Elemental Body Work

17/06/2025

Had a lie down on my table at The Life Centre yesterday. Isn't that ceiling light just absolutely magical? Good place to stop for a moment!
Have a lovely week, fellow humans 🌻

05/02/2025

back in my old "hood" today, working with ocean views and sounds. Bliss!!

17/11/2024

Excellent day at the Piha market today. Balms and bodywork well received. ❤️🙏

04/11/2024

Growing plants for the balms I make and use feels so incredibly wholesome. Today's harvest. Divine scent in my kitchen.

29/09/2024

Need a massage or a restorative session through these turbulent times?
Book your session for my clinic in Swanson or for the Life Center in Ponsonby now.
https://elementalbodywork.setmore.com

19/09/2024

Ready for the day with home made balm and some garden beauty.

27/08/2024

After a solid 3 months of healing my wrist after a fall I'm finally back!! I still offer my mahi from Ponsonby and Swanson, and possibly soon from a third location, watch the space.
Hope to see you all soon 🙏

26/08/2023

New Home & New Clinic Space!
Many of you will know that I lost my much loved home in Piha to the cyclone in February this year. Since then, I have been working out of a very cute sleepout that the kindest souls have allowed me to use all this time. I have lived out of an extended suitcase much of this year and it has been a testing exercise, albeit one that brought much unexpected wonderful learning with it and showed me the kindness and support of community in a way that I have never before been allowed to experience. Very humbling indeed.
Finally, I have now found a new place to call home. For the first time in 6 years, however, it is no longer by the West coast beaches, but instead on the other side of the Waitakeres, in the Swanson hills.
While it does very much feel like leaving home, I am already in love with the cottage, and am very excited to create a new, beautiful healing hub, surrounded by magnificent kauri trees and birds, humming with that peaceful and fresh vibe that this area has always held for me.

I intend to slowly roll over my practice from Piha to the new place over the coming months. I will continue to offer spots in Piha until likely the end of the year, then I will reassess. For the time being, I will start by offering Fridays in Swanson and will see how things develop. Looking forward to welcoming you into the new space and energy. Arohanui folks!

02/07/2023

What a gift to have been asked to make this dream catcher. loving that you're loving it, dearest. X ❤️🌻

05/06/2023

What a funny old year it's been… It has been quiet on my site for a while and today I started feeling the muse to reconnect and give a bit of a multidimensional update :D .
As most of you know, the beautiful Piha bach that I called home and that most of you know as the little sanctuary it was, was badly damaged in the cyclone in February and since then my life has been an extraordinary experience. My house was falling off the foundations and I found myself ejected from my life as I knew it. Since then, this year has been feeling like I am living some sort of parallel timeline, or in two dimensions at the same time. Everything seems possible all at the same time and I am called to building new foundations… I never thought about the fact that revolution and evolution can be the same thing…
It has not been a comfortable year, living out of an extended suitcase for months, not having the things I usually have around me, not being able to do the things I usually do; it felt like everything had been stripped away. Work seems to have been my ground anchor. It has been an incredible process to really witness what I hold on to, what I use to ground, what little things can become our new rituals, what I use to define myself. All of a sudden, when everything is gone, these things can surface. Over the past weeks I have started feeling like I am having an identity crisis, because there are so many things I haven't been able to do that I normally do to nourish and look after myself. But on the flip side, it has been so powerful to be stripped back to a baseline, and as I have been moving from place to place, I have been able to add back in things one by one, like I am my own little scientific energetic experiment. And just this last week, I have started to understand just how connected in I am to the natural world, just how much "creation" is part of my essence, how important wholesome nourishment and healing of body and soul matter to my being; how I almost have no choice but to engage with creation if I am to be content and balanced.
Yesterday I bottled some tinctures I made and found myself become so alive in the process, thriving on the energetic communication that exists between the plants that are working through the potions and some deeply knowing part of myself (aka the witch :D). The potions and balms I am making are my constant reminder of how what we feed will feed back to us. What we engage with energetically will grow. This year is challenging me to keep my focus clear and strong.
I feel many of us have been challenged to look at who we are, what we bring and why we do what we do this year. How to walk in this world. In many of my clients I am witnessing the desire to clear the deepest earliest wounds, so we can move forward into a different way of being in the world. Our bodies seem to demand the purge, like we are out of time; the old frequencies need to be shifted so our bodies can come into alignment with the changing frequency of the planet as a whole. While many may not have a vocabulary for what they are experiencing, I am sure we are all feeling it in our own way. Many seem to be feeling exhausted, restless, even anxious, low in life force, spacey, low in appetite. You are not alone.
Rather than changing the experience, I am feeling very drawn to supporting what is happening, with my bodywork, soulwork and the medicine I am making, so it can be an easier shift. I am feeling a deep calling to be working with plants that can assist us with that process and I am feeling grateful to have been reminded of this "outlet" of my creative urge.
If you are interested in any of the tinctures, feel free to message me.
On another, very practical note... I am still in temporary accommodation but am working from a wonderful sleepout in Piha until spring (at this stage). I am looking for a home. It doesn't have to be Piha, I am looking quite a bit further afield as well, and am open to where the universe wants to put me next. If you know of anyone who has a cottage type thing that will suit me - needs to be in nature (like out the back of someone's farm etc), separate and private but not really isolated, big enough to live and work out of (but doesn't have to be big at all, spacious FEEL is more important), good storage, nice people in the vicinity, affordable by a single person (!), not too far from Auckland so I can still work in the city on two days, from September or October onwards or so ... do let me know. I am all ears!!

