The other day I was being coached by someone I’ve worked with for many years.

I was talking through one of the many possible directions my life and work could take. My coach got excited about one of them. They could see how it might work. They validated it as a viable route. They positively encouraged me to go for it.

For some people, that might have been exactly the affirmation they needed. I could feel my heels digging in. My knuckles dragging. My hackles going up.

Nope. No. no. no. I don’t want to do that anymore. Even though, moments earlier, I had been seriously considering it. What happened? I think their excitement and encouragement landed in me as expectation.

This is what you should do. This is what you will do. And expectation became demand. And I don’t do particularly well with demands.

It reminded me of being much younger and someone telling me I would never manage to give up smoking. Never have I been so firmly committed to breaking a bad habit as when somebody expected me to fail. Apparently, I really like proving people wrong.

And then there is the utter horror of unsolicited advice. Tell me what you think I should do when I haven’t actually asked you and there is a reasonable chance I will immediately want to do the opposite. Of course, eventually we get so good at it that other people don’t even need to should us. We do it perfectly well ourselves.

A dear friend of mine has a phrase I love: “Oh no. I’m shoulding all over myself.” I know that feeling well. The opposite has also been true.

For several years I received spiritual accompaniment from an incredible woman who never seemed to hold a vision of who I should become. She held me in my wholeness. She made room for the extraordinary range of my thoughts and feelings. My contradictions. My wabi-sabiness. She listened. She noticed. She asked questions. She offered things. But the conclusions were mine. ALL. MINE. Being met like that has been one of the most healing and generative experiences of my life. I could hear myself think. Nobody was shaping it for me, advising me towards it or telling me how things were.

And so I find myself in the slightly strange position of being a coach who feels increasingly uncomfortable with quite a lot of coaching.

Are we tired of being improved?

Over the last 10 or 15 years, I’ve also become increasingly uncomfortable with much of the self-help industry. I say this as a recovering self-help addict. One who, it should be said, occasionally relapses. I’ve done the striving. The people pleasing. The perfectionism. The spiritual seeking. The books, courses and practices. I’ve put A LOT of effort in. Always with that sense that there was another version of me just over the horizon who might finally have her shit together. She never arrived. I have given her 50 years. I think that is quite enough chances.

It’s not that I don’t believe people can change. Of course we can. It’s the assumption underneath so much of it that troubles me. That who you are now isn’t quite enough.That there is a better version of you waiting somewhere up ahead and, with enough work, effort, discipline, healing, positive thinking, habit stacking, journalling, cold-water swimming and waking up at 5am, you might eventually become them. There is always a gap. Between who you are and who you should be. And an enormous industry has grown up around helping us close it. It exists within a much bigger culture that depends upon us feeling we lack something. Your body could be better. Your skin younger. Your house nicer. You could be more productive, successful, organised, motivated, healthy, happy, confident and spiritually evolved. There is always something we can buy, learn, practise or improve to get ourselves a little closer. I’m tired just writing that.

Perhaps recognising our own enoughness is actually a radical act. Because if I believe my body, home, work, parenting, productivity and life are all somehow lacking, there is an awful lot you can sell me. And the self-help industry isn’t immune from this. So yes, there is a slightly subversive, stick-it-to-the-man part of me that loves the idea of simply saying:

Actually, I’m enough.

What if I don’t want another. Single. Thing. To do?

I wonder if many of us are simply tired of being improved. Tired of trying. Tired of the demands. For many women in particular, the demand to work on ourselves lands on top of a life already thick with expectations about how we should look, care, parent (without a village I might add), work, age, relate and cope. There is already work, care, children, parents, relationships, bodies, homes, appointments, food, health, friendships and the endless invisible administration of keeping a life going. And then along comes personal development. Meditate. Exercise. Journal. Set boundaries. Practise gratitude. Sort out your nervous system. Find your purpose. Heal your childhood. Get eight hours’ sleep. Become the best version of yourself. What if I don’t want another thing to add to my relentless to-do list?

And then there is the demand for speed. Transformation in six hours, six days or, if you’re lucky, six weeks. I don’t buy it. My own sense of being enough grew incrementally over years. It wasn’t linear. The deepest changes in my life have often accumulated. A conversation. A failure. A question that wouldn’t leave me alone. A pilgrimage. A relationship. Something understood and then forgotten and understood again.

Sometimes, of course, change appears to happen spontaneously. Something falls away. Something suddenly becomes clear. But even then I wonder what has been quietly shifting beneath the surface before the moment we finally notice. Deep change often takes time. Or seemingly happens in an instant. Either way, I think it takes its own sweet time. Everything when you’re good and ready.

My own resistance to being improved

I’ve been thinking about all this partly because of my own brain and my increasing recognition that I have a complicated relationship with demands. I can decide entirely for myself that I want to do something. I can know why I want to do it and that it would probably make my life considerably better. And then it becomes something I should do. Suddenly I don’t want to do it anymore. Sometimes I seemingly can’t do it. Even though I created the demand myself.

I’ve also noticed in my coaching work the relief that can enter the space when someone realises I’m not about to bulldoze them with SMART goals. I’m not going to demand that they tell me what success looks like or insist they commit to three actions before our next session. I’m not sitting there secretly thinking: Where are we trying to get this person to? Sometimes there is somewhere they want to get to. Then, of course, we can explore that. But sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes somebody just needs somewhere to be.

Coaching and accompaniment

Perhaps this is one reason spiritual accompaniment had such a profound effect on me. Nobody was trying to get me anywhere. There was no vision of success. I wasn’t being improved. I was being accompanied. I was given space to speak, wonder, contradict myself, change my mind, sit in uncertainty and sometimes have absolutely no idea what any of it meant. The person accompanying me might notice something, ask a question or offer something back. But the conclusions were mine. There was something profoundly freeing about that.

And more and more of that has found its way into how I work. I listen. I notice. I reflect. I ask questions. Sometimes I challenge or offer another perspective. Sometimes we sit with something without trying to resolve it. I know. Shocking. We give it space, time and the right conditions. We don’t keep pulling the sapling out of the earth to check whether its roots are growing. I’m not passive. Oh gosh no. I’ve learned over many years just how potent listening with intention can be. Listening can be generative. A question can be generative. Silence can be generative. But I’m not steering. I’m walking alongside.

And I’ve begun to wonder whether some people don’t need less support. Perhaps they need support, maybe even more support, but with less direction.

Wholeness isn’t perfection

Years ago, while training for ministry, I wrote an essay about what it means to feel “good enough.” I found myself asking a question that changed something quite fundamental in me: If God doesn’t want me perfect, how does God want me?

The answer that came was: Whole. I’ve carried that distinction ever since. Wholeness isn’t perfection. Wholeness has room for the whole enchilada. The frightened bit. The angry bit. The contradictory bit. The ambitious bit. The needy bit. The generous bit. The bit that knows. The bit that hasn’t got a clue. All of it.

Jason Shulman writes in The Instruction Manual for Receiving God: “Be who you are” is the great secret of spiritual work. Not become who you should be. Not optimise who you are. Not identify your weaknesses and devise an action plan. Be who you are.

And when I look back at the times when the “not good enough” voice has actually gone quiet, they weren’t generally moments when I’d finally achieved something. They were walking the Camino. Travelling through Japan. Losing myself in music. Dancing with my children. Being in nature. Sitting with people I love. Moments when I wasn’t trying to become anyone at all. I was simply there.

I don’t have a better version of you in my head

I think this may be the most important thing I can say about how I work. When somebody sits opposite me, I don’t have a better version of them waiting somewhere in my imagination. I don’t need them to become more productive, confident, successful, healed, organised or spiritually evolved. I don’t need them to change. I’m starting somewhere else. With their wholeness. With the assumption that there isn’t something fundamentally wrong with the person sitting opposite me that needs fixing or improving.

That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in change. Quite the opposite. People leave things. Begin things. Find their voice. Lose certainty. Find certainty. Change their lives. Sometimes they simply deepen. But I don’t think change needs to begin with the assumption that something is wrong with the person who is changing. Perhaps it can begin with enoughness. With wholeness. With the possibility that you are not a self-improvement project. You are a person having a life. And perhaps what many of us are craving isn’t another person telling us how to live that life better.

Perhaps we are craving somewhere we don’t have to perform or prove ourselves. Somewhere we can bring the tangled things. The knots. The contradictions. The things we haven’t found words for yet. And have another human being say: I’m here. Let’s see what’s here.

