Tired Of Having The Same Conversations (on replay) About Your Mum's Impact On Your Life?
WE DON’T DO THAT HERE. INSTEAD, WE CENTRE ONLY ON HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL.
You’re not a shrinking violet. You’ve become a resilient, accomplished woman, despite a complex (or jarring?) childhood with your mother– and though you know that asking for help is not weakness you can’t help but taking everyone’s needs on your shoulders, feeling like you need to do it alone, while worrying you’re not doing enough
Your super powers are sensitivity, self-honesty and kindness - but you know you give too much weight to what people –or your mum– say, and you want to finally know how to use your own voice, to state your needs and dream with clarity, without apology while keeping the sincerity and compassion that matter to you
To everyone else you seem so calm, grounded and open – but inside there’s often a confusion: “Can I trust myself to do the right thing for me?,” and you want to stop the splitting feeling that you are responsible for others’ disappointments whilst your feelings get sneakily swept under the rug
You’re a talented, half-full glass kinda’ woman- who’s hungry for validation, and felling truly loved which gets you chasing it in the wrong places and from the wrong people, fearing you’ll stay alone if you finally express your authentic self
You Also Know
It All Comes Down
To A Ruptured Relationship
With Your Mum
YOU'RE SICK OF HEARING YOU NEED TO FORGIVE YOUR MUM, UNDERSTAND HER AND "JUST ACCEPT"
What I’ve seen to be true after a couple of decades working with women from around the world is that you’ll find the resolution and move on when you unpack the emotional weight of your mother wound and finally centre yourself in your own life.
In the end, it felt like a weight I'd been carrying for a long time was lifted off my shoulders, something rooted in a lack of safety during my childhood.
In the middle of a big life change, moving countries, stepping into a management position at a retreat centre, I thought everything was going well. But I was running, running, running. I faced a serious confrontation and an emergency I didn't have the tools to handle. Things I had safely pushed under the carpet came forward and resurfaced.
I suffered from anxiety, couldn't sleep, I was stuck in fear, and it felt debilitating, overpowering all my senses.
Shelly came recommended by a dear friend and from the first check-in, something in me softened and a barrier melted.
During the months we worked together, I realise that I believed I had to do everything on my own, and that everything was urgent or an emergency.
I work with people who come to retreats to slow down and reconnect with themselves, yet I hadn't seen this blind spot in myself.
I learned to see that I don't have to take the personas I've developed so seriously--It's okay not to be perfect, not to have all the answers, and not to be the one who has to save the day.
The compassion I so easily offered others began to turn toward myself, and I learned to meet myself with kindness.
Working with Shelly felt like a breath of fresh air. I became more spacious and more at ease. Her approach is both steady and gentle, and I always felt held in safety. It was also powerful to do this work while life was in full motion, to have her walking alongside me as everything unfolded.
The affirmations she shared continue to support me in everyday life, and that has been incredibly meaningful.
S.E. Retreat centre manager, Italy
Is One Of These The Reason You're Here Now?
You've hit a wall
You're surprised at how reflexive saying “I’m fine” has become.
You appreciate your capacity to flex with others — but saying yes to every suggestion your partner makes, being available to clients or your boss 24/7, it's quietly exhausting.
Inside yourself it’s like you’re always waiting for someone to be mad at you – almost just for existing. Keeping tabs on other people’s reactions and what will keep them happy doesn’t make you happy– you’re seeing how much energy you’re losing to it
And though you swore to yourself you’ll never again date people who don’t respect your boundaries, you’ll never do and say the things you hated your mum did to your children, you find yourself – in spite of many efforts — at the again point.
Perhaps you’re connecting the dots, seeing vividly how your childhood shaped your anxiety, the hypervigilance and the emotional burden you’ve been carrying all along.
You need to know what's possible beyond this wall
You're at a crossroad
You started a new job, a business or moved to a new country and you’re tired of keeping on changing the outside while carrying your mum inside yourself.
You had a burnout and realised you were fulfilling your mother’s dreams - but how to start over feels confusing at best
You’re pregnant (congratulations!) and the thought you’d be anything like your mum scars the s**t out of you
Perhaps your mother is an elderly woman in need of support and you’re swinging between guilt and resentment.
