Feeling Held in a World That Keeps Asking for More

There’s a particular kind of overwhelm that doesn’t come from doing too much — but from holding too much.

Holding work.

Holding family life.

Holding emotions, expectations, plans, worries.

Holding it all together, often quietly.

It’s something that came up again and again in my recent conversation with Lauren Barber on the podcast A Thought I Kept. We didn’t set out to talk about overwhelm directly, but as we spoke, it became clear that this sense of being unheld — of carrying more than feels sustainable — sits beneath so many of the feelings people describe as stress, burnout, anxiety, or simply feeling lost.

What does it mean to feel held?

When we talk about being held, we often imagine something external: support from others, community, care, someone stepping in. And that matters — deeply. But Lauren spoke beautifully about another layer of holding too: the ways we hold ourselves when life keeps asking for more than we feel we have to give.

In the episode, she shared how anxiety has been a long-term companion for her — not always loud or dramatic, but often living quietly in the body. In the gut. In the mornings. In the constant background hum of hypervigilance. That feeling of being alert even when things are technically “fine”.

What struck me was how she described mistrusting good feelings. How, when you’ve spent a long time braced for difficulty, calm can feel unfamiliar — even unsafe. Ease doesn’t always land as relief; sometimes it lands as something to be suspicious of.

Many of us recognise this, especially when we’re overwhelmed. We might know what would help — rest, space, gentleness, support — and still struggle to let ourselves receive it.

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Overwhelm isn’t always about doing too much

One of the ideas that stayed with me from this conversation is that overwhelm isn’t always about volume. Sometimes it’s about imbalance.

We’re holding a lot — but not being held in return.

Lauren talked about motherhood as a clear example of this. There are things in life that drain us simply because they have to be done. Meals, logistics, care, responsibility. We don’t always have the option to step away from them. And in those moments, the question isn’t “how do I escape this?” but “how do I support myself within it?”

Lauren spoke about counterbalancing — about finding small, everyday ways to bring nourishment back in. Not as a fix to the problem we can’t yet get to, but as a quiet form of care.

Putting music on while making breakfast.

Going for a walk, even when it’s inconvenient.

Wearing a favourite pair of earrings on an ordinary day.

These aren’t grand gestures. But they matter. Because they help the body feel a little safer. A little less alone. A little more held.

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The quiet cost of never being held

So many people we speak to at If Lost Start Here tell us they feel disconnected — from themselves, from their energy, from what they want. Often, that disconnection isn’t because they don’t care, or don’t know. It’s because they’ve been holding so much, for so long, without anywhere to rest.

When you’re constantly in that state, your nervous system doesn’t get the message that it’s okay to soften. Even moments of rest can feel uncomfortable. Even joy can feel fragile.

Lauren shared how somatic practices — working with the body, not just the mind — have helped her rebuild a sense of safety from the inside out. Not by forcing calm, but by meeting what’s there with compassion. By learning, slowly, that feelings move. That sensations pass. That being held can be something you practise, not something you wait for.

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Feeling held as a practice, not a destination

One of the most grounding ideas from this episode is that feeling held isn’t a one-time experience. It’s not something you achieve and then move on from. It’s a rhythm. A return.

It shows up in how you treat yourself when you’re tired.

In how you respond to anxiety rather than fighting it.

In whether you allow yourself small moments of care without earning them first.

This feels especially important at times of year when everything speeds up — when expectations multiply and space shrinks. When we’re told to reflect, plan, connect, celebrate, and keep going, all at once.

In those moments, being held might look less like changing everything and more like asking a quieter question: “What would help me feel supported right now?”

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Work, energy, and being held

At the heart of Lauren’s story is a thought she’s carried since her early twenties: “Life is too short to do work that you do not enjoy.”

Lauren spoke about learning to notice when her work drains her energy — when she feels flat, depleted, disconnected. And how those sensations have become signals rather than something to push through.

For many people, changing work isn’t immediately possible. But even then, the episode offers a gentler invitation: to notice where energy is leaking, and where it might be replenished. To bring more of what you need into your days, even when the structure stays the same.

Feeling held, in this sense, is about staying connected to yourself — even in imperfect conditions.

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A gentle invitation

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, unheld, or quietly disconnected right now, you’re not failing. You’re responding to a world that often asks for more than it gives back.

My hope is that this conversation with Lauren offers a pause. A moment of recognition. Perhaps even a small sense of being held — enough to help you take the next gentle step.

Listen to the full episode of A Thought I Kept: How We Learn to Feel Held with Lauren Barber — available on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

And if you’d like more thoughtful reflections, tools, and ideas for everyday life, especially for those moments when you feel lost or overwhelmed, join our mailing list. You don’t have to hold everything alone.

The Thought That Changed How I End the Year

Every year around this time, I feel a quiet tension building.

It’s not just the pressure to finish things, though that’s part of it — the projects left undone, the goals half-met. It’s something deeper. A low-grade noise, humming underneath the productivity tools and Pinterest-perfect vision boards.

That voice that says:

“You should be reflecting.”

“You should be setting goals.”

“You should be figuring out how to make next year better.”

And often, if I’m honest, I try to oblige. I sit down with the journal. I make the lists. I try to “get clear.”

But I don’t always feel clear. I just feel… tired.

So this year, I’m trying something different. Something softer.

And it started with one sentence from a conversation I had with coach and facilitator Katie Driver:

“The mind works best in the presence of a question.”

It landed so gently, I almost missed it. But the more I sat with it, the more it felt like a key — not just to better thinking, but to a better ending.

What if clarity doesn’t come from pushing — but from asking?

Katie’s work centers around helping people think for themselves — particularly those who feel like their minds are “buffering” or stuck in mental noise loops. In our episode of A Thought I Kept, she talks about the value of attention, the importance of quiet, and what can shift when we stop trying to force insight, and start trusting the questions.

As someone who has historically tried to think my way to control — to logic, list-make, or out-journal the overwhelm — this idea felt like an exhale. What if I didn’t need the answer yet? What if I didn’t need a 12-step plan? What if I just needed the right question?

So I tried one.

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The question that helped me end the year differently

On a particularly messy-feeling day, I sat down with this:

What would make this a good ending — for me?

Not a successful one. Not a productive one. Not an impressive one.

A good one. For the person I actually am.

And quietly, without fanfare, an answer rose:

Letting go of something I never really wanted.

Finishing one small thing I care about.

Taking a walk in silence, no headphones.

Choosing presence over performance.

Not exactly a 10-point strategic vision. But honest.

True. Grounded. And — perhaps most importantly — doable.

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Another question I’ve come to love:

“What do I need right now?”

It’s one Katie shared in the episode, and I’ve returned to it often.

When the list is long. When my brain feels foggy. When I’m tempted to sink into distraction instead of meeting myself gently.

Sometimes the answer is small — a cup of tea, a stretch, a text to someone I love. Sometimes it’s “nothing right now.” But just asking reminds me I have needs, and they’re worth listening to.

In a season that often prioritizes output — what did you accomplish, what are you planning next — this simple question helps me reorient inward. To listen. To care. To remember that ending well isn’t always about tying everything up. Sometimes it’s about releasing what no longer fits.

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A better ending is possible. But it starts with presence, not pressure.

So if you’re feeling behind or burnt out or like your brain is caught in a loop —

If you’re wondering how to reset without overhauling everything —

Here’s what I learned:

You don’t need to fix it all.

You don’t need to reinvent yourself.

You don’t even need to reflect perfectly.

You just need one honest, open question.

And a little space to answer it.

Listen to the episode: What to Do When You Can’t Think Straight with Katie Driver

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And if you need the space to think then explore our online and in-person coaching sessions. You can still book for the end of this year, or get a session in your calender for the start of 2026.

How to End the Year with Intention (Before the New One Begins)

December is often framed as a finish line: A final push. A test. A moment to evaluate everything and rework yourself before the clock strikes midnight. But what if we made space for something different?

• What if the end of the year wasn’t a judgment point but a waypoint?

• A natural pause to notice, gather, and begin again, without rushing?

This isn't though about anticipating resolutions. It’s more about recognising what this year asked of you and how you met it. It’s about taking stock of what mattered, what’s changed, what still hurts, and what you want to carry forwards (or quietly leave behind).

So here’s an invitation to end the year on your terms, whatever that means to you.

Step 1: Reflect Without the Pressure to Perform

This time of year can stir up all kinds of emotions — joy, grief, gratitude, burnout — often tangled together. So the first thing to do is simple:

Pause and notice. Instead of listing wins or judging what you “did enough of,” try asking:

• What did I learn about myself this year?

• Where did I feel most like me?

• What surprised me, softened me, challenged me?

These are the kinds of reflections that grow self-trust, rather than self-criticism.

You could:

• Write a “reverse bucket list” — things you experienced, even if small, that mattered

• Map your year by seasons or quarters and list one lesson or moment from each

• List three things you coped with or made space for, even if they don’t “look impressive” on paper

Growth isn’t always visible. This is the season to witness it anyway.

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Step 2: Begin Again Without Reinventing Yourself

January can come with a lot of noise. New habits. Fresh starts. Big goals. But most meaningful change is quiet and ongoing.

So instead of asking, “What do I need to fix about myself?”, try this:

• What do I want to protect, grow, or honour more in the year ahead?

A few questions that can help:

• What helped me feel steady this year and how can I make space for more of that?

• What small boundary, rhythm or mindset actually worked?

• What’s something I’m curious about right now?

And one of our favourite ideas:

• Choose a word — not as a resolution, but as a companion. Something that gently anchors your direction, without pressure. Words like ease, play, curiosity, rooted, or enough can be guideposts.

Yours doesn’t need to be “clever”. It just needs to feel like a hand on your shoulder, reminding you of what matters.

