Soulstar & Self Recovery

05/09/2026

04/09/2026

WHY I BELIEVE TRAUMA-INFORMED THERAPY IS ESSENTIAL

After 34 years of working with the body, one thing has become increasingly clear to me:

We cannot separate the mind from the body, or the body from the nervous system.

Whether I am offering holistic therapy, massage, breathwork, Reiki or somatic work, I am never simply working with muscles, tension or symptoms. I am working with a whole human being and everything their body may have experienced, adapted to and carried.

For me, being trauma-informed means:

Seeing the person, not just the treatment. Understanding there may be a story behind the tension, guarding, holding or difficulty relaxing.

Creating safety before seeking release. A body that doesn’t feel safe doesn’t need to be pushed further; it needs choice, predictability and trust.

Understanding the nervous system. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn & flop can show up on the treatment couch just as they do in everyday life.

Recognising that touch matters. Massage and bodywork require vulnerability. Consent should never be assumed simply because someone has booked a treatment.

Giving people choice and control. Explaining what I am doing, checking in, respecting boundaries and allowing someone to change their mind.

Not forcing emotional release. Tears, shaking or emotion can happen during bodywork, but I don’t believe we need to chase catharsis or assume every response needs analysing.

Working with the mind, body connection. Thoughts influence the nervous system, the nervous system influences the body, and the body continually communicates back to the brain.

Being curious rather than assuming. I don’t need to know someone’s trauma story to work in a way that respects the possibility that trauma exists.

Understanding my scope. Being trauma-informed doesn’t mean diagnosing trauma or becoming someone’s psychotherapist. It means allowing trauma awareness to shape how I practise.

Remembering the human being beneath my hands. Their body belongs to them. My role is not to take control of it, but to create the conditions in which they can feel safe enough to reconnect with it.

For me, trauma-informed therapy isn’t another technique to add to the treatment menu.

It is the foundation underneath how I touch, how I speak, how I listen and how I hold space.
Because when we work with the body, we are also working with the nervous system. And when someone feels safe, seen and given choice, that’s when the possibility of genuine connection mind, breath and body can begin.

Soulstar
come home to yourself.

04/09/2026

WELLNESS IS A CHOICE… BUT WHY DON’T WE ALWAYS CHOOSE IT?

We talk about wellness as though it’s something we either have or we don’t.

But so much of wellness lives in the tiny choices we make every single day.

The choice to rest instead of push.

To breathe instead of react.

To go for the walk.

To drink the water.

To put the phone down.

To say no.

To ask for help.

To book the massage.

To leave something that continually drains us.

To choose ourselves without needing to justify it.

And yet, even when we know what makes us feel better, we don’t always choose it.

Why?

Because knowing and choosing are two very different things.

Sometimes chaos is familiar.

Sometimes being busy makes us feel valuable.

Sometimes slowing down means we might actually have to feel what we’ve been avoiding.

Sometimes we have spent so long putting everyone else first that choosing ourselves feels selfish.

And sometimes our nervous system will choose what is familiar over what is healthy, simply because familiar feels predictable.

That’s why wellness isn’t about being disciplined enough, spiritual enough, fit enough or having the perfect morning routine.

It’s about becoming aware of the choices we are making especially the unconscious ones.

Wellness can be choosing five minutes of quiet.

It can be cancelling something when your body is screaming for rest.

It can be movement, therapy, massage, breathwork, boundaries, laughter, sleep, sunlight or sitting with a cup of tea without doing anything else at the same time.

And some days?

Wellness might simply be noticing:

“This isn’t making me feel good anymore.”

Because the moment we notice, we create space for another choice.

You don’t have to completely change your life today.

Just ask yourself…

What am I choosing today?

And perhaps more importantly…

Is that choice bringing me closer to myself, or further away?

Soulstar come home to yourself.
Self-Recovery & Holistic Wellbeing

03/09/2026

WOMEN OF A CERTAIN RAGE

We bleed.
And carry on.

We cramp.
And carry on.

We grow humans inside bodies
that stretch, split, ache and change.
And carry on.

We birth.
We feed.
We hold.
We lose.
We love.
We worry.
We work.

And carry on.

Then our hormones shift again.
Our sleep disappears.
Our bodies change.
Our temperature rises.
Our patience thins.

And somewhere amongst all of that
we are still expected to be nice.

Be quiet.
Be polite.
Be grateful.
Be pretty.
Be pleasant.
Be accommodating.
Be maternal.
Be professional.
Be available.

Be less.

Don’t be loud.
Don’t be angry.
Don’t be difficult.
Don’t be demanding.
Don’t be emotional.
Don’t be intimidating.
Don’t take up too much space.
Don’t make anyone uncomfortable.

Don’t be too much.

So we swallowed it.

The no we wanted to say.
The scream we wanted to release.
The boundary we didn’t hold.
The exhaustion we pretended wasn’t there.
The resentment we dressed up as fine.

We swallowed our rage
and wondered why our bodies felt so full.

But perhaps there comes an age
when a woman stops apologising
for the fire in her belly.

Perhaps rage isn’t something to fear.

Perhaps sometimes rage is grief with a voice.

A boundary finally finding words.

A body saying enough
after years of being told to endure.

So here’s to women of a certain rage.

May we stop making ourselves smaller
to make the world more comfortable.

May we meet the angry woman.
The tired woman.
The grieving woman.
The wild woman.
The soft woman.
The sensual woman.
The powerful woman.
The woman who has simply had enough.

