After Christmas, I found myself feeling a deep longing for solitude. My middle son had been staying with us, which was utterly wonderful - he lives in America now and we won’t see him often in the years to come. I’d spent time with family and friends, all of which filled me with joy and deep connection. I was happy and connected, and desperately in need of time on my own to reset.

So why is it, I wonder, did I find myself feeling so utterly miserable, lonely and totally unmoored, alone on Friday evening. Why was the piercing pain of isolation so hard for me to bear?

Well, when I was imagining my alone time, I was picturing time on the mountains, time to read, to write, to meditate and stretch, to be who and how I wanted to be. I imagined a retreat style existence, living in harmony with my life, my values, my body and mind.

Which isn’t what I have at the moment.

Post surgery, I have abdominal wounds, with internal and external pain. I can’t drive, can’t walk further than around my house, and am completely dependent on other people for company, shopping and care. There’s no meditation, no stretching, no harmony, no sense of being on retreat.

I hadn’t really noticed before just how isolated my life is. I often spend time in the company of others. But I do spend more time on my own than with anyone else.

I’ve been single for a long time and just got into the habit of getting on with life, doing the things I want to do on my own more than with company. I might not have much money, but I’ve always been able to decide what I do with my time. I often do things on my own because I want to to them, and only when I’m in the middle of doing them do I think ‘Oh, this might have been more fun with a friend’. And because of my impulsive solo activities, I’m no longer part of anyone’s regular routine of life, no Friday evening drinks with friends, no day job, no regular catch ups to miss.

It took the forced isolation of forced rest to show me. And I didn’t like it.

I found myself sinking into self pity, misery, resentment, and some dark, spiralling thoughts. Luckily, I was able to catch these thoughts, and remind myself that I had lots of good people around me. That I was being cared for and supported. That I was tired and needed to rest even more than I thought I would have to. That my body is trying to heal, and I will be ok, but I’m a bit more fragile than I realised, physically and emotionally.

Yesterday, after my friend recommended I opt for ‘easy reading’ rather than trying to read the literary and self development books I’ve got on my ‘to be read’ list, I downloaded a book by poet , called Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. I’ve seen his work shared on social media, and thought this would be a beautiful, gentle, healing read.

I was absolutely correct in my assumption.

On opening it, and seeing that the first chapter was called ‘Alone’, I knew it was the book for me. I read that chapter (twice!) with tears in my eyes, as Whyte guided me tenderly to a new understanding of my situation, one that is filled with joy, acceptance and gratitude.

Our greatest fear, being cast out from the group

Whyte begins by addressing the challenges we feel when we are alone. In our ancient brains, being alone can feel like being cast out from the group. And to our primitive ancestors, being cast out from the group was most likely a death sentence.

We know how important connection is to our wellbeing. We know that babies raised without love and connection will struggle to survive, or will at best, have their development severely curtailed by the trauma of neglect.

And in our hyper connected, always on, social media obsessed society, we can mimic that feeling of connection in a few clicks on our magic rectangles in our pockets. How long can you be on your own for in a restaurant, or at a bus stop, before the phone comes out and you’re on social media? I’m far from judging. It’s a very conscious choice I sometimes make, and sometime can stick to, to keep my phone in my pocket during these brief pockets of alone time.

Whyte tells us, in one of the ‘often highlighted’ parts of his essay, that ‘the first step in spending time alone is to admit how afraid of it we are’.

I’ve always feared being on my own. As a child, I never really felt like I fitted in with any groups in school, always struggled to maintain friends, and never felt like I really belonged anywhere. I was desperate to belong, but a sense of alienation and rejection accompanied me for most of my life. The reason was clear to me…. other people didn’t want me in their life because of who I was.

I started drinking and taking drugs so I could fit in with a group of new friends who accepted me as I was, but all drank and took drugs. I thought I was fitting in, that I belonged, but 10 years sober me sees that all I was doing was putting on a mask made of cider and weed. It wasn’t the real me that was fitting in, it was a disguise I wore so I could pretend. And when I drank on my own, I was putting on the mask for myself, I didn’t even belong with myself.

When I got sober, I took some of my disguise off, and started to meet the real Esther and present her to the world. Discovering I have ADHD helped me take even more of the disguise off, as I let go of a lot of the pretence and attempts at being ‘normal’, and settled into my own brand of weird.

But if my recent journeys into the darker corners of my mental health have shown me anything, it’s that there are still plenty of dark corners, and that I still seem to be wearing a couple of masks.

Finding the true self

I noticed recently how very different I am when I’m on my own than when I’m with others. Last week, I even questioned if the depressed me that I so often am when I am in my own company is who I really am, and the bubbly, cheerful person I am when I’m in good company is a lie. But I know that it’s not. I can be bubbly and cheerful when I am with others because I can co-regulate with them, I benefit from the connection, the mental stimulation, the conversations, the shared experiences. Alone, there’s no-one for my bubbliness to bounce off, and I don’t have anyone to co-regulate with and to share my experiences with, so when those experiences feel painful, it’s easy to let them dominate my thinking.

David Whyte explains “To be alone for any length of time is to shed an outer skin. The body is inhabited in a different way when we are alone than when we are with others. Alone, we live in our bodies as a question rather than a statement”.

So I was partially correct in my wondering. I AM a different person, or a different version of my true self, with others than I am when alone. And it’s OK, completely natural in fact! I’m not faking, it’s just that our embodiment is different in company than it is when we’re alone.

We respond to the embodiment of the people we are with, nervous system connecting with nervous system. Alone, there is no one to co-regulate with, and if we are struggling with being alone, it can be hard to regulate ourselves. As Mark Walsh tells us, we aren’t design to regulate in isolation. We can, but we do it best when we can co-regulate with others, with nature, or some form of spirituality.

Stuck in the house, unable to get out to the mountains I so love, and lacking any form of meaningful faith, all I have when I’m alone is my own self regulation. And when I’m feeling weakened and exhausted by surgery and the healing process, tuning into my own self regulation skills is more challenging. My old faithful deep breaths, yoga and meditation are a bit of a challenge when a deep breath hurts, focusing on the body highlights all the places that are sore, and movement of any type can cause pain and intense tiredness.

But in this intense discomfort, there is opportunity for growth, for healing, and for peace.

Peace and healing in acceptance

Becoming aware of my anxieties about being alone, and the loneliness and fear that came with it allowed me to recognise what was happening. I was able to remind myself that my fears that I had been abandoned, rejected or shunned simply weren’t true. I was able to remind and reassure myself that I have friends checking in on my, family and friends who will change plans to help me when I need to go to or from hospital, and who want me to be well. I was able to reframe my discomfort at being alone by recognising that I had, in fact, got what I longed for only a month ago, even if the circumstances weren’t quite what I had in mind.

And I was able to recognise that I am ok on my own. I am used to it. I do well alone. I like the independence that comes with it. I like the peace I get from being single, a welcome relief to the emotional roller coasters most of my relationships have been. And I know that all my healing and growth, while it rests on the foundation of love and connection I have in abundance in my life, has all happened in quiet moments of solitude, when I allow myself to reflect on what is and what has been.

Finding Strength in Being Alone

We are social creatures, not meant to be alone all the time. But the more we learn to be comfortable in our own company, the stronger we become when we do connect with others. Can we sit with ourselves without distraction? Can we resist the urge to reach for our phones in moments of stillness? Can we be alone without feeling lonely?

Learning to be alone is learning to be with ourselves, exactly as we are.

Solitude is not something to be feared. It is a space where we meet ourselves with honesty, where we shed the outer skin of performance and expectation. It is an invitation to know ourselves deeply, without distraction. And in that knowing, we find peace.

How do you let yourself be alone with yourself in your daily life?

I’ve taken a break from the PEACEful Path of Recovery series that I’ve been sharing over recent weeks. After not being able to spend any time writing last week, David Whyte’s essay and recent thought journey’s I’ve been on inspired this piece, which simply demanded to be written. I’ll resume the PEACEful Path series next week, when we will look at Acceptance, something I have covered to a large extent in this essay.

You can catch up on the previous essays I’ve written in this series below

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Last year, when I took a month off from Facebook as my sober version of Dry January, I eagerly anticipated a month of creativity. That was what happened the last time I did this—when I emerged with a spontaneously written book! With at least five different book ideas swirling in my mind, I was certain that, in the absence of Facebook’s ever-present lure, one of them might finally emerge.

Oh, foolish, naïve child that I was.

In the absence of the scroll, there was no flurry of creativity. What revealed itself was far more painful.

A few days into my self-imposed social media exile, I erupted in rage at my son’s new phone, frustrated that I couldn’t add his Apple account to our Apple Music plan. I threw his phone onto the sofa, stormed to my bedroom, and surrendered to full-body sobs for fifteen minutes. My son cautiously entered the room and, in his quietest, most anxious voice, whispered, “Mum, I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry.” The tears and guilt that followed led me downstairs, where I took out the antidepressants I’d stopped a year prior and swallowed one.

The next few days were spent mostly in bed, exhaustion overtaking me, with sadness leaking from my face seemingly without reason. But, of course, there were plenty of reasons. Creating the space to stop distracting myself forced me to confront the truth about my mental health.

In A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Eckhart Tolle writes, “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” Without awareness of a problem, we can’t begin to make the changes needed to resolve it. If you don’t know your car has an issue, you won’t take it to the mechanic. The same is true for our emotional lives. Without awareness of how stressed, anxious, or unhappy you are, we cannot take steps to heal and change your life.

While it may seem obvious that we should know how we feel, the reality is often more complex. Many of us have had our emotions dismissed as children, being taught that crying is weak or shameful. You may have experienced trauma and learned to shut down painful emotions to survive. Modern life compounds this disconnection, with endless distractions like social media providing a convenient escape from emotional discomfort.

Last week, I talked about the wisdom of our emotions. How they signal what’s missing, what’s wrong, or what needs to change. But emotions can be overwhelming, and when faced with them, it’s tempting to retreat into behaviours that dull their edge. These coping mechanisms can feel like self-preservation. The brain perceives painful emotions as dangerous. Over time, these avoidance patterns become default coping strategies.

The problem is, emotions don’t disappear when ignored. They remain in the body, manifesting as physical and mental health issues if left unaddressed. This was the painful lesson I was learning. Over the past four years, I’d endured a series of challenges: getting my heart broken just before the COVID lockdown, dealing with my son’s chronic health issues through the pandemic, the isolation of the pandemic, and the existential dread it brought, all while trying to contend with a job I hated, my newly discovered ADHD, and the general ongoing strain of 2 decades as a single mother.

Just as life seemed to return to normal, my mother became ill, and I spent a year caring for her as she faded away. After her death, I rushed from one fun activity to another, trying to prove to myself and others that I was okay. I even wrote a post celebrating how great my summer was!

But I was far from okay. When I needed it most, I had stopped actively working on my recovery. I thought that as long as I was sober, I was clearly ok. Turning to alcohol never occurred to me apart from to be so very relieved I wasn’t drinking.

But although I was still sober, I was deep in grief, stressed, and depressed. Without social media to distract me, I began to notice what my body needed: rest, stillness, time in nature without headphones, meaningful connection with friends, and even antidepressants for a while. Slowly, I started to listen to the wisdom of my emotions and accepted some hard truths. Only then could I begin to recover.

Cultivating Awareness

Developing awareness is crucial to healing and recovery. My breakdown in January 2024 was long overdue, excruciatingly painful, and desperately needed. It was the second time a breakdown led me to healing and clarity, but I don’t recommend waiting for a crisis to force awareness upon you.

Instead, you can take small, intentional steps to increase your awareness of your thoughts, beliefs, and emotions, allowing you to address potential problems as they arise.

Here are a few simple, accessible practices that can help:

1. Mindful Breathing Spend five minutes each day focusing on your breath. Notice the sensations of inhaling and exhaling. When your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the breath.

2. Regular check ins Set a few alarms peppered throughout the day to remind you to stop and ask yourself, ‘how am I feeling right now. As you develop the habit of this, you might be able to pre-empt high stress, exhaustion, hunger etc, by recognising these feelings before they overwhelm you. (thanks to Mark Walsh and Embodiment Unlimited for this)

3. Body Scan: Take a few moments to mentally check in with your body. Notice areas of tension, discomfort, or ease. Simply observe without judgment.

4. Journaling: Set aside time to write freely about how you’re feeling. Use prompts like, “What emotions am I avoiding right now?” or “What does my body need today?”

5. Nature Walks: Go for a walk without your phone or headphones. Pay attention to the sights, sounds, and smells around you. Let nature guide you back to the present moment.

6. Pause and Reflect: When you notice strong emotions, pause before reacting. Ask yourself, “What am I feeling right now? What triggered this?”

These small practices build the foundation for deeper awareness and healing. Over time, they can help you reconnect with your body, emotions, and environment, allowing you to respond to life with greater clarity and compassion.

Resources for paid subscribers

This week, paid subscribers get resources to help open up your awareness in a nurturing, gentle way. Scroll down, or upgrade your subscription for access to these powerful tools:

1. Guided Meditation for Emotional Awareness: A 10-minute audio meditation to help you connect with and name your emotions in a safe, supportive way.

2. Awareness Journal Prompts: A printable set of prompts designed to guide self-reflection

3. Phone lock screen to help in moments of tech distraction: On a recent coaching call (with my coach Christina Dohr), we discussed some valuable questions for me to ask myself in times of challenge. I soon realised I could use them to change my relationship with my phone and the many dopamine dispensers that live within it. I created a lock screen for my phone. and I am sharing the design with my paid subscribers so you can try it for yourself!

So you’re aware, what now?

Becoming aware of your reality is the first step. It can be hard to face the truths you find when you move into greater awareness, so approaching these practices carefully, with self compassion, and reaching out for support when needed is vital. Go gently, and take care as you begin to open up your awareness.

As Nathaniel Brandon said, “The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.”. That can be a hard but vital step on the road to healing and recovery, and this is what we shall explore next week. Get this and my other essays in your inbox by subscribing below, and I’ll see you next week!

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Emotions are powerful, aren’t they? They can feel overwhelming, confusing, or even impossible to face. For many of us, especially in recovery, emotions often feel like the enemy, the biggest threat to the safety of your recovery. But what if they were something else entirely? What if they were your greatest teachers, guiding you toward healing and growth?

