An invitation to look more closely at how we experience life.
My work is about exploring what it means to be human. Not trying to fix ourselves, change who we are or become better versions of ourselves. But beginning to see and understand the human experience, and discovering what's possible when we're no longer completely identified with it.
I'm Justin. I use the word BodyMind because body and mind work together as one, shaped by everything we've lived through and always looking out for our safety. Sometimes a whole story about who we are arrives with it, and in the moment it simply feels true. Nothing in that needs fighting. I'm curious what opens up when we start to see it for what it is.
I have a BodyMind too, with all the same habits, so I come to this alongside you rather than above you. I listen, reflect and ask questions, and you find out what's there in your own experience, because understanding it in your head isn't enough.
If you'd like to explore this with me, I work privately with people one-to-one, online, through an ongoing guiding relationship. It begins with a free introductory conversation, and the Offers page has the details.
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The Work
BodyMind Maturation
Notice what's happening as you read this. Not the words. What the words land on, in your body, before you've decided what you think.
That's the territory of this work.
My work is about exploring what it means to be human. The BodyMind is one inseparable mechanism, shaped by everything we've lived through and oriented towards survival. It gathers its conditioning through experience, and when that conditioning is activated, we don't choose it.
What arrives is a whole lived world at once. An identity is a story, and when one is active it doesn't feel like a story. It feels like the truth. Sometimes the experience arrives before anything has even happened.
We aren't trying to fix any of that. Nothing is wrong with the mechanism. What interests me is what becomes possible when we begin to see it, and are no longer completely identified with it. Not making it go away, but living with it where it becomes background noise instead of the place we live from.
Understanding this intellectually won't change much. It happens in lived experience, in the body, in the moment a reaction arrives.
How we work together
This is an ongoing one-to-one guiding relationship. We meet online every two weeks, with WhatsApp support from Monday to Thursday in between. It begins with a three-month minimum and then continues month to month. When you are ready to complete our work together, one month's notice is required.
I'm human too, with a BodyMind that does everything yours does. I explore alongside you, not above you, and my commitment is as real as yours. That's the only way this work stays honest.
What you discover in this work is often something you didn't expect: that you can actually hold what you've been running from. Not because you've become stronger or more capable, but because you've stopped hiding from it, from yourself and from someone else. When nothing is being judged or fixed, honesty does something that trying harder never could.
Responsibility becomes the natural ground of it. Not something imposed, but something that emerges when you're genuinely seen.
When it gets harder
Seeing something new tends to move in phases. A blindspot is revealed and something shifts. There's a spaciousness, a lightness, a sense that something new is possible. That feeling is real, and it's also just the beginning.
What comes next is the part nobody shares with you. The pattern grips harder than ever. It shows up in every thought, every interaction, every action, and everything you feel you've learnt or moved through suddenly seems gone, as if you're starting again.
You're not starting again. This is part of it.
A friend taught me something years ago that I return to every time I'm in it: whatever is moving out first shows itself fully before it leaves. Blame, shame, guilt, judgment, any of these will keep you a victim of what is moving through you. Take ownership of what is happening, without letting those attachments land. This is what keeps you in the work rather than lost in the story.
The invitation is to keep going.
Who this is for
You may have tried other things and found that certain patterns kept returning, the same struggle in different clothes. Nothing is wrong with you. What you may be looking for is freedom from the attachment to those patterns.
This work asks something of both of us. It asks for honesty, commitment and a willingness to look at things we might have spent much of our lives avoiding. I can't do it for you, but I can meet you in it. I won't be the right guide for everyone, and the introductory conversation is there so we can find out together.
What are you experiencing right now?
About
Justin Botes
BodyMind Maturation Coach. Based in South Africa, working with clients worldwide.
Hello, I'm Justin, and I'm fascinated by human beings. Most of all by the story we each carry, how deeply it's woven into our experience of ourselves, of other people and of the world, and how easily we can be caught up in it without recognising what's happening.