And strangely, things move

This is the paradox I keep noticing. When I stop trying to move someone from A to B, things often start moving. Towards something of their own. A realisation. A question. A decision. A boundary. A longing they’d been frightened to acknowledge. Sometimes simply a deeper understanding of themselves.

Years ago, writing that essay about enoughness, I described spiritual accompaniment as a way of reconnecting us with our inherent wholeness. Reading those words again now, I realise something. Somewhere along the way, that stopped being simply something I experienced. It became the way I work.

So yes, as a shorthand, I call myself a coach. But increasingly I recognise how much accompaniment there is in what I do. I companion. I walk alongside. I listen deeply. I notice. I question. Sometimes I challenge. But I don’t need you to arrive with a SMART goal or a vision of success. Perhaps we could set those things down for a while. Let’s start with what’s actually here. Because perhaps we don’t always need somebody standing ahead of us, pointing towards the path.

Sometimes we need somebody walking beside us while the path reveals itself. You don’t have to become somebody else for me to walk alongside you. You don’t have to be perfect to be whole. You were already enough when you arrived.

And while we’re talking about less effort...

There is one more “should” I’ve been noticing in myself. I have always struggled with meditation. Racing mind. Wiggly body. Thoughts everywhere. And sometimes, as an interfaith minister, I find that surprisingly difficult to admit. Not only to other people, but perhaps more importantly to myself. Because surely I should be good at this by now? Ha. Apparently even after writing an entire essay about enoughness, I can still find another thing to should all over myself about.

So when my friend Jo told me she was offering a course in effortless meditation, my ears pricked up. Effortless? I’m curious. And I’m going along. Not because I’ve decided meditation is another thing I need to master. And not because I know where it will lead. I don’t. I’m going as a learner. To receive. To explore. To experiment. And perhaps to discover what meditation might be like if I stopped trying quite so hard to be good at it.

If you’re curious too, you can find out more about Jo’s course here:

https://www.revjoroyle.co.uk/post/online-effortless-meditation-oct26

As for me, I’m going along with my racing mind and my wiggly body. Not to get better at meditating. Just to see what happens when I stop trying so hard to be good at it.

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May the vastness of tonight’s eclipse lead us into awe.

May that awe draw us away from our preoccupation with ourselves.

May we recognise our smallness but not mistake it for insignificance.

May we feel our belonging to something infinitely larger than ourselves.

May that belonging make us humble.

May it make us feel fully alive.

And as we look towards the darkening sky, may we remember the extraordinary blue-green planet beneath our feet. Our home.

May our awe awaken gratitude, and may that gratitude deepen into care and responsibility.

May this eclipse awaken us to what we’ve been given, and move us to cherish and protect nature in whatever way we can.

So be it.



Image by Jongsun Lee, unsplash

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I was going to gather a few natural objects for this harvest season. Feathers perhaps. Seed heads. Bark. Leaves. Things that had fallen naturally to the woodland floor.

The truth was, I arrived utterly spent. Done. Kaput.

The children are deep into the summer holidays. My mum’s health has needed more of me again. The endless administration of family life seems to multiply by the day. Beneath it all sits a quiet grief for the world itself. It feels as though it’s burning.

And so there was no surprise for me to see that the grass surrounding the woods had turned yellow after weeks of relentless heat. The whole area looked exhausted. In desperate need of rain.

For whatever reason, I tend to go to these woods when I’m completely done in by life. And for years, whenever I’ve walked these woods, one thought has quietly accompanied me.

Maybe today I’ll find another jay feather.

About ten years ago I found one there. A tiny blue and black iridescent feather that became one of my most treasured possessions. Ever since, every visit has carried the faintest whisper of hope.

Perhaps today.

Usually nothing happens.

This day felt no different.

For a while I stuck to the main paths.

Then I stepped off.

As I often do, I paused to call in the four directions and speak the vow that has accompanied me for many years.

It was then I realised this wasn’t a gathering walk after all.

It was a medicine walk.

Almost immediately I saw a feather.

Long.

Grey.

Only the faintest hint of blue.

Just enough to know which bird it had come from.

Jay.

A pulse of excitement ran through me.

Beside it lay another feather.

Tiny.

Upside down.

I knew what it was before I picked it up.

Yet when I turned it over, I was still caught by surprise as it flashed in the light.

Electric blue.

Black.

White.

Impossible.

Iridescent.

I stood there staring.

For a moment, beauty interrupted despair.

As I wandered deeper into the woods, the woodland kept offering gifts.

Hornbeam.

Mugwort, growing in abundance though I’d never consciously noticed it before.

Oak catkins.

A chiffchaff, whose song I’d somehow never recognised until that day. He called to me until I found him hidden amongst the leaves of a low tree.

Woodpecker feathers. Like the ones I’d found a few years before. Like the ones my son found in our garden after we’d watched a woodpecker clinging to our bird feeder.

Magpie feathers from birds I was once taught to distrust, but have slowly come to love.

Crow feathers from birds that now feel more like companions than omens.

Seeds carrying possibility.

Bark telling stories of shedding.

Leaves burnt yellow and red after weeks of relentless heat.

Only afterwards did I realise what I’d been gathering.

Not objects.

Relationships.

Appreciation begins with attention.

Gratitude grows from appreciation.

Care grows from gratitude.

The tiny jay feather mattered so much to me because it wasn’t just a beautiful feather.

It carried ten years of memory.

It carried a place.

It carried longing.

It carried the woman who found the first feather all those years ago and treasured it.

And the woman who found the second one this week.

It had become part of my story.

I’ve been thinking about Lammas ever since.

If I’m honest, I think it’s the festival I’m most likely to forget.

Not because it isn’t important.

Because life gets louder.

Schools break up.

Summer holidays begin.

Suitcases are packed.

The garden becomes dry.

The house becomes messy.

Everyone’s diaries become fuller.

The wheel turns quietly and the days get shorter while we aren’t looking.

Perhaps that isn’t a coincidence.

We’ve become very good at consuming.

Very good at producing.

Very good at rushing.

Less practised, perhaps, at belonging.

Harvest once connected people with the land that sustained them.

The sun.

The rain.

The soil.

The fungi.

The worms.

The wheat.

The farmer.

The miller.

The baker.

The hands that carried the loaf from one place to another.

The family who shared it.

Harvest was never simply about gathering food.

It was about honouring our relationship with everything and everyone that made that food possible.

We’ve not forgotten how to harvest.

We’ve forgotten what harvest was for.

When relationship fades, appreciation quietly fades with it.

Gratitude begins to disappear.

Care follows close behind.

If we don’t know the names of the birds in our neighbourhood, how can we notice when one disappears?

If the river is simply somewhere we drive past, why would we grieve when it fills with sewage?

If a woodland is just empty space on a map, why would we care when it’s cut down?

We protect what we love.

When I returned home, I laid everything out on the table.

The feathers.

The bark.

The mugwort.

The leaves.

Without really planning to, I found myself painting a jay.

Then I placed everything I’d gathered around it.

Not simply to make something beautiful.

To continue the relationship.

To remember that even on a day when I believed there was nothing left to give, and nothing left to gather, there were still jewels waiting to be turned over.

I still don’t know what the jay feather ‘means’.

I don’t think I need to.

It’s enough that every time I hold it, I’ll remember the day I arrived in the woods believing there was nothing left to give and nothing left to find.

And the woods quietly disagreed.

If this reflection resonated with you, I’d love to know.

What relationships are you gathering this harvest season?

Leave a comment below or share this essay with someone who might enjoy it.

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Back in January, I ran a vision board workshop for a small group of women.

Not the kind of vision board workshop where we focus on hustle, goals and five-year plans.

My background is in coaching, spiritual counselling, ministry, nature-based practice and group facilitation. So alongside creating vision boards, we explored deeper questions.

What is trying to emerge in your life?

What wants your attention?

What season are you in?

What are you longing for?

What are you ready to let go of?

The session included reflection, conversation, creativity, visualisation and time to listen beneath the noise of everyday life.

Something unexpected happened.

The women didn’t want it to end.

They wanted to stay connected.

They wanted more opportunities to gather.

They wanted more creativity.

More reflection.

More meaningful conversation.

More space to slow down.

So heeding this longing, I created Women of the Wheel.

A year-long circle inspired by the turning seasons and the ancient Wheel of the Year.

Looking back, I think what the women were really asking for was something quite simple.

A year of paying attention.

Paying attention to nature.

Paying attention to themselves.

