ABOUT BELINDA O'DEA.

WHY WORK WITH ME.

I created Sacred Women's Journeys to honour the complexity of all that it means to be a woman. I hold the lantern for women navigating transitions between who they have been and who they are becoming.

The name is not incidental. A journey is not a destination. It is a continuous unfolding, a returning, a deepening. The sacred journey I am pointing toward is not to India or Japan or anywhere outside yourself, though those outer journeys have their own medicine. It is the inner one. The journey of coming to know yourself. Of meeting the self you have been avoiding, abandoning or simply too busy to sit with. Of finding that what you were seeking was always already present.

I guide women through the deaths of self, the dark nights, the unravellings, the necessary endings, back to the ground of who they are. I know this territory because I have crossed it many times. The gifts I share are the ones that restore me again and again.

What makes this work distinctive is not just the qualifications. It is the ground they stand on. 800 hours of Yoga Teacher Training. 400 hours of Gestalt Therapy training, 70 percent of which was experiential rather than academic. More than 60 hours of sitting in the client chair myself, receiving the very work I now offer. Hundreds of hours of personal therapy across multiple modalities. More than thirty years of contemplative practice. A lifetime devoted to the sacredness that is the gift of this human life.

Most therapists study therapy. Gestalt Therapy requires you to live it from both sides. To be the client as well as the practitioner. To know the territory from the inside. That embodied understanding is irreplaceable and it is the foundation of everything I bring into the room.

My approach integrates the relational depth of Gestalt Therapy, the somatic intelligence of almost thirty years of yogic practice, and the ground of a lifetime devoted to the dharma. Three approaches that separately illuminate the same understanding about the nature of awareness, what it means to be genuinely present with what is real, and the interconnectedness of all things.

I am warm, direct and present. Yoga is my way of life, not just something I practice. Calm and kindness are my way of being. I am interested in living a sincere, honest and grounded life, not bypassing what is arising. The present moment may not always be pretty, but it is abundantly fertile. A recipe for growth.

YOGA IS MEDICINE.

Ancient wisdom meets the present moment.

Yoga in its truest sense has never been just a physical practice. It is the integration of body, mind and heart. Of sensation, thought and feeling. Of how we move, how we breathe, how we understand ourselves and relate to the world around us.

Yoga means union.

We spend so much of our lives in our heads. Thinking, analysing, planning, worrying. The body carries everything we have experienced, every emotion we have suppressed, every need we have abandoned. It holds what the mind cannot yet name.

Yoga knows this. It has always known this. The body is not an obstacle to healing. It is the vehicle of it.

This understanding is also at the heart of Gestalt Therapy. Rather than spending sessions only in past narratives or cognitive analysis, we bring awareness to what is happening right now in the body, the breath, the quality of contact between us. That present-moment somatic awareness is not preparation for the real work. It is the real work.

Yoga-informed therapy brings these two traditions together. Not as a technique added onto therapy. The yogic understanding of the whole person as the living ground from which all therapeutic work arises. Therapy also becomes the yoga. There is no separation.

AWARENESS IS KEY.

What is Gestalt Therapy and how does it work?

Gestalt Therapy was originally developed in the early 1950s by a group of avant-garde psychologists, psychiatrists, philosophers and educators as a response to the orthodoxy of psychoanalysis. It values authentic relating, choiceful living and the development of genuine self-awareness.

A Gestalt Therapist does not try to adjust you to a certain way of being, living or behaving. The work is to help you find your own way to live a personally meaningful life.

Rather than analysing the past or teaching skills and tools, Gestalt Therapy works with what is immediately obvious and available to your awareness right now, in the body, in the emotions, in the quality of contact between us. From there we proceed in small steps, using experiments with new ways of being, in order to expand awareness and widen the range of choices available to you.

Gestalt Therapy understands psychotherapy as healing through meeting. The nature and quality of human contact between therapist and client is not a vehicle for treatment. It is the treatment itself. This is why Gestalt Therapy is known as relational therapy. A humanistic approach.

As artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into daily life, the hunger for genuine human relational contact will only deepen. Gestalt Therapy offers something no algorithm can replicate. The healing that happens in the space between two people who are truly present with each other. In a world of increasing automation and digital mediation, a therapy that is fundamentally about authentic human meeting may be one of the most radical and necessary offerings available.

