My experience of life has been that most of us have some periods where our coping strategies just aren’t sufficient any more. It may be the death of someone close or loss of job or relationship or other change that feels enormous. We may feel overwhelmed, exhausted all the time, anxious, depressed, or a combination of some of these or other powerful emotions. And these feelings can take over our lives and prevent us from loving, having fun, working, and living our lives fully. At these times I have found that I began to recognise that we live in our bodies and our emotions have profound effects on our health and wellness.
So the work I do is based on living in our bodies and working with emotions as we feel them in the present moment. This may also be an ‘echo’ of past events in our lives, but I always start from being in the here and now, working with you as a whole person and listening carefully to how you experience your emotions and your thoughts. The tools I practice and share with you are based on getting to know our emotions and where we feel them, not fearing them but welcoming the learning and developing more helpful and supportive ways of being with them. I practice and teach kindness and self compassion as I believe we are all doing our best to deal with the challenges we face in life, sometimes feeling we have had no choice in these.
I aim to provide a safe and accepting space to be yourself, to open up to what is really going on for you and to access that deep inner knowing and strength that I believe we all have deep within. I can show you how we can connect with that place more often and live from there more confidently and peacefully.
These tools can be practiced with a minimum of talking, if that’s more your style, or you can pour it all out and feel the relief of getting what’s really bothering you out into the open. Each session may be different according to what you need at the time-there is no ‘one size fits all’ in this work! We work together at your pace and as you become more confident in these tools you will increasingly tell me what you need. This is your process and your journey and I will guide you and give you support, sometimes leading more than at other times. I will always be interested in what you have been exploring and how you have reflected since our last session.
Theory: my work is based on TWM founded and developed by Clare Walters who I have now worked with for over ten years. I have also trained in Mindfulness and Polyvagal theory as well as Trauma, Journey work with Brandon Bays and Questioning Thoughts’ from Byron Katie. I am still learning and updating my knowledge base and Absolute Specialists is my source of ongoing peer support and regular workshops and retreats where I love to share learning with colleagues.
Appointments:
If you feel my approach is what you need please get in touch-message me to arrange to talk and I can answer any questions you may have before arranging a first session to explore.
I find that a short series of sessions fairly close together, weekly or fortnightly, works best to begin to establish the changes that you want to see in your life. We can then talk about what would support you best. I am happy to offer follow up sessions monthly for as long as you need, or some people prefer to sail off single handed and contact me when they feel the need for a top up or they struggle with a new challenge. If monthly supervision would support you I am an experienced supervisor and recognise the value of that for myself in my work.
Specialist areas:
- Personal wellbeing, confidence and resilience
- Menopause and beyond, ageing with health and confidence
- Carers-supporting yourself to continue caring with love
- Relationships-improving communication, expressing your needs, recovering and moving on from relationship breakup, divorce, or separation
- Bereavement and grieving healthily
About me:
I qualify as an older person!! And I am proud to be a grandmother as well as a mother!
I spent 30 years in the Caring and Education sectors of local government in the UK, starting my career as a social worker and then after having my first child, retraining as a Teacher in Further and Higher Education. I have always been fascinated by how we women weave our education and working lives around family, so that was the subject of my MSW dissertation.
I have cared for and lived through the death of both of my parents and have supported clients through their grieving process.
I have been self employed as a Homeopath, coach, and TWM practitioner for over 13 years now and worked with AS for 10 of those years. I offer supervision to practitioners in AS.
I am semi-retired and live most of my days in Crete, Greece with my partner and little rescue dog. I love to be in the mountains here in Crete and in the Lake District in the UK. I love walking and am exploring pottery and gardening, as well as learning Greek and being with my grandchildren who teach me a lot! I practice yoga and meditation to keep me grounded and balanced in this challenging and beautiful world.
If you have read this far I look forward to meeting you!