My Story
From Cambridge Scientist to
Power Alchemist
It’s impossible to know the start of my own feminine wounding as every woman carries generations of patriarchal patterns and wounds.
But my consciousness around the power drains in this life began at an early age.
I was a shy, sensitive child. I had parents who believed in gender equality, gave me exactly the same opportunities as my brother and encouraged me to succeed in whatever I chose.
I loved school, was clever and I excelled.
On the face of it, this should have set me up for success out in the world. But whilst my bright and determined feminine power shone, that same power was also being drained.
Despite the love and support from my parents, there were many stresses in my childhood and home life which meant I had to walk on eggshells a lot of the time.
Any raised voice would make me freeze in fear.
I became conditioned to be perfect, silent and invisible as standing up for myself was simply too unsafe.
This created a fundamental drain in my power in my very earliest formative experiences; something that made me more susceptible to power draining later on in life.
The second drain began when I was 10 years old. I was in a physics lesson and the male teacher told me in front of my class; ‘you can’t expect to beat the boys at physics, Anne.’
In response, I became utterly determined to beat all the boys – and I did.
However, the dismissive assumption that I was ‘less than’ the boys also instilled a feeling that it wasn’t safe to shine.
Shortly after that incident, I had the opportunity to go to a girls’ school. I thrived in the all-female environment and was actively encouraged to follow a career in science.
I won a place at Cambridge University and loved my years there, but it continued to create repeated power drains with its echo-chamber of patriarchal beliefs, behaviours and sexist jokes.
Comments like ‘no girls get firsts’ and ‘we need a man to do the voice-over so we’re taken seriously’ were continuous.
The wounded proving energy that rose in me to counteract this was fierce and resulted in a top first class degree and PhD.
I met and married a wonderful man who is still my husband and greatest supporter today.
I believed I was both empowered and supported, but leaving the world of pure science to become a lecturer in engineering proved to be the tipping point for me.
Despite being red hot academically, I was working in that world that could only be described as a misogynistic hell hole.
I was deeply undermined, dismissed, diminished and ridiculed academically.
I was sexually assaulted on a number of occasions, including incidents of severe violence.
By this point, I had so many power drains all chained, stacked and connected ready to blow.
There was an incident in Japan where a research group head took my name off a research proposal I had authored, replacing it with his own. When I confronted him, he shamelessly told me he had done this because I was a woman.
As a guest speaker at a renowned aerospace company, the men in the room talked over me, and left me standing at the overhead projector for over an hour, totally humiliating me.
These, in addition to the collection of incidents where I was assumed to be the secretary, the admin girl, the student, or the ‘plus one’, instead of the expert in my own right.
I had no idea that my power was practically gone, because I was still succeeding at a very high level in my academic career against the odds.
But I was in the grip of the patriarchy and there was a price to pay.
The ever-depleting power drains could not be sustained, and the damage was beginning to show.
The Unexpected Path
By the time I was 28, the stress and anxiety that had been tolerated for so long was at a critical level.
My health rapidly deteriorated. My immune system weakened. I would catch viruses and just not get better. By the time I was 30 I was suffering from chronic fatigue, I was too ill to even stand and my nervous system was in collapse and total burnout.
I couldn’t work or function for an entire year.
I attempted to return to my career, but it proved impossible so I had no choice but to resign.
The constant and repeated wounds had short circuited me, my divine feminine power was drained to empty and my power was well and truly OUT.
December 2001 saw the end of the scientific career I had worked so hard for, my health was destroyed and everything I had dreamt of and desired was swallowed up.
At the time I thought I had failed because in some fundamental way, I just wasn’t good enough.
But the truth was that I had been unable to thrive because my true feminine power had been completely drained.
My gifts and talents could never hope to blossom and flourish when I was running on empty.
The turning point came one afternoon, when I lay on the sofa, too weak to raise my arm and write on a birthday card.
I suddenly had a moment of pure clarity.
I refused to accept that this was my life.
I vowed to find the solution to regaining my health, wellbeing and power, no matter how long it took.
This new flush of energy opened the door to a completely new way of looking at life that took me beyond science.
I immersed myself in the world of subtle energies, subconscious conditioning and power dynamics.
Over the next few years, I regained my own wellbeing, stepped back into my divine feminine power and built a successful healing and women’s empowerment practice.
At that point, I believed that I had solved the problem, but although I had transformed a great deal, I was still full of active power drains.
