Healing Womanhood

21/07/2025

A lot of the work we do here at healing womanhood involves unpicking our conditioning and the word 'ladylike' with all of it's implications and judgements is a bit of conditioning we can all do without.

The word 'ladylike' and to a lesser extent 'lady' asks us to be small, quiet, pretty, demure, none of which empowers us or gives us space to express ourselves. Our tapping today is to let go of any obligation we may feel to live up to this outdated patriarchal ideal and to reclaim our power and our own identities.

If you'd love to reclaim your power fully I'd love to hear from you, you can book a free 30 minute chat at https://www.healingwomanhood.com/book-online where you can also find out about our monthly women's empowerment circle

18/07/2025

Why I don’t help women lose weight

One of the most popular uses for hypnotherapy and EFT is weight loss. I have many colleagues who help people of all genders to lose weight. They change lives and they make good money doing it, so why don’t I offer this within my practice?

We can definitely come at the idea of losing weight from a perspective of wanting to be more healthy, feel fitter and be more energised in our bodies and this, of course, is a brilliant thing. However, no matter how great our intentions are, it’s almost impossible to untangle these empowering self care goals from the idea of changing our appearance.

The details may be different depending on where and how we were raised, but the vast majority of us grew up with a concept of how a woman’s body should look. In the predominantly white, western culture that I was raised in, the ideal was to be slim and for much of my life I was. As a result I gained much admiration and it was difficult not to tie my self worth to my size and shape. As menopause approached, though, I began to gain weight and some self judgement crept in. I began telling myself that I needed to get back to my slimmer size but as I thought more about this it eventually occurred to me that another way we could look at being slim is to not take up space.

Although we now hear more about body positivity and we know that healthy women come in all shapes and sizes, the message of ‘slimmer is better’ is still everywhere. We see it in advertising, we see it in TV shows and films and many of us still hear it every time we’re around other women. Women being shown that the best way to be a woman is to take up less space, women telling each other about how well or badly they’re doing at taking up less space but is this what we really want?

The patriarchy has spent many centuries convincing women to be smaller both physically and metaphorically but if we were to allow our bodies to take up as much space as nature would have them occupy, would that make it easier for our voices, our opinions and our needs to do the same?

As my body has begun to take up more space I’ve struggled with the part of me that was taught that slimmer is better, but the more I look at my change in size and shape from the angle of taking up my fair share of the space, the better I feel about my body and the more able I feel to celebrate inhabiting a different kind of shape.

None of this needs to override the desire to be fit and healthy of course, it just shifts the focus of it. Movement becomes a way of expressing joy and feeling alive as well as helping me to feel more energised. Healthy food becomes a kind and enjoyable thing to do for my body without the agenda of trying to change the way it looks.

Of courseI haven’t eliminated my conditioning completely, I still experience the thought ‘if I exercise/eat healthily then I might lose weight’ but I’m better and better at noticing it and asking myself whether I’m doing those things for myself or to myself on behalf of the culture. The answer makes it clear whether I’m making the best choice for me in that moment.

If you’d love to unpick your conditioning around the desirability of being slim and learn to love your body exactly as it is, check out this week’s tapping video on the Healing Womanhood page
If you’d like to go a little bit deeper with this work, get in touch for your free one to one consultation to see how EFT can help you.

Photo credit Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels

14/07/2025

One of the most popular uses of hypnotherapy and EFT is weight loss but it's not a line of work I've ever been drawn to, particularly for women.
Today I talk about why that is, and we do some tapping on body confidence to support us in loving our bodies exactly as they are and to help us let go of any old conditioning we have that tells us women should be thin.
If today's work resonated with you and you're ready to throw out any other old conditioning that might be limiting your joy in life, why not book your free 30 minute chat to see how EFT could help. Visit the booking page of my website to book yours now.

11/07/2025

Just putting the finishing touches on the plan for next week's money mindset workshop and it's looking really good if I do say so myself! We're looking at
- Our resistance to wealth
- Beliefs we think are facts
- The pros and cons of law of attraction thinking and why the words we use are important
- Financial self care
- focusing on the feelings
We'll be drawing on the power of EFT tapping, exploring the work of Byron Katie and digging deep into our own relationship with money and you'll go away with the skills to make huge, permanent shift in your financial world. Booking link in the comments!

11/07/2025

Last week my video was all about managing anxiety. We tapped to calm the nervous system and used all kinds of techniques to reconnect with the senses but did we do the right thing? These tried and tested techniques make a huge difference when experiencing anxiety, they lower salivary cortisol as well as decreasing activation in the stress centres of the brain so they definitely have their place. However I recently encountered a different perspective.

Internal family systems (IFS) is a type of therapy that acknowledges our multiple parts. If you’ve ever said ‘part of me feels…’ then you have an instinctive awareness of the potential for inner conflict between different parts of your ‘internal family’. I’ve been studying internal family systems and using it alongside EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) for a while now and in the course of my reading I came across the idea that when we use our soothing techniques to calm anxiety, we send a message to our anxious part that it is not welcome.

One of the main principles of IFS is that all parts of us are welcome. In fact Richard Schwartz, who created IFS, wrote a book about it called No Bad Parts, which I highly recommend if IFS has sparked your interest.

