Linda | Applied Psychologist, Holistic Health Coach & Social Worker

I reached out to Linda because I had a complex relationship with body image, food and exercise after years of competitive sport and studies. These concerns and thought patterns were taking up a lot of my time and energy and making me very unhappy. I was eager to address them for my own well-being.

Linda formed a lovely rapport with me, is a great listener and is non-judgemental. I felt very comfortable sharing things with Linda that I had never voiced aloud previously.

I now have awareness of restrictive food habits that I hadn’t given much thought to previously, I can now approach and undertake intuitive eating and have a different view of health as more than just body size, food intake and exercise.

Thank you Linda for all your help and guidance over the past few months. It's helped me more than I can say. I will use the skills you have helped me to develop for the rest of my life.

I started my coaching journey with Linda because I wanted a more positive/neutral body image, and I needed some guidance on intuitive eating and finding movement I enjoyed. 

Linda is really good at making you feel comfortable and safe to open up about anything and everything! A lot of the time it felt like I was having a zoom call with a close friend giving me advice.

Linda has amazing empathy skills and also has an awesome sense of humour! Linda always knew the right questions to ask to make me look at my thought patterns with a different perspective, and that ultimately led me to having more balanced thought patterns in the long run. 

Since working with Linda, I understand the root cause of my emotional eating. Instead of numbing my feelings with food, I now acknowledge them and work through them and honestly can’t remember the last time I ate until I was sick, which is a huge win for me.

To put this into perspective, I’m currently going through an extremely challenging time with a ruptured Achilles as well as an endometriosis diagnosis with fertility struggles (in other words, this would have been prime emotional eating time for me in the past) and I haven’t once turned to emotional eating to regulate myself.

I can have photos taken of me without freaking out or feeling like I need to edit or delete them! I love that I can look at photos as a whole instead of zooming into parts of myself. 

I’ve let go of food labels and instead listen to what my body feels like - and know that my body has different needs every day and that’s okay! I’m embracing gentle nutrition and focusing on movement I enjoy.

I don’t get upset if clothing is too small for me anymore, and I don’t find clothes shopping as stressful as I used to. Clothes are meant to fit me, not the other way around! 

I’m still working on this one but I’m feeling more comfortable with letting go of the perfectionism trap. I’ve learnt that perfectionism is just another way of restricting myself. 

After this being my goal for so many years, I can finally say that I’m now focusing more on how I FEEL rather than how I look.

I sought support because I have been struggling with my body image for over a decade and was unable to “resolve” the issue on my own. I was looking for tools to better be able to handle self-criticism, comparison to others as well as to myself in the past, and in general low and negative moments regarding my appearance and eating habits.

Linda has helped me address more than just the things I contacted her for and has helped me make some real tangible changes (I’m still going to the gym every week and while I have lost no weight at all, I’ve become way stronger – exactly what I wanted).

Linda created a space that felt safe and judgement-free and in which I was able to admit things (out loud and therefore to myself, as well), which I would normally not dare to admit to others.

Linda challenged me to redefine the things which I regarded as flaws and to describe the person I want to be in new words. Those were my favourite exercises.

I’ve become kinder to myself, both regarding my “failures” (for example by not seeing them as such) and self-criticism.

I am more accepting of the way I look now and I am better able to avoid comparing myself.

Fun fact, the two things I wanted from my wedding dress were to hide my arms and my belly but I went for a form-fitted, sleeveless dress and really like the way I look in it!

I feel like I can rely on things we discussed, it’s like having a safety net to fall back on.

Linda made me feel comfortable and safe right from our very first session.

Linda made the sessions fun and lighthearted but also provided a space for me to be vulnerable and to feel the emotions I was feeling.

Linda provided me with strategies that have already made such a positive difference in my life.

I can now have snacks that I enjoy in the house without feeling as though they are ‘bad’. I eat them when I feel like it and enjoy them more because I no longer have the mindset that all ‘unhealthy’ snacks have to be eaten on my one ‘treat day’ a week.

My mindset around exercise is a lot less fixed. I exercise when I feel like exercising and for an amount of time that I choose on the day. I can now recognise when I am thinking in a way that is negative or unhelpful and the majority of the time I am able to interrupt those thoughts and replace them with more helpful, positive ones.

Linda has helped me massively and has provided me with strategies that I know I will be able to use for the rest of my life!

I came to see Linda because I wanted to process some of my fears around a new diagnosis while not resorting to diet-culture solutions. I also wanted to unpack why exercise was so difficult for me and find new ways of engaging with exercise that worked for me.

Linda is empathic and understanding, with a strong body-positive focus. Linda is flexible, which meant that I felt able to talk about what I needed to.

Linda helped me become aware of and work through my hang-ups around exercise. I now do yoga reasonable regularly and I am also still managing to eat with enjoyment (without bingeing), despite needing to replace a few things due to a medical diagnosis.