How to Trust That Things Will Be OK (Even When You Feel Lost)

You arrive a little more tired than you expected, the kind of tired that isn’t just about the journey but about everything you’ve been carrying before you even set off.

The train was delayed, the coffee wasn’t great, and there’s already a message waiting for you from home asking something that requires more of you than you feel you have to give. You hold your bag a little tighter as you step off, aware of that familiar hum underneath it all — the one that says you’re doing your best, and still wondering if it’s enough.

And then, slowly, something begins to shift.

You’re welcomed in, properly welcomed in, with a warmth that doesn’t ask anything of you in return. There’s a cup of tea placed into your hands, a chair that feels like it was waiting for you, and a sense — rare, and difficult to create on demand — that you don’t have to perform or explain or improve anything about yourself in this moment.

You have arrived.

This is the kind of space described in my recent conversation with Tanya Lynch on A Thought I Kept, but more than that, it’s the kind of space many of us are quietly searching for in our everyday lives, especially when we find ourselves feeling lost without quite knowing how we got there. Because feeling lost doesn’t often look dramatic. It tends to look like carrying on, showing up, doing what needs to be done while holding a question in the background about whether this is how things are meant to feel.

When Life Doesn’t Look Like You Thought It Would

Tanya’s work, through journaling, retreats, and bibliotherapy, is rooted in something both simple and surprisingly hard to practice, which is the idea that everything is welcome.

Not just the parts of life that feel resolved or hopeful or easy to share, but also the uncertainty, the heartbreak, the restlessness, and the moments where you don’t know what comes next or how you’re meant to move through them. These are the parts we’re often encouraged to fix or move past, and yet they are also the parts that tend to shape us most.

There is a phrase she returns to, one that you may have heard so many times it risks losing its meaning:

Every cloud has a silver lining.

It can feel too neat for the complexity of real life, too polished for the moments when things are genuinely hard, but the origins of the phrase tell a different story. It dates back to the 17th century, from a line by John Milton in Comus, where he describes a dark cloud revealing a silver edge when caught by light.

It wasn’t written as advice or reassurance, but as an observation, a moment of noticing that even within something heavy, there might be something else present at the same time. And perhaps that is where this idea becomes more useful to us, not as a way of reframing everything into something positive, but as an invitation to look a little more closely at what is already there.

Learning to Stay With the Hard Parts

One of the things that stayed with me most from this conversation is the way Tanya speaks about challenge, not as something to avoid or move quickly beyond, but as something that is woven into the shape of a life. There isn’t a single moment where everything resolves or becomes easier, and there isn’t a version of life that is made up only of blue skies and straightforward narratives. Instead, there are multiple moments, some expansive, some difficult, some that ask more of us than we feel ready to give, and all of them becoming part of the story we are living.

Over time, something begins to build alongside that, and it is not certainty or control but a quieter kind of trust. Not the kind that insists everything will work out exactly as we hope, but the kind that recognises we have moved through difficult things before and found our way, even when it didn’t feel possible at the time.

What It Means to Feel Held

So much of what Tanya creates through her retreats is about this idea of being held, and it’s something that feels increasingly important in a world that often asks us to keep going without pausing to notice how we actually are. Being held doesn’t mean being fixed or guided towards a better version of yourself, and it doesn’t come with a list of things to do or ways to improve. It is something quieter than that, an experience of being seen without needing to justify yourself, of being able to arrive as you are without editing or softening the edges of what you’re feeling.

It’s the difference between being asked what you need to do next and being given the space to sit with where you already are. And while retreats can offer a more intentional version of that experience, the question it opens up feels relevant far beyond those spaces.

Where in your life do you feel held, and where might you need a little more of that than you currently have?

A Way to Begin Again, Gently

If you are in a moment that feels uncertain right now, this isn’t about finding a solution or creating a plan, and it doesn’t ask you to turn everything around or see things differently straight away.

It might begin somewhere much smaller.

The next time you find yourself caught in the noise of everything you’re holding, the questions, the pressure to figure things out, the sense that you should know what comes next, you might step outside if you can and allow yourself a moment to look up rather than down. Not in a symbolic or forced way, but simply to notice what is there.

Clouds moving, light catching edges, space opening up in ways you hadn’t registered before.

This is not about convincing yourself that things are better than they are, but about allowing for the possibility that more than one thing can be true at the same time, that alongside what feels difficult, there may also be something else present that you hadn’t yet seen.

A Thought to Keep

Every cloud has a silver lining may not be something you believe all of the time, and it may not be something you want to hold onto in every moment, but it can sit gently in the background as a question rather than a conclusion.

What else might be here that I haven’t noticed yet?

If you’d like to spend more time with this idea, you can listen to the full episode of A Thought I Kept with Tanya Lynch, where we explore what it means to trust that things will be OK without needing to force that belief.

And if you are finding that you need more support in understanding what you’re feeling or where you are, you can explore our private coaching at If Lost Start Here, where we make space for all of it, not just the parts that are easy to explain.

Sometimes, finding your way doesn’t begin with knowing what to do next, but with allowing yourself to arrive exactly where you are.

Grief Disco

Perfect For

Grief Disco is for anyone living with loss and looking for a different kind of space to hold it. It’s for people who don’t always have the words, who feel isolated in their grief, or who want to be around others who understand without needing everything explained. It’s for the heartbroken and the hopeful, for people who want somewhere gentle, human and a little unexpected to go with what they’re carrying.

You do not need to be good at dancing. You do not need to be ready to talk. You do not need to arrive in any particular state. You just need permission to come as you are.

Why You’ll Love It

Grief Disco offers something many grieving people are missing: a place to feel less alone without being forced into conversation or expected to “do grief” the right way. Through music, movement and a sense of shared understanding, it creates room for sadness, joy, memory, release and connection to exist together.

This isn’t about dancing to forget. It’s about dancing to remember, to honour and to reconnect. For some people that might look like tears on a dance floor. For others, it might be a small exhale, a moment of laughter, or the relief of being in a room where no one needs grief explained to them.

What Makes It Special

So much of grief can feel isolating. People don’t know what to say, or they say nothing. We can start to feel cut off from ourselves, from our bodies and from other people. What Grief Disco understands is that grief does not only live in words. It lives in the body too.

That’s what makes this space so powerful. It offers people a way to process loss through movement, music and presence, rather than through talking alone. There is no pressure to perform, no expectation to be upbeat and no fixed script for how you should feel. Everything is an invitation.

Grief Disco also holds something many of us forget is possible: that joy and grief can coexist. That a person can cry and dance at the same time. That love, memory, heartbreak and laughter can all be in the room together. In that sense, it doesn’t just offer support for grief. It offers a more human way of being with it.

The If Lost Take

There is something quietly radical about creating a place where grief is allowed to move.

So many of us are more familiar with the language of coping than the experience of actually feeling. We know how to keep going, keep functioning, keep answering “fine” when we are anything but. Grief Disco interrupts that. It offers something softer and, for many people, more freeing: a chance to let grief be alive in the body, not just managed in the mind.

What we love most is that this doesn’t turn grief into a problem to solve. It doesn’t rush people towards silver linings or ask them to package their pain into something neat and shareable. Instead, it makes room for what is true. Sometimes that truth is sorrow. Sometimes it is love. Sometimes it is a song that opens something you didn’t realise you were still carrying.

And sometimes healing looks less like fixing and more like finding a room where you can be fully human again.

Founders Story | Co-founded by Georgina Jones and Leah Davies

Grief Disco was born from lived experience of loss and a belief that grieving people deserve spaces that feel connecting, warm and real. Co-founders Georgina and Leah created it as a response to the loneliness that grief can bring and to the sense that many of the places available to grieving people do not always make room for the body, for joy or for community. Their approach is shaped by the understanding that no one should have to grieve alone, and that music and movement can help us find our way back to ourselves and each other.

Founder’s Go-To Wellbeing Advice

“Look for the love.

Look for the tiny moments of joy that are still here, even in the hardest seasons. Keep a playlist that helps shift your energy. Let music help you move what words can’t always reach.

And remember that grief is not something to fix or get over. It is something to feel, and you don’t have to feel it alone.”

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Some Practical Details

Grief Disco is a space where people can come together around grief through music, movement and optional sharing. Some events happen in person and there are also online grief discos for people who would rather join from home. The atmosphere is invitational rather than intense: you can dance, sit, cry, talk, stay quiet, turn your camera off or simply witness. There are also small ritual elements, such as dedications and moments to remember the person or people you are dancing for.

If you are grieving and looking for support, this may be one of those rare places that helps not by asking you to explain your loss, but by giving you somewhere to bring it.

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Grief Disco

Various locations. Follow on social media and sign up for their newsletter for future dates.

Website | Instagram | YouTube

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Zenaa Retreats

Perfect For

Zenaa Retreats are for the "yoga curious" including regulars, dabblers, those who prefer the back row, and complete beginners. It is designed for the "schedule-seeking, choice-conscious" crowd who value a balance of activity and downtime. Solo travellers are especially welcome and make up a large part of the community.

Why You’ll Love It

We all need a space to pause, breathe, and reconnect. In a world of high expectations, Zenaa provides a judgment-free environment to strip away the pressure and allow you to be present. It’s an opportunity to escape the daily grind, slow down through the "art of slow living," and find nourishment for the mind, body, and soul without the pressure of a detox or juice cleanse.

What Makes It Special

Zenaa stands out for its "fad-free," balanced approach to wellbeing. Unlike many retreats that focus on restriction, Zenaa celebrates food and connection. The focus is on handpicked serene venues and a non-judgmental atmosphere that welcomes all body types and abilities. It is a family-feel business (founder Katie’s mum even helps out!) that prioritises genuine connection over performance.

The If Lost Take

We’ve often written about how we can get lost in wellbeing itself and we’re very much on a mission to get you to the places that can help you find your way through it all. When we met Katie we felt like here was a retreat organiser who really understands our real-lives. The places where we get overwhelmed or stuck, burned out and disconnected. And her events aren’t about adding yet more pressure, but really meeting you where you are, with consideration and kindness too.

Founder’s Story | Katie Hodge

Founder Katie is a wellbeing advocate and planner whose passion for events and yoga creates the perfect blend for meticulously designed retreats. Her journey began ten years ago in Sydney, where she first turned to yoga to find calm for an anxious mind. What started as a personal practice evolved into a mission to bring like-minded people together to connect with nature and enjoy incredible food, the ultimate self-care experience.

