Workshops to help you do you

A WELLNESS studio for women in Bendigo is running workshops on different healing and awareness methods.

Soul Care was created by experienced hairdresser Gayle Wilson and she said the idea for the service had been on her mind for some time.

“It was a real spiritual calling,” she said. “I’d been getting clues and hints for the last five or six years, and people just kept saying to me over and over again, ‘we love you as a hairdresser, but you’ve got to expand your thoughts and your confidence’ and this calling that you’ve got, to go bigger.

“The consistent message that I kept hearing in my chair was this overwhelming heaviness with self-doubt.

“People longing to do these really exciting things but never committing too much because this self-doubt kept rearing its ugly head and talking them out of it.

“I knew that I really wanted to market and become available for those people who had that little bit of burning light inside of them but, for whatever reason, were just a bit too nervous to jump and go all in.”

Ms Wilson said Soul Care is a combination of “wellbeing, empowerment, and community,” and has been attracting women from all walks of life, particularly those going through different types of transition, and busy mums, and those close to retiring.

“They often come in quite flustered and really nervous, like quite apprehensive, they’re not sure what’s going to happen for them and who’s going to be there,” she said.

“You know that maybe the ones who maybe have a lot going on behind the scenes will just sit quietly and listen to the other women and gain their confidence.”

For Ms Wilson, part of running the workshops is seeing outcomes and how people seemed to be getting benefit from the events.

“The other day I had a 66-year-old woman, we talked and talked, and then all of a sudden, she’s up off her chair and doing all sorts of things which look silly, but she’s just like ‘oh my god I feel alive, I feel awake’,” she said.

Soul Care workshops take place on the first Sunday of the month, with the next set for 2 July and the sessions take place at 82A Mitchell Street, upstairs at Props Theatre.