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Step 3: A Gentle Reflection Practice (That Won’t Overwhelm You)

If you’re unsure where to start, try this 10-minute reflection ritual:

→ Write a letter to yourself from the end of next year.

Write as if it's already happened.

• What moments are you grateful for?

• What did you let go of?

• What surprised you in the best ways?

• What would you thank yourself for doing (or not doing)?

This isn’t about setting fixed goals. It’s about listening to what your life might want to become.

You can keep the letter, hide it in a book, or revisit it this time next year.

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Or Try This: Your End-of-Year Clarity Toolkit

If journaling isn’t your thing, try choosing one of the following prompts to explore this December — in a voice note, a walk, or a conversation with a friend:

• What are you proud of that no one else saw?

• What helped you come back to yourself this year?

• What do you know now that you didn’t in January?

• Where did your energy feel most alive and how can you follow that in 2025?

Sometimes clarity doesn’t come through strategy but through honesty.

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When This Season Feels Tender

Not everyone loves this time of year. For some, December brings exhaustion. Loss. Isolation. Or the sense that you’re not where you “should” be.

So here’s your permission slip:

• You don’t have to optimise December.

• You don’t have to write a perfect wrap-up post or choose a guiding word.

• You are allowed to be in progress — unfinished, unsure, still becoming.

A different year is coming. But you don’t need to earn it. You only need to arrive in it as yourself.

This year has already shaped you. You’ve likely grown in ways you didn’t expect. And the new year? It’s not a blank slate you have to earn — it’s just the next page.

Take what you need from this season. Leave the rest. You’re already enough to begin again.

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Want to Step into the New Year With Support?

If you're ready to approach 2025 with more clarity, confidence, or simply a better relationship with yourself, I’m now opening up a small number of coaching spots for the new year.

This isn’t about fixing you. It’s about creating space to explore:

• What you actually want next — beyond the noise

• How to hold boundaries without guilt

• How to reconnect with energy, meaning and emotional steadiness

• And how to live your life in a way that works for you, not just around you

We’ll work at your pace, with tools and reflections tailored to you.

If that sounds like something you're curious about, you can read more here and book a free discovery call here or drop me a message with any questions.

How to Navigate Family Dynamics Over the Holidays

There’s a certain story we can tell ourselves about the holidays. This year will be the one. We’ll have the perfect meal. Everyone will get along. No one will bring up that thing. We’ll laugh like they do in Christmas films, and finally feel close again.

But often, the holidays — for all their warmth and magic — come tangled in old patterns, invisible pressures, and quiet expectations.

You might find yourself trying to manage everyone’s emotions while keeping the potatoes hot. Or quietly hoping that a long-held tension will resolve itself over the turkey. You might feel yourself reverting into an old role: the peacemaker, the quiet one, the organiser, the emotional sponge.

If you’ve ever left a family gathering emotionally wrung out — you’re not the only one.

What If We Let Go of “Getting It Right”?

So much of holiday stress comes from trying to get it right — the food, the gifts, the mood, the timing, the conversations.

But here’s a gentle invitation: What if the goal this year wasn’t to get it right — but to stay connected?
Not just with others. But with yourself too.

Letting go of perfection doesn’t mean giving up. It means tuning in. Noticing where the pressure comes from. Asking yourself which expectations you're carrying that no one else even knows about.

Sometimes, the smallest shift — from performance to presence — can change everything.

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Moments of Connection Can Be Tiny

Connection doesn’t need to look like a profound heart-to-heart over pudding (though if it does, enjoy it). It can look like:

• Sharing a joke over a ridiculous board game

• Helping someone peel carrots in silence

• Noticing someone’s effort, and quietly appreciating it

• Letting yourself enjoy the moment before everyone wakes up

The memories that stay aren’t always the ones we try to orchestrate. They’re often the ones that slip in sideways, like my own memory of preparing a turkey with my mum in our dressing gowns at 6am, before the rest of the house woke up. It was messy. It was quiet. It was ours.

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From Reacting to Responding

Tricky moments happen. Comments that sting. Conversations that tip into familiar territory. We don’t suddenly become different people in December — we just add tinsel.

But when a family dynamic triggers something in you, here’s a gentle way to pause:

Ask: What’s really going on here?
What might this person be feeling or needing?
What’s the value behind their words — and the need behind mine?

Sometimes, even a second of curiosity can interrupt a pattern. You don’t need to fix it. But you can give yourself the gift of not spiralling. You can respond instead of react.

And remember: kindness doesn’t mean tolerating poor behaviour. It means creating enough space to see what’s really happening — and choosing how you show up in it.

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Shared Care, Not Just Self-Care

We hear so much about self-care at Christmas. And while that's important, what if this season was also about collective care?

If you tend to carry the emotional weight of gatherings, ask yourself:

Who else could help hold this?

Could someone else bring dessert?
Could you share a game or ritual with a younger family member?
Could you start a new tradition where everyone brings a “Christmas surprise”?

One year, hot sauces at Christmas dinner created a hilarious (and bonding) moment I never saw coming. It wasn’t the tradition I’d planned. But it became a moment of unexpected joy.

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Breaking Old Roles

The holidays have a way of putting us back into the roles we grew up with.
The fixer.
The entertainer.
The one who holds it all together.

What if you tried something different this year?

• Saying no with kindness

• Asking for what you need

• Letting go of the need to smooth over every bump

Sometimes just naming the pattern out loud to yourself is enough to start loosening its grip.

What’s one old role or habit you could leave behind this year?

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Noticing Joy (Without Forcing It)

Joy doesn’t always announce itself. It doesn’t always look like a glossy advert. It sneaks in — in the shared glance across the table. In the song that makes you tear up. In the silly game you weren’t going to play, but did.

If this year feels like a lot, give yourself permission to notice joy, not create it.

Before the gathering, ask:

• What’s one moment I might enjoy?

• What do I want to remember from this season?

• Where might connection surprise me?

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You Don’t Have to Fix Everything

You don’t have to be the glue. You don’t have to keep every plate spinning.

If this is a hard year for you, emotionally or practically — know that’s okay too. The holidays bring up everything. The love and the loss. The joy and the weight.

And maybe this year, all you need to do is soften your grip.
To let things be a little less curated.
To let someone else stir the gravy.
To step outside for a breath before stepping back in.

Whoever you’re with this season — chosen family, biological family, or a patchwork of both — remember this:

You are allowed to be human.

You are allowed to set boundaries, to feel wobbly, to find joy in small places, to not have it all figured out.

And you are allowed to be loved and supported without having to hold it all alone.

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Need a Little Extra Support?

If family dynamics are feeling overwhelming this season — or if you’re longing for more groundedness and calm — coaching could be a supportive space to explore it all.

Together, we can:

• Make sense of your emotional patterns

• Create gentler boundaries that don’t feel harsh

• Reclaim what the holidays actually mean to you

Click here to learn more about coaching or book a free clarity call

How to Winter Well (Even If It’s Not Your Season)

I have never been a winter person.

I long for open skies, sunshine, warmth. Winter often feels like a long stretch of darkness and something to survive. Something to wait out until spring finally arrives and everything starts to bloom again.

But lately, I’ve been asking myself a different question:
What if winter isn’t something to get through?
What if it’s something to be in?
And even — if we’re open to it — something to learn from?

Winter as a Season of Pause

We live in a world that rarely pauses. Even in the darkest days of the year, we’re expected to produce, perform, plan, and push through. But what if winter is offering us something else entirely?

What if it’s asking us to slow down not because we’re “weak” but because we really need to.

For me, learning to winter well has meant stepping away from the pressure to “keep going” at all costs, and learning instead how to listen. To rest. To accept that being in a quieter season of life doesn’t make me less.

It just makes me human.

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The Messy Middle (And Why You Don’t Need a Perfect Ending)

For a long time, I treated winter as the end of the year. A time to wrap things up, tie a bow on my life, and get ready for a clean start in January.

But what I’ve come to realise is that winter isn’t the end.

It’s the in-between.

It’s the space between what was and what’s coming. The quiet middle of the story. The time where not much appears to be happening and yet everything is quietly changing.

And there’s something liberating in that. Because it means we don’t need to have everything figured out. We don’t need to finish the year “strong.” We just need to keep going in our own way and at our own pace.

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The Wisdom of Wintering

Katherine May, in her beautiful book Wintering, describes this season not just as a temperature change but as a way of being.

She invites us to see winter as a necessary season in all of our lives. Not just one marked by frost, but one defined by slowness, solitude, and surrender. A space where we allow things to fall away. Where we let our inner worlds recalibrate. Where we allow ourselves to stop striving.

This is an idea that I keep returning to:
Everything in nature knows how to winter.
Why shouldn’t we?

Trees drop their leaves and conserve energy.
Soil rests.
Animals hibernate.
The world turns inward — and trusts spring will come again.

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Rest Is Not Laziness. It’s Wisdom.

Like many people, I find rest difficult.

I like doing. I like moving. I’ve spent most of my life thinking that energy and productivity were signs that I was doing life right.

But then came a health challenge that knocked me flat and I had to learn that energy is a resource. That rest is not just indulgence, but survival.

And winter, for me, has become a mirror of that lesson. It asks us to stop fighting our need for pause. To stop seeing stillness as failure. To stop expecting ourselves to be blooming all year round.

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Making Peace with Quiet

Here’s something I’ve noticed about winter: it asks us to sit in the quiet. And that’s not always comfortable.

But the quiet isn’t empty. It’s full of possibility.

Therapist Julia Samuel talks about the fertile void — a period where things look empty on the surface, but underneath, growth is happening. That’s winter. A time where what’s growing is invisible, but no less real.

