About Christine Ashton
My purpose is to walk a little way with you on your healing path. You may have come a long way already, or you may be at the very start of a journey of self-discovery, spiritual development and healing.
My Story
My story is about resilience, joy and compassion. My strength lies in meeting you where you are now to connect with you intuitively, treat you holistically and teach you experientially, in a spirit of cooperation with your body’s own healing ability and your lived experience. I am a holistic therapist offering energy healing, breathwork and spiritual development to help you experience healing from within and support you with your personal growth.
In 2011, I founded my healing practice Untie The String Natural Healing Therapies, named after a beloved poem by Robert Graves, which spoke to me about the important qualities of curiosity, daring and wonder. It is a safe space to heal and grow; to build and maintain physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness. It is a space to loosen the knots and untie the string, release the blocks and heal from within.
“Christine is constantly in a quest to learn and master healing techniques. Her intuitive skills are outer-worldly. I strongly endorse her intuitive and healing abilities.”
Priya Sethi – Reiki Teacher/Master at Priyana, USA
Heart-inspired healing
Joyful curiosity and a love of learning have always been the driving force behind my spiritual development and healing abilities. I am inspired by a heart-felt desire to empower you to heal and grow to the beat of your own drum, using the connection of mind, body and spirit to achieve awareness, wellness and balance in the right way for you, at the right pace for you.
What can I offer you?
The dedication of a full-time healer and teacher: According to my Reiki Master, I was constantly on a quest to learn and master healing techniques. I still am and I love what I do – it’s all I do! I’ve been transforming lives all over the world through healing and teaching for decades, learning all kinds of healing modalities to untie the many knots and tangles that can build up within us as we experience difficulties in life. I developed my teaching skills working for the British Council as a teacher of English. My first teaching job was in 1992 in Japan, but I never came across Reiki there – that happened in Bangladesh in 2009. Before that life-changing discovery, I had worked in Germany, Senegal, Japan, Vietnam, Egypt, Brunei, Kenya, Poland and China and had married and started a family along the way; my son was born in Warsaw and my daughter in Beijing. I travelled all the way to Hanoi to find a husband from Halifax! In the beginning, Reiki was just for me and my family, but it became more of a way of life as I developed a daily practice of self-healing and it became the foundation of my full-time healing and teaching practice, which I founded in 2011 when I was living in the foothills of Mount Sofia in Bulgaria.
The vast experience of a life-long learner: By living in different countries for 20 years, I faced a lot of change and didn’t have the support of extended family around me, so I learnt techniques for self-care and wellness, such as reiki, t’ai chi, crystal healing, EFT, Satyananda yoga, Iyengar yoga, mindfulness techniques and meditation practices. My last posting in Bulgaria was a treasure trove for crystals, and I gathered a large collection of stones there to support healing. I also added qualifications in Bowen Therapy, Human Design and Heal Your Life™ workshop facilitation. Once back in the UK, I qualified as a caregiver and supported people in the community to improve their wellbeing. More recently I began to recognise a calling for mediumship and gained a certificate in Spiritual and Trance Healing Practice and a Diploma in Spiritual and Holistic Energy Healing. My latest adventure has been to qualify as a Breathwork Facilitator and Teacher.
Community and connection: I enjoy being part of a community of people who believe in being the change they wish to see and I support all who are committed to positive change from within. I offer support to students and clients though a reiki share and support community and a reiki distant healing group. I set up the spiritually curious society to offer uplifting connections through curious conversations on spiritual development topics, spiritually themed conscious connected breathwork journeys and workshops, as well as other events.
The positivity of a survivor: We came home to the UK in 2014 and I had just set up my practice in Cambridge when disaster struck. I went through 4 months of tests to finally be diagnosed with colorectal cancer, by which time the cancer had grown into a high risk case. Within 2 days, I was on 5 weeks of daily radiotherapy with two weeks of chemo by pic line to the heart. The pain of the radiation ‘burns’ was indescribable. I would have found this far more frightening and challenging if I had not had Reiki and my training in the philosophy of Louise Hay to support me. Facing my own mortality sent me on a journey of healing and self development and I haven’t looked back since. I achieved complete remission from cancer in 2015. Life is a gift that I really appreciate every day and I will never stop learning about healing.
Transformed by Trauma
My cancer journey made me face the prospect of leaving this planet with my music still inside me; something which still drives me 10 years on. It brought a huge shift in awareness and set me on a deeply spiritual journey. It also gave me insight into the emotional turmoil of a life-threatening condition and taught me how to support others to dance with pain, create calm and live a joyful life.