11/05/2023

A very interesting article as an example that underlines what I am trying to explain so often, that the body is a physical manifestation of energy and that a change of the energy will result in a change of the physical. ❤️

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=769004138017874&id=100047248835493&sfnsn=mo&mibextid=6aamW6

Wilhelm Reich observeerde dat mensen met emotionele en psychische problemen ook chronische spanning hadden in hun spieren (in feite in het bindweefsel).

Verder onderzoek leidde hem tot de ontdekking dat dit allemaal te maken had met het autonome (vegetatieve) zenuwstelsel.

Chronische spanning en pijn zijn terug te leiden tot het niet meer kunnen spontaan reguleren van het sympathische zenuwstelsel (dat aanzet tot vechten en vluchten bij bedreiging).

Het corrolarium hiervan heeft te maken met het parasympathische zenuwstelsel. Daar waar het sympathische zenuwstelsel leidt tot spanning (‘aanspannen voor actie’), heeft het parasympathische zenwustelsel te maken met ontspanning en expansie. In de mate dat contractie door het systeem wordt vertaald als ‘veilig’, wordt expansie (het leven vertrouwen, het onbekende tegemoet gaan, dingen uitproberen...) meer en meer vertaald als 'onveilig'.

Contractie is het mechanisme achter pijn; expansie het mechanisme achter plezier.

De natuurlijke stroom van de levensenergie in het lichaam wordt ervaren als plezierig. Het is wat we identificeren als vitaal, levendig.

Dat is FLOW. In de mate dat de natuurlijke levensstroom wordt afgeremd door contractie in het bindweefsel, vermindert ook het vermogen tot plezier en avontuur.

Sterker nog plezier/avontuur/loslaten wordt meer en meer onbewust afgewezen als onveilig.

Reich ontdekte dat de staat van de energiestroom in het lichaam dus meer fundamenteel is voor de conditie van het menselijke organisme dan gedachten en emoties. Iemand die depressief is bijvoorbeeld kan zijn (haar) emotionele staat niet veranderen door positieve gedachten te denken. Hij (zij) dient zijn (haar) energiestaat te veranderen. De rest zal dan volgen.

Het kernprobleem van gedrag- en gezondheidsproblemen is de som van alle belemmeringen van de vrije energiestroom (spontane energie) in het lichaam.

Zonder het lichaam te begrijpen als een bio energetisch ecosysteem wordt alleen op secundaire, tertiaire, etc oorzaken gewerkt...

Het is de chronische weerstand in het organisme die de primaire oorzaken bevat van disharmonie OMDAT - bij meer en meer weerstand tegen de intelligente levensenergie - ook het ZELFORGANISEREND VERMOGEN van het menselijke ecosysteem met grote sprongen afneemt.

Meer en meer ‘externe’ ingrepen zijn dan (schijnbaar) nodig, maar ze lossen nooit het fundamentele probleem op: de verstoring van het zelforganiserend ecosysteem.

Wat is dan het doel van weerstand leren loslaten? Het is het herstel van onze natuurlijke flowstaat (en dus van onze spontaniteit, vitaliteit, creativiteit, levenslust, etc)! ‘In weerstand’ is ‘uit flow’. ‘In weerstand’ is ‘uit verbinding’. ‘In flow’ is ‘in verbinding’. Zodus...

https://lerenloslaten.com/

08/05/2023

Kia ora everyone. As you may have heard, Piha has reopened for the public last Friday and that means you are now officially allowed to all come back here.
Many local businesses are very happy for this to have happened. And I am grateful to be receiving many of you back here as well.
I wanted to take a moment to put down a few words around what is happening in Piha, however, so you can be prepared for when you come.
The road has not been fixed, despite it being sold as such on all news outlets this week. When driving out, take care. At the biggest slip on Piha road, there is a one lane system with a traffic light in place. Along many stretches of road, the sides have fallen away and it pays to have a good look what is happening outside the white line so you don't accidentally drive off the side (as I have done myself..... sigh).
In terms of the energy of Piha, those of you who are very sensitive may notice how the energy of the place has changed. For weeks after the cyclone many locals subconsciously felt it was almost "tapu" to get into the waters or walk on the fresh open wounds that are the big slips. Much old energy has been unearthed and it is around to be cleansed and healed. I am only really saying this with an invitation to be mindful of where your feet may or may not want to walk you, where you may or may not want to linger. Trust your instincts, check in with yourself. This land has gone through a big shift and it is not the same, nor has it settled. Be aware, respectful and trust your senses. Good practice to be had here. :)
Much love to you all, as always