This Wollongong counsellor is rooting out trauma with a unique approach to mental health and healing

An epiphany led Wollongong woman Rainbow Shiva to start her trauma-informed counselling service in Wollongong.

It was about 18 months on from the breakdown of her marriage, and the then 40-year-old mother of two was driving home after a weekend in the bush with friends when it hit her.

“I thought – I need to become a drug and alcohol counsellor,” she says. “All my best ideas just drop into my head. That’s just how I work.”

It would be a departure from a decades-long career in the music industry, first working in and managing her parents’ Figtree music store, Leading Edge, and then for the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA).

The following weekend she attended a TAFE open day and applied on the spot. When she broke the news of her sudden career change, it came as no great surprise to family and friends.

“They all said, ‘You’ve been doing this for about 20 years; you might as well get paid for it!'” she says.

“I am that woman who goes to a party and ends up in the corner with a complete stranger telling me their life story. People tend to open up to me, and I am genuinely interested in them.”

While working as a support worker, Rainbow completed a TAFE course followed by a Bachelor of Counselling at university, and in her final year was placed at drug and alcohol rehabilitation institution Odyssey House NSW for her practicum.

“My first thought on day one was, ‘I need to get a job here’. Halfway through my placement, I got a full-time role with their community services program, which was starting up, so I got in on the ground floor. It was so exciting,” she says.

“I worked full-time at Odyssey House for three years before I graduated, and I loved it. Then COVID hit.

“I got the sack four days before Christmas. I had never been sacked before – it really shook me.”

It proved to be another fork stuck in the road. A client reached out and asked Rainbow if she provided counselling for the NSW Government’s Victims Services.

In NSW, victims of violent crimes or modern slavery can access up to 22 hours of free counselling.

It was a calling that spoke to Rainbow and led her to a deeper dive into trauma training at The Centre for Healing where she found her niche and developed the modalities that define her counselling practice, ‘Walk and Talk with Rainbow’.

Rainbow is the only practitioner of ‘Root Cause Therapy’ and Embodied Processing in the Illawarra.

She says Root Cause Therapy speaks to the unconscious mind using kinesiology techniques of ‘muscle testing’ to uncover a person’s limiting beliefs.

“For example, a three-year-old goes shopping with mum and gets lost and frightened to the point that terror overcomes them. That’s a physical sensation. After a few minutes, they reunite with Mum and calm down, but the next time they can’t find Mum, that same terror comes over them. It’s not rational; it’s not something they can control; it’s the nervous system kicking in,” she says.

“If that’s not dealt with, the child grows up and decades later, still has a fear of being alone. This can lead to, for example, choosing the wrong partners and ending up in dangerous situations simply for fear of being alone, but they’re not conscious of that.

“To begin to address the manifestations of that trauma, they need to do some work through guided meditation to take the unconscious mind back and identify the root cause. Then they can start to heal.”

This is where healing techniques such as Embodied Processing come in.

Rainbow explains that Embodied Processing locates where in the body and nervous system certain emotions are stored, so negative emotions associated with a limiting belief can be released. This can involve breath work and movement.

“The client starts to get to know their body and understand what it needs. As we’re changing the energy of that emotion, that’s where we can access learnings from the unconscious mind,” she says.

“In doing the training, you have to practice on yourself as well, to understand what your clients will experience. It’s intensive, but I have undergone a lot of personal growth myself through the process. It’s effective.

“After a few sessions, I have a couple of clients who have turned their whole lives around.”

Rainbow, who specialises in addictions, trauma, mental health, dual diagnosis and ADHD, runs free introductory group sessions to Root Cause Therapy. Counselling is offered in person, over the phone or online, including walk and talk therapy and pet therapy.

Regardless of what brings a person in, or how many sessions they need, the goal remains the same.

“I want to get my clients to the point they no longer need me. My aim is to do myself out of a job,” Rainbow says.

Book an introductory session to Root Cause Therapy via Calendly or learn more about Rainbow on Clearhead.