I had simply removed myself from the environment that created them.
And then my world, as I knew it, shattered into a million pieces.
My beautiful daughter Rebecca died suddenly. She was just 7.
There are no words to describe the utter devastation and living agony that my life became overnight.
The internal terror and shock due to the immense energetic trauma impact imploded inside me.
I was in agony. Frozen. Paralysed.
I suffered incapacitating PTSD and a sense of desperation I can’t describe.
A desperate campaign of healing began as I used every skill I possessed, but nothing helped.
My splintered nervous system was not allowing any healing or movement.
I began to experiment with my mind in a totally new way outside of the modalities I knew and intertwined my scientific brain with all the subtle energy expertise I had.
And in that space I found a revelation. A discovery of the power foundation.
Beneath the level where most healing operated, there was a fundamental power level – a place where energy flows between us and the world.
Mine was completely empty.
On that layer, my power was depleted and my nervous system locked into deep fear.
I looked at my life with fresh eyes. I saw my history of power drain for the first time.
Finally everything made sense.
My patriarchal experiences and wounds had drained my power, so when the ultimate trauma hit, I had nothing left to survive it.
It became crystal clear.
I needed to get my power back so that I could truly heal. Without this, there would never be any healing.
The Alchemy of mind, body, science & energy
Over the next 4 years, I created a unique way to rebuild my energy and come back from the darkness.
From the ashes of my broken heart, the RePower Alchemy was born.
The crippling anxiety began to subside.
My re-powering brought me out of my trauma state and allowed me to come back to life.
I knew undoubtedly that this was akin to a positive charge of transferable power.
With this knowledge, I was able to go back and RePower all my past experiences that were running on negative charge and continually draining.
Back in my power, I applied these groundbreaking methods with my clients, and was blown away with the results.
Issues they had struggled with for years, shifted and transformed.
Forbidden Programming
The patriarchy and ‘forbidden programming’ in women means that your power leaks at any age, accumulates over time and is rooted in your very being of a woman.
As the patriarchal systems and wounds drain your power and as you rise for success and go against the unwritten rules, your system will feel unsafe on an equal and parallel level.
The invisible force directly correlates to how many times you ‘short out’ and find yourself wounded and running on empty.
Consciously you may believe “I can do anything I want.”
Subconsciously, the response to that is “No, you can’t, you’re not allowed, it’s not safe, you will die.”
And your power drains instantly.
But all this evaporates when you recreate and heal your power on that deep hidden level.
And then the magic reveals itself.
I had believed myself to be an empowered woman, but when I finally experienced being in my full divine power, there was no comparison.
Gifts, wellbeing, joy and a confidence I never believed possible awakened in my life.
I was finally experiencing being present in my full divine feminine power and claiming my place in this world. Although the wound of losing my daughter is one I will always carry, re-powering myself literally brought me back to life, gave me a self-assuredness, authority and resilience I thought impossible for me, and expanded my life’s work and my magical gifts beyond anything I could have imagined.
The repowering is a true feminine legacy that all women possess and once you heal the power drains, it’s safe for your full divine feminine power to awaken and blossom into a freedom that will transform and transcend beyond what you can imagine.
Grace and the Status Quo!
The little character I created for my book, Grace, who embarks on a journey through the world of patriarchy to take up her place in the palace of success, has now taken on a life of her own. Nothing pleases me more than to create another adventure for her, where she can reclaim her power from the status quo.
Here are a few Grace cartoons for you to enjoy!
And now,
30 years on
It’s now a quarter of a century since I walked through the doors of that engineering department into my lectureship. I hardly recognise that woman as me. Little did I know back then that my future lay, not with fracture mechanics and scanning electron microscopes, but with showing women how to get their power back from the experiences, conditioning and heritage that still holds us back.
I can honestly say, after having worked with hundreds of women and seen their lives transform, that this path is infinitely more important! Although the journey has been hard, it has been worth it to have made these discoveries and to now help change the world for women today and tomorrow.
and finally…
Let me leave you with this thought.
Everything you have achieved in the world so far has been with your subconscious mind, and that hidden operating system trying to drag you back. Yet you have still succeeded!
Whether you’re a young women just starting out, or an eminent woman on The Board…
Just imagine, how much more fulfilment, success and impact you could have if you knew how to free yourself from that battle?
How phenomenal would you be then?