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Like many powerful and transformative programs, Synergy Women and Rise UP were developed through my own journey in navigating grief. My life felt tipped out and I found myself feeling depleted, lost and completely overwhelmed whilst trying to wade through brain fog, fatigue and a rollercoaster of difficult emotions.
Although I found counselling helpful, I soon grew tired of telling my story in the same circular dusty well-worn path without practical steps forward. I knew I needed to make a change. A change within myself. I just didn’t know where to start. I'd lost all confidence, motivation and direction. I was tired of walking through mud, feeling lost in the dark.
I came to realise that as women, we need more practical tools, more resources and more help to transform life’s setbacks into resilience, so we can find clarity and confidence once more.
So I retrained. Decided to learn more to help myself. Which has led me on a mission to help others.
My background is that I am a qualified physiotherapist with a special interest in helping women with their health. I became a mindfulness meditation teacher, an NLP practitioner and coach, a yoga teacher, and a Demartini facilitator- all of these skills have collectively helped me find direction, clarity and a pathway forward.
I have taken the best pieces of what I have learnt and put them in a step by step pathway for women navigating grief, loss or life’s setbacks called Rise UP
It brings me great joy to offer out the Rise UP program and help women transform grief, loss and life’s challenges into clarity, confidence, and courage. I offer this both online and on our Rise UP retreats.
You can read more about my story and how Synergy Women and the Rise UP program was born below.
It began in 2014, when everything I had come to know and love crashed around me, leaving me in a pile of rubble trying to find my way out. Our new born son Baxter died unexpectedly and without reason at birth.
Suddenly I found myself transformed from a happy, confident, carefree woman to an empty shell of my for myself. I struggled with brain fog, memory, loss, grief, and emotional rollercoaster of overwhelm, resentment, sadness, and despair. I recall feeling like I was drowning at sea, sinking to the bottom and looking up wondering if I would ever find the surface to breathe? It felt lonely, it felt tiring, it felt like no one on this earth understood.
I had a hole the size of the universe in my heart that was invisible to the world, yet I had to figure out how to carry it around. I found myself asking,
I lost all confidence and trust within myself, became anxious and depleted as I tried to carry the unbearable weight of grief. I ruminated for months with the self-blame internal dialogue “if only…”.
Yes, I tried everything to help myself. Yoga, meditation, vitamin B, diving in the ocean, prayer, running, support groups, counselling…… yet, I felt that nothing was really offering me practical solutions or a pathway forward.
It was about this time when a girlfriend asked me to join her on her yoga retreat for some time out. I found myself saying no, and reflected I was actually resisting this offer simply as I had developed two beliefs.
I then read a quote at that time from Dr Demartini:
“Whatever you have or have not done, you are worthy of love”
For the first time, something within me shifted. I realised I had spent my entire life looking after everyone else and I had forgotten how to look after me. I knew something had to change and the time was now.
I was at my crossroads and knew I had to take a step in a new direction.
Somehow, I plucked up the courage and took the first step and went on the yoga retreat. It was here that the first steps in creating Rise UP program began. I started clearing a path, putting together a simple but clear framework with a step by step pathway toward resilience.
Rise UP is for women trying to put their life back together when it becomes a tipped out jigsaw puzzle. When things don’t turn out as planned. It started with steps for myself.
Since this time, I have learnt more about grief, loss and life’s setbacks than I ever thought possible.
With a background in women's health as a qualified physiotherapist, I retrained to understand more about mindset and brain health in the presence of grief and loss. My study included becoming a mindfulness meditation teacher, and NLP practitioner and coach, a yoga teacher, a Demartini facilitator, walking across hot coals with Tony Robbins (yikes!)!
I have taken the best pieces of what I have learnt and put them in a step by step guided pathway for women navigating grief, loss or life’s setbacks, called Rise UP
It’s this exact framework that I have used to transform my own life. Its this exact framework that I teach in workshops, with our online coaching program and on our Rise UP retreats to help women, just like you, transform life’s setbacks into clarity, confidence and courage.
In my journey with teaching Rise UP I have also discovered that grief has so many faces and forms for women.
It can feel dark. It can feel lonely. It can feel like you’re simply treading water and no one on this earth understands.
Although our stories will be different, our pathways and steps toward navigating with resilience will be the same.
Like to learn more about the Rise UP retreats for women?
As Synergy Women and the Rise UP program and retreats have grown, so too has our team!
Meet our amazing team of women to support you on retreats.
Dani-ela Barrat- Dani is a retreat facilitator and also our event coordinator. She is the organising woman behind the scenes that we all dream of! Dani organises and plans, calls and connects with each woman before and after retreat, all to ensure your care. Her helping hand, her care, her organisation and guidance throughout our retreats ensures you are looked after!
Alix Carpenter. Alix is one of our retreat facilitators. She is a physiotherapist and a Pilates teacher and has a passion for supporting women with their health! She offers Pilates and movement classes, strength work and online classes after retreat. Alix loves supporting women on our retreat with their health with her open enthusiasm and care.
Synergy is the union of all parts forming a greater whole.
Synergy Women as a collective includes body, mind and heart health to help women build resilience through life’s challenges. It includes authentic ownership of all sides to life’s challenges and helps women transform their belief’s, their perspective and their life. All women who complete the Rise UP program become a part of our Synergy Women collective.
The Rise UP program forms a framework to guide women toward transforming grief, loss and life’s challenges into clarity, confidence and courage.
And we all have life’s hurdles, right?
Is it time to choose you?
It is my honour and a complete joy to offer out the Rise UP retreats, Synergy Women podcasts and Rise UP coaching to women navigating life hurdles.
Women often find themselves giving too much, putting others first, feeling depleted or leaving their needs last on the list.
The Rise UP program and retreats are for
Like to learn more about developing resilience through life challenges? Niky offer’s her Rise UP program for women online as well as her within her four day Rise UP retreat.
With over 20 years of experience in health and education for both physiotherapists and women, Niky offers out coaching, podcasts and retreats.
