Hello, I’m Alice.
From starting out working for Virgin Management and Channel 4 Television I quickly found my way to entrepreneurship and the health and wellness space.
I trained as a Life Coach setting up my first business, Ignite Coaching, when I was just 23.
In 2014 I co-founded a strength & conditioning gym in Leeds, coaching members of all ages over a period of 8 fun years.
I got my yoga and breath work teacher certifications, working with groups, individuals and national organisations and founded The Return Movement helping older adults become stronger and more resilient through functional movement and mindset coaching.
I’ve been a teacher for the last 5 years on the Insight Timer meditation app and taught 1000s of people around the world about nervous system regulation and how to sleep better and stress less through my role as Head of Content for a global workplace wellbeing platform.
Songbird Sanctuary is the next evolution of my work, empowering you to live with more ease in your mind and body and feel more joy and confidence as you age and embrace a purposeful life.
My story.
The backdrop to all of this activity was the early deaths of my parents when I was in my mid-twenties and this fundamentally changed my life and informs much of my work.
Being busy and creating was my coping strategy, but my body was constantly letting me know this wasn’t sustainable. Years of chronic IBS, fatigue, two burn outs and a short bout of depression were warning signs that my nervous system was at its limit.
I made some connection between my history and my health and discovered how much therapy of many kinds can help to process grief and trauma. I studied and practiced yoga, meditation, functional movement and breath work and qualified as a teacher. I felt I had some really helpful tools and thought I was doing pretty well…
In 2020 I caught Covid and this morphed into 8 months of Long Covid. I ‘knew’ I would get Long Covid if I caught the virus. My body just ‘knew’.
Those of you who have had a debilitating or chronic illness, of any kind, will know that it requires both physical and mental healing to take place to return to full health. The enforced rest due to my symptoms, along with the lockdowns which showed us all a different way of life, finally made me properly stop and focus on truly healing.
I fully recovered from Long Covid and continue to nurture my physical and mental health every day. What were once tools to heal myself from symptoms which were drastically impacting on my quality of life are now habits and an essential part of my daily routine.
My health is the most important thing I have and why I am able to do this work.
The key to my recovery and learning to thrive was nervous system regulation. How to balance and regulate the nervous system, using a range of techniques, is part of what I now teach to individuals, groups and businesses through my 1:1 coaching, meditation tracks, group classes and the Songbird Sanctuary garden wellness space.
If this resonates with you, I’d love you to get in touch to see how we could work together.
Some of my work.
