Qualifications & Work Experience

Miranda Wannenburgh is:

  • A Medicine Woman (Mystical Dreamer Seeing) – Return to Reverence, Remembering Oneness (2020)
  • A Counsellor – Postgraduate Dip. South African College of Applied Psychology (2008)
  • A Designer and Facilitator for 12 Step Recovery Workshops on Codependency (2006)
  • A Researcher into Economic Empowerment Projects for Rural and Urban Areas under the auspices of the South African Labour & Development Research Unit (2005 – 2006)
  • A Consultant and Facilitator to the Field of Disability on Policy, Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation of Economic Empowerment and the Mainstreaming of People with Disabilities into the Workplace (1997 – 2003)
  • An Adult Education, Training and Development Practitioner – Adv. Dip. Adult Education UCT (1997)
  • A Training Coordinator for Cape Mental Health Society (1983 – 1997)
  • A Yoga Teacher with an International Teacher’s Certificate (1974)

I began my quest towards self-discovery sitting at Swami Venkatesananda’s feet in the mid-1960s. Those early days found me teaching Hatha Yoga both in Windhoek and in Cape Town. I also coordinated weekend workshops and wrote a series of articles on Hatha Yoga with a close friend and mentor that appeared in the Sunday Times called ‘Yoga with Wendy’.

My journey took me into many locations in Cape Town’s Southern Peninsula, from living in a wooden shack high in the mountain slopes of Noordhoek making furniture, growing vegetables and collecting mushrooms, to working with people with disabilities in the townships of Ocean View, Retreat, Athlone, Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha.

In 1985 I settled in the beautiful sea-side fishing village of Kalk Bay. During this time, I began developing my career skills to include becoming an adult education, training and development practitioner and opening up a consultancy that provided economic empowerment strategies and services to the field of disability.

Then I was given a gift, when my world, as I knew it, crashed. My journey into ‘the dark night of the soul’ began. I initiated a process of healing by using a variety of approaches from attending individual psychotherapy, to group therapy, to entering the 12 Step programme for codependency, to participating in recovery-based workshops, and working a 12 Step programme.

I read as much as I could, I spoke to others who were going through the same journey, I started journaling, walking, sitting still, visualizing, meditating, cooking, sorting out my ‘emotional baggage’ until I began to know who I am.

An ‘added tool’ came in the form of becoming a student again at the South African College of Applied

Psychology (SACAP) where I qualified as a counsellor specialising in Stress & Anxiety Management, Self- Esteem and Addiction in 2009.

During this period I also gained deeper experience, by working as a recovery assistant at Beach House Secondary Care and as an intern at Stepping Stones Addiction Centre both situated in Kommetjie.

Now I was ready to share my experience, insights, healing processes, wisdom and zest for life with others.

I started personal growth one day workshops over a 6 month period called Quest for Zest. The first student I received was called Grace and my second was Jana, meaning Gift from God.

On the completion of the workshops Jana approached me with the view of collaborating our services together and that is how Change Matters was born. Both Jana and I believe that change does matter when you choose to live consciously.