ABOUT RACHEL

CERTIFIED AND INSURED SHADOW WORK PRACTITIONER - BRISTOL UK

 

Background

Hello, welcome, my name’s Rachel ‘she/her’ and I live in Bristol with my partner and our two children ages 14 and 11. I’m 36 years old and I began my healing journey 10 years ago when I was faced with a chronic physical illness that affected me in innumerable ways. It drove me to explore many different healing modalities which brought me to shadow work.

In 2018 I began to work intensively with my shadow, through personal one to one sessions and through participating in the ‘Healing The Shadow 2019 two year training program’. This embodied psychotherapeutic approach was an incredible deep dive into my personal healing, I began to gain clarity and understanding towards myself.

Before I began working with my shadow I was in a constant state of dissociation, fatigue, confusion, anxiety and stagnation. There was no movement in my life. I felt like I could only just about get through each day and I dreaded waking up for the next day, the difficulty of getting through the day weighed heavily on me and I felt a constant sense of guilt and shame. I was desperately lonely and I felt isolated and too frightened to share my vulnerable experiences with anyone.

Since working with my shadow for the past 6 years my life has transformed in so many ways, my relationships are now filled with a sense of safety, deep connection, honesty, vulnerability and joy. My thinking is clear and my life force is once again flowing.

 

Approach

I'm delighted to provide a compassionate and respectful space for you to explore and heal your shadows. I’m a certified and insured shadow work practitioner and I’m currently a support trainer on the two year 2024 Training.

I work one to one at my practice room in North Bristol where I offer a shame-free space where every aspect of yourself is welcomed into the room, from your fear, doubts, hatefulness, darkness, vulnerabilities, everything from the parts you feel the deepest shame about to your greatest strengths and power. I provide a space where all these parts can be explored, cared for and reintegrated in a safely held environment so that you can begin to access the vitality power and wisdom they have to offer you.

I work closely with the body, in which our pain and trauma is stored on a cellular level. The body is a direct gateway into our unconscious and into our emotions, it can guide us towards ways of releasing and transforming our emotional pain and trauma into wisdom and awareness.

I spent 2 years with Amanda Raymond and Dominique Sakoilsky exploring and working with the body and the nervous system. I learnt the healing power of yin energy and how to use gentle psychological, spiritual and physical inquiry for healing, as well as herbal medicine, body-work and movement. 

In 2019 I trained with Marianne Hill and Rod Boothroyd on the two year Healing The Shadow training. We studied the psychological theories common to most counselling or psychotherapy trainings – trauma theory, attachment theory,  relationship dynamics, transactional analysis, developmental theory, systemic theory, projection, transference and countertransference – the concept of the shadow, its presentation and its origins. 

I receive regular supervision.

I welcome LGBTQIA+ clients, and clients from all ethnic backgrounds to my practice.

“Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke

Qualifications and training

In 2017 I trained with Amanda Rayment and Dominique Sakoilsky on a year long course as a Women’s Health Practitioner.

In 2018 for a whole year I continued my learnings on deeply listening and attending to the body and the nervous system as well as exploring relationship to Self with Amanda Rayment.

I trained for two years with Marianne Hill and Rod Boothroyd and qualified as a Healing The Shadow Practitioner in October 2021.

In 2022 I was a support trainer on the Healing The Shadow two year training and I continue this role for the 2024 two year training. Here I continue to deeply immerse myself in the tools and theory of being a Healing The Shadow Practitioner as well learning the teaching methods used.

2024 - One day Anti Racism training with Healing the Shadow Organisation based on the book 'Me and White Supremacy' by Layla Saad. I am at the beginnings of exploring and learning in this area and it is incredibly important to me that I continue to educate myself on racial prejudice, systemic racism and oppression based on race or ethnicity. A part of this is fully acknowledging the privileges of being a heterosexual cisgender white woman born in the UK.

“I hope you will go out and let stories, that's life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories from your life - not someone else’s life– water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. That is your work. The only work.” 

— Clarissa Pinkola Estes