Reiki self-healing was my life-line and this made me want to empower others to heal and to start their own spiritual journeys. This is why I teach Reiki as a spiritual and self-healing practice and why I love to create a catalyst for self-healing through conscious connected breathwork journeys. I emerged a stronger, wiser woman who can walk a little way with you on your own journey of self-development.
A partnership of support and empowerment: My vocation is helping people explore and release whatever is holding them back from the health and happiness which lies within. I believe in recognising our strengths and empowering ourselves energetically. Clients come to me for help with all kinds of things; mental and emotional healing for stress, anxiety, depression, grief and low self-esteem and physical healing for pain. In the past, I supported terminally ill clients and cancer patients going through radiology and chemotherapy, while volunteering as a reiki practitioner, Bowen therapy practitioner and meditation facilitator at the cancer care centre in Cambridge. For the last 20 years, I have had a very personal interest in learning about autistic spectrum disorder, ADHD and dyslexia to better support both loved ones and clients. More recently, I have been researching the clair senses and the qualities of an empath, so I can understand my own experiences and support others on a journey of spiritual awakening. As a Reiki Master/Teacher, I am dedicated to daily practice of Reiki principles, meditations and Reiki self-healing with the main focus on spiritual self-development. The thing I am most passionate about is supporting anyone venturing out on a spiritual development journey who would like to find someone on the same wavelength to support them with mentoring and healing opportunities. Whatever I am doing, I always work from a perspective of celebration of differences and respect for individuality. It’s all about empowering people to find their way forward.
Shaped by Shared Experience
I work from the perspective of a celebration of difference and a keen focus on individual strengths and opportunities, which I believe is the best starting point for supporting clients to reduce overwhelm and increase happiness.
I have learnt from my personal experiences of overwhelm, cancer and loss, how hard it is to live with anxiety, illness and grief. I have supported people with extremely challenging conditions, such as Parkinson’s Disease, Motor Neurone Disease and Cancer, to find some respite from the stresses and strains of a life-changing diagnosis.
What qualifies me to help you?
Reiki Level 1 Healer
May 2009
with Richendra Corcos
Independent Reiki Master, London, UK
Reiki Level 2 Practitioner
Dec 2009
with Priya Sethi
Independent Reiki Master at Priyana, USA
Reiki Level 3a Master/Healing
May 2010
with Priya Sethi
Reiki Master at Priyana, USA
Reiki Level 3 Master/Teacher
Feb – Jun 2011
with Richard Jones
Reiki Master at Colours of the Dawn, UK
Intro to Counselling Skills (Distinction)
Jan 2011
with the Open University
The Open University, UK
Louise Hay – Heal Your Life™
Jan 2011
with Sylvie Carmie
Life Coach at Life Awareness, Bulgaria
Human Design – ABC
March 2011
with Richard Beaumont
Human Design Analyst, UK
Human Design – Living Your Design
March 2012
with Patrick Farnsworth
Human Design Analyst at Inspirala, Bulgaria
EFT Introductory Course
March 2012
with Vesselin Mihaylov
Life Coach at Inspirala, Bulgaria
Bowen Therapy (Distinction)
Dec 2012 – May 2013
with Susan Hagan
Independent Bowen Therapy Instructor, Bulgaria
Intro to Anatomy/Physiology (Distinction)
May 2013
with Susan Hagan
Independent Bowen Therapy Instructor, Bulgaria
Karmic/Auric Reiki
Jan 2014
with Cheryl Valdebenito
Reiki Master at Clinica de la Luz, Chile
T’ai chi Yang Style Long Form
2011 – 2014
with Konstantin Teodosiev
Private T’ai chi instructor, Sofia, Bulgaria
Tarot Reading Certificate
Aug 2018
with Sue Peppiatt
Psychic Medium at The Sanctuary, Bedford, UK
Breathwork Facilitator – 400 hours
Jan – Dec 2021
with Ben Beaumont
Founder, Breathing Space School of Breathwork
Breathwork Teacher
Oct 2021- Sep 2022
with Benedict Beaumont
Founder, Breathing Space School of Breathwork
Crystal Healing Level 2 Practitioner
Sep 2022
with Julie Newton
Crystal Healing Instructor at Happy Goblin Events, UK
Diploma in Holistic Energy Healing (Distinction)
Jan 2022 – March 2023
with Lorraine Davis
Founder, Holistic Healthcare & Education, UK
Certificate in Spiritual & Trance Healing Practice (Distinction)
Jan – Jul 2023
with Lorraine Davis
Founder, Holistic Healthcare & Education, UK
Natural healing
for the spiritually curious
with Christine Ashton