Paying attention to what is changing, emerging, growing and ending.

Paying attention to life.

In a held space - with a sense of connection to other women.

Every six weeks or so we gather online.

There is poetry, meditation, conversation, creativity and seasonal reflection.

Between gatherings, I offer simple practices that invite us back into relationship with the natural world and our own inner landscape.

One month that practice was a medicine walk.

Women went out alone into woods, fields, beaches and hillsides with a simple intention or two. Walking slowly and paying attention to what nature revealed to them.

The stories that came back were extraordinary.

One participant shared how she was startled by the call of a deer and almost turned back. She continued anyway.

Reflecting afterwards, she realised that the experience mirrored her relationship with trying new things in life.

“Things can feel very uncomfortable when we start something new but if we continue with an open heart and mind then things can improve and be satisfying.”

Another described the medicine walk as:

“Like shamanic journeying in actual space.”

She shared that the symbols and messages which revealed themselves touched her deeply.

Perhaps what has surprised me most is how much the circle seems to be changing the way women experience everyday life.

One participant wrote:

“I’m noticing more things in nature, taking a more active interest in what is going on around me, noticing the buds on the trees, the shoots pushing through the earth and then how the season changes and moves into the next phase, slowly, with pause. I’m finding that I’m not wanting to rush through the year. I want to see how much I can see.”

Another shared:

“The feeling of connection with like-minded women. Even though we are a virtual group it is nice to know that I belong to a group that doesn’t judge me and where I can be my true self.”

I think that speaks to something many of us are feeling right now.

We are connected to hundreds of people online.

Yet many of us are longing for something deeper.

A slower pace.

A stronger connection with nature.

A place where creativity can emerge without judgement.

A sense of belonging.

A chance to be fully ourselves.

Women of the Wheel is still evolving.

In many ways, this first group is helping shape what it becomes.

But already it feels like one of the most nourishing things I have ever had the privilege of facilitating.

If reading this stirs something in you, I’d love to hear from you.

I will be opening another cohort in the future.

Send me a message and I’ll add you to the waiting list.

Away from our screens,

Away from AI,
Away from the pull of social media,
Away from the cost of living crisis,
Away from power held over us without care or compassion.

Away from the horrors of war,
Away from my fractured mind,
Away from the ache of my grieving heart.

There is an ancient woodland.
With birds singing their songs of hope.
And winds that rustle in oak, birch and beech.

Bluebells spread abundantly,
like a deep exhale across the earth.
These delicate blue blooms nod gently
for just a few short weeks.

They remind me that everything passes.
That healing is possible.
The beauty is still out there -
and in here.

They insist that I squeeze
each drop of joy, wonder and peace from life,
lifting it to my thirsty mouth,
drinking it in.

So I do not forget:
life is sacred.

Even now.

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May what no longer serves you
be released to the winds.

May you return to balance
in your heart and mind,
in your being and your doing,
in your inner and outer life,
in your giving and your receiving.

May the seeds you have been quietly tending
begin to take form.

May you draw on the rising energy of the earth
to remember what matters most to you.

May you feel, again and again,
the impulse towards joy,
towards openness,
towards love.

And may you continue, gently,
on your path towards wholeness.

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At school, I was told to sit on my hands instead of waving them around when I spoke, and to speak less, much less. Later, to cover my mouth when I laughed so I wouldn’t throw my head back and bare my teeth like some wild animal. In my late teens, our Catholic parish priest asked why I was going to read religious studies at university. When I admitted, to my own surprise, that I wanted to become a priest, he flushed red, almost purple, with outrage.

In the world of work, my boss told me I was ‘too political’, though he couldn’t quite explain what that meant. And when I turned down a safe job to pursue something less mainstream, I was called ‘a gambler’, ‘weird’, ‘impulsive’.

There’s always been a right way to be a woman: measured, moderate, smiling just enough. I wasn’t it.

I did climb the corporate ladder. I learned to read a room, understand people’s motivations, build alliances, think ahead. The very skills that would be celebrated in a man. But eventually, the part of me that was labelled ‘too much’ refused to stay held in corporate handcuffs.

I followed the pull toward healing, spirituality and embodied wisdom, all the things that didn’t fit in the tidy boxes of conventional success or conventional wisdom.

I’ve been called too wild, too scattered, too sensitive, too busy, too foreign, too infertile. Yet every ‘too much’ has carried me closer to myself. I just took the scenic route.

And now, here I am, in my late forties, at the liminal threshold that is perimenopause. And the old chorus has started again. Too hormonal. Too sensitive. Too angry. Too tired. Too late. But this time, I’m not buying it.

Rewriting the story

Perimenopause has not been something I’ve endured. It has been something that has saved me.

These years have cracked open everything I buried under pleasing, performing and being a ‘good girl’. They have forced me to slow down, to feel, to listen, to shed selkie skins that no longer fit. I notice the protest in the back of my head and neck each time I override my own needs, and the way my shoulders tighten after saying yes when I meant no. And in these same years, I have been ordained as an interfaith minister. I completed my apprenticeship in the Celtic medicine wheel and came home to the wildness of nature. And to myself as part of it. I stopped trying to keep up and started to live in rhythm. It has not been an ending. It has been a journey. A return to myself.

And yet, while I have been finding new ground, I have noticed how the world still talks about menopause. The conversation is louder now, less taboo, more visible. And that is good. But underneath the surface, the same story plays on. It is still the story of decline and deficiency. The story has changed shape, but not its bones. Because we fear the ‘too much’ woman. Especially when she has stepped into her sovereignty, which is the true promise of the wisdom years.

The story we’re still being told

The framing of loss
Menopause is still described through the lens of what ends: fertility, youth, desirability, rather than what unfolds. Even the phrase ‘the change’ sounds like something to endure, not evolve through.

The medicalised model
So much of the conversation is dominated by symptom management, HRT debates and pharmaceutical fixes. I am not against HRT. And I’ve definitely experienced my share of very uncomfortable symptoms. But when it becomes the headline, menopause is treated as a medical problem rather than a natural transition.

The youth comparison trap
Magazines love a ‘before and after’. The quiet message is always the same: try to look like you used to. But I do not want my younger self back. I want who I am becoming. I am bloody well welcoming her in.

The productivity bias
In the workplace, menopause is still framed as something to work around. That framing suggests a loss of value rather than a change in strength, focus and insight. I’ve spoken to women who found clearer boundaries, sharper priorities and a steadier sense of themselves at work during this time. I’ve felt that shift in my own work too.

The homogenised story
Not all women experience menopause the same way. Yet the mainstream script remains narrow: hot flushes, mood swings, loss. Where are the stories of relief, clarity and spiritual awakening?

The result is a paradox. Greater visibility, yes, but still within a framework of fear, loss and pathology. Because fear, loss and pathology sell. What is missing is reverence.

A biological and spiritual evolution

Here is what reverence looks like in the body itself.

Research from neuroscientist Dr Lisa Mosconi[i] has begun to reframe this stage of life entirely. Her multimodality neuroimaging study revealed that menopause is not simply a reproductive event but a neurological one. The brain changes structurally, chemically, energetically. And it adapts. It reorganises. It rebalances.

These changes do not signal decay but transformation: greater emotional stability, deeper empathy, new wiring for discernment, insight and connection.

Menopause, seen through this lens, is not a decline. It is an evolution. A recalibration of mind and body that prepares women for a new phase of leadership, self-compassion and contribution.

And from a historical and mythological perspective, this time is a rite of passage. An initiation into authority, creativity and insight. From the Cailleach of the Celts to the Obaasan of Japan, from the Aboriginal ‘aunties’ of the Dreaming in Australia to the clan mothers of Indigenous North America, cultures once revered elder women as wisdom keepers. Even the Greek archetypes of Hecate and the Moirai, the Fates, were once symbols of feminine power and intuition. Post-reproductive women were not seen as less than, but beyond.

Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar dissolves into a kind of cellular soup. Its old cells resist the new ones until the imaginal cells, carrying the blueprint of the butterfly, begin to cluster together, strengthening and communicating until a new form emerges. It is messy, invisible and utterly necessary.

Menopause feels like that to me: the disintegration of an old self so that something freer, truer and more intricate can take shape.

And after some serious composting and dissolution comes the bloom. The garden does not wither when the petals fall. It gathers strength below the surface. Perimenopause feels like that too. A time of rooting deeper into the dark rich soil, preparing to flower differently. Not the soft bloom of youth, but the rich, heady scent of experience. This is not withering. It is efflorescence, a slow unfolding into the fullness of who we have always been.

