Gill Tree - Managing Director

Gill Tree is a woman with a purpose. Her aim is to establish practices such as meditation, massage and aromatherapy as a way of life to promote good health, improved relationships and better quality of life for everyone. She is committed to ensuring that therapies such as massage and sports massage are highly regarded professions within the UK and beyond.

She has developed from her previous career in social work to be a keen business woman and won the prize for "Best Business" at Entrepreneurs Business School in 2010.

Whilst leading and training her team at Essentials for Health she no longer teaches massage, but instead offers aspiring therapists the business training, coaching, mentoring  and support required to be truly successful. This is available to any therapist via our Therapists Business Passport.

Keen to attract others to her vision, she sees herself as a gentle persuader and occasional lobbyist. Indeed, her firm belief is that everyone on earth has a life purpose and if they can find the right kind of help or opportunity to discover their own unique meaning of life, most of them could, like her, be living much more fulfilling lives.

For Gill her turning point was in fact a crisis that became an opportunity to rewrite the of her life. Having decided on a career in social work she followed the usual career path until 1989 when a journey to Kenya proved to be her wake-up call. After climbing Mount Kenya to almost 17,000 feet and disorientated by altitude sickness, she became lost for several days. Alone and frightened, Gill had to call upon all of her personal resources and on her beliefs. She discovered an inner strength that up until then has been untested. A strength that twenty years later she is still able to call upon, to take steps forward in living a true and authentic life where she is truly living her purpose. "It may sound clichéd, but once I returned home I really felt that I'd been brought back for a higher purpose”.

It took Gill five days of walking through a river, and following animal paths, negotiating waterfalls and relying on her sense of smell to warn of animals close by, to reach safety. At the beginning it was below freezing at night and having lost all her belongings down a waterfall, she shivered herself to sleep. Initially energised by the challenge, without food and walking and climbing twelve hours a day, she lost three stone and got more and more exhausted as time went on. "I could close my eyes and be asleep on my feet and I had to will myself to go on. It was close to Christmas and I made a decision I would not spend Christmas alone on that mountain. That gave me the determination to continue. In fact I was found by two very kind Kenyan men on Christmas eve!".

On her return to London, after a period of recovery and adjusting, Gill decided to take a good look at herself, her work and her ambitions. Realising that her time as a social worker had fuelled a genuine desire to work with people, she thought carefully about her abilities, talked to a lot of people and sought professional advice.

Prior to traveling in Kenya, Gill had undertaken a recognised course in Massage, which included anatomy and physiology. "I was instinctively drawn to train in Massage, but at that time purely as a hobby. As soon as I qualified, I started teaching introductory workshops at my local leisure centre, and invitations to teach kept coming my way. When I got back from Kenya I followed all these invitations. I call it following the whispers; something was pushing me in the direction of Massage teacher. It is interesting that many of my child-hood games were around being a teacher."

Gill, recognising that her purpose was not one of solely being a hands on therapist, chose to go on and train as a teacher with a view to teaching professional diploma courses in Massage.

Gill was further inspired by her travels in the Far East where the healing power of touch is a part of the culture and massage is practically a way of life. Deciding that she wanted as many people as possible to understand the value of massage, Gill took the decision in 1992 to establish "Essentials for Health" a school offering training courses in a range of massage techniques. "Having no prior business knowledge I have learnt the hard way, making many mistakes before Essentials for Health became financially successful. The route of self-employment also takes you down the road of self-development. You have to, learn quickly to survive!! My biggest lessons were in asking for help, listening to advice, delegating effectively to my colleagues as well as realising my self worth."

Gill is enthusiastic about using role models to help stimulate personal growth. "Studying how highly successful individuals such as Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, Brandon Bays, Anita Roddick, has been hugely beneficial to my own development. I read inspiring self help books, and continually attend lectures, seminars and courses and I know that this approach has contributed to my achievements."

Dedicated to promote the healing power of touch, Gill has pioneered the way forward for Massage and Aromatherapy as a profession in the UK since 1992. In 1996 she brought the International Association of Infant Massage to the UK. In 2000 she introduced the Swedish Massage in Schools programme to this country.

The Massage 99 and Massage 2000 conferences were another outstanding achievement in raising the profile and standing of Massage Therapists whilst providing them with continuing professional development. With a book published in 2004 and the launch of Essentials E-learning  Courses in 2009 Gill and Essentials for Health continue to lead the way for therapy training in the UK.