I’m a Solution-Focused Hypnotherapist & Psychotherapist and Author supporting women in midlife and beyond through anxiety and change.
My work offers a calm, supportive space to help you reduce anxiety, settle an overactive nervous system, and feel more grounded, clear, and in touch with yourself again.
Looking for my qualifications? Find them here.
I’m Stella tomlinson (she/her).
My “WHys”
Why Hypnotherapy?
For 25 years, I have been fascinated by how deep relaxation opens a portal to your wisest self.
Hypnotherapy takes this relaxed state and combines it with modern neuroscience and neuroplasticity.
By gently calming the mind and body, we put your subconscious mind to work.
And this makes lasting, positive change feel natural and manageable rather than a struggle.
Why Solution Focused?
There comes a point where analysing the past stops bringing relief.
I spent years analysing my past through talk therapy, journaling, and inner child work.
It helped me understand why I felt stuck, but it also left me feeling a bit broken.
I was ready to stop focusing on the wounds and start focusing on where I wanted to go.
Turning toward the future was the exact relief my nervous system was craving.
Why Midlife & Menopause?
Because I am walking this path right alongside you (born in 1975).
This turbulent threshold can feel deeply disorienting as hormones shift and identities melt away.
But I don’t view it as a crisis or decline.
It is a profound midlife awakening - a sacred opportunity to strip away who you were told to be and finally remember who you actually are.
My approach
Your struggles are not a sign that something is “wrong” with you.
I believe that chronic overwhelm, 3am insomnia, and constant mental static are simply reflections of a deeply perceptive nervous system navigating the shifts of midlife and menopause. And your system has simply been under too much pressure for too long.
Through Solution-Focused Hypnotherapy, we work in a gentle, practical way that honours this profound transition.
By combining forward-focused conversation with deeply restorative guided relaxation, we help your mind and body step out of anxiety and survival mode, and into a more balanced state of inner peace.
This approach is grounded in modern neuroscience and focuses on helping your brain create new, more helpful patterns — so navigating this midlife chapter feels possible, manageable, and sustainable.
How I arrived Here
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.
Since 2011, I have been teaching, sharing and writing books in these areas — always with a focus on helping women feel more connected to themselves and their inner experience.
My background includes practising and teaching yoga, meditation, mindfulness, menstrual cycle and nature-based awareness, grief tending, and inner child work.
Over time, this naturally led me toward a more grounded, therapeutic focus on how the nervous system and brain science shape our emotional experience.
A shared felt-sense
I deeply understand what it is like to be highly sensitive, hold a massive amount internally, to think deeply, and to carry the exhausting weight of over-functioning.
I spent my twenties and thirties battling the belief that my worth was tied to how perfectly I showed up for everyone else - learning firsthand how a chronic lack of self-worth fills your stress bucket and completely destabilizes your peace.
Unravelling that pattern required me to step away from the pressure of perfectionism and learn the slow, foundational practice of true self-compassion.
It wasn't about a rapid fix, but about gently retraining my mind and nervous system to believe that I am allowed to rest, set boundaries, and simply belong to myself.
Now in my early fifties, I am moving through the peri/menopause transition. I know intimately the physical shifts, the mental static, and the profound existential reorientation that this chapter demands.
This deep personal and professional journey is what led me to Solution-Focused Hypnotherapy. It provided the scientific missing piece I was looking for and a gentle, effortless way to help fellow deep-feeling souls calm the primitive alarm, reset their default programming, and find a lasting sense of ease.
How I work now:
My focus is grounded and therapeutic.
I now support deep-feeling women in their 40s, 50s and 60s who are experiencing:
anxiety and overwhelm
overthinking, procrastination and rumination
stress that shows up in the body as tension, discomfort/pain and fatigue
emotional burnout or feeling “stuck”, empty or even lost as you navigate this chapter in your life
difficulties relaxing or switching off
Together, we work gently with your nervous system to empty your stress bucket and create a spacious, grounded everyday reality.
My way of working:
I bring a calm, compassionate, and down-to-earth approach to this work.
You will find our time together to be practical, structured, and entirely supportive, helping you feel safe, understood, and not overwhelmed by the process.
No pressure to relive the past. You don’t need to talk about past trauma or share anything you are not ready to. We never dig up old pain.
Future-focused. We focus entirely on your preferred future, introducing small, achievable shifts that build new neural pathways over time.
Sessions are designed to be an effortless sanctuary of gentle enquiry and deep restorative rest - not another chore on your to-do list.