Learning from the orcas

And we are not the only species to do this. Research shows that several toothed-whale species, including orcas, short-finned pilot whales, belugas and narwhals, experience an extended post-reproductive lifespan. In other words, menopause. They stop reproducing in midlife yet live for decades beyond it. Scientists suggest this long post-reproductive period allows older females to offer intergenerational help, reduce reproductive conflict and increase the survival of their offspring and grandchildren. In orca pods in particular, older females have been observed taking on leadership roles during times of food scarcity, guiding their groups towards feeding grounds when resources are limited[ii]. Their post-reproductive years are not a decline; they are a design. A biological strategy that ensures the survival of the group.

What if we saw ourselves this way, not as fading but as evolving? What if menopause was understood as a shift in purpose, a widening of perspective, a redistribution of energy toward mentorship, creativity and wisdom?

The power of story

There is growing evidence that the stories we tell about our bodies shape our lived experience of them. Psychological research by Myra Hunter and Beverly Ayers has shown that the story we tell ourselves about menopause shapes how we live it. Women who view it as a natural transition rather than a medical problem to fix report fewer negative symptoms, less anxiety and greater well-being. This does not mean symptoms are ‘in your head’. It means our beliefs, culture and language influence how our bodies respond and adapt[iii].

When we tell ourselves that menopause is the end of usefulness, our nervous systems contract. When we understand it as a transformation, it expands. When the story changes, the body follows.

How different would it be…

How different would this time feel if we were never told we were too much to begin with? If our power was not something to be managed, muzzled, or medicated?
If every woman crossing this threshold was celebrated rather than sympathised with?

The difference between fear and reverence is ceremony. And the stories we tell in medicine, media and mythology shape what that ceremony looks like. Perhaps the oldest ceremonies can remind us how to fall, how to rise and how both are necessary.

Skywoman and Eve

In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes of Sky Woman, the first woman who fell from the sky[iv]. Her story belongs to the Haudenosaunee people, the Six Nations, and is among the oldest Indigenous creation stories of this land.

As she descended, she was caught by the wings of geese, rested on the back of a turtle and began to create the world from handfuls of mud. She was welcomed. Her fall became creation itself.

Eve, by contrast, was cast out. Her reaching for knowledge became the symbol of sin. For centuries, our Western culture has followed Eve’s story, the punished woman, the fallen one.

What would happen if we remembered Skywoman instead? If that was our blueprint? What if we greeted each life transition: puberty, motherhood, menopause, elderhood, as a sacred fall into a new cycle of creation?

Imagine a world where women approaching fifty are not invisible and not too much, but luminous. Resplendent. Where this shift is not whispered about or minimised, but celebrated and welcomed. Where we are seen as we truly are: women in full bloom, woven of bone, breath and becoming.

A rite of passage

In some cultures, this is beginning to happen again. Latino communities have evolved the cincuentañera, a celebration of turning fifty, modelled on the quinceañera, a coming-of-age ceremony for fifteen-year-olds[v]. It is an acknowledgement that midlife is not the end of beauty or purpose, but a new threshold of power.

Imagine if we marked this transition collectively, with songs, fire, feasts and blessings. If instead of hormone charts and pity, we received acceptance and recognition: You have lived, learned, lost, birthed, built, wept, laughed and returned, like the moon, always becoming. You have earned this next chapter.

Becoming the wise woman I needed

For most of my life, I tried to be less. Less opinionated. Less visible. Less intense. Now I see that every part of me that was ‘too much’ is exactly what this time calls for. This stage of life is not my undoing. It is my unveiling. My declaration.

This rite of passage has brought everything I hid into the light. It pulled up anger I didn’t know I was carrying. It released grief that had sat in me for decades.It softened a heart I’d kept armoured for years. It has stripped away performance and given me back my essence: untamed, intuitive, unapologetic. My body has become a teacher, my emotions oracles, my boundaries blessings.

This is not the end of vitality. It is the beginning of discernment, not the closing of a door but the widening of a horizon and an expansion into my whole self.

Because the truth is, we were never too much.
We were always more than enough.

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We cross many thresholds in a lifetime.

Puberty.
Motherhood.
Loss.
Menopause.
Becoming an elder.

Again and again, life asks us to release one identity and step into another.

That space in between can feel disorienting. Raw. Alive.

It is also where transformation happens.

If you enjoy reflections like this, you are very welcome to subscribe here on Substack. I write about life transitions, the wisdom years, and the cultural stories that shape how we live them.

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And if you find yourself standing in a threshold of your own right now, this is also the work I hold with women through my monthly coaching space, Anchor in the Waves.

A place to pause, reflect, and find steadiness while life is shifting.

You can read more about that here:
https://www.theblossomingpath.life/anchor-in-the-waves

[i] Mosconi L and colleagues. 2021. Menopause impacts human brain structure, connectivity, energy metabolism and amyloid-beta deposition. Scientific Reports.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8190071/

[ii] Ellis S, Franks DW, Kronborg ML, Weiss MN and colleagues. 2024. The evolution of menopause in toothed whales. Nature.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07159-9

[iii] Hunter MS and Ayers B. 2011. A cognitive model of menopausal hot flushes and night sweats. Journal of Psychosomatic Research.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2010.12.001

[iv] Kimmerer RW. 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions.

[v] Trapp V. 2024. The quinceañera’s midlife remix. The Atlantic, September 25.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2024/09/quinceanera-midlife-party-trend-tiktok/679993/

This matters. Silence has never served us well, and the breaking of it is long overdue.

At the same time, I hold a quiet concern.

Much of the current conversation remains framed almost entirely through symptoms and medical management. Hot flushes. Disrupted sleep. Mood changes. Brain fog. A body that needs fixing. Hormones to be corrected. Problems to be solved.

This focus is not wrong - but it is partial.

When a complex life transition is reduced to a checklist of symptoms and interventions, something essential is lost. We risk what has begun to be called meno-washing: a flattening of experience into a single, largely negative narrative that leaves little room for nuance, variation, or meaning.

Perimenopause becomes something to endure or manage, rather than a chapter that also carries psychological, relational, and existential depth.

What follows is an attempt to widen the frame.

Not to deny the real difficulties of perimenopause, many of which I know personally, but to place them within a fuller story that draws on science, history, narrative work, meaning-making, and ceremony.

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Not a failing brain, but a reorganising one

Neuroscience has begun to offer a far more sophisticated understanding of what happens during the menopausal transition.

Brain imaging research led by Lisa Mosconi and others shows that fluctuating oestrogen levels during perimenopause are associated with measurable changes in brain metabolism, structure, and connectivity. These changes can affect memory, attention, emotional regulation, and cognitive efficiency, particularly during the years when hormones are most volatile.

For many women, this feels frightening. There is a pervasive fear that the brain is failing, that sharpness and capacity are being lost for good.

Yet the longitudinal evidence does not support this conclusion.

Pauline Maki’s work on cognition across the menopause transition shows that while cognitive complaints are common during perimenopause, they are typically mild and, for most women, temporary. Once hormonal fluctuations settle, cognitive function often stabilises and frequently returns to baseline.

This reframing matters.

It suggests that what is often experienced as loss may instead be reorganisation. A period of disruption followed by the establishment of a new equilibrium. In my professional work, and in my own life, this often shows up not as diminished capacity, but as a different quality of clarity: less tolerance for what no longer fits, and a stronger pull toward what feels true.

Writing from inside the process

I want to be clear that I am not writing this from the far side of perimenopause, with tidy conclusions and hindsight. I am still in it.

It is part of my daily, lived reality, and I never quite know what I will wake up to. I have never had a hot flush, but I have lived with joint pain, memory lapses, periods of very low mood, anger and a shorter fuse. I have noticed sensory sensitivities I did not have before, itchy, crawling skin, shoulder problems that seemed to appear from nowhere, worsened migraines, disrupted sleep, gnawing anxiety that comes out of nowhere and a quiet but unsettling loss of confidence.

This is not theoretical for me. It is embodied.

And yet, alongside this uncertainty, something else is taking shape. I am realising how deeply animal we are, how physical and instinctual this transition is. What endures through this kind of metamorphosis is not control, but essence.

My empathy has deepened. My tolerance for the unimportant, the misaligned, or the simply wrong has thinned. My boundaries are clearer. My perspective is wider.

I am not finished with this process, but I know more clearly than ever who I want to be, how I want to live, and my true worth - irrespective of how society may position or label me or what anyone else thinks of me.