After launching Katie J Yoga in 2020 she rebranded to Zenaa in 2024. Today, it is a thriving community where every detail is covered so guests feel entirely nourished and supported.

Founder’s Go-To Wellbeing Advice

“Prioritising sleep. When everything feels overwhelming or I've lost my way, coming back to a consistent and restful sleep routine is the foundation for mental clarity and emotional resilience.”

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Some Practical Details

Zenaa offers luxury wellness and yoga retreats in the UK (including Devon, Bath, and the Cotswolds) and abroad (Italy, France, Portugal, and Sri Lanka). These include:

• Varied Yoga: Dynamic Hatha sessions in the morning and gentle Yin or yoga nidra in the evenings.

• Nourishment: Healthy, wholesome meals prepared by private chefs (always including dessert and sometimes a glass of wine).

• Activities: Countryside walks, cold-water swims, creative workshops, and meditation.

• Community: A warm, inclusive environment where guests often leave as close friends.

If you’re not able to attend in-person, don’t worry, there’s Zenaa Online which provides an online retreat experience. You can try out their free 7 day trial here.

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Coming up:

• Italy Retreat (July 2026) – A 6-night restorative escape

• France Retreat (Sept/Oct 2026) – A 5-night wellness experience

• Devon, UK (Oct 2026) – A weekend of nourishment and nature

Book a retreat using code IFLOST and get a special welcome gift.

Website | Social media

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“I’m Fine” in Midlife

You wake before the alarm, not because you’re rested but because your mind has already started. There’s a list forming before your eyes are fully open — things to organise, respond to, remember, hold together. The day begins before you’ve even stepped into it.

By mid-morning you’ve answered messages, kept something running that might otherwise have stalled, smoothed over a moment that could have turned into conflict, and made sure everyone else is more or less where they need to be. When someone asks how you are — and they do, in passing, in between everything else — you say, “I’m fine,” and keep moving.

And in many ways, you are. You’re functioning. You’re managing. You’re doing what needs to be done. But somewhere underneath that, something feels different to how it once did.

The pace is the same, or even faster, but your capacity to keep absorbing it without cost has shifted. Sleep doesn’t restore you in quite the same way. Small things feel harder. Your body speaks more loudly, even if you’re not always sure how to listen. Emotions can feel closer to the surface — or, at times, more difficult to access altogether. And yet, the expectation — internal as much as external — is often that you should still be able to carry it all.

This is where “I’m fine” in midlife can take on a particular weight. It becomes the thing that holds together a life that has grown fuller and more complex over time — work, relationships, children, parents, friendships, the quiet accumulation of responsibility, the invisible labour that sits beneath it all.

It can also hold together an identity that has been built over years. If you’ve been the capable one, the one who gets things done, the one who can be relied on, then not being fine can feel like more than just a feeling — it can feel like a fracture in who you are. So “fine” keeps you inside something familiar, even if it’s starting to feel tight.

At the same time, midlife brings its own particular pressures.

Changes in the body — hormonal shifts, disrupted sleep, anxiety that arrives without clear reason, irritability that feels out of proportion.
Changes in relationships — renegotiations, distance, new dynamics that require different conversations.
Changes in perspective — a growing awareness of time, of what has been, of what might still be possible.

And alongside all of that, a question that can be hard to ignore:

Is this still working for me?

“Fine” often steps in right at that point.

Not because nothing is there, but because what’s there feels too big, too layered, or too disruptive to fully open. It protects you from the immensity of it — grief for versions of life that didn’t happen, anger at loads that feel uneven, fear of what change might bring, longing for something more spacious or more aligned. It also protects your nervous system when things have been too much for too long.

So instead of anxiety, you might feel a kind of flatness. A functional steadiness that keeps everything moving, but leaves little room for rest, pleasure, or connection.

You can cope, but you can’t receive.
You’re productive, but not nourished.
You’re calm on the outside, but internally braced.

And over time, that can begin to feel like the place you live.

But midlife also has a way of gently interrupting that pattern. Not necessarily with a dramatic breaking point, but with a steady accumulation of moments where “fine” no longer quite fits.

Where your body asks for something different.
Where your capacity reaches a limit.
Where your desires, long held at the edges, become harder to ignore.

And this is where something else becomes possible. Not a complete reinvention, and not a rejection of everything that has brought you here, but a gradual renegotiation.

Of what you carry.
Of what you expect of yourself.
Of what you allow yourself to need.

Questions begin to surface that cut through the automatic nature of “fine”:

• What am I responsible for that I shouldn’t be?

• What expectations am I meeting that no one has actually asked of me?

• Where have I become the only one holding something together?

• What would change if I believed my needs were legitimate?

These aren’t questions to answer all at once. They’re invitations. Because “fine” in this season of life isn’t something to get rid of. It’s something to listen to. A signal that something is asking for attention, for care, for adjustment. And alongside it, there can be another version of fine — one that feels different in the body. A steadier kind of okay.

Where your mood is mostly stable, even if life is full.
Where problems feel solvable, and support feels possible.
Where you have access, even in small ways, to rest, to pleasure, to connection.
Where your yes and your no feel real.

Midlife doesn’t remove the need for “fine.” But it does offer the chance to reshape it. To let it become less about holding everything together, and more about being in relationship with yourself as you actually are — changing, adjusting, becoming.

And from there, something opens. Not all at once. But enough to feel the difference between coping… and being here, in your life, with a little more space to breathe.

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Identify the hidden emotion under “fine”

Common ones in midlife:

• Grief (for time, body, dreams, parents, versions of self)

• Anger (from unfair load, invisibility, broken agreements)

• Fear (change, aging, being alone, being trapped)

• Longing (for rest, intimacy, freedom, meaning)

• Shame (for needing, for not coping “better”)

Prompt:

• If ‘fine’ had a feeling, it would be?.

• If ‘fine’ had a message, it would be?

Find the right kind of support

• If it’s hormonal/body-based: track symptoms, consider talking to a clinician, consider sleep support and nutrition.

• If it’s relational: practice direct asks, therapy/couples work, boundary setting.

• If it’s nervous-system burnout: prioritize downshifting (rest, somatic work, less stimulation).

• If it’s meaning/identity: coaching/therapy/journaling around values and your “next chapter.”

How to talk to people when you’re FINE

Scripts to try out:

• “I’m a bit depleted. I don’t need fixing, just you to listen.”

• “I’m not ready to talk details, but I’m not okay.”

• “Can we do a low-energy hang? I need company.”

• “I’m overwhelmed. Can you take one thing off my plate this week?”

• “I’m not fine, but I’m ok.”

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If “fine” has become the place you’re living from more often than you’d like, this might be a moment to have a different kind of conversation.

In coaching, we explore what’s shifting in this season of life — your needs, your energy, your direction — so you can move forward in a way that feels more sustainable and more yours.

Book a free discovery call and begin to find your way from here.

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Moving Gently Beyond “Fine”

You’re replying to a message. “How are you?” they’ve asked, and your thumbs hover for a moment before typing, “I’m fine, how are you?” It’s already sent before you’ve really checked in. You notice it though, that slight pause afterwards, that sense that something more could have been said, but didn’t quite make it into words.

This is often how “fine” works. Not as a deliberate decision, but as a well-practised reflex. And once you start noticing it, it can be hard to unsee. Not because it’s wrong, but because you can feel both sides of it — what it’s doing for you, and what it might be costing you.

So the work isn’t to stop saying “fine.” It’s to start relating to it differently. Instead of treating it as something to correct, you can begin by treating it as information. A question, asked internally: what is “fine” doing for me right now?

Sometimes it’s protecting you from a conversation you don’t have the energy for. Sometimes it’s holding together a version of yourself that still feels important. Sometimes it’s simply buying you time — a way of saying, not now. And alongside that, another question can sit gently beside it:

What would become more complicated if I wasn’t fine?

Because that’s often where the truth lives — in the complication. The conversation you might have to have. The need you might have to express. The change you might have to consider.

You don’t have to go there all at once. Often, the smallest shift is enough. Instead of replacing “fine” entirely, you can add a little more specificity, a little more truth, while keeping the safety that “fine” was giving you.

It might sound like:

“I’m okay, but I’m carrying quite a lot.”
“I’m functioning, but I feel a bit tender.”
“I’m not in crisis, but I’m not feeling great.”
“I’m managing, but I could use some support.”

Or even more simply, noticing where “fine” is and isn’t true:

Fine at work, not fine at home.
Fine in the morning, not fine at night.
Fine physically, not fine emotionally.

These are small translations, but they begin to reconnect you with what’s actually there. And often, the quickest way into that isn’t through language, but through the body. A moment of pausing. A hand resting somewhere steady — your chest, your stomach. A question that doesn’t require explanation:

What’s here?

Tight. Heavy. Buzzing. Numb.

And alongside it, perhaps, a need:

Rest. Space. Reassurance. Warmth.

Even this — just naming a sensation and a need — can begin to shift “fine” into something more alive.

Because underneath “fine” there’s often a mix of feelings that don’t always separate themselves neatly. Grief that hasn’t had time. Anger that hasn’t had space. Fear about what might change. Longing for something more spacious, more connected, more yours.

You don’t have to untangle all of it. You can start with the smallest true thing.

And alongside that, you can begin to make small repairs — not dramatic changes, but deliberate acts that meet you where you are.

A short walk outside.
Water and something nourishing before the next coffee.
A message to someone safe saying I’m not great today.
A boundary you’ve been circling but haven’t yet set.

Because often “FINE” — the version that feels tight and effortful — comes from cumulative depletion.

You can cope, but you can’t receive.
You’re productive, but not nourished.
You’re calm on the outside, but internally braced.

A helpful shorthand can be:

Healthy fine = I’m okay, and I’m connected.
FINE = I’m okay, and I’m disconnected.

And the movement between those two states isn’t dramatic. It’s made up of small moments of noticing, naming, and meeting yourself a little more honestly. Not all at once. Just enough to feel the difference.

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Healthy “fine” (when you’re genuinely okay)

• Stable mood most days.

• Problems feel solvable; you can ask for help.

• You have access to pleasure, rest, and connection.

