A Boscombe woman says attending wellbeing events and holistic therapy sessions helped her through cancer treatment.
Zoe Hatch was diagnosed with an ocular melanoma in 2018, and now has a prosthetic left eye.
She also has fibromyalgia, degenerative disk syndrome, bipolar and ADHD, and experiences chronic pain.
Zoe frequently attends lunar moon circle events, but has also attended guided meditation sessions and received massages.
She says that these sessions have helped her physically as well as mentally, helping her with her day to day struggles and, while battling cancer, to relax and feel more positive about her treatment.
She said: “I would point anybody towards holistic therapy, as it really helped me while I was in a scary place.”
Zoe still has MRI scans every six months, as the type of cancer she had is rare, and in 50% of people who have an ocular melanoma, it spreads to other areas of the body.
In many cases, metastasis doesn’t appear until 10-15 years after the eye tumour has been successfully treated.
Christina May has been a holistic therapist for 25 years, and runs her own clinic from home, based in Poole, Crystal Holistic Therapies.
She says that holistic therapy which is tailored to the individual can be really beneficial for their mental health.
She said: “If the most you get out of it is to feel relaxed and a bit more clear in the mind then that’s a huge bonus.”
She highlights the importance of creating an environment where her clients are relaxed enough to share their problems.
She said: “By being able to verbalise something, you are able to put it more into perspective than if you’d have kept it in your own mind.”
A BCP Council report in 2023 showed that just under a quarter of adults self-report high anxiety levels, and 12.9% were diagnosed with depression.
It was also recorded that loneliness was experienced by 25.6% of BCP residents in 2023.
Jane Scanlan has hosted lunar moon circle events at Southbourne beach for the past five years.
She said: “I see tears, I see laughter and high fives within the circle and it is just a beautiful community.”
Her sessions feature physical rituals to release negative emotions and welcome positive thoughts, such as writing things you want in life on bay leaves and burning them and whispering worries to rocks and throwing them in the sea.
Southbourne resident, Beverley Lawson, finds these help her to work through her emotions.
Beverley said: “You feel really good afterwards. You come out a completely different person to who you went in as.”
Beverly also attends yoga classes, and the sea dip club, which she also finds a relaxing break from day to day life.
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