Hormones, stress, and the nervous system

Perimenopause rarely arrives alone.

It often coincides with other significant life shifts: changes in work, children growing or leaving home, caring for ageing parents, health challenges, losses, and reckonings with paths not taken.

Bruce McEwen’s research on stress and allostatic load helps make sense of why this phase can feel so intense. The nervous system is adaptive, but after sustained or repeated stress, it requires time to settle into a new steady state.

Perimenopause, with its hormonal volatility, places additional demands on a system that is often already stretched.

Seen through this lens, many perimenopausal experiences become more intelligible. Feeling foggy, wired, emotionally raw, or strangely untethered does not mean something is wrong with you. It often means your system is working hard to recalibrate under changing conditions.

Why the stories we tell ourselves matter

Alongside biology sits story.

A substantial body of research shows that how women think about menopause shapes how symptoms are experienced and reported. A systematic review led by Susan Ayers found that more negative beliefs about menopause are associated with greater symptom intensity.

More recent research by Tariq and colleagues highlights how widespread negative attitudes and limited knowledge about menopause remain, while also pointing to the role of cultural context in shaping understanding of this transition.

When we widen the lens further, cross-cultural research tells a consistent story. In societies where menopause is framed as a natural life transition rather than a medical problem, women often report a steadier and less distressing experience overall.

This is not an argument for positive thinking.

Biology is real. Symptoms are real. Suffering deserves care.

But meaning matters too.

Rewrite one line of your story

What’s the sentence you’ve been saying about perimenopause - to yourself or others? (”I’m falling apart” / “I can’t think straight anymore” / “My body’s betraying me”)

Now rewrite it with “right now” added: “Right now, I’m in a period of reorganisation.”

This isn’t denial - it’s accuracy. And accuracy changes what happens next.

Learning from nature and history

Only a small number of species are known to experience a long post-reproductive lifespan: humans, orcas, short-finned pilot whales, beluga whales, and narwhals.

Orcas have been studied most extensively, and the findings are striking. Post-reproductive female orcas often become leaders within their pods. They guide groups to food during times of scarcity, draw on long-term memory to navigate safe routes, and help reduce conflict within the group.

Historically, human societies also recognised this transition.

In Japan, menopause has traditionally been understood as a return to balance and wisdom. Among Mayan women, it has been described as a time of increased respect and autonomy. Large multi-ethnic studies such as SWAN, alongside anthropological work by Margaret Lock and Melby and colleagues, show how deeply cultural framing shapes experience.

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Why ceremony still matters

Humans are meaning-making creatures.

Psychological research on ritual shows that symbolic practices can reduce anxiety, support emotional regulation, and strengthen a sense of belonging during periods of uncertainty.

Studies examining spiritual and healing ceremonies suggest improvements in mental and spiritual quality of life following participation. Ceremony does not fix what is difficult, but it helps us integrate it: giving change shape, dignity, and context.

In modern Western culture, menopause is rarely honoured in this way. Many women move through it privately, managing symptoms but missing opportunities for reflection and re-orientation.

Something essential is lost when a profound life transition is treated solely as a medical problem.

Living more truthfully within change

None of this denies the difficulty of perimenopause.

Loss, grief, anger, exhaustion, and pain all belong here.

What this wider lens offers is not ease, but coherence.

When viewed through science, history, narrative, and ceremony, perimenopause looks less like an ending and more like a deep re-organisation of self. One that strips away what no longer fits and clarifies what matters.

The power of perimenopause lies not in overcoming it, but in learning how to live truthfully within it.

Questions to sit with

What stories about perimenopause have I inherited, and which of them actually feel true for me?

Where do I notice clarity or strength emerging alongside the difficulty?

What is my body asking of me now? Not in terms of fixing, but in terms of care?

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Where to go from here

If you’re in crisis: This piece won’t fix severe symptoms. If you’re struggling with debilitating depression, unmanageable anxiety, or symptoms that are seriously impacting your quality of life, please speak to your GP or a menopause specialist. The reframing offered here sits alongside medical care, not instead of it.

If you’re feeling lost or untethered: The practices below are specifically for you. Start with the daily settling practice for one week. Let your nervous system find ground before trying to make sense of everything else.

If you’re looking for meaning: Sit with the questions above. Consider creating your own small ceremony to mark this transition - it doesn’t need to be elaborate. Lighting a candle and speaking one truth aloud is enough.

If you’re angry at the cultural narrative: You’re not alone. Share this piece if it helps. Talk to other women. The conversation is changing because women like you are refusing the old story.

If you work with women in this life stage: Consider how you might widen the frame in your practice, workplace, or community. Moving beyond symptom management to include meaning-making changes everything.

If you want to go deeper: The research appendix includes starting points. The two practices below are gentle entry points to ongoing work. And if you feel you’re between identities and need support finding your footing, that’s exactly the space I work in through my programme Back to Balance - a month-long, one-to-one journey to help your nervous system settle, make sense of what has changed, and steady yourself in the day-to-day.

Two gentle micro-practices

A daily settling practice For when your nervous system needs anchoring

Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly. Take five slow breaths, letting the exhale lengthen slightly. Say quietly: Nothing needs fixing right now.

A small act of ceremony For when this transition needs acknowledgment

Write one sentence beginning with: “In this season of my life, I am learning…” Place it somewhere you will see it for a week.

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Research appendix

Neuroscience and cognition

Mosconi, L. et al. Brain imaging studies on menopause, cerebral metabolism, and connectivity.

Maki, P. M. (2015, 2019). Cognition and the menopause transition.

Goldstein, J. M. et al. Research on sex differences in brain ageing and hormonal transitions.

Stress and nervous system regulation

McEwen, B. S. (1998, 2007). Allostatic load and the biology of stress.

Beliefs, attitudes, and symptoms

Ayers, S. et al. (2010). A systematic review of attitudes toward menopause and symptom reporting.

Tariq, B. et al. (2023). Women’s knowledge and attitudes to the menopause. BMC Women’s Health.

Cross-cultural and anthropological research

Lock, M. (1993). Encounters with Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in Japan.

Beyene, Y. (1986). Research on Mayan women and menopause.

Avis, N. E. et al. SWAN studies on multi-ethnic menopausal experiences.

Melby, M. K. et al. Anthropological perspectives on menopause across cultures.

Evolutionary biology

Brent, L. J. N. et al. (2015). Post-reproductive lifespan in killer whales.

Croft, D. P. et al. (2024). Research on leadership and survival roles of post-menopausal orcas.

Ritual and ceremony

Hobson, N. M. & Norton, M. I. (2017). The psychology of rituals.

Rossano, M. J. (2020). The evolutionary role of ritual.

Hewson, P. D. et al. (2012, 2014). Studies on spiritual and healing ceremonies and quality of life.

As you enter the New Year, may you take the pressure off yourself.
May you stop pushing and stop striving.
May you remember you do not have to earn your worth.

May you listen for your inner wisdom.
The quiet voice beneath the noise.
The one that speaks through your body and your breath.

May your heart soften.
May it guide you gently.
May you trust what you already know.

May you be free from suffering.
May what aches find kindness.
May what is wounded find healing.

May you live in peace.
Not because life is easy.
But because you are rooted.
In the deep knowing that we belong to one another.

May you notice what is good.
The glimmers and the ordinary grace.
May gratitude flow from your heart without effort.

As this year opens,
May you walk it lightly.
Held by your own deep knowing.
Held by the One Great Heart.

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Most of us still take part in ceremony without calling it ceremony.
We dress up for weddings. We stand at gravesides. We gather to welcome a new baby.

We return to these moments because something in us knows that important experiences shouldn’t pass unnoticed. They change the people at the centre of them.
They change everyone watching. A ceremony shifts a space and reminds us that meaning still exists, that we belong to to life and to each other, and that life is worth pausing for.

Yet these familiar ceremonies are only a small part of what this work can hold. There are countless thresholds that don’t have a script. Times when you feel in-between, unnoticed, or quietly aching. Times when life hasn’t unfolded the way you imagined.

And there are thresholds that arrive with quiet joy. Moments of expansion.
Moments when something longed for finally begins to take shape. Even these need tending, because joy can feel fragile (even more fragile than grief) and a new identity can feel overwhelming.

Ceremony can hold both. The ache and the hope. The disappointment and the expansion. The grief for what didn’t happen and the gratitude for what is beginning.
It brings steadiness to both sides of change.