Or your mother passed away and a new wave of grief is washing over you
No way your next chapter carries the same-ol'-guilt & emotional burden
You're done with metalising
Being in your head is how you survived childhood
Pretending that everything is ok every damn day was your refuge
But giving space for your feelings can feel like you'll lose yourself to a bottomless pit or soothing yourself with food or substances has run its course
Maybe you heard me speak on a podcast and realised that insight about your childhood and naming patterns was just the beginning but you want to finally heal your mother wound
You believe it's possible to lose more of that emotional weight
I am less enmeshed with Mum now. I am beginning to learn some of what I most yearned from her as a child, wasn't, and never will be, present--attunement, emotional safety, felt loving connection, shared play and delight. I am freer now, to find (and offer!) those things elsewhere; and of course, to give them to myself.
I heard Shelly on a podcast interview title that caught my eye, "healing the mother wound." The conversation gave words to many of the things that had hurt me, and I had struggled with in my relationship with my mother. I was certainly drawn to the wisdom that sat gently and steadfastly in Shelly's conversation and was equally struck by Shelly's presence alongside her willingness to bring her own experience to benefit others.
I knew I wanted to work on the pain I felt around my relationship with my Mum, and I had a strong sense that 'going from Australia to Zurich' (over zoom, thankfully!) to take the journey with Shelly was going to be deeply worthwhile.
I was right. Over time in our work, I've come to feel some big shifts; in a shared space which Shelly held with skill and love. I've learnt to hold more space for my own experience, including when others can't or won't.
This looks like acknowledging my own feelings: It's ok/natural to feel hurt by that, angry at that, dismissed by that tone or comment. I can also make choices to engage where I'm loved and regarded.
While I continue to give to others and want to, I have further learnt to choose myself, and my own commitment to wholeness. Sometimes this is about recognising when I do and don't have capacity, not simply responding regardless- choosing the relationships I will invest in, and sometimes how much of myself I share.
Life comes with some more ease now. I am somehow both more able (mostly!) to slow down, as well as step forward into what is meant for me. So greatful for Shelly and our shared work - I have moved away from heartbreak and continue to walk into my own strength, and new possibilities for my life.
Bec, Australia
If you feel on the edge of the life you deserve, this is why:
The mother wound lives in you as beliefs, feelings, states of mind, habits and memories which is more than the story of what happened – or didn’t happen.
It’s a lived experience that’s become way too familiar
The mother wound is a rupture in your relationship with yourself, others and life itself, rooted in the relationship with your mother.
This rupture meddles with your ability to stay centered in yourself.
And the habits, patterns, choices you hate falling into as if they were force major - live in your body
This isn’t a 'you' thing
You can break the cycle of pain passed down to you from your mother, grandmother and any woman in your lineage and transform those experiences that live in your body.
When We Work On Finally Healing Your Mother Wound,
Anchoring In Your Desire For
Self-Trust, Satisfying Relationships AND Fulfilling Your Creative & Business Dreams
THESE ARE THE RESULTS YOU’RE GOING TO GET:
Stop feeling like a “shitty daughter” when you choose to stop managing or saving your mother–pay her bills, mediate between her and your family, or field daily call about your (sex?!) life
You don't need to rotate personalities and fear overshadowing others when you can show up without apology
Boundaries stop being about 'yes' or 'no'. You become the master of your own energy, time and attention and restore control over your life
Second chances in dating stop escalating to third, fifth, infinity when your connection and safety needs are non-negotiable
Free from the belief that “loyalty”—to your mum, daughter, friends & anyone else—means settling for crumbs in your own life
No more living in emergency mode. Not every WhatsApp, work task or friend's request makes you drop everything. Without the guilt, you're a free and happy woman.
You can barely remember how lonely you felt, how afraid you were of losing friends if you stated your needs clearly. Yet here you are, celebrating the people who make you feel you belong.
You're not at the mercy of what people say or think because your inner voice speaks the loudest
You finally trust your own decisions and ways—no matter how unorthodox
Loving yourself is possible when her judgments, blaming, name-calling, body shaming no longer live rent-free in your head.
Packing up the “good girl” imposed on you, you can trust your multi-passionate, curious, explorative self again.
