Photo by Oliver Pacas on Unsplash
Kerry has over 20 years of experience of lecturing and teaching in schools and colleges and has delivered well-being programmes to students and staff alike. She has trained with the renowned Katherine Krueger, founder of Journey of Young Women, as a mentor and circle facilitator for girls. More recently, she has been a contributor to Breathe and Teen Breathe Magazines. An accredited Hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner with a thriving practise, she specialises in the area of women’s health.
With three children of her own (two girls and one boy), and a wealth of experience working with adolescents, Kerry feels passionate about equipping our children with the tools they need to embrace this rite of passage.
‘Over the years, I have noticed the impulsive, carefree way my children move: never taking the well-trodden paths, instead scaling walls and skimming the crests of rocky verges. Their movements are a primal dance upon the landscape; an exploration and celebration both of it and of themselves. Children live inside their bodies while I live inside my head, a habit I am slowly unlearning.
I remember this congruous sense of self from my own childhood when my mind and body were one and provided me with all I needed to playfully explore. Somewhere between childhood and womanhood, I learned to judge and mistrust my body. Instead of marvelling at its changes, I was disgusted by my bodily emissions and critiqued its changing landscape: my boobs were too small, I was too tall, too skinny. I looked enviously at friends with burgeoning soft round curves and wondered why they were not delighted with their bodies. I stooped and my shoulders collapsed inwards, like a turtle retreating into its shell.
Over time, I found small fragments of my terrain that measured up to the illusory ideal and learned to frame them with skimpy garments or heavy make-up. I lived on, not in my body. An invisible line was drawn and crossed, only rarely, in moments of bliss where the delights of the flesh would drown out the whirring of my mind for a moment or two.
This estrangement from my body made me deaf to its needs, its wisdoms and its joys. I muted its voice further with the contraceptive pill, coming home to it only many years later when I needed something: a baby. For many women the story of disconnection continues here, with the struggle to conceive, difficult pregnancies and traumatic births. I was lucky: for me it was a kind of homecoming. I learned to care for my body as I would care for a child because my body and my baby were one. Through hypnobirthing, I found strength and harmony in my mind and body and an overwhelming reverence for my flesh in all its glorious animated form. I exulted in the powers of my miraculous frame and began to appreciate the smaller miracles that it performs daily.
As I watched my eldest daughter take her first teetering steps toward womanhood (so much earlier than I had anticipated!), I was determined to preserve her easiness with her body and her acceptance of herself and the gifts she brings. I wanted her to carry this sense of trust and joy in her body, this being from the inside out. I didn’t want her to be in her 30s before she learned to love her body and herself.
I looked around for a group that would be able to guide and support us in this quest and could find nothing in Norwich. So, I looked for, and found in Charlotte, a supportive, passionate and wise sister who could help me to create one. The rest is history.’
With three children of her own (two girls and one boy), and a wealth of experience working with adolescents, Kerry feels passionate about equipping our children with the tools they need to embrace this rite of passage.
‘Over the years, I have noticed the impulsive, carefree way my children move: never taking the well-trodden paths, instead scaling walls and skimming the crests of rocky verges. Their movements are a primal dance upon the landscape; an exploration and celebration both of it and of themselves. Children live inside their bodies while I live inside my head, a habit I am slowly unlearning.
I remember this congruous sense of self from my own childhood when my mind and body were one and provided me with all I needed to playfully explore. Somewhere between childhood and womanhood, I learned to judge and mistrust my body. Instead of marvelling at its changes, I was disgusted by my bodily emissions and critiqued its changing landscape: my boobs were too small, I was too tall, too skinny. I looked enviously at friends with burgeoning soft round curves and wondered why they were not delighted with their bodies. I stooped and my shoulders collapsed inwards, like a turtle retreating into its shell.
Over time, I found small fragments of my terrain that measured up to the illusory ideal and learned to frame them with skimpy garments or heavy make-up. I lived on, not in my body. An invisible line was drawn and crossed, only rarely, in moments of bliss where the delights of the flesh would drown out the whirring of my mind for a moment or two.
This estrangement from my body made me deaf to its needs, its wisdoms and its joys. I muted its voice further with the contraceptive pill, coming home to it only many years later when I needed something: a baby. For many women the story of disconnection continues here, with the struggle to conceive, difficult pregnancies and traumatic births. I was lucky: for me it was a kind of homecoming. I learned to care for my body as I would care for a child because my body and my baby were one. Through hypnobirthing, I found strength and harmony in my mind and body and an overwhelming reverence for my flesh in all its glorious animated form. I exulted in the powers of my miraculous frame and began to appreciate the smaller miracles that it performs daily.
As I watched my eldest daughter take her first teetering steps toward womanhood (so much earlier than I had anticipated!), I was determined to preserve her easiness with her body and her acceptance of herself and the gifts she brings. I wanted her to carry this sense of trust and joy in her body, this being from the inside out. I didn’t want her to be in her 30s before she learned to love her body and herself.
I looked around for a group that would be able to guide and support us in this quest and could find nothing in Norwich. So, I looked for, and found in Charlotte, a supportive, passionate and wise sister who could help me to create one. The rest is history.’
Photos by Zen Mumma, Jackie Heffer-Cooke
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