Why I do What I do

Welcome. I know reaching out takes courage, so being here exploring options is brave. I see you.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by people.

Not just by what they do, but by why they do it.

Why do intelligent, capable people keep finding themselves in the same painful patterns? Why do some people struggle to receive love, rest, success or abundance, while others seem able to embrace them? Why can two people experience similar circumstances yet respond in completely different ways?

The more I studied, the more I realised that the answers rarely lie in willpower alone. Much of what we call personality is actually adaptation. Many of the ways we think, feel and relate were shaped by experiences, relationships and the strategies that once helped us feel safe. Those adaptations often served us well, but over time they can quietly become the very things that keep us stuck.

That has become the heartbeat of my work. I don’t believe my role is to help people become someone new. I believe it’s to help them rediscover who they already are beneath fear, shame, performance and the identities they’ve learned to carry.

One story has shaped my thinking more than almost any other: the Ugly Duckling. Nobody tells you the part everyone skips over. Before the swans, he spent years trying to be a better duck, working harder at the waddle, the quack, the shape everyone around him expected. The harder he tried, the more mistakes he made, and the more he believed the word in his own name. Ugly wasn’t what he was. It was what he’d been adapting toward, the whole time he thought he was fixing himself.

He didn’t need to become more like a swan either. He needed a true mirror, one reflection that finally showed him what had been there the entire time. I think most of us spend years trying harder at being the wrong bird, mistaking our mishaps and exhaustion for proof that something’s actually wrong with us.

He didn’t need to become more like a swan either. He needed a true mirror, one reflection that finally showed him what had been there the entire time. I think most of us spend years trying harder at being the wrong bird, mistaking our exhaustion for proof that something’s actually wrong with us.

For many years I worked primarily with couples, but over time I realised relationships were never just about marriage. Every part of life is a relationship. We have a relationship with ourselves, with God, with our bodies, with money, with success, with failure, and with the people we love. Beneath all of those sits identity. The relationship we have with ourselves quietly shapes the relationship we have with everything else.

That’s why my work naturally extends beyond marriage into health, wealth, parenting, leadership, and faith. On the surface those look like very different conversations. Underneath, they often reveal the same patterns. I know this territory personally, not only professionally (but extensively professionally too. Want to add that because there are too many coaches saying they can coach because they've experienced something). I’ve had years of my own life where I genuinely couldn’t tell who I was versus who a difficult relationship had quietly taught me to become. Finding my way back was slow, and far less graceful than it looks from the outside. Much of what I now do professionally started as work I first had to do on myself.

How I Work

Over more than two decades of working with individuals, couples, and families, I’ve drawn from relationship science, psychology, neuroscience, attachment theory, nervous system awareness, and identity to build an approach that’s both practical and compassionate. I don’t believe lasting change comes from trying harder or becoming a better version of yourself. I believe it begins with understanding yourself more honestly, relating to yourself with greater compassion, and living from who you were created to be.

I don't do sit and listen therapy. I guide my clients and we work from the trigger out. What I mean is that most practices focus on working on the behaviour to modify the feelings and finally become identity. I work with the trigger in the subconscious when there are wounds, through BWRT (BrainWorking Recursive Therapy) and Body-EQ (a reparenting our inner child method I developed and later learned it's similar to parts-work and schema therapies).

Who do I work with?

I started out as a play therapist, working with children. It didn’t take long to notice a pattern: the children I saw were often carrying something that belonged to the whole family around them, not just to them. Helping the parents change often meant the child didn’t need to keep coming back at all.

That shifted me toward couples. For years, I worked primarily with them. Somewhere along the way I noticed another pattern: I’d give a couple a strong foundation, real groundwork in how they related to each other, and the joint sessions would end, but the wife would often keep going with me on her own.

That pattern taught me something. Underneath the couple’s work, there was almost always a woman carrying more than anyone could see, the emotional load, the mental load, the sense that she had to hold everything together while quietly falling apart. I recognise it because I’ve lived a version of it myself, through my own burnout and my own invisible load.

I still work with men, I have some amazing men in my practice, and that work matters just as much. I work with all couples / individuals - regardless of gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. I don't work with children, but do support the parents with parenting.

PS. I am very aware of being in the public eye and the risks that can involve. I take privacy and confidentiality very seriously. If you're nervous about reaching out because of this, please know I take extra precautions to protect my clients confidentiality.

Are you a pastoral coach / counselor?

No. You can smoke, drink, swear, struggle with anger, f-up often, and still show up here. Faith is woven through everything I do. This is not a space for pretending, performing, or having the right answers. I’m not a theologian and I don’t fit neatly into religious boxes. I have tattoos. I sometimes swear. I ask difficult questions. I believe grace makes room for real human beings. Whether you are deeply rooted in your faith, uncertain what you believe, carrying hurt from Christianity, or simply looking for practical insight that makes your life make more sense, you are welcome here.

I am also not offering counseling anymore. I am a licensed / registered counselor in South Africa. But I prefer the scope and reach of coaching.

Some of how I read scripture comes from my father, Francois du Toit, who translated the Mirror Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew. It shaped what I think God is like, and therefore what I think we are like.

The Books I didn't know I had in me

I loved writing as a kid. I was also dyslexic, though nobody knew that yet — so school told a different story about me instead: that I struggled, that this probably wasn’t my lane. It took years, and an ADHD and autism diagnosis much later, to understand the difficulty was never a measure of what I actually had to offer.

God Speaks Wealth came out of me in about four months.

It didn’t feel like effort. It felt like the Holy Spirit working faster and more beautifully than I could keep up with. It even became a bestseller. I am now busy with the next book, God Speaks Health.

I’m not telling you that to impress you. I’m telling you because it’s the whole argument of my work, in one story. The hardest thing school ever told me about myself wasn’t proof of who I was. Whatever the hardest thing has told you about yourself, I’d guess it isn’t the whole story either.

My faith shapes everything I do, but I hope this is a place where people from many backgrounds feel welcome. Whether you’re deeply rooted in your faith, uncertain what you believe, or carrying hurt from past experiences with religion, my desire is that you’ll encounter more grace than shame, more curiosity than judgment, and a deeper understanding of both yourself and God.

It's not love thats hard. It's the risks, wounds and fears that make it messy.

Credentials

BA Social Sciences (Psychology), University of South Africa 2006

Honours BSocSci Psychology, University of Cape Town (2007)

Gottman Method Couples Therapy, Level 1 and 2 Training Completed

BWRT® Practitioner since 2017

Terry Real Level 1 Training

Registered with HPCSA, PsySSA, and ARCSA

Working with individuals, couples and families since 2002

In Private Practice since 2013

In Closing

Beyond the work, I’m also a wife, a mom, an entrepreneur, and a lifelong learner. I love books, meaningful conversations, and connecting dots other people don’t immediately see. Nothing brings me more joy than watching someone realise they were never fundamentally broken, only living from a reflection that was never the whole truth.

I don’t have this figured out because I’ve arrived somewhere and I’m reporting back. I

keep figuring it out, some days more than others, because I keep following my own

thread back to where it got tangled.

You don’t have to jump through hoops to be worth showing up for. Not with me. Not with God, if that’s part of your story too. You’re allowed to just be found here. Exactly as you are.

If any of this sounds familiar, God Speaks Wealth is a good place to start.

Otherwise get in touch with me, here.

Perfectionism is a judgment not a standard.

Realigning with the life of your true design means untangling from what the past taught you,

realigning with the identity God gave you as your first source,

and learning the tools to stop repeating old cycles

so you can show up more fully as yourself in your relationships and life.

Tehilla Luttig