Heart Ground Woman — NoxOLO
JOIN ME AS WE TALK ABOUT A HEART-LED PROJECT WITH OUR GUEST, NOXOLO WHO SPECIALIZES IN MENTAL HEALTH & AROMATHERAPY.
Noxolo is the founder and creator of the ‘I AM SHE’ — Nginguye’ Girl’s Empowerment Workshop
NOXOLO
Occupational Therapist & PhD Candidate at Stellenbosch University
Noxolo works as a mental health occupational therapist. She works in different private clinics, running groups and supporting patients, and clients living with mental illness, mostly in the acute stages. Part of her work, most recently, has also been working with people who have a diagnosis of a mental illness, who have been off work and then trying to facilitate a return to work process for them.
Based in Cape Town, South Africa, she is a true essential oil lover who runs her own custom blending business. Her intuitive and sensory approach to healing is what makes her work unique and impactful. Last year, she collaborated with Heart Ground Collective to create a special "WALK IN YOUR VISION BLEND" for members to enjoy. For those who have experienced it, Noxolo's work feels heartfelt, heart grounding, and aligned.
Noxolo is a dedicated healer who prioritizes wellness for both herself and others. She takes care of herself first so that she can better serve those around her.
Our Conversation
WHAT APPROACHES TO LIFE DO YOU FIND INSTRUMENTAL IN THE WORK THAT YOU DO EVERYDAY?
I have a side business called the Oil Sangoma, where I do intuitive oil reading. So I make personalized blends which you need at a moment in real time. I just love essential oils. They have really changed my life in ways that I cannot put into words. I am so skilled in using them and know they work like the back of my hands.
I love to keep fit. I love doing all sorts of different things, pilates, and strength training. I live by the beach. I love going to the beach. Simple things carry me in my approach to the more clinical work.
More recently, I have dropped the pressure in terms of how I think something should be done. That's what I notice with my approach. It's like you just get to do things and respond to people in the way that you respond to them rather than the way that you think you should respond to them.
I'm actually going through a transition. I was doing different things and now I'm doing different things again. Always changing. The practices that I really anchored into, there's a prayer called the Sovereign Women's Manifesto by Anahita Joon, which is a prayer that I anchor into every morning. It's all about calling yourself basically into alignment and reminding yourself of your worth and value for your beingness.
Intention setting is really important for me in terms of how I want my day to go. A really big part for me, most recently is the Vipassana meditation. I have really found that very, very grounding and life-changing. I really try to meditate most mornings. It doesn't always happen. But to just really anchor in into that meditation for an hour before I begin my day to really ground myself and calm… It's really the difference that has made the difference.
If I meditate for less than an hour, I see that I don't get all the way to completely grounded and calm. I'll be fine, but the hours, the first 30 minutes is really quieting your mind and then the last 30 minutes is about you being in your body, and knowing that you are in the here and now.
SHARE ABOUT YOUR HEART-LED PROJECT AND HOW THE PROCESS UNFOLDED FROM VISION TO REALITY?
I've been in a process of growth in 2021 and 2022. I was part of a woman's leadership program last year and as part of that, we had an in-person retreat in Hawaii. When I was in Hawaii, it was an amazing time that we had being together. I was really so deeply moved by the opportunity, the privilege of being able to be part of the leadership program that I was a part of. I was really struck by the fact that, oh, my goodness, the little girls where I come from will never get this opportunity because of just the social circumstances they find themselves in.
I just got this vision of just doing this workshop for them. I just had an idea. I didn't even know what it would look like. I didn't even know what would be possible. But I just had this idea that - I want to make a difference and I want to give a little of what I had received in terms of my own personal growth and development. When I came back from Hawaii, I shared this vision with Ashley and I was like, "I don't know what it's going to look like." She was so inspired and I was like, “I'm going to do it, but not really.”