It's such a relief to release hyper-vigilance, being to her or others' expectations and the efforts to be enough
You’re not aching for your mum’s apology or from blaming yourself for the bad things that happen to you–because finally know down to your bones it’s not your fault and you’ve found closure
You're In The Right place
If You Want to De-Centre Your Mother
& Her Impact On You
To Restore Emotional Safety & Agency
And Live The Life You're Meant To Live
Embodiment was be the golden key needed to unlock my stuckness caused by my deeply ingrained, unhealthy belief system forced upon me by a narcissistic mother.
I owe her a new life!
I was stuck for quite a while in a meaningless and painful treadmill. Despite considerable self-development work, I couldn't even find the door out.
Shelly has offered me the safe space to explore my inner landscapes with my heart - places where my head couldn't have gone.
Despite my fear that once I let go of holding on to my old facade my life would crumble, I got the confidence to engage fully from the first session onward.
Unrooting the skewed beliefs was a thrilling exploration, a rollercoaster too but totally worth it!
This work gave me the confidence to dare a painful but liberating step!
Shelly is a master in creating a loving space for inner exploration, nourishment, insights that enable profound change.
Z.D., Switzerland
I made a trip with my mum to my aunt’s funeral where I spent three full days with my mum. I was a little bit nervous about the intensity but I cannot tell you how much I was thinking of you - we had such a good trip. I was relaxed and we had really good time that we’ve never had before.
I was at the point where I didn’t know how to handle the dynamic with my mum anymore.
I really appreciated the a free get-together meeting.
The financial investment was a little hesitation for me and it gave me a sense of your approach. I would recommend working with you 200%!!!
I learned to observe myself –the patterns, triggers and belief system– without trying to fix it. You are so immensely supportive. In situations, between sessions, when I needed you, you were there.
I love the combination of practical inputs and at the same time, being guided into meditation and allowing the messages to come from within that space.
A.T., Yoga teacher &SE therapist, Switzerland
Ready To Stop Packing Yourself Into a Neatly Small Box and
Finally Heal Your Mother Wound?
A TRULY BESPOKE JOURNEY TAILORED TO YOUR EVERY NEED
RECENTRE
Here's all the good stuff you'll get:
4 month, with 12x60-min calls in a cadence of three consecutive meetings a month and one week break for integrating
Gain a momentum of changing deep-seated habits and sticky charged feelings to see shifts in your everyday life
Suggestions for integration – drawing directly from your insights in the session at the end of each session
Simple and direct points for awareness leading to easy integration with any type of day (I see you busy women) so the meetings and your time in-between feel like beads on a string
Session recording - sent via email after each session
A reservoir of the full process so you can relisten whenever you wish (or for writing your memoir?)
Between sessions suport- email communication so you can reach out with your reflections, ask for witnessing or feedback around points that came up in the last session
knowing that you're not alone and don’t need to do it alone when something significant comes up
Investment
2,340CHF ( ~ 3195$ | 2,398£ | 2,748€)
Pay in full or 1-4 payments
Pay In Full Bonuses
Access to an exclusive resource page – with many meditation recordings, nourishment phrases to work with and short guided trainings
Because you want extra resources and love to plug in to meditations or recorded guidance
Recorded guidance tailored to you – drawing from a continuous thread from our session
So you have extra support to work with some sticky feeling and have deeper integration of newly found beliefs
Weekly love drops in your inbox - summary notes of significant shifts from your session, layered with extra perspectives from me
While you’re focused on processing experiences and noticing new possibilities of being in the session, the after session notes serve you like a map that adds every step on your journey, validates your experience, insights and shifts and give you a shared reality of your healing process
The Mother Wound is a Relational Wound
SO I GET IT IF YOU WANT TO TAG ME ON TOPICS LIKE PREVIOUS CLIENTS HAD BEFORE WE STARTED WORKING TOGETHER:
You want to make sure we’re a good fit because you’re not investing only money - your biggest investment is vulnerability, trust and hope
And you might be asking:
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How’s this going to be different, especially if I'm an emotionally aware woman and I’ve done some therapy before?
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Can I change my mother with this work?
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Will you tell me things I’ve heard before from a therapist, like “just push through those difficult feelings” or “just forgive your mum and get on with your life”?
You want to understand what Hakomi, somatic therapy is anyways, and what do you do if not talking
And you might be asking yourself:
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Will I need to tell you all my story? (I’ve done that so many times before)
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Can I get a clear sense of how you’re working with somatic healing?
