Purpose of this blog
I am writing this in service to other budding healers. Hopefully to inspire them but also to provide a forum to hear their journey too.
Professional Career
Narelle Storey
Narelle Storey has been working as a remedial massage therapist since 1980 and graduated from University of NSW in 1983 with a degree in Anatomy and obtained a Post Graduate diploma in Chiropractic from Sydney College of Chiropractic in 1986.
She has had Chiropractic practices in Coogee, Terrey Hills and Manly NSW.
As well as working in private practice, Narelle has contributed to the Occupational Health and Safety programs of some of Australia’s best known companies. She has developed Manual Handling and Ergonomic training and/or audits for Blackmore’s, Alsco, Dupont, Johnson & Johnson and Pioneer Roads, wellness programs for IAG, employee health screenings and expos, developed an award winning Injury Prevention Exercise Program for outdoor workers at Ryde council, and assisted small businesses develop their OHS policy and procedures documentation.
In 2006 she purchased an 18 acre property in Bilpin and set up Mount Hermon Estate, running a cafe, art gallery, function center with accommodation. During this time she ran couples retreats, provided health and relaxation treatments for guests and cooked, cleaned, gardened, cooked, cleaned, gardened , cooked, cleaned, gardened until its end in Feb 2008. During 2008 she moved to Oberon and allowed herself some time to recover from all the cooking, cleaning and gardening and decided to do a bit more study and obtained a diploma in remedial massage and is currently completing post grad studies in sexual health.
She now lives at “Ichykoo Park” in Oberon, NSW, where she is, once again busy gardening, cooking and cleaning, (notice my change in priorities) focusing on living sustainably and self-sufficiently and in the process, creating a haven for fine food and the healing of souls, (mine in particular, although you too are welcome!)
Personal Profile
Narelle Hutchison was born in Sydney and lived at Beecroft until the age of 5 when her parents migrated to Galt, Canada. She returned to Sydney at the age of 10 and lived at Killara, NSW, completing her schooling at Killara High School. She then attended University and Chiropractic College until 1986 and started her first practice at Coogee.
Soon after she met John Storey and they married in Nov 1988. They now have 3 boys, Joshua, 22 Joseph, 20 and Michael, 18.
Everybody’s now moved on, gone back to the city. But I remain with a little helper, my grandson Aaron who is nearly three.
Humbling oneself to live in harmony with God’s original plan for man-ie tending a garden, is indescribably enriching. Slowing down enough to walk at natures pace and be taught by her, the greatest of all preachers is a lesson I am blessed to be able to now enjoy.
Personality-who am I really?
I added this Myers Briggs profile because I find it underpins many of the key motivations that define who I am and what I try to achieve.
Myers Briggs-The Healer (INFP)
from
http://www.keirsey.com/handler.aspx?s=keirsey&f=fourtemps&tab=3&c=healer
Healers present a calm and serene face to the world but inside they’re anything but serene, having a capacity for personal caring rarely found in the other types. Healers care deeply about the inner life of a few special persons, or about a favorite cause in the world at large. And their great passion is to heal the conflicts that trouble individuals, or that divide groups, and thus to bring wholeness, or health, to themselves, their loved ones, and their community.
Healers have a profound sense of idealism that comes from a strong personal sense of right and wrong. They conceive of the world as an ethical, honorable place, full of wondrous possibilities and potential goods. In fact, to understand Healers, we must understand that their deep commitment to the positive and the good is almost boundless and selfless, inspiring them to make extraordinary sacrifices for someone or something they believe in. Set off from the rest of humanity by their privacy and scarcity (around one percent of the population), Healers can feel even more isolated in the purity of their idealism.
Also, Healers might well feel a sense of separation because of their often misunderstood childhood. Healers live a fantasy-filled childhood-they are the prince or princess of fairy tales-an attitude which, sadly, is frowned upon, or even punished, by many parents. With parents who want them to get their head out of the clouds, Healers begin to believe they are bad to be so fanciful, so dreamy, and can come to see themselves as ugly ducklings. In truth, they are quite OK just as they are, only different from most others-swans reared in a family of ducks.
At work, Healers are adaptable, welcome new ideas and new information, are patient with complicated situations, but impatient with routine details. Healers are keenly aware of people and their feelings, and relate well with most others. Because of their deep-seated reserve, however, they can work quite happily alone. When making decisions, Healers follow their heart not their head, which means they can make errors of fact, but seldom of feeling. They have a natural interest in scholarly activities and demonstrate, like the other Idealists, a remarkable facility with language. They have a gift for interpreting stories, as well as for creating them, and thus often write in lyric, poetic fashion. Frequently they hear a call to go forth into the world and help others, a call they seem ready to answer, even if they must sacrifice their own comfort.
