Living Presence Massage

'Flawless'

Things that are perfect
are dead things.

Empty things.

A silence beyond change or challenge.
An endpoint.
A blank page.

You are a wonderfully messy thing.
An impossible thing made of salt
and rainwater.

Meat and electricity.
A dream with teeth.

You're too good for perfection.

- Jarod K. Anderson
Image - Chad Maddon

“One night, since I couldn’t sleep, I went up to the meditation hall, and sat all through the night.

I was just sitting with raw pain with almost no thoughts about it. Then something happened: I had a completely clear insight that my whole personality, my whole ego-structure, was based on not wanting to go to this groundless place.

Everything I did, the way I smiled, the way I talked to people, the way I tried to please everybody—it was all to avoid feeling this way.

I realized that our whole façade, the little song and dance we all do, is based on trying to avoid the groundlessness that permeates our lives.
By learning to stay, we become very familiar with this place, and gradually, gradually, it loses its threat.
Instead of scratching, we stay present. We’re no longer invested in constantly trying to move away from insecurity.

We think that facing our demons is reliving some traumatic event or discovering for sure that we’re worthless.
But, in fact, it is just abiding with the uneasy, disquieting sensation of nowhere-to-run and finding that, guess what, we don’t die; we don’t collapse.

In fact, we feel profound relief and freedom.”

~Pema Chodron
Image - Peter Werkman

✨ BENEATH THE MENTAL NOISE, YOUR BODY IS WAITING ✨

After 14 years of teaching yoga, meditation, massage and bodywork in the Northern Rivers, I am thrilled to be joining the team at Thera Massage in St Lucia from the end of July!

Over the years, I’ve seen clients return month after month to release the same stuck muscles, only to realize we weren't reaching the core of the entrenched patterns their bodies were holding.

That is how my signature Meditation Massage was born.

Far beyond a standard treatment, this is an active somatic journey.

By integrating breathwork techniques and mindfulness with intentional presence, together we address the stored, stuck patterns that tend to run your life beneath the stream of the mind—alleviating deep stress, anxiety, insomnia, and burnout.
It takes courage to meet the sensations in your body this deeply, but the reward is a real sense of clarity, contentment and a lightness that isn't easy to describe.

✨ Classic Bodywork Lovers, I’ve Got You Covered Too! ✨
My hands are still very much here for your targeted physical maintenance. It is my joy to also offer:

Deep Tissue (for stubborn knots & tension)

Ultimate Relaxation (to soothe the body & soul)

Traditional Ayurvedic Massage (warm oil detoxification)

Pregnancy Massage (nurturing support for mums-to-be)

📅 READY TO CHOOSE STILLNESS?
I am now taking bookings exclusively for Thursday and Friday afternoons (1-hour and 1.5-hour sessions available).

Slots are limited and will fill fast. Send me a DM to secure your end-of-week reset!

Rachel

LIFE LATELY: University, challenged brain cells, and a LOT of study 📚🤓🥴

It's been a wild few months—and while I'm not over the finish line just yet, I am so ready to return to my beloved massage and bodywork practices.

For 14 years in the beautiful Northern Rivers, I’ve had the privilege of teaching yoga and meditation while simultaneously healing bodies through massage therapy.

Throughout my own lifelong journey of seeking stillness and acceptance, as well as observing clients over the years, I've seen just how deeply our thoughts, beliefs, and entrenched patterns lock themselves into our muscles.

✨ We cannot truly unwind the body without also quieting the mind and accessing the deeper layers of what runs our lives.

And so, my MEDITATION MASSAGE is born 🤲🧘‍♀️

Far beyond a standard massage, this is a dedicated somatic journey. Together, we will integrate breathwork techniques and mindfulness meditation with intentional presence—inviting you to stay with the felt physical sensations. This makes it less of a passive pampering session, and more of an active, somatic healing experience.

