Dympna Hannon talks about how she turned a corner in her life and set up clinic in Moira that has become a sanctuary for health and healing

Although she was a high-flying executive the 44-year-old became the victim of workplace bullies, and though crushed by the experience she overcame the trauma and ‘fixed’ herself.

The experience certainly left Dympna with an empowering attitude and soon she learned new therapies and techniques, training initially in traditional Chinese Medicine and then Reiki.

Now the former top executive helps clients at her Moira clinic find ease from physical pain and find emotional balance.

It is a long way from her former career as a company secretary and business development manager, however Dympna has banished past woes and embraced life as a healer.

The Dympna Hannon Clinic is a sanctuary for health and healing - both of which Dympna herself was robbed of when she was pushed to the brink of suicide after two years of victimisation by former colleagues.

Though her story is not unique, the fiercely ambitious Dympna has successfully recreated a new niche for herself and in the process helps many others.

From the well known fruit and vegetable clan, the Hannons are well known in the Lough Neagh area. Her father Dessie is a local fisherman and with the help of mum Sheila, Dympna learned from a young age to work hard, helping her neighbours from an early age to pull peas, beans and potatoes. It gave her a solid grounding and love of the earth and that inspired her to study geology at Queen’s University.

After a successful career she eventually found herself in a position where she felt she was being “bullied by exclusion”.

She says: “That really threw me as it never entered my head that what was happening to me was a form of bullying.

“My life was at its absolute lowest ebb and I felt physically and mentally exhausted. I even had the thought ‘I want to die’.

“I organised counselling for myself and I found exercise was a great stress reliever.

“I got into meditation and practicing mindfulness daily. I worked hard at getting my life back on track.”

She began a six month course in life and business coaching and found her passion was to help others.

She set up her clinic in April 2011 specialising in pain relief and soon recognised that for a lot of her clients, stress played a big part in their physical pain.

From her own experience she knew that a calm mind was essential to release physical pain and so she developed a number of courses to give her clients tools that she had learned and used daily to help calm their minds.

“What I am teaching now is something I didn’t know when I was depressed and which I have had to learn; it is a powerful tool for achieving peace and contentment in life,” said Dympna

“People don’t know how to turn their minds off. The chatter that goes on is not real and is not part of the true you, and I now train people how to recognise it and shut it off.

“Most people don’t realise they can shut it off.

“I get people of all ages and all backgrounds for the life balancing work - everything from teachers, students, GPs, housewives - mostly people who are so stressed they can’t sleep at night because they are worrying too much,” said Dympna.

“I just love this work. I feel so lucky to have found something that I love doing, especially after having come through so much.”

Dympna’s chronic pain relief treatment involves a very gentle, yet highly effective alternative to structural and muscular pain relief. This involves realigning the body in a way that does not require any forcing or cracking of the bones into place.

“The treatment covers all types of pain, from sports and accident injuries to post-natal and stress-related pain,” she revealed.

Life-balancing courses and workshops include a range of mental and emotional well-being courses, as well as one-to-one sessions to help with creating balance in your life.

This may be to relieve stress, increase confidence, and alleviate anxiety or depression or any other debilitating condition.

“These are designed to teach the individual the tools and techniques to help them achieve contentment and balance.

“The approach is to look forward, taking clients from where they are today to where they want to be tomorrow

“The feedback I get is all positive and that keeps me going. It is so satisfying when people get off the therapy bed and immediately can see and feel a difference, or when you can see people doing the life balancing work and getting that light-bulb moment just from something I say that makes a big difference in their lives.

“You don’t get that sort of job satisfaction in management.”

More details on the clinic can be found on The Dympna Hannon Clinic Facebook page or by contacting Dympna on tel: 07824 337933