• Your “yes” and “no” feel real.

• You feel present in your life (even if tired).

Unhealthy “FINE” (a kind of functional numbness)

• You can cope, but you can’t receive.

• You’re productive, but not nourished.

• You’re calm on the outside, but internally braced.

• You’re “fine” because you’ve stopped expecting support.

• Your life is organized around avoiding collapse.

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If you’re ready to move beyond “fine,” even just a little, having someone alongside you can make that feel safer and more possible.

Coaching offers a space to find the words, reconnect with what’s going on beneath the surface, and take small, steady steps towards something that feels more like you.

You can start with a free call and see if it feels like the right kind of support.

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What “I’m Fine” Really Means

You’re standing in the kitchen, phone wedged between your shoulder and ear, stirring something that doesn’t need stirring quite so vigorously. Someone asks how you are — a colleague or a friend, or maybe it’s your partner calling from another room — and you answer without thinking, “I’m fine.” The words arrive quickly, almost before the question has fully landed. You keep moving. There’s dinner to finish, emails to send, a message you haven’t replied to yet. Nothing stops.

That “fine” didn’t come from checking in. It came from knowing what’s easiest. What keeps things smooth. What doesn’t require you to explain why you’ve been waking at 3am, or why that small comment earlier stayed with you longer than it should, or why you feel both exhausted and strangely wired at the same time.

“I’m fine” is often less a feeling and more a kind of agreement. A socially acceptable, low-friction answer that says: please don’t ask more right now.

And in that sense, it works beautifully. It protects relationships, keeps conversations moving, and allows you to stay in the role you know how to play — the capable one, the calm one, the one who can handle things. But when you stay with it a little longer, “fine” starts to reveal itself as something more layered.

It can be a survival strategy — a way of minimising your needs, your visibility, your inconvenience to others. A way of keeping everything steady, even if it means gradually stepping away from yourself.

It can be a kind of freeze state — not falling apart, but not fully alive either. You’re functioning, showing up, doing what needs to be done, but there’s a slight distance from what you feel. A flattening. A sense that you’re operating without full access to yourself.

And often, it’s a negotiation. Between what you can handle, what you are handling, and what you’re not quite letting yourself admit you’re handling.

Because there’s usually something underneath it.

“Fine” can sit over disconnection — from your body, your emotions, your desires, your fatigue, your anger, your grief. It can sit over roles you’ve come to inhabit so fully they feel indistinguishable from who you are: the caretaker, the peacekeeper, the high performer, the low-maintenance one, the strong friend.

If you wanted a shorthand for it, you could think of “FINE” as an internal status message:

System running on emergency power.

You’re neither broken nor in crisis. But you’re also not resourced enough to feel, to pause, to shift.

Fine shows up for good reasons. It protects your place in relationships, where being “too much” might feel risky. It protects identity, especially if you’ve been the one who copes, the one who gets things done. It protects you from truths that feel too big to open all at once — grief, loneliness, resentment, the ever louder question of whether something needs to change. It even protects your nervous system, when things have been too much for too long, and numbness feels safer than overwhelm.

So “fine” isn’t something to dismantle or push past. It’s something to understand. Because from the outside, it can look like everything is working — calm, organised, capable. But inside, it can feel like holding everything in place at once, a subtle bracing that never quite releases.

And that’s where a different kind of question becomes useful.

Not: Is this true? But: What is this doing for me?

Because when you start to see “fine” as information rather than a fixed state, it opens up something else.

A little more awareness. A little more choice. A little more room to move.

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How to recognize FINE

The emotional / mental kind

• You say “fine” quickly and automatically.

• You minimize: “It’s not a big deal,” “Other people have it worse.”

• You feel flat, bored, cynical, or strangely blank.

• You feel easily irritated—like the smallest thing is too much.

• You can’t access desire (“I don’t know what I want”).

The physical kind

• Tension in jaw/neck/shoulders, shallow breath, clenched belly.

• Exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix.

• “Wired but tired,” or heavy/foggy.

• Frequent headaches, gut issues, inflammation flare-ups.

The behavioral kind

• Over-functioning: fixing, managing, planning, caretaking.

• Under-functioning in private: scrolling, zoning out, procrastination.

• Increased people-pleasing or emotional withdrawal.

• You stop initiating joy: hobbies, intimacy, creativity, movement.

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If reading this has made you pause and wonder what might sit underneath your own “I’m fine,” you don’t have to figure that out alone.

In emotions coaching, we create space to gently explore what’s there — at your pace, in your own words — so you can begin to understand what you’re feeling and what you might need.

Start with a free discovery call and see what support could look like for you.

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Creativity as a Mental Health Tool: How Art Can Support Wellbeing and Self-Trust

Often when we think about wellbeing, our minds go to the things we’ve been taught to reach for. Yoga classes and early morning runs. Cold water swims, breathwork, journaling practices carefully folded into the edges of the day. There is a familiar shape to it now, a sense of what counts as looking after ourselves and what does not.

And yet, there are other ways of feeling better that sit just outside of that frame. Quieter, less prescribed, often overlooked. Creativity is one of them.

Not because it is unavailable, but because many of us stopped recognising it as something we were allowed to have. Somewhere along the way, it became something reserved for other people. The creative ones. The artistic ones. The ones who knew what they were doing.

So when we find ourselves searching for support, for something that might help us feel a little steadier or more like ourselves again, creativity rarely makes the list. It feels optional, or indulgent, or something to come back to when everything else is in place.

But what if it is not an extra at all. What if it is one of the most overlooked ways we have of supporting our mental health and wellbeing.

This is something that came into sharper focus for me in a recent conversation with Imogen Partridge, a watercolour illustrator and workshop host whose work sits at the intersection of creativity and everyday life. Not in a way that asks us to become more creative, but in a way that reminds us we already are.

What she speaks about is not creativity as output or identity, but as a practice. Something we can return to in the middle of ordinary days. Something that can sit quietly alongside everything else we are holding, offering a different way of being with ourselves when things feel uncertain or overwhelming.

At the heart of her own experience is a thought she has kept for years. A reminder that appears on her phone at the end of the day, asking her to give herself more credit for how hard she is trying .

It is a simple idea, but one that shifts something fundamental. Because so often, even when we are looking after ourselves, we are still measuring. Noticing what we have not done, where we have fallen short, how far we feel from where we thought we might be. And so even our wellbeing practices can quietly become another place where we are trying to get it right.

What happens if we begin somewhere else.

If instead of asking whether something is working, we notice that we are trying. If instead of evaluating the outcome, we stay with the experience of being in it.

This is where creativity begins to feel different.

In Imogen’s workshops, people often arrive with a certainty that they are not creative. It is not something they have questioned for a long time. It sits quietly in the background, shaping what they reach for and what they avoid. And so there is hesitation at first. A sense of being outside of something. Of not quite belonging in the space.

But when they begin, something shifts. Not because what they create is suddenly good or finished or worthy of being shown, but because they are in it. They are making marks, however tentative. They are noticing what it feels like to try without knowing exactly where it will lead.

There is a vulnerability in that. In being seen trying, even by yourself. In allowing something to exist that is unfinished, uncertain, not quite right.

And there is also something quietly steadying about it.

Because when the focus moves away from outcome, there is space for something else to emerge. A different kind of attention. A moment of calm. A feeling of being absorbed in what is in front of you, rather than pulled in multiple directions at once.

This is where creativity begins to show up as a mental health tool, not in the way we might expect, but in the way it meets us where we are.

It does not ask us to be consistent or disciplined or to improve. It does not require us to share or perform or turn it into something more. It simply offers a place to land. A way of settling into the present moment, even briefly, when everything else feels like too much.

And over time, those moments can begin to matter.

Not because they change everything, but because they offer something different. A pause in the noise. A way of coming back into your body. A reminder that you can be with yourself without needing to fix or move beyond what you are feeling.

I have seen this in small, everyday ways. Children drawing without hesitation, moving from one idea to the next without questioning whether it is good. Adults returning to creative practices after years away, unsure at first, then gradually finding a rhythm that feels their own. A partner coming home from a long day and picking up a paintbrush, not to create something finished, but to let the day settle.

There is something important in these moments. Not just the act itself, but what it represents.

That creativity is not something we have to earn.
That it does not need to be productive to be valuable.
That it can sit alongside the rest of our lives, quietly supporting us in ways we might not have considered.

In a world where so much of wellbeing is shaped by structure and expectation, creativity offers something softer. A way of being rather than doing. A practice that can exist in small pockets of time, without needing to be perfect or complete.

It is not the only way of supporting your mental health, and it does not replace anything else that works for you. But it is one of the tools that often goes unnoticed, even though it has been there all along.

And perhaps that is where this thought continues to land.

Not as something to achieve, but as something to recognise.

That trying counts.
That effort, even when it is unseen, has value.
That you do not need to feel ready or confident to begin.

If you find yourself searching for ways to feel better, it might be worth looking not just at what you can add, but at what you might return to. Something simple. Something small. Something that allows you to be in the moment without needing to change it.

You can listen to the full conversation with Imogen Partridge on A Thought I Kept, where we explore creativity, mental health, motherhood and the quiet power of trying in more depth.

And if you are curious about how creativity might support your own wellbeing, you can explore our wellbeing prescriptions at If Lost Start Here, where we share gentle ways to bring more creativity into your everyday life in ways that feel possible and personal to you

Why Nothing Changes Even When You Try Everything: The Missing Role of Connection

Do you ever feel so frustratingly stuck? And it’s not because you haven’t tried things. If anything, you’ve tried a lot. You’ve read the books, listened to the podcasts, saved the quotes, maybe even written things down in a notebook with the hope that this time something might land. And for a moment, it does. Something resonates. Something makes sense. And then, somehow, nothing really changes.

You’re still in the same patterns. Still circling the same questions. Still feeling that low-level sense that something isn’t quite shifting in the way you hoped it might.

It can be easy, in those moments, to assume the problem is you. That you haven’t understood it properly. That you haven’t applied it well enough. That you need to try harder, or find the right framework, or finally come across the one idea that will make everything click into place.

But what if that’s not what’s missing?

In a recent episode of A Thought I Kept, I found myself returning to a simpler idea. That sometimes it isn’t another piece of insight we need. It’s other people.

