Beneath the Scars with Zoe — listen now
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Stories have always been my way home.
Welcome to my world.
I’m Zoe Hethershaw — author, holistic health practitioner, Reiki Master, storyteller, podcaster and lifelong student of healing and human behaviour. For more than seventeen years, I’ve worked with people through grief, trauma, loss, stress, change and those moments in life when we simply don’t know what to do with ourselves anymore. Before that, I spent fifteen years running my own healthcare company, caring for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.
Over the years, I learned something that has stayed with me: there is always more beneath the surface. There’s the behaviour we see, and then there’s the story underneath it — the anger, the silence, the heartbreak, the rejection, the coping mechanism, the boundary we never learned to have, and the parts of ourselves that learned to survive long before we understood why.
That became the heart of Beneath the Scars with Zoe, my podcast about the things we don’t always talk about. Trauma, grief, relationships, abuse, boundaries, self-worth, family wounds, spirituality, healing, human behaviour, dating, sex, loss and all the wonderfully complicated things that make us human.
Some conversations are serious. Some are uncomfortable. Some are deeply personal. And because I’m British, there will probably be a bloody good laugh somewhere along the way.
I don’t want these conversations to feel polished to the point of being unreal. I want them to feel like sitting down with someone, having a cuppa and finally saying the things we’ve been thinking but haven’t always known how to say.
I share what I’ve lived, what I’ve learned and what I’m still figuring out myself. Because I don’t believe vulnerability makes us weak. Sometimes it gives someone else permission to stop hiding.
The podcast is already underway, with episodes exploring everything from Storm Bound to Fire, morality and loyalty, painful relationships, childhood wounds and healing, to trauma in the body, grief, loss and the bizarre modern world of dating.
And if you’ve ever found yourself asking, “Who the hell is actually out there?”, you’ll understand why I had to make an episode about sex, swipes, scams and situationships.
But the podcast is only one part of my world.
Writing has always been another way I make sense of life. My books move through memoir, spirituality, poetry, fiction, metaphor, self-discovery and healing, but underneath them all is the same thread: hope.
My work includes Inside Me, A Shadow Between Us, Storm Bound to Fire, The Dragonfly and the Wasp, The Great Investigation and The Dragonfly and the Hollow Beetle, with more stories on the way, including The Dragonfly and the Antz and Scars That Learned to Breathe.
You’ll find my books here on my website, because every story has something different to say — but ultimately, I hope they make you look a little deeper.
Not just at the characters.
At yourself.
The Dragonfly has become more than a character in my writing. It has become a symbol of transformation — a reminder that becoming doesn’t mean magically turning into somebody new. Sometimes it means finally stopping the belief that we have to remain the person we became simply to survive.
That idea sits at the heart of The Dragonfly Method™ and The Great Investigation, where I explore the questions underneath our patterns: What did I learn about love? What did I learn about myself? Where did that belief come from? What am I still carrying? What needs to end? What needs to change? And who am I when I stop living according to everything I’ve been taught to be?
My holistic practice grew from that same belief that healing is never just one thing. Sometimes healing needs words. Sometimes it needs silence. Sometimes it needs the body to be heard.
As a Certified Holistic Health Practitioner, Reiki Master and Shiatsu practitioner, my work draws from acupressure, reflexology, guided meditation, massage, Jin Shin, lymphatic work and other gentle therapeutic approaches. I don’t see my role as fixing people. People aren’t broken machines that need repairing. I see my role as creating a space where someone can pause, breathe, reconnect with themselves and begin exploring what they actually need.
And then there’s Zoe’s Venting — because apparently I have thoughts.
It’s where the podcast doesn’t quite fit, the books don’t quite fit, and I can simply sit down and talk. Healing, relationships, life, human behaviour, things I’m learning, things I’m working on and, occasionally, what the bloody hell is going on.
Because life doesn’t always need to become a lesson.
Sometimes we just need to laugh at it.
Maybe you found me because of a book. Maybe you heard an episode of the podcast. Maybe you’re looking for holistic support. Maybe something I wrote appeared in your feed at exactly the right moment.
Or maybe you’re simply curious.
However you arrived here, I’m glad you’re here.
Books may start the conversation. The podcast may continue it. Healing may take it somewhere deeper.
But everything I create comes back to the same place: the human story.
I don’t believe any of us are finished products.
I’m certainly not.
I’m still learning. Still changing. Still healing. Still becoming.
And perhaps that’s the most honest thing I can tell you:
You don’t need to have everything figured out before you begin moving forward. Sometimes you just need to be willing to look at yourself differently.
Stories have always been my way home.
Now I’m inviting you to come home to yourself, too.
Welcome.
I’m Zoe.
And this is my world.