My Journey
From engineer to women holistic transformation catalyst
I was born and grew up in France, in a loving family, normally dysfunctional and in a normally western patriarchal and judgmental French society, in the 80s. Saying this with love, I love France in all its glory and shadows.
I was a smart, strong-willed, loving, a bit wild, sometimes shy girl, full of energy and love. I was lovingly called "Petit Tigre", meaning "Little Tiger" by my father, and I loved it. I felt like one. I felt free, vital, present.
My mother was a very loving patient human being. I trusted her unconditional love for me. But I grew up watching her lose her sense of self, her career for her family. I grew up witnessing her struggles as a housewife in a society that expected women to work, seeing it as women’s liberation.
Really any contribution to society can be liberating in many ways. And being a mother, raising kids and taking care of a household is contributing to society in a big way as well. Besides, there are more human, self-actualising ways to live by than the patriarchally created 9 to 5 mad run and rush of the corporate world.
Little Tiger
In my teenage years I was harassed, followed, whistled at by men, many times in the streets of Paris and other French cities. So I distrusted men. And I did not have any good role models of strong loving and compassionate women either…
I grew up demeaning my own feminine, sensual, emotional side, as it seemed it was neither safe nor valued in society. And I grew to think women were less than men in many ways. I spent a lot of my teenage years then my twenties convincing myself that taming that feminine side of mine was the way to shine. I believed I was a feminist showing the world women could do exactly what men could. I started creating my "perfect woman" persona: very slim (I was anorexic for many years), smart, knowledgeable, not too funny, accepting of men’s flaws and misogynist comments, constantly on the go, doing lots of sport, working and ambitious but. I started to lose connection to myself, to tame myself. I started to put myself on a leash, in a cage… I started to tame the wild tiger within me.
I became an engineer, finished a Bachelor degree then a Master of Science in engineering by the time I was twenty-two. I had the authentic drive and dream to travel and live in different parts of the world, and I went to the US to complete my Master. I started working in a start-up, inventing medical devices. My twenties were a part of my life where I was restless. I could not sit still for twenty minutes. I was an engineer during the day, working in a jazz club at night and, in between, I was either rock-climbing, horse riding, running…
The truth is that I did not like myself so much at that time. I was constantly going from unfulfilling relationships to unhealthy ones, all of those keeping me from facing myself, my fears of being alone, of looking at my darknesses and seeing my light. I was quite unhappy, depressed, restless for no apparent reason.
In the midst of this, my mother passed away from cancer. I came back to France for a few months to be with her in her last moments. It was a very tough time. Seeing someone you love die, is traumatic. I lost one of the unique reliable source of pure love I had in my life at the time. I still miss her after 15 years. In some way, it was a wake-up call. I had to face her death, realise the possibility of my own death. I asked myself where I wanted to spend my breath while I was still here, what was important, how I wanted to serve the world and how I wanted to be remembered. Luckily I had just started practicing yoga at the time and for reasons I could not comprehend yet, it was keeping me sane.
Looking for a change of scenery, I went on a backpacker trip with a girlfriend to Central and South America, studying monkeys in the jungle of Costa Rica, travelling to the Angel Falls in Venezuela, sleeping in hammocks in the forest, hiking and being transported on the rescue mule as I had bad altitude sickness on our way to the Machu Pichu in Peru… Amazing, often uncomfortable, but life-changing and empowering experience.
Then I quit my job and went on to do an MBA in Singapore. I lived there for one year and travelled around Southeast Asia during that time. After my MBA, I was hired by a big medical device company and moved to Brussels.
This is where I met my husband. A cowboy from the Black Hills of South Dakota, United States of America. Our relationship flourished in something I had never experience in a relationship before! It was based on respect, love, trust, and absolutely no control. A man that truly wanted to see me flourish and pursue my own aspirations and dreams, whatever they were, with no judgment, no grasping, no control. That was new and wonderful!
We got married within the first year and had our first child within two years, our love expanding with this first child coming to the world.
Taming the tiger
The wake-up call
So, where did this spiritual, wholeness, wellness journey started for me…? Well, from all those experiences. After my mother passed away, I did review my health, my food, my exercise. I researched the impact of food on our physical and mental health and learned how the type of food, how it is grown and processed impact our health. So, I changed a lot of my food habits and activity level habits since then, and tried a lot of different diets, detox, fasts etc.
A few years later, I had challenges conceiving my second child and got to try different modalities of holistic treatments such as acupuncture, naturopathy, different diets, meditation…. Of course, I had been practicing yoga for many years at the time and this was a body mind practice that has and continue to help me, and that is getting deeper and deeper as years pass by. Becoming more and more interested by the impact of the mind, thoughts, our perception of the world on the body, on happiness, and digging into my own mind patterns, I went on to study neurolinguistic programming, and I became a Master practitioner. I also completed intensive yoga teacher trainings and I am now certified in Hatha, Vinyasa and Yin yoga.
So, I got to learn how everything is connected. The food we eat, how much we exercise, the thoughts that run in our head and those that run us, our beliefs, our connection to ourselves, our love for ourselves and others, the planet … and after experiencing moments of freedom, moments of reconnection to my deeper self, I got to find the courage in me to say enough is enough, changed my life, quit my corporate world to create the life I was dreaming of…. And I got to find a place of deep peace, balance, wholesomeness in my life. A deep love for myself and others. I have reconciliated and embraced fully my feminine, sensual, wild side in all its shape and form. And I have continued to embrace the masculine parts of myself, but in a balanced manner. I have released a lot of fear and judgment.
Learning and growing
My tiger is back! Except it is a full grown, beautiful, strong, gracious female tiger now! So my heroine journey “back home” was not to literally come back home to France, but to come back home, to reconnect to myself. Wholesomely.
And It does not mean that I am always in a state of pure happiness. But I can say sincerely, I am always in a state of awareness, acceptance and wholesomeness. When fear comes, I can look at it in its eyes, experience it fully move in my body, accept it and let it go. So, I have the tools and the experience to deal with the challenges that life throws at me.
I deeply feel that I am contributing to the world. I finally have found a sense of purpose within motherhood, within my family, within the community, within the work I have created and the women I am helping through yoga and coaching. I have gained financial freedom through the different businesses I created. Financial freedom is part of the journey to wholesomeness. It enables the love created through my businesses to grow and flourish, to help more women, to do the things that matter to me in life, while allowing me to have time for myself, my family, friends and the community around. I have a deep sense of abundance in all areas of my life.
And I sincerely wish this for every human on the planet. I wish for every men and women to create a wholesome, fearless life, full of love for themselves and others… the world needs more humans to shine to their brightness!
I have been coaching and teaching yoga since 2017. I am combining and sharing all my many years of experiences and growth together to create the different program I offer through my Fearlessly Yourself platform. Join me in one of my transformational programs for women to sustainably develop a conscious mind, a healthy body and a wholesome, fearless, untamed life! I truly believe in my heart, and have witnessed over the years that when women rise, the world around them rises as well.
My wholesome life
With infinite love and gratitude
Dorothée