Not in a dramatic or overwhelming way. Not in the sense of needing a whole new community or a complete change of life. But in the small, often overlooked ways that we are with each other. The conversations that go a little deeper than expected. The moments where someone really listens. The feeling of being alongside someone rather than trying to work it all out alone.

Because so much of what we are trying to understand about ourselves doesn’t fully emerge in isolation.

We can think about something for weeks, months even, and still feel unsure. And then, in the space of a single conversation, something becomes clearer. Not because the other person has the answer, but because they’ve asked a question we hadn’t considered. Or reflected something back to us that we couldn’t quite see on our own.

There’s something about being witnessed that changes the shape of things.

In my conversation with Laurence McCahill, we talked about the role he plays in bringing people together. A friend once told him that he was the glue in a group, the person who connected people who might not otherwise have found each other. It wasn’t something he had consciously set out to be. It was something he recognised in hindsight, something that had always been there.

And I think there’s something important in that too.

That the things that help us feel more connected, more ourselves, are often not the things we need to learn from scratch. They are the things that already exist in us, but only really come into focus in relationship with other people.

Listening. Noticing. Making space. Asking a question at the right moment. Sitting with someone without needing to fix what they’re going through.

These are not grand gestures. They are small, human ones. But they create the conditions for something else to happen. They create the conditions for change.

It also made me think about how much of modern life encourages us to do things on our own. To self-reflect alone. To improve alone. To figure things out internally before we share them with anyone else. Even our versions of connection can become structured or transactional. Networking rather than relating. Updating rather than opening up. And in all of that, we can lose something essential.

The in-between spaces where things unfold more naturally. The conversations that aren’t heading anywhere in particular. The moments where we’re not trying to get something out of the interaction, but simply being in it. Those are often the places where something shifts. Not because we’ve found a better answer, but because we’re no longer holding everything on our own.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, or like you’re circling the same thoughts without anything really changing, it might be worth gently asking a different question.

Not “what haven’t I figured out yet?” But “who might I need to be in conversation with?”

That might look like reaching out to someone you trust. Sitting with a friend a little longer than usual. Joining something where the intention is simply to be with other people, rather than to achieve or fix anything.

It might even be noticing where, in your own life, you are already the one who brings people together. The one who listens. The one who creates space for others. And considering what it would mean to allow that to be something you receive as well as give.

There isn’t a neat formula for this. And it won’t always feel comfortable, especially if you’re used to holding things on your own. But there is a different kind of steadiness that can come from it.

The kind that doesn’t come from having all the answers, but from not having to find them alone.

If this idea resonates, you might want to listen to the full conversation with Laurence on A Thought I Kept, where we explore connection, community, and what becomes possible when we do life together.

And if you’re looking for somewhere to begin, we’ve created a series of wellbeing prescriptions at If Lost Start Here that gently centre connection in everyday life. Not as another thing to get right, but as a way of finding your footing again, alongside other people.

Creative Frome: A Wellbeing Guide to Living More Creatively in Everyday Life

There’s something about Frome that makes creativity feel like part of everyday life, not something reserved for weekends or special occasions. It’s in the windows, the workshops, and the sense that people are making things because they want to, not because they have to. And when life feels full or a little unclear, creativity offers a way back, giving us somewhere to place our attention, our hands, our thoughts.

Why creativity matters for wellbeing

Creativity isn’t just about producing something beautiful or impressive. It’s about process. It’s about making space for curiosity, for play, for noticing what draws you in.

When we engage creatively, even in small ways, we step out of constant consumption and into participation. We soften the pressure to have all the answers and instead follow something more alive: interest, instinct, experimentation. Creativity can regulate our nervous systems, reconnect us to ourselves, and remind us that we’re allowed to make things imperfectly.

In a town like Frome, that invitation is everywhere.

A wellbeing prescription for a more creative life in Frome

Start with wandering. Let yourself be led by what catches your eye, not what you think you “should” do.

Here are some of our favourite places to seek out creativity:

Black Swan Arts

Set in a beautiful old building, Black Swan Arts is a community-driven contemporary arts centre that supports local and emerging artists through exhibitions, open studios, and workshops. You might come for a specific show, or simply to wander through and notice what resonates. It’s a reminder that creativity takes many forms and that you don’t need to understand it all to be moved by it. Also check out The Write Place, a cosy place to work on that novel hidden away on the top floor.

The Silk Mill Studios and Gallery

Part gallery, part working space, The Silk Mill offers a closer look at creativity lived out by the artists who work here. There’s a sense of getting to witness the in-between stages—the sketches, the half-finished pieces, the process itself, challenging the idea that creativity needs to be polished to be worthwhile. With a rotating series of exhibitions, workshops and events there’s often something here to expand your world a little.

Ground

At the top of Catherine’s Hill, you’ll find Ground, a studio and shop created by the potter and artist Fi Underhill. Here you’ll get a sense that creativity can both be something you make and something you engage with. Take one of the gorgeous ceramic mugs home with you, so that an everyday, almost throwaway moment drinking your morning coffee becomes even better.

Made at Nest

Made at Nest is a welcoming pottery studio and coffee shop that invites you not just to buy something creative, but to try making something yourself. It offers a gentle nudge towards participation rather than perfection, and you’ll feel free to paint vases and bowls, tiny bears and exuberant elephants to your heart’s content. Oh and there’s cake.

Still Life Gin

There’s creativity in flavour too. At Still Life Gin, the process of distillation becomes its own kind of craft—thoughtful, sensory, experimental. It’s a different lens on creativity, one that invites you to taste and notice, not just look. You can also book sessions to make your own gin blend.

Seed

Seed is a thoughtfully curated shop filled with the best of British design from homewares, stationery, and objects that bring a sense of life and intention into your space. It’s a reminder that creativity can be as simple as how we care for our environment—what we surround ourselves with, what we bring in, and how we make a space feel like our own.

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You don’t need to become “a creative person” to live more creatively. You just need to follow what feels interesting, even if it seems small or ordinary.

If you’re looking for more places like these—spaces that help you reconnect, explore and feel a little more like yourself—browse our guide for life. It’s filled with creative corners, thoughtful businesses and everyday places that make life feel better, one visit at a time.

Oh, and if you run a local place that you think would be perfect for our guide, apply to be part of our collection of places for happier days here.

When Grief Changes You But Doesn’t Define You: Finding Your Way Through Loss

Rachel Hart-Phillips is in the car, driving away from the hospital mortuary. It is one of those days that feels almost impossible to hold — the kind where everything is too much, too raw, too real. She has just seen her husband. The future she thought she had is no longer there. And alongside the shock and the grief, there is another feeling beginning to take shape.

Fear.

Not just of what has happened, but of what it might mean. That this could be the thing that defines her. That from this moment on, she might always be “the person this happened to.” That her life might narrow around this one experience, this one loss, this one story.

She says it out loud to the friend driving her home. And he responds, simply and almost casually, “don’t let it.”

It isn’t a solution. It isn’t even something she can fully take in at the time. How could you, in the middle of something so overwhelming? But she keeps it. She carries it with her, even when it feels impossible to believe. And over time, it becomes something she can return to. Not as an instruction to be okay, but as a way of orienting herself inside something that has changed everything.

There is something in that moment that many of us will recognise, even if our circumstances are different. That quiet, often unspoken fear that the hardest thing we go through might become the thing that defines us. It might not be grief. It might be anxiety, burnout, a loss of confidence, a period of feeling lost or stuck. But the shape of the fear is often the same. That this is who I am now. That this is how it will always be.

And yet, life is rarely that singular. It is not one thing, even when one thing feels overwhelming. What Rachel’s story holds, gently and without forcing it, is the idea that we can be shaped by what happens to us without being entirely defined by it.

This is not about dismissing the impact of what we go through. Loss does change us. Grief changes us. The experiences that stop us in our tracks — the ones that make us question who we are and how we go on — they leave their mark. Rachel speaks about the many emotions that came with her grief: sadness, of course, but also anger, guilt, fear, even moments of something like joy returning in unexpected ways And perhaps one of the hardest parts is that these emotions don’t arrive neatly. They don’t follow a clear path. They can feel contradictory, confusing, and sometimes even shameful.

We are not always given space to experience that fully. There is often a subtle pressure, from the world around us and from within, to be strong, to hold it together, to find a way through as quickly as possible. Rachel described being told she was strong after earlier loss, and how that became something she felt she had to live up to — as if showing her grief might mean she was doing it wrong But over time, she came to understand that strength, in this context, looks very different. It is not about holding everything in. It is about allowing what is there to be there.

This is a different kind of orientation to the one many of us are used to. Rather than asking “how do I fix this?” or “how do I stop feeling like this?”, it becomes something more like “how do I stay with this, without losing myself inside it?” It is slower. Less certain. But also, perhaps, more human.

Rachel spoke about grief as something that lives in the body, not just the mind. Something that needs to be felt and moved through, rather than thought away And that might look like very ordinary things. A walk. A song. A moment of crying that comes out of nowhere. A small flicker of light that catches you by surprise. None of these are solutions. But they are ways of staying connected to yourself, even as everything shifts.

There was something else in our conversation that stayed with me, and it sits alongside that original thought. The idea that when something hard happens, we don’t just struggle with what we’re feeling — we also struggle with how to be around each other. The not knowing what to say. The fear of getting it wrong. The way we can sometimes back away, even when we care deeply.

Rachel has built her work around this space — around helping us find words when words feel impossible. And what she returns to, again and again, is that it doesn’t need to be perfect. Often, it is the simplest expressions that matter most. A message. A card. A “I’m here.” A “love you.” Not to fix anything, but to sit alongside it.

Because when life becomes difficult, what we are often looking for is not a solution, but a sense of not being alone in it.

And maybe this is where that original thought — don’t let it — becomes something softer, something more spacious. Not a demand to overcome or to move on. But a quiet reminder that even when something changes you, it doesn’t have to take everything with it. There can still be other parts of you. Other moments. Other possibilities that sit alongside the hard.

Rachel speaks about the metaphor of a disco ball — something made up of broken pieces that still reflects light. Not in spite of what it’s been through, but because of how those pieces come together. It feels like a more honest image of how we live. Not perfectly put back together. Not untouched by what has happened. But still capable of reflecting something back into the world.