Qualifications
Hypnotherapy Qualifications
Diploma in Solution Focused Hypnotherapy (DSFH) | CPHT | October 2025 - July 2026.
[In progress | October 2025 - autumn 2026] Hypnotherapy in Practice Diploma (HPD) | National Council for Hypnotherapy (NCH) | Considered the gold standard in UK Hypnotherapy qualifications.
I am a member of the Association for Solution Focused Hypnotherapy and a registered student member of the National Council for Hypnotherapy. I am fully insured and have an Enhanced DBS.
Further Hypnotherapy study
HypnoMenopause® Practitioner Training | Academy of The Inner Mind | August 2026.
Understanding the Gut-Brain Axis | CPHT | April 2026.
Uncommon Hypnosis | Uncommon Knowledge | Summer 2025.
Other Qualifications & Training
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Foundations of Wellbeing | Dr Rick Hanson | 12-month online course | 2023.
Coping with Grief and Loss | Dr Rick Hanson | Winter 2022.
Positive Neuroplasticity Training | Dr Rick Hanson | Summer 2022.
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Total Yoga Nidra Immersion Experience | The Yoga Nidra Network | Autumn/Winter 2024.
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 | Certified by the Jikiden Reiki Institute | July 2017.
Restorative Yoga Teacher Training (30-hour immersion) | Certified Restorative Yoga Teacher | Adelene Cheong, Senior Assistant to Judith Hanson Lasater | September 2016.
Dru Meditation Teacher Training (Dip DMT) | International School of Dru Yoga | 2014 – 2016.
Dru Yoga Teacher Training: 200 hour teacher training course (Dip DYT) | International School of Dru Yoga | 2010 - 2012.
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Grief Through The Elements | Nici Harrison of The Grief Space | Spring-summer 2024.
Path To Second Spring Group Mentoring | Kate Codrington | Feb-June 2024.
Practices for Grieving and Heartache | Ancestral Medicine | winter 2022.
Menopause, the Great Awakener | 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 | Priestess Marion Brigantia, Glastonbury | January 2018 – January 2020, including the Elemental Goddess Healing modality.
Menstrual Cycle Literacy | Red School | 2017-18.
Hormone Harmony | Red School 2017.
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MSc Econ Information and Library Studies | 2000 | University of Wales Aberystwyth
BA (Hons) English | 1996 | Royal Holloway University of London
My story: The threads that bind my work
No matter what chapter of life I have been in, 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
From 2000 I spent many years navigating the busy landscapes of digital and internal communications within higher education.
It was there that I first began exploring meditation, yoga, and mindfulness to make sense of my own inner world.
This led me to train as a yoga and then meditation teacher and from 2011 onwards, I taught these restorative practices regularly through classes and workshops.
Around 2018 I felt called to dive deeply into cyclical, earth-based spiritualities and nature-based awareness — including a profound two-year initiation as a Priestess of Brigid in 2020.
Soulful Self-Acceptance
Writing has always been my way of making sense of the inner landscape.
Over the years, I have published five non-fiction books dedicated to emotional wellbeing, inner resilience, and the transitions of midlife:
Her Soul Is Ablaze
I Am With You
Cycles of Belonging
Whispers From Mother Earth
Peace Lies Within
They’re books which aim to guide you to soulful self-acceptance.
Bridging Wisdom with Modern Science
While my rich literary and psycho-spiritual background remains the bedrock of how I understand the human heart, my clinical practice bridges that soulful wisdom with modern, science-backed precision.
Today, I bring together everything I’ve learned over the past 25 years into the focused, practical framework of Solution-Focused Hypnotherapy.
By calming the primitive alarm system of the brain, we quiet the internal static — helping you think more clearly, feel more balanced, and step fully into a life more alive.
I help you rewrite your default programming and secure your boundaries — so you can think more clearly, feel more balanced, and stop simply getting through life, and step fully into A Life More Alive.
A few more things about me
My MBTI Type: INFP - a highly sensitive, creative seeker driven by authenticity, values, and a love for deep inner exploration.
Ideal Sunday morning: A cup of herbal tea, a blank notebook, and comforting silence gazing out at my little garden.
Nervous system reset: Listening to birdsong while watching the clouds float across the sky, or a 20-minute yoga nidra in a cosy “rest nest” on my bed.
Sensory kryptonite: Bright fluorescent overhead lighting, crowded shopping centres, and forced small talk.
Favourite season: Autumn — for the russet and amber leaves, the cooling air, the golden light and lengthening shadows … and the invitation to slow down.
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, Rick Hanson, 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 you feel more at home in yourself 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.
