Ali Parkinson

 “Ali discovered yoga twenty years ago and has been practicing ever since, trying out many different styles: Hatha, Ashtanga and Iyengar. She trained to teach adults at the British School of Yoga and more recently children, having taken A Starchild yoga course. Ali encourages everyone to step onto a mat; when you move the body with the breath it can feel like medicinal movement which can bring you into a more meditative state of being as you join your mind body and breath. It allows you to awaken the body from within and align yourself with a beautiful peaceful energy that exists with you every day”.

Adam Bray

An Accredited SOMA Breathwork instructor and cold-water exposure coach.

Adam is passionate about both breathwork and cold-water exposure so its hardly surprising we wanted to lure him down to Claydon Courtyard Retreat to give a workshop. Adam wants to help as many people as possible become aware of what we can achieve with our own breath and what our bodies are capable of.

Nicole Backhouse MSc MBACP (Accred) (Co-Founder)

Nicole is an experienced integrative psychotherapist (BACP accredited) She dreamt of being a psychiatrist but became a lawyer by mistake; she retrained and has never looked back. Nicole is quite direct, often irreverent, occasionally amusing and seems to reach the parts other therapists can’t.  Alongside her private adult practice Nicole has worked at Cheltenham Ladies College for the last ten years. She primarily uses Schema Therapy, a fusion of Cognitive and Psychodynamic models to treat low mood, anxiety and many other mental maladies. Nicole knows first-hand the power of psychotherapy and is on hand throughout the retreat to help process material that yoga and breathwork so often release.

Christine Ansell Wells

(Co-Founder)

A talented cook and a practicing holistic massage therapist, Indian Head massage, Myofascial cupping therapist. Christine has always been interested in staying healthy both physically and psychologically; her husband was diagnosed with early on-set dementia in his 30’s so it was important for her to find ways of coping emotionally for them both. 

Under the guidance of our nutritional therapist Buffy Rowe, she is responsible for producing delicious meals with a special interest in the microbiome and using food as a form of medicine.

Christine works at the back end of the business with co-founder Nicole and is known as the ‘engine room’ of Claydon Courtyard Retreat. She turns Nicole’s ideas into reality and gets. things. done. fast.

Shilpa Vadlamudi

Sound Healing

What is a Gong Bath?’ How does it work? In sound healing, frequencies are used in the same way as breath in meditation: to influence shifts in our brainwaves. Sound healing works by activating the parasympathetic nervous system – the opposite of the stress flight or fight response.

Sound waves from the Gongs penetrate the body healing you mentally, physically, and spiritually and opening to a deep sense of peace and relaxation. Shilpa's sound baths focus on using the energy within us to create positive effects on our health and to create a sense of inner peace.

Lie down under a cosy blanket, feel the warmth of the log burner crackling away, the glow of candle and fairy lights surrounding you. Listen as Shilpa's voice and healing sounds wash over you, sending you into a deep and blissful state of relaxation.

Louise Elwell MSc UKCP (Accred)

Louise is an experienced Cognitive Analytic Psychotherapist trained at Guys Hospital in London and also in Oxford.

 Whilst now working in private practice she has much experience running different sorts of experiential groups including patient groups, staff groups and with families.

 These groups can be very helpful in learning more about ourselves but also from and about one another and through sharing experience finding new ways forward.

 Louise feels that something highlighted by the pandemic was our innate and basic need for closer support and connection with others.

 The digital revolution has in some ways made us more connected than ever but in others lead to a sort of ‘social dislocation’, a salve for which can be simple human contact and ‘connectedness’; Louise, like Nicole believes that groups are where the magic happens but then they are biased...!!