Profile: Rhonda Andrews

Rhonda Andrews is a self-described earth advocate, a spiritual healer, a mum, a writer, a passionate environmentalist and someone who is ‘frequently distracted by birds.’

But Rhonda hasn’t been able to do a lot of bird watching lately as she lives in Melbourne and like many has been enduring the Stage 4 Covid Lockdown with all its limits on family life. When chatting with Rhonda about the lockdown, she told me that it has had an interesting impact on her family.

‘It’s made me think a lot more about my relationships with my family, especially my husband and two adult sons, Rhonda said. ‘It’s been great getting to know them more and appreciating what we have. Living in Melbourne, we’ve all been confined to the five-kilometre radius and I’ve found I’ve been talking to them and sharing with them a lot more.’

She described this development as a positive. Pre-Covid the boys often retreated to their ‘man caves’ with their technology and she and her husband also found themselves lost in their own technology devices, while the television was also going! In a reflective moment Rhonda went on to say, ‘When I realised what was happening, I decided to take myself off Facebook and limit the technology and tried to be more ‘present’ with my family. I actually felt the change and I’m noticing the difference’.

Rhonda has a background in environmental management and so she noticed something else happening. Whilst confined, she decided to do a waste audit and became very conscious of the excess food packaging and the waste they had accumulated from online shopping. She said that Covid had helped her put a microscope on her diet and life and that it gave her a really interesting insight into how they were all living. ‘I started writing about it, and it got me really excited.’ said Rhonda. ‘I feel I’ve been asleep for such a long time about these environmental issues. Covid for some people has been a real disaster, but for me it’s been an awakening.’

Rhonda’s strong connection to the environment takes on a more spiritual tone as she talks about her experiences as a Reiki practitioner and healer. This came about after some medical advice which in turn led to meditation classes, including spiritual healing. Rhonda went on to say, ‘it was all about energy healing and it just resonated with me and I really loved the whole premise about healing with energy. It just made sense to me.’

Rhonda’s life journey has been an interesting one including high school teaching, working with the Victorian police training academy and working with minority and disadvantaged groups in community consultations.  Currently she works for the Country Fire Authority in Incident Leadership.

In talking with Rhonda, her warmth and passion about life, shines through. When asked what makes her smile, the answer came quickly. ‘Writing!’  she said.

And the future?  ‘Well five years from now I will hopefully be in a caravan somewhere with my husband and I will be writing. To not be connected to a job or location and to be travelling freely is my dream and just to be able to write. There’s a story I have to tell.’

And maybe for Rhonda, there will be a lot of bird watching as well.