In our second installment of “Meet the Teacher”, around the Kilifi Wellness Festival, we introduce you to holistic practitioner Paula Arranz Canales.
Paula’s work integrates meditation, archetypal wisdom and embodiment. She also uses breath-work, movement, dance, yoni eggs, medicinal herbs, oracle cards and art-therapy in her facilitations, which include courses and workshops around Sacred Feminity and Sacred Sexuality. Largely, Paula helps people, men and women, re-connect with the feminine side of their energy, their intuition and to be softer and less linear.
She works through one-on-one consultations and processes as well as facilitating courses, workshops, women´s circles and transformational retreats.
Originally from Spain, Paula’s career in social work and international cooperation took her to Kenya as project coordinator for an NGO. But she says that there was always something about that field that didn’t feel aligned for her. She had long been involved in activism and feminism as well. She realized that this work all came from a very hard, rational part of herself.
Her external advocacy mirrored her internal struggle—a disconnection from her own feminine energy, her body and the natural world. This realization prompted her to leave the social work world and embark on a transformative path of self-discovery and healing.
Paula took some time for herself. She was already familiar with the holistic and spiritual world through more well known practices like yoga and meditation. She began working with teachers who led her back to her feminine energy. She started listening to her body. She realized that the fight she was fighting everywhere, in activism, in feminism and gender roles via NGOs, was a projection of the internal fight she was having within herself.
We live in a world polarized in the wounded masculine energy that makes us constantly live in our mind, always in action, disconnected from ourselves, from our natural cycles and rhythms, from our needs and purpose.
Paula says she thought that because she was involved in the feminist movement that she was connected to her feminine. Through her holistic work and life coaching training, she realized that she had been focused on external, rational theories but theory was not connected to her inner self and experience. This prompted her to delve deeper into feminine energy focused practices.
Meanwhile, Paula realized that she had found a deep affinity with Kenya. She says that when she left her NGO post, she felt that, though she couldn’t explain it, she needed to be here.
And with the years, I’ve realized that the energy in this country is so grounding, very earthy. Connection with the earth is deep, [there’s a] deep connection with roots. So I always feel this is where I found my roots, even if it’s not where I was born – where I found my roots, where I found myself. I believe this land, and the energy of this land, and the people and sisters helped me to do that.”
The deep connection with the earthiness and nature of Kenya seems intertwined with Paula’s journey into femininity.
Paula’s personal healing journey led her to immerse herself in various disciplines. She became a certified Life Coach specializing in women’s well-being, a Menstrual and Integral Cyclicality Therapist, and a facilitator of Womb and Uterine Memories Healing. 
These personal revelations led Paula to found “Mujer Naturaleza” (which translates as Natural Woman). Paula talked about how as a child she was always immersed in nature, but like many of us in the modern world, had lost that connection as she grew older.
Through “Mujer Naturaleza,” Paula integrates her practices to guide individuals on their paths to self-knowledge and healing. She is a certified teacher of Ovarian Breathing, Feminine Alchemy, Sacred Tantra, and Herbalism. These practices might sound esoteric and alienating to some people, but Paula says that people who have come to her have, like her, felt a curiosity, a calling to explore what these practices are.
Ovarian breathing, for example, is a meditation practice that connects with the ovaries and aims to energize and heal them. It’s based on Taoist principles and can be beneficial for women with reproductive issues, such as cysts, PMS, and irregular cycles.
Feminine alchemy is a concept that explores the feminine energy within a person, and how to connect with it – which epitomizes what Paula is doing. Her work emphasizes reconnecting with one’s body—the sacred temple where alchemy and magic occur. By fostering this connection, Paula helps individuals blossom and reunite with their divine feminine and masculine energies, leading to a harmonious and complete self.
At the Kilifi Wellness Festival, Paula will be offering:
Alchemical Breathing – A breathing system based on tantric techniques, which integrates breathwork, movement and meditation, in which we come into contact with our consciousness, sexual and heart energies, move and transmute them, making alchemy to heal and manifest what is necessary in our life.
Womb Healing – Our Womb is a Sacred creative space that holds a lot of memories, energies, emotions that are affecting our experience. We´ll connect and listen to our Womb to heal and remember its power and the Sacred Feminine essence within us.
Finally, she will be presenting the Cacao Ceremony: Cacao is a plant medicine experience to connect with the sacred plant of cacao, to open our hearts and deepen the connection between ourselves and nature.
To learn more about Paula and her work visit her official website www.mujernaturaleza.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.
You can also connect with Paula on Instagram (@mujernaturalezapau) and Facebook (@MujerNaturalezaPau).
You can easily reach Kilifi for the Wellness Festival flying with Skyward Express to Malindi or to Mombasa, where you will currently find discounted flights.