EFT, and I started to experience bigger shifts than ever before.

And through this process of taking responsibility for my own suffering (not blaming myself but no longer being a victim of my circumstances). I was willing to let go of the past. And I ended up training to become a transformational coach and hypnotist myself.

🪩 I discovered nervous system regulation.

🪩 I learned subconscious rewiring.

🪩 I practiced somatic healing.

And for the first time in my life, I wasn't just understanding the trauma I'd collected throughout my life and its impact on my wellbeing... I was actually healing it.

Through the healing, I realised that true freedom is peace.

Because with inner peace, anything is possible.

I found my purpose! And that's the work I share.

Because if I can guide you through this path, and help you skip a few decades of the hard way around, then every single one of my wild experiments and risky moves was worth it.

"I used to see every fear as a green flag... proof I was growing. But there’s a difference between the fear that expands you and the fear that contracts you and keeps you stuck in survival mode. Learning to tell the difference and knowing how to work with each emotional state was what made the biggest difference to my life."

MY JOURNEY THROUGH THE THREE PHASES OF Neuro-Emotional Wisdom™

Through all the decades of wild experiments and risky moves, underneath it all, I was living in survival mode (C-PTSD, if you want to stick a label on it). And finally I walked the exact path I now guide others through:

PHASE 1: I Learned to GROUND
I had to stop running first. I learned to regulate my nervous system, to break the survival patterns that had been running my life since childhood. I practiced shifting and rewiring my emotions instead of numbing them or bypassing them. And slowly, I began to feel safe in my own body. And this wasn't about changing external circumstances. It was about changing my inner world.

PHASE 2: I Learned to INTEGRATE
Once I had a foundation of calm, I could finally do the deeper work. I mapped out my true "Ultimate Self" (not the persona I'd been performing). I met and united parts of me that had been in conflict: the protector, the rebel, the wounded child (full disclosure: this is a work in progress). I befriended my emotions instead of managing them. I learned they were teachers, not enemies.

PHASE 3: I Learned to EMBODY
With my nervous system regulated and my inner world integrated, I could finally release the past for real - not just intellectually, but in my body. I changed the key limiting beliefs that had been running the show for decades. And I stepped into a version of myself I'd been seeking across continents: calm, grounded, free, and finally, finally, at peace.

And powered by peace, my purpose to coach and guide others was activated!