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Ceremony and ritual are not the same

People often use the words as if they mean the same thing, but they hold different qualities.

Ritual is the repeated action: Lighting a candle, placing your hand on your heart, offering a flower or a stone, actions done with intention that signal a shift inside you.

Ceremony is the container that holds those actions. The sacred pause. The space where your story, transition, grief, or hope is witnessed. Ceremony weaves ritual, reflection, breath, and presence into one coherent moment.

You can have ritual without ceremony. You cannot have ceremony without ritual.

Ritual is the gesture. Ceremony is the threshold it opens.

What bespoke ceremony really is

A one-to-one ceremony is shaped around your life and your truth. There is no script.
No performance. No need to explain or justify what you feel.

It is a private space where you can slow down and meet what is real. Mind. Body. Breath. The quieter layers of you that rarely get heard in everyday life. This intimacy is often what makes the work potent.

Ceremony speaks to the deeper self

Your deeper self listens to symbolism, intention, sensory experience, and gesture far more than to thought. When you cross a threshold with intention, something inside you understands it. A ceremony says to your inner world:
I matter.
This moment matters.
My story matters.
My healing matters.
My longing matters.
My grief matters.
My becoming matters.

Ceremony gives your subconscious a clear message that you are worth tending.
This is often the moment when change begins to take root.

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How ceremony has been used through time

• To honour endings and begin again
• To accept identity shifts
• To grieve losses that feel too tender to name
• To call in clarity when the old path has run out
• To settle a tired and wired nervous system
• To remind people they are not alone in their experience

Human beings have always turned to ceremony during moments of change.
It is one of the oldest tools we have for making sense of life.

Why ceremony helps when life feels scarce or stuck

Scarcity can be a feeling more than a fact. A sense that life is smaller or less than you hoped. Less connected. Less full. Less held. Scarcity can be a shortage of love, belonging, purpose, time, or possibility.

When someone feels “behind in life,” unseen, or outside the story they imagined, ceremony can offer:

• A way to honour the grief that polite society asks you to hide
• A space to release stories of lack and unworthiness
• A way to bless what hasn’t happened and still find meaning
• A way to soften into the life you have, rather than the life you planned
• A moment where your deeper knowing can rise without interruption

Ceremony can also hold your longed-for shifts

Even a welcome change can stir old fears, identity questions, and unexpected sadness. Ceremony helps you root yourself as you step forward.

It can support you when you:

• Fulfil a lifelong dream and need space to absorb it
• Move into a new chapter that feels exciting but unfamiliar
• Enter a new relationship and feel hope and hesitation together
• Move home or city and feel the stretch of settling
• Reach a milestone you worked for and feel unsure how to hold it

Ceremony makes room for both the rising and the letting go.

What the research shows

Various research studies into ritual and symbolic action is clear. Simple rituals reduce anxiety by giving structure during uncertainty. It helps people process loss by offering symbolic closure. It lowers threat responses in the body, and it boosts belonging, which eases loneliness and softens self-judgement.

This points to something humans have always known all along. Ritual reaches places that the thinking mind cannot. And when held within ceremony, the impact deepens.

Standing at your own threshold

Ceremony will not rewrite the facts of your life. It will not erase longing or grief.
What it can do is help you meet yourself with more softness. More honesty. More steadiness. When that happens, something begins to shift.

A gentle invitation

If you are moving through a threshold that feels tender, unclear, or quietly significant, get in touch. I offer bespoke ceremonies shaped around exactly where you are and what your heart is carrying.

A closing practice

Sit somewhere quiet.
Place one hand on your chest and one on your belly.
Ask yourself:
What part of my life is asking to be witnessed?
Let the truth rise.
Hold it kindly.
Then carry on with your day.

Stay grounded. Go gently. Let love be your compass.

www.theblossomingpath.life

A few months ago, I told you I was losing faith and that I was going on retreat to see if I could listen. You can read that earlier reflection here: When Certainty Slips Away.

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Here’s my confession. I didn’t book that retreat myself. My husband did. He gifted it to me for my birthday, long before either of us knew I would find myself questioning everything, but knowing full well I was heading into burnout. He knew I needed space. And he also knew that I wasn’t going to take myself off unless someone intervened. So he quietly intervened.

A few months later, I found myself in the woods in the West Country with a circle of beautiful women I’d never met before. We ate together, sat around a fire, camped out for 5 days and shared stories, laughter, and tears. It felt like exhaling after a long breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

What I didn’t expect was how much this short time away would mirror the very process of transition itself.

Going on retreat is like living a whole transition in miniature. You leave behind your usual life: the roles, routines, and noise (so. much. noise). There’s often guilt or fear in that leaving, and sometimes grief too. Then comes the messy middle. The space where you’re no longer who you were, and not yet who you’ll be. It asks for trust. For holding onto your seat when everything inside you wants to fill the silence.

Eventually, there’s a moment of beginning again. Seeing familiar things in a new, maybe older, actually ancient way. And then, of course, you return. You re-enter the world, carrying something fragile and precious that the world doesn’t always make room for. There’s a grief in leaving the cocoon of retreat, the constellation of community that was temporarily created. But this is where the real work begins. The work of integration. The spiral turns, and you begin again at a deeper level.

Jack Kornfield wrote a book called After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. He reminds us that the path isn’t about escaping life, but learning to bring what we touch in stillness back into the ordinary. The folding of clothes, the school run, the endless emails: these become the practice. The divine isn’t found away from life, but through it.

The gift itself was part of the teaching. My family rearranged so I could go. My children helped their dad manage uniforms and PE kits. My mum stepped in. And my husband, who searched for the right retreat, chose so wisely and well. Their love made the space possible. It reminded me that faith, the kind I thought I had lost, was there all along, humming quietly beneath the noise. Like a record player shoved in a cupboard under the stairs, its song was waiting to be heard again. And I could really hear it in the stillness, beauty, and holding of the woods.

And perhaps that is what faith truly is. Not belief, but connection. A rhythm that’s always there beneath the chaos. When I forget, it isn’t that the music stops. It’s that I’ve tuned into another frequency: the relentless noise of the world.

We are all learning to dance between these worlds. To step between noise and stillness, between the known and the unknown, the rational and the mystery; between the wild woods and the civilised world. The mystics called this the dance of the cosmos: the endless turning of creation and dissolution, embodied in the figure of Shiva Nataraja, the cosmic dancer. His dance keeps the universe in motion. And maybe our small lives echo that same pattern: letting go, stepping in, beginning again.

The word retreat comes from the Latin retrahere, meaning to draw back. It doesn’t have to mean a weekend away in the woods or a monastery stay (though those are wonderful). We can practise retreating every day: drawing back from noise, from screens, from the endless pull of doing. We can learn to pause, to listen, to step inward for a moment before returning to the world. In that pause, life realigns itself.

I know that being able to go on a formal retreat is a huge privilege. I also know it can look indulgent in a culture that glorifies productivity. But being kind to ourselves, in whatever way we can, by giving ourselves time and space to listen, is one of the most subversive acts we can make in a world that insists we are always on. And as women, that we are always giving to others.

If I am to serve others as a mother, daughter, wife, friend, minister, and coach, I need to drink from a full cup. We all do. And that is why I’ve taken the medicine of this precious gift of a retreat, and will now take responsibility for getting myself off on one more regularly. Giving myself permission to practise self-compassion in this way. And part of what I’ve integrated from this retreat is also giving myself permission to pause every day, often many times a day, to reconnect with myself and the stillness.

A micropractice

Take five quiet minutes today to step outside, even if only to your doorstep. Leave your phone behind. Notice what is changing: in the air, in the light, in the leaves, in you. Feel the rhythm of your own breath and imagine yourself as part of that great cosmic dance, moving with the turning of the seasons, the rising and falling of life itself.

Reflection questions

• Where are you in your own spiral of transition: leaving, waiting, beginning, or returning?

• What part of you needs space to be heard again?

• How might you carry the stillness of retreat into the rhythm of your everyday life?

Invitation

My work through The Blossoming Path is about walking with people through these same thresholds. Helping them find ground and meaning in the in-between spaces of change. Many of the women I met on that woodland retreat were in seasons of deep transition too, reminding me how universal these crossings are. If you’re in one yourself, you can find out more about my one-to-one coaching here.

I’d love to hear how this resonates for you. You can leave a comment below or share this post with someone who might need it.

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Transitions can leave us feeling disoriented, even when they’re the very things we hoped for.

