Welcome, I’m Vanessa…

I’m someone who has been shaped by the body for many years. My journey began in the discipline of it. I’ve been a yoga student for 25 years, spending long hours in Ashtanga Mysore rooms, immersed in daily practice. I completed my yoga teacher training in 2010 and went on to co-found a yoga studio in Cape Town. In those years I was devoted to form, strength and structure. I believed the body could be refined into coherence through effort.

And then my body interrupted me…

After travelling to India in 2014, my health began to unravel. My digestion changed, my skin flared, my hormones became disrupted, and my mental wellbeing suffered. The identity I had built around being capable, resilient and in control began to fracture.

What I thought would be a journey of fixing symptoms became something much deeper.

As I searched for answers, I came to realise that healing wasn’t simply about restoring physiology, although that was an essential part of the process. It was also about understanding how stress, trauma and life experiences had shaped my nervous system and influenced the way my body functioned.

One of the deepest discoveries on my own path was recognising that I was carrying the effects of unresolved childhood trauma. Near-death experiences had left patterns within my nervous system that I had never consciously understood. They weren’t simply memories. They had become protective adaptations, quietly influencing how I responded to stress, relationships and the world around me.

As I slowly worked through these experiences, I began to understand that the body remembers what the mind often cannot. Symptoms were no longer something to silence. They became communication, revealing where my body needed support, safety and care.

Alongside emotional work, I experienced first-hand how important physiology was. Supporting my digestion, hormones, nutrient status and gut health gave my nervous system the resources it needed to regulate. I came to understand that biology and lived experience are inseparable. We cannot fully separate the body from the story it has lived.

This understanding completely changed the direction of my life.

I retrained as a naturopath and nutritional therapist before continuing my studies in nutrigenomics, with a particular focus on nervous system physiology. This deepened my understanding of how our unique genetic blueprint influences stress resilience, neurotransmitter function, inflammation, energy production and nutrient requirements.

Alongside this, I trained in Compassionate Inquiry®, a trauma-informed approach developed by Dr. Gabor Maté, through which I learned somatic practices and a deeper understanding of how our life experiences and protective patterns become embodied within the nervous system.

Today, my work brings these threads together.

By combining functional nutrition, nutrigenomics and nervous system regulation, I help people understand their unique biology. Rather than simply managing symptoms, my approach is about understanding why the body responds the way it does.

This work continues to shape me as much as I share it with others.