If you’re in that space right now — the uncertain middle, the undefined stretch know that you’re not lost. You’re just wintering.

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Connection Still Matters (Especially Now)

Winter can feel isolating. We stay in. We cancel plans. We disappear behind closed doors.

But those small moments of connection — they still matter.

Sometimes they’re the thing that get us through.

A friend who sends a voice note.
A neighbour who pops by with cookies.
A candlelit dinner where no one wears sequins and everyone brings a story.

Wintering well doesn’t have to mean withdrawing completely. It can mean choosing gentle connection over performance. Intimacy over expectation.

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Your Wintering Toolkit (Small Things That Matter)

Here are some of the things that are helping me stay grounded this season:

• The Daily 3-2-1: Three things I’m grateful for. Two things I’m curious about. One way I can make today easier.

• A candle in the kitchen while I cook.

• Woollen socks and a hot water bottle at my desk.

• A therapy lamp by the window.

• A stack of books that feel like comfort.

• The sound of nothing. (Or of my family laughing.)

These aren’t revolutionary. But they’re enough to anchor me. And that’s what wintering well is about — enough.

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A Different Kind of Self-Care

This time of year, we’re flooded with messages about self-care. But often, it ends up sounding like a shopping list of scented candles and self-help guides.

What if self-care in winter meant not doing more, but doing differently?

What if it meant:

• Choosing quiet over hustle

• Letting go of one tradition that drains you

• Making space for rest, without apology

• Listening to what your body (and your soul) actually needs

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A Gentle Prompt for You

Here’s what I’m asking myself this winter:

What does it look like to winter well, just for me?

What if that doesn’t mean fixing anything, achieving anything, or even feeling festive?

What if it simply means honouring this season for what it is — and who you are in it?

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If You’re Looking for Support This Winter…

Wintering doesn’t mean you have to go it alone.

If this season is bringing up emotional burnout, loneliness, fatigue or a longing to rest but not knowing how — this might be a beautiful time to explore support through coaching.

Together, we can:

• Create space for your real needs

• Gently navigate grief, fatigue, or burnout

• Make winter more livable — maybe even quietly beautiful

Click here to explore coaching. Or book a free 20-minute consult to find out what you’re looking for.

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You Don’t Have to Love Winter

You don’t have to fall in love with snow, or embrace darkness like it’s a friend.

But you can learn to live well inside the season you’re in.

And that, in its own way, is enough.

So here’s to this winter.
To quieter mornings.
To softer evenings.
To connection and coziness and not having to bloom right now.

Here’s to wintering well — in whatever way that looks like for you.

How to Navigate Emotional Burnout and Overwhelm This Festive Season

(…Without Numbing, Pretending, or Putting on the Paper Hat if You Don’t Want To)

The holidays are meant to be magical, right? Twinkling lights. Glorious food. Time with the people you love. Except… that’s only part of the story.

For many of us, this season also brings up a messier mix of emotions: Burnout. Resentment. Grief. Overwhelm. Emotional exhaustion that feels like it should be packed away until January, but only grows louder under all the glitter.

You may be doing everything you’re “supposed to,” and still feel off. Many of us can feel like we’re just hanging on through the Holiday Season even though we’re trying to reach for all the magic it might also bring.

The 12 Emotions of Christmas (And Then Some)

The Holiday Season can bring with it so many different feelings. There’s joy, of course. Gratitude? Hopefully. But also: guilt, loneliness, hope, anxiety, peace, nostalgia, resentment… and grief. Especially grief. And often we might be feeling more than one thing at once.

• You can be excited and exhausted.

• Grateful and slightly ragey at your partner for leaving all the wrapping until Christmas Eve.

• Full of love and lonely at the same time.

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Emotions Don’t Need Fixing. But They Might Want Witnessing

Here’s what we’ve learned (and what the science backs too): Trying to force yourself to feel festive—or calm, or joyful—only adds to the emotional load.

What helps more? Small, doable practices that honour your reality and softens the pressure.

We’re not aiming for unloading everything all at once. Rather we’re trying to bring in some more relief and permission, creating an emotional anchoring when things feel all over the place.

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Gentle Practices to be Kinder to What You’re Really Feeling

These are things that hopefully you can return to when you need a moment of clarity, calm or care.

1. Name What You’re Actually Feeling

Instead of shoving it down, try this:

“Right now, I feel overwhelmed because I’ve said yes to too many things.”
Naming emotions helps regulate them. It brings clarity when everything feels a bit loud.

2. Validate What’s True for You

You don’t need to justify your emotions. They're not wrong or bad.
They're simply information.
Loneliness? Telling you that connection matters.
Guilt? A sign you care deeply.
Resentment? A flashing light that a boundary might need adjusting.

3. Reframe, Gently

Not toxic positivity. Just a reframe when you’re ready.
Instead of “I’m failing at Christmas,” try “I’m doing my best with what I have this year.”
Instead of “Why can’t I just enjoy it like everyone else?” try “Joy looks different for everyone. I’ll find mine.”

4. Create Tiny Moments of Joy on Purpose

Not performative, curated joy. But real, quiet joy.
A trashy Christmas movie you secretly love.
A warm drink savoured in silence.
Singing badly with someone you love.
We’ve found that joy is an active practice, rather than a finely crafted outcome.

5. Let Overwhelm Be Your Messenger

Instead of pushing through, ask:

• What’s one thing I can take off my plate today?

• What’s one thing I could hand to someone else (even if it’s not “perfect”)?

• How can I pause, even for a minute?

6. Talk About Grief, Don’t Tiptoe Around It

Grief doesn’t go quiet at Christmas—it often shouts.
Whether it’s someone you’ve lost, or the version of life that isn’t yours anymore, it matters.
Light a candle. Say their name. Let others know it’s okay to mention them too.
This keeps their love in the room, not hidden away.

7. Let Peace Be a Practice, Not a Destination

Peace isn’t always a big revelation.
Sometimes, it’s three minutes of stillness while your tea brews.
It’s stepping outside and noticing the cold but not in the way that makes you want to cry.
It’s a single quiet carol, in a room filled with noise.
Look for peace in micro-moments. That might be enough.

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What’s One Emotion You’re Carrying This Season?

What’s showing up for you—joy, grief, gratitude, anxiety, excitement, resentment, or something else entirely?

Because once you name it, you can work with it. And if you’d like support doing that…

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Ready to Feel Better This Season? We Can Help.

Our 1:1 emotions coaching sessions are gentle, grounded, and always tailored to you. This isn’t about fixing everything. It’s about finding what might help you feel even just a little bit better, right now.

• Whether you’re navigating grief, burnout, or just can’t hear yourself think

• Whether you want support this season or to start the new year with a steadier emotional toolkit

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Let’s start there.
Book a free 15-minute clarity call or explore our coaching options here.

This season, you don’t need to perfect it. You don’t need to perform it. You just need to be in it—honestly, gently, fully.

Make space for all the feelings. And give yourself the gift of not having to carry them alone.

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Navigating Grief When It Doesn’t Look How You Thought It Would

What does grief look like?

If we’re honest, many of us have a picture in our minds. Tears. Silence. Perhaps someone wearing black, speaking softly, saying “I’m fine” when they’re clearly not. Or maybe someone who’s angry, messy, falling apart. We expect grief to look dramatic — or dignified — but either way, we expect to recognise it when it arrives.

So what happens when it doesn’t look the way we thought it would?

What happens when we’re grieving and we’re… still functioning? Still laughing? Still showing up for the school run? Or what if we can’t cry but know we’re holding something enormous inside?

And what if someone else is grieving and we misjudge them, because we think they should be more upset, or more together, or more like us?

That’s the quiet heartbreak of grief: not only the loss itself, but the confusion about how it’s “meant” to be.

In a recent episode of A Thought I Kept, I spoke to Georgina Jones, founder of The Grief Disco — a woman whose work lives at the intersection of grief, music, dance, and joy.

Her story challenged so much of what we think we know about grief. Georgina lost her son in 2023, and has experienced what many would describe as profound, unimaginable loss. And yet, she dances. She laughs. She connects. She creates spaces where people can cry and dance at the same time.

It’s not about ignoring grief or sugar-coating it. It’s about making space for the full spectrum of it — especially when it doesn’t come wrapped in the behaviours we’ve been taught to expect.

Georgina spoke about how grief lives in the body. That there are things music can unlock that words can’t reach. That sometimes we can be sobbing and laughing in the same breath. And that joy isn’t something that betrays grief — it’s something that supports it.

What struck me most was this: grief doesn’t always look the way we think. And that misunderstanding can create more pain, not just for the person grieving — but for those around them, too.

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We’ve inherited a lot of strange stories about how we’re supposed to grieve.

We think:

• Grief has “stages” (it doesn’t — it has cycles, spirals, waves).

• It’s meant to be quiet and tearful — or explosive and visible.

• There’s a right way to do it.

• It’s only valid if someone has died.

• It ends.

But grief is far more expansive than that. It can be:

• The silent, confusing ache after a miscarriage no one knew about.

• The slow unraveling of identity in a job or relationship loss.

• The anticipatory grief of watching someone change before they’re gone.

• The quiet guilt of feeling relief — and wondering what that says about you.

And crucially: grief doesn’t always look “sad”.

You might feel numb. Or angry. Or completely disconnected. Or wildly creative. You might crack jokes at a funeral, or scream into your pillow a year later when you least expect it. That’s grief too.

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So how do we navigate grief — especially when it surprises us?

Here’s what I’m learning, from Georgina and others, and through the work I do in emotions coaching:

1. Let go of the script

There is no one way grief should look. There is only the way it shows up in you. That’s enough. And it’s valid — even if it makes no sense.

