The Healing Journey

Today's blog is by Stewart Cameron Harris, who offers meditation, channeled guidance and energy healing, and regression hypnosis at Healium.


"We are all on our personal healing journey." These were the opening words to a talk by a healer and spiritual teacher I attended some time ago. I felt some resistance to this statement, but as he continued I found myself very much enjoying his talk. His opening words stayed with me.

Inspired, empowered, and enlivened by the incredible traditional practices coming from yoga and meditation, I had taken an attitude of self-reliance. It had been a fulfilling journey in these traditions, solid and yet experimental, challenging and yet comforting. I had a feeling of certainty, believing that countless others had walked this path before me, and had left signs and tools showing the way.

However, I had begun to be aware of a feeling of need, experiencing a plateau of sorts. It was most unexpected, and a calling that had begun was now being answered.

Almost despite myself, within a year of this talk I found myself attending a training in Shasta, California to become a reader and healer. I had been invited and gifted the travel and accommodation to travel there from Japan. It felt like a miracle.

Through my experiences training in Shasta I came to understand the value of the healing professional. Much like bringing a clear light into the shadows of a room, with help I could realise and transcend limiting aspects of myself which I had felt but been unable to understand. A profound and renewed sense of trust developed. It was heart opening, liberating, and fun, so fun.

It is an unusual experience to illuminate the shadows in our life. There is a kind of discomfort, an inner resistance, and then as clarity dawns a feeling of liberation and joy that is the like the essence of life itself.

And these shadows are ever present. At times they are strong and bring a great feeling of limitation in our life, and at other times they sit gently in the background as aspects that we'll get around to exploring at some later time. They manifest as negative thought patterns, relationship difficulties, low or unstable energy levels, physical troubles, and illness and disease in their strongest degree. Always there is interconnection between symptoms, as if life is telling us something and repeating the message when we miss it the first time.

Paramount is the inner world of the mind and the patterns of thought that constitute our beliefs, whether they are conscious or unconscious. When we are able to consciously realise the limitation of a belief and embrace a more truthful and empowering attitude for ourselves a profound shift occurs. Like moving from black and white to colour. Then the body and external environment naturally start their shift to align with our new paradigm.

The healing professional is there to assist us when we wish. With their objective point of view and expertise, they help us identify core issues, empower us in the direction of our potential, and support the emotional, energetic, and physical bodies to align and integrate.

I have come to realise this continual process of living more of our truth as the healing journey, and I now see that we are all experiencing this journey in our own unique way.

The Process of Process

Today's blog is by Martyn Cook, who offers hands-on energy healing and tension-release massage at Healium.

Someone just asked me, "What on earth is process facilitation, and what does it have to do with self-healing?" Well, process could be understood in contrast to content, which would be your story about what you think is causing all that pain or irritation in your life (or in your body). As an aside, the pain in your life will eventually appear in your body: Traditional Chinese Medicine does not consider psychology separate from physiology, so why do we?

Process is the flow of emotions, ideas and energies through a person's consciousness (and through the body), and goes on all the time. In our culture we tend to disregard this inner landscape, and attend almost entirely to what is going on in "the outside world." Only when depressed, traumatised or injured do we experience the insistent intrusion of this inner world.

In our language we speak of a broken heart, a gut feel, or something causing us a "pain in the neck," and these are useful observations about our own personal process. But, for most of us, our inner processes are automatic and below the surface, and we don't know what is going on, nor how to direct these processes more skillfully - until the pain or disease arrives.

Hence facilitation - which is inviting another person to bring a trained eye to our inner goings-on, and elucidate them for us. For the facilitator, it is about helping clients make changes and get the results they desire in their lives. It is about smoothing or easing the way, and offering guidance in what might be effective ways of working. It is empowering and encouraging.

Facilitation is a bit like working with the energy of a lively river - regulating speed and depth of flow, navigating through turbulence, and confronting areas of stagnation and blockage. It works always with the here and now to improve the way the river flows. In contrast, a story (content) is usually about what I believe happened to me in the past, or what I am afraid will happen to me in the future. Both kinds of story leave me feeling powerless or overwhelmed - and tend to repeat over and over.