The second part of The PEACEful Path of Recovery is about the emotions. But in many ways, it’s the most important part. Your emotions drive so much of your behaviour, on a day to day basis. This is true of everyone, not just people in recovery, but when you are in recovery, paying attention to your emotions can play a huge part in the recovery process. As I’ll explore, your emotions play a big part on the development of any addiction, and so it follows that unpicking those emotions, and finding ways to deal with them in a less destructive manner, is vital for sustainable wellbeing, recovery and happiness. It’s not just about handling emotions in the moment but learning to understand what they reveal about your deeper needs and values.

In October 2013, I attempted Sober October, a whole month without alcohol. Given that I struggled to go more than 3 days without a drink at this point, and every alcohol free day was a conscious and hard fought choice, it was a bit of a challenging prospect to say the least.

Particularly considering that on the 3rd, I was in the family court with my ex, battling over disputes about our son. We’d been at war for so long, I was already exhausted. And after a day trying to advocate for my son and myself, and feeling like every decision made worked against what was best for both of us, I left feeling defeated, hopeless, and utterly alone.

When I went to my friend’s house to pick up my son, she offered me a glass of wine. Nothing unusual there, we were very frequent drinking buddies and the offered glass was our usual routine. Initially I refused, reminding her. “I’m doing Sober October,”

“Fuck that”, she decided. “You’ve had a hard day, you need it, it’ll help you relax.”

I didn’t refuse again.

One glass turned into finishing the bottle together, and on the way home, I bought another bottle to drink alone after my son was in bed. By the third day of October, my attempt at sobriety was over.

I still remember that sense of ‘well, that’s just who I am then, I can’t stop drinking, so why even bother trying. I was so broken down by years of conflict and emotional attacks that I had no fight left in me anymore. I certainly couldn’t fight against my own brain. I thought I needed alcohol to help me relax during difficult times of my life. But I now see that drinking wasn’t about relaxing. I was numbing. Numbing the pain, the fear, the stress, the isolation. They all felt unbearable, and drinking seemed like the only way to escape them.

What Are Emotions Really Telling Us?

We often think of emotions as living in our heads because that’s where we process and label them. But emotions actually begin as physiological reactions in the body. We don’t think our emotions, they aren’t a logical thought process. We feel them, they are a tangible, sensory experience

Your nervous system is constantly scanning your environment—both external and internal—for threats and signs of safety. This process, called neuroception, happens before your conscious brain even knows what’s going on. For example:

• When you walk into a room, you might feel a knot in your stomach or tension in your shoulders before you consciously register the tense atmosphere, even before anyone has said a word.

• When you hear a sudden noise, your heart starts to race, your body flinches and your senses heighten to protect you from the thread before your brain identifies the sound as harmless.

• You’re walking down the street and see someone you love walking towards you. Your body relaxes, your face begins to smile and you feel a lightness and warmth in your chest before you think, “There’s my friend, I’m happy to see them.”

Your body knows how you’re feeling long before your mind does. Emotions are signals, guiding you to pay attention to something important. But when we numb or avoid them—whether through alcohol, overwork, or distraction—we miss the opportunity to understand what they’re telling us.

Had I stayed sober on that 3rd of October, and had the capacity to sit with those emotions, maybe meditating or journaling on them, I’d have learned a great deal about myself, my true feelings, and what was important to me in that moment. And with that awareness, and capacity to regulate my emotions, I might have been able to take positive action to improve my circumstances. In the absence of that ability, I felt utterly hopeless, and had no other path to me but to numb those feelings.

Dr. Lance Dodes, in his book The Heart of Addiction, explains this behaviour: "Addictions are an attempt to preserve control over your feelings and your life and respond assertively to helplessness."

When life feels uncontrollable, engaging in addictive behaviours can create an illusion of regaining control. It promises relief from emotional pain, even if only for a little while, and even if, ultimately, the cravings and needs of addiction create more emotional pain than it ever relieves.

For me, the stress, fear, and hopelessness I felt in family court were signals. They were trying to tell me something:

• Fear was highlighting how unsafe I felt. Not only did I fear my ex on a very personal level after a lengthy campaign of emotional abuse, but I feared that he was going to take my child from me

• Stress was showing me I was overwhelmed and needed support. I felt isolated and trapped in a difficult relationship (even after it ended) and was struggling to trust many people around me. I was also riddled with shame that made it hard for me to open up about my struggles

• Hopelessness was pointing to my need for boundaries and a sense of agency. I felt that no one was listening to my worries, taking my concerns or needs into account, and that I had no control over anything that was happening.

But I didn’t know how to listen to those signals. Instead, I turned to drinking, which temporarily dulled the pain but left the underlying issues untouched. This is why emotional awareness is so vital in recovery. It allows us to respond to emotions with curiosity and care rather than avoidance.

Tools for Processing Emotions

The following October, I had an entirely different experience in my relationship with alcohol. I realised I didn’t need it anymore. Around six months into a year long Yoga teacher training course, I experienced the sort of hangover that makes you wonder if you’d have been better off if you’d never woken up. But somewhere through the piercing headache, debilitating fatigue and post booze anxiety and self loathing, I had a profound realisation.

I couldn’t understand why i’d done this to myself. Not because the night before wasn’t fun, or anything awful had happened. It had been a great night.

But I knew with every fibre of my exhausted, hungover being, that I didn’t need it. And I deserved better.

I didn’t need booze to help me manage my emotions anymore. I could use my breath to soothe myself, creating space between the intensity of my emotions and my reactions in ways that booze never allowed.

Yoga taught me to tolerate the discomfort of difficult emotions rather than running from them. It gave me the tools to sit with my feelings and process them, even when they felt overwhelming. Through breathwork and meditation, I began to understand that emotions were not my enemy; they were messengers guiding me toward what needed my attention.

Writing became another vital practice during this time. By putting my thoughts and feelings onto the page, I could explore and untangle the stories behind my emotions. Journaling helped me uncover truths about myself and my patterns that I had been too afraid or too numb to face before.

This newfound ability to breathe through discomfort, sit with my emotions, and process them through writing played a critical role in my recovery. It wasn’t easy, and it didn’t happen overnight. But these practices gave me a healthier way to respond to my emotions that didn’t involve numbing them with alcohol.

You can read more about my unexpected recovery here…..

Learning to work with emotions takes practice, but it’s possible. Here are some tools that have helped me and many others:

• Breathing Exercises: Slow, deep breaths calm the nervous system and create space to process emotions.

• Journaling: Writing about your feelings can help you untangle and understand them.

• Embodied Awareness: Pay attention to how emotions show up in your body. For example, tight shoulders might signal stress or frustration.

• Movement: Activities like yoga or walking can help release stored emotions and bring clarity.

• Mindfulness Practices: Simply sitting with an emotion without judgment, noticing how you feel without trying to explain it or chase it away, can transform how you experience it.

You can read the last essay on the Practice part of The PEACEful Path of Recovery below

Emotions can be guides for deeper change

Emotions aren’t just something to be managed—they’re guides that can lead you toward deeper truths about yourself. For example:

• Anger might reveal where your boundaries are being crossed.

• Grief might highlight what you value and miss.

• Stress might show you that something in your life needs to change.

By becoming more attuned to these signals, you can make choices that align with your values and create a life that feels authentic and fulfilling. This isn’t just about managing emotions in the moment—it’s about reshaping your life in a way that reduces emotional pain altogether.

When you can sit with the pain, and allow it to be heard, you might find ourselves overwhelmed by it for a while, but eventually, it can clear the way for healing and growth, as I discovered and wrote about last year.

Listening to Your Emotions

If you’re struggling with overwhelming emotions, remember this: Your emotions are not your enemy. They are signals, asking for your attention. By learning to listen to them, you can uncover the wisdom they hold and create a life of peace and purpose.

The next time you feel a wave of stress, anger, or fear, pause. Take a deep breath. Ask yourself: “What is this emotion trying to tell me?” It might just lead you to the changes you need to thrive.

Resources for Paid subscribers

With this series I am offering some extra resources for my wonderful paid subscribers. To accompany this week’s essay, I am offering

• Some journal questions to help you uncover the practices that will help you most, and how to incorporate them into your life

• A simple practice to integrate into your day, to help you connect with the body, and centre yourself.

If you’d like to access the resources I will be making available to paid subscribers, you can subscribe below.

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Next week, we will be looking into the A on the PEACEful Path of Recovery…. the importance of Awareness and Acceptance. I’ve already touched on this a little, and I can’t wait to share more with you!

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I wandered into my recovery by accident. I only signed up to train to be a Yoga teacher. If someone had told me that I’d end up 6 months sober when I got my teaching certificate, I might have thought twice about the whole idea!

But the practices I learned and enjoyed most days gave me gifts that went beyond being able to teach them. They helped me to release and heal years of pain, shame, self loathing and so much more. The day I decided to be kinder to myself and choose sobriety, I did it knowing I had resources available to support myself during the hard times that I’d never had before. I no longer needed to drink my problems away, I could breathe, stretch and write them away.

I was sure that Yoga was vital for my recovery and wellbeing, and worried that if I stopped, I might start drinking again.

But then I stopped practicing Yoga. I had fallen out of love with it, and lost interest in it. And at the worst possible time - still stressed out from Covid and all the stress that had brought, and now dealing with the grief of watching my mother fade away over a year.

My body missed it. I got stiff. I developed tennis elbow, lower back pain, tendonitis in my shoulder, gallstones, pain in my neck.

My mind was noisy. I spent all of last year keeping myself very busy, rushing from one exciting adventure or challenge to the next, barely pausing for breath. I trained to be a meditation teacher, and embodiment coach, but as soon as the courses were over, I stopped those practices too. I stopped exercising. I gained weight. I slept poorly.

There was also, I think, an element of not wanting the silence of my Yoga mat, which meant that there was nothing to distract myself from it all the pain, overwhelm and sadness I was feeling. But if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that avoiding the painful thoughts and feelings doesn't make them go away - quite the opposite in fact! I didn’t stop thinking about the painful stuff just because I wasn’t letting myself get still. I simply wasn’t giving myself the change to process them in a compassionate, nurturing way.

With hindsight, the mental health crash I’ve experienced this year was inevitable. Stopping my Yoga practice hadn’t sent me back to the booze, but I had stopped taking care of myself, and that hurt my recovery.

I used to think “as long as I’m sober, Im ok”. But I was missing the point. Recovery isn’t simply about not doing the thing you’re trying to avoid. It’s about creating a better life, a life in which you can thrive.

The Power of Practice

This is why Pratice is a vital part of The PEACEful Path of Recovery. And to do that, you need to find the practices that support and nourish your wellbeing, enhance your connection with yourself, and give you a healthy way to process your emotions. For me it’s Yoga (I’ve fallen back in love with it now!), walking and being in nature, writing and, increasingly, swimming and being in the sauna.

It could be argued that the whole path of recovery, whatever path you choose, is a practice. If addiction is the build up of habitual, conditioned responses to difficult emotions and experiences, as I believe it to be, then the way out of that is to create new habitual, conditioned responses that support wellbeing and a meaningful life. I was able to walk away from 20 years of addictive drinking because the practices I learned on Yoga teacher training gave me the ability to face my pain and unhappiness, so I no longer needed to ‘drown my sorrows’. Those practices allowed me to begin my recovery, and gave me so much more - my life was better each day that started on my Yoga mat, or when I was in my walking boots on a mountain.

This didn’t happen after the first class of my YTT course, I needed to embed those practices into my daily life so that they became as natural to my responses as reaching for a drink or a cigarette once were. I had to practice, and make them a regular part of my life.

I was spending a lot of time on my yoga mat each day, and over time it became unsustainable. Life gets busy, and when life is busy, and responsibilities are weighing you down, it’s often the self care, the daily practices that we let go of first, After all, I couldn’t stop feeding my son, doing my work or caring for my mother. So it felt not only easy but necessary to drop my self care practices.

And inevitably, my lack of self care caught up with me, and I crashed. I didn’t drink. But I most definitely was not ok.

Finding Sustainable Practices

Looking back, I realise that I had fallen into an all-or-nothing mindset about practice. At one point, I was doing so much Yoga, so much self-care, that when life got busier and harder, I felt I couldn’t keep up. Instead of adjusting and allowing for smaller, more manageable ways to care for myself, I let it go. I’d also become disillusioned with much of the Yoga and ‘wellness’ world, and instead of only looking at the parts I knew worked for me, I used that as justification for walking away from it all.

It’s a trap many of us fall into. We think that if we can’t do it perfectly, it’s not worth doing at all. But the truth is, self-care doesn’t have to be an elaborate ritual. Sustainable practice means finding the small, meaningful actions we can commit to, even on our hardest days. Sometimes, it’s as simple as taking three deep breaths in the car before going into a meeting, jotting down a single thought in a journal, or walking around the block for five minutes.

Richard Louv, in The Nature Principle, reminds us that even brief moments of connection—to ourselves or the natural world—can have profound impacts on our wellbeing. It doesn’t require climbing mountains every weekend or spending hours meditating. Sometimes, it’s just stepping outside, noticing the feel of the wind on your face, or listening to birdsong for a few moments. These small practices are often the ones that ground us most effectively when life feels chaotic.

Thriving in Recovery

Recovery isn’t about achieving perfection. It’s about learning, adapting, and showing yourself compassion along the way. There will be times when you stumble, when life feels too busy or too heavy to carry on with your practices. That’s okay. One of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned is that you can always come back to them.

Reconnecting with Yoga has been like coming home to myself. It reminds me that practices are not only about what we do but about how we feel while doing them. They are acts of care, moments of presence, and ways to connect with ourselves. But what works for me might not work for you. Your practice could be writing, gardening, painting, cooking, or simply sitting quietly with a cup of tea. What matters is that it nourishes you, gives you a moment to pause, and reminds you that you matter.

Ian Banyard, in Natural Mindfulness, talks about practices as a bridge between being and doing—ways to bring ourselves into the present moment and connect with the world around us. It’s through these small, intentional actions that we create a life worth living.

