I truly believe that compassion and non-judgment, together with a felt sense of safety, are what heal. When we're met through the eyes of loving acceptance, then whatever has been blocking or concealing the recognition of our essential goodness and worth can start to dissipate and fall away. Then our innate aliveness, health, and trust in life start to come back as we recover our inherent wholeness. We reclaim our natural peace, joy and wonder.
I think of my role as being that of an intuitive facilitator for healing. While my principal training has been in Cranio-Sacral Therapy (CST), I find that the way I practise has developed and expanded to include other tools and resources that I've learned over the years from meditation teachers, introductory trainings in Hakomi (a mindfulness-based somatic-psychotherapy approach), some Qi Gong and energy work, and my own experience both receiving and learning a foundation in the therapeutic modality Compassionate Inquiry.
I still consider myself a Cranio-Sacral Therapist and CST continues to form the basis for my sessions, but I've found that as the edges of what was learned in my training become less rigid and defined, it's allowed for more mystery to come in to the way sessions are led, and with that more playfulness and a surrender to the subtle forces guiding the sessions. It becomes like a dance and I allow myself to be moved more from a place of inspiration than by fixed methods. I've found myself on occasion using sound, working off the body, and leading meditations with clients, all instinctively in the moment. This is why I cannot call myself a healer. Strictly speaking, I'm not the one responsible for the healing. I merely act as conduit for whatever needs to occur. And the needs of the client on the day are always, consciously or unconsciously, leading the way.
As well as my foundational training in CST, I'm also qualified in a distant healing form of that modality called Distant Craniosacral Integration (DCSI). I'm therefore able to offer both in-person CST and remote healing sessions online.
What do I love most about supporting people?
It's wonderful to see how relaxed and content people feel following a session. What I particularly enjoy seeing is when someone has a revelation or deep insight during a treatment. It can sometimes come in the form of an old memory that was buried deep in their unconscious, and it comes to the surface to be acknowledged. It helps them put the pieces of the puzzle back together and leads the way for a profound integration of what has been lying unresolved in their system.
In general, I love the way I can connect with another human being on a deep level and we can take a journey together with care and curiosity into the inner landscape of their stories and emotional terrain; in other words, we can explore safely and compassionately what has led to them being where they are - what they have been through, the courage and strength it has taken, and that all of it can be re-seen in a new light that brings about a lasting and significant shift in their well-being and appreciation of life.
Why TouchTones?
The name came to me out of the blue one day towards the end of my Cranio-Sacral Therapy training. I'd been learning more about frequency, resonance and harmonics at the time, and I've always been really into music - I play the drums, guitar, a little piano, and I also love to dance. I kept hearing the phrase 'feeling tones' and I loved the way the word 'tone' can be used in relation to the body, as well as in music and colour.
The name TouchTones sounded like the perfect description for how, as a therapist, I tune in and listen carefully to the various qualities (tones) in the client's system, and how, by way of gentle touch and an attuned, calm presence, I facilitate a co-resonant field that then naturally starts to harmonize anything that is out of tune.