If you are in a moment where things feel uncertain, or heavy, or difficult to name, it might not be about finding a way to change yourself. It might be about staying close to yourself, even here. Allowing what is present to be present. And trusting, even if only a little, that there is more to you than the thing that has happened.

If this feels close to home, you can listen to the full conversation with Rachel on A Thought I Kept.

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And if you’re looking for a steadier way to navigate what you’re feeling, or to find your footing again, you’re always welcome to explore the coaching and resources here at If Lost Start Here.

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For now, perhaps just this thought to carry gently with you:

What is the thing you’re afraid might define you?

And what might it mean, in your own time, not to let it?

Feeling Lost, Disconnected, Overwhelmed, or Lonely? Here’s How to Find Your Way Back to Yourself

Life can feel heavy when you’re navigating overwhelm, loneliness, or a sense of disconnection. Maybe you feel stuck in routines that don’t nourish you, struggling to find clarity, or simply wondering what’s missing. Instead of trying to force yourself into generic self-care routines, what if you could create a wellbeing practice that fits you? That’s where our Wellbeing Prescriptions come in.

Inspired by social prescribing, our approach blends Culture Therapy, carefully chosen places from our Guide to Life, and an understanding of what you actually need. Most importantly, it starts with how you feel right now. This personalised approach helps you feel grounded, connected, and emotionally well on your own terms.

What is Wellbeing?

Wellbeing isn’t just about ticking off a to-do list of meditation, journaling, and yoga. It’s about finding what genuinely supports you—mentally, emotionally, and socially.

At its core, wellbeing is about:

• Emotional health – Learning to navigate your emotions with self-compassion rather than resistance

• Mental balance – Managing stress, uncertainty, and change with more ease

• Connection – Feeling supported by people, places, and experiences that align with who you are

But here’s the key: wellbeing is personal. What works for someone else may not be what you need. That’s why our approach is bespoke.

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How We Create Your Bespoke Wellbeing Prescription

Your wellbeing prescription is built around you, using three core elements:

1. We Start with How You Feel

Before prescribing anything, we begin with your reality today. Are you feeling:

• Lost? Unsure where to go next or what’s missing?

• Disconnected? Feeling detached from yourself or others?

• Overwhelmed? Struggling to manage stress, burnout, or emotions?

• Lonely? Longing for deeper relationships or more meaningful experiences?

These sessions first help you understand what’s happening beneath the surface—so we can tailor your wellbeing prescription to what will truly help.

2. We Look at What You Need

Everyone’s wellbeing needs are different. Some of us need more space, others need more connection. Some need creativity, others need calm.

Through our framework, we uncover what’s missing or what you’re craving right now—whether it’s:

• Rest – Slowing down, prioritising sleep, and reducing stress

• Clarity – Finding direction and making sense of where you are

• Purpose – Reconnecting with what feels meaningful to you

• Play – Bringing more joy, creativity, and fun into your life

• Connection – Strengthening relationships or finding community

3. We Curate a Wellbeing Prescription Just for You

Once we understand how you feel and what you need, we create a bespoke wellbeing prescription that may include:

Culture Therapy – A handpicked selection of books, podcasts, and creative resources designed to support your emotional wellbeing.

Places from our Guide to Life – Beautiful, thoughtfully designed spaces that foster connection, creativity, and mental wellness. Whether it’s an awe-inspiring museum, a community garden, or a cosy bookshop, we recommend places that help you feel at home in the world.

Practical Tools & Practice – Small, actionable steps that fit into your life, including journaling prompts, breathwork exercises, creative rituals, or moments of connection.

One-on-One Support – If needed, we offer coaching sessions to explore emotional resilience, purpose, and how to build a wellbeing practice that feels true to you.

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Why This Works for Anyone Feeling Lost, Lonely, or Overwhelmed

• It’s personalised to you – Instead of generic self-care tips, you get a wellbeing prescription that meets you where you are.

• It helps you navigate uncertainty – Using curiosity and self-acceptance, it guides you toward what feels good for you.

• It’s practical and flexible – No rigid self-care routines—just real-life wellbeing that evolves with you.

• It connects you to the world around you – Through culture, creativity, and inspiring places, you gain experiences that nourish rather than deplete you.

• It transforms your relationship with emotions – Instead of seeing emotions as something to ‘fix,’ you learn how to work with them.

What Is Emotional Fragmentation? How to Spot It and Start Healing

You can talk about your emotions. You might even do it brilliantly. But when someone asks how you feel, there’s a pause. A quick internal scan… then a neat answer. The right words. Not the felt experience.

This is emotional fragmentation.

It’s not about being broken—it’s about being disconnected. From the felt, embodied experience of your own emotions. Noticing this pattern is the first step toward something more integrated, more whole.

When Talking About Emotions Isn’t the Same as Feeling Them

For a long time, I would have described myself as an emotional person. I could talk about feelings with fluency—mine, yours, fictional characters’—with nuance and detail. But somewhere in my 40s, I realised something new. I wasn’t actually feeling those emotions. Not in my body. Not really.

I’d say “I’m feeling anxious” while my body remained in neutral. I’d discuss heartbreak with all the right language but none of the actual ache. I was, it turns out, managing emotions from a safe cognitive distance. Naming them, analysing them, talking about them but not letting them land.

Emotional fragmentation often shows up like this:

• You can describe emotions, but you rarely feel them.

• You feel detached from your own reactions, like you’re watching them through glass.

• You judge yourself (and others) for being "too emotional."

• You feel overwhelmed when multiple emotions appear at once.

It’s a form of self-protection. Often developed early, in environments where feelings weren’t safe, welcomed, or attuned to. Over time, your body learns: Feelings are too much. Think instead. And so you become a master of emotional language, but a stranger to your emotional landscape.

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What Happens When We Don’t Feel What We Know

Why does this matter? Because emotions are not just thoughts. They’re not just moods or concepts. Emotions live in your body. They are sensory, energetic experiences designed to move through you. To guide you, inform you, protect you, and connect you to others.

When emotions are kept at a distance—intellectualised but not embodied—they don’t go away. They get stuck. They pile up. And they often show up later as confusion, overwhelm, low-level anxiety, fatigue, or shutdown.

You can be emotionally articulate and emotionally distanced at the same time.

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How to Gently Reconnect With What You Feel

So how do you begin to shift from fragmentation to connection?

Not with force. Not by “feeling harder.” But by gently rebuilding the bridge between your emotions and your body. Here are a few practices to try:

1. Ask your body, not just your mind

The next time you notice an emotion, pause and ask:

• Where do I feel this in my body?

• What sensation is here—tightness, heat, hollowness?

• Can I stay with it for a few breaths, without needing to fix it?

2. Feelings first, labels later

Instead of rushing to name the feeling, start by noticing it. Is it heavy? Sharp? Expansive? Let the body lead; let the words come later.

3. Try micro-movements

Shake your hands. Stretch. Rock. Sometimes the body knows how to move emotion through, even if you don’t know why you’re feeling it. Movement invites release.

4. Be curious, not correct

You don’t need to get it right. You’re not looking for perfect self-awareness—you’re practicing presence. Emotionally fragmented people often value precision; try valuing curiosity instead.

5. Replace "I am" with "I'm feeling"

Instead of “I am angry,” try “I’m feeling anger right now.” It’s a subtle shift, but one that reminds your nervous system: this is an experience, not an identity.

Does this sound like you? Or someone you love?

You’re not cold. You’re not broken. You’re just used to living with your emotions at arm’s length—and maybe, now, you’re ready to bring them closer.

Stress Isn’t the Problem: When There’s Simply Too Much to Carry

We often think of stress as something that comes from chaos or crisis, but what if it’s also connected to competence.

It can belong to women who are good at things. Women who care. Women who hold the threads of their lives — and often other people’s lives — quietly and reliably. Women who show up, remember birthdays, keep projects moving, make dinners happen, check in on friends, plan ahead, stay present, stay kind, stay capable. Women who are praised for “managing it all,” even as something inside them tightens a little more each day.

If this sounds familiar, you may have wondered — at some point, usually late at night — Why does everything feel so hard when I’m doing everything right?

This is often where stress gets framed as a personal problem. Something to manage better. Something to calm down. Something to fix.

But what if stress isn’t the problem at all?

What if stress is simply the body and mind responding honestly to a life that’s asking too much?

When stress makes sense

Many of the women I work with arrive believing they are stressed because they’re not coping well enough. They talk about poor boundaries, busy minds, anxious tendencies, the feeling that they should be more resilient by now. And yet, when we slow down and gently look at their lives, something else becomes clear.

They are juggling multiple roles that each carry real responsibility. They are doing emotional work that is rarely named or shared. They are living inside systems — workplaces, families, cultures — that still quietly expect women to absorb more, adapt faster, and complain less. They are trying to be present and productive, nurturing and ambitious, grounded and forward-looking, all at once.

Stress, in this context, isn’t a failure of mindset. It’s information. It’s the nervous system saying: this is a lot.

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A quieter kind of burnout

This kind of stress doesn’t always look dramatic. There may be no breakdown, no obvious crisis. Instead, it shows up as a low-level hum: tight shoulders, shallow breaths, a short fuse, constant tiredness, the sense that even rest requires effort.

You might still be functioning — showing up, delivering, caring — but with less joy, less ease, less connection to yourself.

This is why so much stress advice misses the mark. When the message is “slow down” or “do less” or “think differently,” it can feel tone-deaf. As if the reality of your life hasn’t been fully seen.

Because often, there is no simple “less.” There is just what needs doing, and the quiet knowledge that if you don’t do it, it may not get done at all.

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The question we rarely ask

Instead of asking, How do I get rid of stress? A more honest question might be: What is my stress responding to?

When we treat stress as the enemy, we turn against ourselves. We add another layer of pressure — to be calmer, better regulated, more together — on top of an already full life.

When we treat stress as a signal, we begin to listen. And often, what we hear isn’t a demand to change who we are, but an invitation to relate to our lives more honestly.

You don’t need to be less sensitive, less caring, or less capable. You may need more support, more honesty, and more permission to stop carrying everything alone.

This isn’t about lowering standards or giving up on what matters to you. It’s about recognising that sustainability is not the same as endurance.

A life can be meaningful and still be too heavy. You can be strong and still need support. Both can be true.

