AKUA’S STORY

The Realisation

For years, I knew how to be capable, responsible and successful. I built a career in HR and people leadership, became someone others could rely on and learned how to move through spaces where strength was expected.

I achieved much and created a life that looked full. In many ways, it was. Yet I could no longer ignore the distance between the life I had built and what felt true for me.

Stepping away from corporate life did not arrive with certainty. It meant leaving what was familiar, questioning who I was without the role and learning to trust a path I could not yet fully see.

Who was I beneath everything I had learned to be?

The name Akua

Travel has been one of the greatest teachers of my life. Across more than 90 countries, it has brought me into conversation with people, cultures and ways of living very different from my own. It has stretched me, humbled me, challenged what I thought I knew and widened my sense of what is possible. Again and again, travel has shown me that there is never only one way to live a life.

In 2019, one of those journeys took me to Ghana and into the Ashanti region, where I was welcomed into a traditional naming ceremony. The elders washed my feet, wrapped me in Adinkra cloth and, surrounded by drums, dancing and celebration, gave me the name Akua, which means leader and helper.

The meaning felt familiar. Leadership and helping others had already been part of who I was for many years, in my personal life as well as my career. But the name also seemed to reach forward, reflecting the work that was beginning to take shape and the next chapter I was stepping into.

The Unbecoming

The question of who I was beneath everything I had learned to be only deepened.

Through travel, stillness, illness and the moments that challenged the version of strength I had relied upon, I began to see more clearly how much of my identity had been shaped by the need to belong, the pursuit of success, and being who other people needed me to be.

That recognition became the heart of The Unbecoming Journey™.

Dream Catcher Global grew from my own willingness to question the life I was living and choose differently, even before I had all the answers. Today, I create spaces where other women can do the same: through the journeys I curate, the women I mentor, the circles and conversations I hold, and the ideas I carry into the world through speaking and writing.

This is not work I stand outside of and teach. It is work I continue to live.