This is fundamentally different from cognitive or skills-based approaches where the therapist teaches tools, assigns homework or works to modify thinking patterns. Gestalt Therapy is relational, embodied and present-focused. We spend enough of our lives in our heads. This work brings you back into contact with the whole of your experience.

"Awareness is the greatest agent for change." — Eckhart Tolle

The principles that guide this work:

• Awareness is the goal. When we bring honest attention to what is actually happening right now, in the body, in the emotions, in the relationship between us, something shifts. Awareness supports connection, wisdom, spontaneity and health. We begin with the body because our needs, longings and fears emerge first as sensation.

• Presence is at the heart of the work. To be present is to be here with openness and flexibility, able to respond to the fullness of what is happening rather than reacting from habit or history. From presence we are more able to meet others and ourselves with genuine compassion.

• Receptivity grows from presence. Tuned into our own experience and more present in the here and now, we become more curious and responsive to our own needs and the needs of others as they emerge in genuine contact. We build interest in deep and satisfying relating.

• Choice becomes possible through awareness. Gestalt understands that much of what causes distress is a response to earlier adversity and challenge. With support we can identify unhelpful patterns, let go of self-blame and begin to experiment with new ways of being. We become more compassionate, more curious and more creative.

• Context matters. We are shaped by the relational worlds we have grown up in, by family, culture, environment and experience. Gestalt Therapy seeks to understand all experience in context, breaking down ideas of individual pathology, shame and blame. We ask not what is wrong with you but how does this make sense given everything you have lived.

• Engagement is the true goal. The aim of this work is not just symptom relief. It is a more engaged, connected and meaningful life. In the world, in relationship, in community. Therapy builds capacity not just for the individual who attends but for everyone they are in relationship with.

Want to understand the difference between a psychologist, psychiatrist, counsellor and psychotherapist in Australia? Download our plain language guide here.

HOW GESTALT THERAPY IS LEARNED.

Gestalt Therapy cannot be learned from a textbook. It is transmitted through direct experience and personal encounter. Human to human.

I chose GTIWA's four year programme specifically because of its non-academic, experiential approach. This is the longest running continually offered Gestalt Therapy training programme in Australia. Its emphasis is not on theory absorbed in a classroom but on direct personal encounter, in group, in supervision, in the body, in the living relationship between trainees and faculty with decades of practice.

My training comprises 400 hours of intensive experiential group work over four years, currently in my final semester. Alongside this I completed more than 60 hours of individual Gestalt Therapy as a personal client, sitting in the very chair I now invite others into. On top of this I have been under clinical supervision for 20 hours over the past 2 years. The training is 70 percent experiential. I have not just studied this approach. I have lived it from both sides.

I also received direct transmission from the senior faculty of GATLA's European Summer Residential, practitioners with more than four decades of practice in Gestalt Therapy. This international lineage of transmission is a rare and significant aspect of my training that distinguishes it from more academically oriented programmes. Claudia and Zish Rosenbach-Ziembinski are the co-directors of GTIWA.

I embody 800 hours of Yoga Teacher Training. 400 hours of Gestalt Therapy training. Hundreds of hours as a therapy client. More than thirty years of contemplative practice. At least ten thousand hours on the yoga mat practicing and teaching. Ongoing dharma practice and professional clinical supervision.

That is not a certificate. It is a life's work.

MY STORY.

There comes a point in many women's lives when what once fit no longer does.

Sacred Women's Journeys was born from a lifelong curiosity about the world, immersion in the sacred cultures of Bali, Fiji and Japan from a young age, a successful career in fashion design, thirty years of yogic and contemplative practice across India, Bali and Japan, a growing recognition of the gap between spiritual opening and genuine therapeutic healing, and the training that finally built the bridge.

The name Sacred Women's Journeys holds everything. The outer journeys to sacred sites and temples and jungles that shaped me. The inner journeys that those places catalysed. And the ongoing journey of becoming — the path that never ends, that asks more of you at every turn, that returns you again and again to the question of who you actually are beneath everything you have been carrying.

