I’ve graduated in Industrial Psychology at the University of Stellenbosch and have always been interested in understanding human behaviour and how it integrates with spirituality.
I was introduced to the Enneagram in January 2000 by Sister Doris Gastonguay and became a life-long student. I completed my formal Enneagram Studies under the co-founders, Helen Palmer and the late David Daniels www.drdaviddaniels.com and have taught the Enneagram in South Africa, Malawi and Namibia since 2003. In 2013, I brought David Daniels and Peter O’Hanrahan to South Africa to facilitate the first Enneagram Professional Training Program in Africa.
I am a certified teacher and associate trainer of the Enneagram Professional Training Program (EPTP) for the international school, The Narrative Enneagram www.enneagramworldwide.com. During the past 30 years, more than 3000 participants have attended the EPTP in 17 countries worldwide, and more than 1000 have become Certified Enneagram Teachers in the Narrative Tradition. The Narrative Tradition is actively committed to creating spaces that welcome, celebrate and encourage diversity of experiences and perspectives.
“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything.
Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you,
so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”
~ Paulo Coelho
I’ve completed my Teacher Training Certification as a certified Professional Enneagram Teacher with Russ Hudson, Jessica Dibb and Gayle Scott and are busy with an international qualification as Breath Worker. I also had the privilege of attending two teaching programs with the late Dr Claudio Naranjo, father of the modern day Enneagram of Personality.
I teach the Enneagram as part of a Teaching Group that provides training for individuals who are seeking to become Spiritual Directors. www.sentrumvirspiritualiteit.co.za This two year program focus on Prayer of the Heart and Contemplation which, hopefully, will become a life style. The reason for including the Enneagram as part of this training program is that our personality is the key to our spiritual growth. The depth of our relationship with others and God, depends on how well we know ourselves.
I am a spiritual director and part of the faculty (2014 – 2024), training people over a period of two years to become spiritual directors. I am also a member of Spiritual Directors International (SDI), a learning community that advocates and support the service of spiritual direction and spiritual companionship, for all who are on the journey.
I am an accredited Professional Member of the International Enneagram Association (IEA) and have presented workshops in South Africa, Malawi and Namibia to small groups, churches, business executives and government CEOs.
I am blessed to have met my Austrian husband, Robert, while travelling through Malawi in 1990. We married in 1992. Three of our children were born in Malawi at Nkhoma Missionary Hospital and we lived in Lilongwe, Malawi, for 16 years. The Enneagram has been such a gift in our life and marriage, also in raising our children. We have four grown children and two grandchildren and we live in Pretoria, South Africa.
I love my family, the ocean, hiking, swimming, body surfing, scuba diving, reading, travelling and experiencing God through the lens of my camera.
My own Enneagram journey has been a blessing in my life. I do not see the Enneagram as the alpha and the omega of personal and spiritual growth. It is only a map that shows me a path into an area beyond my daily consciousness. Learning about the Enneagram, I became aware of my pattern, my type structure and instinctive dynamics, which got me stuck into fixed patterns of operating. I started to realize that the spiritual journey involves recognizing and reconciling certain aspects in myself: that ‘conversion’ is not an activity to perform, but an honest awareness of who I am and which aspects in myself need to grow. This is a journey where our psychological, spiritual and somatic potential meets and I believe it’s a never-ending path. My prayer is to kindle a spirit of curiosity to always stay open and teachable, knowing that there is so much more than I ever can imagine, in myself, in others and in God.