Bonjour, I’m Marie-Annick.
A Life Lived Through Change, Curiosity, and Possibility.
I have worn many hats in my life.
Athlete. Coach. Chef. Entrepreneur. Author. Mentor. Student of the human experience.
But beneath all of them has been one enduring curiosity:
What becomes possible when we learn to listen more deeply to ourselves and meet life as it is?
Life Has Been My Greatest Teacher
My path has never been a straight one.
I grew up in France and discovered early the discipline, focus, and extraordinary intelligence of the body through competitive sport. Table tennis eventually took me to the highest levels of competition and taught me something I would understand much more deeply later in life: sometimes our greatest clarity appears when thinking becomes quiet and we are completely present.
Life then carried me into entirely different worlds.
I became a chef, an entrepreneur, an author, and a mentor. I built businesses, created, taught, led, changed direction, and learned more than once what it means to release an identity that had once fit beautifully but no longer did.
Through it all, I became increasingly curious about what happens beneath the surface of our lives, how we meet change, uncertainty and possibility, and how we learn to listen more deeply to ourselves.
That curiosity eventually became much more than an interest.
It became the work of my life.
A Lifetime of Learning, Practicing, and Guiding
What began as curiosity became a lifelong exploration of how we experience ourselves, how we respond to challenge, and what allows meaningful change to take place.
For three decades, I have worked with people as a coach and mentor, helping them navigate change, get healthy, reconnect with their own inner wisdom, overcome challenges, and discover possibilities they may not have been able to see for themselves.
My understanding has also been shaped by years of mindfulness and contemplative practice, somatic awareness, and Buddhist studies under the guidance of a Master teacher. These teachings deepened what life and sport had already begun to show me: that the way we meet an experience can profoundly change the experience itself.
Alongside this work, I have continued to teach, write, speak, and explore the relationship between the mind, the body, heart, awareness, intuition, and our capacity for transformation.
Over time, experiences that once seemed unrelated began to reveal a common thread.
Presence. Intuition. Trust. Letting Go.
These became the Four Gates of Deep Alignment, not as ideas I set out to create, but as a way of giving language to something I had been living, studying, and witnessing for many years.
What I Have Come to Understand
Over the years, I have come to understand that meaningful change rarely begins by pushing harder.
It begins by becoming quiet enough to notice what is actually happening within us.
When we are present, we can see more clearly.
When we listen, we begin to recognize what we already know.
When we trust that knowing, we can move differently.
And when we loosen our hold on what no longer serves us, something new has room to emerge.
I have seen this in sport, in business, in the people I have coached, and in my own life.
Again and again, I have witnessed that we often carry more wisdom than we realize. What we need is not always another answer from the outside, but the space to hear what is already within us.
That is the heart of Deep Alignment.
Experience That Shapes My Work
The work I share today is grounded not only in study, but in decades of living, practicing, teaching, creating, and working with people across very different worlds.
My journey began in high-performance sport as a French and European Table Tennis Champion and later as a coach. Those years gave me an early understanding of focus, resilience, the intelligence of the body, and what becomes possible when the mind grows quiet.
My professional life eventually expanded into culinary arts, nutrition, health and wellness. I became a chef, educator, entrepreneur, and author, creating professional training and certification programs that have educated thousands of people across the wellness, fitness, and culinary fields.
For more than two decades, I have also coached and mentored individuals from executives and entrepreneurs to athletes and people navigating significant life transitions.
Alongside this professional work has been an equally important inner education. More than forty years of Buddhist study and practice, together with training in mindfulness, somatic awareness, psychology, behavioral change, nutrition, and human performance, have continually deepened my understanding of how the mind, body, emotions, and awareness shape the way we experience our lives.
Over the years, I have created and taught several frameworks for wellbeing and transformation, including The Healthy Chef programs, the 3D Method, and now the Four Gates of Deep Alignment.
Different chapters. Different disciplines. Different people.
But underneath them all, I have been exploring the same question:
What helps a human being meet life with greater clarity, trust, resilience, and freedom?
Deep Alignment is where those decades of experience come together.
A Few Milestones
French & European Table Tennis Champion
40+ years of Buddhist study and contemplative practice
30+ years in coaching, wellness and human transformation
Author of 15+ books and educational programs
Creator of The Healthy Chef and Personal Fitness Chef certification programs
Creator of the 3D Method and Four Gates of Deep Alignment
Training in mindfulness, somatic practices, behavioral change, psychology, nutrition and human performance
Coach and educator to thousands of individuals and professionals.
How I Meet You Today
Today, I bring all of these experiences together in a simple way: by creating a space where people can slow down, listen more deeply, and discover what is asking for their attention.
I don't believe my role is to give you all the answers or tell you who you should become.
My role is to ask meaningful questions, offer a different perspective, and create the conditions where you can hear yourself more clearly.
Sometimes that means seeing a possibility you hadn't considered. Sometimes it means trusting something you already knew. And sometimes it means finding the courage to release what no longer belongs in your life.
My work is not about becoming someone else.
It is about coming home to who you already are.
Explore How To Work With Me