In late 2024 a serious health crisis brought everything to a stop. Major surgery with complications. Eighteen months to recover. The long and non-linear process of rebuilding. The necessity of tending to my own needs with the same care I had always offered others.

That experience is now inseparable from this work.

You are not broken. You are in the middle of something. And there is a way through.

I know this territory because I have crossed it many times. What I have built here is the bridge I could not offer the women I used to take on retreat. A safe, trauma-informed and holistic approach to women's self-understanding and genuine healing.

Read my full story and how Sacred Women's Journeys came to be here.

MY APPROACH.

My work integrates:

• Awareness-based, relational and Gestalt-informed psychotherapy

• Trauma-informed practice

• Nervous system support and guided relaxation

• Yoga, breathwork and meditation

• Embodied and contemplative awareness

This approach supports:

• Self-awareness and emotional insight

• Emotional regulation and resilience

• Self-trust and inner stability

• Healthier and more authentic relationships

Rather than focusing on fixing or analysing, this work supports awareness, presence, and a deeper understanding of your experience as it unfolds.

HOW WE WORK TOGETHER.

Sessions are individually tailored, supportive, grounded, and relational.

Our work together prioritises:

• Presence over pressure

• Being over doing

• Exploration over fixing

• Understanding over judgement

AREA’S OF SPECIAL INTEREST.

NERVOUS SYSTEM REGULATION & STRESS RECOVERY.

The nervous system is not separate from the mind or the emotions. Much of what brings women to therapy — the anxiety that will not settle, the exhaustion that sleep does not fix, the emotional volatility that arrives without warning — is a nervous system asking for support rather than a character flaw or a personal failing.

My work integrates nervous system awareness throughout every offering. In individual therapy we track somatic signals and work with the body's responses as primary therapeutic information. In Sacred Rest Ritual the entire arc of the session is designed to guide the nervous system from activation into genuine restoration.

TRAUMA, PTSD & THE BODY.

Trauma is not just what happened. It is what the body held when it had no other choice. Whether from a single overwhelming event, complex relational trauma or the cumulative weight of chronic stress, trauma lives in the nervous system long after the event has passed. My approach is body-based, present-focused and relationally grounded. I do not ask you to relive or retell. We work with what is present now, in the body, in the patterns of contact and withdrawal, in the quality of the relationship between us. I am trained in trauma-responsive practice and hold this understanding throughout all of my work.

MINDFULNESS, MEDITATION & CONTEMPLATIVE APPROACHES TO MENTAL HEALTH.

I have been a practitioner of stillness for more than thirty years. Mindfulness, Yoga Nidra, mantra meditation, somatic awareness through yoga and contemplative inquiry have been central to my own mental health and spiritual life across decades of change, loss and rebuilding. Mindfulness as a clinical approach has one of the strongest evidence bases in mental health research, supporting anxiety reduction, nervous system regulation and emotional resilience. For women navigating spiritual crisis, loss of faith or the relationship between their inner life and their outer one, this depth of contemplative background is genuinely rare in a clinical setting.

SPIRITUAL BYPASSING AND AUTHENTIC SPIRITUAL LIFE.

Spiritual bypassing, using spiritual practice or belief to avoid uncomfortable emotions, unfinished psychological business or the reality of what is, is one of the most common and least discussed challenges in contemplative and yoga communities.

I understand this territory intimately, both personally and professionally. The move toward a non-dogmatic, grounded and honest practice is not incidental in my work. It is earned. For women who sense that something in their spiritual life has been more about avoidance than genuine meeting, or who have left a community or tradition and are finding their way back to what they actually believe, this is a rare and safe space to explore that honestly.

Genuine spiritual life and genuine psychological health are not separate paths. They illuminate each other. This work holds both.

YOGA NIDRA FOR SLEEP, ANXIETY & NERVOUS SYSTEM REGULATION.

Yoga Nidra is one of the most accessible and evidence-supported practices available for anxiety, insomnia, burnout and nervous system dysregulation. It requires nothing except the willingness to lie down and be guided. I have been teaching Yoga Nidra for more than fifteen years and it is central to the Sacred Rest Ritual offering.

WOMEN'S MENTAL HEALTH AND MIDLIFE TRANSITION.

