Short answer . .
My passion
Untangling that which holds the structure and thus function hostage.
Assisting others to Wake Up on all levels – that they may also shine their lights on the world they live within.
Why I developed the Gentling Way
- After a lifetime of assisting others (having heard their stories of woe, or medical forcing and of that not working, and of all those decades of dispensing care and tending /touching people’s bodies and souls: deeply, the Gentling Way was birthed.
- Always a hands-on worker, I discovered that the more gentle, less pressure, the more profound the result.
- Designing acupuncture colleges and courses post graduate in all hard areas (infertility prior to IVF clinics – and now after the sperm debacle when almost NONE are fertile), AIDS – prior to medications, cancer – when chemo etc have failed – and difficult/’high risk’ pregnancy and post surgical repairs, I am well versed at being the last in the long line of people who have had maybe one piece of your healing puzzle.
- Let us put ALL the pieces on the table – right side up.
HERstory
Why I am likely to be a useful problem solver/consultant
If this is what YOU need
This is set in a personal format – different from the usual CV
Always seemingly at war /odds with the mainstream . looking back I can see that if everyone did/thought/anything – I automatically went my own way away from this. As a child, I was seen as a threat by the parents of other children/teenagers, as I was inclined to NOT follow the crowd. I thought about everything – having plenty of time on my bike, being alone in nature. Questioning everything may have been seen as being a dissenter.
Being me did not lead me into sex, drugs, rock and roll and partying. I had a natural high disregard for altering my own state. Not even trying anything as cigarettes, drugs, alcohol and coffee were offered. I stuck with only drinking water, and milk or orange juice when out with friends at the pub. Not interested in alcohol, caffieneor any ‘party’ tricks.
As a child, I was sent off to walk the few miles to Sunday School most Sundays. Being a responsible eldest daughter, I played along – it gave me respite from my mother – and her me. And I could sing – loved that part. As the years passed, I also went to weekly after-school Bible Study for the first few years. Not sure what my reasoning was, as my childhood interests were diverse and really at odds with their dogma. I saw the work as a combination of fairy tales – for those that needed succour from life – and a vague historical note of anthropological interest. My extensive reading was helped by going along with my dad as he volunteered to be at the local library alternate Saturday evenings – so I had this and his being the non fiction buyer of the library – thus all the new books to look at, at home.
My interests were always anthropological in nature – what made humans tick? From fairy stories from other lands, archeology (esp Egyptology) and the very distant past of dinosaurs. Discovering Erick von Daniken, I went into other explanations of long ago. I choose reading, being in/going to places away from people (on my push bike) and exploring all I could of all that interested me. Knitting (I lived in Christchurch, where house insulation and sensible heating were not so common – at least not in our house), gardening and nature were my friends.
Continuing in this vein, at high school, once my father left the family home (fairly unheard of in 1968), with me in tow, we moved to the other side of town. Staying at the same school, the pushbike and I and Chch wind and winters struggled – I did become exceptionally fit. Outside of school, being away from all, I immersed myself more in cycling to explore the world, knitting, reading and thinking – TV was not my thing. Being told what to think, an anathema. My singular world – thinking and being Heather.
1972 – By the fifth year at high school, I decided I needed to live in life. I became in my eyes a ‘dropout’ – leaving half way through the year . . gravitating to hitchhiking around the country by spring. This broadened my horizons. I returned to begin part time uni and full time work to support myself flatting.
No parties, alcohol or drugs as my path was now with a dog, my bike, and still trying to work out why/how people were as they were. My choices in tertiary learning were out of interest, not education for a career. The sociology and psychology and then education, as I started a job at a very large institution for ‘retarded’/brain damaged people. I would have done this for free. I had found a job worth doing – heartful and in service.
1975 – I found myself with a one way ticket to Australia – to see my aged paternal grandmother. I stayed after a chance meeting with my first husband. Game changer. A fellow Aquarian, living in a run down banana shed in a cow paddock, we made a home. Growing our own food, eating through bags of brown rice, and living happily/ being totally outside the norm. Soon after – in Brisbane both of us working – and me then accidentally became pregnant.