So let your practices, however small, become a way of telling yourself, “I am worth this.” Because you are. And when you choose to take care of yourself, even in the smallest ways, you’re not just maintaining your recovery—you’re building a life where recovery isn’t just possible but full of joy, meaning, and connection.

As you move forward, think about one small thing you can do today to support yourself. Maybe it’s taking a mindful breath, stepping outside for a moment of fresh air, or writing down one thing you’re grateful for. Whatever it is, know that it’s enough.

The power of practice lies not in grand gestures but in the quiet, consistent choices we make to care for ourselves, no matter how busy or overwhelmed we may feel. These small acts of kindness toward yourself are what sustain recovery and lead to a life where you don’t just survive—you thrive.

A Gentle Invitation

So here’s my invitation to you: pause and ask yourself—what practices support you? What are the small, simple things that help you feel grounded, connected, or at peace? It doesn’t have to be something new or complex. Perhaps it’s something you’ve done before and loved, or something you’ve been curious about trying.

Take a moment to reflect on what makes you feel alive, or even just a little lighter. Lance Dodes, in Breaking Addiction, emphasizes that recovery is less about removing the destructive behaviours and more about filling our lives with meaning and healthy ways of managing emotions. Practices that centre you, that make space for reflection and connection, become tools you can turn to when life feels overwhelming.

You don’t have to overhaul your life or start a dozen new habits overnight. Choose one small practice—something achievable and kind to yourself. Let it be something you look forward to, rather than another item on your to-do list. And then, when you’ve committed to it, be consistent. The power of practice lies not in its size but in its repetition.

Resources for Paid subscribers

As promised, with this series I am offering some extra resources for my wonderful paid subscribers. To accompany this week’s essay, I am offering

• Some journal questions to help you uncover the practices that will help you most, and how to incorporate them into your life

• A simple practice to integrate into your day, to help you connect with the body, and centre yourself.

If you’d like to access the resources I will be making available to paid subscribers, you can subscribe below.

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Next week, we will be looking into the other P on the PEACEful Path of Recovery…. the power of Purpose. I can’t wait to share it with you!

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This is a long post, that won’t all show up in your email, so please click through to read it all…..

The PEACEful Path of Recovery

I’m getting everything ready to share the first essay in my new series exploring The PEACEful Path of Recovery, starting on January 1st. The essays will be available to all, and there will be a chat set up for all subscribers to share ideas and insights. Paid subscribers will also get practices, journal questions and other resources to support their journey on The PEACEful Path. They’ll also be able to join in the comments, apparently Substack won’t let me open comments up on paid posts!

I’d love to be able to share this with you, so if you’re not already subscribed, please join me on The PEACEful Path

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Finding sanctuary in the pages

At the start of the year, I fell apart. Spectacularly, miserably, painfully, absolutely. After some of the hardest years of my life, something had to give. And what gave was my ability to cope or function. Utterly exhausted, barely able to stay out of bed, liable to cry over anything at all, and often scarily reliant on my teenage son for food, I was a broken woman.

I spent more time in my bed, under my covers, than I spent out of it. I’d been running from the truth of my mental health for a long time. But after a very spontaneous decision to take a month off from social media, I couldn’t distract myself from it any longer, and I collapsed.

It’s certainly been an interesting year. One that has taught me more about recovery and mental health than all the courses I’ve done combined. It’s taught me about the importance of facing the things that hurt, of allowing yourself to ask for help, and let yourself receive it, of rest, self care, healing, and self compassion. It forced me to face my vulnerabilities, and to give myself the grace where those vulnerabilities are concerned.

While it’s been an awful, painful and hugely challenging year, it’s not been without its gifts. Quite apart from those important lessons I received, this yar I’ve been able to return joyfully and easefully to something that younger me adored to do.

Ever since the arrival of social media into my life and diminished attention span, I’ve found reading to be a colossal challenge. I could blame the ADHD, but I know that when I was younger, with undiagnosed ADHD, reading wasn’t a problem. If anything, getting me to put my book down and do something else was the challenge! The internet, and a busy life, no doubt, had taken that away from me.

But this year, depression (and a social media detox) gave it back to me. Quite early on in the year, I realized there was a good chance I’d get a lot more reading done this year, so I started logging my completed reads on Goodreads, and set myself a goal to read 50 books.

I have completed 55 books, with one due to be finished before the year ends!

As I presume as a Substack reader, you’re partial to the written word, I thought I’d share them with you, along with a few words about each book.

January

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by (Completed on 11 January 2024)

A friend gave this to me in 2023. I read it, but it took me about 9 months to complete. This year I picked it up a few days after logging out of Facebook for the month, and finished it in about 4 days! I was reading this as I was becoming painfully aware how bad my mental health had got, and it gave me permission not only to rest, but to surrender to this, my own personal Winter. It inspired me to write what is probably my favourite, and most vulnerable essay this year

You can read more of Katherine’s work on her Substack, and I can’t recommend it enough!

The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn (Completed on 18 January 2024)

I adored Raynor Winn’s first book, The Salt Path, and buoyed up by my joy at completing Wintering, I hurried to my local library, and devoured this next book. It’s another beautiful read, that made me want to walk far more than my body felt capable of!

The Electricity of Every Living Thing by (Completed on 27 January 2024)

This was my first audiobook of the year, when I realized that Katherine herself narrates it. As a late diagnosed neurodivergent woman, I related to the journey of self discovery Katherine writes about, as well as wanting to do all the walks she took me on through her words (this has been a theme of many of the books I read this year!)

Who Let the Gods Out? by Maz Evans (Completed on 29 January 2024)

One of the books on my list that is proof that I still managed to do parenting even when things were tough. My son and I sometimes enjoy audiobooks together, this was one that made me laugh and laugh even when I felt wretched!

February

Lit by Mary Karr (Completed on 06 February 2024)

This was another audible book, and another book I had ‘read’ before. I’d listened to this very early on in my recovery journey, and was very keen to revisit it. Karr’s writing style and her narration make for a compelling story and listening experience, and I loved it this time probably more than the first time.

The Enchanted Life by (Completed on 12 February 2024)

I think this came my way as an audible suggestion, based on other books I’d read this year. I am so glad I took it. I ended up listening to this one twice, and most of Sharon’s other books! It encouraged me to pay more attention to the place I live in, and to begin to re-evaluate how much I really do belong here, something I had never felt before.

You can read more of Sharon’s work on her Substack here

The Owl Service by Alan Garner (Completed on 15 February 2024)

My son was reading this at school, and I was instantly transported back to my own school days, when I first read, and fell in love with, this book. I had to read it again, and while it was a lot stranger than I remembered, I adored reconnecting with my inner child and her love of magic and mystery!

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly (Completed on 17 February 2024)

I joined my local library’s book club, and threw myself wholeheartedly into this first book of my time in the club. Not the sort of book I would have normally gone for, this was an incredible read.

Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life by (Completed on 22 February 2024)

Aware that one of the issues I needed to clear up in my mind was my relationship with aging. Sharon Blackie’s book helped me to clear away some of the negative impressions I had of aging, and allowed me to begin to explore the gifts it was giving me. It also helped me to see the role my mother had played in my life, and the life of those who knew her.

Simply the Quest by Maz Evans (Completed on 27 February 2024)

More madcap Greek god adventures from Maz Evans. My son and I thoroughly enjoyed this second book in the series. Unfortunately for me, he lost interest half way through the 3^rd one, so we never got to complete that!

March

If Women Rose Rooted: A Life-Changing Journey to Authenticity and Belonging by (Completed on 06 March 2024)

Another inspirational, uplifting book that reminds us that we women have power, and that we can rise above the conditioning and stereotypes!

A Walk from the Wild Edge by Jake Tyler (Completed on 06 March 2024)

Another book that made me want to grab my backpack and go for a very long walk. Jake Tyler’s story of how he overcame his mental health problems through the power of walking, solitude, reflection and time in nature kept me engrossed.

Two Women Walk into a Bar by (Completed on 06 March 2024)

A short story that charts Cheryl’s emotional journey to healing and understanding with her mother in law, as the elder woman faces the last few weeks of her life. Although brief, the book was profoundly moving, and made my eyes leak quite a lot!

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Completed on 08 March 2024)

Joan Didion’s memoir of the deep, unfathomable grief she felt at the death of both her daughter and her husband is a powerful exploration of the bewilderment and disbelief that can characterise the grief we feel at the death of a loved one. I can relate to her desire to make things be different, and her inability to truly comprehend the finality of her bereavement. I listened to this on Audible, narrated by Vanessa Redgrave, it’s heartbreakingly beautiful

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles (Completed on 10 March 2024)

This was another book from the library book club. It tells the story of the people who work in, and spend time in the library in Paris as the Nazi’s are moving towards the French capital. A compelling, harrowing, sometimes devastating, sometimes beautiful rollercoaster of a book. I couldn’t put it down!

Green Shoots by Ben Westwood (Completed on 13 March 2024)

The book club had two books this month, and this page turner eco-thriller was the other one. It was a compelling narrative with a strong environmental message.

Enchantment: Reawakening Wonder in an Exhausted Age by (Completed on 15 March 2024)

This was the first signed hardback book I’ve pre-ordered in a very long time… and it was totally worth the wait. A reminder to us all to find the wonder and magic in our daily lives, it was exactly what I needed as I trudged through the swamp of my depression.

Into the Forest: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Qing Li (Completed on 19 March 2024)

One thing that I really leaned into this year was the healing power of nature. I’ve known for years that being in nature soothes and heals me, and this year I experienced it very powerfully. I was also enrolled on a ‘Wellbeing in Nature’ course, and wanted to learn more about the science of it as well. Forest bathing is increasingly well understood to be a huge boost for mental health, and this book explains why, and how to get the most from your forest bathing experiences

Return to My Trees: Notes from the Welsh Woodlands by Matthew Yeomans (Completed on 28 March 2024)

This book was gifted to me for my 50th birthday, because of my love of nature, and the tattoo on my chest that has the words ‘Return to your trees’ in Welsh. It took me a long time to read this book, but I persevered and thoroughly enjoyed it. It also made me want to get my walking boots on and go for a long walk, as the theme of the book is walking through the forests of Wales.

April

Birdsong in a Time of Silence by Steven Lovatt (Completed on 13 April 2024)

A gorgeous book, reflecting on the time during lockdown when we all became aware of the birdsong that filled the air when we got quieter. The audible version has the added bonus of birdsong to start each chapter. A glorious book that will make you want to learn more about the birds that sing around you

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Completed on 29 April 2024)

My son is studying this for his English Literature GCSE, so I read it so I would be able to talk to him about it and help him understand it

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Completed on 30 April 2024)

Another library book club selection, and another book that I’d never have read otherwise. It was fascinating, an incredible insight into a world and a time I have never known, as well as the psychology of a killer.

May

Landlines by Raynor Winn (Completed on 07 May 2024)

I had to wait several weeks to get Raynor Winn’s third book from the library, and boy oh boy was it worth the wait! Heartbreaking, utterly inspirational, a real emotional roller coaster, wrapped up in travel and nature writing that again, made me want to start walking and never stop. Raynor writes so exquisitely about pain and beauty, love and heartbreak, sometimes at the same time. If you haven’t read her work, please, stop reading this and go read one of her books now!

The Wild Remedy: How Nature Mends Us - A Diary by Emma Mitchell (Completed on 21 May 2024)

Another gorgeous book on the power of nature to heal and restore us to mental health. There was a real theme to most of the books I was choosing to read this year, and this one was no exception. I listened to this on audiobook, and shed many tears of recognition as Emma discussed her depression, and the way that being in nature supports and soothes her

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel (Completed on 26 May 2024)

This was another book club selection. It was a compelling read, and certainly interesting to try to remember that the characters I was following weren’t the same as modern man, however much the story made me forget that fact. There are a number of other books in the series, and while I enjoyed this first one, I haven’t felt any need to read anymore.

June

Cured The Memoir by

Sarah Fay is kinda famous here on Substack for. But as well as all the work she does to support Substack writers, she’s also written and serialised her own memoir right here on Substack, taking us through how she learned to move from mental illness to finding her own path to wellbeing and cure. It’s inspirational stuff that helped me to recognise that maybe I’ve always lived with depression and likely always will, but I don’t need to let it define me, or spend the rest of my life in pursuit of the ‘ideal’ prescription. Understanding my triggers, knowing how to practice meaningful self care, recognising when I’m overwhelmed and heading back to burnout, and practicing the things that keep me well, I already knew all this but Sarah’s memoir helped it to make concrete sense at a time when nothing much did!

Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce (Completed on 05 June 2024)

This was another book club selection, and probably the book I’ve read fastest all year! My Goodreads review said “Couldn't stop reading this. I started it last night. Came to bed at about 9.30 about 40% in. Just finished it at 1am. It's been YEARS since I've done that with a book! Deeply dislikeable central characters, and some emotionally difficult scenes, but the pace and intrigue kept me utterly hooked!”

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach (Completed on 06 June 2024)

You can definitely tell from my battered copy of this book that this is one I return to time and again. I totally relate to Jonathan’s sense of not fitting in with his flock, of feeling like he belongs somewhere else, and is meant to do something different. This time I read it on my Kindle, where I discovered a new chapter that filled my heart with joy!

Cut and Thirst by (Completed on 06 June 2024)

A delightful short story of murder and retribution, told as only Margaret Atwood can. An easy read, at only 35 pages on Kindle, I enjoyed this as my bedtime read.

Grown Ups by Marian Keyes (Completed on 07 June 2024)

A bit of light relief from the wonderful Marian Keyes. I listened to this on Audible, narrated by Marian herself, so the Irishness of her writing, and the wit and comedy, just washes over you delightfully.

The Tree Forager: 40 Extraordinary Trees & What to Do with Them by Adele Nozedar (Completed on 09 June 2024)

Adele trained to be a Yoga teacher at the same studio I did, so while I don’t know her personally, I feel a kinship through our shared love of yoga and nature. This was a gorgeous book that made me want to spend even more time outside near trees, and gave me greater appreciation for all they give us.

My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood (Completed on 11 June 2024)

Another delicious short story from Margaret Atwood, about the complexities of the mother/daughter relationship, and the added complexities when the mother is a witch!

