harpers & queen

back to nurture

The English winter seemed to have gone on forever. It had taken a depressing toll, burrowing onto my emotional wellbeing, and I hadn't been feeling fully fit for months. A blood test diagnosed mild glandular fever, which explained my weakness, lethargy and depression. My doctor ordered a change of diet and plenty of rest, but it was a friend who suggested I visit Fiona Arrigo, a licensed therapist and ‘life-coach’ in Ireland. This was why I found myself sitting on a Stena Line ferry in the middle of the Irish sea, staring mournfully at a bottle if champagne that I'd won on a scratch-card. There would be no champagne where I was going, I thought gloomily.

‘No coffee, no chocolate, no alcohol,’ Fiona had told me a few weeks earlier, when I had sent her a cutting of my hair for analysis. In one fell swoop, she removed my valuable winter props - hot chocolate and buttered scones for tea, martinis at six, and that first slug from the cafetière in the morning.

For a week I had been rewarded with a pounding headache, but I wasn't just visiting Fiona Arrigo for a body clean-up. Her programme has two specific aims: to nurture and support the individual in a one-to-one atmosphere of treatments that help release old emotional stress patterns; and to provide him or her with a more practical approach to living. Through the combination of a cleansing diet, holistic treatments, gentle exercise and ‘life sessions’ with Fiona, you are encouraged to reassess and reclaim what has been missing from your life.

Fiona — who has studied health and personal development for 16 years — is serious about her work, yet remains refreshingly straightforward in her approach. ‘I'm basically taking ancient wisdom into the 21st century. Its about focusing the mind and not carrying extra baggage from one moment to another.’

Aficionados of Fiona's technique will no doubt remember her alternative health retreat in Somerset called ‘Stop the World’, which flourished in the early Nineties. Set in an old rectory built on ley lines near Glastonbury Tor, its aim was to help stressed-out Thatcher's children recuperate physically and emotionally. It might all sound a bit Ab Fab, but it wasn't, mainly because of Fiona's down-to-earth approach.

Fiona was raised in a big old comfortable Irish house, the kind of place where log fires were always burning and something delicious was always simmering on the stove, and she recreated this nurturing environment at Stop the World. ‘There is a growing awareness of the need to nurture the whole person: to give a sense of well-being in both body and mind,’ she said at the time. ‘The missing ingredient in more orthodox health farms was a place of warmth and kindness, where people could really let go and be themselves. A place to really stop.’

This time, ‘home’ is in a hotel near Mullingar, County Westmeath. And in case you're wondering how you're going to detox and relax alongside a hotel clientele who are more interested in Guinness and oysters than essential oils and tofu, rest assured that Fiona and her team will descend on your bedroom suite, bearing flowers, massage beds and scented candles, completely dedicated to your revitalisation.

However, this treatment is not just physical. the detoxing experience is ‘emotional’ as well. In Fiona's hands, you'll find the courage to let go of bad techniques for coping with life. Through Joanna's massages, Penny's yoga exercises, Patricia's ‘healing powers’, Rex's kinesiologist techniques and Jacqueline's nutrition, you start to put your body back together. But it is Fiona's intuitive abilities that somehow knit the soul in place.

As a busy journalist in my late forties, I organised my life around deadlines; jumping on planes and entering other people's worlds at the drop of a hat. I barely had time for my husband or family, let alone myself. That was until my health came crashing down around my ears, and, by happy coincidence, I arrived at Fiona's door.

After three days with Fiona, I allowed myself to fall apart. Patricia, in a gentle and uplifting way, took me on a silent healing meditation and, in my mind, I revisited my grandparent's house on the Isle of Wight. In a reverie, I could feel the texture of my grandmother's skin as I kissed her goodnight; and the crinkly pages of the leather book on Grandpa's knee; and, last of all, I saw my mother arriving from London in a swathe of Chanel and glamour. It was at this point that buckets of tears, shed silently down my cheeks, made me realise that, despite my mother's 10-year illness and subsequent death the year before, I had never allowed myself the luxury of grieving. I could now let her go.

It was Fiona who put it all into perspective with her practical and calm philosophy. ‘It is most important to download the clutter,’ she says. ‘Everything today is about rushing, going, worrying. Everybody's got a story, and the bigger the story, the more drama, and the greater the loss of energy.’

Fiona's unique approach certainly gets very positive results. Apart from the Irish programme, she also holds regular workshops, including couples therapy, in London and Galway. As long-term client Judiey Winckles says: ‘I've trained as a psychiatric nurse and know that total acceptance is the key. If someone accepts you, you can open up and trust them. Fiona has the clarity to see where a certain behaviour is dysfunctional, and the wisdom to make me see it for myself. Then she has the talent to help you transform that into healthy, effortless change.’ All the clients I spoke to reported life-changing breakthroughs. As well as being armed with a new blueprint for living, Fiona follows up every treatment with regular check-in telephone calls.

I left her feeling calm and re-centred. I had a new plan to put in place. ‘It was as if you had been an actress on a stage,’ said Fiona as we said goodbye, ‘and you had put on different costumes for different parts. But the trouble was, you'd forgotten which one was you.’

Well, I can definitely say that I've rediscovered the real me. And, by the way, I gave that bottle of champagne to Fiona and her team. I think they deserved it.

from Harpers & Queen
reproduced by kind permission