Demeter offers counselling as a stand-alone intervention or by arrangement as a supplement to yoga classes. Counselling might be the starting point of your journey or a valuable addition to ongoing embodied work.
South Ground was founded upon the primary aim of supporting people to structure self-enquiry and self-healing into the everyday. Practice sits at the heart of all we do.
Self-enquiry requires giving truthful and rigorous attention to how we are with the events and conditions of our lives. In aid of this process, counselling can work directly to support the vulnerable aspects of ourselves that are revealed through our unique difficulties. These can otherwise get in the way of us bearing witness more objectively, and make it increasingly unsettling and challenging to continue on our path.
Counselling allows for what is discovered to be confidentially articulated and worked with over time: in this realm we can enhance self-awareness, explore relationship dynamics and provide a space in which to intentionally work on behaviour change and healing.
ABOUT DEMETER
I have devoted the larger part of my life to pursuing understanding of the human condition through the study of cultural traditions, western philosophy and psychology, and eastern contemplative practices.
Encountering Buddhism and Indian philosophical systems formally in the late 90’s, I began to practice Iyengar yoga regularly at home from 2001. I was invited to start a teaching apprenticeship in the Iyengar lineage while finishing a Graduate Diploma in Psychology at the university of Sydney.
After moving to Canberra in 2008 to deepen my practice and consolidate my teaching skills with Senior teacher Alan Goode, I returned to university for postgraduate training as a counsellor after my third child was born.
The convergence of practice-based understanding in Yoga with therapeutic skills that offer avenues for healing through dialogue allows me to support people struggling with a range of concerns, including signs of depression, anxiety, and relational trauma. I continue to seek integration of the yogic view on the source and nature of suffering into the work of the counselling space.
I am passionately committed to encouraging a comprehensive understanding of yoga in the broader community on this basis, and especially since it is increasingly viewed as an exercise modality or alternatively as merely an interventional add-on to therapeutic engagement, without its own powerful process for working with suffering.
As methods of support, practice and counselling operate differently, though they are both oriented towards insight. In an ultimate sense, the focus in both fields is how we are with ourselves, a question that can be explored through the mirroring relationship with the teacher or therapist.
I direct South Ground Yoga and its counselling space to offer support to individuals alongside teaching Iyengar Yoga classes to all levels of student experience.
Qualifications & Professional Development
Demeter is a registered counsellor (Level 2) with the Australian Counselling Association
(ACA)
2024
– EFCT Externship: Emotion Focussed TherapyTraining for Couples, BCEFT.
-Motivational Interviewing, Jeff Roberts, Relationships Australia Victoria
2023
– Recognising Eating Disorders, National Eating Disorders Collaboration, Australia
– CBT for Eating Disorders, InsideOut
– Memory and the Body: Healing trauma, PESI Australia
– Body Wisdom: An Experiential Introduction to Hakomi, Hakomi Institute Australia
2022
– NVR Association Level 1 Training (Non-Violent Resistance), Partnership Projects UK
– Restorative Practices with Families, Paul Nixon for Relationships Australia
– DBT Online Intensive Training, Megan Shiel, Expressive Therapies.
2021
– Companion Training, Seasons for Growth Adult Program, Goodgrief Australia
– Frameworks for Couples Counselling, Denise Warner, Australia
– Gottman Method for Couples, Level 1, The Gottman Institute
2020
– Domestic Violence Recognise and Respond Training, Lifeline A.C.T
– Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.) for Practitioners, Parentline A.C.T.
1999 Bachelor of Arts, University of Sydney
2004 Graduate Diploma in Psychology, University of Sydney
2020 Graduate Certificate in Counselling, University of Canberra
2021 Graduate Diploma in Counselling, University of Canberra
For all enquiries and appointments, please email me at counselling@southgroundyoga.com.au to arrange a time to talk.