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I’m not sure what my next step is, will I be pressured to work with you?
You want to get a first-hand experience what it could be like to work together
And you might be asking yourself:
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Is healing the mother wound possible? (maybe someone told you it’s like disability you just need to learn to live with)
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Will you be patient enough, compassionate enough for what, strong enough for what I need?
Which is why we start with a get-together call
The only thing left is to click the button below and discover the answer to all you questions
I was surprised how much was hidden in my body. We'd be scratching the surface of something and you'd say "where do you feel that?" and I'd be transported back in time and would know that feeling. This made me realise that my triggers are deep rooted and just in knowing and understanding that helped me heal a bit each time.
I've been to individual therapy and couples therapy and everyone would say pretty much the same thing. You have the knowledge and insight and you are a survivor, look how much you have been through! Why the hell didn’t I feel like I was surviving then?!. I felt stuck and in pain.
I was excited to work with you as your approach was new and I quickly found out that slowly the pieces were being put back together like a puzzle and it felt good and I was beginning to feel whole which felt a whole lot better than being a survivor.
I found my body tells my story and the closer we can listen the better we can make our lives.
I found a clarity and a pathway that I couldn’t find on my own but found it working with you. You hold a very safe space and your genuine care is felt deeply right from the start. Working together made me feel seen. I didn’t have to perform. I could let it all out.
One of the many things that stood out is that I take care of everyone and I deep down I discovered that I don’t want to do it.
I discovered that I don’t have to be the good girl, the good wife, the good mother. I could just be me. My happiness lay within me and that I didn’t have to depend on others such as my husband and children to make me happy.I didn’t have to chase approval. I had a whole world that I have discovered in my art, crocheting and movement that makes me happy.
I think the biggest pattern I have changed is standing positively and assuredly in my own feet and by this I mean I don’t look at my husband, my children & my friends to make me happy and my life peaceful. I have it inside me!
L.B., England
Anyone can Talk to You About Your Relationship with Your Mother
What Matters Is How
A trauma-informed, Hakomi therapist
And I never planned on becoming an expert on dysfunctional relationships between mothers and daughters.
After years of emotional and physical neglect I woke up one morning at 16 to discover my mother had left with stolen family money, in charge of taking care of my younger sister. I was left homeless, and all my dolls, picture albums, my grandmother's first knitted socks disappeared in a day. So you bet! all I wanted to do as an adult was run away as far as possible from looking back.
I waited for things to change, my nightmares to resolve while I was married to Mr. Perfect, who just reinforced my peanut-size self-esteem. But later, a chance encounter with a psychologist changed the course of my life and I turned my story on its head.
Healing my mother wound brought an unexpected pivot and I ended up becoming the mother wound therapist who's committed to help women finally heal their mother wound.
And because I’ve spent hours in the company of beautiful women like you over the past two decades, helping dozens of women from around the world heal the wounds of a complex relationship with their mother, I know better than anyone how solitary the mother wound struggle can be, but also that when you have an experienced and informed therapist walking beside you, with respect to your rhythm, with your intentions and expectations at heart you can finally shift from knowing about the wound to healing it.
Hi, I'm Shelly
Expect this when working with me:
Feeling safe comes first! and I work from the first moment we meet to make this happen
Judgment free space - because no one thrives under the pressure of expectations
Agenda-free sessions - take off the pressure to please your therapist or perform. Your prescription for healing (rather than text books) is what we concoct together
Non pathologising language - You’ve been living inside a box long enough. This is how you let go of shame and redefine (with a big AHA first followed by a long sigh) that your survival strategies where necessary adaptation and can not transform into new life choices
Trauma-informed practices - so you know I have your back! And treat you with the kindness, protections and respect you deserve
Laughter and lightness - because we all know heaviness and burden too well
I’ve rebelled against systemic mental-health prejudices since age 7, but I was ignored, dismissed and left to live with a mother who couldn’t take care of me.
When I started healing my mother wound I pursued an M.Ed (with distinction), yet in dozens of psychology courses I heard the word trauma maybe twice.
So as an autodidact and a deep-dive hyper-focused woman (self-identified neurodivergent) I furthered my training with the best trauma healing experts (I think Janina Fisher, Deb Dana and Carolyn Spring are the bees knees). I then compiled all the knowledge and experience of working with women like you to address what so many women go through but is hardly addressed in therapy rooms:
HEALING THE MOTHER WOUND
My approach is emotionally-safe, judgment-free, practical and creative at the same time.