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski (Completed on 13 June 2024)

If there was a book I needed to read this year, it was this one. I first started listening to it when my mother was ill, but couldn’t deal with it then. But this year, I was able to appreciate the great wisdom and compassion it contains

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Completed on 18 June 2024)

This was one of those “I probably should read this book” sort of choices, an attempt perhaps to bring some more intellectual reading into my life! I I was pretty underwhelmed and couldn’t quite work out why it was so popular! But then I discovered that the version I got from Kindle was a really weird, maybe AI generated edit of it, so it’s still on my ‘read one day’ list as I suspect the original is probably far better! Beware of cheap kindle versions of great books!

July

Educated by Tara Westover (Completed on 15 July 2024)

This was a fascinating, heartbreaking account of Tara Westover’s life growing up a home educated Mormon, and what it cost her to finally get a real education. Not always easy to read, as she shared stories of cruelty, abuse, and neglect, but her strength and determination to escape the limits her early life placed on her is inspiring

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Completed on 22 July 2024)

I was going to buy this book in paperback, then discovered that Robin Wall Kimmerer narrates the audiobook. I’d heard her voice before, and knew I wanted to hear her read this book to me. The book is incredible, a heartfelt treatise on the importance of meaningful connection to nature, and the traditional Native American culture and wisdom that is so intwined with the land. It’s hard to listen to it and get angry for the way both the land and the First Nation peoples have been treated for the sake of Western progress, but with the beautiful language and calming narration, this book feels often like a meditation.

Existential Kink: Unmask Your Shadow and Embrace Your Power (A method for getting what you want by getting off on what you don't) by Carolyn Elliott (Completed on 26 July 2024)

This was a recommendation by , the embodiment teacher, on one of his training calls. Having explored shadow work before, I was familiar with the idea that we get something positive from the things we do that cause us pain, and reading the book, pondering the questions asked in it, lead to some interesting discoveries! Highly recommended if you keep asking yourself ‘Why do I keep doing this to myself?’

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by (Completed on 29 July 2024)

I’m pretty fascinated by cults, and binge podcasts on the subject on a regular basis. This was an insightful and eye opening look into the most powerful tool any wannabe cult leader has at their disposal, language. And how that ‘cultish’ language isn’t just used by recognisable cults, but in things we might interact with in daily life. You can also listen to Amanda’s podcast, Sounds like a Cult, and subscribe to her Substack here.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Completed on 30 July 2024)

I wasn't sure I'd be able to get through this at times. The changes in punctuation and writing style that represent different characters were quite jarring a lot of the time, and tested my determination. But the story and the characters kept me reading. And I'm so glad I did. What a great book! Intriguing to the end.

August

Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh (Completed on 31 August 2024)

Mindfulness is a valuable tool for someone living, as I do, with ADHD, depression and grief. These things also tend to make it sometimes very difficult to remember to be mindful, so this book was a beautiful reminder that peace is available to us in any moment, if we just remember to find it for ourselves.

Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens by David Mitchell (Completed on 31 August 2024)

This was this month’s book club choice, and as an ardent anti-Royalist, I wasn’t at all impressed. Until I saw that David Mitchell (a British comedian as well as the book’s author) was narrating it. It was very entertaining, and I was delighted to discover that the more I learned about the British Royal Family, the more anti royalty I became!

September

The Chain by Adrian McKinty (Completed on 08 September 2024)

This month’s book club selection was my favourite sort of novel, a twisty, turny thriller that was impossible to stop reading! I was obsessed, and found myself walking around the house reading it, unable to put it down. Utterly compelling reading. Sadly this was my last book club for the rest of the year, as other things got in the way of my attendance, but I’m going to the library later to get this month’s book ahead of next week’s meeting.

The Part That Burns by (Completed on 13 September 2024)

Utterly beautiful. I love Jeannine's writing here on Substack, where I first met her. I knew some of the stories of this book through reading them there, but still her writing captivated and carried me through this book. Subscribe to Jeannine’s Substack here

October

Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman (Completed on 03 October 2024)

I read this book because it was part of ’s book club. If you think you can’t meditate, then this book is for you. It breaks down the mystery and mysticism that can surround meditation, and offers a 4 week path to a calmer, simpler mind, and a calmer, simpler life.

Berserker! by Adrian Edmondson (Completed on 06 October 2024)

Utterly wonderful. Funny, open, fascinating and moving. It's so easy to think of Adrian Edmondson as the comedy characters he's so famous for, but there is so much more to him than that. Such an interesting man, and a wonderful book. I listened to it on Spotify, he narrates it himself, and I'm so very glad I did, it felt like he was telling me his stories, rather than simply narrating a book

Kokoro: Japanese Wisdom for a Life Well-lived by (Completed on 10 October 2024)

Beautiful book. I listened to the audio version narrated by the Beth. It made me cry lots, particularly when she talks about her Mum’s illness and death. But even with the sadness that gave me, the book overall was very uplifting and inspiring. Youcan subscribe to Beth’s Substack here

The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr (Completed on 18 October 2024)

Mark Karr knows a thing or two about writing memoir. I love her no nonsense approach to writing and truth telling, If you want to know how to tell difficult stories from your life, and to tell them well, this book will help and inspire you.

Bright Shining: How Grace Changes Everything by Julia Baird (Completed on 23 October 2024)

As I emerged from a really hard year, and with the world seeming ever more determined to fill me with fear, ’s November book club suggestion seemed perfectly chosen. How can we find grace when everything seems so hard, so unfair, so scary? This book explores that, and why it’s so beneficial to us to do that, for ourselves, the people we love and the world around us.

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane (Completed on 30 October 2024)

Robert McFarlane is a giant among nature writers. I’ve had his books on my ‘must read’ list for a long time, and I was so glad to finally read one. This is such a beautiful exploration of not only old paths, but the people, history, the rituals and pilgrimages and the stories they hold.

November

Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark by Julia Baird (Completed on 14 November 2024)

Having enjoyed Julia Baird’s book so much last month, I was delighted to discover this one, which inspires the reader to find the magic and beauty in the every day, and the challenging, so that no matter what is happening in life, we can access our own source of light, no matter how dark things seem.

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff (Completed on 15 November 2024)

This was a truly delightful look at Taoism through the lens of that great philosopher and wise mystic, Winnie the Pooh. It made me want to both read more about Taoism, and revisit the Winne the Pooh collection!

December

Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop? by Chris van Tulleken (Completed on 13 December 2024)

This is my second time with this book, in what I think might be an annual reminder of why I don’t want to eat ultra processed food any longer. This book changed my life, and my son’s, and I tend to tell anyone who will listen about it. I wrote a very lengthy review of it on my Goodreads profile, I’ll link to that here.

Books in progress

I still have two books in progress at the time of writing (well, there are many more in progress, but two I’m actively reading at the moment!)

The Way of the Fearless Writer: Ancient Eastern wisdom for a flourishing writing life by . I am taking part in Beth’s Winter Sanctuary, and this is the recommended reading. It’s GORGEOUS, with beautiful writing prompts designed to help the reader become fearless in their writing.

The Outrun by Amy Liptrott

This has been on my shelf for a few months. A friend and I went to the cinema to watch it on Saturday, but there were no seats left. We’re going on Thursday instead, and I’m taking this as my chance to read the book before I see the film. It’s beautiful and I can’t wait to see the beauty of Orkney on the screen!

While there is no doubt that this has been a terrible year for me in so many ways, I’ve loved the fact that in the absence of being able to do anything much else, books were there for me. I don’t know if I‘ll be able to read even close to this many books in 2025, but I’ve got a few on my ‘read next’ pile, so I’ll be giving it a shot!

Have you read any of these books? What have you read this year that you’d recommend? Please share your thoughts in the comments

Links in this post are affiliate links, most of the to bookshop.org. which supports independent book stores. Where I used the audio version, I have linked to that instead

“Esther, I really think you need to get out of bed now and get outdoors”

“I really want to, but I’m so tired, I can’t face it, 'I’m so tired”

“I know. I understand. But you’ve been telling me how blue the sky is, and how much you wish you were there. And you’ve been in bed for 3 hours since Marcus went to school. What if you just try to go around the block, or better still, go where there are trees. You can get to some trees in about 10 minutes, and you know you always feel better when you do”

After putting up a bit more of a fight, I stopped. Why am I fighting him on this? He’s my brother, he’s not saying this randomly, or to make me feel bad. He’s saying this because of all the times I’ve told him how much being outside makes me feel better. And I know he wants me to get better.

With an almost painful effort, I got up and out of bed, while he encourages me on the other side of our WhatsApp call. I promise him I’ll text him to let him know how I feel after the walk, and thank him for his love and support, while secretly wondering if I’ll make it to the end of my street before needing to sit down.

Depression is such a strange and terrifying thing. It can take away everything you love even as they’re right in front of you. I’d lost my love of music, I’d lost my joy in spending time with friends, I’d lost the boundless energy that seemed to define how I showed up in the world, and I’d lost my enthusiasm for walking and being outdoors.

Which, if you know anything about me at all, means that I pretty much lost most of what makes me ME. I was starting to think I’d never get any of it back, I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt this lost to myself, for so long, and it was scary. I knew I needed to get back to myself, but I often wondered if I ever could. Was this me now? If you’ve ever felt like this, then I’m sure you’ll know how much this thought horrified me. A life that felt this bleak, this hopeless, this empty wasn’t any life I wanted to live. There had to be a better life ahead of me to hope for.

Within a few minutes of getting outside, I was glad I’d done it. I was walking at a pace that I’d normally find unbearably slow, but I was walking. I listened to the blackbirds singing, and smiled at their tuneful conversation. Maybe I could borrow some of their joy for a few minutes. Paul McCartney sang that the blackbird was ‘only waiting for this moment to be free’. I have these words tattooed on my arm as a reminder of a time when I felt hope, and as a promise to myself to find it again, no matter how lost I feel.

I walked through the trees, and as I walked, I could feel my mood lift. Joe was right. I knew he was. I still felt exhausted and broken, but being in my local green spaces was nourishing me in ways that my bed, however cosy and comforting, couldn’t do. I decided to walk to my ‘meditation tree’, a beautiful willow with damaged branches I can sit on, and abundant life despite its brokenness. I’ve always been attracted to the way that trees can withstand so much damage from the elements, and instead of breaking, they simply adapt and grow into the reality they find themselves in. These trees remind me that even when life seems to batter and break us, we can adapt and grow. We don’t have to fight the storm; we just need to keep standing. We need to keep that hope alive, even when it’s hard to do so.

By the time I got to my tree, I felt alive again. I’d had a lovely chat with a local lady who, like me, is a keen walker. We talked about the trees we both love, and I felt the warmth of the connection thaw the cold parts of me. Getting to my tree, I felt like I was meeting an old friend, and I sat gratefully in its branches for about 15 minutes. Before I left, I sent a message to my brother to thank him for his support, love and encouragement, and went home feeling like maybe I wouldn’t always feel so lost after all, maybe there was hope for recovery.

Looking back, I realize what my brother gave me that day was a reminder of hope, that there was a way forward for me. He reminded me that hope isn’t just an emotion, it’s a way of thinking. Brené Brown explains this beautifully

“In very simple terms, hope happens when We have the ability to set realistic goals (I know where I want to go). We are able to figure out how to achieve those goals, including the ability to stay flexible and develop alternative routes (I know how to get there, I’m persistent, and I can tolerate disappointment and try again). We believe in ourselves (I can do this!).”

(Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are)

In those moments of deep depression, and when I was deep in addiction and unable to control whether or how much I drank, I lacked that ability. I might have wanted to set the goals to move my life forward, but I had no idea how to do it. A lot of the time I knew what to do, I am a coach and a yoga teacher after all, I have a large selection of tools, but I lacked the ability to maintain consistency and tolerate disappointment. And every single day I felt lost, I lacked the belief in myself that I needed to take even the smallest steps.

Have you ever felt like that? It’s so easy to fall into hopelessness when every step forward feels like it requires more effort than you have to give, isn’t it? If so, I want to tell you what I’ve learned: even the smallest steps can carry you toward hope.

When my brother encouraged me to go for a walk that day, he did more than simply encourage me to take a walk. He reminded me that there was hope. I had a small goal. I only needed to walk for a short time. Even if I’d only managed 5 minutes, it would have been enough. He gave me the flexibility I needed in the plan, and helped me to remember that I was capable of doing that. And he encouraged me to stay open to walking more if I felt like it. He would later tell me that he was reasonably sure that once I got out, I would end up walking more and enjoying it far more than I thought I would when I was talking to him from under my duvet.

This was in February, and neither of us knew that I still had a long road of recovery ahead of me, that depression had its claws deeply in me, and that eventually I’d come to accept that this is simply part of my life. Like the trees, I needed to root myself in the present and adapt to life’s storms, finding strength in acceptance rather than resistance.

But it reminded me that even when hope feels far away, it’s still there. That each day, I could choose to do something to move myself forward, and support my recovery, rather than simply surrendering to the darkness and staying under the duvet all day. There was room for duvet time to be sure, rest is a vital part of recovery, and I certainly needed lots of it. But each day, I reminded myself how taking that short, slow walk had helped me feel better, and how any action I could take, no matter how small, to feel alive, was a step in the right direction.

If you’re struggling, I want you to know that you’re not alone. And you can find that hope in the darkness. Is there one small goal you can set yourself today, something you can achieve that will help you feel even 1% better? It doesn’t have to be a big thing. Sometimes, even washing your face, drinking some water, or brushing your hair can make a world of difference.

Hope might feel far away, but it’s closer than you think. What small step will you take today to move toward the life you deserve?

The PEACEful Path of Recovery can help you find the small steps you can take to find home. Starting on January 1, I’ll be sharing a series of essays to share what this model of recovery looks like, and how you can use it to create your life of peace, recovery and wellbeing. The essays will be available to all, but paid subscribers will be able to access the comments, as well as exercises, practices and writing prompts to deepen your journey along this PEACEful Path. I’m really excited to share this with you, and can’t wait to see you on January 1!

