My passion is walking alongside people who are ready for change and want to be empowered as they tap into their intuitive selves connecting to inner wisdom and moving beyond the stories of how life ‘should’ be.

Our conversations will be hopeful, uplifting, inspiring and focused on intentions/goals. We will respectfully explore what is possible and how to move forward.

Counselling deals with healing emotional pain and/or conflict within or in relationships. Making sense of, understanding the past, how you got to where you are now and using that knowledge to strengthen you, whilst healing continues. The growth is often introspective and subtle. The Approaches we use allows us to respectfully explore what may be possible and how you can move towards a more inspiring future.

Thank you Liz, for walking beside me on this journey. I always felt understood. So much growth in so little time, Liz it is always such a pleasure working with you. Thank you.

Coaching works with people who are ready, striving to improve their circumstances in order to enrich their future. New skills and tools are used to build a more satisfying successful future. The focus is on maximizing strengths that will lead to a healthier, happier and more fulfilled life. Coaching is future led with specific strategies, plans, actions and accountability for achieving a specified goal, intention. These approaches are often weaved together depending where we are in the journey. There is always a sense of moving forwards.

It was an amazing journey of discovery. It was tough and it was worthwhile. I recommend the process and I recommend Liz Gow as a Life Coach if you want to get results.

Embodied Recovery is a somato-psycho-social model that expands the role of the body to include anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, movement, and posture. The core principles facilitate the intersection between somatic organization, subjective experience of self, and basic human needs for attachment and defense.

“Drawing on principles from Somatic Experiencing™, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy®, Sensory Integration, and Body-Mind Centering.”
When we slow down and open to inner awareness, the body can be our greatest resource, our teacher.

This work is influenced by the work of Dr. Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing Trauma Therapy). Levine noticed that wild animals don't experience traumatic stress (only humans and domesticated animals do)!

This is where mindfulness comes in - in order to allow the body to unwind, we need to practice being in the present moment and attending not just to thoughts and mental chatter, but also to sensations, images, emotions, and behaviours.

We are created for co-regulation, which means we use relationships and, the therapist-client relationship, to resource and strengthen the nervous system range. (This is partially based on Stephen Porges's work with polyvagal theory and also on Diane Poole Heller's work with attachment styles / attachment adaptations.)

The body is intelligent, anything we experience inside or any action we take (no matter how painful or seemingly destructive) comes from a place of trying to regulate and keep ourselves safe. Sometimes we just need to bring all of ourselves up to date by working through old material, in order to uncover our innate goodness and wisdom underneath.

If you feel that you have too much fight-or-flight feelings (almost all of us do) or are shut down and unable to engage (or you fluctuate between the two), it is likely that the nervous system has some incomplete loops, perhaps for many years. Now we can complete them. We can learn to regulate our nervous system and therefore learn how to tolerate uncomfortable feelings, until we are no longer fearful of them. You are developing your ‘Window of Tolerance’.

This is a continuous journey. You do not have to wait for a ‘destination’ because you develop your relationship with your body and go there for safety, each time you do the work.

The outcome of this is that you become more and more and empowered, whilst feeling all emotions, triggers, memories. We will be able to co-regulate with another and learn to self- regulate. This is where the healing occurs. We need to learn the language of the body and respond to that, not the shoulds, ought toos and have toos.

It often takes a life time to get here and it takes care, compassion and time with small steps to free yourself. This is a natural, organic state for us as human beings, it belongs to you, not some therapist or expert. It is yours.

Supervision is an inquiry into practice. It is a compassionate appreciative inquiry….. In supervision we re-write the stories of our own practice….supervision interrupts practice. It wakes us up to what we are doing. When we are alive to what we are doing we wake up to what is. (Ryan, 2004:44)

I provide professional supervision and mentoring to counsellors, life coaches, occupational therapists, supervisors and other health professionals. I bring more than 20 years’ experience supervising allied health professionals working in private practice, NGOs and in the public sector. I use this, my own varied experience and a large kete of approaches to support supervisees to develop wellbeing in their life and work.

Types of approaches and models I use in supervision include:

• Reflective Model of Supervision
• Supervision Process: Six Modes of Supervision
• TAPES Model – Theory, Assessment, Parallel Process, Ethics, Strategies
• WHOA Model – framework for mentoring sessions
• Results Coaching Systems

I was born in England and as a young adult I worked in private business/administration. However, I have always loved working with people, and believed in people’s ability to achieve for themselves. This led to qualifying as an Occupational Therapist, as a 'mature' student aged 28, at Glasgow Caledonian University. Over 18 years I had a wonderful variety of OT roles both in the UK and NZ, working in mental health, an eating disorder service, hospice and neuro rehabilitation.

I moved to make my home in New Zealand in 2003. I have worked as a counsellor since 2012, as a School Guidance Counsellor, ACC Counsellor, EAP, including District Councils and in private practice. I am a Life Coach since 2006, have facilitated workshops and teaching various subjects at Community Education Whangarei. I have personally experienced counselling, coaching and creative therapies on a number of occasions, still do and know how it can impact on your life.

On a personal note I am married to an amazing Scottish man. I love anything to do with water, enjoy rock'n'roll, ceroc walking, African drumming and curious enough to try most things. I enjoy socialising in more peaceful ways these days and have a strong practice of wellbeing and have practiced yoga for a number of years, resulting in my now being a yoga teacher. I hold gratitude for the privileges that enables me to have the life I have.

Memberships

  Member of New Zealand Association of Counsellors (MNZAC)
  ACC Registered Counsellor

Qualifications & Certificates

  Post Graduate Diploma in Counselling
  Certified Supervisor (WellTec)
  Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy
  Certified in Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
  Certified in Attachment Based Counselling
  Certified Somatic Experience® Beginner Level III
  Certified Results Coaching Systems (now Neuroleadership) Coach
  Certified Embodied Recovery Provider Level 1
  Certified Advanced ARTbundance™ Coach and Practitioner
  Registered Yoga Teacher RYT200 Hours
  Australian Center for Eating Disorders Practitioner (Gold Level)
  Certificate in Body Trust - Be Nourished.org
  Certifiied Travellers Program Facilitator
  SoulCollage® Facilitator and NZ Regional Co-ordinator
  Certified Master Kaizen Muse Creativity Coach
  KMCC Certified Modern-Day Muse Group Facilitator
  Certified Nourish Facilitator (EDEN)
  Certified Ho'oponopono Practitioner