Long before Within Waratah Wellness had a name, there was my own journey of trying to understand myself, life, loss and what it really means to create change from within.

I've always been curious about people and what makes us think, feel and behave the way we do. The mind, our emotions, our energy and the spiritual side of life have interested me for as long as I can remember. But it was my own life experiences that eventually turned that curiosity into something much deeper.

In my twenties, I lost my mum, my best friend and one of the most important people in my life. At the same time, I was becoming a mum myself. My little boy struggled with colic, I was exhausted, grieving and trying to work out who I was in the middle of all of it.

Then came a conversation I have never forgotten.

A dear friend looked at me and said, “Heidi, you need to wake up. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and make a change.”

It wasn't necessarily what I wanted to hear, but it was what I needed to hear.

That period of my life eventually led me to experience hypnotherapy for myself. I didn't discover this work because I was looking for a career. I discovered it because I needed something to change within me.

And it did.

For the first time in a long time, I began to understand that while I couldn't change what had happened to me, I could change what I did with it. I could begin to understand my emotions differently, work with the patterns I had created and make different choices about how I wanted to live my life.

That didn't mean life suddenly became easy.

Over the years there have been some incredible highs and some bloody hard chapters too. I've become a mum to three beautiful boys. I've watched Hendo navigate an accident that left him unable to work for 18 months. I've experienced the disappearance of my dad at sea and had to learn how to live with questions that may never have answers. There have been grief, uncertainty, change, family life, business, laughter, mistakes and plenty of moments where I've had to use the very tools I now share with others.

And perhaps that's one of the biggest things life has taught me:

Creating change within doesn't mean life stops happening. It changes how you meet it when it does.

In 2020, everything I had experienced and learned began to take me in a new direction, and Within Waratah Wellness was born.

The name was never random.

The waratah was my mum's favourite flower, so it already held a special place for me. But its connection to strength and courage gave it another meaning. Through my own life, I've learned just how much strength and courage it can take to make change, and I see that same strength and courage in the people who choose to walk through our doors.

Since then, Within Waratah Wellness has grown and changed as I have. I've worked with hundreds of clients, continued learning and expanding my skills, stepped into training and mentoring other hypnotherapists, created retreats and wellbeing experiences, and watched this little idea become something much bigger than I first imagined.

And now, Hendo is stepping into Within Waratah Wellness too, bringing his own lived experience, training and understanding to support men through their own chapters of change.

Our stories are different. Your story will be different again.

But the belief underneath this work remains the same as it was when I began:

You can't always choose what life brings you. But you can choose what you do with it.

And sometimes that takes the strength to look within and the courage to create change.

Create Change Within.