I don't say that as someone standing outside it all. I'm human too, with my own conditioning and my own very convincing experience of how life is. What I love about this work is that we're not trying to fix any of it. We're exploring what it means to be human, which means becoming familiar with the story we carry, noticing how it works through the whole BodyMind, and finding out what becomes possible when it's seen as a story rather than simply lived as who we are.
I think it began when I was around three years old. I noticed that the words being spoken in a room weren't matching what the bodies in that room were communicating. That gap, between what was said and what was felt, became something I was simultaneously drawn to and wary of for the rest of my life. I learned, as most children do, which parts of myself were welcome in any given room, and became very good at showing only those.
Looking back, that child was doing what every BodyMind does. The BodyMind is one whole mechanism, shaped by experience and oriented towards survival, and it learns very quickly what keeps us safe. Over time that learning becomes the story we carry, so familiar that it stops feeling like a story at all. It just feels like how things are. Nobody chooses this, and nothing has gone wrong. We don't try to fix, change or replace it. We come to know it well enough to recognise it when it's running, to feel it in the body, and to hold it without being completely identified with it.
When I came across BodyMind Maturation, something in me recognised it immediately, not as new information but as a returning. I came to it with some hesitation, and what I found was a space where I could begin to look at my own experience with honesty and curiosity, without having to fix or change myself. I trained in BodyMind Maturation under Nicky Clinch, an ontological approach that explores how we experience ourselves and the world, rather than simply focusing on changing our behaviour. I'm one of very few men trained in this work.
My own maturation has shown up in small, specific things. I started waking up fifteen minutes earlier and found I'd given myself something. I finally had a conversation I'd been quietly arranging to avoid for years. A tight, low-level pressure around time that used to sit in my chest began, one day, to lift. None of it was dramatic. There was simply more room.
I stay with this work because I want to keep exploring what I'm living from. My own conditioning hasn't disappeared, and I don't expect it to. But I've learnt something about being with the human experience without needing to change it, and that's something I bring into the space I hold for others.
My role is to listen, question and reflect, and to guide you in exploring your own experience. Our histories are different, though we share the same underlying mechanisms, and I'm not here to tell anyone who they should become. The work asks for honesty, responsibility and a willingness to stay with uncomfortable experiences, from both of us, and it rests on curiosity, compassion and shared responsibility.
I live and work in South Africa, a country that holds a great deal of grief in its body, in the ground, between people, and in the words that were never said and the things that were never named across generations. I live here knowing I can't be neutral about that, so what I bring is a willingness to keep looking honestly, to sit with discomfort and to not pretend.
What people say
"Justin has an incredible ability to listen with his entire being and hold space, while reading signs in my physical body and feed them back to me. I have had coaching before, but never to this depth and level of awareness."
H.M.
"I always leave the call feeling changed, uplifted, and more in tune with myself."
Kgomotso
"None of the counselling I had received before had truly addressed my blockages. I am a different person to the one I was before the sessions. I will remember my time with Justin as a turning point."
Scott
"Right from the first session I could feel a shift in some areas of my life. He is warm and gentle and empathetic and never judgemental."
Libie
The Offers
Ways to work together
The main way to work with me is privately, one-to-one, in an ongoing guiding relationship. Sessions are online via Zoom, open to people anywhere in the world. There are also two smaller places to begin, if you'd like a feel for how I look at things first.
Who's looking through your eyes?
Complimentary
Six questions, a few minutes, no score and nothing to fix. A mirror for the story you've been looking out from. The questions are here.
The Place We Live From
£27
A self-paced exploration in six movements, opening one at a time about a week apart. A place to start meeting the pattern differently, so it runs you a little less. The first movement is here.
An introductory conversation
Complimentary
Twenty to thirty minutes to feel whether this work, and working together, is right for both of us. There is no obligation. Get in touch.
One-to-one guiding relationship
£400 per month · three-month minimum (£1,200)
My work is about exploring what it means to be human. It isn't self-improvement, and we're not trying to fix you, remove your patterns or make you a better version of yourself.
