About Mary Ann

Mary Ann obtained her doctorate in English from Oxford and for the last thirty years has been a university teacher. From an early age, she balanced her academic pursuits with active participation in athletics competing in various sports at the local, provincial and national levels. Her lifelong interest in how the mind, body and spirit work together prompted her to become a NCCP certified coach, a meditation teacher in the lineage of Thai meditation master Luangphor Viriyang Sirintharo, and a bio-energy practitioner trained by Michael D’Alton. Mary Ann brings to her bio-energy practice a wealth of life experience and a genuine belief that healing occurs when the mind, body, and spirit are in balance.

The above paragraph provides you with the kind of bio that speaks to my accomplishments and credentials, which are important and I hope give you confidence in my training and experience. It’s also the kind of bio that we’re all advised we should present to the world. But it doesn’t really give you the full picture; it doesn’t answer the questions of why you might want to place your trust in me and why I want to help you to be the best you can be. So let me tell you a bit more about me.

I was that kid who loved school but also loved athletics and somehow managed to excel at both. I loved getting up at 5 am for volleyball or tennis practices or racing home after school for a baseball game almost as much as I loved digging into a new book on just about any subject. I managed to combine my passion for learning with my passion for sport all the way through grad school at Oxford where I played tennis and volleyball for the university at the same time as I was earning my masters and doctorate degrees.

The reality of a full time academic career meant that seventy-hour work weeks became a norm, which put a crimp in my athletic pursuits, to say nothing of having an impact on my overall health. But I persisted in combining work and sports: for a decade I kept burning the proverbial candle at both ends until it all came crashing down. I suffered a physical and emotional breakdown that upended my life. Because I didn’t want to stay on medications with side effects that compromised my quality of life, I looked outside mainstream medicine for help. I began to work with a naturopathic physician who introduced me to a variety of alternative therapies. It was a big shift for someone like me – like most of us, I’d guess – who had been raised to think that anything outside the mainstream was “woo”.

I regained my health, but I hadn’t learned my lesson about life balance – yet. I returned to long work hours and added in new passions – meditation and lawn bowls. Being me, I wanted to excel at both, so soon I was not just meditating, but teaching in a meditation program and winning provincial championships and even medaling at the national level in lawn bowls. But a car accident about a decade ago gave me a second chance to learn that lesson. You know the way it goes – if you don’t learn it the first time, you’ll get another chance and another, but each time the lesson hits you harder. In my case, it literally hit me harder – I suffered a concussion that knocked me right out of my life.

Mainstream medicine has little to offer concussion sufferers like me other than more medication that might take away the headaches, but comes with side effects that no one wants. So once more I looked to alternative therapies. I could write a book about that journey, but the ending is happy – I found wonderful practitioners who have helped me make a full recovery. I’ve also learned my lesson this time. No more 70 hour + weeks, no more burning the candle at both ends.

At the core of my recovery were energy-based medicines of various sorts, but the one which totally resonated with me (pardon the pun) was bio-energy. For as long as I can remember I have been aware of the energy around me. I’m the friend you walk into a room with who tells you that it doesn’t feel right and we should leave. Or the friend you go for a hike with who can’t stop talking about how alive the air around a waterfall feels. I’d never really thought much about how that awareness might be harnessed as a force for healing and frankly as I grew from a child into an adult I learned that most people didn’t experience energy the way I did and that it was a subject best left unspoken. But in life post concussion I learned the value of that energy gift and I became curious about how I might use it to help my own recovery and then to help others. And that led me to learn as much as I could about energy-based medicine and, finally, to train with Michael D’Alton as bio-energy healer.

I know first hand the benefit that bio-energy treatments can bring to your life – not just for recovering from injury or illness, but also for enhancing your performance and your enjoyment of life. I’d love to share that with you.