So began the life long study of life outside the accepted reality. My husband was massively assisted by the local acupuncturist – I had never heard of such a thing – and not having experienced it – I knew I needed to learn how to help my own family – especially to NOT have a child afflicted as his dad had been. Acupuncture and all that passed by me was captured. Western herbs, vibrational medicine, touch therapies and anything that alleviated suffering was my focus.
1979 – Time passed – I became the first woman acupuncturist in Brisbane city, though minus a car, a family and child care. I worked three days a week, supporting alone, my then young son. I quickly discovered that what I was doing in the clinic was at odds with what my colleagues were up to, They started sending me their ‘hard’ cases. How was I different? Focused. Always seeking more. Any conference, workshop, training – I was there. Money? I made it so I could. Travel to Kangaroo Valley to see overseas stars – no trouble – son’s dad always took our boy – and I got there somehow.
As the only woman acupuncturist in the city – women flocked to me with their pain, their stories of woe – wrapped up in their bodies and their broken hearts and wounded psyches.I listened and worked out answers – across multiple modalities. Not realising that others trained in Qi moving – were following a different drum – I was using whatever worked .Deep intractable pain – as back then – the doctors shook people’s hands and told them to get their affairs in order. Medical bone pointing.
Early clinical practice in Brisbane
There were no laser surgeries, no HRT, no stomach/duodenal ulcer medications, no antidepressants/ anti psychotics, no anti inflammatories, no laparoscopies, no IVF. As a sensible woman I knew that the body healed itself – and it needed change. I made suggestions – people were so desperate. Dying badly was the next step – they went back to what would have worked in times passed – using time honoured ways of using plants and the different culture’s ways of assisting bodily hrepair. I used lymph drainage and body correction along with advanced needling that I chose over the ‘common garden variety’ that was now being taught.
TCM was easy to learn, and not that practically helpful in a modern Australian setting. People come in with complicated lives to untangle. Stress, life residue, and no way out – when seen through the normal lenses. They were not medical conditions, but heart lament expressed in ways that they are as yet not hearing – showing up as aches, pains and trials of life.
1981 I was asked to write the curriculum and teach for a new acupuncture college. I asked a fellow student/colleague/friend to come in also – as I knew I was to have more children and needed someone else to share the load. Judy and I wrote and taught the three year part time course, and loved every minute.
1982 – Meeting my second husband, we traveled through Europe and the UK by rail for six weeks. This allowed me to return to teaching with new eyes.
1985 – After teaching 2nd and 3rd year for a few years, I went into writing post graduate subjects, and put on weekend workshops independently. Whilst pregnant I wrote and taught the advanced work that had been so revolutionary in my city clinic. After the birth of Kathryn, my third child, although my intention that following year was to write ‘Moving Blockages’ (to healing), my life intervened.
‘Moving Blockages’ was to be my then answer to what acupuncturists needed as their thinking was blocked – what was taught was not what they needed to be successful. What was in the texts and being taught from China – was NOT what happened in MY clinic. We need to be carers and use our heart and hands – and to integrate all we had learned to fit each person who walked in.
1986 – The advanced teaching continued after my daughter arrived. Change of pace – she was massively brain injured, not expected to live. My then 3 and 11 year old sons became encased in what some would have called an obsession – Kathryn whole was the programme. Having spent 8 years working in others suffering, I now had an in-home patient. No medical answers walked in my clinic before then. So now it was my turn to pull up my sleeves and JUST do it.
I could NOT see a future in my being the sole carer of such a broken down being. I had worked for a year in a residential setting for those like her, I knew what was ahead. I threw all my efforts into keeping her alive, developing and breastfed – whilst I attended to also being a ‘housewife’ and mum of three. At times I also became my own patient, as illness from exhaustion, distress and lack of support – from those (medically) tasked to help (wait for her to die) and no family assistance.
Life reorganised itself around a full time in house programme – initially to keep her alive (breastfed for 2 1/4 years) and then to have her sleep (not really ever achieved well), to eat and to poo. These are givens for most. In automatic – most bodies – Kathryn – no – in a fight with me to the death – to escape here. The redevelopment of her injured brain was the next hurdle. The Glenn Doman programme for neurological rehabilitation was my saviour. Three times a year we traveled to Healesville, Vict and received our new directions. She blossomed with the care and attention. She strenuously did not agree with any of it. The volunteers I found, trained and worked with daily. This got her walking at 13 months – and as the first three were in a coma – we were on track – I thought.
