Anna Whiting embodies the artistry and intuition at the heart of energetic medicine. As the founder of Shemana ~ one of the first brands we welcomed into our stores ~ her work has always held a rare cadence: intuitive, grounded in nature and attuned to the unseen.

We sat down with Anna to speak about Shemana’s origins, the wisdom of the energetic body and the rituals, practitioners and places she turns to for replenishment.

Anna, you are a true embodiment of energetic medicine, and I’ve always been in awe of the artistry behind every Shemana creation. Shemana was one of the first products we stocked when we opened the Bronte Dispensary. Where did your journey into energetic medicine first begin?

Thank you, that's such a beautiful thing to hear. When I was little, I could see energy, especially darkness, over hearts and minds. I felt drawn to know how to help support the light, and that led me into studying the energy bodies and gave me language for what I had always seen.

Your extensive background in bodywork is deeply intimate and intuitive. How did that innate understanding of the human body influence the ethos behind Shemana?

Shemana was born of my desire to gift my bodywork clients and students self-care tools to support them between sessions and in their daily lives. To me, I kept seeing that the micro moments of intentional wellness could create a wealth of health and enhance our connection to our potential selves. We wanted to make those moments simple to achieve and delicious in scent and feeling.

Shemana has such a deep reverence for nature. How do you carry that through the rest of your life?

I breathe and honour nature as essential to life. On an emotional and physical level, I work with the elements of nature in my daily life. Balancing the fire within by the ocean, or if I am anxious, making sure I put my bare feet on the ground to anchor to the earth.

You spend so much time considering the energy of your creations and community, who or what replenishes yours? Do you seek out a specific healer or modality?

I am obsessed with all our practitioners and modalities here at House of Shemana. I cycle around every month between our craniosacral massage fusion and esoteric acupuncture. I also love hot stone massage. We have a new multimodality signature here with our skincare face ritual, which I have received so many times since we launched. I find replenishment in the stillness.

Ancient cultures understood the body as an energetic system long before science had language for it. Now, research is starting to catch up, particularly around meridians and bioelectric fields. Do you think we're at a turning point in how we understand what our bodies actually respond to?

Absolutely. What's shifted in the last decade is that science is now building language for what traditional systems have always understood. Meridians, bioelectric fields, the nervous system as an intelligent receiver — none of this is new. What's new is the validation. And that matters, because it allows more people to access these modalities without having to override their scepticism first.

What's the one thing you'll never compromise on when it comes to your own wellbeing?

Emotional safety. I've learned that when I don't feel safe, everything else is compromised. Wellness on every level depends on it.

House of Shemana is the physical extension of everything the brand stands for. Why was it important to create a physical sanctuary alongside the products?

Because the products were always in service of something larger. What I wanted to create was a place where our elixirs meet practitioners working at the highest level of their craft — and something real happens in that meeting — settled nervous systems. Genuine shifts. I'm not a bystander to that. I built it because I knew it was possible.