the talk
Burnout to Body Wisdom: practices that actually work
Your body has been talking. Most of us just haven’t learned to listen.
I take a room through the moment stress stops being background noise and starts costing something - the point most people recognise instantly when it is described, and almost nobody notices while it is happening. I talk about what I learned the hard way about ignoring it, and about what has actually helped, in my own life and across years of practice.
Then we do something. Not a slide about breathing - an actual sequence of breathwork and body awareness, and a handful of small daily practices people can use the same afternoon.
This isn’t therapy and it isn’t a substitute for it, and I say so in the room.
Forty-five to sixty minutes, or ninety with a longer practical section. Suits all-staff sessions, wellbeing weeks, conferences and leadership days. On site or online.
What people leave with
A breathing sequence that takes ninety seconds and works at a desk, with nobody noticing.
A way to catch the early signs in themselves, before they turn into a fortnight of bad sleep.
Two or three small daily practices - and a clear sense of which one to actually start with.
Kari Marsden - Founder of Higher Healing and The Wellbeing Boc
the sessions
Short Seated Sessions
One person at a time, fifteen to thirty minutes each. I need a room with a chair and a door - a meeting room is fine. People come in on a schedule you set, or on a sign-up sheet.
They sit down, still dressed and I work with my hands lightly on or just above the shoulders, neck and head. It is quiet. Then they go back to their desk.
Most people say they feel noticeably calmer and clearer. Some say their shoulders have dropped for the first time in a while. Nobody comes out looking like they have been to a spa, which is usually the point - this has to work on a Tuesday afternoon.
On site anywhere in Melbourne, or online for distributed teams. A team of twenty fits comfortably into a day.
And something that stays with them
Every team wellbeing initiative has the same problem: it ends. The talk was good, the week got busy, and by the following month nobody can point to what changed.
The Wellbeing Box is the answer to that. A curated box of wellbeing tools and practices that each person takes home, so the session becomes a starting point rather than an afternoon. Boxes can be sent to home addresses for distributed teams.
Under $300 a head, a gift like this is treated differently by the ATO to a team lunch or a restaurant voucher - it is generally a deductible non-entertainment benefit, where entertainment is neither deductible nor GST-claimable. Worth a word with your finance team; I can send you a one-pager.