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Well, hello there. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’m sorry I’ve been so absent this year. I had such big plans for this space, but as we all know, life loves to laugh at our plans. It’s been quite the year for me. If you’ve read any of my posts, you’ll know I’ve spent a painful amount of time lost in the weeds of depression, grief, anxiety, and a general stuckness. This probably has something to do with menopausal hormonal changes layered over my usual mental health challenges.

I’ve made lots of promises about how I was going to show up and serve you here, my lovely and loyal subscribers. And I haven’t lived up to those promises. For that, I’m truly sorry.

But here’s the good news: I’m back. My mental health has had all the downtime it needs (for now, at least), and it’s time for me to get back into action. After all, there’s only so much Desperate Housewives you can binge on Disney+ before you start to crave a more productive life!

I’ve got so much to share with you. This year, I’ve truly been living the principles of my PEACEful Path of Recovery as I’ve worked to rebuild my mental health.

I’ve been reconnecting to my purpose. Not just my purpose in the work I do, but in the small moments of everyday life. What purpose do my recovery and wellbeing practices serve? How do I show up in my relationships? What’s the meaning behind the way I spend my time?

I’ve reevaluated my daily practices, identifying which ones nourish my recovery and which don’t. I’ve faced and worked through some deeply painful emotions. My awareness of my values, strengths, triggers, and reactions has grown. I’ve also embraced acceptance - of emotions, experiences, and triggers that once caused me distress.

I’ve deepened my connections to the important people in my life, to nature, and to myself. And I’ve learned more about my energy. What depletes it, what replenishes it, and, most importantly, the critical role of rest and hydration (a real challenge for a hyperactive ADHD brain!).

This journey has been transformational, and I want the same for you. Whether or not you consider yourself in recovery, I believe we could all use a little more PEACE in our lives, don’t you?

Back in the summer, I promised a program here for paid subscribers where we could explore the PEACEful Path of Recovery together. Today, I’m happy to share that on January 1st, we’re beginning that journey.

Each week, I’ll post an essay, free for all subscribers, exploring one principle of the PEACEful Path and how it supports recovery and wellbeing. For paid subscribers, there will be additional resources including journaling questions, embodiment practices, nature-connection exercises, and even group calls. Together, we’ll explore what the PEACEful Path looks like for you.

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I’m so excited to finally bring this to life. I know it’s going to be a powerful journey for all of us.

And to thank my wonderful paid subscribers for their patience and support, I’m sharing some journaling questions below to help you start your PEACEful Path today.

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If I’d known this would have been the outcome, there’s a really good chance I would never have started. It would have seemed too scary by far, and absolutely not what I was looking for.

And yet when it arrived, it made me so happy, and has continued to do so for almost 10 years.

I didn’t start Yoga Teacher training with any anticipation that it would change me. Change my life. Beyond thinking that it would give me a way to earn a living that wouldn’t create stress, I assumed I’d still be the same person.

How wrong I was. In all aspects of my thinking.

Yoga didn’t, as it turned out, provide me with a stress-free way to earn a living. Far from it, I never quite managed to make it as a full time yoga teacher, and the work of trying left me fraught, broke and disillusioned with the whole idea.

But the training itself proved to be significantly more life changing than I had ever thought possible. The fact that I didn’t expect it showed me how little I had understood about Yoga, and the extent to which it impacts daily life, in the first place. How surface level my (at the time) 6 years of almost weekly classes had been.

I started my training excited for the course and in dire need of it. I was, as my teacher wrote in the foreword for my book, Bent Back into Shape, Beating Addiction Through Yoga, “…a crazy ball of energy….” which “….had a manic, restless, unsettled feel about it, albeit with a loud and vigorous friendliness”.

A more honest description would be that I was a mess. I was deep in the fallout of a total breakdown the previous year, the inevitable result of a number of stresses hitting me at the same time, while I was still struggling to process my grief at my brother’s death almost 8 years previously.

I turned to yoga because I didn’t want to go through my doctor for help with what I had internalised as shameful mental health problems. Practising yoga to help with stress seemed far more acceptable than admitting to anyone that I was falling apart.

But fall apart was what I had done. And part of my coping strategy was to increase the already dangerous amount of wine and cider I was drinking, and the amount of cigarettes and marijuana I was smoking.

I was a dedicated student in my Yoga training, and practiced almost every day. I was able to stop drinking in the week so I could get up early for my morning practice, but the gloves were off at the weekend, apart from the weekends I went to the Yoga studio for class.

Gradually, as my body learned to enjoy the yoga filled, alcohol free weekdays, it objected more and more to the booze and smoke filled weekends.

Not only that, but I was starting to feel differently about it. When I smoked, I was more aware of my breath, conscious of the fact that I was using my deeper, more controlled breath to send the toxic air deeper into my lungs. I became more attuned to my body, and felt the pain of my liver and gut far more acutely.

I was developing a new relationship with myself, with my past, and with my emotions. One in which alcohol had no place. I didn’t need to drink to become someone else, because I was becoming happier in who I was. I no longer needed to drown the sorrows of my past mistakes, because I was healing myself and learning from them. And I no longer felt I had to numb the pain of the many stresses in my life, because I was learning other ways to deal with the emotions, instead of trying to shut them down.

Without realising it, I was moving into a new way of being that didn’t need alcohol, cigarettes or weed. That didn’t demand I destroy myself in order to survive. That would, in fact, allow me to live in ways that I had previously thought impossible.

The fact that I will celebrate 10 years of recovery next month would have been as unlikely to the person I was 10 years ago as to the person I was 12 years ago, deep in despair and teetering on the edge of mental collapse, convinced that the next glass of wine was the only thing that was keeping me together.

Had I known at the start of my Yoga teacher training that I would emerge from it sober, and smoke free, I would have run from it, terrified of such a future. I am so glad I didn’t have that foresight!

Because, it turns out, far from being terrifying, life in sober recovery has given me more than I could have ever imagined!

We all tend to fear the idea of the unknown, and what lies outside our comfort zones. But so often, we discover that that is exactly where the treasures of life lie.

What have you found in the unknown spaces outside your comfort zone? Share in the comments!

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But I can't share the joy she is bringing without honouring my other four legged girl this week, and the grief I am feeling over her at the moment.

If I was still on Facebook, this would probably be a Facebook post. But I'm not, I'm here.

So may I tell you about my Mother's Day, 2017, and the unexpected gift that arrived that day?

Mother's Day (UK), 2017.

None of my three sons were with me. The youngest was at his Dad's, the older two all grown up and living elsewhere. I was looking forward to my friend coming to visit. She was bringing a rescue dog she was giving some respite from the dogs home. Just for a visit, for me to say hello and consider maybe possibly looking into adopting one day.

Mother's Day (UK), 2017.

The day I unexpectedly acquired the dog who would become my daft, infuriating, darling girl.

The dog who arrived as ‘Snowflake’, and stayed as ‘Shanti’.

The dog who left us as unexpectedly as she arrived, lying on the floor in the vets with me sobbing into her fur, telling her how loved she was.

I hadn't known how fragile her beautiful heart had been until it was no longer able to keep her alive. She was in the kitchen, hovering around my feet as I peeled carrots for lunch, her whole being throbbing with expectation, waiting for scraps, the insatiable hunger of a once abandoned rescue dog. Then she went into the living room where she lay down panting hard, and never got up again. As I drove her to the vet, part of me knew I wouldn't be bringing her home, but that didn't ease the shock when the vet confirmed my worst fear.

The decision to let her go rather than opt for surgery was the second hardest decision I've ever made. But it wasn't really a decision. Thousands of pounds I don't have to put her through an operation she probably wouldn't survive, or at best would have gained a few months of being very ill before an undignified death didn't seem much of an option at all. The vet didn't recommend it. So I let her go without pain, and with her dignity. And she took a bit of my heart with her.

I miss her company on walks around the streets of my home, and in bed where she would get under the duvet and snuggle down with me. Walking feels vaguely pointless at the moment, and my bed feels far too big now there aren't four furry legs hogging three quarters of it.

I miss her following me around, always just behind me, or right where I need to be. I even miss her haranguing us for our food at every meal. What do I do with leftovers and scraps now there isn't a greedy mouth to put it in?

I miss her face, those big brown eyes that never seemed to stop looking at me. Her tail that wagged her happiness when I came home, or downstairs at breakfast time. I miss her belly that she loved me to rub. I miss her.

She drove me mad at times, but she gave me so much joy. Her name means ‘Peace’, but outside she gained a bit of a reputation for being the sort of dog other dog owners try to avoid. Reactive, loud, strong and aggressive isn't a great look in a dog, especially not a big dog. We both had to learn to accept a muzzle for a while to keep everyone safe.

But she was the softest, daftest creature and I loved her dearly. She is deeply missed and will never be forgotten.

Shanti Pants, my wonderful, infuriating, daft, beautiful girl. Thank you for coming into our lives and gracing us with your boundless, utterly unconditional love. You brought so much to my life, and I hope I made you happy. I love you!

My planned series for paid subscribers has been put on hold until my son goes back to school in September. As a single mamma, the school holidays have always been a bit challenging for me, this year, with the mental health stuff I’m still recovering from, even more so.

But I just edited this to send to someone, and wanted to share it with you. This was the start of a book called ‘Wearing my life on my Sleeve’, about the tattoos I have celebrated my life with. I started writing the book a few months after my mother died, but found it too hard to write at the time. Coming back to it now feels joyful, a celebration of my life and hers, and I am delighted to share it with you here. Do let me know if you want to read more!

The Body in The Mirror

I’ve been dreading today. And wanting to get it over with. People assure me it's easier once this part is done. 

But I don’t want to do it. 

It’s been too long, but it’s far too soon. It won’t ever not be too soon.

With Herculean effort, I drag myself from sofa to shower. The warm water soothes me and washes away the tears that begin to flow. I wash on autopilot, lost in the flood of tears and sadness.

Warm from my shower, thick green towel around my body, my wet hair wrapped in a black towel, I walk to my bedroom and see the clothes I will wear today. 

A black top with long sleeves and neckline that covers the tattoo on my chest. A green cardigan. Her favourite colour. Black trousers. Her trousers. Two scarves to choose from. The black one we bought together for Tim’s wedding, just a few months ago. Or a blue green one I bought for her a few years ago. 

Funeral clothes.

I need to put on funeral clothes.

I’m not ready to do it yet. I don’t think I will ever be ready. Are we ever ready for this? 

I drop the towel, noticing that my choice of towels today reflect the colours of the clothes I will be wearing. She’d laugh at that. 

I have so many mirrors in my bedroom it’s hard not to see myself when I’m in here. Mirrors that are supposed to be doors, but became stand alone mirrors because I know that a wardrobe door will never be opened, and the space inside will become a graveyard of unworn clothes, while the clothes I wear will adorn cupboards, chairs and the floor.

So there are 2 mirrored doors, and one full length mirror, all in this small bedroom.

I don’t really like to look too hard when I am naked. I look pretty good in clothes most of the time. 

But I’m not sure the same can be said of my nakedness…. Although some men have told me different. 

There’s no man here now. Just me. Me and my sadness stop and gaze at my naked form.

She was the first person to see this body. The first person to hold me in her arms, to kiss me and tell me I was loved.  The first person I ever touched. The first person who told me I was safe, who made sure that was true.

And she is gone. 

I look at my body, still in awe that I was once small enough to fit inside her womb. That I once needed her to carry me, to feed me, to shelter me. 

Did I ever stop needing her? Did I ever stop looking for her strength?

As I scrutinise my body, far more closely than I usually do, I see my life etched on my skin. 

I see my calves, strong from walking and climbing, flexible from yoga even if I don’t practice as much as I really ought to. My legs are quite short. My whole body is short, so why would my legs be any different? But these legs have got me to the top of some high mountains. They have taken me long distances. They have moved as the music I love moves me, and allowed me to express my connection to the sounds i hear. They have opened to welcome in lovers, and walked me away from people and situations I needed to escape from. They have allowed me to sit on the floor to play with my children. They walked me into friendship and deep connection with my beautiful mother as we deepened our relationship in our walking boots.

And today they will walk my mother into a crematorium.

I see my stomach, so hated for so many years. The round belly that puberty brought after years of being a skinny little girl with a concave tummy. The pot belly that got me taunted by a gymnastics teacher when I was 14, upsetting me so much that I never went to another gymnastics class again. That prompted one of my classmates to ask me if I was pregnant when I was just 16. That prompted my brother to tell me, 6 months after I had my first child, that I was fat. That prompted 6 months of chocolate and laxative binges before it was stopped, not with healing, but with threats.

I see the stretch marks. Isn’t it amazing how much human skin can stretch in such a short space of time when another human is growing underneath it. Three humans created a map across my tummy, the map makers that were the treasures they were mapping.

I see the expanding waist that reminds me that while my body is still sort of going through the motions, I’m not really of ‘child bearing age’ anymore. That soon, those monthly attempts to prepare for conception will stop, and I will settle into my crone years. I have had children old enough to make me a grandma for many years now, but so far I’m still just Mum.

She was Grandma. And today, my children, the cartographers of my belly, will walk with me as we walk my mother, their Grandma, into a crematorium.

I see my arms and my hands. The hands that she held to get me to safety across countless roads. The ring finger that never made her a ‘mother of the bride’.  The arms that played the violin as a child, to her delight, and that now play again, reliving my childhood dreams of being a real musician. The arms that lifted so many pints and bottles until I was forced to stop by my own will to survive. The arms that have held my children to my breast to feed, and comforted them when they were upset. The arms that helped my mother into bed when she could no longer do it unaided. The arms that write the words I needed to heal the pain in my core both today and for so many years before.

And today, these arms will hug my family as we comfort one another at the crematorium.

I look at my face. Getting closer to the mirror so I can see even clearer. Is this wise? Aren’t there public health guidelines that advise women of my age not to peer too closely? Or do the ‘anti ageing’ cream makers want me to do that? I expect they do. I’m useless with that stuff. I only remember to put moisturiser on in the winter when my face gets sore from the cold, or in the summer when dehydration and sun dry it out. Always cure. Never prevention.

I shall be one of those women who wears her life on her face, as I have done all my life. I can’t hide my emotions or thoughts from my face, why hide my years?

