The power to live well
Lauren Roxburgh lists Goop queen Gwyneth Paltrow among her clients, but the woman known as the body whisperer has the quali cations to back her wellness ideas, she tells Kylie Klein Nixon.
For anyone else, a title like “the body whisperer” might sound like pure hubris, but Californian wellness guru Lauren Roxburgh came by the nickname honestly. She has the requisite A-list Hollywood credentials. Stars Emmy Rossum and Gwyneth Paltrow, who gave her the nickname, are among her celebrity clients, and she was one of the first contributors to Paltrow’s much derided but popular Goop wellness website. But she also has the education to back her, including a degree in nutrition and exercise physiology from the University of California.
Another reason to take her advice seriously is her cheery, relaxed nature, and the fact that she is the picture of grown-up good health.
“I don’t really like to consider myself an influencer though,” Roxburgh says, from Wānaka, where she now lives with her Kiwi husband, Emmy-nominated producer Gus Roxburgh, and their daughters, Cameron Jean, 7, and Jamie Grace, 3.
“I think of myself as more of an educator, someone to really help people understand what’s happening in their bodies, because I’ve dedicated my life to studying the body, mind and spirit.”
As someone who has no clue what’s going on in her body from one day to the next, this is music to my ears.
Advocating a holistic approach to wellness, Roxburgh shares what she’s learnt through her website and social media, with routines designed to reconnect you with your body, release tension, and get your vital juices flowing again, as well as advice on wholesome, balanced nutrition, daily self-care rituals and meditation.
She calls this synergistic package living the Aligned Life, and it all sounds pretty reasonable and sane. That’s refreshing stuff from an industry usually drowning in the ridiculous.
There are elements of the ridiculous in what Roxburgh does - be prepared to get out the sage smudge sticks, and embrace the idea of detoxing - but it’s not the crux of it. At the core of the Aligned Life is a mindset that could cost you next to nothing but commitment and time.
“All the things that make you well are free,” Roxburgh says. “Getting deep sleep, meditation, being out in nature, spending quality time with friends and family, cooking beautiful food, gardening: all of these things, to me, is what wellness is all about.”
It’s the kind of lifestyle you see in the planet’s socalled Blue Zones, places and cultures in the world where people are the longest-lived.
Their lifestyles are ones we can all learn from, Roxburgh says. They tend to encourage a shift away from material things, towards developing a “sense of presence; feeling connected to a purpose; being in tune with your gift; helping others and being of service; and obviously eating well, getting outside in nature, getting vitamin D”.
Don’t take the Blue Zone longevity test if you’d rather not get a wake-up call about how you’re living.
Roxburgh got that wake-up call early in her life. When she was 14, her mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.
Her mother survived, but the-then teen’s experience of mainstream medicine’s ambulance-at-the-bottomof-the-cliff attitude left her yearning to understand if her mother’s illness could have been prevented.
“This lightbulb went off in my head, and I thought, ‘I really want to figure this out’,” Roxburgh says.
“The first thing I started studying in high school was nutrition. I became very obsessed with biology and nutrition, and found some great teachers [who] mentored me.”
Alongside her degree, she added certificates in structural integration, classical pilates and personal training.
Eventually she moved to Los Angeles, and began teaching some of what she had learnt, particularly on caring for the fascia, the connective tissue just under the skin that wraps around our organs and contains nerve endings and the lymphatic system, with myofascial release, or foam rolling exercises, and a balanced diet.
Her fascia work led to a meeting with Paltrow and the rest is celebrity body-whispering history.
For the record, Paltrow is nothing like the scentedcandle cliche reported by the United States press. She is just “game to try anything”, Roxburgh says. “Of course, the things that get picked up in the media are the things that are the most extreme.
“The reality is that her intention is to help – first, to try it herself, and then to share it with others. I think she would say the same as me: ‘me-search is research’. She loves to be the guinea pig.”
Living in LA, working with high-profile clients, it was often a job to maintain her focus and not get swept up in the celebrity buzz.
“I just didn’t really care as much about how famous you were, how much money you had, or what car you drove, it just didn’t really affect me.
“Those connections are still really strong and thriving. But I think my identity probably was wrapped up in who I worked with.”
It’s been “an interesting journey” to leave that life behind and come to New Zealand, where she could “slow down, feel really rooted and feel mother nature, the earth and fresh air, the fresh water”.
“The space has been really important [in Wānaka]. Living in a big city like LA, you don’t even realise it until you leave, how kind of chaotic the energy can be there.”
Her Nelson-born husband wasn’t her first introduction to the Kiwi way of life. Always a keen traveller, when she finished school, she pushed the boat out and headed to the South Pacific with her cousin.
“When I came to New Zealand, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.
“I was a California girl, but I just absolutely fell in love with New Zealand. I think it just imprinted something into my heart.”
It was more than the landscape that won her over. It was the “salt of the earth” people, “the way they treated each other”, which did the trick.
New Zealand also seemed so much more green and sustainable than what she’d come from which, at 20, resonated with the budding wellness guru in her.
Ten years later, she met Gus in LA, where they were then both living and working, and they had an instant common frame of reference.
“He was doing stuff in the film industry, and I was doing wellness, working with a lot of high-profile people, starting to write books. It was love at first sight. And, of course, I’d been to New Zealand already.”
The Roxburgh plan was always to move back to New Zealand, to let the kids experience the Kiwi way of life and connect with their Kiwi whānau, but the plan was for that to happen some time down the track.
When Covid hit, the timeline sped up. With the fitness industry driven out of gyms and away from private classes, Roxburgh moved her business online. As more and more people were forced, or chose, to stay home, that business doubled.
“People were looking at ways to create their own inhome sanctuary, yoga studio, spa, workout centre.
“I turned my focus and energy into building the online platform, and it helped me to reach more people, and help more people understand their bodies.”
It also gave the family the freedom to think about moving to Wānaka, where an 80-year-old bach that belonged to Gus’ family awaited them.
“We decided to go for it. I don’t think I would have ever felt more ready to come to New Zealand. And now, of course, New Zealand is where everybody wants to come. It really is quite a unique, beautiful village. We’re just loving living here.”
Although she acknowledges Kiwis might be more cynical about the wellness industry than in her hometown, she hopes she can encourage more of us to think preventively, and try some of her methods.
“I think Kiwis have always been more empowered and wanting to do the work themselves. I love that about Kiwis, that’s a great work ethic,” she says, acknowledging that there’s “a lot of junk food in the wellness space” that she finds frustrating.
“There are a lot of people who don’t have any credentials or credibility. There have been all these gurus out there, these ‘healers’ who are going to fix people, but a true healer is going to awaken the healer within.
“Of course, we need experts, and there are times we need to have surgery, or work with a physical therapist. But I love the idea of also putting the power back into the hands of everyone, to become their own healer.”
Kiwis have always been more empowered and wanting to do the work themselves. I love that.