I have been a qualified Reflexologist since 1998 and I am a member of the Association of Reflexologists. I also have postgraduate reflexology qualifications in Advanced Reflexology Techniques and Maternity Reflexology. Reflexology is a wonderful way of getting better! It is relaxing and pain free, there are no prescriptions given and no implements used to ‘enhance’ the process. It is empowering and re-balancing, giving the body all the tools it needs to help achieve optimum health and wellbeing. When the symptoms are being treated medically the cause of the symptoms are ignored in many cases. Because Reflexology is holistic and therefore treats not only the body, but also the mind and the spirit, the cause of those symptoms often comes to light, and then that too can be addressed.

I am qualified as a Thermo-Auricular Therapist. Thermo-Auricular Therapy (TATh) is a treatment that uses Hopi candles that burn whilst they are in the ear, gently warming up the earwax and allowing it to vaporise, removing the wax and other impurities very gently. In this way the ear will not go into trauma and produce extra earwax to return the ear canal to its ‘normal’ state as happens after having ears syringed. Along with the removal of ear wax the treatment re-balances the pressure between the inner and outer ears, and is a wonderful way of correcting glue ear alleviating the need for young children to have grommets. On top of these wonderful effects the treatment is very relaxing and few people manage to stay awake whilst having their ears done.

In this modern world of stress and additives, more people are finding they are intolerant to foods and chemicals. There may not be an immediate reaction to the food or substance, but conditions such as hay fever, asthma, general malaise and sleeplessness. This is because the lymphatic system is less able to cope with increasing everyday problems and consequently other symptoms are presenting themselves. I am a member of the British Institute for Allergy and Environmental Therapy, and can test anyone of any age for those things their body may not be able to cope with at this time and provide a desensitiser to avoid the patient having to live with those symptoms.

I trained for three and a half years at the University of Kent and Canterbury and achieved the Certificate in Counselling Studies. This gives me a sound basis for the two ‘counselling’ therapies for which I am qualified. They are both Meridian Energy Therapies, one being Emotional Freedom Therapy, the other being EmoTrance. These are relatively new therapies to the UK and are immensely powerful. EFT works with negative layers of energy and a system of tapping. It all sounds very strange, but imagine a doctor tapping a syringe to remove any air bubbles before giving an injection, and you can begin to see how EFT works. It is wonderful for addictions, phobias, chronic pain and deep-set emotional issues among others. Sometimes however hard we try we cannot surmount a problem be it physical or emotional. This is because we do not always know the real root cause of the problem. By tapping on meridian exits we get to the reason the problem still exists. It may be related to something that happened to you as a child, making a small blockage in the flow of the energy system, but big enough to end up making a dam by the time other little issues have come by. EFT gets to the first little twig in the dam of the energy stream. Emotrance works with energy too, this time by a system of visualisations, allowing the brain to remove the energy blockage. We all need a healthy energy system; it has to flow freely and completely just as our blood does in the circulatory system.

When things are too much and choosing a therapy is difficult, Reiki is sometimes a good beginning. Reiki is non-directional. In other words it will go where it is needed regardless of where the practitioner sends it. It is very powerful and probably the most difficult of all the therapies I practise to explain. I believe that Reiki is a technique that uses love, pure unconditional love, in much the same way a mother will ‘heal’ her bruised child with a kiss and a cuddle. Practitioners of Reiki have had their ‘healing channels’ opened up by being ‘attuned’. I am a Reiki Master Teacher, and not only do I enjoy treating people, I also find it very rewarding taking people through an attunement process. It is an amazing and powerful therapy.

One of the most enjoyable courses I have done was Learning to Use Bach Flowers at Regents Park College in London. I have always used Rescue Remedy, and learning about all 38 of the remedies was wonderful. They are so safe and so versatile and there are no problems associated with taking the wrong remedy, or taking too much. Any one of any age can take them and animals too benefit enormously from using them.

Since I qualified as a Reflexologist in 1998, I have realised that there is so much to learn. I have studied different forms of Reflexology and other Therapies to try and meet the needs and requirements of a population bombarded by stress and other harmful life factors. I meet so many wonderful people through work, both patients and other practitioners and everyday I learn some thing new from at least one of them! The more I learn, the more I realise that there is so much more reading I need to do and so many more courses and workshops that I need to go on.

I live in Brook, near Wye with my husband who is a Marine Pilot in Southampton and two teenage sons who are at school in Canterbury. We have numerous animals, many of which have ‘special needs’ and a large untidy garden, which we spend all our free time battling with. We try very hard to grow fruit and vegetables and eat them before the dogs do!