My face. The face that many have told me is my father’s, while others see me and ask me if I was their french teacher, Mrs Nagle…They are older than me, the people who think this. So maybe I also have my mother’s face to those who don’t know my father.

When i stand back from the mirror, I don’t see an old woman. I mean, I’m 49, I’m not old. But I don’t look how I imagine a 49 year old would look. Not how I see some of the people I went to school with. 

But then I get a little closer to the mirror. And an old woman starts to emerge.

I see the dark circles that I think emerged with my pot belly at puberty. The dark circles that seem to be my legacy from Nana, along with her face, the face she passed to my Dad. I hoped that sobriety would take them away, but it seems that they are here to stay.  

I see the lines on my forehead. The deep one above my left eye, the ‘what the fuck?’ line that comes from too many eyebrow raises at the idiots of the world. 

I see the lines around my mouth that betray the ex smoker I used to be, and make me so glad that I gave it up… I see the thick black hair above my top lip that I bite out as soon as it gets long enough to get between my teeth. 

I see the eyes, and know that the first thing those eyes ever saw was my mother’s face. I wonder what she looked like to me then, in those first moment when we met all those years ago. She was young and beautiful then. Her beauty never faded, not to me, even when she was at her end.

Today, those eyes will weep as we say goodbye to her, and thank her for a lifetime of love. 

I look at this body that I live in, and smile through the tears. While I don’t always look at my body and see a shape I like, there are so many memories and precious moments I can’t look at it with anything with love.

And i love my body so much that I have decorated it with memories and moments.

When I see the body I was born into, I see the body I have adorned with colour, wth art, with the stories of my scars. 

I once told my mother that I was done with tattoos. But I think she knew as well as I did that while I might have meant it in that moment, I would never be done with them.

I love to write and share my stories on the page. I also love to mark them in colour on my body. 

I love to look at my tattoos far more than I enjoy looking at the rest of my body. They are colourful and quirky. Just like me I guess. The pictures are beautiful. The skill of the tattooists who worked on them can’t be denied. They look great, and often attract the attention of people who stop me to tell me “I love your tattoo!”

But what I love most about them is the stories they tell. The strength they remind me of. They show me that I’m still here. That I have overcome some heavy shit in my life. That I’m a survivor. 

They remind me that I can always be better tomorrow. That no matter how grey today might look, things can always improve. That the hardest times can be turned into beauty when etched on my body. 

I’m a writer, so I have often joked that everything that happens to me is food for my writing. 

But my life is also fuel for the stories on my skin. These stories will tell you as much about me as any words I write. So many stories….

My planned series for paid subscribers, the PEACEful Path to Recovery, will start in September, once the busy-ness of the school holidays is over and I have recovered from it all. I will also be opening my doors to welcome coaching clients who want to find a way to recover from stress and find healthier coping mechanisms to deal with the challenges of life. I will share more about that in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, do get in touch if you want to know more.

My recovery began the day I fell in love with walking, and with the green hills of the place I call home. 

There were almost 10 years between that day, and the day I decided I deserved more than a life of hangovers, blurry memories, lingering shame and constant regret. Ten years which my liver and lungs (and the rest of my body, and my psyche) probably hated me for. But I know that my path of recovery was made of mud, hills and beautiful views long before I stepped onto a yoga mat and breathed myself sober.

And in these recent long months of depression, anxiety and losing any sense of who I am, the mud, hills and beautiful views have, once again, given me my path of recovery. I am very lucky to live in beautiful South Wales, where we have an abundance of mud, hills and beautiful views, and I have found solace in the company of nature when I haven’t been remotely fit for human company. Sought the song of the birds when human made music felt overwhelming and empty. Found comfort and joy in the peace of the hills when the turmoil inside has been too much.

And peace is what we all want isn’t it? Peace is what recovery is all about at it’s core, I think. Finding a place of peace inside yourself, so that you don’t need to numb your emotions and destroy yourself.

Return to Your Trees, the name of this newsletter, is a twist on a Welsh phrase “dod yn ôl at fy nghoed", which means ‘to return to my trees’. At it’s more metaphorical meaning, it means ‘to return to a state of balance and peace’. I have Return to YOUR trees, in Welsh, tattooed on my chest.

So if we are all seeking peace, how can we do it?

Well, after years of seeking, looking in some of the wrong places, and figuring out, through experience and training, I’ve narrowed it down to a few things.

I’d love to introduce you to the PEACEful Path of Recovery.

Purpose and Practice

Emotions

Awareness and Acceptance

Connection

Energy

This is my PEACEful Path of Recovery. What gives you PEACE in your life?

Join me on the PEACEful Path of Recovery

Beginning on January 1, I’ll be diving deep into these elements of the pathway over the following eight weeks (the last week we'll be looking at how to stay on the path!). I’ll share an essay on each individual element, which will be available to all, while the accompanying writing prompts, meditations and nature connection practices will be for paying subscribers only. If you want to spend some time exploring what you will find on the PEACEful Path of Recovery, you can upgrade or subscribe below.

Subscribe now

I’m really excited to share the PEACEful Path to Recovery with you beginning with Purpose. Until then, please share this with anyone you think could use some PEACE in their life!

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At my Cardiff University writing class this morning, we wrote a piece on the theme of ‘older and wiser’.

I thought I was going to write about the joys of being able to shake off the masks other people want to you wear, of abandoning the need to be ‘presentable’ to other’s standards, and of finally being able to be yourself.

The inner voice that is in charge of what I write when I only have 20 minutes to write had other ideas! And if my inner voice wants me to write this for me, then it seems only fair that I should share it with you as well……

So, with the caveat that while I definitely feel older, I’m not always convinced I’m much wiser, here it is!

At the grand old age of 51, I have finally accepted that I am not young anymore. And discovered that I don’t want to be. While contemplating that I have lived more days than are still left to live can be a bit of a shock, it’s something of a wake up call for me to ask myself, “How do I want to live today? Am I living in a way that is true to who I am?”

And to actually pay attention to the answer.

If today was the last day of this wild and precious life I have been gifted, do I really want to spend it racking up more Netflix binge hours? No matter how utterly brilliant Breaking Bad might be, it’s not how I’d like to spend my last day.

No, if today was my last day, if I knew without doubt that I’d go to bed tonight ,and not wake up again tomorrow, I’d want to make today count. I’d want to fill it with things that matter to me. I’d want to tell my family and friends how much I love them. I’d need to hug my boys and tell them how proud I am to be their mother. I’d want to view the Rhondda one last time from the top of a long mountain walk. I’d like to clear some balsam, hug some trees and feed the birds. I’d want to write something of that long talked about memoir, even if for only 20 minutes.

No internet required.

Life is here for us to experience. Every elation, every joy, every heartbreak, disappointment, pain and devastating grief. They all add to life’s rich journey. And the more we numb ourselves to them with booze, drugs, shopping, social media, TV and so much more, the more we numb ourselves to the joys of life as well.

We think pain is a bad thing, to be avoided at all costs. But pain is information, it helps us know what we need, and what matters to us. The pain in my muscles and my mind told me how stressed, depressed and burned out I was. The heartbreak at the end of the relationship showed me how much he meant to me. The grief and deep loss told me how much I loved and still need her.

These are all vital things for us to know. 

But we run from the pain. And when we run from the pain, we run from the joy as well. 

If you told me that I would die tonight, but I still had time left to live today, it would be easy to fall into despair, to numb the pain, the fear and the regret, and waste the final hours of my life. I like to think I’d seize the chance to truly live for one last time.

But I can’t say that I am doing that now, even though I know that life can and will end on its own schedule. That the shadow that follows us all from the moment we breathe our hello to life will turn my light out when it's ready to, not when I say I’m done.

So hopefully, I’ll heed these words, and the advice of the part of me that is so very wise, and use the time I have left, however long that might be, to make sure I live every moment I have. To always make sure my friends and family know how much I love and value them. To leave my boys in no doubt how proud I am of them. To do what I can to leave the world a better place. To get to the top of as many mountains as I can. And to Write that Damn Memoir! My journey to belonging. My journey to me. My journey to life.

Over to you

What would you do if you only filled your life with the things that make life meaningful for you? I haven’t listed all mine here, but I know that there are still lots of things I do that definitely wouldn’t make that list! If you could create a life that only included the most valuable (to you) activities, what would they be? Share in the comments below!

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(I’ve made a couple of edits after consultation with a fellow balsam basher, so there is a discrepancy between the audio and the written. I’ll re-record the audio once I’ve made food!)

Hello, beautiful humans. I hope you’re happy and life is treating you well. 

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been here. Life has been a bit hectic, with my brother needing emergency surgery to remove an unhappy appendix, and a music festival to prepare for and enjoy, I’ve been struggling to catch up with myself.

And, as is so often the case, I’ve been turning to nature to help me in that catching up. Time spent with trees, flowers and all the beauty of nature soothes the soul so beautifully doesn't it? It’s my go to for any time I need to reconnect with myself, to give myself time and space for recovery and wellbeing.

One of the things I am enjoying at the moment is tackling the Himalayan Balsam that is overrunning some of the green areas in my local community.

If you don’t know, Himalayan Balsam is a beautiful looking plant that is threatening the native plants of the UK. It was brought here in 1839, and was known colloquially as ‘poor man’s orchid’, as it allowed a sense of luxurious plans without needing the greenhouses that so many couldn’t afford. It has, in the absence of the natural predators that keep it under control in its natural habitat, become a significant threat to biodiversity of the UK.

Managing this plant is a long term project. A dear friend of mine has been working in her local park for over a decade, and is now starting to see the fruits of her labours, as native species are returning in abundance. But she still needs to keep working to keep the balsam away. 

I’ve only started working on this in the past couple of years, and am starting to appreciate what a big task it is. Each flower head can produce up to 1500 seeds, which disperse far and wide as the seed pod releases them quite explosively. The seeds can live in the soil for up to 18 months, so even if it looks clear, it probably isn’t. Balsam spreads widely along rivers where, having driven out the natural species, destabilises the soil and contributes to soil erosion and deteriorating river health.

Clearly, this is a significant problem. Government sources in 2003 estimated that eradicating it completely in the UK would cost at least £3 million. It wasn’t eradicated and has now only got worse, so that figure will have inevitably increased. Much of the time, it is individuals and community groups that take responsibility for it.

I know that in the small area I have deemed ‘my spot’, it will be years before I could say it is Balsam free, even if I work at it every day through the growing season. 

It could seem like a hopeless task. And sometimes it feels it, when you make great progress and return to find a hundred new plants have appeared in the spot you cleared a week ago.

But I know that it matters. I know that every plant I uproot and destroy is 1500 seeds less getting released into the local environment. Every plant that can’t create 1500 more seeds is a small victory.

And in nature recovery, as with personal recovery, every small win counts. 

Wherever you are on your recovery journey, whatever you’re recovering from, and however long you’ve been on this path, it’s a long term project, just like my balsam bashing. 

There is no ‘end goal’ with this work. All we can do is live each day, and know that each day in recovery is a small victory. Even when it feels that you’ve taken a few steps back, you can always step forward, armed with some new information to help your recovery tomorrow. 

The past 5 months of my life have felt like several steps backwards in lots of ways. As I surrendered to depression I found all my old certainty about sobriety and how I was ‘ok as long as I’m not thinking about drinking’ crumble away. Yes, my sobriety is important, but there was so much more I needed to do. 

So while I could view 5 months of turbulent mental health challenges as a step backward, instead I see the small victories. I’ve learned a lot more about myself, and what I need to be well at this stage of my life. What I needed to support my recovery 5 years ago wasn't the same as I need now that I am older, with menopause changing my identity, and grief having reshaped my whole sense of myself.

As I pick away at the weeds of my mind, I know that, just like my attempts at clearing the balsam, I am in this for the long haul. Every step taken towards self care, every seed producing plant taken out of the ecosystem…. It’s all progress, it’s all small victories.

What small victories have you won today? Share in the comments and let’s celebrate those small wins together!

Last week I reflected on the delights of spring, and the gifts that nature brings to us every day if only we take the time to notice them.

This week, I know summer is here, because the UK music festival season has begun! At the weekend, my son and I went to Devauden festival, a small community festival in South Wales.

A bewildering apathy towards music has been one of the strangest and most discombobulating aspect of this year’s deep depression, but I LOVED dancing to Skerryvore from Scotland, and Nogood Boyo from Wales on the Friday night. There’s something about modern takes on traditional folk music that really excites me, even in the midst of some weird things happening in my brain. It was wonderful to feel that excitement return as I danced to these bands.

My top find of the weekend was a Welsh band called Melin Melyn, a very Beatles-esque band whose psychedelic rock touched the part of me that loves music with all my being. I didn’t get to see all the set, as Marcus had to go to the tent to go to bed, and needed me to go with him, but what I saw I absolutely loved.

We’ve got another festival to go to in a few weeks, Beardy Folk in Shropshire, and I'm very excited - the line up is great, and I'm really looking forward to more time away from the demands of daily life and a chance to spend chilled out time with him and with myself. Although I need to find a way to make camping more comfortable. I’m not quite ready to accept I'm ‘too old to rock n roll’ yet, but I'm definitely too old to sleep on the floor of a tent!

I’ve been thinking a lot about comparison and the way we waste so much energy and self esteem wondering if we are good enough, based on how other people are doing, how they look, how successful they are and so on.

A 3 day music festival has a lot of bands on the line-up, These bands are all likely to be very different, and appeal to different tastes. They’ll be on at different times, competing with other bands and activities that people can engage with. There will be different weather conditions affecting the crowd. They are going to be on different days, so not everyone who attends the festival will even be on site for their performance.

There’s a huge number of factors that can impact the size of the crowd watching them that have nothing to do with how good they are as a band or as musicians. 

And even if they are not as good, as established, as experienced as some of the other names, they are there, they have devoted themselves to their craft and they have earned their place on the billing. Even if they only attract a tiny crowd, they will give it their all and show that tiny crowd what they have to offer. And one day, maybe, they will be the act that huge crowds flock to see. But even if they don’t, they still can show up fully, and express the music that comes through them.

Comparison shows up in all areas of life, and can hurt us in ways we don’t even see until we look back and see the damage it did along the way.

