Meet The Team

Having spent many years travelling around the globe learning her craft, working with the Shaman of the Jungles and Mountains of Peru, Healers of the Indigenous Peoples in Canada and Mexico, as well as soaking up the Wisdom and Ceremonies of Ancient Egypt. She then began assisting and guiding likeminded travellers in pursuing their own spiritual journeys to these ancient power sites, helping them to unfold their own inner strengths. Having spent most of the late 1980’s and 1990’s combining her Travelling, Consultancy and Teaching, in early 1999 with the arrival of grandchildren and a desire to settle and finally bring her vision to fruition, meant that she began to actively focus on finding the right property in which to make it a reality.

In late Summer that year Alliblaster House – a former Nursing Home was put up for sale and the retiring owner was so inspired by Vivien’s vision, she turned down various property developers bids in order that her very happy and special nursing home could continue to help people – it was clearly meant to be.

After a lengthy refurbishment process, that vision came to life in 2000, running successful tailor-made holistic retreats which brought together some of the benefits of detoxing with Holistic Therapies, whilst Vivien also continued her Consultancy work and Teaching. During that first few years working to gather together a great team of therapists, specialising in detox therapies. Vivien was then able to fully embrace that original vision of a dedicated Retreat offering guests a full Juice Cleanse. What’s more whilst embracing changes, exploring new things along the way, and adding a few treatments, all Simply Healing retreats are all still based on this original ethos of Juicing, Cleansing Herbs, Colonic Hydrotherapy and Holistic Therapies.

In Vivien’s own words:

“My interest in Detoxing began in 1985 when I found a book about Candida Albicans. Having been diagnosed with ME, as I read it all made sense to me, my body was so toxic that it could not heal. Headaches, aching joints, bloating, chronic fatigue and the list went on. So I tried to cut out certain foods to establish what the cause of my ailments were. I had a little improvement but it was not really working so a girlfriend suggested I go and see Maggie in the USA.

Off I went to San Diego in California for a month long Juice only detox. I found so many answers to so many issues there and the rest as they say is for another story. Having initially planned to stay for a month, I stayed for three months and tried several Detox Programmes, some good and some not so good! From these trials Maggie and I worked out a programme between us which we then used on ourselves and friends as guinea pigs.

We have from that time tried other options but always come back to the original programme because it works. Fresh Juice, herbal supplements, Colonic Hydrotherapy, Massages and tender loving care. Lots of water and gently does it. When you leave here, you are ready to make changes, to stay clean and full of energy.”

Her main input for clients is scheduling the treatments each week, she has a deep understanding of every treatment and its benefits as part of the detox process, how each treatment can complement and also hinder each other. Therefore, she takes a lot of time ensuring that clients have all their treatments, including pre-booked additional treatments, scheduled for maximum benefits, whilst maintaining the retreat aspect. She is instrumental in putting together our retreat packages, and deciding what treatments we offer our clients.

Since taking over as Managing Director, she has become much more involved in understanding what our clients’ needs are and how best to help them. Taking the time to listen to what our clients would like in order that we can constantly improve the levels of care that we give them to ensure that they can leave us feeling that they achieved what they wanted to.

In Caroline’s own words:

“I am particularly passionate about helping the clients who come here for help with managing their weight. Having struggled for many years myself, I fully understand that for some people there comes a point where you feel that you have tried everything and nothing works, so you start to feel a failure, that people around you don’t understand how difficult it is to even know where to start.

It’s important to try and understand weight and food issues in terms of emotions. This is where my inspiration for training to be a Counsellor came from, I saw clearly just how much our emotions and our past impacts on our relationship with food and how/when/what we eat. Just telling someone they need to go on a diet doesn’t achieve anything, whereas understanding the emotion or trigger behind eating habits and food choices can give huge insight. I believe very strongly rather than just giving someone a generic diet plan to follow, understanding their feelings and what is achievable for them is vital.

Seeing the progress that people can achieve in their health and wellbeing goals in as little as 5 days, is inspiring and makes me very proud of what we have built over the years. I believe that what we offer here is a safe, supportive and nurturing environment, in which clients can start to achieve their goals, with people who understand how hard it can be.”