Because self-recovery begins when we acknowledge the rage rather than shame it.

When we accept all the parts of ourselves not only the ones that are easy to love.

Coming home to yourself means seeing the light.

But it also means being brave enough to meet the shadows.

And saying:

You belong here too.

03/09/2026

After saying no more events this year we wanted to focus on the big event next year. We starting musing and then we started the conversations, and then this happened……….

Incoming………..

03/09/2026

WOMEN SUPPORTING WOMEN, BUT FOR REAL.

I’ve just finished reading Ultra-Processed Women and it’s got me thinking. A LOT.

About women.
Our bodies.
Our hormones.
And just how much women quietly navigate throughout a lifetime.

Periods. Pregnancy. Fertility. Birth. Postnatal changes. Perimenopause. Menopause.

Then throw in food, weight, digestion, intolerances, stress, sleep, energy, mood, body image and the expectations placed upon women at almost every stage of life.

And no, this isn’t some feminist, bra-burning rage against men.

It’s curiosity.

It’s becoming informed.

It’s asking why so much of what we have historically understood about health, nutrition, exercise, medicine and the human body has been researched through a predominantly male lens when a woman’s biology can be significantly influenced by hormonal changes throughout her life.

The more I learn, the more questions I have.

And it has made me think about what women supporting women actually means.

Because we’ve all seen the posts:

“Women fix each other’s crowns.”
“There’s room for all of us.”
“Women supporting women.”

Lovely.

But supporting women has to be more than an Instagram quote.

We cannot preach sisterhood publicly while privately criticising another woman’s body, business, parenting, ageing, choices, relationships or success.

Real support is sharing knowledge.

It’s creating conversations about periods without embarrassment.

Talking honestly about pregnancy and motherhood.

Speaking openly about perimenopause and menopause.

Questioning why women are exhausted rather than simply telling them to push through.

Learning about our bodies instead of spending our lives fighting them.

And perhaps most importantly, believing women when they tell us something doesn’t feel right.

This is becoming a bigger part of why I’m so passionate about self-recovery coaching.

Because self-recovery isn’t about fixing women.

It’s about helping women become curious about themselves again.

Their bodies.
Their needs.
Their boundaries.
Their nourishment.
Their nervous systems.
Their changing hormones.
Their stories.
Their rage.
Their softness.
Their choices.

Maybe the real women supporting women movement isn’t about lifting each other’s crowns.

Maybe it’s about helping each other understand the bodies underneath them.

Sharing what we learn.

Having the conversations we were once told were inappropriate.

Asking better questions.

And creating spaces where women don’t have to suffer quietly simply because generations before us did.

Self-recovery begins when we become informed enough to become curious about ourselves.

And then brave enough to share what we’ve learned with another woman.

That is the kind of women supporting women I want to be part of.

Soulstar
Come home to yourself.

02/09/2026

WHAT WOULD SOULSTAR DO?

Maybe that question isn’t really about Soulstar at all.

Maybe it’s about creating enough space between what happens and what you do next.

Because when we’re stressed, triggered, overwhelmed or running on empty, we often don’t choose we react. We snap. We shut down. We overthink. We people please. We say yes when everything in us means no. We reach for old patterns because they’re familiar, not because they’re good for us.

Self-recovery is about beginning to notice that little space before the reaction.

What are my options here?
Could I pause?
Could I breathe?
Could I say no?
Could I wait before replying?
Could I choose curiosity instead of judgement?
Could I listen to what my body is telling me?
Could I choose what supports me rather than what simply keeps everyone else comfortable?

That’s the work.

Not becoming someone who never gets triggered, angry, overwhelmed or wobbly.

But becoming someone who knows they have options when they do.

So perhaps “What would Soulstar do?” simply means…

Pause. Breathe. Check in.
Then choose rather than react.

That little pause can change everything.

Soulstar come home to yourself.

01/09/2026

WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO NOT NEED TO BE ANYTHING FOR ANYONE?

I’m going to ask that again.

What does it feel like to not need to be anything for anyone?

We carry.

All day, every day, we carry.

We carry ourselves.
Our families.
Our friends.
Our jobs.
Our responsibilities.

We carry other people’s experiences, expectations and sometimes even their emotions.

And often, we don’t even realise how heavy it has become.

We brace walking into work.
We hold tension driving home.
We lie awake thinking about tomorrow.
We carry today into tonight and yesterday into today.

And because we’ve done it for so long, we stop noticing.

The tight shoulders.
The shallow breath.
The clenched jaw.
The racing mind.
The feeling that we should always be doing, fixing, helping, achieving or being something for somebody.

It becomes our normal.

And somewhere underneath all that carrying… there is still you.

That’s why I create these spaces.

The treatments.
The events.
The retreats.
The Self-Recovery work.

Not because you need another thing to do.

But because sometimes we need somewhere to put everything down.

My Matcha, Mindfulness & Movement sessions are simply an hour to do exactly that.

To move.
To breathe.
To meditate.
To be mindful.
To sit with a cup of matcha without needing to rush anywhere.

No performance.
No expectation.
Nothing to achieve.

Just space to soften the bracing, drop some of what you’ve been carrying and remember what it feels like to simply be.

Because coming home to yourself requires space.

And sometimes, for one beautiful hour, you don’t need to be anything for anyone.

You can just be you.

Matcha. Mindfulness. Movement.
Come home to yourself.