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Small ways to begin listening to stress

Rather than offering a long list of things to do (because that’s rarely helpful when you’re already overwhelmed), here are a few gentle places to start:

You might try reflecting on one or two of these, slowly, over time:

• Notice where stress shows up first. Is it in your body, your thoughts, your energy? This isn’t about changing it — just noticing earlier.

• Name what feels genuinely full. Not everything. Just one area of life that feels particularly heavy right now.

• Ask yourself what support would actually look like. Not in theory, but in real, practical terms. Less advice. More presence? Fewer expectations? Shared responsibility?

• Pay attention to self-blame. When stress appears, do you turn it into a story about what you should be doing better? What happens if you pause that story, even briefly?

These are not tasks to complete. They are ways of standing beside yourself with more kindness.

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A different way forward

If stress is not the problem, then the work is not about erasing it. The work is about changing your relationship to it — and, often, changing the conditions that keep it alive.

This can include practical changes, yes. But it also includes deeper questions about worth, responsibility, and the quiet agreements many women have made with the world about what they will carry without complaint.

This is not work that needs to be rushed. It’s work that benefits from patience, warmth, and support. And it’s work you don’t have to do alone.

Stress doesn’t have to be something you battle in private. Emotions coaching offers a place to slow down, make sense of what you’re carrying, and explore more sustainable ways of living — without pressure to fix yourself or have it all figured out.

If you’re curious, you can find out more about working together through one-to-one coaching, where we gently untangle stress, responsibility, and support in a way that fits your real life.

Better Read Book Festival

Perfect For

Better Read Book Fest is for readers interested in self-development, mental health and emotional wellbeing. It's for coaches, therapists and wellbeing practitioners. If you want to learn more about how you can support your own mental and emotional wellbeing this festival is for you.

Why You’ll Love It

Better Read Book Fest is the UK’s first literary festival dedicated entirely to wellbeing books. It's a one-day celebration of books focusing on self-development, mental health and emotional wellbeing, and their authors. The festival is taking place on Saturday 3 October in Abergavenny, south Wales.

What Makes It Special

Literary festivals may include books on mental health and self-development, and wellbeing festivals can feature wellbeing authors alongside workshops and practical experiences. But until now there hasn’t been a UK literary festival dedicated solely to books focused on personal development, mental health and emotional wellbeing, and their authors.

No workshops, no other genres, purely authors sharing their books, their experience, research and expertise with readers. These books provide validation, greater self-understanding and practical tools, empowering the reader where they’ve felt lost and alone, in an accessible form and price.

You will leave feeling inspired, informed, empowered and uplifted. 

The If Lost Take

When we first heard about a festival dedicated entirely to wellbeing books, it was an instant yes. It brings together so much of what we care about: wellbeing and words, connection and community, ideas and the people who love them too.

We believe there’s something powerful about the right book finding you at the right moment. It can steady you, shift your thinking, or simply help you feel a little less alone. And already, the authors announced for this festival feel like exactly those kinds of voices.

There’s also something quietly joyful about being in a room full of people who care about these books as much as you do — who know the non-fiction bestseller list almost as well as their local takeaway menu.

We’ve interviewed Gabrielle (and speaker Suzy Reading) on the podcast, and what stands out is the warmth and intention behind this festival. It’s been thoughtfully curated with a genuine belief in bringing people together around ideas — not to prescribe what wellbeing should look like, but to help each of us explore what it means in our own lives.

Founder’s Story | Gabrielle Treanor

“Years ago when I was struggling with anxiety, people-pleasing, overthinking and overwhelm (which I later discovered was due in part to my unrecognised ADHD) it was picking a book on positive psychology off the shelf in my local bookstore, and subsequently diving headfirst into wellbeing books, that gave me a sense of agency. In these books I found explanation and understanding as well as ideas and tools to support myself.

I then embarked on a journey which ultimately led to writing my own book, The 1% Wellness Experiment (published Dec 2023), and supporting others as an ADHD coach, writer and podcaster.

My respect and appreciation for the writers who pour their knowledge, skills, experience and heart into their wellbeing books inspired me to champion and celebrate this genre by creating Better Read Book Fest.”

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Some Practical Details

The festival is a day of interviews and panel discussions with the authors about their books, self-development, mental health and emotional wellbeing, and space to ask them questions. There will be the opportunity to purchase the authors’ books and have them signed by the authors. Festival merchandise will also be on sale. 

Authors confirmed so far are Suzy Reading, Natalie Lue, Dr Helen Wall and Natasha Page.

The festival won't be available online but there will be interviews with the authors in a special festival season on the Pressing Pause podcast.

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Venue: St Mary’s Priory Hall, Monk St, Abergavenny NP7 5ND

Date: 3rd October, 2026

Website | Social media

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IceBreakers

Perfect For

IceBreakers is for men of all ages and backgrounds. Some come because they’re struggling. Others come because they want more connection, more nature and a healthier rhythm to their week. You don’t need experience with cold water or wellbeing practices. You just need to show up.

Why You’ll Love It

IceBreakers is a men’s wellbeing community that meets outdoors each week for breathwork, cold water immersion and conversation. They gather in rivers, lakes and the sea to reconnect with nature, challenge themselves and support one another. It’s a simple ritual that helps men step out of their heads and back into the world.

IceBreakers isn’t about endurance. It’s about presence and connection.

What Makes It Special

Many men don’t have places where they can slow down, speak honestly or feel supported without pressure. Being outdoors, breathing together and stepping into cold water creates a powerful reset. It helps people reconnect with their bodies, their thoughts and the people around them, often leading to stronger friendships and a deeper sense of belonging.

IceBreakers isn’t a class or a programme. It’s a simple shared ritual: men meeting in nature, breathing together, stepping into cold water and supporting each other. There’s no pressure to perform, no hierarchy and no fixing, just people showing up side by side and meeting life’s challenges together.

The If Lost Take

We’ve seen first-hand what a difference an early Sunday start can make. There’s something about standing waist-deep in a river, sharing a simple “hi, how are you?” that cuts through the noise of the week.

It can become a kind of reset. A chance to let go of what’s been building, even if just for a moment. And to notice, without needing to say much, that other men are carrying things too, moving through life with their own hopes and concerns.

Turning up for the first time might feel like a big step. But Icebreakers is a genuinely welcoming group. And somehow, with each Sunday, it gets a little easier to answer the alarm, grab your dry robe, and head out the door.

You come back with flushed cheeks, and often feeling a little lighter than when you left.

Founders Story | Co-founded by Tim Bowles, Arron Collins-Thomas and Jack Horner

IceBreakers began when two friends lost people close to them to suicide and realised how few spaces existed where men could talk honestly about how they were feeling.

They hosted a small retreat and discovered that the most powerful moments came from stepping into cold water together. That shared challenge created openness, connection and real conversation.

From there, weekly gatherings began and the community grew.

Founder’s Go-To Wellbeing Advice

“Step outside.

Move your body, breathe slowly and spend time in nature, even if it’s just a short walk.

And if you can, share that moment with someone else. A conversation and fresh air can shift more than you think.”

Bath Chapter. Photo: Ed Schofield

Bath Chapter. Photo: Gareth Jones

Bath Chapter and Co-Founder, Tim Bowles Photo: Gareth Jones

Brighton Chapter. Photo: Joel Lawson

Bristol Chapter. Photo: Josh Abbott

Bristol Chapter. Photo: Josh Abbott

North London Chapter: Photo Simon Lamb

River Findhorn Chapter. Photo Stephen Nasrat

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Some Practical Details

IceBreakers core offering is a weekly outdoor gathering, usually on Sunday mornings. Each session includes breathwork, movement, optional cold water immersion and time for conversation. Some chapters also host fire circles, walks, saunas and other events that deepen connection and community.

You don’t have to be brave or “good at cold water”. Some men dip for a few seconds. Some stay waist-deep. Some just come along for the conversation.

They also organise walks, camps, saunas and get togethers beyond the cold water.

Most of what they do happens outdoors in person. However they do share stories, guidance and inspiration in their WhatsApp community, and new chapters are launching across the UK so more men can find a group near them.

They also host occasional camps and events that people can travel to.

Coming up

Alongside their weekly Sunday gatherings across the UK, IceBreakers is hosting a Spring Camp from the 24th - 26th April, 2026.

It’s a few days in nature where men step away from the noise of everyday life and reconnect through cold water, movement, fire circles and honest conversation. Think of it as a deeper version of the weekly IceBreakers experience.

A special If Lost bonus

IceBreakers are offering 10% off their upcoming Spring Camp to If Lost readers, just use code LOST10 at checkout. Details of the Spring Camp can be found here.

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IceBreakers

There are currently Chapters in Bath, Bude, Brighton, Bristol, North London, the River Findhorn and West Oxford.

Weekly gatherings are free and open to all men.

Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook

Also see:

CALM

Andy’s Talk Club

Main Photo: Chris Holton

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How to Have a Better Relationship with Your Emotions (Without Trying to Fix Them)

Ok we need to talk about emotions because there can be so much going on with that aspect of our lives — much of it unseen. Maybe there’s a sense that we should be handling them better. That we should feel calmer, clearer, more in control. That if anxiety shows up, or grief lingers, or something in us feels heavier than it “should,” then something has gone wrong.

So we try to manage what we feel. We minimise it, move past it, explain it away. We tell ourselves we’ll deal with it later, or that it isn’t that big a deal, or that other people have it worse. We learn, often without realising it, to close the door on parts of ourselves that feel inconvenient or uncomfortable.

And yet, for many of us, that doesn’t actually make things easier. It just makes us feel more disconnected. From ourselves, from other people, from what’s really going on.

In a recent conversation on A Thought I Kept, I spoke with Dr MaryCatherine McDonald about this — and in particular, about a simple but quietly radical idea: that our emotions might not be something to fix or control, but something to relate to.

She shared a poem by Rumi that has stayed with her for years, about being human as a kind of guest house, where emotions arrive as visitors. Joy, anxiety, grief, irritation. Some welcome, some less so. All of them coming and going, whether we invite them in or not .

It’s such a different way of seeing things.

Because many of us have been taught to do the opposite. To decide which emotions are acceptable and which need to be shown the door. To believe that if something uncomfortable is present, then something must be wrong — and the goal is to get back to a more “acceptable” state as quickly as possible.