When I was a little girl, I knew there was something 'wrong' with me. My teeth were too big and stuck out of my mouth too far. My face was too long. My eyes were too bulgy. I spoke weirdly. I was weird and people didn't seem to like me, so I clearly wasn't likeable.

Other girls in my class were pretty. They had teeth that fitted in their mouths properly. Their faces were cute. Their eyes the right size for the sockets. They spoke the way everyone else did. They seemed to fit, and people seemed to like them. Even the boys. They clearly were likeable.

I wanted to be more like them and less like me. And yet, when I look back at photos of the little girl I used to be, I see such a pretty child, with such trusting eyes, and a face I want to take in my hands and kiss. I want to tell her that she was never meant to fit because her name means star, so clearly she was meant to shine and stand out.

A recent write together session with elicited some writing from me that, strangely, emerged as a poem. I can’t even begin to unpack the comparison fears that writing anything that might be seen as poetry brings out in me, but I'm going to share it in it’s perfect imperfection.

“Am I pretty?”

The child to her mother as they walk 

from the car to their home

“Am I pretty?”

She is so sure that she isn’t one of the pretty girls

The pretty girls don’t pick their nose.

The pretty girls don’t stink up the bathroom

The pretty girls have tidy bedrooms

So she can’t be one of the pretty girls.

Mum will know.

“Am I pretty?”

She wants so bad to be one of the pretty girls

If she’s pretty, they’ll like her. 

If she’s pretty, they’ll want to be her friend. 

If she’s pretty, she’ll be allowed to join their games.

But they don’t seem to like her.

They don’t want to be her friend.

They don’t let her play their games.

So she can’t be one of the pretty girls.

“Am I pretty?”

The answer hits with a sting that lasts for decades

“No, you’re striking”

She doesn’t know what striking means. All she knows is “no”.

That little girl didn’t understand what she was being told, and the older woman I am today still bears the scars of that misunderstanding. If only small me had even known that she was misunderstanding what she was told, if she’d asked her mother to explain what she meant, my self esteem would have been very different. Because even though now we know that there is more to being valued as a girl than whether or not we are pretty, at that time, it was very important. I wanted to be pretty like the Miss Pears girl, pretty like Natalie, Lisa or Claire, who had lots of friends AND the boys liked them as well.

If only I’d looked it up and seen the dictionary definition, and learned that ‘striking’ means 

“attracting attention; fine; impressive, a striking beauty”, I’m pretty sure that the internal image I have of my face would look VERY different now. Although when I look in a mirror, on a good day, I can certainly agree with that definition! 

How often have you suffered because of what you THINK someone means, or what you THINK someone thinks of you, without finding out if that’s true? I could fill a whole book with ‘Things I’ve misunderstood or assumed that have shaped the person I have become’. 

In recovery, I often look around and wonder what is wrong with me. I see others who have less recovery time and marvel at all the amazing things they are achieving. Running marathons, creating and running successful recovery focused businesses, writing books, growing huge followings online, writing beautifully on Substack and so much more.

And I'm over here, doubting myself every step of the way. Fighting against my own brain to get anything done. 

But then I look at my life, the daily struggles I have, the emotional cliffs I have had to scale, the challenges life has thrown at me, and the things I HAVE achieved, and I remember. This is my life, and no one else is living it. I don’t have to be like the pretty girls, or the ‘6 figure business’ successes, or the ‘100 gazillion followers’ Substack successes. I’ve achieved a lot in my time, and I’ve done things I’m really proud of. We can, all of us, only live the lives that we were born to, that we experience on a day to day basis.

When I did the Yoga teacher training that was my unexpected path to recovery from addiction, we were told a phrase that became one of the guiding principles of my life (for a while, until I forgot it until now, of course!)

Don’t judge

Don’t compare

Don’t beat yourself up

Imagine a world in which we all lived according to these simple ideas. Social media would look very different wouldn’t it? Mental health statistics would look very different. Even our politics would look starkly different. Hell, everything would look different in our world, a world that has been pretty much rooted in getting us to judge, compare and beat ourselves up.

How could your life be better if you could judge yourself and others less. If you compared yourself to others less. If you beat yourself up less? I’m definitely going to start reminding myself of this again, it’s a simple, but powerful tool.

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Esther

Hello friends,

Spring is in full flow now in the UK isn’t it? I’m thoroughly enjoying my daily walks, spending time paying close attention to the trees and other plants growing around me, and the birds flying overhead.

I’m certain I saw a pair of buzzards above my street a couple of days ago, which gave me a huge burst of joy, as I only normally notice birds of prey when I go further into green spaces. But I often forget just how much green space there is around me. It's funny how we get so used to the everyday isn’t it?

Since depression took away my love of music, putting a stop to me walking with headphones everywhere I go, I have become so much more aware of nature and particularly bird song, that I’m sometimes almost grateful for the loss of music. Not entirely though. I missed two Ferocious Dog gigs at the weekend that I had been very excited about when I bought the tickets, but didn’t want to go when the time came. I miss being excited about music, but I am grateful that it has brought nature so much more into my life.

This is just one example of how my mental health has been driving my life, both during this latest depressive episode, and in general, and just how much it has driven my sense of who I am. I’ve spent years refusing to define myself as an alcoholic, because ‘I am not that person anymore, so why would I define my present self by who I used to be and how I used to manage life?’

And yet, I am only now starting to realise just how much I have been defining myself by diagnoses I have been given, or suspect I should be given, relating to my mental health. 

After telling my brother during a recent heart to heart that I ‘feel broken and don’t know if I will ever feel unbroken again’, I knew that I needed to do something and break myself out of the rut I was getting stuck in.

Listening to ’s wonderful memoir, Cured, serialised here on helped me to look at the stories I was telling myself, how I was allowing my diagnosed conditions, and the challenges they bring, to run the show, and surrendering to helplessness in the face of them. Most importantly, she allowed me to see that I am so much more than a collection of depression and ADHD symptoms, and I don’t need to allow them to run my life.

In her gorgeous book ‘Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear’, writes about her relationship with the fear that gets in the way of her creativity, and how she learned to live with it, to respect it, and to give it space in her life, rather than fighting it and letting her defeat her.

There’s plenty of room in this vehicle for all of us, so make yourself at home, but understand this: Creativity and I are the only ones who will be making any decisions along the way. I recognize and respect that you are part of this family, and so I will never exclude you from our activities, but still—your suggestions will never be followed. You’re allowed to have a seat, and you’re allowed to have a voice, but you are not allowed to have a vote.

I love the idea of honouring that part of you that seems the most unhelpful in this way.

So why has it taken me till now to realise that I have let those parts of me drive my car for so long?

For years, I’ve driven the car of my life with a number of less than welcome companions. For a very long time, I didn’t even realise they were there. Depression, addiction and ADHD weren’t terms I related to. I ‘liked a drink’ and frequently drank far more than was wise, often when I really shouldn’t be drinking at all, and made some truly terrible decisions as a result of it, messing my life up in a variety of creative ways.

I managed to convince myself that my drinking was ‘normal’ for years, carefully cultivating a social life so centred on alcohol that I could always find an excuse to drink.

Depression was just ‘mood swings’, laziness and a general sense of being a bit useless a lot of the time.

And ADHD meant that I thought I was unreliable, erratic, messy, and generally a pretty ridiculous excuse for a human being.

Together, these fellow travellers led to decades of low self esteem, hopelessness, missed opportunities, broken relationships, and a nagging sense that I was a failure at most things.

Yes, there are very real challenges that ADHD and depression bring into my life. I do experience executive function difficulties, mood problems, and much more. I do find life challenging, and I need to work with what I’ve got, rather than wish things could be different.

My brain isn’t going to ever rewire itself to not be ADHD. And there’s every chance that, without being able to access good therapy to deal with some major life stuff, depressive slumps are just a part of my life. So I can’t defeat these things into submission. I need to welcome them into my car, but keep them well away from the steering wheel and sat nav! 

But recovery is possible. I know this from my almost 10 years of recovery from addiction. I know this from everything I learned about recovery coaching. I know this from all the incredible people I have met in the past few years who are on their own recovery journey. I don’t have to let my mental health and neurodivergent challenges define me. I don’t have to let them rule my life. I can learn to drive with them in the car, but I don’t have to let them drive.

Being in nature, spending time with good friends and close family, making sure I rest, eat properly, and exercise my body, checking in with my capabilities when I feel the urge to dive into something new (this might be both the most important and the hardest to do) and generally being gentler with myself than I’m used to is the key.

What do you need to make your journey through life easier and happier? How can you honour the parts of yourself that are more challenging and challenged, and find peace in the life you have?

If you enjoyed reading this article, please consider sharing it so that others can read it as well, thanks in advance!

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It’s Mental Health Awareness Week here in the UK. This is a week aimed at promoting greater understanding of mental health, providing support and resources, and reducing the stigma felt by so many experiencing mental health struggles.

The theme for this year is ‘'Movement: moving more for our mental health”. A theme very close to my heart, as it was the discovery of walking in nature, and all the joys and healing that can bring, that showed me a path to recovery from mental ill health, grief and addiction.

I wrote about this, and how walking in nature has helped me through the grief at my mother’s death here

Throughout this past few months of deep, agonising depression, time in nature, and sometimes very slow walks among the trees, has been my saviour. Even when the walk has meant that I’ve then needed to spend the rest of the day in bed, it has helped me immeasurably. I’m incredibly lucky that I live in a lush green place, although I didn’t always think so. We complain about the seemingly endless rain here, but it’s the price we pay for the green that surrounds us on the Rhondda hills.

I like to walk up and down hills, along the coast, and anywhere else I can see the green or blue of nature. Whenever I try to imagine peace, joy, happiness or awe, I always seem to find myself on the top of a mountain, filled with the delight and muscle burn of a good uphill climb, and the sense of contentment of the endless horizon of green beneath me, and the endless sky above. It’s funny how it’s never raining or foggy in those mental moments, even though I’ve probably walked in rain and fog as much as sun (if not more!)

If we want to adopt the theme of Mental Health Awareness Week, and move more for better mental health, then I can recommend nothing better than getting out into nature for your exercise. You don’t have to walk up a mountain to do it (although it is an AMAZING way to spend a day!). Gardening, walking the dog, running, swimming, cycling, and so much more are all good reasons to get out into nature and get the benefits to your mind and body.

You don’t have to take my word for it. There is a growing body of research to back up what we know intuitively - being in nature makes us feel good. Kaplan and Kaplan talked about the Attention Restoration Theory, and how being in, or even looking at, nature can help boost concentration and reduce mental fatigue. As a late diagnosed ADHDer, this really resonates with me, as the cognitive benefits I get from being in nature are sometimes profound. Richard Louv speaks of the impact of ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’ as “a description of the human costs of alienation from nature”. I know when I don’t get much chance to get out into nature, I feel it in every aspect of my being.

In 2020, when we were all in pandemic lockdown, millions of people started to notice the wellbeing that their short exercise time in nature, or their newly beloved gardens gave to them. The University of Derby conducted research that showed that even 10 minutes of simple 10 minute nature based activities make a difference. In a project that worked with 500 volunteers across the UK, they found that “every volunteer who took part in the project reported higher levels of wellbeing and greater connectedness to nature after taking part”.

I shared my own experience of the positive benefits I got from being in nature during lockdown here….

To my mind there is no better feeling than being at the top of a hill, and letting the winds play with my hair. I don’t hike barefoot, so the earth doesn’t get to feel my bare feet while I’m doing it, but I do walk in ‘barefoot shoes’ now, so I’m almost there! And now that the weather is getting warmer, I will be spending lots more time with my skin touching the earth, and letting it hold and comfort me.

Journey’s Peak

I am taking a short writing class at Cardiff University. It’s called ‘Writing Journeys’, and it’s all about writing about travel and journeys in life.

The theme of last week’s class was ‘means of travel’. This is the piece I wrote, about a walk I had recently enjoyed with a friend.

When they ask you why you do this, you wish you could bottle this moment an share it with them. If only they could inhale this air, see this view. They’d understand.

Inhaling deeply, the breathe that enters your lungs is pure and clean, your lungs expand to take it all, as your eyes do the same with the view.

The fire in your calves, that beautiful burn makes you feel so alive, reminding you that you’ve earned this view. Step by step, crunching on gravel paths, climbing over jagged rocks, stopping to ‘admire the view’ when you needed a pause. There were times you didn’t think you could do it, when your legs screamed for rest, your lungs burned with the effort of keeping you alive, and the weight you carry felt to much to bear.

But here you are.

And this is why.

Here at the highest point, you look back and see the spikes on the back of the dragon you conquered. The new spring grass turning his skin a hundred shades of green, as it blends with hazel shrubs, and last year’s dying bracken. The tiny moving dots along the path remind you that you’re not alone in taming the dragon today, but for now, you are alone, the air is all yours.

You sit down and pour some tea. The yellow warmth of turmeric and ginger give flavour to the warmth on your skin and in your body. As you cool the tea with your too warm breath, you can’t keep the smile from your salty sticky face as you take in the world around you.

The green of the Bannau Brycheiniog reminds you that life is good. You watch the colours change as the clouds move the shadows, delighting in the darkness and the light. The skylarks sing their joy from their invisible perch above you, and for now, everything is perfect.

Yes, if you could only give them this moment, they’d never again wonder why you like walking in the hills. They’d be there with you.

Monthly meditation for paid subscribers

On June 7, at 5.30pm BST, paid subscribers can join me for an hour on Google Meet, where we will explore nature connection activities and share some meditation together. I am really excited to share this session with you, hopefully the weather will be good and I can take you into my beloved Rhondda hills for the session!

If you’re a paid subscriber, look out for an email from me with the link soon, or if you want to become one, you can subscribe below…

Paid subscribers, both monthly and annual, will receive

• monthly meditations and guided nature connection practices held in community on Zoom

• weekly voice notes with inspiration and insights into recovery and nature connection

• a 15% discount on my online and in person events (Yoga and meditation classes, workshops, retreats etc)

• my deepest love and gratitude. By supporting me here on Substack, you are supporting me as I grow as a writer and teacher, and allowing me to restore my own wellbeing as I navigate the many challenges of being the neurodivergent single mother of a neurodivergent teenage boy

Founding members will receive all the above, and will also be invited to join me for 4 annual online retreats, taking place on the Winter and summer equinoxes and solstices. These will be delivered live on zoom, and will include a mixture of meditation, yoga, nature connection and self exploration through writing prompts.