Then over time I was just like...”oh, I just put it in the too hard basket.” But the vision wouldn't let me go. It just was just nagging on my heart. Over the process of time, I really got a crystal clear vision about what it would be about and how it would unfold. One of my friends, who's also an occupational therapist that I studied with, she was in the place where I was thinking about running the workshop. She was already working there. I asked her if she would run it with me and she was so excited, and she said yes. Ashley really came behind the vision by getting people involved to just support us. Then we had the workshop in December 2022. We had 10 young girls aged between 10 and 12 years old in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, which is where I come from. They mostly are from very rural backgrounds. They go to a rural school, well, rural schools. Yes, we got together for a whole day of the workshop. The name of the workshop is Nginguye. It's a Zulu word which means I am she, I am the one, I am it. It's such a bold statement. Really, my heart behind this workshop was really for girls to know that they have inherent worth and value and they are not second class citizens. Because where we come from, being a girl is such a disappointment. You're a second-class citizen. For the most part, parents are really excited if they're getting a son, but very disappointed if they're getting a girl. I think that there's an unconscious belief that gets encoded into your system about your own worth and value. I just really wanted for them to know that they matter and that they are so valuable and worthy, and what it means to come into an embodiment of that identity. I knew it was a sprinkling in the world of so much, but I was like, we have to start somewhere. So we did this pilot program and we did, who am I? What are my super powers? We spoke about boundaries and intuition. That as a woman, as a young girl, that our intuition is our greatest superpower. We spoke about contribution, what it is, their special gifts and talents, and contribution that they can make in the world and what that means for them. They absolutely loved it. We had food, we had art supplies, they made their own t-shirts. We made a collective handprint tree, there was dancing, there was snacks. It was just such a wonderful experience.
“The name of the workshop is Nginguye. It’s a Zulu word which means I am she, I am the one, I am it.”
WHAT DID YOU DISCOVER IN BRINGING YOUR VISION TO LIFE?
I think for me in the workshop, it was such a beautiful experience of people coming alongside my vision because everyone was so involved. All my family members were there with the food, giving the snacks and the set up, and the cleanup. I even got two teenagers to be assistants. They were just there. Everyone was just sold. It was just such a beautiful demonstration of community. It was really done from a foundation of love. I think everyone got to experience that love. Everyone who was a part of that day.
WHAT ARE YOUR PERSONAL TAKEAWAYS?
I think it was really amazing to witness me in my own power. That was really amazing. It was also just being sourced from a different place. I wasn't concerned about how I was being perceived or received. I just experienced myself as being really relaxed and just going, okay, we're just here to see how this goes. I'm just going to bring myself in full presence and just be from that place, my beingness. I let go of perfection and how I was being perceived, and I just put my full self just however it was.
More and more ease. I think one of the things that I discovered about myself is just I really like to make things harder than they should be.
I think it was just really that it just being super relaxed and just going, you know what? I am here. I think also my mindset was like I am here to have fun. I am here to see what it is that I will discover. It's going to go how it's going to go. That is what is going to be. It was fun. I found really everything, like you said, really leading from love really makes a difference, leading from the heart and being inspired by love and the why. Why am I doing this? So that one little 10-year-old would never get this opportunity to get in touch with this kind of content. It could be one word, one activity that would change the trajectory of their lives.
What is the impact of this project?
Well, really, I think the impact... The stories that they were sharing with me were really heartbreaking in terms of when they go to the shops, boys stop them. If they don't want to talk to them, they get threatened and things like that, things that really broke my heart. I was teaching them about boundaries and how your body is your house, and you get to say who comes in and who doesn't.
In the process of organizing, I was throwing out all of this content because remember it's young girls and these concepts are so abstract. I was really trying to make them as concrete as possible. What I thought, I was like, oh, there's no way they took anything in. When we're doing recaps, they took so much in. I was like, wow! Because I also wanted to make it super practical. One of the things that I taught them was a safety practice which is adapted from another safety practice. It was a really short practice to just help them ground into their bodies and to feel safe in their bodies, and practical example about boundaries and how to protect their boundaries.
They had some really concrete takeaways and some things that they could practice which really blew me away in terms of... Even the immediate impact. We made bookmarks with reminders and t-shirts to celebrate and add color to the lessons shared.
In terms of next steps, because this was a pilot project, it would really be great to use the material as a way to invite more sponsors to come alongside us, to make it bigger and to make it longer. The aim is to do more communities, perhaps one different community per school holiday. Then as we refine the content to really have a tangible resource that people can replicate whatever they are in these low resource settings.