2. Name what’s true

Maybe you’re grieving someone still alive. Maybe you’re mourning a version of yourself. Maybe you feel like your grief isn’t “big enough” to count. It does count. Language helps. Start with small truths. “This is hard.” “I feel strange.” “I miss something I never really had.”

3. Move it through the body

Grief isn’t just cognitive — it’s visceral. Breath, movement, music, crying, stillness — these aren’t indulgences. They’re how your body integrates the experience. As Georgina said, “We are so heady. But there is so much knowledge in the body.”

4. Let joy have a seat at the table

Joy doesn’t replace grief. It companions it. Finding joy again isn’t a betrayal of your sadness — it’s part of what sustains you. You’re allowed to laugh. To sing. To dance. Even while you’re broken-hearted.

5. Ask for support from someone who gets it

You don’t have to figure this out alone. Talking to someone trained in emotional literacy, regulation, and compassionate witnessing can help you feel seen — especially when your grief doesn’t look “typical.” That’s what emotions coaching is for.

Grief doesn’t come with a rulebook. But it can come with support.

If this resonates with you — if your grief feels different, or hard to name, or hard to carry — I’d love to invite you to:

Georgina shares her story of loss, joy, dancing through grief, and why your energy — even in the darkest moments — is your currency.

If you’re navigating something tender, tangled, or hard to name — this is the space for you. Emotions coaching is not about fixing you. It’s about helping you meet what’s here with more understanding, care, and clarity.

You don’t have to go it alone.

And your grief doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.

If You’re Self‑Cared‑Out: How to Move from Doing to Being Seen

You’ve done the rituals — the colouring‑in, the bubble bath, the breaths, the affirmations. And yet, you still feel drained.

In a recent conversation on A Thought I Kept, I asked psychologist and author Suzy Reading: “What is the one thought you have kept?” Suzy’s answer: “I am someone worth caring for.” And in that simple sentence lies the pivot many of us need — from checking the self‑care box to stepping into the kind of care we might be missing.

1. The Self‑Care Loop: When Doing Becomes Disconnection

Suzy begins the conversation by admitting that it was a “very dreary Friday” and she hadn’t had her usual morning walk to clear the jangly energy. Yet here she was, making space for the conversation and acknowledging the discomfort.

“I’ve got some jangly energy going on too … but you know, we make space for it and it’s all right for it to be here.”

That’s the thing. We often rush into another self‑care “thing” to fix the feeling, rather than giving ourselves permission to simply have the feeling.

If you’re someone who’s been doing self‑care, but still feels numb, overwhelmed or disconnected, consider this: maybe it isn’t more rituals you need — but a different relationship to care.

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2. Worthy of Care: The Thought that Changed Everything

At its core, Suzy’s inquiry reveals something many of us never gave ourselves permission to believe: I am someone worth caring for.

She traces that thought back to her late teens and how it’s marks key turning points — a knee injury in her competitive ice‑skating days, becoming a mother, losing her father.

In each, the practice shifted from “perform better” to “treat myself as though I’m worth care” because, as she said:

“If you don’t do that, you’re not going to be here anymore.”

For those feeling burnout, disconnected or emotionally exhausted — the very phrase says this: you do not have to wait until you’ve earned care. You are already worth it.

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3. The Barrier: Selflessness, “Not‑Enough”, and Silence of Needs

Why is this so hard? Suzy outlines layers upon layers of cultural messaging:

• A “good baby” is one who doesn’t cry. How does that shape how we regard feelings?

• A “good child” is one who doesn’t question adults. How does that influence advocating for ourselves?

• Women especially carry messages of being selfless, resilient, productive, grateful. In the process our feelings and needs become invisible.

• “You mustn’t be selfish. You must be selfless… our own personhood, turning attention inwards … feels shame‑inducing.”

So if you feel lost, exhausted, invisible — it might be less about you doing more and more about you giving yourself permission to need and receive. The blankness you feel might be the space where your needs weren’t asked, seen or met.

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4. Self‑Advocacy: The Relational Layer of Self‑Care

Here’s where it deepens: self‑care is not just about self‑soothing or solo rituals. Suzy gently expands it to include receiving care and asking for what you need.

She offers real, grounded advice:

• Practice asking with “safe people” first.

• Instead of “I don’t mind where we go,” say “Here’s a place I’d enjoy. What about you?”

• Be clear: “I feel unappreciated and taken for granted. Would you help me?"

For anyone feeling disconnected — this is an invitation to turn invisible needs into visible requests. To start the conversation with yourself and others. To move from surviving to being supported.

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5. Overwhelm, Midlife & the Invitation to Receive

If you’ve been pushing through for years, if you’re mid‑life and your body is starting to whisper (or shout) “slow down”, you might realise the old methods aren’t working. Suzy shares:

“I could muscle my way through anything … until my body said sweetheart you cannot just railroad and muscle your way through everything.”

And so we pivot. We honour the winter seasons of life. We ask:

• What have I weathered?

• What do I need now?

• Can I allow someone to help?

At the close of the episode, Suzy gives a simple but potent practice: every time you sip water (or tea, or whatever you have), place a hand on your heart and say: “I am someone worthy of care.” Use it as a daily touchpoint.

“Where am I at? What do I need?”

Because relational wellbeing isn’t a luxury, it’s a lifeline.

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6. What You Can Do Right Now

If you’re reading this and you feel drained, disconnected or simply over it — try this:

1. Pause for one minute, put a hand on your heart and say: “I am someone worth caring for.”

2. Write down one need you have today. (No judgement.)

3. Make one gentle request from someone you trust. It could be: “Would you hold space for me for 10 minutes this week?” or “Could you help me with X so I don’t burn out?”

4. Listen to the episode of A Thought I Kept where Suzy and I unpack all this in vivid detail. (Link below.)

5. If you feel comfortable, share this page or the podcast with someone you trust — being seen is the other half of caring.

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If Suzy’s thought — “I am someone worthy of care” — stirred something in you, our Coaching Sessions are here to help you gently unpack those feelings, reconnect with your needs, and practice the relational skills of self-advocacy.

Whether you're overwhelmed, self-cared-out, or simply seeking a safe space to feel seen, we’re here.

How We Cope: The Hidden Language of Emotions, the Body, and Self-Harm

We are taught to say “I’m fine.”
We are rarely taught to notice what we actually feel.

And almost never taught what to do with it.

This week on the podcast, I spoke with Beth Derry — resilience coach, Havening practitioner, and founder of Lovely Messy Humans — about one idea that changed everything for her:

“I'm bringing the realization that I had not actually that so long ago, still in my forties, about the sheer power that our nervous system has over every aspect of our life, our health, our happiness, our relationships, our work, and yet we have not talked about it. And when I started to learn about it and go deeper into it, it really changed everything.”

It made me wonder: What would our lives look like if we were taught nervous system literacy in school?

If we knew that emotional coping isn’t a flaw — but often a biological response?
If we stopped seeing anxiety, anger, or shutdown as personal failures… and started seeing them as signals?

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When We Don’t Know How to Cope

When we don't understand our internal worlds — when we push away feelings, or panic in the presence of them — we disconnect. From ourselves. From others. From the cues that could help us come back to safety.

As Beth so gently shared, many of us live in the edges of our window of tolerance. We function. We show up. But we’re often one thing away from emotional overload. Or from total shutdown.

And in those spaces, we might turn to whatever makes the pain disappear.
Even if just for a moment.

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Self-Harm and the Misunderstood Body

One of the most powerful parts of this conversation was Beth’s perspective on self-harm — especially among young people. A topic often clouded by fear, shame, or silence.

She explains that self-harm is rarely about wanting to die.
It’s often a desperate attempt to feel something, or regulate overwhelm.
A bid for connection. A tool of survival. A nervous system trying to find relief.

That reframing changed something in me. As a parent. As a coach. As a human who once believed that emotional intensity was a flaw to fix.

We talk a lot about mental health. But nervous system health? Still a gap.
And yet — it’s at the heart of how we process everything.

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What I’m Taking With Me

Here are just a few shifts I’m sitting with after this conversation:

• Emotions are messengers, not enemies. Every feeling we have — from anxiety to anger to disgust — evolved to help us survive. They’re not the problem. They’re trying to point us to one.

• We don’t need to be experts. But we do need to get curious. Especially when we find ourselves spiralling, shutting down, or stuck.

• Self-harm isn’t attention-seeking. It’s often connection-seeking. And our first response should always be: safety, gentleness, and holding the door open for conversation.

• Talking therapy is powerful — but sometimes we need the body in the room. Beth’s work with Havening is just one example of how physical practices can help calm the nervous system and unlock healing in a different way.

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For You, If You’re Feeling Lost

If you’re feeling emotionally full to the brim…
If you’re shut down and not sure how to begin again…
If your teenager seems unreachable…
Or if you simply want to understand why you react the way you do —

This episode is an invitation.

To move slowly.
To get curious.
To stop blaming yourself for feeling everything (or nothing).
To start gently noticing the signals your body has been sending all along.

Listen to this week’s episode: Lovely Messy Humans: Understanding Self-Harm, Emotional Coping, and the Nervous System with Beth Derry. Available now on A Thought I Kept

And if you need more support and understanding as you explore your emotional life, book one of our 1:1 online sessions.

Manipura House, Bath

Perfect For

Anyone interested in looking after their long term physical and mental health, supporting fitness and recovery from trauma. This is also the ideal place for anyone who understands that massage therapy is more than just a one-off treat, but an essential partner for a healthy lifestyle.

Why You’ll Love It

Manipura House is a centre that takes care of your physical and mental wellness and that’s on a mission to elevate your health and restore your energy.