The Healers Journey 
3 comments
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October 20, 2008 at 7:42 pm
jen
Thanx Narelle, That was interesting. Can you tell me when and how and why you came to call yourself a healer. Do you have an opinion about Chinese Traditional Medicine and acupuncture\pressure? Does Swedish Remedial connect with this in any way? Do you see that there are some methodologies and philosophies of healing that Christians cannot touch? What about the healer and self healing?
October 20, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Story girl
I accepted my calling as a healer probably three years ago even though I had been healing for 20 years before that.
I think the one consistent thing in bringing me to this place is that it has been a reluctant journey, and not one that I have, in many ways chosen.
I decided to become a chiropractor in a strangely impulsive way. I was all set on becoming an art teacher, but my mother saw an article on chiropractic and suggested we check it out. She new I was good with my hands, being a potter, and that I had an innate love of caring for others. I really don’t know how or why, but I grabbed at this so hard, turning down a scholarship to teach art.
I was so enthusiastic and idealistic and filled with joy that I had found something that could help everyone! I think my deep heart has been to do just this…to be an agent of God’s healing, and my life has been a search to realize this. I soon started to work for Chiropractors, massaging clients before the chiro saw them. It did not take long to realize that people did not really find healing. They got relief, but not real healing.
Then, in my search I started to read the bible. Here I found Jesus the Christ. I found the lover of my soul, the great physician, the man of miracles, who was all I ever wanted to be, even though I didn’t yet know it. Finding Christ was like finding the deepest passion of my heart, and I would leave all to stay with Him. I loved to read of the miracles he did, I read that “these things that I do and greater shall you do because I go to my father” (and send you the Holy Spirit to live in you, while I am seated at the right hand of the throne with all authority in heaven and earth). Now I had found the way of true healing. I would leave my studies and learn from Christ. I would heal as he heals. There was no need for anything else. I wanted to go to bible college and pursue this journey.
God, however did not have that plan for me. He wanted me to stay. I wanted to leave. I could not understand why. What purpose did natural medicine have when spiritual medicine was so effectively the answer? I finished my anatomy degree but was still confused. I went to the professor of the Chiropractic college and explained my dilemma, he suggested that missionary work was a possibility. That was the first seed of what would be an ongoing revelation of allowing Christ to use a natural skill for His benefit.
So I commenced Chiropractic studies, but struggled in many ways. One lesson I learned in this time helped me much. I was frequently lacking money for living expenses and would get myself so worked up and worried about it. I would pray and wonder if an angel would leave provisions for me. The “angel” always came, but in the form of my father or grandmother, someone very “natural”. (Note: I didn’t ask them for money, I didn’t make it happen, they saw a need and filled it). God provided for my means in a natural way as a result of my spiritual prayers. He told me that he delights to use people as agents of His blessing, and if he can find a natural solution will use this as a first point of call. Either way, thanks was going to God, because my prayers were answered but others were being eternally blessed by being used by God to love me.
This concept has remained and grown in me and underpins much of how I have come to my current understanding of using God’s natural provision to answer God’s desired outworking.
After this I gradually grew in ability to let God’s Spirit and love flow through my natural gifts, my hands, my knowledge, my care. I would always be praying and listening for direction. I become more bold, and if I sensed God asking it of me, would pray openly for the person or speak inspired words to them.
I had worked as a chiropractor and even seen miracles, like when I prayed for one old Philippine lady who had blue eyes, blind from cataracts. I saw her with brown ones straight after I had prayed for her, yet healing remained something I did, not something I was.
I left the healing profession in 1996/7 and had time in the corporate/business world, then had a complete physical breakdown in 2005. During the 8 months I was sick, I spent a lot of time resting and considering what was ahead. I rather reluctantly started to realise that God wanted me to return to healing, but now it would be more wholistic, more deeply spiritual, something that would touch the whole man, something that would require my ” whole man” , my whole being. I think being so humbled and weakened by the breakdown was an immense spiritual blessing and a perfect preparation. It was shortly after this that I birthed the dream that had been with me for such a long time, to have a healing place in the country.
During this time I accepted the call as healer. It was like putting on a holy garment after taking vows of service…like the difference between a lay believer and a priest or nun-something which defines and sets me apart. Doing the Myers Briggs assessment and coming out a a healer was really interesting, and shows that I am a healer, my motivations are to bring wholeness, richness, freedom, joy, peace. Its not just something I turn on when I am working as a therapist. It has become something that defines me and lives through me in all the various capacities I find myself in. This was the beginning of the wonderful journey I now find myself traveling on.
Jen, the rest of your questions will be answered in my next post.