I’m Stella tomlinson (she/her).
I’m a trainee Solution-Focused Hypnotherapist supporting people who feel things deeply, think a lot, and often experience the effects of stress in both mind and body.
My work offers a calm, supportive space to help you reduce anxiety, settle an overactive nervous system, and feel more grounded, clear, and like yourself again.
As a registered student member of the National Council for Hypnotherapy, I am fully insured and have an Enhanced DBS.
My approach
I believe many struggles are not a sign that something is “wrong with you”, but a reflection of a nervous system that has been under too much pressure for too long.
Through Solution-Focused Hypnotherapy, I work in a gentle, practical way that combines talking therapy with guided relaxation to help your mind and body move out of stress and into a more balanced state.
This approach is grounded in modern neuroscience and focuses on helping your brain create new, more helpful patterns - so change feels possible, manageable, and sustainable.
My Background
My path to this work has been shaped by over 25 years of personal and professional exploration in emotional wellbeing, mind–body practices, and inner development.
This has included practising and teaching meditation, yoga, mindfulness, energy-based practices, menstrual cycle awareness, nature-based approaches, inner child work, grief tending, and an ongoing interest in how the nervous system shapes our emotional experience.
I’ve been writing and teaching in these areas in various forms since 2011, always with a focus on helping people feel more connected to themselves and their inner experience.
I recognise what it’s like to hold a lot internally, to think deeply, and to feel the effects of stress not just emotionally, but physically as well (including living with IBS through my thirties and forties). I’m now in my early fifties and moving through the menopause transition which brings shifts in both mind and body, and a deep reorientation of how we relate to ourselves.
Over time, this understanding naturally led me towards a more grounded, therapeutic approach – one that focuses on the nervous system, emotional regulation, and helping fellow deep-feeling souls find a greater sense of ease in themselves.
How I work now:
My current focus is grounded and therapeutic.
I now support deep-feeling women who are experiencing:
anxiety and overwhelm
stress that shows up in both mind and body
overthinking and mental fatigue
emotional burnout or feeling “stuck”
difficulty relaxing or switching off
Together, we work gently with your nervous system to help create more space, calm, and clarity in everyday life.
My way of working:
I bring a calm, compassionate, and down-to-earth approach to this work.
Sessions are practical, structured, and supportive - with a focus on helping you feel safe, understood, and not overwhelmed by the process.
There is no pressure to go into detail about anything you’re not ready to share.
We focus on what feels manageable, and on small, achievable shifts that build over time.
Certifications
Hypnotherapy Diploma Course with Clifton Practice Hypnotherapy Training (CPHT), October 2025 - July 2026. This will lead to the Diploma in Solution Focused Hypnotherapy (DSFH), awarded by CPHT and the Hypnotherapy in Practice Diploma (HPD) awarded by the NCH, the largest Hypnotherapy Association in the UK.
Energy Emotional Freedom Technique Master Practitioner (Guild of Energists), April – June 2018.
Energy Emotional Freedom Technique Foundation (Guild of Energists) – November 2017.
Jikiden Reiki Zenki (Shoden) Attuned – July 2017, certified by the Jikiden Reiki Institute.
Restorative Yoga Teacher Training (30-hour immersion, September 2016) with Adelene Cheong, Senior Assistant to Judith Hanson Lasater. Certified Restorative Yoga Teacher.
Dru Meditation Teacher Training with the International School of Dru Yoga (2014 – 2016).
Dru Yoga Teacher Training: 200 hour teacher training course (Dip DYT) with the International School of Dru Yoga (2010 - 2012).
Trainings, study & Personal Development
Understanding the Gut-Brain Axis, CPHT, April 2026.
Uncommon Hypnosis with Uncommon Knowledge, summer 2025.
Total Yoga Nidra Immersion Experience with The Yoga Nidra Network, autumn/winter 2024.
Grief Through The Elements with Nici Harrison of The Grief Space, spring-summer 2024.
Path To Second Spring Group Mentoring with Kate Codrington, Feb-June 2024.
Foundations of Wellbeing, online with Dr Rick Hanson, 12-month course, 2023.
Practices for Grieving and Heartache, online with Ancestral Medicine, winter 2022.
Coping with Grief and Loss, online with Dr Rick Hanson, winter 2022.
Positive Neuroplasticity Training, online with Dr Rick Hanson, summer 2022.
Menopause, the Great Awakener, online with Red School, autumn 2020.
