05/08/2024
BRENDA SUSAN RAWLINGS OBITUARY
23/02/59 – 11/02/22
Brenda Rawlings passed over on 11 February 2022, after a 2 1/2 year journey with brain cancer. Brenda is remembered as someone who devoted her life to her family and her work. She was a person who had extraordinary gifts of wisdom, insight, intuition, graciousness, kindness and, especially, love. Brenda, a Warkworth resident, made an exceptional contribution to the work of counselling in New Zealand. Over the course of 30+ years as a counsellor, relationship therapist and trainer, she touched the lives of thousands of people who had been helped by her compassion and ability to “listen without judging”.
Brenda and her sister Judy grew up on the Tamaki estuary, which may have explained Brenda’s love of the sea. The family had regular holidays at Orua Bay, on Manukau Harbour, where the girls learned to water ski. She did a social work degree at Massey University in Palmerston North and worked for several years with the Department of Social Welfare, before being bitten by the travel bug. As in most pursuits in her life, Brenda was not content to just take a Contiki tour. She cycled through the United Kingdom and travelled alone through north Africa.
Several years later, Brenda and husband Harry, whom she had met at university, worked on grass roots projects alongside the most disadvantaged in Central America. On their way back to NZ, they spent three months in an ashram in India. Back in NZ in 1987, the couple took on new positions as community social workers for Warkworth and Wellsford, collaborating with a group of other young and passionate health professionals. But tragedy struck when Harry was killed in an accident at Orua Bay. Brenda was eight months pregnant at the time. Brenda displayed extraordinary courage and resilience at this time of heart-breaking grief.
Brenda stayed in Warkworth, building a community around herself and her young son, Zachary, and began training in counselling and psychotherapy, with the Institute of Psychosynthesis. She became a member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors in 1991. During this time Brenda was credited with supporting many Mahurangi initiatives, including the Women’s Resource Centre, Family/Whanau Support Services, Stopping Violence Services and Homebuilders. She eventually met Peter McMillan, whom she later married and together they enlarged their family with two more sons, Michael and Liam. Brenda always put her hand up for any activities that involved the boys including serving on the Board of Trustees at Kaipara Flats Primary and Mahurangi College.
Brenda and her husband, Peter McMillan, founded the Warkworth Counselling Centre in 1995. At the time Brenda was specialising in individual counselling. In 1996 Brenda and Peter attended the first Getting The Love You Want Couples Workshop in New Zealand and from that time onwards Brenda began to specialise in relationship counselling. Brenda and Peter started the Imago Institute for Relationships in 1999 and this became Brenda’s passion for the next 20 years. She became a sought-after relationship therapist. Brenda and Peter were the first Certified Imago Workshop Presenters in New Zealand in 2000 and were the first Imago Therapists outside of North America to be accepted onto the Teaching Faculty of the Imago International Training Institute in 2002.
Brenda and Peter presented the getting The Love You want Couples Workshop about 150 times over the next 20 years, around NZ and in Australia. Brenda was also training counsellors, psychologists and psychotherapists in NZ and Australia during this time. She was appointed Co-Dean of the Imago International Training Institute, based in USA, from 2011 to 2016, during which time she led a team of 30 Imago Relationship Therapy trainers from around the world. In 2013, she was the recipient of the Harville Hendrix Award for Clinical Excellence. Brenda was described by her international colleagues as follows: “a courageous leader who welcomed all of humanity”, “deep integrity”, “compassionate and wise, she led with grace”, “authentic, safe and brilliant”, “I trusted her with my heart”, “a unifying force and stabilising energy for all of us”.
Brenda was diagnosed with a brain tumour in August 2019. Despite two successful operations, she sadly succumbed to the illness, two and a half years later. She journeyed into the illness with her eyes wide open, saying “Yes” to the healing and growth possibility of this profound life experience. In the latter months her family and friends loved being around her, feeling her presence. As Juliet Batten, her psychotherapist of more than 30 years, said “she radiated the shining wellbeing of a healthy soul.” She is deeply missed by her husband Peter, and sons Zachary, Michael and Liam, her extended family and her close friends. She is a huge loss to the Imago community in Aotearoa New Zealand. Peter is keeping her Imago work alive, continuing to offer Couples Workshops and trainings in Imago Therapy.