So what does IFS have to say about managing anxiety? Well the good news is that using this approach anxiety can be reduced significantly in a very lasting and gentle way. It is often better to work with a therapist to do this work, particularly if there’s a chance the anxiety you’re feeling could be attached to something that could overwhelm you.

That being said, when the problem doesn’t feel too huge, a bit of self reflection using IFS can be helpful. Taking full responsibility and keeping yourself emotionally safe, take a deep breath and see if you can connect with the part of you that feels anxious. See if you can picture that part visually, hear its voice or just get a feel for it. Notice how you feel towards that part. If you have any resistance or ill feeling towards it, this is another part of you rather than your Self* energy. Just ask the resistant part to step back for a moment and let your Self connect with the anxious part. You might discover more resistant parts and that’s fine, just ask each of them to step back until you are able to connect with your anxious part from a place that feels compassionate.

From that place, ask your anxious part what it would like you to know. What are it’s beliefs? What is it afraid of? When it’s had time to respond, ask the anxious part if it’s just been trying to keep you safe all along. The part will likely answer yes, if it doesn’t there may be some deeper work to do with a therapist. If it does, let it know that you are safe already and that you are no longer in the situation it’s trying to protect you from. Let it know that you no longer need to be anxious in order to be safe and ask it what role it would like to take on instead.

This is not about getting rid of our anxious parts, but giving them the opportunity to put down the burden of anxiety and find a new way to help. Your part may wish to give you courage and confidence or a particular strategy for managing certain situations. When you and your part have finished talking, be sure to thank it for its cooperation. Before you bring yourself back into the present, take a moment to revisit those parts that were resistant to your anxiety and see if there’s anything else they need to say.

You can repeat this process as many times as you need to. The more time you spend listening to your parts and hearing out their side of the story, the more cooperative they become. You can also use this process for parts other than anxiety.

If you’d like to learn more about navigating your internal landscape in this way, I’d love to hear from you. You can book your free chat through my website.
If you’d like to watch our two videos exploring the two approaches to anxiety visit the Healing Womanhood page

*Our Self energy is not a part, it’s our core truth and is embodied by the qualities of courage, compassion, creativity, calm, curiousity, clarity, confidence and connectedness. When you feel these qualities, that is your Self.

11/07/2025

The Women Only Wellness gathering creates a beautiful community space with the opportunity to try out sessions with a huge variety of wellbeing practitioners and to hear talks by some truly inspiring women. This year's was my first and already I can't wait for next year! Tickets are on sale now for 2026!

The PREMIER ladies only event of the summer! The ORIGINAL WOW! The Gathering will leave you feeling fantastic, refreshed and empowered!

07/07/2025

Last week we tapped to reduce our anxiety, grounding in our senses and returning to peace. We reached a much calmer place but did we miss an opportunity to connect with ourselves?
Today we give some time and energy to the part of us that makes us feel anxious and we send some love to that part, giving it chance to tell its story and reassuring it that we can handle things now.
If today's tapping resonates with you and you'd like to do more, you can book your free chat with me through the booking page of my website where you can also find info about our monthly women's empowerment circle.

04/07/2025

July Events

Our July events are just around the corner!

Women’s empowerment circle - July 19th 6-8pm, online - A gentle nurturing deep healing session including a guided visualisation, opportunities for discussion and lots of EFT tapping. This one takes place online so you can join in from wherever you are.

Money mindset for wellbeing businesses - July 17th 11am-1pm, Earthlings cafe, Newcastle - in partnership with Earthlings in Business I’m so pleased to be able to offer this in person workshop in which we will explore and rewrite our mindset around money, uncovering what gets in the way of our earning potential as wellbeing practitioners.

Earthlings in Business - July 10th 10am-12pm, Earthlings cafe, Newcastle - A regular monthly networking meeting for those working in wellbeing and spirituality

01/07/2025

I had such a lovely time at my first WOW gathering, what an amazing event this is! Many thanks to all who took part in my EFT for radical self acceptance workshop.

30/06/2025

Today we use EFT tapping to move from a state of feeling anxious, particularly if it's about big things that are out of our control, to feeling peaceful.
Our tapping sequence is a little longer than usual because we spend longer tapping in that peaceful state so that we can anchor it in, making it easier to return to next time. You can repeat today's tapping as often as you need to. The more we practice residing in a place of peace, the more naturally and easily it comes to us.
If anxiety has been a struggle for you lately, or maybe for a while, I'd love to work with you one to one and see if we can change that. Please feel free to get in touch for a free 30 minute chat. You can book your spot on the booking page of my website where you can also find info on our monthly women's empowerment circle.

23/06/2025

Really looking forward to delivering my Radical Self Acceptance workshop at the women only wellness gathering this Saturday. Will I see you there?

23/06/2025

As with our magic, our intuition is something we're conditioned out of. We're trained to make decisions based on logic and science and we ignore our feelings. What we don't often consider is how much wisdom we're missing out on and the wonderful places our intuition can lead us. Tap along with me today if you'd like to open back up to hearing and trusting the voice of your intuiation. If you tap along today please take full responsibility for your own wellbeing and the decisions you make.
If you'd like a bit more support with connecting to your intuition and living intuitively, why not book your free 30 minute call with me? You can find the link to book it on the booking page of my website where you can also find info and booking links for our magical monthly women's empowerment circle.