Let rumination soften into wonder as you connect with trees through mindful attention and nature-based contemplation in this gentle invitation to emotional healing and aliveness.
Sometimes we can’t see the wood for the trees. What a strange phrase. Is it about labelling? Is it about the limitations of mind? We do need our minds to filter out information for us, but what if we mistake the filter for what’s ‘out there’?
Continue reading “The Ache of Tree Love”As this new year opens, I find myself drawn into a rhythm that feels both ancient and alive — a rhythm of trees, moons, and quiet connection. My dear friend recently invited me to join a group exploring 13 trees and 13 moons, each cycle bringing us into relationship with a different tree spirit. For this first moonth, we begin with Birch — the gentle pioneer of new beginnings. What unfolds when we consciously connect with nature, our intuition, and one another? This is the beginning of my journey with Birch.
There are moments when our bodies speak louder than words, carrying messages that link us to our lineage, emotions, and unseen energies. Recently, something happened that reminded me of how intertwined body and psyche truly are — how even invisible critters, as Richard Schwartz calls them, can find their way into our awareness.
Continue reading “A way of working with critters”
Anxiety is often spoken about as a problem to be fixed, medicated, or mindset-hacked away. Yet in the therapy room and in my own life, anxiety has shown up as something more complex: a protective part, a messenger from deeper hurt, and sometimes a sign that something stranger is moving through the nervous system. In this article, I share my journey with gremlins, inner critics, parts-work and “critters”, and how creativity and compassion help us move from fighting ourselves to befriending what lives inside.
This is written for anyone who feels hijacked by anxiety or critical voices and is curious about a gentler, more creative way of relating to them.
Continue reading “Can we trust Gremlins, Inner Critics, Saboteurs and Critters?”Discover how self-talk acts as magic spells on your nervous system. Reframe struggles, soothe inner critics, and embrace self-compassion this Christmas.
I draw on my breath and the overflowing love that constantly pumps through my heart – healing me, loving me unconditionally, giving me energy in surprising ways.
Words are magic spells.
I am so very grateful to Julia Cameron, writer of The Artist’s Way. In that book she taught me to give space to the inner critic by writing down what it says and then turn each phrase around.
After waiting over five years for my ADHD assessment, I finally began the process — only to discover how deeply unfriendly, bureaucratic, and depersonalising the system can be for people like me. This wasn’t news to me intellectually, but now I have a felt sense of it in my body…
Continue reading “ADHD assessment system wasn’t built for people with ADHD”In a dark place once, I felt utterly depressed; could not think of one thing I was grateful for. Not one. I hated where I was living in my sixth floor council flat, where I’d taken up the tiles leaving a bare, concrete floor in the lounge. It felt cold, looked freezing, like the night sky. I had no spiritual practice. I had isolated myself. I wasn’t working. I was on government ‘benefits’. I felt unable to work and bad for not working. Wretched is the word for it.
Continue reading “Gratitude: what’s the point?”Listen to this article:
Do you want to be different or do you want to fit in?
When I was a teenager, with undiagnosed AuDHD and cPTSD, I desperately wanted to fit in, be accepted, be loved for who I was. I also wanted to express myself through what I wore and I had all kinds of ideas of the outfits I would put together to give space to this self-expression, but I didn’t let myself. I couldn’t. The need to fit in, not be ridiculed, and the desire to feel safe were stronger than the courage needed to stand out and be different.