The main benefit of process facilitation is being able to disengage from these repeating stories. It brings relief from suffering, enhancing your capacity to live more fully and productively, and to have better relationships with others. It is a process of learning to heal yourself. The capacity arises to dwell in two realms at once - the inner realm and the outer realm - which brings a sense of groundedness, calm and confidence. Plus excitement.

.     .     .

Martyn is currently at Healium on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. To book a session, click here.

Exciting Yoga News!

Guess what? Healium has two new amazing yoga teachers! Joining Jenifer and Greg are Stewart and Bonnie!

It's Bonnie!

Stewart just returned to New Zealand from Japan, where he taught Ashtanga yoga for many years. Stewart is now leading a new evening class, Ashtanga Basics, every Thursday at 6:30 pm. You can learn more about Stewart and his class - as well as his other offerings - on our website!

We met Bonnie just after we updated our website! (Stay tuned for her bio!) She's a passionate yoga teacher who will be taking over the Friday 1:15 pm class starting this Friday, 15 April. She'll bring her own flair to the class as it's described on the website. We're really excited have her! See you on the mat!

This World But Once: All About Bowen

Katey's dog Pan loves his Bowen!

Today's blog is by Katey Kastin, who offers Bowen Technique, as well as Reiki and massage, at Healium.


I'd like to talk to you about the wonderful world of Bowen! I first came across this therapy about 10 years ago, when I received a 20-minute taster treatment at a walk-in surgery in Muswell Hill (London) one rainy day. I was amazed at how the incredibly subtle movements were affecting me - I could feel little realignments all the way up my spine in waves, as well as a deep sense of relaxation.

I got straight on the computer when I got home and started to research. Turns out The Bowen Technique had been developed by an Australian named Tom Bowen who was born in 1917. Tom had started off working at a dog-racing track. The dogs were raced too hard and too long and inevitably developed pains and problems. Tom started experimenting with his gentle therapeutic touch movements on the dogs, guided as much by his intuition as his research in anatomy and osteopathy (in which he never formally trained). And the dogs got better! Being an animal lover myself I got a real kick out of this!

Pretty soon, Tom was working on people, and by the mid-Seventies he was seeing 13,000 patients a year at his little practice . . . clearly something was working! He was a man who possessed a remarkable healing touch, who designed an inspired set of physical therapy tools, which he taught to his apprentices and have since gone all over the world! I figured I had to give it a go.

One of the things I like most about working with Bowen is the inclusivity. It's so gentle that it can truly be used on anyone - from infants right through to the elderly, from peak athletes to those dealing with crippling arthritis or chronic fatigue. I also like that it's a bit mysterious. By that I mean, I don't direct the course of the treatment - you do, or rather your body does. I put in the work and your body decides how to use it - what it's going to address, and in what order.

I've had people come to me for a bad shoulder. Two weeks into a course of treatment I ask about the shoulder and they say, "Oh, that's not loads different but my stomach trouble that I've had for 15 years and didn't even mention has cleared up," or "I've been sleeping through the night for the first time in ages."

Bowen is also holistic - in the truest sense of the word. It treats the whole person, not a set of symptoms or conditions. Saying that, the therapist can guide the process to an extent depending on the presenting conditions of the patient. For example, my Bowen teacher, Alastair Rattray, has done loads of work with Bowen and childhood asthma, with amazing results. But the great results that you can get are the bonus; it's the process of connecting with your body in this way that I find really delicious. It's just a lovely bit of body magic that everyone could do with!

.      .     .

To inspire you to try it, and to help your pocketbook, I'm running a deal on Bowen until the end of June. Bowen is the kind of therapy you ideally need to do a whole course in to get the full benefit, so the deal goes like this: First get one treatment at the full price of $85. Rebook within a week and you get your second treatment discounted to $70. Rebook again within a week and you get your third discounted to $50! So you get a course of three treatments with a $50 discount!

I'm at Healium on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so feel free to come in for a chat to learn more, or message me through the Healium email. Or, to book a session, click here. Cheers! Katey xx

I'd like to leave you with the words of Stephen Grellet, words that inspired Tom Bowen in his work:

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature; let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect for I shall not pass this way again.