Ania

“Hi, my name is Ania. I am Polish, I am 32 and a mother to an 8 year old girl. I really care about people being well and the world working for everyone that’s in it. I care about peace and I care about people feeling safe and nurtured. This has guided my career journey. It has had me move into international relations and various community projects centred around delivering free meals to people who need them most.

The reason I came for treatment was because a friend saw me struggling with my low back and it was affecting our relationship, so she recommended that I come and see Ruby and I’m so grateful that she did. I have been struggling with my back pain for quite a few years. There have been periods of time where I would take care of it and then stop paying that much attention and then something dramatic would happen like I would lift something or bend and then my back would just go into a spasm and be really uncomfortable! It would last from days to weeks at a time and I would feel quite paralysed about what I should or shouldn’t do. Movement was painful and I was trying to avoid pain, so I wouldn’t move and I’d stay in bed for long periods in pain. That obviously wasn’t working for me or for anyone else in my life. So I really wanted to try something different and I’m really glad I did.

What immediately struck me about the treatment was how it really felt like it wasn’t just my back that was being looked at but the whole of my body. I started seeing it much more as a whole rather than keeping it all very separate. It’s been really amazing and my treatment was always incredibly relaxing. It felt like being held and cradled and it had this incredibly calming effect on the whole of me. I think I developed a very different relationship with my body as a result. I became much kinder to it and much more patient with it. I stopped seeing pain as something wrong necessarily, but more as a signal to maybe slow down a little bit, breathe, relax and listen to what it is that my body really needs. I learnt not to buy into the story that I built around suffering and consequences and the debilitating state that I would find myself in as a result of that. There was such a lot of psychological drama around my experience in my body and my back and it feels really beautiful to be able to let go of that. I went from experiencing that pain and feeling immobilised for however long it took, to last week when I was able to relax into the same level of discomfort that I would feel before and the same intensity of the spasm. I was able to bring myself back within 10-15 minutes which is an incredible improvement. Because I’ve stopped seeing it as a binary thing where I’m either well or unwell and I see it more as a conversation between my body and me. Handling it has become a very empowering experience.

Through treatment and Ruby’s very holistic approach which was very kind and nurturing, I developed a very different relationship with, I don’t even say it’s the problem anymore and it was a big problem before, but my experience. It cannot be underestimated. It has been so empowering to know that I can be in conversation with my body. It doesn’t have to be a sentence. It doesn’t have to be this thing that will be there forever and this danger somewhere that I might do something wrong. Instead I think, as a result of the treatment I have become much calmer and intune with my body.

I would definitely recommend treatment to anyone who has back pain. I think it is amazing. I think it is amazing that Ruby provides treatment on a sliding income scale. I would love for more people to be able to access that. I feel very grateful for everything Ruby has done for me, for making me feel so much better and the impact this has had on my mental health and anxiety, for being incredibly supportive and for really listening to me.”