Pressed Into Pearl
Latest Reflections
Soft words for becoming, healing, and returning to yourself.
I am not going to tell you it is easy. I am showing you
it is possible
Marethe
The Pearl Method was born from my own story, one shaped by pressure, transformation, and the beautiful process of finding the pearl within.
This is my story
At nine years old, I was tested and found to have an IQ of 139. I was first in my class, every year, without trying very hard. I played piano. I was the girl everyone expected great things from.
Then my parents divorced. In six months I dropped from an A+ to a G in mathematics. I stopped playing piano. I borrowed myself inside Sidney Sheldon novels and disappeared. I almost failed every year after that.
Nothing had changed about my intelligence. Everything had changed about my safety.
What I did not yet know — what I would only find out at thirty years old — was that my sense of safety had been taken from me long before the divorce. Before I had words for any of it. The confirmation came in 2012. And when it did, a lot of things finally made sense.
Then my parents divorced. In six months I dropped from an A+ to a G in mathematics. I stopped playing piano. I borrowed myself inside Sidney Sheldon novels and disappeared. I almost failed every year after that.
Nothing had changed about my intelligence. Everything had changed about my safety.
What I did not yet know — what I would only find out at thirty years old — was that my sense of safety had been taken from me long before the divorce. Before I had words for any of it. The confirmation came in 2012. And when it did, a lot of things finally made sense.
I had no voice
Not with men. I could not say no. Fresh out of school, I gave my body away to people who did not deserve it because I did not know I had the right to refuse. I did not know my body was mine.
I got married. Had two children I love more than anything. But my husband was not emotionally available. He broke me down quietly — with sarcasm, with work addiction, with pornography. Eight years later, I left.
After the divorce came more men. One lied to me for three months before I found out he was married. One simply stopped talking to me — no reason, no goodbye, just gone. I was angry. I became hard. I did to others what had been done to me.
Then I met someone I truly loved. Almost four years together. And nine months before it ended, he had been cheating on me. The girl was pregnant. I found out everything at once.
The pain was too much to bear. I was already using CAT and cocaine. It got worse. I was given 24 hours to leave my home. I packed my whole house alone, without sleep, for days. I moved on my birthday.
I got married. Had two children I love more than anything. But my husband was not emotionally available. He broke me down quietly — with sarcasm, with work addiction, with pornography. Eight years later, I left.
After the divorce came more men. One lied to me for three months before I found out he was married. One simply stopped talking to me — no reason, no goodbye, just gone. I was angry. I became hard. I did to others what had been done to me.
Then I met someone I truly loved. Almost four years together. And nine months before it ended, he had been cheating on me. The girl was pregnant. I found out everything at once.
The pain was too much to bear. I was already using CAT and cocaine. It got worse. I was given 24 hours to leave my home. I packed my whole house alone, without sleep, for days. I moved on my birthday.
The plot
Not with men. I could not say no. Fresh out of school, I gave my body away to people who did not deserve it because I did not know I had the right to refuse. I did not know my body was mine.
I got married. Had two children I love more than anything. But my husband was not emotionally available. He broke me down quietly — with sarcasm, with work addiction, with pornography. Eight years later, I left.
After the divorce came more men. One lied to me for three months before I found out he was married. One simply stopped talking to me — no reason, no goodbye, just gone. I was angry. I became hard. I did to others what had been done to me.
Then I met someone I truly loved. Almost four years together. And nine months before it ended, he had been cheating on me. The girl was pregnant. I found out everything at once.
The pain was too much to bear. I was already using CAT and cocaine. It got worse. I was given 24 hours to leave my home. I packed my whole house alone, without sleep, for days. I moved on my birthday.
I got married. Had two children I love more than anything. But my husband was not emotionally available. He broke me down quietly — with sarcasm, with work addiction, with pornography. Eight years later, I left.
After the divorce came more men. One lied to me for three months before I found out he was married. One simply stopped talking to me — no reason, no goodbye, just gone. I was angry. I became hard. I did to others what had been done to me.
Then I met someone I truly loved. Almost four years together. And nine months before it ended, he had been cheating on me. The girl was pregnant. I found out everything at once.
The pain was too much to bear. I was already using CAT and cocaine. It got worse. I was given 24 hours to leave my home. I packed my whole house alone, without sleep, for days. I moved on my birthday.
A little chapel with mosaic windows
In the rehabilitation centre there was a small chapel with mosaic windows. One day I went in alone. I chose to sit in the third row from the back. Because I carried so much shame I did not feel I deserved to sit any closer.
I sat there in the quiet and I said:
I cannot carry this anymore. If You are there — please take it.
There was a Presence. A warmth. Someone who took my burden and it lifted. I was free.
The next day, people in the rehab asked me what had happened to me. They said I looked like a different person. They said I was radiant.