Hosted in a stunning Grade II Listed building in the heart of Bath, you will find exceptional bodywork, clinical massage, therapeutic massage therapy, wellbeing workshops and accessible recovery tools plus a range of wellness services, to help transform your ability to connect mind and body.

The name Manipura refers to your solar plexus, a bundle of nerves in the abdomen that regulates the body’s stress response. As co-founder Lynsey Keyes explains: “It is the centre of our identity and energy, and the key to unlocking our personal power. By tapping into this nerve centre in a variety of ways we can build a strong, confident foundation from which to grow, empowering ourselves with knowledge and awareness of our mind and body to take charge of our own health.”

What Makes It Special

Located on a stunning street, the space hosts a range of highly trained and skilled expert bodywork therapists, who understand and work with your individual needs. It’s a one-stop health hub connecting wellness practitioners through workshops and coaching sessions as well as a curated wellbeing retail offering.

The If Lost Take

One of the hardest things to do when you’re ready to take care of your physical and mental wellbeing is finding the right practitioners to support you. Manipura House takes away the guess work. Under one roof, you’ll find the people and the space you need to help you better move through everyday life.

We’ve handpicked Manipura House for our Wellbeing Guide to Life because it perfectly reflects what we look for in a wellness space: expert-led, beautifully designed, and truly grounded in whole-person care.

Whether you’re seeking to reconnect with your body, manage stress, or explore long-term support for your physical and mental health, this is a place where expert knowledge and compassionate care come together. Expect evidence-based therapies, bespoke treatments, and a deep respect for the mind-body connection.

Founder’s Go-To Wellbeing Advice:

“Our approach to healthcare should move beyond a reactive approach, to a more sustainable and enjoyable one. A holistic approach not just in name, but in the 360 degree services we engage with.”

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Some Practical Details

Therapy sessions are all in person on site. Their partner therapists may have online offerings.

Gift vouchers are available

You can book directly on the website.

 

11 Queen Street, Bath, BA1 1HE, United Kingdom

hello@manipurahouse.com

Tel: 0122 5984379

Website | Social Media

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What to Do When You Feel Creatively Empty

You know the feeling. That bone-deep tiredness that no nap or green juice will touch. The ideas that once came freely now feel flat. The excitement that used to buzz in your chest has turned to static.

If you’ve been feeling creatively empty — like your spark has left the room — you’re not broken. You’re burnt out, or as entrepreneur and founder Liana Fricker calls it, maybe you’re just in a “burndown.”

When Liana hit burnout — again — in 2023, she realised that it wasn’t a one-off collapse. It was part of a repeating pattern. She’d push hard, build momentum, connect dots, gather people, spark ideas — and then, suddenly, the tank was empty. She had to start “by designing my work life and just my general life in such a way that creates that space so I can stay open.”

Liana calls herself an “idea-laying machine.” But even machines need power sources — and her old ways of working (and marketing herself online) weren’t sustainable anymore.

So she began to experiment. To unlearn. To ask a different set of questions:

• What if I stopped performing consistency and started trusting my energy instead?

• What would work look like if it was slower, tactile, real-world?

• What if connection — not content — was my strategy?

These are some of the wellbeing practices and mind shifts that helped Liana rebuild creative energy — not by working harder, but by reimagining what “working” means.

Each one is a quiet act of resistance against burnout culture, and a reminder that creative energy is not infinite but it is renewable.

1. Stop Performing Consistency — Start Practising Self-Trust

The advice we’re given online — “be consistent!” — often misses the truth that not all brains or energy cycles work in straight lines. For Liana, the key was designing routines that flowed with her energy, not against it.

She now plans her month in cycles: high-energy weeks first, slow restoration later. Some weeks are for ideas, others are for Antiques Roadshow and weighted blankets.

“If all I could do was meditate in a sauna and watch Antiques Roadshow with my weighted blanket at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday, I can do that. Because that might be what the burndown needs, right?”

Try this: Instead of scheduling every day equally, design your calendar like a tide chart. Plan creative work during your high-energy phases, and build in restorative “ebb” weeks.

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2. Redefine Burnout — and Learn Your ‘Burndown’ Pattern

Liana differentiates between burnout (the big collapse) and burndown (the mini energy crashes that happen every few weeks).

When you start to recognise these smaller cycles, you can respond before the full crash.

Notice:

• Do you have predictable weeks of high motivation followed by emotional flatness?

• Do you overcommit when your energy peaks?

• Can you give yourself permission to pause before you’re forced to stop?

Reframing burnout as cyclical rather than catastrophic helps turn it from a crisis into data — something you can observe, not judge.

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3. Design for Energy, Not Productivity

“I think if you're someone who suffers from quite big burnouts or you've had a few in your life and you're over the age of 40, you may want to take a step back and ask yourself, what is this internal engine that keeps making me run at full speed, ultimately off a cliff?”

So she began to design her days not for output, but for energy flow. She created conditions that help her stay open — like attending real-world gatherings, limiting context-switching, and making space for brainfood conversations.

“I absolutely came home buzzing with energy, being in a room, in a curated space. It didn't feel too overwhelming, but just with so many interesting people telling me interesting things, that kind of cup is very full.”

Try this: Once a week, replace a Zoom call with a walk, a museum visit, or a local event. Think of it as refuelling, not slacking. Creative energy is relational.

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4. Feed Your Brain (and Body) With Connection

Liana describes herself as “best with a spark” — someone whose creativity ignites in conversation.

That spark doesn’t come from scrolling; it comes from connection. The quick chat with a stranger, the serendipity of a room, the awkward but alive feeling of being seen.

“Whereas if you're on your phone or on your laptop, it's like the closest you'll ever get to an invisibility cloak, right? You can choose whether to engage or not.”

For those feeling creatively apathetic, connection might be the antidote — not to produce something, but to remember what it feels like to be moved.

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5. Reframe ‘Anxiety’ as Excitement

A subtle but powerful reframe:
When your heart races before a new project or social event, what if it’s not anxiety — but excitement?

“The moment when I realized that what I would have described as anxiety was excitement was huge for me. Because even calling it anxiety changes the relationship with it. It's something to stop doing.”

Reinterpreting physical sensations as energy — rather than threat — can turn overwhelm into motion.

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6. Build a Creative Ecosystem

Liana also began thinking about wellbeing like professional athletes do: as a team effort.

“There's no athlete that goes to the Olympics that does not have a sports psychologist and a physio and a chef and because the machine is this integration it needs specialists.”

That might mean therapy, coaching, accountability partners, or simply the people who remind you to rest.

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7. Let Rest Be an Act of Mastery

Creativity needs stillness. For Liana, that looked like allowing emptiness — even boredom — without guilt.

“I was absolutely an empty vessel. There was no guilt because there was no energy for guilt. There was no shame because there was no energy for shame. Like, right. I was just empty.”

This is her glass of water philosophy:

“You know no one's gonna say how dare you have a glass of water. Why are you getting up to get a glass of water? What? You are gonna fail. Sometimes my glass of water is antiques roadshow.”

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Creative fatigue, burnout, apathy — these aren’t signs of weakness. They’re signals. Your body is trying to tell you something.

When you stop trying to perform consistency and start listening to those signals, you create space for something far more powerful than productivity: self-trust.

And maybe, what looks like burnout is actually your creativity asking for a different kind of rhythm — one that includes silence and conversation, slow design and sparks of engagement.

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If you want to explore these ideas further, listen to my conversation with Liana on the podcast A Thought I Kept.

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Need some support as you navigate life’s ups and downs, explore our 1:1 coaching sessions.

Are You Giving All Your Attention to Negative Emotions?

When Amanda Sheeren (co-founder of If Lost, Start Here) joined me on A Thought I Kept, she brought a thought that had stayed with her for years:

“Even in the darkness, there is light.”

It sounds simple but it came from a place of burnout, emotional overwhelm, and the quiet collapse that can happen when we believe we’re doing everything “right.”

In the episode, Amanda shares a moment from early motherhood: two small kids, no sleep, therapy for the first time. She described showing up to those sessions thinking she’d be praised for being emotionally attuned. “I was validating every feeling. I was letting my kids be sad, be mad, feel all the things.”

But then her therapist asked her something that stopped her in her tracks:

“Is it possible that you're giving all your attention to negative emotions?”

That was the pivot point.

When Feeling Deeply Becomes Feeling Stuck

If you’ve ever been told to feel your feelings — and taken that advice seriously — you may know this space. You learn that sadness, anger, and frustration are valid. You work hard not to bypass or brush past what’s hard.

But here’s the catch: when we spend all our energy in the shadow emotions, we can forget to make space for joy, hope, and light. And those emotions need practice too.

In emotion coaching, we talk a lot about awareness, validation, and regulation. But there's a step people often miss:

Attention. Where are you placing it? What emotions are getting airtime?

Validating sadness is powerful. But so is dancing in the kitchen. So is naming a moment of peace, or laughing at the squirrel outside your window — something Amanda shares in the episode that shifted how she related to joy.

Emotions are not just there to be survived. They're part of what makes life meaningful — all of them.

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What Are You Practicing

In the episode, Amanda reflects on how her own attention began to shift. Not through gratitude lists or forced positivity, but through tiny joys. A squirrel doing something weird. A rainbow on a grey day. The “glimmers,” as some researchers call them.

And with time, those small practices started to grow into something more sustainable — a full-spectrum emotional life, not just a deep one.

Interested in Emotion Coaching?

We offer 1:1 emotion coaching sessions for people wanting to better understand their emotions — parents, creatives, leaders, those who feel a lot and want to feel more resourced doing it.

