Blog Image

Acorn Health Blog

What we love is great health...

...and we like to write about how we can all achieve better health, naturally. Sometimes tips on how you can DIY to better health and sometimes on the therapies that can make a difference to you, your health and wellbeing.
Thank you for reading, We hope you enjoy :)

Acorn’s Therapist of the Month – Eileen Strong

Personal stories, Therapies Posted by JadwigaPosted on Thu, September 28, 2023 10:00AM

Hi all,

Eileen here.  I’ve been working at Acorn for quite a few years, offering a range of different therapies  including massages, facials, mind-body and meridian-energy healing (Emotional Freedom Technique)  and Meditation. 

I am based in the therapy room directly next to Acorn Reception, which overlooks the Market Place, and am available for appointments and consultations on Fridays from mid-morning to late evening.  On-line therapies via Zoom are also available on Mondays.  You can find all my offerings and availability for either of these via the Acorn website and booking system.  

George, our Sports Massage Specialist, also works from the same room that I use but on different days (obviously!) .. and here we are together, having a chat about therapist stuff in our Acorn setting.

Eileen and George in our shared therapy room at Acorn.

However,  many therapists work outside of a fixed therapy room.  Many therapists are mobile and will visit you at home; I know quite a few hairdressers, chiropodists and reflexologists who only ever work mobile. 

I also have friends who are “full time festival therapists” who only ever work the festival circuit and earn most of their annual income that way.. they might be doing massages from dawn till dusk at places like Glastonbury Festival, very lucratively,  but the downside being it’s very seasonal income; they usually have a home base of sorts for the winter months, or have other jobs to supplement their income.  Some therapists enjoy working the big cruise ships (lots of tips!) too.

Having a therapist skill-set can present opportunities all over the world! And for me, at least, definitely creating opportunities to jump in the campervan and take off on a road trip.  Let me share a few recent examples with you, if that’s ok!

Last month (August 23 as I write this!)  I was invited to teach a 2-day “Learn Quantum-Touch” workshop in Scotland, so I treated it as a bit of a road trip adventure and went up to Falkirk in a campervan, tagging on a day or so either side of the workshop to explore some of the local visitor hotspots. I had a great time up there, and was able to re-connect with some previous Scotland workshop students who have since become great friends.  I’m planning on getting back up there to teach another workshop early next year.   

In September this year I had a more local road trip adventure with my Festival Therapist hat on.  Here’s a short video showing the highlights from that:

I don’t take my full therapist offerings to the festivals as it’s more of a mobile-therapy set up .. otherwise, there is just simply too much equipment for me to lug about! 

My most popular treatment at festivals is a good old “neck back shoulder” massage and “Indian Head Massage”. Also Quantum Touch energy-healing;  these are fantastic for helping people recover quickly from the aches and pains (and stress!) of a night in a tent on a sleepmat .. and to help them relax more quickly into the chill-out vibes. 

I also met 1 lady who was in the middle of scheduled chemotherapy treatments and was feeling pretty grim and tired;  she just wanted a relaxational/massage based therapy so she could “feel a bit more human” again so I was able to offer her a Cancer-Touch Therapy therapy (also called Comfort Touch) which she really appreciated.

I have noticed that  there seems to be a lot more interest in the energy-based therapies at the moment (Quantum-Touch / spiritual healing / Reiki etc).  Perhaps it’s a reflection on how many more people seem to be wanting to take more responsibility for their own health, and take a more “preventative medicine” type of approach (which is how the East have done it for years) rather than waiting until something is “broken” then trying to get it fixed.  

And welcome to the Festival Therapy Room

Next month, I am off up to Buxton for the Health and Healing Festival (aka Mind Body Spirit show on 28 & 29 Oct 2023) where I’m doing a Quantum-Touch talk and live audience demo, and also offering mini treatments all weekend and promoting my next upcoming Quantum-Touch trainings.

So as you can see, as a therapist, we get lots of opportunities to get out there in the big wide world, walk our talk and strut our stuff. And that’s in addition to us having a job that we already love doing, that’s rewarding, fulfilling .. and  really helps other people feel better fast!

Eileen Strong

Holistic Therapies

www.eileenstrongcoaching.com



My hypnobirthing experience

Personal stories Posted by Little AcornPosted on Fri, May 13, 2016 08:34PM

By Rebecca Slater

There is a saying “Giving birth should be your greatest achievement not your greatest fear”. When I found out I was pregnant in March 2015 I was over the moon but having had a lifetime of hearing people’s birth horror stories and seeing the media portraying pregnancy and birth as something to be feared I have to admit I felt more like I was about to face my greatest fear rather than my greatest achievement.

At the time if somebody had told me that I would feel so empowered by my pregnancy and birth experience that I would become a hypnobirthing practitioner I would have laughed, but that’s exactly what happened.

My fear of pregnancy and birth was pretty intense so I knew I was going to need some help if I was going to be able to enjoy my pregnancy. I did my research and came across Mindful Mamma hypnobirthing, a one day mindful hypnobirthing course that I hoped would help me feel more confident and in control.

At 32 weeks pregnant my husband and I attended the Mindful Mamma course, prior to which I had read the book and had been listening to the hypnobirthing track every day from about 24 weeks. I was really impressed with what I learnt and felt totally chilled throughout the pregnancy and was just looking forward to my babies’ arrival. It also really helped my husband know what his role would be during the birth as I think sometimes birth partners can feel a bit out of it and not fully confident in knowing how they can help and how important they are.

What I loved about the course was that it wasn’t at all how hypnobirthing is often portrayed. A lot of people think hypnobirthing is only for those who want a home birth or that those who do it are all hippies, this wasn’t the case at all. The tools and skills I acquired from Mindful Mamma can be utilised at any type of birth, it didn’t just promote undisturbed birth it also encouraged the use of hypnosis for birth alongside mindfulness techniques for medicalised births, such as inductions and caesareans.

By utilising the tools that Mindful Mamma had furnished me with I sailed through pregnancy and although I didn’t end up having the birth that I had planned I felt totally in control throughout the whole experience and when my baby made his very chilled arrival into the world on Wednesday 25th November I knew that I definitely experienced my greatest achievement.

From day one people have commented about what a calm, contented baby he is and nearly six months on that hasn’t changed. I think Mindful Mama played a huge part in this as it helped me relax and stay calm not only during the birth but also throughout the pregnancy, which I believe my baby picked up on.

I think that many people feel that they have had a negative birth experience because they see birth as something that has happened to them rather than something that they have had a say in and control over. I became a Mindful Mamma practitioner as I want more women and their birth partners to feel empowered by birth and this can be achieved by helping with creating positive mind-set through a variety of hypnobirthing and mindfulness techniques and also by giving them the tools they need to feel confident enough to ask questions that will help them make the decisions that are right for them and their baby.

I will be holding classes once a month at Acorn Natural Health Centre to find out more visit http://www.mindfulmamma.co.uk/rebecca-slater-ilkeston-heanor-and-surrounding-areas/