I AM HELEN, I AM AN ARTIST

I am an artist. Even as a child, when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always the same: an artist. For a while, that expression was visual. I drew, painted and designed, eventually studying and working in art and design before moving into education and teaching others to explore their own creativity.

Over time, the materials began to change. My curiosity moved beyond what could be expressed on canvas and towards the body, movement, relationship and the experience of being human. Art didn't disappear from my life; the canvas simply became larger.

Today, art still sits at the centre of how I understand myself and move through the world. A breath, a sound, a movement can become an act of expression, rebellion or devotion. My palette has expanded: bodies, movement, relationship, attention, Eros, resistance and play, all held within the delightful, unpredictable nature of being human.

LIFE BEFORE THEORY

My understanding of this work began long before I had language for the nervous system, somatics or relational practice. I became a mother at seventeen, and much of my early adult life was shaped by responsibility, relationship, caregiving and learning to meet circumstances I could not control.

Raising my daughter Alexandra, who was born with a profound disability, changed the way I understand independence, interdependence and being in relationship without losing ourselves within it. Advocacy became part of my life early, as did learning to listen beyond words and pay attention to bodies, behaviour and subtle communication.

My life has also held trauma, violence, grief, love, loss and enormous change. These experiences are part of me, but I don't see them as credentials, nor do I believe suffering makes someone wise. They have given me an intimate relationship with the complexity of being human and a curiosity about how we remain connected to ourselves while being profoundly affected by life and each other.

THE BODY BECAME THE INQUIRY

Yoga and meditation were my first deliberate pathways back into the body. What began as a way of finding ground became a much larger inquiry into how our bodies organize and express our experience, and how movement, attention, relationship, touch and subtle energy shape the way we experience ourselves and the world.

For well over a decade, I have studied and practiced across somatics, nervous system work, yoga, meditation, Qigong, relational and intimacy practices, movement, bodywork, nondual psychology and subtle energy. I have learned from many teachers and traditions, sometimes deeply and sometimes long enough to know what I wanted to question. I am interested in what holds up in the body and in lived experience, rather than asking one framework to explain everything.

My work draws from this breadth while remaining responsive to the person, group or room in front of me. I bring the training; the body is never asked to fit the method.

THE SPACE BETWEEN US

My curiosity about the individual body has only deepened, while the field of inquiry has expanded to include what happens between us. We are social animals. Another body enters the room and something in us responds. We move towards or away, soften or brace, disappear, perform, protect, desire, resist or play, often before we have consciously decided to do anything at all.

The social nervous system has become an important part of my work: how we remain connected to ourselves while being affected by another, how we belong without abandoning ourselves, and how we become more responsive rather than simply reactive.

I explore this territory through relational practice, movement, intimacy, improvisation, play and Eros. I am fascinated by what happens when we are seen, encounter resistance, lead or follow, risk getting something wrong, flirt, fight, play, connect and create together. Relationship becomes part of the practice, and the space between us becomes part of the material.

THE ART OF BEING ALIVE

I am an artist. I feel most alive in the act of creation, and I believe that, in our own ways, we all are. To be human is to be part of the eternal cycle of creation and destruction — making, unmaking, changing and becoming.

We don't choose everything that happens to us, but we get to participate in what happens next. We can meet what is here, respond to it and create with it, holding nothing so tightly that it cannot change.

For me, this is the art of being alive.

TRAINING & EXPERIENCE

My work draws from more than a decade of ongoing study, incredible mentors and years of practice and facilitation across somatics, movement, relational work, subtle energy, education and the arts. These are some of the trainings and experiences that continue to inform how I work.

SOMATICS, BODYWORK & SUBTLE ENERGY

• Somatic Energy — John Amaral

• Kundalini Bodywork — Levels 1 & 2 Advanced Training, Elliott Saxby

• Kundalini Activation Process (KAP) — Kundalini Sisters

• Spinal Flow — Dr Carly Axford

• Kinesiology — NK Kinesiology, Hugo Tobar

• Spine Harmonics — Michael Richardson

• Nondual Psychology & Shadow Work — Elliott Saxby

RELATIONAL, INTIMACY & FACILITATION

• Intimacy & Attraction Workshop® Teacher Training — Michaela Boehm

• Wild Woman’s Circle Facilitator Training — Michaela Boehm

• Play Facilitator Training — EJ Love

• Trauma-Informed Facilitation — EJ Love

MOVEMENT, YOGA & MEDITATION

• Nonlinear Movement Method® — Levels 1 & 2, Michaela Boehm

• Yoga Teacher Training — Vitality Yoga

• Meditation Teacher Training — Vitality Yoga

• Qigong — Forest Rock

• Caligraphy Health Nei Gong — Master Zhen Hua Yang

ART, EDUCATION & PERFORMANCE

• Graduate Diploma of Technical Education with Applied Learning & Design Majors

• Professional background in visual art and graphic design

• Art and creative education across primary, secondary, TAFE and adult education

• Community arts and facilitation, including work with people with disability and other diverse communities

• Theatre and performance work — Tony Kishawi

• Kooky Burras Theatre Troupe

• Actor and mature model

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