There is so much evidence nowadays showing that the body is the storehouse of our unprocessed trauma, grief, and unlived experiences... our shadow material. It is the untapped truth of our lives, and it really just wants our conscious meeting with it.

This is my invitation to you... but it will require your courage.

When you bring total, intentional, feeling presence to your body—dropping beneath the relentless chatter of the mind—you are with yourself in a completely different, profound way. This deep physical presence is exactly what allows true, integrated wholeness into your life. With it comes a real sense of groundedness, contentment, and clarity. It is a relief from anxiety, insomnia, states of depression, and so much more.

🌿 Note for my regulars & classic bodywork lovers: While I am incredibly excited to share this new somatic journey with you, my hands are still very much here for your classic physical maintenance! I am continuing to offer my signature Deep Tissue, Relaxation, Ayurvedic and Pregnancy massage sessions for those times your body just needs a pure, targeted physical release.

✨ READY TO CHOOSE STILLNESS?
I have, from the end of July, joined the wonderful team at Thera Massage in St Lucia and am currently taking bookings.
If you are ready to drop out of the mind and into the body, send me a DM to chat. 🤍

Blessings to all on this Celtic festival of Imbolc.

May you awaken to the mystery of being here,
and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon. May you respond to the call of your gift and find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame and may anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven, around the heart of wonder.
If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times.
In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control.
The more love you give away, the more love you will have.

John O'Donohue
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom.
Image - Rosemary Williams

YOGA NIDRA - THE SLEEP MEDITATION FOR RESTORATIVE REST AND RELAXATION

Yoga Nidra or yogic sleep in modern usage, is a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping, typically induced by a guided meditation, it’s essentially awareness in a deeply relaxed state. While many other forms of meditation help us relax, Yoga Nidra represents a unique state where we’re fully conscious but we demonstrate all the symptoms of a deep, non-REM sleep with delta brain waves.
Unlike other forms of yoga, Yoga Nidra typically doesn’t require any complicated postures. It simply involves lying down in a comfortable position as your guide takes you through the meditation.
Yoga Nidra consists of a deceptively simple set of practices for enhancing health, healing, resiliency, and well-being at all levels of body, mind, and spirit; and primarily includes awareness of breath, body parts, opposing sensations, imagery or visualizations of different kinds, such as nature, colors, or representations of the elements, like earth, air, water, or fire.

Primary informal research has findings of benefits to mind and body such as increased dopamine release in the brain, improved heart rate variability, reduced blood pressure, reduced anxiety, reduced pain levels, improved sleep and improved self-esteem.

A 2023 review notes that Yoga Nidra shows potential as a noninvasive, cost-effective, and easily accessible approach to help treat many health conditions, as a complementary form of treatment along with primary treatment.

This is my favourite practice of doing absolutely nothing to gain maximum relaxation, and my very great pleasure to offer this Yoga Nidra workshop , 86 Whitmore St, Taringa
Saturday 21st March 4.30pm-6.30pm.
$45 Includes tea, light snacks and a chance for chats and meeting others 🙂

For Bookings please click - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=38336533

YOGA NIDRA - THE SLEEP MEDITATION FOR RESTORATIVE REST AND RELAXATION

Yoga Nidra or yogic sleep in modern usage, is a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping, typically induced by a guided meditation. it’s essentially awareness in a deeply relaxed state. While many other forms of meditation help us relax, Yoga Nidra represents a unique state where we’re fully conscious but we demonstrate all the symptoms of a deep, non-REM sleep with delta brain waves.
Unlike other forms of yoga, Yoga Nidra typically doesn’t require any complicated postures. It simply involves lying down in a comfortable position as your guide takes you through the meditation.
Yoga Nidra consists of a deceptively simple set of practices for enhancing health, healing, resiliency, and well-being at all levels of body, mind, and spirit; and primarily includes awareness of breath, body parts, opposing sensations, imagery or visualizations of different kinds, such as nature, colors, or representations of the elements, like earth, air, water, or fire.