Subscribe now

Whether you are a subscriber or just passing, free or paid subscriber, I want you to know how much I appreciate you being here.

And I’d love to know, do you have a favourite place that makes you feel as alive as I feel on top of a mountain? Share in the comments, please, and if you can add photos, even better!

Hoping you have a wonderful weekend filled with joy, connection and maybe a couple of trees!

with love

Esther

I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see my son getting in that ridiculous big truck, with the inexplicable, never once used, surfboard and kayak on top. 

Never been so glad for a weekend away from my little darling. Never so in need of the break from the increasingly unbearable burden of mothering, of adulting.

Never so in need of time that is just mine.

Four weeks we’ve been trapped here. Four weeks of fear. Isolation. Frustration. Stress that makes last month’s stress look like a relaxation retreat. Trying to manage a job I hate that was never meant to be done from my front room. Tempering my need to walk and be free with the rules, and a child that hates walking. Balancing my need to keep him with me, to keep him safe from the risks his father’s job could bring with my need to not lose my mind. Looking at social media and wondering when I will get the time everyone else now seems to have in abundance. 

Now that his father has, like so many others (but not me!) been furloughed, he is no longer transporting people to and from the airport, and I can release some of my fear. And I can find a tiny pocket of time in a stressful week to breathe. Not too close to anyone else, of course, this is April 2020 after all.

I might not be able to go to see my friends, or go to dance to a band this evening.

But even before my son has got his seatbelt on and waved goodbye to me, I am putting my walking boots on. I am doing the one thing I know will restore me. John Muir’s words are singing in my ears, and I am answering their call….. 

‘The mountains are calling and I must go’

3 hours, and 8 miles later and I am a new person. With every step, I left a little morsel of fear, anxiety and existential dread behind. Every time I said a socially distanced hello to someone I have never seen in these hills before, I felt a renewed optimism that our society would emerge from this with a love and appreciation of nature that has been lost over years and years of separation. Every bird song, every new bud, every emerging flower filled me with joy I didn’t think possible in these Covid-19 days. 

I knew those things would happen. I understand how nature affects my wellbeing, how much we humans need it even if we have largely forgotten that we are part of it. I knew that a walk in the hills on a sunny day was bound to lift my fraught mood.

But I hadn’t expected to feel so grateful that I was trapped in this tiny valley.

Trapped. Stuck. Doomed. 

These are words I’ve used many times to describe the fact that I live where I do.

I’m trapped here. Stuck here. Doomed to always live here. 

It was never the plan. I never wanted to be here. Always imagined that my life would take me to exotic places where I’d have to learn new languages, and adapt to new cultures.

Life seemed to mock that plan from the start. The furthest I managed was university 40 miles away. And then I got so lonely, I wanted to come home to this tiny valley I never felt comfortable in. Home to the family and friends who spoke my language, and shared my culture. Home where I have a map of the streets and mountain paths etched into my brain. Home where everybody knows my name, even if that is one of the reasons I always wanted to leave.

When I started walking in the hills with my mother and son, I learned to see the beauty. In a small valley, the hills are all around, and they are very green. They weren’t always. My childhood memory is of the oppression of black and grey, left behind when the mine owners moved on from the community that had made them so wealthy, caring nothing for the debris their mines left to scar the landscape and the lives. 

But nature does its thing, and now these hills are lush, green, watered by the rain we love to complain about, fed by the sun we claim we hardly ever see.

These hills, once so oppressive and depressing in their grey blackness had supported and soothed me for years. They had seen me through the agony of my brother’s death. They had helped me slowly walk to recovery from addiction. They held me as I stomped out stress, rage, insecurity, pain, and the many confusions life has to offer.

So in 2020, I knew that, despite the child who hated walking any distance at all, those hills were to be my salvation, my path through the devastation that Covid-19 was bringing to my life.

I still wanted to leave. To live in those exotic places. But right now, as I read about people in tower blocks in city centres, with virtually no access to nature, I realised I felt a new feeling about my home. Deep, profound gratitude.

Had I lived in one of those tower blocks, or in a city with little access to nature, I don’t know how I would have got through that awful time. I can honestly say, I think my recovery would have been in trouble. And I have often said that had I been drinking during lockdown, I would have almost certainly been one of the 18.9% of increased alcohol related deaths during that time1.

It wasn’t the first time nature, and being able to give my stress, my fears, my anxieties to the trees and the birds, had helped me through difficult times. It won’t be the last. Mother Nature has held me in her loving embrace over the past few months when depression has beaten me into submission, and is gently loving me back to wellbeing as my Winter starts to thaw, and the buds of Spring start to emerge.

There is an increasing body of work into the benefits that humans get from being in nature. There are countless reasons why we need to be connected to nature. We ARE nature, or part of it at least. We are one of 8.7 million species of life on this planet, and we are meant to live in harmony with them.

For me, the biggest benefit I have ever seen is related to my mental health2. Discovering the delights of walking in the mountains of South Wales set me on the path that lead me to recovery, not just from grief, but from alcohol addiction.

Whenever I feel down, exhausted, broken, lost, isolated and all the other pains that depression, stress, single parenthood and, let’s face it, life in the 21st Century can create, I know that if I can spend time with the trees, the birds, the flowers, the rivers and the air, I will feel better. I ‘Return to My Trees’, to that sense of peace, connection and belonging that is my birthright as a human being.

We are not meant to live in a world of concrete, connected to one another through WiFi and seeing the world through screens. Our nervous systems need the greens and blues, the light and dark, the waves and the shadows, the sounds and silences of nature for us to feel safe and well. Mark Zuckerberg can shove his Metaverse, I want my forests to be in 3 dimensions, with sounds, tastes, smells and textures I can fully experience, not in a VR headset.

Whether it’s walking in the hills, hugging a tree, tending the flowers in your garden, cuddling your pets, watering your houseplants, or listening to the birds as they greet the day, connection with the natural world will always feel good. 

How do you connect with nature in your daily life? Let me know in the comments, photos very welcome!

At 51 years old, much is expanding. The waistline, the count of grey hairs, the map of smiles and frowns etched onto my face, the sagging of the parts one firm. 

And with that expansion, comes the disappearance. The young really don’t notice the old do they? Men no longer see a woman. I didn’t realise I had become an ‘old woman’ until I realised how invisible I have become to the young, and the gaze of men. Not that I mind either, most of the time anyway. 

And in that expansion and disappearing came the breaking. Finally the weight I have carried in my heart, my soul and my body were too much to bear. The pain I learned to accept as normal life called my immediate attention. The stories I have told myself about who I am demanded I confront their truths (or lack of truths). My body demanded rest and quiet that had never seemed necessary, possible or desirable. 

My heart, soul and body have been calling to me for a very long time. Pleading with me to hear their needs, to give them time and space and care and compassion. To give myself the love I sought for so long from others. 

I know that I have needed this breaking for a long time. I’ve been here before, shattered into a thousand pieces, so that I could rebuild myself anew. The sober, gentler woman who emerged from that first breakdownthrough thought I had it all figured out. That I had myself figured out. 

When I discovered, a few years later. that my life was built on a foundation not of failure and  incompetence, but of ADHD, I rewrote everything I thought I knew about myself from that earlier time. Stripped back all the world had told me was wrong with me, and found the strength I had gained in my struggles.

But then the struggles expanded. And I contracted. As the burden of pain, of grief, of loss and loneliness weighed me down, I collapsed. Retreated into sadness, to silence, to stillness, to self. And finally, I saw that I needed to rest before I could bear such a weight.

We live in a world that has learned to see rest as something that must be earned. We must work our 6 days before we can take our sabbath, our rest. And if we don’t do everything that society deems ‘enough’, and we still insist on rest, we are ‘lazy’.

But although the old saying tells us that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, the reality in the 21st century is that in fact, it makes Jack a burned out boy. An article in Forbes last month highlighted that 8 out of 10 employees are at risk of burnout, with financial pressures, exhaustion and excessive workload the top causes. 

So people aren’t lazy, they are working too damn hard. And it’s killing them. Prolonged stress is a leading cause in many of the the biggest life altering or shortening health conditions we know of today, including heart disease, mental health problems, stroke, addiction, diabetes and more. I was recently told that the bulk of my mental and physical problems have chronic stress at their core. And I’ve got a lot of tools at my disposal to reduce stress!

I’m still on the painful side of the breaking, the burnout and mental exhaustion. And I can tell you, it isn’t pretty. It’s depression, grief, fatigue, feeling utterly hopeless and miserable, and wondering if I will ever feel joy again, it’s an agonising lack of motivation and purpose that has left me not suicidal, but certainly wondering what is the point of life that feels like this.

But it’s taught me a lot. About myself, about who are the people I can truly rely on in my life, and about what is really important to me.

And one of the main thing it’s taught me is that rest and self care aren’t just luxuries for after the work is all done. The work will never be done, but you need the rest and self care anyway.

It doesn’t have to involve taking months off work, escaping from life and going on long retreats, it certainly doesn’t have to involve massage (although if you are experiencing muscle tension, I highly recommend them!)

Self care can be deceptively simple.

It can be

• Making time to talk to a friend

• Stepping outside and breathing in the morning air with your first coffee of the day

• Switching your phone off or onto airplane mode when you work so you can focus

• Turning notifications off, or putting them on silent

• Spending time in undisturbed companionship with your loved one

• Going for a walk at lunchtime instead of eating your lunch at your desk (or forgetting to eat it at all!)

• Taking your meds when you’re supposed to

• Reminding yourself that you are doing your best, even when it feels that you aren’t

• Finding a quiet spot in nature and spending 5 minutes just breathing and being, quietly connecting with the wider world

These sorts of activities can’t reduce an excessive workload, get your boss to increase your pay, or make your work environment less toxic. There may be bigger changes you need to make to improve your overall mental wellbeing, and bring you back from burnout. 

But if you can carve out a few moments in your day to savour the joys of being alive, to connect to yourself, to those you love and to the world around you, you may find that you are better able to cope, and rediscover your true self under all the pressures life has put on you.

As for me, I’m still putting myself back together. The expansions and contractions have reshaped me into someone I have not yet quite worked out how to be. But I know that self care, connection and creativity are what I need. They are what got me sober, and they are what are getting me through this and taking me into the new expanded version of me, the elder, wiser woman with Hagitude that I know is waiting for me to become.

We can’t do that here in quite the same way, but we can talk about it. So I’d love you to tell me, what is your favourite way to spend time in nature? What do you love about it?

You may have noticed the change of name on here, and a new profile pic for me. It’s been on the cards for a while, and I am sure that I will be sharing more about the inspiration behind it in the weeks and months to come, both directly and indirectly. The last couple of months have shifted, well, everything for me, and a focus on recovery and time in nature makes more sense than rock n roll sobriety.

I am delighted with the new name. You can see a story about the phrase, and how much it means to me, here.

I’ve had a good day today, and I hope you have too.

A good day for me these days involves a lot less than it did a few months ago. A good day used to mean I got lots and lots done, my brain was busy, I was creative and active and added a lot of steps to my Garmin count.

Today, I haven’t even reached my 10,000 steps goal (but I will before bedtime, I’m almost there!). But I walked in nature this morning, listening to the songs of the birds in the trees, the burbling, gushing and roar of the streams, tributaries and baby waterfalls from the mountain to the river, and the crunch and squelch of the gravel and mud under my feet. I walked until I got to 'my tree’, where I sat for a while, pondering the misty view, and the day ahead of me. I was looking forward to going swimming with my friend Maggie, but the morning was for writing. I returned home, wet, chilly, and in need of a coffee, but happy, soothed and inspired.

Then I got to work. After returning to my tree for inspiration, I knew, after a couple of weeks of pondering, what this publication had to be called. You can find out a little more about the meaning behind the name change here.

I’ve also launched a paid subscription layer to the site. While I (currently at least) don’t intend to paywall my writing or comments, I did want to add more ways that we can get to know one another on a deeper level here. And so I have added paid and founding levels of membership

Paid subscribers, both monthly and annual, will receive

• monthly meditations and guided nature connection practices held in community on Zoom

• weekly voice notes with inspiration and insights into recovery and nature connection

• a 15% discount on my online and in person events (Yoga and meditation classes, workshops, retreats etc)

• my deepest love and gratitude. By supporting me here on Substack, you are supporting me as I grow as a writer and teacher, and allowing me to restore my own wellbeing as I navigate the many challenges of being the neurodivergent single mother of a neurodivergent teenage boy

Founding members will receive all the above, and will also be invited to join me for 4 annual online retreats, taking place on the Winter and summer equinoxes and solstices. These will be delivered live on zoom, and will include a mixture of meditation, yoga, nature connection and self exploration through writing prompts.

Launch offer

I’m very excited by this subscription package, and have already started planning our Spring retreat, which will take place on Wednesday March 20, from 12-3pm UK time. Most of it will be recorded (I won’t record the discussions, only the parts that I am delivering, so that people can feel free to share freely), so if you can’t make it live, you can always create your own retreat at a time when you can fully enjoy it.

I am a trained Yoga teacher, embodied meditation teacher, nature connection guide, and coach, and this retreat will offer you a perfect opportunity to nourish and soothe yourself as you prepare to open up to the new possibilities of Spring. I’m excited and can’t wait to share this with you.

And in the spirit of giving and abundance that spring brings us, I am offering you a 20% discount on a founding, monthly or annual subscription, not just for this year, but for the lifetime of your subscription!

This offer is available to all until March 3rd, at the end of the weekend, when I’ll be returning to my trees after a weekend in London with my son, his girlfriend, and my brother and his husband. We’re going to see Hadestown, which includes, coincidentally, a lot about Persephone, the Goddess of the Underworld whose return to the surface, and to her mother, heralds the arrival of spring.

I hope you will be able to join me for this retreat. I will send out more information closer to the time about what you will need to bring etc, but until then, I wish you love, and that you are able to make time in your life to return to your trees, whatever that means to you.

With love and connection

Esther