About Eri

Eri's Story:

When I was little, I was shy and thrived on being “sad”. I used to wake up and go “what can I be sad about today?” How insane is that? I allowed myself to be in the effect of the Japanese culture, which is heavily ladened with "form, structure and significance". I grew up very confused and decided that it was easier to hide behind a façade than to show up as myself. I constantly changed myself to "force myself to become someone," in order to try to please everyone. By the end of the day, I was exhausted from doing that. I was not "me." I did not know who I was.

After ACCESS, I now know that I do not have to "try to become someone." It is wonderful just "to be" and "be me." How does it get any better than that?

About Eri:

I was born in Tokyo as an only child. I attended a Buddhist kindergarten and a Roman Catholic girls’ school for 8 years. I came to Canberra with my mother when I was 14 years old, 9 months after my father passed away. I went to a local public co-ed high school, where I met students from many different countries – migrants and diplomats’ kids. I studied Mandarin and Computer Studies at university, where I met my ex-husband, who was Japanese. I had 2 girls. I got separated after 13 years of marriage and later got divorced. After being on my own (with my girls) for about 7 years, I met Andrew.

I had always been interested in "alternative" therapies since I was about 14 years old – around the time I arrived in Australia. I suffered from headaches a lot since I was about 10. I used to take headache tablets a lot. One day, I realized that the tablets could be harmful to the body if taken in excess. Ever since then, I had been interested in "alternative therapies," healing and spirituality. I kept searching for something and not finding "the answer." I now live "in the question." What else is possible?

About Andrew

Andrew's Story:

Before Access, life was hard, tiring, boring and useless. There was so much drama that it was sometimes difficult to speak let alone breathe. Relationship dramas, money dramas, accepting myself as a man, work dramas, family dramas and health dramas. Life was simply moving from one drama to the next, expecting something to grab me and pull me down once again. Ugh! And with all of this rubbish in my life, I curiously enjoyed it all. This is what I loved. I hid from the world, I stuttered badly. Alcohol became a friend. There was enormous fear about showing up as me and for me. I felt alone, very alone and wondered what the hell I was doing. Was life really worth all the pain and suffering? My head was full of crap, filled with ideas and concepts which were ludicrous but I had yet made them my own because they made me who I was, they were real and they were right. And I lived by the mantras of "I can't ...", "I don't have enough ..." and "I don't deserve ...".; I dabbled in numerous techniques, such as Reiki, metaphysics and kinesiology, in order to make my life better but there was always something missing, something unidentifiable, something undefinable, something out there, something unreachable. Life was always lacking, deficient and not enough.

After Access, I now enter the world each day with a smile on my face that lasts all day. Life has become a sheer joy moving through space with ease. There are no dramas anymore as, well, I have accepted myself to heights beyond what I thought was possible. Life moves along beautifully with opportunities constantly presenting themselves. Issues still arise but these are dealt with in a gentle manner with ease, joy and glory. I now realise that life is about choice and choosing for me. Now I treat everything is just an interesting point of view, neither right or wrong. All of life now comes to me with ease, joy and glory.How does it get any better than that?

About Andrew:

Growing up on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, Andrew attended university in Sydney to study chemistry. He spent the next ten years working in fields where he didn't have to show up, where he could hide behind the chemistry bench or computer. Andrew has one handsome son and three beautiful step-daughters.