You are unique.
A session is a sacred space for me. In being fully present with you, I bring the best of everything I know, without a specific template to follow. I want to first and foremost connect with you, and facilitate your deeper connection to your whole story. This connection is our doorway to more strength, insights, and healing.
How does a session look?
I structure my sessions following the Pantarei Approach way of combining communication with intuitive touch.
We start with your goals for the session and the topics you’d like to explore. In initial sessions I might ask different questions about your life experience, and the history of this topic, so that I have more context. Here, my purpose is understand the significance of the topic at hand, your goals with it, and to get to know you. In follow-up sessions, we would be following the thread, diving deeper and focussing on what is changing for you, and whether any new topics came up between sessions.
As the session progresses, we include the body more in our conversation. We usually do this with you lying on the massage table, but we may incorporate touch while standing, or sitting on a chair.
The touch I use does not follow a specific pattern (as in massage). Sometimes I may only work on your shoulders with strong touch, sometimes it may just be placing my hands on your belly and chest. Sometimes it might be just the head or just the arms. Sometimes, it’s all of the above.
It’s important to note that I do not fix or change things with my touch. The touch is meant to deepen your connection with the physical experience of the topic at hand, and allow the deeper layers of emotions and feelings to be fully present.
Throughout the session, we continue talking in order to give space to your whole story: from surface thoughts to its actual physical experience, the associated feelings and qualities that story contains, so that you leave the session with some more clarity, confidence, and tools in service of the goal we started with.
Towards the end of the session, you will have a few minutes to rest on your own, to assimilate the experience, before we close the session together.
Session Guidelines
Please arrive to the session 5-10 minutes earlier. Wear comfortable clothes that do not hinder movement.
If you are taking any medication, let me know. If there is an acute pain or injury that requires medical attention, please prioritise that over the session.
Always give yourself a few minutes after the session so you don’t have to rush to the next appointment.
What informs my way of working
Pantarei Approach
Pantarei Approach sees every client as a unique person with their own qualities and strengths. In Pantarei Approach I learnt to combine empathy, touch and communication to help my clients tap in to the wisdom of their body in service of their goals. This shift in emphasis on what is there, rather than something lacking, puts the client back in charge, and the foundation from which new insights and healing can emerge.
Plant Medicine
Plant medicines, also known as psychedelics or entheogens, deepened my connection to earth, animals, and other living beings. I realised that our lives, including our problems and achievements, are all part of a larger unfolding story. Acknowledging my participation in this ecosystem gave me strength and a purpose larger than the limits of one life-time in human form. I see that life on our planet only works with support from each other, and I hope to extend my support to people and other beings in every way that I can.
Buddhism & Yoga
My journey in Buddhism started with basic Mindfulness meditation practice, and led me through many teachings with Kagyu and Sakya tradition teachers involving Emptiness, Impermanence, Loving-kindness, and Wisdom. Later I practiced a Tantra Samkhya lineage of Yoga and found it more expansive and aligned with my values. Both taught me the value of dedicating oneself to a path of continuous awareness practice, in service of humanity. This attitude continues to enrich my life and how I work with my clients.
Jungian Psychology
Jungian psychology gave me a non-judgemental framework for understanding our psychological condition. Rather than objectifying people or their mental health, Jung placed our inner experience in a holistic framework that included archetypes, personal and collective unconscious, and the human shadow. It also gave me two great tools to work with, namely active imagination and dream analysis.
Competitive Sports
I loved sports since childhood and played a lot of cricket in our courtyard with my siblings. In my teens, I started practicing Taekwondo, and went on to compete at national level. I founded a TKD school and coached a few players to considerable success. In Singapore I played in an amateur football league, and in Germany I played competitive baseball at state level.
The combination of physical movement, aiming for a goal, recovering from injuries and setbacks, preparing for and pacing yourself through a season of competition gave me many valuable lessons on mental and physical management, without compromising on the joy of it.
Business Leadership
Having studied computer science, I went on to work for various startups and corporates in various roles for 16 years. In the last 8 years, I led various teams, building and launching products in different countries. This journey exposed me to all sorts of challenges and teachings. From working with colleagues on the verge of burn-out and helping them recover and re-energize, to negotiating with tough stakeholders, to dealing gracefully with gross incompetence, to finding creative solutions in make or break moments, I learnt over and over again that “it’s all about people”.
Placing people’s well-being first not only gave me a successful and fulfilling career, it taught me a lot about the challenges many of us face at work and how it impacts the rest of our lives.
In my work, I bring together elements from each of these big pillars, along with my life experience, to what feels appropriate and fitting for you, in that session.
Each session, and each journey calls for some emphasis on certain aspects, but it remains a co-creative process i.e. I don’t interpret everything from one perspective or push my clients in to it.
My goal is to connect you with all of your qualities and strengths, those present and ones you will cultivate, in the service of your goals.