Chris Henderson: Life coach talks how sisterhood is empowering women

With heads thrown back and inhibitions put firmly aside, a group of women bellows in unison at the full moon above New Farm Park. They perform this ritual every month and call themselves Women Howling at the Moon.

With heads thrown back and inhibitions put firmly aside, a group of women bellows in unison at the full moon above New Farm Park.

They perform this ritual every month with group co-ordinator, life coach and mentor Chris Henderson, 66. They call themselves Women Howling at the Moon. What else?

But the howling is just one component of the monthly meet-ups, which focus on fostering

a sisterhood to help women realise their “magnificence”, Chris says.

Chris Henderson is a "courage catalyst" and life coach who hosts Women Howling at the Moon events. Photo: AAP/Russell Shakespeare

As well as a plate of nibbles, they each bring a willingness to share their personal challenges and goals in life.

“There are women who are introverted and extroverted, shy and confident, with successful businesses and professions or retired,” says Chris of the group she created in 2013.

And they don’t do small talk.

“The women who come to our meet-ups all prefer thought-provoking conversation,” says Chris, of Inala.

Howling is optional, but more often then not everyone – including the odd passer-by – joins in.

“The howl is about connection … it’s about being able to express ourselves completely.

“It’s a symbolic way of doing that and stepping outside any constraints we have in society. It’s something that’s pretty primeval. It’s bold and audacious.”

Chris says the meet-ups attract women who want to contribute to “a better world”, a driving passion of her own since the age of 12.

“I began secondary school around the time of the hippie, peace movement in the US and the ‘No War’ movement around the Vietnam War. I was really passionate about that.

Chris Henderson. Picture: AAP/Russell Shakespeare

“Plus my parents were such good, caring people who didn’t believe in conflict. I heard that (at home) and it fired me up and for me it’s been about world peace ever since.”

Chris went on to study fine art at the Queensland College of Art with the belief that perhaps her painting and etchings could change the world.

“But I realised I wasn’t selling much and it was going to take a hell of a long time to get anywhere,” she laughs.

“That’s why my passion then went into teaching and education.”

After earning a teaching degree in her early 30s, Chris went to work in classrooms across Brisbane and Ipswich and then as a consultant for the education department.

She was also building her own business as a life coach.

Then disaster struck.

In 2012, about six weeks after she retired from education to focus solely on life coaching, Chris’s husband of 30 years, Keith, was diagnosed with leukaemia.

She threw herself into the role of carer and built a community of support and inspiration through a blog.

“Keith says it was my coaching that helped him survive,” Chris says.

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In 2018 she was elected president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom which envisions a world free from violence and armed conflict, in which human rights are protected and women and men are equally empowered.

It’s been busy, she says, but there’s always time to howl.

And all women are welcome.

“What I’ve found so often with Women Howling at the Moon is that after a little while someone will come to me and say, ‘Chris, I’m not sure this is for me. These women are all so amazing and that’s not me. I’ve never done anything’.”

Chris’s voice catches as she talks about the power of the movement she has created.

“There’s only one woman who didn’t stay (for the session),” she says.

“What the others realised was as people asked about their story, they started hearing it reflected back to them. It’s about believing in ourselves and getting a presence of us from the outside. You see what’s possible from being part of a sisterhood.

“Gosh, I have goosebumps at the sense of the magnificence of all women.”