Curitiba, Brazil. Mid 70s.
I was born in Curitiba, Brazil, somewhere around the middle of the 1970s.
I’m Gen X, part of that slowly disappearing species that started life without being surrounded by technology
We were neither poor nor rich. For a while, we had no telephone at home, no television, not even our own bathroom
We lived in the backyard of my maternal grandparents’ house, where there was one large bathroom divided into three small rooms, one shower and two toilets
There was a battery powered radio, though
And books.
Eventually we moved to our own home, far away from my grandmother’s house
At around seven years old, I started working a few hours a week as a babysitter
Something was born in me back then that never really left: the pleasure of making my own money
For a girl growing up on the outskirts of a large Brazilian city, money meant something very simple to me.
Freedom
My mother was a teacher, and during school holidays I helped her with activities for children. Sometimes I was paid to create arts and crafts with them
I always loved making things with my hands, painting, collage, my own accessoiries.
My grandmother taught me crochet, knitting, cooking and how to care for plants. I made cassette tapes to sell, clothes and accessories for Barbie dolls, jewellery and whatever else my imagination thought might bring good money in.
From babysitting to events.
From babysitting I moved into events
I distributed flyers, worked during elections, registered with event agencies and started doing whatever jobs I could pass the selection process for: trade fairs, beer campaigns, car launches, cigarettes, chocolates and much more
I had a few conventional jobs along the way, usually badly paid, and continued working in events until I left Brazil.
Writing was always there too
I did well in essays and writing competitions. Libraries have always been places where I feel peaceful and connected. I love books. I read a lot. I write a lot
I studied Communication at university and later specialised in Performing Arts
And somewhere along the way, I loved theatre, but I did not want the life I saw many actors around me living: constantly chasing the next project, working enormously hard and earning very little
In events, I often worked fewer hours and earned considerably more.
That contrast stayed with me
I decided very early that quality of life mattered to me, and that work should somehow leave space for living.
Yoga. Ayurveda. Holistic Health.
As a teenager, I suffered from terrible back pain. Yoga, meditation and essential oils were the first things that really helped me
That opened a whole new world
I started my first yoga training and soon began covering classes for other teachers
My curiosity kept growing, so I went on to study Applied Naturology and began exploring health from a much broader perspective
I kept studying, training and teaching, and over the years yoga became much more than a practice. It became part of my work and part of the way I understood the body, health and the breath
Later came Ayurveda, Yoga Therapy, massage, holistic health, radionics and many other approaches that kept expanding that picture, and all first because I needed answers in my life from it, than to share with my customers.
And then life moved countries,
I left Brazil and moved to Germany
Suddenly, the tools I had always relied on most, language and writing, were no longer available to me in the same way.
I had to start again from zero,
I cleaned offices. I worked as a waitress. I assisted an ENT doctor. I modelled. I took small event jobs.
Eventually I entered my first, and so far only, real corporate job, working at the Audi Forum for Avantgarde, a Munich based agency.
Later, I left Audi to move to Barcelona with my partner
There, I worked mainly with yoga and disappeared happily into years of further study: Ayurveda, holistic healing, radionics and other approaches to health and human experience that fascinated me.
I returned to Germany while expecting our daughter
Yoga classes came back into my life, together with trainings, retreats, Ayurveda consultations and Ayurveda massage.
We moved from one German state to another, and gradually my work changed
There were fewer open classes, more private clients, more coaching.
Online Work.
I went back to studying again and completed German Heilpraktiker training, higher studies in Ayurvedic medicine and Yoga Therapy.
At one point, I invested in an idea with other people to create a large centre for holistic experiences, education and trainings,
Then the pandemic arrived, plans changed, life’s changed.
During that period I entered treatment for burnout, while also going through menopause and experiencing panic attacks,
I kept working, but increasingly online. I never omitted my condition from my clients, and it was liberating to finally understand what were they talking about when they would say: “everything hurts”
And somewhere in those years, the shape of my professional life changed again
Online work stopped being a temporary solution and became part of my reality.
Then AI arrived, and instead of frightening me, it fascinated me. I felt like I was just waiting for it to reach new horizons and expand my writing, blogging, and more.
I became increasingly interested in what happens when human imagination meets tools capable of generating images, ideas, systems, experiences and entirely new creative possibilities.
I started learning, and learning more, and then more, my fascination for AI entered my daily work.
Today I am building another professional chapter, piece by piece
One that connects what I have already lived and learned with everything that is still arriving
Coaching
Consulting
Yoga
Ayurveda
Energetic work
Writing
Creative experiences
Collage
Watercolour
Generative AI
Digital products
And probably a few things I have not invented yet
I’m a multidisciplinary artist, I make collages, papier-maché, mixed media, acrylics, paint with watercolour and love creating visual worlds with generative AI. (Are you asking yourself how do I find time for this all?)
I love the diversity of my work, that I can have an intense two-hours coaching session and after just create for hours in blessed silence.
And I have enormous respect for the people who trust me enough to work with me, you are the ones that keep me in my toes, and going for new horizons to share.
At this stage of my life, I no longer feel any particular need to be at the center of attention,
I don’t need to be right
I don’t need to prove that I am serving some grander purpose
The best thing I can offer now is space for my own essence to express itself honestly.
What I share comes from my own path, creativity and curiosity,
From what I have studied
From what I have tried
From what worked
From what failed spectacularly
From what I have observed in people, relationships, businesses, bodies, transitions and nature
I write about much of this in my articles and books.
Everything I touch tends to become mixed with my creative spark sooner or later
And these days, I’m having a great deal of fun co-creating new ways of experiencing this thing everybody calls life, even though not everybody feels particularly alive while living it.
in the moment.
From love & above
Noeli