1991 – Being vaccinated at my schedule created many almost death scenarios. By the time she was the best she had ever been – and almost grown out of autism – (an autistic baby is no one’s idea of fun), at four and a half years of age, after much angsting and asking doctors – who all provaricated and would not state the now obvious – she was one the ‘herd immunity’ idea was trying to protect – against my inner knowing – I got her jabbed with the MMR. Neither of the boys had had this. They were mildly ill with all childhood illnesses. That prime the maturing immune system. I thought this would be to her detriment. Never suspecting this fork in the road. Little did anyone warn me.
Backing up – I knew we were in trouble with vaccinations as my sister nearly died in front of me when she was given an egg for the first time. Connection? Anaphylaxis as vaccines were grown on eggs. My cousin died 20 years after a bad dose of something – the medical enquiry discovered. My son was altered when he was given a gamma globulin at 13 months of age when I had Hep A . . . (he had been almost fully breastfed – so he would have been fine).
I had contracted whooping cough from the vaccine at 3 months of age and saw no need for any of my children to get this as well – as I was conferring natural immunity as I breastfed and they were under the care of a natural health problem solver – so I figured I could sort out whatever came our way – that was why I went into this career anyway.
1991 – Terror reigned after her jab – it took a few months – as I had been attending to all that happened naturally. This took over. She started fitting massively. She got lost, never found. I spent over a year trying to keep her alive – we lost most of the ground we had scrabbled back from the shocking beginning.
Her new symptom – fitting into status epileptus began. Psychiatric splits. Screaming unmercilessly. Possession states. No medical assistance besides palliative care, Programe had to stop as she tried to get my hands around her throat to strangle her. Her skin peeled off. She lost most of her hair, she was skin and bone.
Seeking a respite centre that would allow her a break from me who had kept her here into this hell, I rang the Buddhists-centre and after being directed to the Tibetan retreat centre at Eudlo to see the medicine monks there, I watched as Pende Hawte walked around and around with her, with the picture of the Dalai Lama over her head, reciting mantra. She recovered – ate and drank for the first time in days and life continued.
With the new issue of possession states, battles with satan for her soul. Life looked likely to others as though it continued on the outside as the mum of three – the dad left and I kept going . . Occasionally seeing patients as I was that one who made changes for all who sought my ministrations.
Gradually the boys grew up. I attended births – initially at home then in hospitals as a mother support/natural birth advocate. Having my own (I thought) traumatic experience bathing my first son, I did not want any of my friends going through this – so I appeared to help. And help I did – discovering all I could with the vibrational remedies to undo the head spaces that were holding the opening/initiation into maternity back.
Between this and my fingers on points – we traveled far into easy birthing.
I went back to teaching acupuncturists at the college I had written for.
I was using moxa, massage (moving STUCK) and as a naturopath who had been a vegan macrobiotic, I had a natural bent for discovering the ways to assist the body to help itself
1992 – I was also studying the easiest degree for me – Bachelor of Adult and Vocational Learning. Thus I returned to the college to teach 3rd years again.
1993 – At the TCM, Chinese medicine and HIV/AIDS conference in San Francisco, I discovered unity against the common enemy – the virus and its savage onslaught. This was prior to the drug regimes that were so debilitating. As I had had a blood transfusion at the birth of my second son, the same week 5 babies died in Bne of an infected blood donation, I was one of the first in Australia to be tested for AIDS the following year, I had a personal and professional interests – as this was actually easy to change and return the body to normal – as was those coming in with other apparently ‘hopeless’ cases.
Using the body to fend off the attack by strengthening it was my thing and I ended up with a third of my patients recovering from this, a third with fertility/pregnancy related issue. Until . . . accidentally pregnant again I left Australia and went back home to NZ. After this few months, I came back to Brisbane, a new single mum at 40.
