Paula Dryburgh
Caledonian Holistic Therapies was born out of a desire to incorporate the spiritual and physical into bodywork, to ease the soul as well as those tired muscles.
This need to see people as a whole, unable to separate the spiritual and physical is what originally drove me to become an Occupational Therapist, that alongside the belief that occupation fosters dignity, competence, and health, is what has kept me in the profession for over 15 years. The true role of an occupational therapist is to co-create daily lives, to find healing occupations that heal the body as well as the heart.
My leap into body work has been gradual and insidious, having had numerous accidents and sporting injuries (from horse riding, snowboarding, whiplash, and CrossFit!) my back eventually gave up following a fall from horse. I was in agony and off work for a couple of weeks, I was medicated, miserable and could hardly walk. I stumbled across Napier’s in Edinburgh and found the most amazing osteopath Lynn Bennett, who strongly encouraged me to try massage and acupuncture. To my amazement I was off medication and back to work after only a few sessions with Lynn.
From there my interest was piqued, but it was
not until a few years later where I needed support for my dogs that I knew a career change was on the cards. Both dogs are sporting dogs, and like most athletes pick up injuries, so once they had been to the vet to check there was nothing sinister, I began looking for a canine massage therapist. The difference was incredible in only 3 sessions, performance was improved, and they were not as tired following training. I then attended a one-day course with Natalie Lenton at the Canine Massage Therapy Centre, 3 years later, I had completed my 2 year training with the centre and by 2019, was working as a Clinical Canine Massage Therapist. It is an absolute
pleasure to be able to offer dogs the same practical, hands on help to relieve their pain and to improve their physical and emotional well-being, that I have been privileged to receive.
During that time, I lost my mum, and everything changed, I realised that life really was too short, but had lost my path and needed some guidance, at that point I found Jen at the Yurt where I was introduced to the power of Reiki and intention setting. By March 2020 I had completed my level 3 sports massage course, my level 1 Reiki and started my level 2, as well as completing my training for Indian Head Massage.
My vision for Caledonian Holistic Therapies is to support you to stop the social media driven time machines we are all in, that need and anxiety to tick off from our list those things we feel we must do, that constant race against time, that demand to fit to Intsa-norms that turns us inside out. By creating space to allow you a moment to reflect, I hope that you can find a new way to engage with the world, to find where you need to be and begin to recognise the importance of physical and spiritual strength.