Life is full of these thresholds. Some we plan for, others arrive without warning. Some we long for, others we’d rather avoid. Yet every transition carries its own mix of endings, uncertainty, and beginnings.

They can take so many forms:
a relationship ending or beginning,
a health diagnosis,
becoming a parent,
moving house or country,
entering perimenopause,
stepping into a new role, retiring, starting a business, or being made redundant.

Sometimes they’re collective, like living through the pandemic, climate anxiety, or the rapidly shifting pace of our world.
And often, these shifts come close together, rocking our confidence, unsettling our routines, and leaving us unsure how to regain direction.

Bruce Feiler observes in Life Is in the Transitions:

“We’re going through transitions more frequently, but our toolkit for handling them has not changed to keep pace.”

This reminds us that multiple transitions arriving in close succession is not unusual; it’s a new normal.

Through coaching, we take time to pause, look honestly at what’s happening, and find the next steady step forward.
It’s a practical space to make sense of change, explore options you might not have considered, and create momentum again when life feels uncertain.

It’s also a place to rebuild confidence after loss, to make clear choices grounded in your values, and to uncover possibilities that feel authentic and doable.

William Bridges reminds us:

“It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions. Change is situational; transition is the psychological process people go through.”

Coaching helps you navigate that process with focus and awareness, finding your footing again as life reshapes around you.

Alongside coaching, I sometimes weave in ceremony, a way to mark the moments that deserve to be witnessed. Ceremony helps you draw a line under what’s ending, name what’s emerging, and find meaning in the in-between.

For thousands of years, humans have turned to ceremony to navigate change. Across cultures and traditions, we’ve gathered, spoken words, lit fires, and shared food to honour endings and beginnings. We’ve done this for good reason: we are meaning-making beings. Ritual helps the mind catch up with what the heart already knows.

Abigail Brenner writes:

“Every rite of passage is an act of becoming.”

In this sense, ceremony becomes more than symbolic; it’s one way of stepping consciously and with intention into who you’re becoming next.

I’ve supported people through all kinds of transitions: rediscovering direction after redundancy, rebuilding life after loss, navigating the upheaval of perimenopause, adjusting to adoption, and stepping into new beginnings after separation.

Each experience is unique, but what’s shared is the need to feel grounded, capable, and ready to take the next step.

If you’re in the midst of a transition, here are five small things that can make a big difference:

1. Acknowledge what’s ending. Notice what you’re letting go of; it matters.

2. Make space for the messy middle. Growth often looks like confusion before clarity.

3. Stay curious. Ask gentle questions rather than rushing for answers.

4. Find support. You don’t have to navigate it alone.

5. Mark the moment. Light a candle, take a walk, or write a few words. Small acts of meaning help you move forward.

Every transition holds both loss and possibility.
When we meet it with attention and support, it can become a turning point: a chance to move forward not just changed, but more sure of who we are and what truly matters.

If you’re standing at a crossroads...

You might be in the middle of something big, or you might just sense that change is stirring beneath the surface.

My Find Your Bearings session offers a calm, focused space to explore what’s shifting, make sense of where you are, and uncover your next steady step forward.

We enter a reflective, question-based conversation to help you see what’s really happening and what’s needed now and you’ll receive a written follow-up to help you integrate your insights.

If that sounds like the kind of grounding you need, you can learn more here →

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Stay grounded. Go gently. Let love be your compass.

References

• Feiler, Bruce. Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age

• Bridges, William. Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes

• Brenner, Abigail. Transitions: How Women Embrace Change

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Today, when day and night stand in equal measure across the world,
may you feel the deep truth of unity with all people
and a quiet balance within yourself.

On this threshold into darker days,
may you welcome both your shadow and your light.
May you be held in the infinite blanket of the dark mother,
knowing that, like a seed descending into the rich soil,
your dreams, spun in sunnier times;
are preparing to root, germinate and grow.

May gratitude rise in you for the abundance of the earth.
May tenderness rise in you for all the ways you have grown,
for all the ways you have given.

As you breathe in the crisper, fresher September air,
may wonder stir in you at the gift of being alive.
As you breathe out,
may generosity flow;
to yourself, to your loved ones, to your community, to the earth.

May you rest in the spaciousness of presence and kindness.
May your eyes be opened to the simple miracles:
squirrels scampering,
leaves turning,
fruits ripening.

And may you know that, in this season of balance:
you are held, rooted, and ready.

_____________________

If you find yourself standing at a threshold - moving through change, loss, or beginnings that feel tender or uncertain: you don’t have to walk it alone. My coaching is here to support you. Start with a Find Your Bearings session: a safe, spacious place to pause, breathe, and see the way forward.

As a second-generation immigrant, those flags tell me I do not belong. And I wonder: how does it feel for the children in our community who come from families like mine? What does it plant in their hearts as they walk past on the way to school? Fear? Discomfort? The quiet, gnawing sense that they are outsiders in the only home they have ever known?

This is not abstract. It is not far away. It is the very road we travel each morning.

A collective transition

I chose my children’s school not for its academic success, but because of the kind of people I hoped they would grow into there: kind, respectful, open-hearted. I trust the school to help shape them in this way, in the spirit of Christ’s teaching.

I should also say this: I am an interfaith minister. I have reverence for all paths, for the wisdom of Jesus, the compassion of the Buddha, the devotion of the Qur’an, the teachings of Torah, and the sacred stories carried in the earth itself. What I see at our school is a Christian expression of something I believe is universal: that we are called to welcome the stranger, to honour our differences, and to make a home wide enough for all.

Our school has often been more faithful to the teachings of Jesus than the institutional Church itself. It has modelled mercy, forgiveness and welcome. For this, I am grateful. But it also means the school, like all of us, carries responsibility.

Because what is happening now is a collective transition.

The rise of flags, the call to “take back our country”, the protests on our streets, these are not passing moments. They are signals of a deeper shift. They are thresholds asking us who we want to be.

We can close our eyes and ears and hope it blows over. Or we can recognise that silence is also a choice. Transitions, whether personal or collective, always demand something of us. They press us to decide what we stand for, what values we live by, what kind of future we want to hand to our children.

The Jesus lens

Jesus’ entire ministry was about welcome. He spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4), crossing every barrier of race, religion, and gender. He told the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), where the outsider is the one who shows love. He said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35).

To follow Him today is to make sure no one in our communities feels unwelcome. That is the heart of it.

The truth about our country

Britain has always been a nation woven from many peoples: Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans, and countless others. Today, 18 per cent of people in England and Wales were born outside the UK, and nearly one in three children under 10 has at least one foreign-born parent.

This is who we are. To love this country means to love its people, all of them.

What do we stand for

Flags can be mistaken for football celebrations or a flash of colour. But children notice. Mine certainly did. And unless we help them understand, they are left to interpret the message on their own. That is why it matters to speak, even when it feels uncomfortable.

Transitions always bring us to the threshold of choice. This is such a moment.

So I ask you: what story will we live by when fear is flying from flagpoles?

Will we step back into silence? Or will we step forward, in the spirit of love that casts out fear?

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Micropractice: Listening for Welcome

When fear or exclusion feels loud in the world around you, pause for a moment and do this:

• Step outside, if you can and it’s safe, and find something alive. A tree, a birdcall, the wind moving in the grass.

• Place a hand over your heart and breathe slowly three times.

• Ask yourself: What is welcoming me here? What would welcome look like in me?

• The answer can be small. Or big! Maybe you find the breeze or the sky welcomes you. And maybe all it takes is a soft word or a kind smile to be welcoming.

Carry that with you into the day.

Stay grounded. Go gently. Let love be your compass.

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References

• Office for National Statistics (ONS), Census 2021: International migration, England and Wales. Published 2023.

• Office for National Statistics (ONS), Census 2021: Demography and migration, England and Wales. Published 2022.

By evening, my son was clearly disregulated and taking it out on everyone. I asked him to come and talk with me privately. His demeanour changed almost instantly and within seconds his eyes were filled with big tears.

He told me he’d been told off at school. His teacher had pulled him up for—looking at the rain. She’d said: “I’m sure you’ve seen enough rain in your life that you don’t need to be watching it now.”

He was hurting. Hearing this, and knowing him, I was incandescent with anger.

I took him in my arms and told him how much I loved the fact that he liked to watch the rain. I told him that I too had spent some time that very day looking out at the rain falling in our garden. I reminded him that he was kind and smart. And that his teacher was probably just trying to be funny.

