Nov '25 (edited) • ⭐️ Our Stories
My breakthrough story 🥺
Wow. I havent looked this far back in some time. Grateful to acknowledge the girl who got me where I am today! Thank you for reminding me of where I have come for :)
Step One – Before
I was born beneath the southern skies of Johannesburg, South Africa, a child of fractured homes, tangled stories, and countless “in-betweens.”
My childhood was marked by confusion. There were multiple divorces, step-parents, and new siblings from both sides. My parents built new families, and somehow, I no longer fit anywhere.
On the outside, I seemed like a sweet, kind, and beautiful little girl.
But inside, I was lost , frightened, unseen, and alone.
I grew up believing that life was something that simply happened to you.
My habits reflected my pain: endless hours online or watching television, trying to escape the noise inside my mind.
I had never learned how to feel. My father, though present, never expressed sadness, only anger, often shown through violence. And so, I too became angry, confused, and emotionally stunted.
I was raised to believe that vulnerability was weakness and that love had to be earned through performance and perfection.
Over time, this created a deep wound within me, a wound of unworthiness.
I became insecure and hungry for approval, constantly trying to fill an invisible void.
Step Two – The Shatter
High school became a stage, and I played my role perfectly.
I wore the mask of the confident, popular girl - “Courtney Bence,” the funny, beautiful, social butterfly. Everyone loved her, but no one knew me.
I chased acceptance through attention, fashion, photos, parties, and boys but every time the lights went off, I felt emptier than before.
My first relationship mirrored what I had seen growing up: betrayal, anger, and abuse. The man who raised me had cheated and hurt women, and naturally, I attracted the same dynamic. That relationship broke me open, depression started to settle in, and soon after, self-harm became my secret ritual.
When it ended, I rushed into another relationship to fill the void, still drowning in unhealed pain. My depression worsened, but when I tried to speak to my parents, they couldn’t understand.
Mental health was not part of their world and so my pain became the family joke.
“Ha-ha, I’m depressed.” “Go kill yourself,” they would tease.
No one realized how real those words were for me.
Eventually, the weight became too heavy. I was sexually assaulted by a friend, someone I trusted and the confusion that followed nearly destroyed me.
Years of untreated depression finally broke me down completely.
At school one day, I tried to end my life.
A teacher noticed my suffering, she saw what my parents could not and admitted me to a psychiatric hospital.
The world assumed I was “better” when I left, but the truth is, I only grew number.
Medication muted my emotions. I no longer felt sad, but I didn’t feel alive either.
I lived in a fog where I didn’t care if I died. Suicide became a daily thought.
After several attempts, my parents, terrified and confused, sent me to a rehabilitation center. I was seventeen, underage, and not a drug addict. I was simply depressed.
But this was no ordinary rehab. It was a Christian “discipleship” facility , and it was hell.
I was surrounded by women detoxing from heroin and meth. I was abused, sexually assaulted, attacked, bullied and isolated. I was thrown into solitary confinement for two months in a three-meter-by-three-meter room, with no pillow, no proper toilet, and a Bible speaker that played scripture on repeat, 5am to 10pm.
It broke me in every possible way.
I begged to see God, to feel God, to know that love existed, but all I met was silence.
Eventually, I began to conform, trying desperately to believe, because what else was there to cling to?
When I finally left after a year, I tried to stay Christian, but the beliefs didn’t resonate anymore.
If God loved me, why had He allowed so much pain?
I felt abandoned by both heaven and earth.
But strangely, I was no longer depressed.
After living through that hell, anything felt better. I told myself that being numb was good enough.
Step Three – The Chase
Years later, I met a woman who would unknowingly become my guide , a modern medicine woman, shaman, and healer.
For the first time in my life, I met someone who seemed truly happy.
Her presence glowed. Her relationships were healthy, her laughter genuine.
Something in me whispered, “If she can live like that, maybe I can too.”
She saw me, really saw me, at a time when I was invisible to everyone else.
She offered me healing ceremonies, guidance, and sessions at her center. Though her ways seemed strange, even “forbidden” to the Christian version of me, I decided to surrender.
After all, I had already lived through hell.
What harm could a little light do?
I began applying her teachings. Slowly, I started treating myself with kindness.
I spoke gently to my own reflection, fed myself good food, breathed deeper, and allowed myself to rest.
And as I healed my inner world, the outer world began to shift too.
People who matched my new vibration appeared in my life, and those who didn’t, including some family members, began to fall away.
It was painful, but I understood:
to become who I truly am, I had to stop being who I was pretending to be.
Step Four – The Conflict
The hardest test came through love once again.
I had fallen in love with the medicine woman’s son, the same one who had introduced me to her.
When our relationship ended, I was shattered.
He had been my anchor, my link to the world that had helped me heal.
Losing him felt like losing everything.
Every old wound reopened - abandonment, rejection, unworthiness.
For a while, I slipped back into old habits , drugs, escapism, despair.
Suicidal thoughts returned for the first time in years.
But this time, something was different.
Instead of wanting to die, I wanted to live.
I realized that the love I sought from others was simply a reflection of the love I needed to give myself.
The strength I’d been searching for had always been inside me.
Step Five – The Breakthrough
After that breakup, I quit my job and moved to Cape Town to start over.
I took courses to prepare for a yachting career , a dream I had delayed because he didn’t want to leave and I wouldn't put my dreams above him.
In Cape Town, I made a promise to myself: I would date me.
I started taking myself out , for coffees, lunches, dinners , always alone, always without my phone.
At first it felt awkward, even painful. But slowly, it became empowering.
One day, I decided to take myself to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.
Couples surrounded me everywhere — it might as well have been Valentine’s Day , and for a moment, I felt the sting of loneliness.
Then something shifted.
I realized that no one else there was sitting alone.
And yet, I was. Brave enough to show up for myself.
Brave enough to love myself without witnesses.
In that quiet moment among the trees and flowers, I asked the universe, “Who am I?”
And something answered, “I am.”
That moment changed everything.
It was my awakening , my remembrance.
From there, I traveled the world. I worked on yachts.
I became a yoga teacher, a Reiki practitioner, a massage therapist.
I earned my own money, funded my own dreams, and began to live in harmony with my body and spirit.
For the first time, I wasn’t surviving. I was living.
Step Six – The After
My transformation has been nothing short of a rebirth.
I went from wanting to die to fighting passionately for a life I love.
Today, I wake up with excitement, gratitude, and peace.
I know who I am, why I’m here, and how deeply I belong to this world.
The girl who once hid in darkness now walks in light, not because life is perfect, but because I am free.
My story has shaped my purpose as a healer, yoga teacher, and energy guide.
I serve others because I know transformation is possible.
I’ve lived it, from self-hatred to self-love, from emptiness to embodiment.
When I think back to that 17-year-old girl, alone in a drainpipe after running from rehab, I wish I could hold her and tell her:
“You will make it. You will do more than make it, you will thrive.”
The people who once said I’d never succeed now watch me travel the world, creating, healing, and shining.
And the truth is, it didn’t come from luck.
It came from choosing myself, again and again, even when it hurt.
To anyone starting their own journey, I say this:
We only get one life that we’re conscious of. One fleeting chance to feel, love, and live fully.
You are your own healer, your own savior, your own light.
Every wish you hold in your heart is already waiting for you and all you have to do is choose it.
Because you were never broken.
You were simply becoming.
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My breakthrough story 🥺
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