MaryCatherine described living like that for years. Feeling as though she was at war with her emotions, trying to control them, contain them, make them behave. And underneath that, a quieter belief: that if anxiety or grief were there, they would take over. That they might ruin everything.

It’s a feeling I recognise, and one I see often in my work. That fear of what might happen if we really let ourselves feel what’s there.

But what if the work isn’t to get rid of what we feel?

What if it’s to sit down with it?

To offer it a chair, rather than pushing it out of the room. To get curious, even gently, about why it’s here. Not because we want to analyse it or solve it, but because we’re willing to be in relationship with it.

That idea of relationship feels important.

Because emotions don’t arrive neatly, one at a time. They overlap. They contradict each other. We can feel anxious and hopeful, tired and grateful, grieving and still find something to laugh at. And yet, we often try to simplify that complexity into something more manageable. I am anxious. I am fine. I am coping.

But that can leave us feeling stuck. As though we’ve become the emotion, rather than someone experiencing it.

What I found grounding in this conversation was the idea that we don’t have to identify so completely with what we feel. We can be in it, without it being all of us. We can let something move through, rather than holding onto it as a fixed state.

And that matters, particularly when things feel heavy.

MaryCatherine talks about something she calls “rehearsing loss” — the way our nervous system, often shaped by past experiences, tries to protect us by anticipating what might go wrong. Imagining endings before we’ve fully lived the beginnings. Bracing ourselves, just in case.

It makes sense, when you see it like that. It’s not weakness. It’s protection.

But it can also make it harder to access the moments that are here. The small, ordinary experiences that carry something lighter in them. A conversation that lands. A moment of connection. A flicker of joy that doesn’t erase what’s hard, but sits alongside it.

This is something else she reframes beautifully — the idea that joy isn’t something we reach once everything is sorted, but something that appears in the middle of things. Not fluffy or superficial, but steady and tenacious. Something that helps us stay, rather than escape.

And maybe that’s part of what a different relationship with our emotions can offer.

Not a life where we only feel the “right” things. But a life where we feel more of what’s real, without it meaning something has gone wrong.

Where we can notice when we’re trying to push something away, and instead soften, even slightly, towards it.

Where we don’t have to be at war with ourselves.

If you’re someone who has been trying to manage or control what you feel, it might be worth asking a different question.

Not “how do I fix this?”

But “what might it be like to sit with this, just for a moment?”

There’s no perfect way to do that. No right or wrong response. Just a gradual shift, over time, from resisting what’s there to being alongside it.

And if that feels unfamiliar, you’re not alone in that either.

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If you’d like to explore this idea further, you can listen to my full conversation with Dr MaryCatherine McDonald on A Thought I Kept. It’s a thoughtful, honest exploration of emotions, grief, joy, and what it means to be in relationship with what we feel.

And if you’re looking for a little more support in understanding your own emotional world, you can also explore my emotions coaching sessions — a space to gently make sense of what’s going on, at your own pace.

How We Learn to Cope Without Alcohol

Rethinking emotional regulation, drinking, and the stories we inherit about coping

There are moments in life when something quietly stops working.

Not dramatically, not all at once, but gradually, almost imperceptibly. A glass of wine at the end of the day that once felt relaxing begins to feel necessary. A way to soften the edges of stress, to slow a racing mind, to take a brief step away from the feelings that have been gathering in the background.

For many people, alcohol becomes woven into the way we cope with everyday life. It sits comfortably in the rituals of the evening, the social rhythms of weekends, the celebrations and the commiserations. It promises relief, connection, relaxation — and often, at least for a while, it delivers.

But sometimes there comes a moment when the question begins to surface: Is this actually helping?

That question was at the heart of a recent conversation on my podcast A Thought I Kept with sober coach and writer Ellie Nova. Ellie spent more than a decade feeling trapped in a relationship with alcohol that was increasingly tangled up with shame and self-judgement. And the thought that ultimately helped her begin to step away from it was surprisingly simple:

There is nothing wrong with you.

At first glance, that might not sound like a thought powerful enough to change a life. But the more we talked, the clearer it became just how radical it can be.

Because when people begin to question their relationship with alcohol, the story they often tell themselves is one of personal failure. Why can everyone else seem to drink normally? Why does this feel so difficult for me? Why can’t I control myself?

But what if alcohol was never really the problem in the first place?

What if, instead, it had simply become a way of coping with emotions that felt too big to hold?

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The quiet role alcohol plays in emotional regulation

One of the things Ellie and I explored together was the role alcohol can come to play in regulating our emotional lives. Not because we consciously choose it as a coping strategy, but because many of us grow up without ever being taught how to sit with difficult feelings.

Anxiety, loneliness, grief, pressure, shame — these emotions can be uncomfortable and confusing, especially if we’ve learned, consciously or unconsciously, that they are not entirely welcome. Perhaps we were told we were too sensitive, or that we needed to toughen up, or that certain feelings were inappropriate in certain situations.

Over time, many of us become quite skilled at pushing emotions aside. We distract ourselves, we stay busy, we find ways to numb what we’re feeling just enough to keep moving.

In that context, alcohol can begin to make a certain kind of sense. It offers a socially acceptable way to soften emotions that feel sharp, to quiet thoughts that won’t settle, to step briefly outside of the intensity of being human.

And because alcohol is so culturally embedded — in celebrations, socialising, relaxation, and even self-care — it can take a long time before we start to question the role it’s playing.

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When drinking stops feeling like relief

For some people, that questioning begins when alcohol stops delivering the relief it once promised. The drink that once helped take the edge off anxiety begins to bring its own kind of discomfort. The sense of escape becomes tangled up with regret, exhaustion, or a quiet awareness that something isn’t quite right.

At that point, it can be tempting to interpret the problem as one of discipline or willpower. Perhaps I just need to be stronger. Perhaps I need more control.

But Ellie’s experience — and the experiences of many of the women she now supports — suggests something quite different.

If alcohol became a coping strategy, it likely did so because something inside needed support. Something needed soothing, or understanding, or simply space to be felt.

And when we begin to look at our relationship with alcohol through that lens, the conversation shifts.

Instead of asking What’s wrong with me?, we begin asking more curious questions.

What am I actually feeling?
What have I been trying not to feel?
And what might help me cope in a way that truly supports me?

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Learning to cope without numbing

Letting go of alcohol can feel daunting not simply because it is a habit, but because it has often been doing important emotional work behind the scenes.

Without it, many people suddenly find themselves face to face with feelings that have been carefully managed for years — anxiety, grief, loneliness, stress, even the quieter emotions like disappointment or regret that are easy to push aside in a busy life.

Learning to cope without alcohol, then, is rarely just about stopping drinking. More often, it becomes a process of learning a new relationship with our emotional lives.

That might involve recognising emotions earlier, before they gather into overwhelm. It might involve paying attention to the physical sensations that accompany anxiety or stress in the body. It might mean finding other ways to regulate ourselves — movement, conversation, rest, time in nature, creative expression.

But perhaps most importantly, it involves replacing judgement with curiosity.

When we stop seeing emotions as problems to eliminate and begin to understand them as signals, something shifts. The very feelings we once tried to escape can begin to feel more manageable, even informative.

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A different understanding of self-care

In our conversation, Ellie and I also reflected on the way self-care is often presented as a form of escape — a brief pause from the pressures of life, a small indulgence designed to help us get through the week.

But real emotional care often looks quieter and deeper than that. It might mean slowing down long enough to notice what is actually happening inside us. It might mean allowing feelings that are uncomfortable rather than immediately trying to distract ourselves from them.

Sometimes it means asking for support.

For many people, learning to cope without alcohol becomes part of a broader shift toward self-trust — a growing sense that our emotions are not something to suppress or manage away, but something to understand.

And that shift often begins with a simple but powerful idea.

There is nothing wrong with you.

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Listen to the conversation

If this perspective resonates with you, you can listen to the full conversation with Ellie Nova on the podcast A Thought I Kept.

In the episode How We Break Free From Alcohol, Ellie shares her own experience of stepping away from alcohol and the thought that helped her begin to see her emotions, and herself, in a different way.

Looking for support with your emotions?

If you’re navigating emotional overwhelm, anxiety, or simply trying to understand your feelings more clearly, you might also find our emotions coaching sessions helpful.

These sessions offer a calm, thoughtful space to explore what you’re feeling and to develop ways of working with your emotions that feel supportive rather than overwhelming.

You can learn more about emotions coaching with Claire here.

How to Create an Everyday Retreat at Home: Small Ways to Care for Yourself Each Day

Retreats, holidays, or even a quiet weekend away can be wonderful and exactly the reset we need. And for a little while everything softens. We sleep more deeply. We notice things again. We remember what it feels like to move through the day without quite so much pressure.

And then we come home. The inbox fills up again. The washing basket mysteriously multiplies. Work, care, responsibilities and the endless small decisions of modern life return to their usual volume.

That contrast can make wellbeing feel like something that lives somewhere else. Somewhere beautiful, slower, quieter — somewhere we occasionally visit rather than something that belongs inside our real lives. But what if the question isn’t how to recreate retreat conditions perfectly at home? What if it’s simply about making a little more room for ourselves inside the life we already have. Not through grand gestures or perfect routines, but through small moments that gently interrupt the pace of the day.

Sometimes that might look like taking a few breaths before you open your laptop in the morning. Or stepping outside for ten minutes of air and sky between meetings. It might be writing a few lines in a notebook before bed, or sitting in the quiet of the house before everyone else wakes up.

None of these things are dramatic. But they are ways of reminding ourselves that our days can hold small pockets of steadiness, even when life is full. At If Lost Start Here we often think of this as an everyday retreat. Not something that requires travel, time off, or a perfect environment, but something we create in ordinary spaces — kitchens, gardens, desks, walks around the block.

Moments where we pause long enough to reconnect with ourselves. Because wellbeing rarely arrives all at once. More often it grows slowly through the small ways we choose to care for ourselves inside the lives we’re already living.

One way to think about an everyday retreat is simply this: small moments of care woven through an ordinary day. The kind of day where the alarm goes off earlier than you’d like, the kettle needs refilling again, and someone has already asked you a question before you’ve even had your first sip of coffee.

Sometimes the retreat begins there. A few slow breaths before you open your email. A page of journaling while the house is still quiet. Or simply drinking your tea without doing three other things at the same time.

