LOCAL NEWS
DAVID HARTNELL:
ONE MINUTE INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL OWEN Michael Owen shares his views on life and the values of therapy. Tell us about Shen Therapy.
SHEN Therapy is a hands-on energy based framework for helping mind and body integrate stress and trauma from a place of deep stillness and holding. It is both very gentle and transformative and reminds me of the deep value of touch, unconditional holding, and the innate wisdom of the body. When did your interest in therapy start?
In my early 20s, with training in nursing and knowing that this was not the model for me (nurses are amazing though). Post diagnosis with CFS in my mid 20s I had to move to other forms to re-establish and engage with new definitions of wellness. The relationship between mind and body and the space within which these aspects of ourselves sit; well, it's simply bloody fascinating! What do you like the most about working and living in Ponsonby?
I am blessed with a little home that provides all my needs, my practice, and a home garden. Closeness to the ocean for swimming is just awesome for this Pisces. How have you survived the pandemic and has it changed your life?
If you won a million dollars, what would be the first thing you'd do?
Create a fruit, nut, and organic garden trust for lower-income communities.
I have not been able to see clients, which has been a deep loss in terms of service and doing the work I love, BUT it has clarified what is important for me and how I live on this planet. Keep it simple, Michael.
What motivates you?
What was your childhood like?
Yup, a few times. I simply reminded them, with compassion, that they were lost on their journey home.
A very fractious parental divorce and separation from my identical twin had deep ripples in terms of how I felt safe and at home in the world. My mum did an amazing job as a solo-mother and despite much trauma in her past, managed to weave love and fun into the world. I felt deeply blessed. Where would your dream holiday internationally be?
Probably back to India. I went there for a few months when 21 and when leaving on the plane I was already homesick for its wonderful soul-affirming chaos - a challenging and viscerally rich experience.
The multiplicity of challenges in simply being alive, the desire to love, and to be ever more internally deeply satisfied. Have you ever seen a ghost?
How do you chill out?
With dance, meditation, nature, friends, reading, film, yoga. Loads! Which item of clothing can't you live without?
Shoes that are ever, almost always, falling apart but are the easiest to slip on. Most treasured possession?
What is the most Kiwi thing about you?
Probably my CD collection. Music birthed me into life and continues to both nourish and silence!
Bare feet - often, love of the ocean and wild landscapes, keeping it simple.
What is your greatest fear?
What job would you do other than your own and why?
Failing in the challenge of love.
If I'd lived a different life with a different culture at the time I grew up, probably a dancer.
Which talent would you most like to have?
If they were to make a movie about your life who would play you?
Your dream guest list for a dinner party and why?
Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, or Janelle Monae - gender and race, irrelevant here, heart and intelligence the key. Powerful hearted women rule! If you were reincarnated what would you be?
As a simple sparrow - community based and loving a good dust bath! How would you like to be remembered?
Read Alexander Pope's poem - Ode on Solitude. It says it all that truly matters to me. What do you love most about your age?
It gives me some tender and mutable wisdom as well as the capacity to let go of inessentials.
16 PONSONBY NEWS+ March 2022
To sing with abandon (and well). Nina Hagen, Dalai Lama, Luther Vandross, Jesus and Mary Magdelene, too many wonderful other creative humans to mention. Rebels of the heart all welcome. If you could change one law or policy in New Zealand, what would it be?
In these climate change times, and until we reach the economic capacity for low-income earners to afford electric vehicles, please can we recreate carless days/weeks, car-pooling, car-sharing etc. The crisis is now. Can we make policies which enable change, responsibility and transportation opportunities now, for all sectors of the community? And income-related rents for low-income earners can we have that yesterday! (DAVID HARTNELL, MNZM) PN shentherapynz.com/auckland-central
PUBLISHED FIRST FRIDAY EACH MONTH (except January)