Bardic Grade of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, self-paced course March 2020 – summer 2021.
Priestess of Brighde/Brigantia Training (with Priestess Marion Brigantia,Glastonbury) January 2018 – January 2020, including the Elemental Goddess Healing modality (and membership of the Clan of Brighde-Brigantia and The Orchard of Avalon).
Menstrual Cycle Literacy, online withRed School 2017-18.
Hormone Harmony online with Red School 2017.
Practised and studied Yoga Nidra since 2016.
BA(Hons) English Literature (1996) and MSc Econ Information and Library Studies (2000).
My story
I live in Hampshire with my husband, having moved here in 2011.
Before that, life took me across the UK — from the West Midlands where I grew up, to London for university, Aberystwyth for postgraduate study, and then years living and working in Cardiff and Staffordshire.
Outside of work, I value quiet, nature, and slow living. I’ve always been drawn to the same underlying thread: how we find our way back to ourselves when life feels overwhelming, fragmented, or disconnected.
Early work and beginnings
Before stepping into my current work, I spent many years working in digital and internal communications within higher education.
Alongside this, I began exploring practices that helped me make sense of my own inner world — meditation, yoga, mindfulness, and later, more embodied and nature-based approaches to wellbeing.
From 2011 onwards, I taught yoga and relaxation regularly, alongside writing and developing workshops focused on rest, awareness, and reconnection.
Over time, my focus naturally began to shift away from physical practice alone, and towards the deeper patterns that sit beneath how we think, feel, and respond - particularly how stress and emotional overload are held in the mind and body.
A deepening path
From around 2015, I began exploring more cyclical and nature-based perspectives on life — including seasonal rhythms, menstrual cycle awareness, and earth-based spirituality.
I was also initiated as a Priestess of Brigid in 2020, following a two-year training, which reflected a period of deep personal exploration and connection to meaning, archetypes, and the seasonal energies of life.
During this time, I devoted myself full-time to writing and teaching, exploring themes of emotional depth, seasons and cycles, and the ways we navigate change and transition.
I’ve always been a reader and a seeker - drawn to ideas that help us understand the inner landscape of being human.
Writing, reflection, and creative work
Writing has been a long-standing part of my life and practice.
Over the years, I’ve written and published several books exploring themes of emotional wellbeing, inner resilience, and the deeper rhythms of female experience. These include works on navigating difficult times, finding steadiness within emotional overwhelm, and exploring the transitions of midlife as a time of inner change and reorientation.
My writing has always been a way of making sense of lived experience – both my own and what I witness in others – and of exploring what it means to move through life with more awareness, compassion, and inner connection.
While this is no longer my main professional focus, it remains an important part of how I understand people and the inner landscape of change.
What has remained constant
While my work has evolved, what has never changed is my interest in sensitivity, emotional depth, and the experience of being someone who feels things strongly — sometimes to the point of overwhelm.
I recognise what it’s like to hold a lot internally, to think deeply, and to feel the effects of stress not just emotionally, but physically as well.
Over time, this understanding naturally led me towards a more grounded, therapeutic approach – one that focuses on the nervous system, emotional regulation, and helping people find a greater sense of ease in themselves.
Where I am now
Today, I’m training as a Solution-Focused Hypnotherapist, bringing together everything I’ve learned over the years into a more focused, practical way of supporting people.
My work is now centred on helping deep-feeling women who may feel anxious, overwhelmed, or internally over-activated to begin to settle – so they can think more clearly, feel more balanced, and experience more ease in both mind and body.
Influences & Inspirations…
Alongside my formal training, I’ve been deeply shaped by the work of writers and teachers who explore emotional depth, inner experience, spiritual connection and the human psyche, including Sharon Blackie, Lucy H. Pearce, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, Mary Oliver, Elaine Aron, Susan Cain, John O’Donohue, Bill Plotkin, Francis Weller, and Tim Freke.
These influences continue to inform my appreciation of sensitivity, reflection, and the inner life - even as my work has become more grounded in neuroscience and therapeutic practice.
A final note…
At its heart, my work is about helping people feel more at home in themselves again.
Not by becoming someone different - but by gently coming out of survival patterns, and back into a more settled, connected way of being.
You’re very welcome here
If you’re feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or simply not quite like yourself, you don’t have to navigate that alone.
This is a space where things can begin to feel a little steadier, a little clearer, and a little more manageable - one step at a time.
