01/09/2026
๐บ My Journey with the Medicine of Kahuna
It is hard for me to write about my journey over the past few years.
I stopped sharing my life and experiences as a way of containment, but I also became really tired of feeling that I was somehow always performing... and then there is the last piece, the fear of being judged.
However, my Kahuna journey over the past few years deserves to be shared and celebrated.
I so deeply honour the medicine of Kahuna, for it has stretched me, challenged me, humbled me, and yet held me so deeply as I have found my way back to my centre.
On the 12th of August 2026, I stepped into my Level 8 Kahuna, the marriage of the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine, and a deep reverence for the elements.
Each level brings with it its own rite of passage. Each one sacred, and each one inviting you to meet a new edge.
I entered Level 1 with twenty-odd years of clinical and holistic massage training and bodywork behind me, and with very active PTSD symptoms.
I didn't know whether I would ever be able to fully regain my autonomy.
I feared the dark. I was triggered by certain types of music, sounds, words and smells. My body carried memories that my mind could not simply reason away.
And yet, alongside all of that fear, there was also a deep KNOWING that this was where I was meant to be.
Through the guidance and nurturing of one of the most inspirational, fierce, yet humble, women I have ever met, Anthea Hardwick, I started walking this journeyโone stroke at a time.
I didn't know her, but somehow I trusted that whatever I felt in her presence meant that she was walking right beside me.
Moving from unconscious incompetence and years of rigid massage techniques into meeting the Divine Masculine and Feminine through flow and rhythm did not translate as easily as I thought it would.
How profoundly humbling it was to become a happy beginner again.
Because Kahuna was beginning to teach me something beyond technique.
Power does not have to mean force.
Structure does not have to mean rigidity.
Softness does not mean weakness.
And surrender does not mean losing oneself.
My body was learning a different language...
The Level 4 twelve-hour marathon marked a profound turning point for me.
It became an opportunity to reframe the experience that had left me with PTSD, to begin reclaiming my autonomy and reconnecting with my Mana, the beginning of a reclamation.
As I started working with the elements of fire, air, earth and water, and learnt to shape-shift according to the requirements of the body I was dancing this sacred Kahuna dance with, I began learning to move closer to the bright, clear expression of my own water.
Years of tears and unprocessed emotions had been held in pockets of my bodyโwaiting to be held by me, waiting to feel safe enough to be felt and witnessed.
Kahuna was teaching me that embodiment isn't about transcending the body.
It is about coming back into it.
Again and again.
The medicine of Kahuna keeps bringing me back to my body as medicine. It keeps teaching me presence, stillness and deep congruence.
For I cannot meet another from a place that I have never been.
I cannot ask another body to soften while abandoning my own.
I cannot offer grounded presence while living outside of myself.
And I cannot accompany another human being into vulnerability without continually developing my own capacity to sit beside what is vulnerable within me.
Each level has introduced me to another part of myself that wants to be discovered or rediscovered, retrieved and inhabited.
The shadow and the light.
The strong and the vulnerable.
The part that knows how to give, and the part that is still learning how to receive.
The part that wants to control, and the part learning to trust.
The part that performs, and the part learning that simply being is enough.
Level 8 brought me full circle and asked me to come home to myself.
This knowing had already arrived at Level 7, and I knew that, with only a month between levels, this would be a stretch. But if there is one thing I know about myself, it is that when I have full trust in myself and in my Ohana, I am one of the most dedicated and committed people I know...life can be challenging, and I certainly didn't see how I was going to make it to level 8, all I could do was trust.
Coming home to myself wasn't pretty.
It wasn't pain free.
It wasn'tโand isn'tโeasy.
I continue to keep coming home to myself.
But Level 8 took me into the depths of my shadows and allowed me to sit with all of my unloved, unmet parts with the utmost compassion.
And somehow, that compassion broke my heart wide open for every human walking this Earth.
Because the deeper I have travelled into my own humanity, the more I have come to recognise the humanity of another.
All whilst being deeply held by my Teacher and fellow Wahine, who made me feel safe enough to be seen and met, and never left.
Perhaps this has been one of Kahuna's greatest teachings for me:
to be with another without abandoning myself.
To feel without absorbing.
To love without rescuing.
To offer without depleting.
To hold without controlling.
To listen without needing to fix.
Kahuna Bodywork isn't simply a form of massage.
It is a sacred journey that touches you physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and energetically.
Kahuna has touched every aspect of my life.
I walk through life with a new understanding and a new rhythmโwith a nervous system that now practises coming back to itself, again and again.
Not perfection.
Practice.
Returning.
Breathing.
Listening.
Remembering.
The Huna Principles and chants have become a way of life as I embody the one within me who loves to sing๐
I continue to walk this journey of embodiment and, as my teacher taught me, to emulate the "shaman" in me by groking (shape shifting) into my desired state.
Whether that is mastering communication by emulating the dolphinโฆ
Trusting the speed of my journey by emulating the turtleโฆ
Being strong, confident and fierce like the jaguarโฆ
Or allowing fire to meet waterโฆ
I continue learning that I don't always have to force myself into becoming something.
I can listen, embody, soften, move and allow the wisdom I need to arise through me.
And so I continue to meet each body from a place of conscious, loving touch, with my ego at the door.
Not believing that I am the source of another person's healing.
Not needing to make something happen.
But listening.
Being present.
Allowing my body to move from grounding rather than force.
Meeting another person's body with reverence, while remembering to remain inside my own.
Kahuna continues to teach me that how I touch is also how I meet life.
These teachings have travelled far beyond the massage table and have become teachings about how I live.
I am privileged to walk this journey, and I will continue to walk it for as long as the path remains open to me. Always learning, listening and deepening into the medicine of Kahuna.
Thank you to each person who has been walking this path beside me.
To Howard Ahanu Burger for your support, and to you and my family for holding down the forte.
To my Teachers.
To the Wahine.
To the Animal & Plant Allies.
To Mama Ocean, Grandmother Moon and Grandfather Sun.
To Pele & Nฤmaka.
To my Ohana.
To every body that has trusted my hands and taught me something about presence.
And perhaps my greatest gratitude is to myself.
For showing up.
For having the courage to keep meeting the edges.
For taking accountability.
For being willing to become a beginner again.
For walking into the places I once feared.
For learning that strength and softness can inhabit the same body.
And for continuing, again and again, to find my way home.
My journey of embodiment and integration continues.
Kahuna is for EVERYBODY, whether you want to receive, give or simply to learn about yourself and how to navigate life.
Thank you to Amina, Claire, Nics and Anthea for adding to my photos ๐
A hui hou โพ๏ธ
Mahalo ๐