Primary informal research has findings of benefits to mind and body such as increased dopamine release in the brain, improved heart rate variability, reduced blood pressure, reduced anxiety, reduced pain levels, improved sleep and improved self-esteem.
A 2023 review notes that Yoga Nidra shows potential as a noninvasive, cost-effective, and easily accessible approach to help treat many health conditions, as a complementary form of treatment along with primary treatment.

It is my pleasure to offer this Yoga Nidra workshop at Erthed, 86 Whitmore St, Taringa Saturday 21st March 4.30pm-6.30pm. $45 Includes tea.

Please bring yoga mat & small cushion or pillow.

NEW MEDITATION GROUP CLASS
A sincere and consistent meditation practice will teach you to come into present mindful awareness in so many moments of your life - you enter into a direct and relational correspondence with life as it unfolds.
This awareness is essential in acceptance of how life unfolds moment by moment. We learn how much of this direct unfolding of life we actually resist, and through that process we learn to open our hearts and say YES to it all.
In this kind of spiritual life, healing doesn’t mean getting rid of fear, anger, or vulnerability. It means learning how to stay with these states without abandoning ourselves — without collapsing into them, and without bypassing them.
When the body isn’t met, spirituality can become something we use to override or bypass our experience rather than something that can actually hold it.
An embodied spirituality moves more slowly.
Then, we discover, there is clarity, peacefulness and space. Our hearts naturally open and begin to blossom with a love that holds and accepts. A love that holds the whole world.
We are exactly where we are meant to be.
It's time now, to wholeheartedly show up for yourself and your life, in silence and in stillness, learning how to come back to our deepest nature of loving awareness, joy and happiness.

Classes start SATURDAY 21ST 4.30-5.30 PM $25
Erthed 2/86 Whitmore St, Taringa 4068

Hit the link to book 🌺
https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=38336533
Or for more information feel free to reach out Rachel - 0415 602090 🩵

I am thrilled to announce that I have found a beautiful studio home for Living Presence in Taringa, Brisbane at ERTHED, 86 Whitmore St.
Full Mobile service still available.

🫶 You are invited to experience - Signature curated Massage, Women’s Circle, Meditation Group, Personalised Yoga, Traditional Ayurvedic Lifestyle Consultation, Workshops & Retreats.

🫶 Ultimate Relaxation Massage, Deep Tissue Massage, Traditional Ayurvedic Abhyanga Massage, Pregnancy Massage, Meditation Focused Massage, Reflexology & Leg Massage.

Now taking bookings https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=38336533
Or for more information feel free to reach out to Rachel 0415 602090

Warmly,

Rachel

Rewiring Pain Patterns

With simple fascia micro-movements, we can invite more freedom of movement, better flexibility, less pain, and a greater quality of life.
Sometimes pain can feel confusing. You stretch, you massage, you try to move more — and yet the discomfort keeps coming back. If that sounds familiar, there may be an overlooked explanation. Beneath your muscles lives a soft, supportive network called fascia. It’s connective tissue that quietly holds everything together, helping your body feel safe, supported, and at ease as you move through the day.
When fascia becomes tight or dried out, it can tug on nerves, restrict movement, and leave you feeling stiff or uncomfortable — no matter how hard you try to “fix” things. This isn’t because you’ve done something wrong. It’s simply your body asking for a different kind of care.
When we slow down and gently tend to this connective tissue, circulation improves, pressure eases, and the body begins to feel more cooperative again.
The wonderful thing is that fascia responds best to kindness, not force. With simple, mindful micro-movements — small enough to feel approachable at any age — you can invite softness back into places that have been holding tension for a long time.
With practice, this brings freedom of movement, better flexibility, more energy, less pain, and a greater quality of life. When we feel better in our body, it makes doing the things we love feel a whole lot easier.

Image - Jairo Alzate