This work is specifically oriented toward women. Not because men cannot benefit from yoga-informed therapy or Gestalt practice, but because women's experience of midlife, of the body, of relational life, of identity and of the spiritual path has its own particular flavour and deserves a practitioner who understands it from the inside.

My own lived experience of midlife transition, hormonal change, health crisis, identity loss and rebuilding is not separate from my clinical training. It is the ground from which I meet the women who come to me. I understand the particular exhaustion of the woman who has spent decades caring for others while quietly abandoning herself. I know the disorientation of a body that is changing in ways nobody prepared you for. I know the dark night that arrives when the life you built no longer fits.

This work is for the woman who is ready to be met honestly, without performance or pretence, in the fullness of where she actually is. Where you are right now.

WOMEN'S CIRCLES AND RELATIONAL GROUP WORK.

I have been participating in women's circles since 2012 and facilitating since 2014. I have trained more than twenty women as women’s circle facilitators through a structured curriculum I designed and developed, and continue to mentor women in the art of holding sacred and therapeutic space for groups.

While I no longer offer standalone women's circles, the relational and therapeutic approach that informed that work is woven throughout my Women's Wellbeing Workshops and will be central to future retreat offerings.

If you are interested in one to one mentoring for women's circle facilitation or group leadership, I would love to hear from you. Reach out directly to start a conversation here.

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS & MEMBERSHIPS.

• GTIWA Gestalt Therapy Training currently completing (2023–2026)

• Professional Clinical Supervision with Zish Rosenbach-Ziembinski (2025 - 2026)

• WAMH Being Trauma Responsive Training (2026)

• MHFA Mental Health First Aid Training (Accredited 2026 - 2029)

• WAMH Understanding Grief and Loss Training (2026)

• GANZ Gestalt Therapy Australia and New Zealand (Current Member)

• IICT International Institute for Complementary Therapists (Current Member)

• HEART OF SOUND 100 Hour Mantra / Nada Yoga Certification, Rishikesh, India (2017)

• TINA NANCE 100 Hour Certification Yin Yoga & Assistant, Bali, Indonesia (2016)

• SURINDER SINGH 200 Hour Certification Hatha Yoga, Rishikesh, India (2016)

• TARA JUDELLE 200 Hour Certification Hatha Yoga in the Anusara Method, Bali, Indonesia (2013)

• VIDYA HEISL 200 Hour Certification Vinyasa Yoga, Bali, Indonesia (2012)

• RMIT UNIVERSITY BA Fashion Honours - Marketing Stream (1997 - 2000)

• OSAKA WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY - Language & Culture Scholarship (1996)

• FUKUOKA DAIICHI HIGH SCHOOL - Language & Culture Scholarship (1994)

• TOORAK COLLEGE Tertiary Entrance Ranking 98.65 (1990 - 1993 & 1995)

YOGA TRAINING & MENTORING EXPERIENCE.

With 800 hours of Yoga Teacher Training and thousands of hours of teaching and practice, I offer mentoring for yoga teachers and practitioners who want to deepen their understanding of yoga for mental health, nervous system support and contemplative practice, and for those who want to develop and offer their own workshops and retreats.

My mentoring interests include:

• Yoga for mental health

• Designing and facilitating workshops and retreats

• Mantra, meditation and mindfulness

• Breathwork and pranayama practices

• Yogic philosophy, psychology and ethics

• Nervous system support and relaxation practices

If you are interested in yoga mentoring, contributions to Yoga Teacher Training environments or yoga for mental health education, reach out to discuss how we might work together here.

RETREATS & IMMERSIVE WORK.

I have designed and facilitated more than 25 women’s retreats and immersive experiences through my previous work in yoga, travel, and wellbeing, including:

• ART OF FEMININITY Women’s Cultural Sacred Arts Tour Japan (2019)

• LIVING IN ALIGNMENT Women’s Wellness Ayurveda Retreat South India (2016 - 2019)

• DIVINE MOTHER INDIA Women’s Spiritual Tour North India (2014 - 2019)

These transformational travel experiences continue to inform my current work, bringing depth, cultural awareness, and embodied practice into my offerings.

GET IN TOUCH.

If something here resonates, reach out.

You are welcome to begin or join one of our offerings when you feel ready.