National Kinesiology Week for 2021 is from March 15-21 – and it’s only just occurred to me after all these years about the synchronicity between this awareness week and my deciding to study kinesiology. By the time Kinesiology Awareness Week had rolled around in 2013, I had discovered kinesiology existed, experienced it, wanted to learn more and enrolled, in about 6 months.
You may have seen my story in my About Me section on my website, or I may have told you online or in person – and here it is again! It’s interesting how each time you tell a story how different aspects of a story become more or less important. Retelling a story can be an insight into where your’re at on a mind, body and soul level. Plus, I do love to tell stories – it’s a tool that I use in clinic a lot to relate to important messages for my clients’ healing and wellness.
My background in life has been a lot around logic and what people call evidence-based science. I’ve been an audiometrist, a store and clinic manager, a policy writer, scheduler, analyst, and project manager to name a few. I have loved some of these roles more than others, and all of them have been part of my learning journey to get me where I am today.
Something was missing in my life – I didn’t know what it was. I had a great job, work-life balance, a wonderful husband who has stood by me through my darkest days, and two pretty fabulous kids. Not to mention my extended family, my friends and my pets. Yet I was still looking for something.
I’d dabbled in natural therapies before, I’d tried a bit of acupuncture, a bit of aromatherapy, naturopathy, some iridology, and I was starting to think that maybe I wanted to be a naturopath or nutritionist. I knew I wanted to do something in this field after my great experiences with natural therapies. So I started looking into studying those, and just like some other study I looked into, I found excuses about why I wouldn’t finish the course. Too many clinic hours to do, how on earth would I fit that in around work, kids, chores, life in general? Plus, it was a lot of money for something that I probably wouldn’t finish.
So I did nothing more about that for a while. I felt stuck.
Meanwhile, my son was having some challenges at school with emotional regulation, and behaving in a way that the school required, but was doing exceptionally well academically. I went down the path of psychometric assessment for him, we investigated ADD, ADHD, ASD and others, and all this testing showed nothing. Then it was suggested that maybe he was bored, and through a conversation with another parent, I discovered Australian Gifted Support. My son started doing some programs there, and Helen, the owner did some of her own testing on him, and from that suggested we see a kinesiologist. This was literally the first time I had ever heard this word! Helen introduced me to the world of retained neonatal reflexes and put me in touch with a chiropractor/kinesiologist.
I followed this path for my son, and it was having a great effect, but I really had no idea what this woman was doing and why it was working. She’d press on his arm, make a chiropractic adjustment, give me some supplements (not all kinesiologists are able to prescribe supplements, you do need additional qualifications for this), get us to do some exercises at home, and it just seemed to work. The school was happy, and my son was happier within himself too.
Talking to one of my friends from high school, I discovered that she also took her son to a kinesiologist! Wow – someone else I know was doing this too! How strange. She also didn’t really understand what this voodoo was and why it was working. But it was! My friend found this coupon for an introductory weekend course in kinesiology and asked me if I wanted to go with her. It was only $50, I remember, and I also remember thinking it was a good opportunity to have a weekend off from the kids and hang out with my friend.
Off we went to this weekend course, and by the end of the first day, I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life. After the second day, I was completely, totally, utterly in love with kinesiology. I’m so grateful to my friend for opening this door for me, as it has completely changed the course of my life, and now my life feels complete.
I started studying the next week – I had to get enrolled in a hurry and do a catchup class, as the course had already started. Yet another synchronicity appeared there, where I met another student who has become a very good friend, and we now run retreats together.
The first revelation out of this sudden change in my life was that all the objections and excuses and reasons to not study just vanished. Instead of it being about how could I possibly fit in the extra study and the clinical hours and all the other obstacles that I had in the way, it became about creating a plan to make this work. It worked.
The next revelation that I had was that I had to work on my own healing. I genuinely went into this course with the mindset that there was nothing “wrong” with me, I was just going to learn how to help others. That lasted about 3 weeks before I realised that although there was nothing “wrong” or “broken” that needed to be “fixed”, this journey was about my own health and wellness, self-discovery and personal growth as much as it was about other people’s journey. Still to this day, I recognise that the journey continues. I’m here to learn the lessons that I’m here to learn, and each day is another step on this journey.
The third revelation for me was about my beliefs and mindset. Some of the things that I learnt over time in my course, I initially thought were bullshit. Particularly I remember learning about chakras, and I remember waving my hands around thinking “this is bullshit” and deciding that I’d just do what I had to do to pass the subject so I could get on to “real” kinesiology. Then the person I was waving my hands over got off the table and said they felt better. I still said “bullshit” and didn’t believe them. It wasn’t really until it helped a person with a longstanding issue that I knew they had, that I thought there might be something in this chakra stuff. This has repeated for me with crystals and with Bowen Therapy too when I learned that. Funnily enough, they’re all things I use regularly in clinic now. I’ve learned to open my eyes and mind and step beyond my beliefs.
A revelation that was a long time coming was that my son was, and is to this day, my greatest teacher. Throughout the course of all my study, whatever subject we were about to learn, he would have a thing going on for him that was related to that subject about a week or two before the subject started. That still happens now with short courses that I do. He is definitely here to show me the way, as I may well have never discovered kinesiology at all if it wasn’t for him.
I was studying, I was practicing, I was doing all the assignments, and the actual “work” aspect of this still hadn’t occurred to me. Kinesiology is not really one of those careers where you can get onto Seek and find a job. My best friend was coming to see me, and asked me when I was planning to open a clinic and see other people. I said I wasn’t really sure, and she said “Great, such and such is coming to see you next Thursday”. So I spent the weekend with my husband turning our spare bedroom into a clinic space, and clinic life has grown and evolved from that point.
There’s been many challenging steps along the way – learning to be a kinesiologist, learning to run a business (which is a whole different skillset), marketing my clinic, educating about kinesiology, moving my clinic out of home, building up my clinic, and then finally walking away from my part-time job to do what I love full time. It’s been the greatest time of my life, because all aspects of myself are nourished – on a mind, body and soul level.
There’s so many side stories and tangents that have come up for me while writing this blog. But I shall save those for another day. This story is about how I got to be a kinesiologist, and the synchroncities and revelations that I have learned along the way. I’ve learned a lot about myself as a whole. I’ve learned the importance of true friendships in my life. I’ve learned to trust my instincts. I’ve learned to see the opportunity in the challenges I’ve faced. I’ve learned to open my eyes to other possibilities. Most importantly, I’ve learned to be authentically me. This is the true gift of kinesiology.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my story – feel free to comment below with any questions or comments you have. If you’d like to find the authentic you, you can book in online here for either a face to face or an online appointment. You can follow me on social media here:
