Heal and relax with Harry & Jem

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The Nugget
February 14, 2025

★ BRINGING YOUR BODY BACK TO WELLBEING ★

The lovely Harry Harris and Jem Gay

When the pandemic hit, Jem and Harry were living in a converted train carriage at a winery near Malmsbury and expecting their first child.

Amidst these Mega Changes, Nurturing Ground Therapies was established — the result of countless conversations and dreams as parenthood pushed them to rethink what it means to truly be as humans.

For Harry and Jem, the big question was: What might unfold if we slow down, ground ourselves and think about how we want to relate to our bodies, each other and the world?

Now, settled in Campbells Creek, Nurturing Ground provides ZenThai Shiatsu, Somatic Experiencing therapies, yoga and mindfulness practices.

I wish I had known Harry and Jem when my kids were younger and I was being dragged to max capacity every day, both mentally and physically.

Their therapies provide deep relaxation and support, a balm for people who are Going Through It, as well as people who are simply living through the daily trials of climate change, racism, xenophobia, homophobia and sexism.

Harry and Jem believe everyone should be able to access practical wellbeing programs and have worked with refugees, people experiencing homelessness and victims of gender-based violence.

Jem practices Somatics Experiencing to address stored trauma and chronic stress. Somatics looks beyond the brain, taking the whole body into consideration, including the ecosystem that body is living in.

“I work with people to explore and unpack some of their experiences, helping them reconnect with their bodies to pinpoint what makes them feel more like themselves, what makes them feel safe, alive and connected,” Jem says.

“The nervous system is incredible in the way it encodes life-threatening situations to trigger an automatic response that keeps us safe.

“But it can also cause adaptive behaviours. We're reacting to something that's happened a long time ago. People might feel like their nervous system is locked into this constant vigilance of a fight response or it just feels like it wants to run out of environments all the time,” Jem says.

“And so we just want to acknowledge and respect what the body is sensing, what's it trying to do, while strengthening neural pathways that are all about how we feel good, safe and connected.

“This is particularly important in a society that's really built around disconnecting and numbing bodies.”

Sessions with Jem involve guided inquiry and lots of practical exercises that help us tune in to the inner experience.

“I get a sense that people find it really beneficial, particularly for managing stress on a day-to-day basis,” Jem says.

Harry’s ZenThai Shiatsu work fits like a hug with Jem’s practice of Somatic Experiencing.

ZenThai Shiatsu combines Thai massage, Shiatsu and osteopathy gestures and I can confirm that the treatment will leave you feeling spectacularly zen.

“It’s a practice of bringing all parts of the body back to wellbeing,” Harry says.

If you present with a knee issue, Harry won’t just be working on your knee.

“It’s about working on all parts of the body to support that individual, whether it be things that are happening in the musculoskeletal system or maybe it's something a little bit broader.

“What I want to offer on the mat is for whatever someone's experience may have been — because that's all going to be there — I want to offer a place where it can be held.

“We all have our stories and history. If someone's not comfortable lying on their belly for whatever reason, we don't need to do that. And you don't need to take your clothes off or be face down,” Harry says.

“We are really kind of working together to nurture, to find some rest, to find that sense of someone being grounded and integrated.”

Some people call Zenthai Shiatsu ‘lazy person’s yoga’.

“It can be that, but it doesn’t feel lazy for me,” Harry says.

Every ZenThai treatment will be different, depending on your goals and how you are feeling on the day.

“For someone who may be really struggling with energy, or just really needs grounding because they are dealing with stress, it will be a slow practice. I would use some gestures where I'm applying some really grounding pressure and a mixture of different positions,” Harry says.

“For someone who may be feeling sluggish but wants to be energized and there's maybe some tightness in the muscles, it can be quite fluid and there's an element of that stretchiness, exploring the ligaments, the joints, the muscles, the fascia and then some fluid gestures, maybe even some tapping to stimulate parts of the body.”

She doesn’t just chuck you out into the world at the end of a session. Harry likes to have a chat about what came up for the person during the session, and what they notice in their body afterwards.

“I normally check in with people after because it feels like an honour to be able to support someone in that way and different people react in different ways,” she says.

❀ HOSPO HEROES ❀

Support your neck, friends, we are shifting gears!

From the deep zen of Nurturing Ground to the comic snark of @hospo_heroes, Castlemaine holds multitudes.

You know the things we wish we could say, every day, to customers, bosses and other daft people floating around the world?

Well. The legends behind @hospo_heroes say it all, And Then Some. WOW.

Click into the video below to get aquanted with their glorious sarcasm.

You will recognize Run Rabbit Run and then you will want to rush in to give these comic geniuses a hug.

I’m sure they would love that. Uninvited hugs from strangers. Give it a go! 🙃

♡˖ EVENTS ˖♡

𖥔 TALK TO MOI PLOISE 𖥔

Hi! Kindly drop me a line at [email protected] to let me know:

  • if you an extra in your Hot Moves dance squad (asking for a friend),

  • all about your upcoming event, and

  • who I should interview next. xx