I returned to the plot. I lived there for five years in total. I drove a 1981 Mazda bakkie with flat tyres on a dirt road, taking my kids to school. I fixed the generator spark plugs by myself. Before rehab I had written off my Golf — driven it into a tree. The bakkie was my stepfather’s gift after that.
But I also found beauty there. In a place that looked like a scrapyard, I picked up a camera. I started photographing nature and pairing the images with words that could hold someone standing at their own edge. I called it Door of Hope — because that is what it was for me. My own door of hope. During COVID, I gave those blocks away for free to patients in hospitals who could not receive visitors.
One day I told my children: we are going to get a house. You will see. A year later my ex-father-in-law offered to pay our rent. We moved to the city. I had been sequestrated — a signing partner on my ex-husband’s business, millions owed to cash loan companies, all of it in my name. I started again from nothing. And for seven years, I did not date. Seven years of rebuilding, just me and my children.
I sat there in the quiet and I said:
I cannot carry this anymore. If You are there — please take it.
There was a Presence. A warmth. Someone who took my burden and it lifted. I was free.
The next day, people in the rehab asked me what had happened to me. They said I looked like a different person. They said I was radiant.
I returned to the plot. I lived there for five years in total. I drove a 1981 Mazda bakkie with flat tyres on a dirt road, taking my kids to school. I fixed the generator spark plugs by myself. Before rehab I had written off my Golf — driven it into a tree. The bakkie was my stepfather’s gift after that.
But I also found beauty there. In a place that looked like a scrapyard, I picked up a camera. I started photographing nature and pairing the images with words that could hold someone standing at their own edge. I called it Door of Hope — because that is what it was for me. My own door of hope. During COVID, I gave those blocks away for free to patients in hospitals who could not receive visitors.
One day I told my children: we are going to get a house. You will see. A year later my ex-father-in-law offered to pay our rent. We moved to the city. I had been sequestrated — a signing partner on my ex-husband’s business, millions owed to cash loan companies, all of it in my name. I started again from nothing. And for seven years, I did not date. Seven years of rebuilding, just me and my children.
Then my body
In 2014 I started getting sick. Eczema that bled. A gut that stopped working. Falling asleep at ten in the morning regardless of how much rest I had. I saw doctor after doctor. Nobody could find the source.
Six years later, a specialist finally gave it a name. Rickettsia. Bilharzia. Four co-infections. What some call Lyme disease. Nine months of antibiotics. Then frequency therapy. Herbal protocols. A complete overhaul of how I ate and lived.
The pain was extreme. I had to stop photographing weddings. I lost income I could not afford to lose. My body, which I had already fought so hard to reclaim, became something I had to fight through every single day.
I came out the other side. Slowly. With scar tissue, yes. But also with 20 years of hard knowledge about what a body can survive, what breaks it, and what rebuilds it. That knowledge is now the foundation of everything I teach.
Six years later, a specialist finally gave it a name. Rickettsia. Bilharzia. Four co-infections. What some call Lyme disease. Nine months of antibiotics. Then frequency therapy. Herbal protocols. A complete overhaul of how I ate and lived.
The pain was extreme. I had to stop photographing weddings. I lost income I could not afford to lose. My body, which I had already fought so hard to reclaim, became something I had to fight through every single day.
I came out the other side. Slowly. With scar tissue, yes. But also with 20 years of hard knowledge about what a body can survive, what breaks it, and what rebuilds it. That knowledge is now the foundation of everything I teach.
Two weeks
In early 2026, I was cheated on again. I felt I could not live like this anymore. Something in me died that day.
And then I got up. Stronger than ever.
Two weeks later, The Pearl Method was born. Not despite the pain. Because of it.
My name, Margarethe, means Pearl. A pearl is not made in comfort. It forms under pressure, in the dark, over time. It is the oyster’s answer to an irritant — not resistance, but transformation.
I am a qualified NLP Life Coach and Restoration Ministry Coach. I have 20+ years of experience in fitness and the human body. I have built a business from nothing, lost it, and built it again. I have raised my children alone. I have rebuilt my body after disease nearly took it from me. I have done the work — the real work, not the kind that looks good on Instagram.
What I offer you is not a programme. It is a method shaped by everything I survived. And the absolute certainty that if I could rise from where I was — you can too.
And then I got up. Stronger than ever.
Two weeks later, The Pearl Method was born. Not despite the pain. Because of it.
My name, Margarethe, means Pearl. A pearl is not made in comfort. It forms under pressure, in the dark, over time. It is the oyster’s answer to an irritant — not resistance, but transformation.
I am a qualified NLP Life Coach and Restoration Ministry Coach. I have 20+ years of experience in fitness and the human body. I have built a business from nothing, lost it, and built it again. I have raised my children alone. I have rebuilt my body after disease nearly took it from me. I have done the work — the real work, not the kind that looks good on Instagram.
What I offer you is not a programme. It is a method shaped by everything I survived. And the absolute certainty that if I could rise from where I was — you can too.