Explore our coaching offers here

How Heiter Moments Can Help Us Recover from Burnout

When Katharina Geissler-Evans first hit burnout, she was in her twenties, commuting long hours, studying full-time, and working alongside it all. “I was constantly on the go and never thought about myself,” she says. “That’s when I crashed.”

“ “I couldn’t work anymore from one day to the next. There was a chance I would fail my course. And all I did was cry.””

In the depth of it, Katharina hoped someone else might help her out of it. But one evening — collapsed on the bathroom floor — something shifted when she realized that she was the only one who could look after herself.

Katharina didn’t know the full shape of her recovery yet. But she started with seeking out the things that she used to enjoy prior to driving herself into a hole of work and study.

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What Burnout Can Teach Us

Burnout so often comes when we’ve overextended ourselves. When we’ve said yes to too much. When the doing has crowded out the being.

Katharina realised she needed to get back in touch with the version of herself before it all became too much.

“I had to find Kiki again. The version of me before the stress.”

That meant reconnecting with the person who liked sitting in a café with a book, or going for a walk, or making something with her hands. Katharina began with those tiny gestures: coffee, walks, candlelight, creativity. Just really small things that she knew she was capable of at that point. And from those small things, she built something beautiful — not just for herself, but for others too.

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Heiter: Small Joys We Can Return To

The German word heiter translates to light-hearted, cheerful, serene — but Katharina has reimagined it as something deeper. Something more intentional.

For Katharina, heiter isn’t about perfection. It’s not the glossy kind of joy. It’s about the joy found in everyday life — the quiet, steady kind. The kind you can build a life around.

It was through this lens that her lifestyle brand and independent magazine heiter was born. And even now, 10 years in, that original spark — the idea that we can choose to create joy, even in hard times — is still at the heart of her work.

There’s something radical about choosing joy when we’re overwhelmed. About stepping away from the pressure to keep going, and instead choosing to pause.

Katharina still grounds herself in everyday practices, her non-negotiables whether that’s a gratitude ritual with her children at bedtime or a morning cup of coffee, fully savoured. Things that already make a massive difference in her life. Because burnout recovery doesn’t always look like doing less. Sometimes it looks like doing differently.

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The Invitation of Heiter

As we head into darker months, many of us feel that familiar sense of depletion. But what if, like Katharina, we could meet it with softness?

“Figure out what you love at this time of year,” she suggests. “For me, it’s pumpkin soup, lighting candles, making comfort food my granny used to make. These moments matter.”

Heiter isn’t a prescription — it’s a permission. A permission to reconnect with your own joys. To remember what restores you. And to begin, again, from there.

Take one small heiter moment this week — a walk, a warm drink, a candle, a laugh with someone you love. Could that help slowly bring you back to yourself.

And if this conversation resonates, listen to the full podcast episode with Katharina Geissler-Evans wherever you get your podcasts.

Or read the extended conversation over on our Substack at More Good Days.

Why Feeling Your Emotions Can Be So Terrifying and What to Do About It

Have you ever felt like the tiniest thing , an unexpected email, a message left on read, a look, a tone, a bill, sends your whole system into overdrive?

In this week’s podcast episode, I spoke to massage therapist and bodyworker Carrie Ekins about emotional overwhelm, emotional exhaustion, and how to begin feeling safe enough to feel our feelings, even when it feels absolutely terrifying.

Carrie shared a thought that changed everything for her:

“Everything is a saber-toothed tiger.”

It sounds playful, but it's a serious insight. Because for many of us, our nervous systems are constantly interpreting life’s daily stresses as if our actual survival is under threat. The primitive parts of our brain haven’t evolved fast enough to know the difference between a demanding boss and a predator in the wild.

So instead of processing an email or a conversation, our bodies kick into survival mode — fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Over and over. Day after day.

And what gets missed? The essential third part of the stress cycle: processing.

The Truth About Emotional Overwhelm

So many of us are living in a constant state of emotional hyper-vigilance. And the more we try to push through, the more disconnected we become, from our bodies, from our feelings, from ourselves.

As Carrie so beautifully put it:

“… I have to learn how to feel my emotions, even though that is absolutely terrifying because nobody's given me the tools, no one has shown me how to walk this path, nobody has shown me how this feels. Why would you want to do that? That all just sounds like mortifyingly awful…”

And so, when emotions do start to rise, they feel unbearable. Too big. Too much. Too dangerous. Like saber-toothed tigers of the soul.

But the truth is, your feelings aren’t trying to hurt you. They’re trying to help you find your way, back into your body, back into your breath, back into your life.

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What If You Didn’t Have to Be Afraid of Your Emotions?

Carrie talks about the power of simple practices that help us shift from stress and shutdown into softening and why softening is not weakness, but wisdom.

It’s not about going on a 10-day silent retreat or becoming someone you’re not. It’s about finding small, meaningful ways to reconnect with your body:

• Placing a hand on your chest and simply breathing

• Listening to the birdsong out an open window

• Dancing in your kitchen or humming your favourite tune

• Noticing the texture of the ground beneath your feet

These are what Carrie calls wellbeing anchors: tools that remind your body it’s safe to soften, to feel, to rest.

And from that place of safety, emotional overwhelm starts to ease. Emotional exhaustion starts to heal. The stories your body has been holding start to shift.

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Softening Isn’t a Flaw — It’s a Superpower

There’s a story many of us carry that if we let go, if we soften, we’ll lose control. We won’t be prepared. We’ll get eaten alive by the saber-toothed tigers of our inbox, our timelines, our expectations.

But what if softness is what helps us survive?

What if being more in our bodies — in our breath, our senses, our full emotional range — is the very thing that keeps us rooted, resourceful, and resilient?

As Carrie said,

And when you have that moment, when you come back into your body and you can feel your feet on the ground and you can feel your hand on your chest, it's really magical because literally it's like everything opens up. Like your hearing becomes more accessible and your vision is clearer and brighter. And these are physiological changes because your stress has dropped, your cortisol has dropped and your body has instantly responded with allowing yourself to be more present and more there. And that's the beauty of just softening.

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We’re All a Little Overwhelmed Right Now

If you’ve been feeling emotionally exhausted, like your nervous system is fried and you can’t stop bracing for the next disaster — you’re not “weird” and you’re certainly not failing. You’re responding the way any human would in a world that has asked far too much for far too long.

But there’s another way. One where you can start to feel your feelings without drowning in them. One where you don’t have to do it alone.

Listen to the full conversation with Carrie Ekins on Substack here, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You’ll find that it’s a gentle, playful, radically human exploration of what it means to come back to yourself, one breath at a time.

And if you’re curious about exploring your own emotional life in a deeper, supported way, enquire about our 1:1 emotions coaching. It’s a safe, compassionate space to learn how to feel your feelings — and feel safe doing so.

Because your emotions aren’t saber-toothed tigers. They’re just messengers. And they might be waiting for you to listen to them.

How to Pay Attention (When the World Keeps Pulling You Away)

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, scattered, or a little bit lost lately, we’re with you.

This is an age of constant distraction — and for many of us, that means we’ve stopped paying attention. Not just to the world around us, but to ourselves.

We move through the day with noise in our ears, tabs open in our brains, and a quiet sense that something is missing — even if we can’t name what.

So what would it mean to really notice our lives again?

The Gift of Noticing

In a recent episode of my podcast, A Thought I Kept, I spoke with Andrea Rathborne — a storyteller and creative leader — about a memory from her early twenties that still lives vividly in her mind. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t loud. It was a simple, wordless exchange with an elderly woman in Greece, sitting on a stone step, snapping beans in the morning light.

There were no profound quotes. No life-changing advice. But that small, silent moment stitched itself into the fabric of Andrea’s life. She describes her memory as a kind of Morse code, made of dots and dashes — tiny gestures and longer scenes that, together, form her library of moments.

But this conversation made me think: what happens when we lose the ability to notice?

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Distraction Is a Mental Health Issue

There’s growing research around attention as a form of wellbeing. When we’re constantly pulled between notifications, tasks, and worries, our brain stays in a reactive state — flooding our nervous system and draining our energy.

Distraction disconnects us, from ourselves, from others, from the present moment.

But when we pause long enough to really notice the light in the kitchen, the warmth of a shared task, the quiet rhythm of our breath, something shifts.

Paying attention does three powerful things:

1. Regulates the nervous system: Deep presence signals safety to the brain. It slows the stress response and brings us into calm.

2. Builds emotional resilience: When we’re present, we can process emotions as they arise — instead of stuffing them down or numbing out.

3. Reawakens connection: To beauty. To meaning. To other people. To ourselves. And that connection is the antidote to loneliness.

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What Are We Even Paying Attention To?

That’s the other part of this, right? It’s not just about being mindful for the sake of it. It’s about what we’re turning toward. Noticing can be the very beginning of holding on.

Because when we pay attention, we don’t just see the world more clearly. We start to remember who we are.

So what’s worth noticing?

• The texture of your day — not just the events, but how they feel

• The people you love, and the way their voice sounds when they’re excited

• The in-between moments— reading a beloved book, making tea, watching the rain

• Your own thoughts — especially the positive ones you keep coming back to

These are the things that make up a life. And there’s value in noticing them.

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5 Everyday Ways to Pay Attention (That Actually Feel Good)

You don’t need a 30-minute meditation practice or a digital detox to get started.

Here are a few gentle ways to return to presence today:

1. Choose one daily ritual to do without distraction. Drink your coffee without scrolling. Fold laundry while listening to yourself. Let one small thing become sacred.

2. Keep a Dot + Dash Journal. Inspired by Andrea’s Morse code metaphor, jot down: One dot: a fleeting moment that caught your attention. One dash: a longer memory or thought you want to hold onto. This builds your own “library of moments.”

3. Practice sensory noticing. What can you see, hear, smell, taste, or touch right now? Anchor yourself with one detail from each sense.

