The Story Behind REBORN
The journey that brought REBORN into existence
I didn’t lose everything all at once. I lost it quietly, piece by piece.
For years, I lived in patterns that were slowly eroding me. Addiction wasn’t loud at first. It was functional, hidden and justified. Cocaine, alcohol, gambling and avoidance became ways of coping, not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t know how else to sit with what was happening underneath.
From the outside, I looked like I was managing. On the inside, I was disconnected, ashamed and exhausted from pretending.
Eventually, everything collapsed.
I lost relationships. I lost trust. I lost my sense of identity. I reached a point where there was nothing left to numb myself with and no excuses left to hide behind. That was my rock bottom, not dramatic, not cinematic, just quietly devastating.
In March 2022, I was in Byron Bay for a family gathering. By then, I was empty. Stripped back. Quietly broken.
During those days, someone crossed my path who didn’t try to fix or rescue me. There was no advice, no solutions, just presence, honesty and one simple truth spoken at the right time: that rebuilding would require real sacrifice, but that the sacrifices would be worth it.
That moment didn’t save me overnight, but it changed the direction I was walking.
There comes a point where you realise you can’t keep living the way you are. Not heroically. Not dramatically. Just honestly. I reached that point.
Movement became survival.
Training gave me structure. Pilates taught me control and awareness. Breathwork showed me how dysregulated I really was. Stretching forced me to slow down when every part of me wanted to escape.
I began to understand that my nervous system had been living in fight or flight for years. I wasn’t broken, I was overwhelmed, disconnected and never taught how to feel safely in my body.
As I rebuilt physically, something else happened. I started talking.
Real conversations. Honest ones. The kind where you stop performing strength and admit you’re not okay. Through those conversations, I realised how many people — especially men - were carrying the same shame, fear and silence I had lived with for years.
REBORN didn’t come from a business plan or a brand strategy.
It came from lived experience. From losing everything and choosing to begin again anyway.
REBORN is not about becoming someone new. It’s about stripping everything back and remembering who you are after everything you thought defined you is gone.
Healing isn’t linear. Rebuilding isn’t neat. And this journey is still unfolding.
I don’t share this story because I’ve “made it”. I share it because I’m still here, still rebuilding, still learning and still choosing presence over escape.
Mental health has always been part of my story.
I grew up in an environment where emotional unpredictability was normal. I learned early how to read the room, suppress my needs and stay alert. Over time, that hypervigilance followed me into adulthood.
I was eventually diagnosed with depression. Medication played a role at certain points, but it never taught me how to regulate my nervous system or process emotion safely. Instead, I found other ways to cope, ways that worked until they didn’t.
Rebuilding meant facing both my mental health and my behaviours honestly. It meant asking for help instead of trying to manage everything alone.
This is why mental health sits at the core of REBORN.
REBORN exists to create space for people who are rebuilding, from addiction, burnout, grief, disconnection or the quiet feeling that something isn’t right.
It’s not about fixing people. It’s about reducing isolation, breaking silence and offering pathways forward through movement, conversation and community.
This is an ongoing rebuild. Lived. Imperfect. Shared.
If something here resonates, you’re welcome to walk alongside it, however that looks for you.
These are stories dedicated to the people that held the line.
