For Women

As a woman who has survived intimate partner abuse, you have experienced complex trauma. I have enormous respect and admiration for your resilience, wisdom, courage and perseverance. It would be my privilege to support you in walking towards further healing to enable you to live your life with an increasing sense of calm, purpose and enjoyment.

Take a moment to consider what you need and what you hope for to help you realise a greater sense of healing in your life. Would you like to experience less pain and muscle tension in your body, feel and be fitter and stronger, move through your day with more energy, and realise a greater sense of calm and confidence?

It is my priority to provide an opportunity for you to nurture your physical and emotional health in an environment which cultivates a sense of safety, belonging, acceptance, kindness and respect. 

Individual initial consultation:

An initial consultation (1 hour) involves gathering information about your previous and current health concerns, and discussing your hopes for your emotional and physical health. This will assist in developing a mindful exercise program specifically for you. Depending on your needs and hopes for your health, the initial consultation will include looking more closely at your breathing and core, body/postural awareness, strength, flexibility, and aerobic fitness to identify the focus areas of your program.

In the initial consultation we will also discuss ways in which my programs are trauma-sensitive and why this supports healing.

Individual sessions & small group classes:

You are welcome to choose individual sessions (45 minutes or 1 hour) and/or small group classes (1 hour). In my sessions and classes you are welcomed into a space where you are free to be how you need to be. You always have choice within each session.

There are two primary areas of focus which will be prioritised depending on the health hopes and goals expressed by you in the initial consultation:

Strategies for care of your physical health:

Sessions may involve a variety of mindful exercises to:

• enhance your body and postural awareness;

• activate and improve the endurance of postural muscles;

• improve your upper and lower body strength;

• increase your cardiovascular fitness;

• relieve muscle tension and ease stiff joints through specific stretches.

Aspects of the individual and small group sessions may be conducted in the garden or a local park if that is something you would find refreshing and helpful.

Strategies for care of your emotional health:

By using a variety of practices you will be invited to cautiously connect to your body. I will support you to begin to notice internal sensations while supporting you to stay grounded in the present moment. If at any time this does not feel comfortable or you are triggered, we can stop the program and focus on strategies to help you calm and self-soothe. As you are able to tolerate your newly noticed sensations, you will be supported to make choices and take effective action depending on the internal sensations you observe. This ability to “listen” to our bodies helps us to:

• strengthen the higher centres of our brain which support our self-care and body awareness; support us to better regulate our emotions; enable us to recognise and name our own emotions and so begin to recognise emotions in others so that we can offer empathy.

• rebalance our parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, thereby building greater resilience to stress and improving physical and psychological wellbeing.