Life coach, Karen Dedekind-Engman from Ermelo wants to inspire people to be happy with who they are

Ms Karen Dedekind-Engman lives to provide people with the necessary life-skills to handle all situations life throws at them.

It all began when her life suddenly took a turn for the worst when her older brother died unexpectedly and tragically in April 2011.

She always had a passion for writing and wrote columns about her life and journey of healing. All the pieces she wrote led to her book, A Path of Choices.

The book is a tribute to her brother and she describes it as her journey to healing.

“I hoped with the book and my experience with my brother’s death, will be able to help other people in dealing with loss and personal growth,” Ms Dedekind-Engman said.

Working through the book and reading to it to make changes helped her to deal with the loss of her brother.

Ms Dedekind-Engman did quite a few training courses in working with people and helping them to work through troubled times in their lives and dealing with all kinds of trauma situations.

She completed a course in 2008 in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to become a life coach, where she learned how the mind handles, stores and retrieves information.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming helps people to understand themselves and helping them to find balance in their life.

Ms Dedekind-Engman also completed a course in Trauma Release Exercise (TRE), which is a physical process during which people learn to tremble stress out of the body.

“When a person is confronted with trauma, his body goes into a spasm which the person are stuck with, this is where post trauma stress disorder develops.”

She is qualified to work with groups helping them to do stretches in order to trick the body to shake.

With the stretches, Ms Dedekind-Engman teaches people to be aware of the state and need to release.

“It is something that if you learned the technique you can do it even in your living room on the couch.”

She explained that people with depression usually try everything and are on their last resort before they come to her for help. This has led to her helping a lot of suicidal people.

“It is a lot of responsibility and stress to work with a suicidal person, but the ‘TRE-method’ is amazing in helping a person to down their stress levels.”

Once she did her first few courses herself, she realised that she has the ability to connect with people.

“It gives me great pleasure to help people regain their life and really be happy with who they are.”

She is originally from Piet Retief and went to school in the Midlands.

In 1986 she went backpacking for six months. A few years later she decided to pack up in Johannesburg and move to Australia to become a scuba instructor in order to travel and see the world.

She has worked in Thailand, Maldives, Zanzibar and Australia.

Ms Dedekind-Engman met her husband when they both worked as scuba instructors for the same company in the Maldives.

They moved to Ermelo when she was pregnant with her daughter, as she wanted to be close to her family.

Contact Ms Dedekind-Engman at 082 724 6985 for more information regarding her sessions.

“It takes courage to look at yourself and it is hard to change your ways, but it is worth it to make you happy,” Ms Dedkind-Engman said.