Using the BodyMind Maturation Method™ by Nicky Clinch, we explore the conditioned BodyMind, one inseparable mechanism oriented towards survival, and the identities and stories that arise through it. An identity is a story rather than something separate from it. We don't fight or change these stories. We begin to see them as part of the human experience instead of who we fundamentally are. This is experiential work, so understanding it intellectually isn't enough. I listen, reflect, question and guide, and because I'm human too and subject to the same mechanisms, we explore it together.
Sessions are online every two weeks, with WhatsApp support from Monday to Thursday in between. It is £400 per month, paid monthly in advance, with a minimum commitment of three months (£1,200 in total, paid monthly), after which we continue month to month by mutual agreement. When you are ready to complete our work together, one month's notice is required.
This is serious, ongoing work that asks for honesty, responsibility and a willingness to look at what we may have spent much of our lives avoiding, from both of us. It isn't a quick fix. I can't do the work for you, but I can meet you in it. I won't be the right guide for everyone, and the introductory conversation is there so we can both feel whether working together is appropriate.
Everything begins with a conversation. If you'd like to explore working together, you're welcome to book an introductory conversation.
Get in Touch
What is present for you right now?
Book a discovery call directly, or send a message and I'll be in touch.
Discovery Call
A first conversation.
Thirty minutes on Zoom. Ask questions, feel the work, and see if this is right for you.
This website is operated by Brian Justin Botes (trading as Justin Botes), a sole practitioner offering BodyMind Maturation coaching services and acting as the responsible party for personal information collected through this site.
Contact: justin@justinbotes.com · South Africa
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Legal
Terms & Conditions
Last updated: October 2026
Acceptance of terms
By accessing this website or engaging Justin Botes for coaching services, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use this website or engage these services.
About the services
Justin Botes offers one-to-one guiding in the BodyMind Maturation Method™, the work of Nicky Clinch, under whom he trained. The practice is rooted in ontological inquiry and embodied awareness. Services include complimentary introductory conversations and an ongoing one-to-one guiding relationship, with sessions every two weeks and WhatsApp support from Monday to Thursday. All sessions are delivered online via Zoom and are available to clients worldwide.
Important: coaching is not therapy
BodyMind Maturation coaching is not a substitute for therapy, medical treatment, or clinical mental health care. Justin Botes is a coach, not a psychologist, therapist, or medical professional. Coaching sessions are not clinical interventions and should not be treated as such.
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or require clinical support, please contact a qualified mental health professional or your local emergency services.
By engaging these services, you confirm that you understand and accept the distinction between coaching and clinical care.
Booking and payment
Introductory conversations are complimentary and carry no obligation to proceed. The guiding relationship is £400 per month, paid monthly in advance, with no lump-sum payment. It is confirmed upon receipt of the first monthly payment. Payment methods are confirmed in the client agreement before we begin.
Pricing is shown in British pounds (GBP), as displayed at the time of booking. Clients outside the UK are responsible for any currency conversion costs charged by their bank or payment provider.
Cancellation and rescheduling
The guiding relationship has a minimum initial commitment of three months. After that it continues month to month by mutual agreement. When you are ready to complete our work together, one month's notice is required. Sessions cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice may not be refunded or rescheduled. Specific cancellation and refund terms are set out in the client agreement signed at the start of the engagement.
Confidentiality
Session content is held in strict confidence. Justin Botes will not disclose information shared in sessions except where required by law, or where there is reasonable concern for the safety of the client or others.
Intellectual property
All content on this website — including written copy, frameworks, and design — is the property of Justin Botes and may not be reproduced, republished, or distributed without written permission. Newsletter content is shared for personal use only.
Limitation of liability
To the extent permitted by South African law, Justin Botes will not be liable for any indirect, consequential, or incidental loss arising from the use of this website or the coaching services. Outcomes from coaching are not guaranteed. The client remains responsible for their own choices, actions, and integration of the work.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, and any disputes will be subject to the jurisdiction of the South African courts. If you are a consumer, this does not take away the mandatory protections of the law of the country where you live. If you are in the United Kingdom, the European Union, or anywhere with mandatory consumer rights, you keep those rights, and where your local law protects you more strongly, that protection applies.
Contact
Justin Botes · justin@justinbotes.com · South Africa
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