Later in the day it might appear as a small corner of calm. Not a perfectly styled meditation space, just a chair by the window, a step outside the back door, or five minutes sitting on the edge of the bed before the next thing begins.

Technology tends to follow us everywhere now, so another small act of care can be letting parts of the day remain screen-free. Leaving your phone on the kitchen counter while you walk around the block. Eating lunch without scrolling. Letting your mind wander for a few minutes rather than filling every space with information.

And then there are the tiny resets that help us keep going when the day becomes full again. A stretch between meetings. Fresh air after too long indoors. A quick walk where you remember that the world is larger than your to-do list.

By the evening, when the house is quieter again or the day finally loosens its grip, another small moment can appear. Writing a few lines about the day. Noticing something that went well. Letting yourself acknowledge that you carried a lot and made it through.

None of this is dramatic. It’s simply a way of remembering that wellbeing doesn’t have to live somewhere else. It can move with us through the ordinary, messy, human shape of our days.

Over time, these small daily actions will build up to create lasting wellbeing. You’ll feel more grounded, less overwhelmed, and better able to handle life’s challenges. It’s about making wellbeing part of your everyday life.

Want help making these changes stick? Join the Everyday Retreat, where we’ll explore these practices together through daily lessons and community-meet ups.

Understanding Anxiety: 10 Things I’ve Learned About This Emotion

Anxiety is one of the emotions people most often want to get rid of. When it shows up — as racing thoughts, tightness in the chest, restlessness, or a constant hum of worry — the instinct is usually to quiet it as quickly as possible. But over the years, through emotions coaching, my own experience, research, and conversations with thoughtful guests on A Thought I Kept, I’ve come to see anxiety a little differently.

Not as an enemy. Not as a failure to cope. But as information about how our mind, body, and life circumstances are interacting in that moment.

Here are ten things I’ve come to understand about anxiety that may help you see it differently too.

1. Anxiety often appears in people who care deeply

Research on vulnerability and uncertainty — including the work of Brené Brown — suggests anxiety often shows up in people who care deeply and feel responsible for what happens next.

In other words, anxiety is often the emotional cost of trying very hard to do life well. It isn’t necessarily weakness. Sometimes it’s care that has nowhere to rest.

2. Anxiety is closely linked to uncertainty

Many researchers describe anxiety as our difficulty tolerating uncertainty. We don’t always feel anxious because something bad is happening. We feel anxious because we don’t know what will happen, and our mind begins trying to predict and prepare for every possible outcome. That prediction loop can quickly become exhausting.

A helpful question in anxious moments is simply: What uncertainty am I struggling to sit with right now?

Naming uncertainty often softens anxiety’s intensity.

3. Anxiety lives in the body before it reaches the mind

Emotion scientist Lisa Feldman Barrett has shown that emotions begin with bodily sensations.

Before the mind labels something “anxiety,” the body may already be experiencing:

• a racing heart

• tightness in the chest

• restlessness

• fatigue or agitation

Your brain then interprets these sensations and constructs the emotional experience. This is why logic alone rarely calms anxiety in the moment. Your nervous system needs signals of safety first.

4. “Anxiety” is often several emotions combined

In coaching conversations, many people use the word anxiety to describe a wide range of feelings. But when we look more closely, anxiety often includes:

• fear

• pressure

• anticipation

• responsibility

• grief

• uncertainty

Researchers call the ability to name emotions more precisely emotional granularity, and it’s linked to lower anxiety and greater emotional resilience. Because when we’re clear about what we’re feeling we can create better choices about what to do with that.

5. Anxiety is often trying to protect something

One of the most helpful coaching perspectives is to see anxiety as a protective response. It may be trying to prevent:

• mistakes

• rejection

• disappointment

• loss

• uncertainty

Seen this way, anxiety isn’t random or irrational. It’s your system trying to help you navigate something that feels important. The work isn’t eliminating anxiety. It’s learning when protection is helpful and when it can soften.

6. Anxiety grows stronger in silence

Anxiety thrives in isolation. When it stays internal, it easily turns into self-criticism:

Why can’t I handle this?
Why am I like this?

But when anxiety is shared with the right people — trusted friends, supportive communities, or thoughtful conversations — its intensity often shifts. Connection doesn’t remove anxiety. But it changes how alone we feel with it.

7. Anxiety is deeply connected to the nervous system

Many experiences labelled “anxiety” are actually nervous system responses. When the body perceives pressure or threat, it may move into patterns such as:

• fight

• flight

• freeze

• flop or faun

These responses are not character flaws. They are biological (or learned) survival mechanisms. Understanding this can reduce the shame people often feel about anxiety.

8. Anxiety is often linked to responsibility and people-pleasing

Another pattern that shows up frequently is the connection between anxiety and over-responsibility. Many anxious people believe it’s their job to manage:

• other people’s emotions

• other people’s comfort

• other people’s expectations

When you feel responsible for everyone around you, anxiety becomes inevitable. Learning to set boundaries — emotionally and practically — often changes the experience dramatically.

9. Anxiety often appears during life transitions

Periods of change frequently bring anxiety with them.

• Career shifts

• Relationship changes.

• Parenting transitions.

• Midlife questions about identity and purpose.

Anxiety in these moments doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong. It can mean your life is asking new questions of you. Questions that don’t yet have clear answers.

10. Anxiety softens when trust grows

One of the most powerful shifts I see in coaching is this: moving from trying to control the future to trusting your ability to respond to it.

At first, anxiety tells us relief will come when we figure everything out. But life rarely offers that kind of certainty. What helps more is building trust:

• trust in your resilience

• trust in your ability to respond

• trust in your capacity to ask for support

That trust doesn’t eliminate anxiety. But it stops anxiety from running the entire show.

Anxiety isn’t the whole story of you

If anxiety is part of your experience right now, it doesn’t mean something has gone wrong. More often it means something matters. Something feels uncertain. Something may be asking for attention or change.

Understanding anxiety isn’t a quick fix. But it can be the beginning of a steadier, kinder relationship with your emotional life.

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Explore emotions coaching

If anxiety has been feeling overwhelming or confusing, emotions coaching offers a calm space to explore what’s happening underneath it.

Together we can look at how anxiety shows up in your life, what it might be protecting, and how you can move forward with more self-trust and steadiness.

Explore coaching options and book a free discovery call

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This post is part of the If Lost Start Here Emotions Series — an exploration of the emotions that shape our lives and what they might be trying to tell us.

Understanding Anxiety: A Kinder Way to Live With It (Instead of Fighting It)

Anxiety rarely arrives with a clear explanation. It tends to slip in sideways, disguising itself as restlessness, urgency, tightness in the chest, or a low-level sense that something isn’t quite right, even when life looks fine on the surface. You might be getting on with your days — working, caring, showing up — but underneath there’s a constant hum of worry or anticipation that never fully settles. If that feels familiar, it doesn’t mean you’re failing at coping. It often means something in you is paying very close attention.

Many people experience anxiety as though it appeared out of nowhere, an unwelcome guest that needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible. But when we slow down and look more closely, anxiety is rarely sudden. It often builds quietly over time, shaped by responsibility, change, uncertainty, loss, or long periods of holding things together without much space to pause.

Anxiety frequently belongs to people who care deeply, who think ahead, who want to do things well and not let others down. In that sense, it isn’t random or irrational. It’s connected to how you’ve learned to move through the world and what’s been asked of you along the way. The difficulty begins when anxiety becomes something you judge yourself for, rather than something you try to understand. When it shifts from an experience you’re having to an identity you feel stuck with.

One of the biggest myths about anxiety is that it means you’re not coping properly. Another is that if you could just calm down, think more positively, or gain more control over your thoughts, it would disappear. These ideas are everywhere, but they often make anxiety worse by adding pressure and self-criticism to something that already feels heavy.

Anxiety isn’t just about thoughts. It involves your whole system — your body, your nervous system, your past experiences, and your relationship with uncertainty. Often, anxiety is your system trying to prepare you for something it perceives as demanding or risky, even if that threat isn’t clear or immediate.

There’s also a common belief that anxiety is always about fear. Sometimes it is, but just as often it’s about pressure, responsibility, anticipation, or caring deeply about outcomes you can’t fully control. When everything gets bundled into the single label of “anxiety,” it can feel overwhelming and impossible to navigate. But when you start to understand the different layers underneath it, anxiety can feel less frightening and more workable.

Learning how to handle anxiety begins with understanding how it shows up for you, what tends to intensify it, and what helps it soften, even slightly. It also means recognising that anxiety lives in the body as much as the mind, which is why reasoning your way out of it rarely works when your system feels on high alert. Anxiety often grows in isolation and eases when it’s named, shared, and met with curiosity rather than judgement.

Handling anxiety better doesn’t mean getting rid of it altogether or becoming someone who never feels unsettled. It means changing your relationship with it so it no longer runs your life. That might start with noticing the early physical signs of anxiety, rather than only paying attention once it becomes overwhelming. It might involve questioning the stories you’ve absorbed about what anxiety says about you, and replacing them with something more accurate and compassionate.

It can also help to shift the focus away from certainty and towards trust. Anxiety often promises relief if you can just figure everything out in advance, but life rarely offers that kind of clarity. What tends to help more is building trust in your ability to respond, to ask for support, and to take things one step at a time without needing all the answers upfront.

Most importantly, learning to live better with anxiety means letting go of the idea that you have to manage it alone. Support doesn’t make anxiety vanish, but it can help you understand what it’s asking for and find steadier, kinder ways to move forward.

If anxiety has brought you here, it isn’t a sign that you’re lost beyond repair. It’s often a signal that something matters, that something is changing, or that you’ve been carrying more than your share for a while. Understanding anxiety isn’t a quick fix, but it can be the beginning of a more grounded way of living with yourself.

Explore emotions coaching

If you’re struggling with anxiety and want support that helps you understand your emotions rather than push them away, emotions coaching can offer a calm, thoughtful space to explore what’s going on. Together, we can look at how anxiety shows up in your everyday life, what it’s connected to, and how you can build trust in your ability to meet it with more ease and self-compassion.

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Explore coaching options and book a free discovery call
Start better understanding your emotional life today and find a way through anxiety that feels supportive, human, and even realistic.