Hi there,

My name is Simona Berardozzi, Empowerment & Relationship Coach and founder of Back to your Inner Light.

My Story

I am a Highly Sensitive Person, who grew up in a small sea town next to Rome, in Italy. As a child, I was a creative young girl, who loved spending hours drawing and listening to music. This has been often my refuge and best way to relax. When I look back to my youth, most of my memories are myself spending time by the seaside. Because of that, I have always had a deep connection with the sea and the water element. I could spend hours on the beach since the sound of the sea has always had the power to sooth me.

Unfortunately, growing up, I was often criticized for being too sensitive and emotional. My parents worried that people would take advantage of me, therefore they thought that the best way to protect me, would be teaching me to toughen up. In this way, I inevitably learnt that I couldn’t be who I truly was and therefore, being sensitive and kind was synonymous of being weak.

Hence, for a long time I felt like I did not fit anywhere and without even realizing it, I started to think that I needed to change. So, I began wearing a mask and learn how to hide my feelings and emotions to the outside world. I also became an overachiever and learned how to adapt to different situations in order to be accepted by others. This has inevitably come with a cost as I constantly felt there was a battle inside myself. In fact, no matter how much I tried always to fit in, I always felt that something was off.

Moving Abroad

When I was 19, I decided to study Psychology in Rome, since I have always been really passionate to understand other people behaviours. It was fascinating and it opened my mind to a new world. After I obtained my Master’s Degree in clinical psychology, I decided to move to London.

This was a huge change for me and like many expatriates with a background in psychology, I ended up working as a Support Worker in a big hostel with adults with complex needs, in order to gain some work experience in UK. It was a stressful, face-pace environment, where we were often dealing with lots of risky situations. As a highly sensitive, deeply empathetic person, working in this type of environment was really difficult. Despite I tried to develop a “thicker skin”, I was constantly feeling very anxious and overwhelmed.

I was constantly feeling really frustrated since it seemed I could never keep up with my colleagues. So, I started to ask myself, why I was the one who was always struggling the most to cope in certain situations. It was during this time that I found out about the Highly Sensitive Personality trait and the Myers-Briggs 16 personality types. It literally changed my life, and it helped me to understand myself on a deeper level and make sense of many things. For the first time, I felt I was not a “stranger in a strange land” (little quote for all the sci-fi lovers out there) but there were actually other people that were facing my same difficulties and trying to find their own place in this world. This also led me to start to see my sensitivity as a strength rather than a flaw and helped me to slowly appreciate more who I really was.

My Healing Journey

It was before covid-19, that my life took another unexpected turn. My long-term relationship, with my partner, suddenly ended and lot of other big changes came with that. I lost my job and I couldn’t find a new place to move to. In less than a month, I no longer had most the things that I cared for and I felt lost for a very long time.

It wasn’t easy, but with lots of help from the people around me, after a while, I slowly started to put all the pieces together again. It was back then, that I started my healing journey and walking the path of self-discovery and self-love. I started to read lots of books, listening lot of podcasts and attending workshops to understand more about myself and the origin of my behavioural patterns.

This was a life changing moment, since it made me realize how often we hide our true self, in order to fit in and feel accepted. I realized how often we tends to rate our self-worth based on external validation.

I also reflected a lot about the way we communicate, interact with other people and the relationship that we create. Most of us never had any positive role model, growing up, therefore we often tend to repeat the same behaviour patterns that were at play in our childhood. This inevitably has an impact on our romantic relationship but also friendship, which sometimes lead us to get stuck in repeating the same old patterns. When this happens, in particular for a long time, it can make us feel frustrated because the relationships we are in are not in alignment with us or doesn’t meet our needs as we would like.

This is why, I am deeply passionate about supporting other people to reclaim their voice and guide them in their healing journey. With the idea of offering a holding and safe space, where they can take small steps to connect with their own truth. Since, even if at times we feel disconnected from ourselves, our true self, our inner light, it is always there, waiting for the moment that we will be ready to reconnect with it. This is where your journey begins, and with time, it will lead you back home to yourself.

I would be really happy to guide you along the way. 

Are you ready? Let’s start together…