Anthea Balfour

Name: Anthea Balfour 

Where you are from: Cape Town, South Africa 

Where you live: Brisbane, Australia 

• This is who I am in the world….

I Am a woman boldly finding meaning in what it is to be alive in this world. I am woman claiming space and making space through my professional & personal passions. As a consulting Trauma Informed Somatic Psychotherapist, I am a woman that pathes the way for individuals to find purpose in their shadows & to be ignited by them. As a mother, I am a woman continuously in pursuit of play & curiousity; a dedicated student & servant to what lessons my children (and all children) have to teach me. 

As the founder of Matryarch Consulting I am a woman compelled to make even the smallest of difference in this world through  conscious business strategy & leadership training . As a social justice advocate I am woman who believes in the power of educated & mobilised  communities - and through Matryarch I hope to leave a legacy of empowered, educated and mobilised humans that seek to serve our most vulnerable women & children in the world. As a wife,  a sister, a daughter and a friend, I am a woman open to meeting myself in the unknown mysteries of others, to be led by love, and to permit myself to be seen in my vulnerabilities with discernment. As a child of Aparteid, educated in the UK and an immigrant to Australia,  I am a woman (re) defining what it means to belong in this world.  

•  This is the story that I want rewritten for women…..

Having given this question immense thought, what is present on my heart is that I don't believe there is any story that I  want to re-write for women. It's my deepest knowing that the stories already written, silent, yet to be told or never voiced are part of an ever unfolding collective human experience; that substantiates our rage, our pleasure, our compulsions, our hopes, our dreams, our fears and the desires of  our present moments. As women, our stories are written in our blood & all over our body; our stories can and will be transmuted, and yet not re-written (in my opinion). 

With that, it is my prayer to see written and loudly voiced the powerful social, economical & geopolitical results that comes from the healing, sharing & growing  between African, First Nations, Indigenous Women & our Caucasian/Western/European counterparts - I believe the coming together & acknowledgement of all lineages across all continental bloodlines  in curious reverence of our individual lived experiences is the next thread of our Matriarchal stories. And this will be stories of wholeness & balance; stories that sees sincere reparations, apologies, and respect; stories of land restoration, recognition of tradition & reconciliation of coherent hearts & minds. This will be a story of harmony and unity between men & women and a safer and softer world for all our children. 

•  This is the story that I next want to write for myself….

I will not explain myself, or why I am here. I will not prove myself, nor will I deny my sensitivities & strengths. I will laugh unashamedly, I will speak out, unapologetically, I will not be silently confused by injustices; I will be messy and silly and inquisitive. I will challenge my perceptions and limitations; disrupting social norms that are anti-human, I will jump in and engage, I will be human and I will continue to be more of me, wholeheartedly. I will continue to integrate my lifetimes so that I am indeed the embodiment of a Matriarch in this lifetime & continue to walk in service to the nature of my humanity.