I won’t ask you to do or feel anything you don’t want or feel ready for. You’ll have the freedom to share what you want or hold back what you don't. And I definitely won’t shame you for anything you need, for what you’ve gone through, or the resolve you’re aiming for.
Instead, we’ll work together to find what’s holding you back—the buried feelings that are stored in your body, the unconscious beliefs and habits that shaped at an early age, so you can release them and have the felt-experience of restoring emotional nourishment and safety, rebuilding your self-authority and gaining the confidence to be who you’re truly meant to be.
Not Your Average Therapist
I’ve worked with women who:
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Had a mother who from mental illness or substance abuse, had unresolved trauma (and refused to talk about it or go to therapy)
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Went though a book-like-pretty-picture childhood but felt emotionally unsafe
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Were a compensation baby after their mum lost a pregnancy or a child before you
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Had a short childhood with their mum before she passed away, disappeared or given for adoption
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Were their mother's best friend, confidant or therapist (which only made them they feel lonely every damn day)
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Never knew what to expect from their volatile, cold, or mean mum
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Grew up in a cult or a strict religious community
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Got no seat by the table unless she played the good girl and did what’s expected of her
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Suffered physical or emotional neglect and abuse and felt shame (as if it’s their fault)
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Came from traditional families who enforce traditional (often limiting and sometimes extremely debilitating) roles for women
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Were in their teens up to their 90’s
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Became gifted therapists, psychotherapist, healers, meditation teachers, creatives yet were still felt the impact of being undermothered
I’ve had more than 70 years to build and anchor defences; now for the first time in my life, I can feel my lower abdomen and in a completely new way, I’ve come to know what it means to “ground” and “center”, to be fully here, now.
As a veteran of over 35 years of body-centred psychotherapy, I’m deeply impressed with Shelly’s ability to guide my growth in significant ways.
Seems that in cases like mine where the mother wound started at the very beginning of life, a therapist’s intuition and resonance skills become enormously important. Shelly was able to transmit the impression of safety requisite to early work even on-line. Shelly’s amazing strengths in these areas brought us through a lot of very deeply rooted bodily defences.
Never abandoning me during my passage through hitherto unimaginable rage, she was always available and supportive. Her between-session suggestions allowed me to come through this emotional hell intact—amazingly, with un-damaged relationships.
The weekly summaries and recordings were a great luxury.
I’m finding that everyday frustrations and anger dissipate much more quickly and there’s now such joyfulness in small, commonplace observations and actions. Priceless gifts!
E.S., Switzerland
Your A's to Your Q's
Healing For The Broken Heart
If your complex relationship with your mum is a heartbreak colouring your sense of self, relationships with others and your space in the world
You can make the choice to break through this cycle of pain to be
Free, Rooted, Grounded & Centred
Break free from the habit of saving your mother, managing her emotions and centring her needs in the middle of your life
Root in your own rhythm, voice, intuition and creative dreams so you never treat your needs and wishes again a kite on a long string in the wind
Ground in your decisions, perceptions, vision for your relationships and life so you're never again at the mercy of other people's expectations and views
Centre in a happiness that's not dependant on your mother's approval or your partner's validation, in a relational and creative fulfilment that only you defines its measure, and in a life that's meant to be yours
I transformed what felt stuck and dark within me because of an impossible to believe childhood abuse, into something beautiful
In times where I thought no one else could help me, when I had lost all hope, Shelly helped me to help myself .
I was filled with fear, grief and anxiety and none of the conventional, as well as unconventional ways I sought out, were not helping, or only partly.
Shelly's way of looking at life and the soul itself is amazing and refreshing. Her insights and questions she posed helped me move forward, on my own, without any further external help.
C.H, singer & song-writer, England
As a therapist myself, it's rare for someone to be able to support and guide me through blocks in my growth.
Shelly is an emotional, mental and energetic genius/detective. Her ability to hold space and invite you into places inside of yourself you didn't know were exquisite.
Thank you for allowing me to open my heart and mind, Shelly
A.H, therapist & community leader, Australia
YOU DON’T JUST “NEED MORE THERAPY” TO “WORK ON YOURSELF”