Hello!

My name is Andrea Ballance. I have been in the 'spiritual world' practicing my own spirituality for decades. I have always had spirituality of one kind or another around me. 

I am an army child. This comes with an accepted reality that death and change can happen at any moment. I learned in a typical English Christian school based environment. Later in childhood I found myself surrounded by Mormons as my parents took on the Mormon faith. 

My teenage years were challenging,  as I think everyone's are.  Navigating the teenage overwhelming desire to be liked and accepted - dealing with the constant invasive self questioning. Both my grandparents died early in my teens and the reality and finality of death just totally blindsided me.  As I navigated the scary world of being a more independent human everywhere I went and everything I did had a background bleakness to it.  The realisation that when I died I couldn’t take anything with me.  No people. No things. No memories.  I can say with a strong certainty a teen powered by the total conviction that nothing really matters goes on to make dubious life decisions. 

This experience of death underpinned and dyed the fabric of the rest of my life. I had to understand the mind, why we feel the things we do, did we all experience things in the same way?  Are we all soothed and healed by the same thing? I found that age old questions became my unspoken, unrelenting obsession. Is there really life after death?  A purpose to this experience, this life?  And even, is there a God?

In my search to understand the ‘true’ nature of being a human, and I guess more importantly,  how that had anything to do with me, I found myself going to a meditation class in Reading. That class was a powerful turning point for me. In one of the meditations I found myself letting out a deep sigh of relief as I realised, for the first time in my life, I was finally experiencing some mental peace.  

Being a pre internet newbie to the world of spirituality I did not realise most spiritual truths can be found in all religions and all spiritual paths. I assumed the cause of the peace I had experienced was in the Buddhist teachings I had been listening too. So In my early 20’s I committed fully to, what I assumed, was the most beneficial life I could lead, and ordained as a Buddhist Nun. 

As time passed I began to realise the Buddhist group I was involved with were slipping away from the main-stream Buddhist world and were becoming the 'only pure path to enlightenment'.  I felt the group was narrowing and in that process it became clearer and clearer that the group was not for me.  At this point to keep my spiritual integrity and be able to live with myself, I took the crushing decision to disrobe. I loved with all my heart and soul, being a Nun, and disrobing nearly destroyed me. I found myself with a profound case of religion caused PTSD and more painfully, spiritually alone. No Guru, no teacher, no sangha and surrounded by 'normal' people. 

This experience led me to become a cult activist. I was deeply, deeply worried by the thought that anyone else would go through what I had been through. I just couldn't bare the reality that there were other people as alone as I was, as lost as was, as identity destroyed as I was, so I set about spreading the word wherever I felt strong enough to speak. I am still active in this passion.

Fast forwarding to today, I find myself in my 50’s (getting older is a very weird thing).  I have a life crammed with spiritual experiences and exploration behind me. I have been to see a multitude of different teachers, seen many different approaches to spirituality and have had long periods of having no choice but to use my own inner ideals and faith to navigate my life's ups and downs. I say 'ups and downs', like a lady about to sip her tea, but the truth is as we all know, the downs feel more like being tied into a runaway mining cart. 

Now I find myself here. This vocation found me. I know with great conviction that I can use the experiences I have had along my spiritual journey to help others. I know I am a useful person to steady yourself on and talk with when life is just getting too confusing. I can hold the space you need to let your clarity and direction arise. Being able to hold space for someone while they really check in with their core being is a vocation I feel experienced enough and inspired enough to get fully behind.  Being a spiritual life coach literally feels like something I was born to do.