4. Look for everyday awe. Wonder is good for the nervous system. A tree against the sky, your child’s laugh, the smell of lavender. Notice something that makes you come alive, even a little.

5. Draw your day in five lines. Not an artist? Even better. Use five quick lines or shapes to represent how your day feels — not what happened, but what it felt like. A scribble. A curve. A burst. It’s a way to bypass the brain and check in through creativity.

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If You’re Feeling Lost…

Start with your attention. Don’t try to solve everything at once. Just slow down enough to notice the moment you’re in.

Name one thing. Feel one breath. Stay with it for a beat longer than you normally would.

And maybe that becomes your first dot — the first piece of a new way of being. Not a perfect or polished one. But a path back to presence, and maybe even to yourself.

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Want to Go Deeper?

You can listen to my full conversation with Andrea Rathborne on the podcast here:

Or join me over on Substack at More Good Days, where I share weekly reflections, prompts, and gentle reminders that life is made of tiny things, that are still yours to notice. .

5 Vegan Restaurants in Bath (and Beyond) for Everyday Wellbeing

Once a niche diet, vegan food has grown into something else entirely. Across the UK — from tiny Bath alleyways to buzzy London neighbourhoods — vegan cafés and restaurants are redefining what it means to nourish ourselves, and each other.

But it’s not about labels anymore, it’s about how food makes us feel. About where it comes from, who grows it, and who gets to sit around the table. And in an age where so much of life feels out of our hands, making a choice that feels aligned — even once a week — is a small act of care.

These five places are part of that shift. They’re serving up good food, yes — but they’re also places to pause, to reconnect, and to feel well, together. Here’s where to begin.

1.Plant.Eat.Licious, Bath

Plant Eat Licious is a hidden gem in the heart of Bath, offering a colourful, creative menu that changes with the seasons. The food is freshly prepared each day, with an emphasis on whole ingredients, vibrant vegetables and balanced flavours. Expect nourishing bowls, flavour-rich wraps, hearty mains and a counter full of house-made cakes.

Whether you're sitting in for a relaxed lunch or grabbing something to go, it’s a place that makes eating plant-based feel simple, satisfying and genuinely enjoyable.

Find out more here

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2. Rooted Cafe, Bath

Located on Newbridge Road, Rooted Cafe offers a largely plant-based, seasonally changing menu that places vegetables at the centre of the plate. While not fully vegan, it’s a favourite among plant-based eaters for its inventive small plates, hearty mains, and carefully balanced flavours.

With a relaxed setting and a kitchen that clearly cares about quality and provenance, Rooted serves food that feels both satisfying and considered. A good choice for brunch, lunch, or a slower supper with friends.

Find out more here

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3. Cascara, Bath

This compact, independently owned café in the centre of Bath offers a thoughtful, fully vegan menu that’s rooted in fresh ingredients and bold flavour. It’s a place where every element — from the house-made cakes to the seasonal salads and rotating toastie specials — is crafted with intention.

Whether you’re sitting in with a matcha and a peanut butter blondie or grabbing lunch on the go, it’s a brilliant example of how vegan food can be fast, nourishing and joyful. It’s also the sister restaurant to Green Rocket.

Learn more here

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4. The Green Rocket, Bath

The Green Rocket has been part of Bath’s food scene for over a decade, offering an entirely vegan and vegetarian menu that’s earned a loyal following. Dishes are built around fresh, whole ingredients, with a global influence and a focus on generous portions — from vibrant salads to breakfast plates.

With its central location and laid-back setting, it’s a go-to for both locals and visitors looking for reliably good plant-based food. The cakes and coffee are worth lingering over, and the menu has enough variety to suit both weekday lunches and slower weekend meals.

Learn more here

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5. Unity Diner, London

Unity Diner is a not-for-profit, fully vegan restaurant in East London serving indulgent, plant-based takes on diner classics. The menu features stacked burgers, loaded fries, “fish” and chips, mac and cheese, and rotating desserts — all made to satisfy, without compromise.

Founded by animal rights advocates, Unity Diner donates its profits to animal welfare causes. But the focus here is firmly on flavour, and the food delivers — generous, familiar and crowd-pleasing, it’s a good option for a relaxed meal that also aligns with your values.

Find out more here

Thinking of Going Vegan? Start Small.

You don’t have to go all in. Maybe it’s one meal a week. Maybe it’s your new favourite sandwich. Maybe it’s just about paying more attention.

Vegan eating today is less about following rules and more about feeling into what aligns with your values, your health and your preferences. For many, it’s part of a larger wellbeing practice. For others, it’s about curiosity. Either way, there’s no one right way to begin.

Know a place that belongs in our Guide to Life?

We’re always looking to spotlight the independent spots that nourish our lives.

→ Nominate a vegan place that helps people feel better here
→ Run or own a vegan restaurant? Apply to join our Guide to Life

Help us grow this human-centred, heart-fuelled guidebook — one small good place at a time.

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Want to hear about more places like this and more ways to well? Join our mailing list for thoughtful guides, small shifts, and creative inspiration on how to feel better in everyday life.

Announcing our Autumn Program | Where Do You Go When You’re Not Sure What You Need?

Maybe something has shifted, but you can’t quite name what. You’ve got too many browser tabs open — in your head, and on your laptop. You're doing all the right things, but they don’t feel quite right anymore.

Autumn has a way of stirring up questions we didn’t know we’d been carrying:

• Do I still want this?

• Why don’t I feel like myself?

• What would feel like mine again?

You’re not quite in crisis, but you are feeling disorientated, and maybe longing for something that feels better than where you are right now.

That’s what we’ll be exploring together this season.

The Season for Turning Inwards

At If Lost Start Here, we hear a lot of stories that begin in this foggy middle place.

Like the woman who told us, “I haven’t connected with myself in months. I’m just in the mix of it all, not really in my life anymore.”

Or the client who shared, “I’ve got space now that my youngest is in school — but I don’t know what to do with it”

Or the midlife creative who sat with us and said, “I think I’m grieving a version of my life I never got to live. And also, I’m wondering what’s next.”

This time of year — as the light changes, the calendar flips, and the quiet gets a little louder — is when many of us begin to tune into these fundamental questions we might have about our lives. Wondering “what now?” and “what’s next?”.

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A Way Back to Yourself (That Doesn’t Ask You to Do Even More)

This season, we’re not offering more pressure to transform. We’re offering a place to just explore where you are. A way for you to get to know what you really think and feel — just a little more consciously.

We’ve designed our Fall Wellbeing Programme as an invitation to find your way if you’re feeling just that little bit lost right now:

Lost & Found Sessions

Book a one-to-one online coaching sessions, designed for anyone feeling lost, disconnected, overwhelmed or simply curious. These provide the vital space to name what’s shifting and hear think yourself again. They are a great place to start.

The Wellery (on Substack)

A weekly-ish newsletter with thoughts on emotional wellbeing, curiosity, and creative living. It’s less about giving advice, but more about exploring how to do life together, with more thought and intention.

So Emotional: The Midlife Edition

Coming soon: a course and community for anyone navigating the emotional ups and downs of midlife. We'll share stories, tools, and insights that don’t minimise the messiness, or the possibility, of this period in our lives.

A Thought I Kept (Podcast)

Each week a guest share the single idea they haven’t let go of, when they might have all the rest. It’s perfect for anyone feeling overwhelmed by all the life advice out there.

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Our Autumn Program is designed to help you look at your days a little differently. Noticing what feels out of rhythm. Following what brings energy instead of obligation.

We’ve worked with people who thought they needed a new job but actually needed to make space for creativity. With those who were looking for a plan but found their values instead. And with people who’d gone quiet on themselves for so long they forgot how to listen and were surprised by how quickly that voice returned.

• Feeling lost is often just a sign that you’ve outgrown something.

• Or that something inside you is ready to be heard.

• Or that a new question is forming, even if you don’t have the words yet.

Whatever it is: you don’t need to figure it out alone, or all at once.

You just need somewhere to start.

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Want to Come With Us?

We’re using this space — our journal — to share gentle prompts, real stories, and ideas for a more creative and conscious kind of wellbeing.

Here’s how you can explore more with us:

• Subscribe to our newsletter — for more ways to well

• Listen to A Thought I Kept — our wellbeing podcast about life’s most lasting ideas

• Book a Lost & Found Session — if you need some support

• Join the waitlist for So Emotional— if midlife is bringing things up for you

• Visit us over on our Substack at More Good Days.

Or just explore our website for more guidance for everyday life.

Sometimes the most powerful move is noticing that you’re ready to begin.

We’re glad you’ve found us.

Creative Self-Care For When No-one is Watching

I used to think being creative meant having the right aesthetic. Saying the right things. Looking the part.

It was the '90s, and I wanted to be like Maggie O’Connell from Northern Exposure — all-black wardrobe, self-contained, mysterious. When I landed an internship at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, I leaned into that persona hard. Black turtlenecks, boots, cynicism. I belonged. Or at least, I looked like I did.

But the longer I stayed in the art world, the more disconnected I felt. I was writing gallery texts and walking through exhibitions before they opened, surrounded by creativity but somehow far away from it. I had become someone who performed creativity — without actually feeling it.

Then I remembered my mum and what real creativity looked like for her. My mum didn’t care about art-speak or curation. Her creativity was visceral, chaotic, healing. It was hers.

She made clocks, hundreds of them. Covered in sparkles, stars, pinks, purples. Scribbled on with felt-tip pens. For three years, she attended creative wellbeing sessions at our local town’s Art Room, a space a long way from sleek museums. Those mornings were her reset. Her way back to herself.

When she died, she left us the clocks. They’re in wardrobes, on bedroom walls — small reminders of making something just because you need to.

