About | Awakening Doctor

Dr. Maria Christodoulou

MBChB | DipHomeopathy | DipCoaching

About Me

I am an awakening doctor, coach and facilitator, with over 30 years of experience in integral coaching and integrative medicine. I am also a homeopath, an astrologer, and an academic who is passionate about reading, dancing, music, and the sacred path of the feminine heart.

Over the course of my life I have navigated many personal and professional transitions, and supported countless others to do the same.

I know the relentlessness of that inner voice that keeps saying there is more.

I know the exhaustion of busying yourself with things that don’t reflect your values or your inner truth.

I know the quiet desperation of living a life that doesn’t nourish your body or your soul.

I also know how terrifying it is to be confronted with ill-health or to contemplate letting go of things that were once important to you, whether that’s a career, an identity, a significant relationship, financial security, or a false sense of your own immortality.

I wish I could tell you that I have everything figured out now, but - regrettably - my story isn’t one of those. I can’t offer you a five-step program to health and happiness, or promise you that we’ll identify the root cause for what ails you.

I can, however, promise you that whatever you are dealing with - or longing for - we’ll figure out the next steps together, and we’ll do it in a way that is honouring of all of who you truly are.

My Story

For years, I longed to feel more joyful, more playful, and more alive. I was doing meaningful work, work that made a difference, but it always felt like there was something missing. Something else that was calling me.

I looked for that something in my many different identities. White, feminist, heterosexual, doctor, coach, healer, yogini. A ‘Griek’ in South Africa and an ‘Africana’ in Cyprus. Someone’s mother, daughter, sister, lover, colleague, and friend. I hid behind my various roles and responsibilities. Lost myself in them. Immersed myself in relationships and environments that reinforced and validated them. I burnt myself out more than once.

I looked for it in different healing traditions and multiple career transitions. I am a medical doctor who practiced complementary and functional medicine, and a homeopath who practiced conventional medicine. An academic who believes in magic, and a scientist immersed in mysticism. A doctor who prefers coaching to consulting, and a coach who is licensed to diagnose and treat.

One of my many gifts is my ability to navigate the space between these different worlds with ease but, for a long time, it was a lonely and challenging place for me.

I've been married and divorced. I closed a successful medical practice to recover from burnout. I grapple(d) with anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, menopause, ageing, and #metoo. It was only when I began to unravel the threads of my ancestral lineage and cultural heritage that things began to change.

My Heritage

I grew up in a large Mediterranean family in apartheid South Africa. Daughter of Cypriot immigrants, heir to a long lineage of sons and daughters of patriarchy, and immersed in an environment defined by prejudice and discrimination.

My parents raised me to be 'a good Greek girl' and conditioned me to be dutiful and responsible. They emphasised the importance of education and worked very hard to ensure that my siblings and I had access to the many opportunities they had been denied.

Medical school was a no-brainer, despite my inclination to study psychology. I felt called, I had the academic ability, and being a doctor represented power, wealth, and status. I wanted that too.

My years at medical school - both as a student and, later, as an academic - only exacerbated the sense that something was missing. It took years of searching, countless transitions, and an ongoing battle with my own health for me to realise that what I was seeking didn’t live in the roles, the labels, the qualifications, or the credentials.

My feminine heart, my love for the sacred and the spiritual, my deep and intuitive appreciation of diversity, my soul’s longing for simplicity, connection, and time in nature - my very humanity - were not welcome in the patriarchal world I lived and worked in.

My loyalty to lineage and heritage, and the environment I was educated in, had caused me to repress and suppress these parts of me at great cost to my personal health and wellbeing.

I was adept at bridging the space between the worlds, but I was living a divided life and neglecting the very essence of me.

The Space Between

Reclaiming my own wholeness required a deep surrender to my heart. An acknowledgement that I no longer wanted to sacrifice myself in service to patriarchal systems, institutions or ideas. I simply wanted to be able to do the work that I love in a way - and in an environment - that was nourishing for me too.

After much deliberation, I plucked up the courage to walk away from my prestigious position at a local medical school, and carved out time to reflect, process, and integrate all of my knowledge and experience into the offering that I share with you today. An offering that enables me to act as a facilitator and guide for others who - like me - are navigating the space between the worlds and longing for a place that welcomes all of who they truly are. A place that allows for our history and our heritage to be a part of who we are, but not to determine who we might become.

My life is not perfect, but it is more joyful. After more than 30 years as a health professional, close on 5000 hours of individual coaching, and 57 years on the planet, I am slowly surrendering to the truth that health is about wholeness, and not about perfection. It’s about embracing my own humanity and everything that that entails.

If that sounds like something you need too, then I would be delighted to work with you.

My Credentials

I have worked in a state hospital, run a successful integrative medical practice, pioneered health and wellness coaching in South Africa, designed and taught curricula on Integrative Medicine and Integral Coaching, and coached patients, clients, leaders and colleagues in the healthcare sector, both public and private. I have a lot of experience working with people who have cancer and chronic disease, and I have contributed to social and cultural transformation as the relational coach at a South African medical school.

My coaching diploma is ICF-accredited (International Coaching Federation) and I am registered as a medical practitioner with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). I am also a member of Coaches and Mentors of South Africa (COMENSA).

Qualifications:

MBChB (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery), Stellenbosch University
Diploma in Practitioner Coaching, The Coaching Centre
Diploma in Homeopathy, Centre d’Enseignement et de Developpement de l’Homeopathique
Diploma in Astrological Studies, Rod Suskin School of Astrology

Other interests, courses and training completed:

Bredesen Protocol for the Prevention and Reversal of Cognitive Decline
Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice
Foundations in Nutrigenomics
Leadership Maturity Framework and MAP Training Intensive
Time to Think Foundation Course
Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence
Resonant Leadership for Results
Spiral Dynamics Training
Transactional Analysis 101
Spiritual Sexual Shamanic Practitioner Training (ISTA)
Mindfulness-Based Interventions
Capacitar® Multi-Cultural Wellness Education Training
Various courses in mind-body and energy medicine

Credentials