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ABOUT ME
Heather Porteous
Personal Profile
My Guiding Light
Professional Profile
Client Testimonials
Personal Profile
I am an Usui Ryoho Reiki and Karuna Reiki Teaching Master, with a busy private practice in the Murrayfield area of Edinburgh,
Scotland, which I have run for over 10 years, and I also run regular Reiki
workshops, holistic health & stress management, and
personal development workshops throughout the year.
In addition to Reiki therapy I am qualified to use the Emotional Freedom
& Healing Technique, a psychological version of acupressure incorporating
methods from Ancient Chinese medicine and modern-day applied kinesiology which
is effective in releasing negative emotion. I am also a life coach, trained in personal and business coaching, Time-Line
Therapy and NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), with a background in
business and in personal effectiveness training. As part of my continuing interest in
developing my skills as a holistic healer, I have also completed a post-graduate
diploma in Human Givens brief solution-focused counselling and psychotherapy, and
I am also fully qualified in advanced hypnotherapy and hypno-healing.
I
specialise in working one to one with clients wanting support in making changes
to improve their health and relationships, overcome physical, mental and
emotional challenges, develop their
potential, and create more balanced and fulfilling lives.
I am an experienced
coach, counsellor, hypnotherapist and trainer with a holistic understanding of life and health and a
deep knowledge of people and their needs. I
have also trained as a volunteer Victim Support
worker and as an AIDS support "buddy" for the Waverley Care Trust.
I
like to work in a sensitive, open and light-hearted way with my clients, as I
believe that we all develop best in an atmosphere of trust, acceptance and
honesty. Having successfully come through a number
of traumatic, life changing events and challenges over the years myself
(multiple close family bereavements, divorce, a couple of serious and
life threatening illnesses, redundancy and setting up my own business), I
can offer the hard-won insight, wisdom, understanding, confidence and empathy of personal
experience. I have a calm and relaxed manner and am genuinely
interested in others, which makes it easy for me to work closely with people.
I am married to a teacher and have a son who works in banking and a daughter
who works in marketing (both the pride and joy of my
life!). We have two lively young terriers (littermates!) who keep me
young and fit, I thrive on the outdoors and all kinds of physical and mental challenge, and balance it with a keen interest in
spirituality, psychology, nutrition, holistic health andcomple mentary therapies. Meditation is an
important part of my daily routine, giving me new insights and understanding
and keeping me centred, peaceful and in touch with what really matters in life.
My Guiding Light
"Lord, make me
a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we
receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life."
St Francis of Assisi
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"Seek first to understand, then to be
understood."
Stephen Covey
"As you think, so shall you be."
Proverbs
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Success
He has achieved success who has lived well,
laughed often, and loved much;
who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;
who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it,
whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem,
or a rescued soul;
who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it;
who has always looked for the best in others
and given them the best he had;
whose life was an inspiration;
whose memory a benediction."
Bessie A Stanley, 1904
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My
Philosophy
"Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called 'the love
of your fate'. Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, 'This is what I need.'
It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment - not
discouragement - you will find the strength is there.
Any disaster that you can survive is an improvement in your character,
your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.
Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed
by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you
have now. You’ll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive.
Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a
negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to
exhibit strength, it comes."
Joseph Campbell 1904-87, writer, anthropologist,
philosopher
Professional
Profile
I
graduated in Modern Languages and Law from Edinburgh University in 1976, and
then taught abroad and in Edinburgh for a number of years before taking a career
break to bring up my family.
I
subsequently trained in Church lay leadership and counselling and worked for
several years in youth and adult education work with individuals and groups,
exploring issues of self-awareness, personal development, leadership and
interpersonal skills.
During
the course of my career, I spent six years working with the multinational
pharmaceutical company, Johnson & Johnson Corporation, in the highly
challenging and competitive field of medical sales and marketing.
I worked closely with the General Manager, supporting him and his
senior management team through a period of extensive company
growth and development, cultural change, restructuring and eventual
relocation to the South of England.
I
left Johnson & Johnson to establish my own life coaching practice and gained further experience working as a freelance
consultant with Insights Training & Development, a Scottish company
specialising in personal and team effectiveness.
I
am a graduate of Corporate Coach University International
in the USA, completing my coaching training in 2000. I have a post-graduate Certificate of Counselling Skills from Strathclyde
University (2000), am a Certified Practitioner of NLP (neuro-linguistic
programming) and Time-Line TherapyTM
(2000), having trained with Andy Smith in London, and also gained
a post-graduate diploma in Human Givens Counselling &
Psychotherapy from Mindfields College in 2004.
I
am trained in advanced hypnosis and hypnotherapy, graduating from the Atkinson-Ball
College of Hypnotherapy and Hypnohealing in 2007, and also qualified
as an EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) practitioner with Helen Walker in 2008.
My
Reiki Training
I qualified as a Reiki Master in 1999
under the guidance of Mark Calvert, having served my "apprenticeship" as a
volunteer healer at the weekly Reiki therapy clinic he ran at the Solas drop-in centre
for people in Edinburgh who are HIV+, before going on to set up my own private
practice and subsequently start teaching Reiki. I later did additional extensive Reiki training with Alan Sweeney in London in
2002, and in 2008 took further courses with Tadao Yamaguchi, who lives in Japan.
Tadao's mother practised Reiki for 65 years until her death in 2003, never using
any other form of medication or medical intervention for her four children, all
now healthy adults, one of whom had a very weak disposition from birth. She did
her Reiki training with Dr Chujiro
Hiyashi, one of the last people to become a Reiki Master under the tutelage of
Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki, before he died in 1926.
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