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I didn't realise it then, but the idea of creativity was shifting for me too. I wasn’t calling it burnout at the time. I wasn’t saying I was “lost.” But things were shifting. I was tired. Flat. Uncertain. The things that used to light me up didn’t anymore. I kept pushing forward — working, parenting, managing but underneath, something was fraying.

That’s when I started to wonder if creativity could help me find my way back to myself too. Not the polished, performative kind, but the one you do when no one’s watching.

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The Link Between Creativity and Wellbeing

What my mum knew instinctively, science now confirms: creative expression can be a powerful tool for wellbeing.

Even simple acts like doodling, journalling, taking photos, and collage can reduce stress, increase positive emotions, and help us feel more like ourselves. Studies in the field of positive psychology link creative practices to improved emotional regulation and resilience.

And the best part? You don’t have to be “creative” to benefit from creative self-care. You just have to make something. Or start.

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5 Ways to Reconnect with Creativity During a Life Shift

If you’re in a season of change, burnout, overwhelm, or confusion — here are a few small ways to begin again:

1. Create something without a plan — a collage, a playlist, a scribble.

2. Take a creative walk — snap one photo every 5 minutes.

3. Try a “morning pages” style journal — three uncensored pages first thing.

4. Colour outside the lines — literally. Get all the pencils and get messier.

5. Find your kitchen-table creativity — the kind where you get to play.

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The Wellery: A Space for Creative Self-Care and Collective Living

Inside The Wellery, our group space for curious, compassionate wellbeing, we’re currently exploring creative self-care as our theme.

Each quarter, we meet for a Co-Well: a group experience to anchor yourself with others through small, doable, reflective practices including creative ones.

If you’d like to explore what creativity might mean for your own version of wellbeing, you’re invited to join us.

Or subscribe here to follow this month’s theme.

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Prefer Personal Support? Try a Wellbeing Prescription

If you’d rather explore this one-to-one, I offer Wellbeing Prescriptions: one-off, personalised sessions where we gently map out a plan that supports your energy, creativity, and wellbeing — based on where you are now.

Book your session here.

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Make Something That Doesn’t Have to Mean Anything

You don’t need to wait until you feel inspired. Or healed. Or ready. Sometimes, the making is the way.

And in a season of life that feels uncertain, flat, or like you're standing in the hallway between who you were and who you're becoming — creating something just for you might be the most radical act of self-care there is.

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“Is This How I Really Feel?” When Your Thoughts and Emotions Get Tangled

Ever found yourself suddenly spiralling? Maybe you’re in the middle of a simple conversation… or just walking to the shops… when suddenly something flares — anxiety, shame, guilt — and you don’t even know why.

And then the questioning begins:

• Am I overreacting?

• Why am I like this?

• Is this a real feeling or just me being dramatic?

This is what’s called emotional confusion — and it’s one of the most common things I see as an emotions coach.

It’s also the heart of this week’s episode of A Thought I Kept, where I sit down with the brilliant Anya Pearse to explore the deceptively simple question:

“Am I feeling my thinking?”

How Thoughts Masquerade as Feelings

In our conversation, Anya describes a moment in her life with painful clarity. She’d just learned about the death of a parent she’d been estranged from for years. In the midst of the shock and grief, a surprising feeling surfaced: relief. But just as quickly, came the guilt.

Shouldn’t I be sadder? Was I a bad daughter? Is this what I’m really feeling… or what I’ve been told to feel?

That moment — when her body and mind started to spin in opposite directions — helped her realise something that’s stayed with her ever since: She wasn’t just feeling her feelings. She was feeling her thinking.

That phrase might sound odd at first. But sit with it for a moment. How often do we have an emotion because of a thought that may not even be true?

• “They probably hate me.”

• “I’m not good enough.”

• “I’ve messed everything up.”

We feel shame, fear, sadness — but those emotions are responses to thoughts. Not to what’s actually happening in the moment.

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Emotional Confusion Is a Signal.

This is what emotional confusion often looks like in real life:

• Feeling overwhelmed without knowing why

• Spiralling into anxiety when nothing “big” has happened

• Reacting strongly and then doubting yourself afterwards

• Telling yourself you’re too much or not enough based on a feeling that doesn’t even feel like your own

And here’s what I’ve learnt: Your emotions are real. But they are not always true.

This doesn’t mean you can’t trust yourself — it means you get to build a better relationship with what your emotions are trying to tell you.

That’s essentially what emotions coaching is about. It’s not about judging or fixing your feelings. It’s about learning how to notice them, untangle them, and gently ask:

Is this mine? Is this now? Is this helpful?

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A Different Way to Be With Yourself

If you’re someone who’s stuck in your head, or if you’re constantly trying to “figure out” how you feel before you feel it — this episode is for you.

If you’ve been hard on yourself for being too emotional (or not emotional enough), it’s for you too.

Because as Anya so beautifully says in our conversation:

“Just because there’s a thought in your head doesn’t mean it’s real. Doesn’t even mean it’s yours.”

This episode is an invitation to get a little distance from the noise, and return to the quiet knowing that’s underneath.

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Listen to the episode: “Am I Feeling My Thinking?” with guest Anya Pearse

Click here to listen to the episode on Substack or search for A Thought I Kept on your favourite podcast app.

Want to Explore This More?

I work with clients 1:1 to help them:

• Make sense of overwhelming or contradictory feelings

• Recognise emotional spirals before they take over

• Learn the difference between reaction and response

• Get curious, not critical, with what they feel

Curious about emotions coaching? Learn more here.

Or start with this episode. It might be the beginning of something new.

What’s the Worst That Can Happen? Really.

We all have one thought we return to. A thought that holds us steady, that we whisper to ourselves at crossroads or in quiet moments of doubt. For Emma Simpson — wild swimmer, author, mother, and my guest on this week’s episode of A Thought I Kept — that thought is:

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

It sounds simple. Even flippant. But for Emma, this thought has been a guide — first through trauma and grief, then through healing, change, and courage.

What began as a phrase loaded with anxiety slowly became something else: a spark of freedom, a tiny rebellion, a way to say yes to the wild, unpredictable mess of life.

In our conversation, we talk about the fear that underpins so many of our decisions. The kind of fear that keeps us small, silent, stuck. We explore what it means to let fear sit beside you instead of driving the car. We talk about grief, bravery, the emotional labour of friendship, and the quiet, daily choices that shape a life.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, unsure, anxious or flat, this podcast episode might just be the first small step (or a shift in direction or a sentence to hold onto) that you need.

From Fear to Freedom — What Shifts?

When we’re anxious or lost, our inner voice often says things like:

• What if I get it wrong?

• What if I fail?

• What if people judge me?

• What if I can’t cope?

That fear can feel so familiar it almost becomes comforting — a twisted safety net of at least I’m not risking anything. But, as Emma shares, fear doesn’t always need to be a stop sign. It can also be a jumping off point.

Because what if you changed the tone of the question?

Instead of fear, what if “what’s the worst that can happen?” came with a shoulder shrug, a grin, a let’s see energy?

So that it becomes not about recklessness, but more recognising that:

• Fear doesn’t always mean danger.

• You can survive discomfort.

• You might even discover something better.

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The Trial-and-Error Practice of Facing Fear

One of the most powerful parts of Emma’s story is how she’s come to face fear curiously — not through huge declarations or dramatic overhauls, but through presence and practice.

When she quit her job in aviation after 20 years, trained as a coach, and became a full-time writer, she didn’t do it all at once. It happened over time. Through grief. Through healing. Through honest questions like:

• What am I afraid of, really?

• What am I protecting myself from?

• What’s on the other side of this fear?

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or anxious right now, you don’t need to do anything drastic. But you might try asking yourself:

What’s one small thing I could try today… even if I’m scared?

That one thing might be sending a message, signing up for something, going for a swim, or starting a conversation. You don’t need to feel ready. You just need to feel curious.

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Emotional Energy is a Real Thing

We often talk about time and energy like they’re the same thing. But they’re not. Emotional energy is its own resource — and it can be quietly, completely draining when we’re holding too much.

Emma shared how she made the difficult decision to stop coaching — not because she didn’t love it, but because it took up emotional energy she needed to keep for herself, her daughters, and her writing.

If you’ve been feeling unusually tired, flat, or irritable — ask yourself:

• Where is my emotional energy going right now?

• What replenishes me?

• What depletes me?

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You Might Just Make a Friend

Loneliness is one of the most common themes I hear in my work — and one of the most painful to talk about. We tell ourselves we should be fine. We should have more friends by now. We shouldn’t need connection this much.

But we do. We all do.

In the episode, Emma and I talk about the challenge of making friends as adults. The awkwardness. The vulnerability. The real fear of rejection.

And yet — one of the simplest, most powerful reframes she offers is this:

“What’s the worst that can happen? You might just make a friend.”

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Listen to the Full Episode:

Transforming Fear into Adventure: A Conversation with Emma Simpson

Or search for A Thought I Kept wherever you get your podcasts.

A Thought I Kept is a wellbeing podcast for anyone feeling lost, anxious or stuck and who is searching for ideas to better navigate everyday life.

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Self-Reflection Prompts to Take This Further:

If you're feeling disconnected or unsure, here are three journal prompts to gently explore:

1. Where does fear show up most in my life right now?

2. What have I survived that once felt unsurvivable?

3. What might be waiting on the other side of “what’s the worst that can happen?

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If You’re in a Wobbly Place Right Now...

Just know that…

• You are resilient, even when you don’t feel it.

• You don’t need to fix everything. Just stay in motion.

• One small, brave thought can change everything.

You don’t have to leap. You just have to look up and say, “Maybe…”