About Wendy

My professional life began in law.

I spent approximately 15 years as a criminal barrister and later worked as a mediator. Alongside this professional career, I developed a longstanding interest in counselling, breathwork, meditation, yoga, pranayama and embodied self-awareness.

Over time, these different strands came together in the work I now offer.

A professional life that took an unexpected path

I didn't set out to become a counsellor.

My first professional life was in law. I studied philosophy and law at the University of Auckland and worked as a criminal barrister for around 15 years.

I also trained and worked as a mediator.

Those years taught me a great deal about people — how we tell our stories, how we defend our positions, how conflict develops, and how difficult it can be to see our own part in something when we are inside it.

But alongside my professional life, another path was developing.

Yoga, meditation and India

For more than 14 years I have spent extended periods in India, studying and practising yoga, pranayama, meditation and related contemplative traditions.

Meditation has become an important part of my own exploration. I have also undertaken 19 Vipassana meditation courses in the tradition of S.N. Goenka, each involving an extended period of silence and sustained observation of bodily sensations, thoughts and mental patterns.

These practices have deepened my interest in the difference between understanding something intellectually and actually noticing it as it happens — in the body, in the mind and in relationship.

That distinction remains central to my work today.

Breathwork

I have been practising and facilitating breathwork for more than 14 years and have facilitated more than 3,000+ sessions.

Over time, breathwork became one of the ways I learned to pay closer attention to present experience.

It also became something I began sharing with others.

Counselling

My counselling work grew naturally from this broader exploration of how people experience themselves, relate to others and become caught in patterns they may understand intellectually but still struggle to change.

Counselling gave me another way to work with this exploration — through conversation, relationship and the direct experience of what is happening in the present moment.

InnerSense

For more than 14 years I have worked closely with Dr Graham Mead and his work in embodied self-awareness.

I participated in approximately 20 InnerSense programmes and, while Graham was overseas, led the programme for approximately one year.

InnerSense is Graham Mead's programme, and I acknowledge that lineage.

It has been an important influence on my understanding of embodied self-awareness and on my own practice.

My professional background

• BA and LL.B., University of Auckland

• 15 years as a criminal barrister in NZ

• LEADR mediator

• Counselling study with Psychosynthesis New Zealand 2014-2016. Psychosynthesis therpay is an integrative, spiritual approach

• More than 14 years of breathwork practice and facilitation

• More than 3,000+ breathwork sessions facilitated

• More than 14 years working with Graham Mead and InnerSense

• Approximately 20 InnerSense programmes, including leading the programme for one year while Graham Mead was overseas

• 19 Vipassana meditation courses ranging from 10 to 20 days

• Extensive study and practice of yoga, pranayama and meditation in India

InnerWork and the deeper dimension of my work

The work I have been drawn to over many years has increasingly been concerned with consciousness, self-awareness and the possibility of living with greater presence, truth and authenticity.

For me, InnerWork is an exploration of what lies beneath the familiar patterns through which we experience ourselves — our conditioning, beliefs, reactions, relationships and sense of who we are.

It asks us not only to understand ourselves, but to become more conscious of ourselves as we are experiencing life.

This enquiry has been shaped by many years of counselling, breathwork, meditation, Vipassana, yoga and pranayama, embodied self-awareness, and the deeper work I have undertaken through InnerSense and with Graham Mead.

I am particularly interested in the meeting point between inner experience and relationship — what becomes visible when we slow down enough to notice our thoughts, emotions, bodily responses, reactions and habitual ways of relating.

I don't see inner development as becoming someone else or reaching some ideal version of ourselves. It is an ongoing process of becoming more aware of what is already here — and discovering what becomes possible when we meet ourselves with greater honesty, presence and freedom.

If you are considering counselling, you are welcome to begin with a free 10-minute consultation.