1995 – Leaving my much loved daughter in care, I sent my budding wee man (2nd son) to live with his dad now in Perth. The oldest son as an adult to visit in Brisbane. me attempting to complete the quarter semester of my degree took another 7 years – as this was not an easy ask. My youngest son was now living with his dad, I was a childless mother. The clinic and my passion for knowing more/stretching the boundaries for others (as Kathryn’s mother) saved me – gardening and living at least an hour away in the hills and working alternate days – with nature and myself the rest.
2004 – Finding a weekend retreat in the midst of my home and garden renovations became the beginning of a push to return to experiential workshops. After attending many, with a new friend, I met Duncan. This began a new stage of life – we got Ryan back, we moved to NZ after I had written a different book – What Dads Can Do – as a manual for the partners of pregnant women.
As I had always trodden my own path, and helped those who wanted more /different to what was offered – I knew that it was a simple matter of following nature. Hands on, loving touch from the heart and an intact family followed. That was the plan. The book and two DVDs took all of our savings and more. I published in Brisbane and returned back to our home in NZ to find that I needed to rescue my youngest son. Back to Bne and a new clinic and life started – me flying in and out to see my husband, and son and eventually being a self funded FIFO worker.
2006 onwards – I worked as the problem solver, initially for the ‘high risk’ pregnancies at the local closed Christain sect. When in the country – I was in and out for 15 years till I stopped in 2020 and was there on call. I made huge inroads in supposedly ‘hopeless’ cases. Initially all the hostels had at least one copy of the magic book to transform all pregnancies and births – What Dads Can Do . Teaching their midwives and health workers how to magically do what I did.
2007 – I traveled to the Netherlands to deliver my work, taking along with me the video series that became a hit for all working with women’s health. Being sold in the USA at Pro D’s acupuncture face to face weekend courses, I became internationally known – especially as in all that ‘spare’ time when not working in my clinic or studying for the degree, I studied online and wrote extensively in acupuncture forums – whilst writing/producing workshops.
2012 – I stopped attending local acupuncture gatherings (always giving practical workshops) and started on the international stage of presenting what works.
2014 – After attending Rothenberg acupuncture conference, I returned to Australia, to NOT become that acupuncture guru – but to deviate into abdominal and structural corrections – back to my roots. (My major acupuncture lecturer had been a chiro who was into womb corrections). Here I was – back there using my hands and body weight . . . I did the fast track of all I could in this work.
2015 – began presenting initially online then in person in L.A. See more here
At the same time, I was taking Self Care classes for those who wanted to go on in Arvigo – and branched into assisting the acupuncturists who desired to do more – to use their hearts and hands.
2016 – Having gone as far as I could in the Maya/Arvigo system, I found Dr Jennifer Mercier’s work and traveled to Chicago to partake. Returning home, I played around with ALL patients – not only the female’ inferile’ ones – and developed my own holistic multi modality, multi lineage, transformative, Qi and body aligning style, Living Ligaments – The Gentling Way.
2017 – onwards – traveled internationally teaching as usual as a practical hands on acupuncturists, PLUS my own work. Starting little pods in the south of France, USA, and in NZ as well as in Australia.
2020 – My 15 years of the in-and-out-of-NZ and back to work in Bne was halted in the orchestrated halt we had to have.
Whilst stuck locked down in NZ, I was on a mission to explore what was happening. ‘Hard’ and ‘hopeless’ having been my life’s work. Past learning and trailing in practice as had been my passion was now replaced by a whirlwind dissembling my life in Bne – long distance, and simplifying NZ life. Gardening lots. Teaching my practical experiential online. . . . . Still working with the desperates – mainly horror pregnancy complications – at the closed community. Where women were expected in their worn out state to keep having babies- at least 12.
2021 – Ducking over to Australia to complete the training for my students – under my hands – I thought – the states gradually shut down. Then we were locked out of NZ. House sale from afar eventually happened. We went from being refugees, and nomads, to house sitters, and eventually home owners again. All the while – seeing occasional people who wanted care, and always teaching online.
2022 – Teaching online and recently in person, I am now collating my life’s work Having finally gotten my library of all notes and texts back to me, the task ahead is to share with as many as possible how easy living can be.