Mel Jay
Ko Kahurānaki me Moumoukai ngā maunga
Ko Tūkitūki me Nūhaka ngā awa
Ko Tākitimu me Māhuhu-ki-te-rangi ngā waka
Ko Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongomaiwahine me Ngāti Rakaipaaka ngā iwi
Ko Nūhaka me Kahurānaki ngā marae
Ko Henare, Rongo, me Kaimanu ōku tīpuna
I whānau mai au ki Heretaunga
Ko Mel Jones tōku ingoa.
This is where I come from. This is the land that shaped me. These are the people I carry.
My whakapapa comes with me in all that I do.
Hono mai
Kia Ora, I am Mel,
I whakapapa to Rongomaiwahine, Ngāpuhi & Ngāti Kahungungu (indigenous Māori tribes native to New Zealand) on my fathers side & Ireland & Wales on my mothers side. I was born in Heretaunga (Hastings) in the North Island of Aotearoa (New Zealand) but spent most of my time growing up in Ōtautahi (Christchurch) in the South Island and is where I consider home. I grew up in humble beginnings in as what some would call the "hood" and experienced trauma, dysfunction, addiction and mental health in my whānau (family).
I am a single Mama to three and I am passionate about helping those with similar stories to mine, I know what it's like to feel unloved, abandoned and hopeless. I spent most of my teen and early adulthood battling addiction, unresolved trauma and mental health issues.
It was from this journey that led me into this career.
My work is founded upon decolonising healing and making healing accessible to anyone who needs it, hono mai.
I’m a therapist, advocate, creator, beauty lover and multi-faceted woman who believes we’re not meant to live in one lane.
For over eight years, my work has moved across therapy, body-based healing, beauty and community spaces, weaving together lived experience, professional knowledge and a belief in people’s capacity to create meaningful change. I believe healing isn’t about shrinking or abandoning parts of yourself. It’s about understanding what shaped you, reclaiming your agency and building a life that feels like your own.
I’m not your typical therapist, and this isn’t surface-level self-help. I support people to understand the patterns that keep them stuck, reconnect with themselves and move beyond simply coping. My approach is informed by Indigenous wisdom and practices such as mirimiri, rongoā and wairua-led guidance, alongside breathwork, somatic awareness and therapeutic practice. While I hold university qualifications and professional training, my work isn’t clinical or cold. It’s relational, intuitive and deeply human, recognising that people are complex and meaningful change rarely happens in isolation.
That understanding has taken my work beyond the therapy room and further into advocacy and community mahi. I’m the founder of For Her Movement, a community-led initiative supporting wāhine through healing, personal development, recovery, reintegration and pathways forward. It grew from seeing the gap between surviving difficult circumstances and having the support, confidence and opportunities needed to build something different.
Alongside the Movement is For Her Beauty Studio, where beauty supports the wider kaupapa. Beauty and self-expression have always been part of my world, and the studio brings together confidence, creativity, community and opportunity while helping support the bigger vision of For Her Movement.
My perspective is deeply shaped by lived experience. Walking through trauma and addiction changed how I understand transformation. Healing, for me, was never simply about stopping behaviours or becoming more acceptable to the world around me. It was about rebuilding identity, creating stability, reclaiming agency and developing a life that felt worth participating in. That experience now shapes how I hold space for others and how I advocate for more human approaches to healing and reintegration.
Alongside lived experience, I bring professional depth. I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Anthropology, postgraduate qualifications in counselling and anthropology, certification in breathwork, and training in mirimiri, rongoā and body-based practices. My work brings together academic knowledge, Indigenous wisdom and lived experience.
At the heart of everything I do is a simple belief: healing is about more than what we stop doing. It’s about what we get to build in its place. Whether through therapy, community mahi, advocacy or beauty, my work is ultimately about creating spaces where people can reconnect with who they are and build lives that feel meaningful to them.
You've done the self-work. You've read the books. You've had the breakthroughs. And yet ...
the same emotions and patterns keep surfacing?
Most coaching helps you reframe your thoughts. Most traditional talk therapy helps you unpack your past. In my signature 1:1 offer The healing self program I use an integrative approach that helps you break free from the patterns that are keeping you stuck.
Unlike traditional coaching, which focuses on mindset shifts, this approach goes deeper using a therapy foundation that guides you into the subconscious, the nervous system and the emotional imprints still shaping your present with a qualified and trained therapist.
Taking the best techniques from both frameworks and using an ethical approach guided by the NZAC code of ethics to create a trauma responsive and culturally respectful healing therapy space.
