What are the opening hours?

Monday 9:30am - 5pm Sunday 9am - 5pm

The Soft Spot, Shop 21, St Kevins Arcade, 183 Karangahape Road, CBD, Auckland (2026)

22/11/2022

We are more than what we do. 🖤

This week I was asked to put together my 'artist bio' for a project I'm involved in, and I felt a great wave of shame overcome me as I realised that all the 'significant' things I had done, all my awards, all my fabulous well-known creations were clustered around 2015, 2016, 2017, and very little since... nothing this decade, at all!

I was flooded by punishing ideas - I'm not enough, I can't make art anymore, I'm washed up, I'm no longer relevant - embarrassed for myself... until I remembered...

It was 2017 that I was brought to a standstill by my fear of never being enough. I looked outwardly successful, opportunities were plentiful, and I was in highly regarded company - but inwardly I was crippled by self-doubt, paralysed by the idea that if I stopped making art, if the audience stopped clapping, I was nothing.

I remembered that this apparent 'gap' in my creative CV has actually been the most significant period of growth, settling and grounded-ness for me.

This pause allowed me to find Craniosacral, to slowly part from my patterns of high-functioning anxiety, with my body jammed in 'go-mode' as though I was running from a tiger, all the time. My body has had a good, long practice in the last few years at taking up a different shape, where I can sit still, listen, hear my needs and relate better to other humans around me.

If I make art again, I want it to be from a place of knowing I am already enough. I want to live in ways which help that belief find deep deep root in my body.

I'm proud of that big long gap in my CV because it tells me I'm really listening to what I need, tending to my trauma, and healing. For this, no-one will clap, or give out an award - but we are so much more than what other people think of us.

If this is you, running all the time, scared to slow down because you won't recognise or like yourself, terrified to let others down - I see you. It's okay to change shape, you are more than what you do - and if you need me, I'm here to help you find a way through. 🌿

📸 by

08/11/2022

Received this beautiful feedback from a fellow healer - long time inspiration of mine - who arrived on the tēpu for the first time last Sunday. 🛌

What I love most is when Laura talks about how "everything is a gentle invitation" - this lesson has taken me a LONG time to learn, the art of offering over coercion, and it is fundamental to why I think Craniosacral therapy is so powerful. 🖤

It is very rare that we are touched without agenda, that we are offered space without the desires/intentions/expectations of the other person flooding our responses. Think about moments we have been touched by our parents, our lovers, our friends, our doctors, our physio, our personal trainer, our children - especially when health practitioners are relating to our bodies, they have an agenda - that there is a 'problem' to 'fix.' 💊💊💊

Part of what makes Craniosacral beautiful is, exactly as Laura puts it, everything is an invitation. 👐🏽 You don't need to be or do anything - you are enough, exactly as you walk in the door. You are not a problem to be fixed, you are already whole and capable of living a wonderful life. 🌿

Craniosacral touch is a non-judgemental, neutral experience of touch, that listens first, and moves at the rate of the body - and because of that, on the table our bodies can start to experience real safety, sometimes for the first time in our lives. 💆🏻

And that safety is the key. When we know we are allowed to be here, exactly as we are, we aren't worried about pleasing anybody else, or 'getting it right,' or meeting someone else's needs, or 'being a good client' - our body can unplug from our trauma and attachment stories, turn our alarm systems off, and start to heal. 🙏🏾

That's part of why it can feel so freeing and possible on the Cranio table. And why I think everyone can benefit from some time being really listened to. 🍃

I have a few appointments left on Sunday and I'd love to see you there. 🖤

#

25/10/2022

We live in a world where agency and action is prized - where 'doing' and 'fixing' is so naturalised that we forget there are other ways to approach our experiences, our bodies, our feelings and our lives.
It can be wonderful to go about life making lists and solving crises - that way of living can feel really satisfying! But there are some things, like trauma, overwhelm, anxiety and depression that we can't just grit our way through. 😔
Because we are so conditioned to take action, often our first impulse is to try and move an uncomfortable feeling - we might numb with substances, or exercise it away, or start trying to control our physical environment - but when we numb our sadness and fear, we also numb our capacity for happiness and joy, because those unprocessed feelings stay with us.
Craniosacral is about listening to the body, and allowing what is there, whether that is big feelings, numbness, absence, shock, - it is all allowed to be here. 🙇🏽 It's so exquisitely simple, and fundamentally radical. Such a magic trick is performed in the body when we give ourselves permission to be exactly as we are, with everything we are carrying - things move all on their own, in their own time, at their own rate. Wild, I know! 🌿
This is how we heal, by giving ourselves permission. And it's hard to do on our own. That's how coming to Craniosacral can help - we work together to build your skill, your awareness, your self-compassion and your patience - so you can soften and heal, and carry less with you, whereever you are going. 🙏🏽
This Sunday I have 4 spaces available, and I'd love to be there with you. Book via www.thesoftspot.co.nz to find yourself space.

16/04/2021

In the last 10 months, I have been growing not only my little business, but something else too - and I wanted to take some time to talk about pregnancy/hapūtanga from a cranial perspective.
As well as the excitement people feel around hapūtanga, I’ve noticed another strong narrative emerge, where people talk about the way the body ‘decays’ from bearing a child. People often tell a story of their body ‘ruined’ by pregnancy, or they might joke about the baby as a parasite - sucking the life force from their body.
Let me be clear - I’m not here to dismiss the different ways people cope with the big changes of hapūtanga, and it is TOTALLY valid to experience it as a time of loss! But my story has been different, and I wanted to share that with you.
During my hapūtanga, I’ve noticed this intrinsic sense of being grounded. When I’ve sat to meditate, I’ve noticed I have a deep stillness available that I haven’t felt before. In the course of this pregnancy, my partner was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and we’ve been through surgery and chemotherapy. Still, I’ve felt resourced - like my baby was offering me access to deeper layers of health, calm, and capacity.
From a cranial perspective, this makes sense - because my body is busy making a human, it also is being given access to it’s own memory of one of the safest times in it’s life - being in utero. In this time, our system is at it’s most fluid, our tissues are new and juicy and this state is what craniosacral therapists call your ‘blueprint’ of health, and it’s just yours. This is the juicy, safe, primary state of wellbeing we were born into, and it’s what any process of healing is always oriented around. Your blueprint is your birthright.
I’ve always loved how exquisite that idea is - that health and resource is abundant for all of us, that it lies under everything in your system, and just needs to be revealed in the process of healing. What I’ve discovered in my hapūtanga is that bearing a child can be a part of peeling back those layers - revealing to me all the wonderful things I already had available, just below the surface.
Always here to hold you, through pregnancy and beyond 🖤

07/04/2021

My beautiful business cards have finally arrived!!! Feeling very profesh and capable thanks to the iconic design work of Todd Beeby ✨✨✨
Don't you want one of these handsome cards adorning your wallet? And don't even get me started on the paper stock 🤤

Address

Shop 21, St Kevins Arcade, 183 Karangahape Road, CBD
Auckland
1010

Opening Hours

Monday	9:30am - 5pm
Sunday	9am - 5pm

Website

http://www.thesoftspot.co.nz/

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