"In hindsight I realised that you can't change the way you feel by thinking differently. You have to, in fact, feel differently."
— Alan Strydom, on what two years of depression taught him
I stood at a window in Cape Town in January 2011, phone in hand, and chose — barely — to step back from the edge. What happened next became the work I do today.
"In hindsight I realised that you can't change the way you feel by thinking differently. You have to, in fact, feel differently."
— Alan Strydom, on what two years of depression taught him
We'd been together almost eleven years. We were engaged. We were building a home on a little piece of her parents' farm. Then one morning, she woke up and wanted to travel — without me.
I had a background in NLP, hypnotherapy, psycho-neuro-immunology. I had contacts across the wellbeing industry. I used every tool I knew. Nothing shifted. Slowly, I slipped deeper into depression.
I moved cities. I went to Thailand looking for some kind of reset, ran out of money, got stranded on an island with my passport held by a scooter hire company, and begged strangers for help. None came. I went home five days in, cutting the adventure short.
"Little by little I was losing sense of meaning and purpose in my life. Then, on one particular trip back to Plettenberg Bay, something changed."
That something was a phone call. January 28, 2011. Standing at the window in Cape Town, I answered. Andy Pellant — a name I barely recognised — was in town from the UK, asking if anyone wanted to talk about HeartMath. I had almost not picked up. I almost hadn't been there to pick up at all.
"I feel you're on the edge of something," Andy said, when we met. "I wonder what would happen if you leaned into it?" If only he knew how literally that was true. I decided not to tell him. Instead, I decided to lean.
I'd been practising daily with the HeartMath technology for two weeks — ten minutes in the morning, ten in the evening — when I ran into her. Unexpectedly. In Plettenberg Bay. With him.
I had seconds to compose myself. My friend's face went white. She burst into tears when she saw me. We went for coffee. Afterwards, I waved them goodbye as they drove off into the sunset together.
"I was OK. I noticed I felt different. I didn't feel numb. I didn't feel heart-sore. I felt like the fog had lifted, and that everything was as it should be."
I called Andy immediately. "The most amazing thing just happened. When are we bringing HeartMath to South Africa?"
That's the moment this work began — not in a training room or a certification course, but in a car park in a small coastal town, with two weeks of daily practice behind me and a lifetime of tools that had never quite done what this one just did.
Insight without embodiment rarely sticks. The body has to be part of the shift — not as an afterthought, but as the starting point.
When your heart and nervous system are coherent, decisions that were previously impossible become obvious. We're not chasing epiphanies. We're creating the conditions for them.
It took me 41 years to consider the heart a destination. The work isn't a programme you complete. It's a practice that deepens your whole life.
Results are important. But the person you are when you reach them — how you carry yourself, how you relate, what you can withstand — that's the real measure.
Training in NLP, Psycho-Neuro-Immunology, hypnotherapy and complementary health disciplines. Over 20 years in personal development work — starting with my own practice, long before it became professional.
Trained at HeartMath Institute, Boulder Creek, California. Certified coach and trainer — one of the first to bring HeartMath practice to South Africa. Practising, teaching and mentoring continuously since.
Over four thousand one-on-one mentoring sessions with more than a thousand coaches across South Africa, the UK, and internationally. Individual coaching, group work, and leadership programmes — shaped by what I've seen actually work in real lives.
"The journey to the heart is slow. It took me 41 years to even consider that it was a destination."
— Alan Strydom
Coherence training for individuals, leaders, and organisations — grounded in HeartMath research and 14 years of practice.
You're not necessarily looking for a programme. You're looking for a thinking partner — someone who can sit with the real complexity of your life without rushing to fix it.
If you recognise the fog, or you're already leaning toward an edge of your own — the first step is simply a conversation. No obligation, no programme pitch. Just an honest hour together to see if this is the right work, and the right time.
Start with a conversation