But then he pointed out that only a few minutes later his teacher had looked out and watched the rain themselves—for “five whole minutes, mummy.”

Well yes… exactly. The whole point is to watch the rain falling.

Perhaps this is part of the wider problem—that our systems, including education, are designed to pull us away from nature. They discourage awe, imagination, intuition, and wonder. They train us to value productivity over presence.

Rain is important. We have dozens of words in English to describe it—drizzle, downpour, shower, spitting, pelting, scotch mist, smir. That’s because rain shapes our lives. It touches our food supply, our commute, our culture, our psychology. It runs through our poetry and our storytelling. Rain is not something to be dismissed. It is something to be known.

And my son could probably teach his teacher a thing or two about the elements. He already knows how to tend a fire, how to work with the sea to steer a boat, how to swim like an otter, and how to dig the earth to grow food and flowers and trees. Isn’t that what children should be doing, if they are to learn how to care for this earth and themselves? Far more useful, at 9, than fronted adverbials and long division.

How ironic that today I’m on my way to a four-day woodland retreat to reconnect with the land—where the chances of me watching the rain falling are pretty high.

What I didn’t tell him is that when I was watching the rain that day—maybe even at the same time as he was—I had an epiphany.

I realised that the questions I’ve been grappling with—losing faith in humanity, in God—could never be solved with the head. Watching the rain fall while the sun shone somehow opened my heart. I felt awe. And in that moment I understood: only through the heart can we connect to the heart of humanity, to the one great God. The head will never understand. Only the heart can hold the mystery.

My children—maybe because they are adopted, maybe because they are neuro-complex—struggle with transitions. Going back to school, starting a new year, is tough for them. Anyone walking this road with adopted or neuro-complex children will know how hard it can be.

After six weeks of calm, nourishing, deeply connecting time together as a family, the change was palpable. I suspect my son watched the rain because it was regulating for him. As it is for all of us. Nature teaches us everything we need to know about life—and about transitions.

I hope he keeps watching it. And I hope his teacher does too.

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Right now, I’m on a train heading west. The passenger next to me and I have just spent ten minutes talking about rain. I anticipate mizzle on my woodland retreat, while he anticipates lashing showers on his cycling and swimming holiday. In both cases, the rain will colour our days.

Do you ever find yourself stopping to watch the rain? What does it stir in you? And when life feels clunky or uncertain, is there something in nature you turn to that helps you re-centre?

Practice

If it rains this week, stop for a moment. Watch it fall. See if, just for a breath or two, your heart softens.

To learn more about the work I offer as a transitions coach, visit: www.theblossomingpath.life

The other night my son, tired and tearful, told us he was worried that Nana was going to die. He worries about this a lot, usually just before bedtime. I tried to reassure him as best I could, though it was hard, because she is 81, and none of us can make guarantees. I turned it around instead and suggested: “Let’s make sure we spend as much time as possible with her.”

Then he dropped the d-bomb: “What happens when we die, mummy?”

My heart doubled in weight. How was I supposed to answer that? “What do you think happens?” I responded. It wasn’t some clever boomerang to get him to rely on his own head and heart. It was pure stalling on my part.

He thought for a while. Then he said: “Hindus believe we’re reincarnated… but I don’t think anything happens. I think we just die.”

My husband, sensing I was floundering, spoke gently: “The truth is, no one knows. There are different beliefs, but no one knows. All we can do is make the most of the life we have now, and love what we do and who is in our life.”

This seemed to console my son. Children often find comfort in truth. But it didn’t console me.

I’m a coach. I walk alongside people through life transitions. I’m also an interfaith minister. Shouldn’t I have an answer to this? Shouldn’t I have faith? The truth is, I feel as though I’m losing mine.

There. I’ve said it.

I want to believe. In God. In humanity. Desperately. But lately, the connection feels thin, as if it was never really mine to begin with. I find myself standing at a threshold: no longer certain, not yet sure what I believe. Faith slipping into doubt. Certainty dissolving into unknowing.

It isn’t only my son’s question that has unsettled me. It’s Gaza.

I watch genocide unfold and wonder: how could a benevolent God allow this? I know the arguments: free will, a non-interventionist God. But really? Couldn’t God intervene just this once?

And what of humanity itself? For most of my life, I’ve believed religion was more often a force for good. That wars fought “in God’s name” were really purely political. But when I look hard at Gaza, I have to admit religion can be weaponised: used to justify separation, power, and control.

Where is love in all of this? Where is heart?

And then I circle back to my son’s question. Death. Ageing. Pain. Suffering. Brutality. The things we can’t dress up or ignore.

I don’t know what happens when we die. I don’t know how to reconcile God with Gaza, or love with the state of the world.

All I know is that my faith is in flux.

And while I berate myself for losing faith, the truth is I also find people who never doubt anything… frankly, a little frightening. That level of certainty can so easily slip into closed-mindedness, even closed-heartedness. At its most extreme, it can harden into fanaticism.

And surely all transitions look like this. Not a clean loss or gain, but a crossing. A movement from certainty into doubt, from knowing into not knowing. Before we emerge again, and begin anew.

This isn’t my first dark night of the soul. Over the years, I’ve learnt that even in the groundlessness of not knowing what to do, or who I am, or where I want to go, or what I believe, there are things that help me through. I turn to nature. So, I’m going on retreat, not to find answers, but to listen.

And perhaps, when my son asks again, that’s all I can offer him too: “I don’t know. But I can listen.”

And I wonder… what about you? Would you rather turn to a coach who has it all neatly sorted and never questions their beliefs, or one who has wrestled with doubt, stumbled through the dark night of the soul, and grappled with the same heart-questions we all face?

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A gentle practice in listening

When faith falters, certainty slips, or life feels too heavy, try this simple practice.

Step outside, even just to your doorway or garden.
Close your eyes, place a hand over your heart.
Listen for the quietest sound you can hear. Birds singing in the distance. Leaves moving in the breeze. The gentle hum of life around you.
Let yourself rest in the act of listening, without needing answers.

Sometimes listening itself is enough.

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When certainty slips away, it helps to have someone walk alongside you. To learn more about how I support people through life’s transitions, visit: theblossomingpath.life

It’s just over 10 minutes long, and it’s designed to help you soften, breathe deeply, and reconnect with yourself.

All you need is a quiet spot where you can lie down, a pillow or blanket if you’d like to help you feel comfy and cosy, and a journal nearby for your reflections at the end.

If you fall asleep, that’s absolutely fine — your body will still receive what it needs.

I hope this journey gives you a moment of calm and a gentle reminder that you are held and supported.

Stay grounded. Go gently. Let love be your compass.

Tania

…others crash through the door,

… and some we cross together, whether we’re ready or not.

Gosh! What a joy it is to have so many new subscribers here. Thank you.

It’s also, if I’m honest, a little daunting. There’s a voice in my head saying I need to write something very substantial, important, provocative.

The way I’m dealing with that is by imagining we’re all together, hanging out on a retreat… we’re sitting in a circle, facing each other, tea in hand.

And as I picture us in that space, I’m reminded that none of us are walking alone. We’re each navigating our own changes, and we’re also living through the great collective transitions of our time.

If I had you all together in one place, I’d want to ask you:

What transition, big or small, hoped for or unwelcome, are you moving through right now?

What shift in the wider world feels most alive (or challenging) for you at the moment?

For me, the personal transitions I’m tending to range from small things, like my children being on summer holiday (eek!), to much bigger ones, like navigating perimenopause (bigger EEK!).

And in the collective sphere… I feel the weight of this moment in history. Across the world, we’re crossing profound thresholds. How we treat one another, how we respond to suffering, whether we have the courage to stand for life and dignity. The devastating crisis in Palestine is one such threshold, and it leaves me asking: What kind of humanity are we choosing to be? I’m thinking a lot about hope, and what it means to hold it in threshold moments and uncertain times like these.

I’d love to hear from you. Your replies will help me shape what I write here, so these letters meet you where you are, in your own season of change.

Just hit leave a comment

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or send me a message

and tell me—what’s alive for you right now?

P.S. I read every reply and treasure hearing your stories.

Stay grounded. Go gently. Let love be your compass.

Place your hands on your heart.
Take three long deep breaths.
Back into your body.

Stretch the front of your body.
Stretch the back of your body.
Twist from your waist.

Draw something the size of a postage stamp.
If that’s too much – doodle even.

Light a candle and say a three-word prayer.
Like: Here I am.
Or: Peace be within.
Or: I let go.

Feed the birds.
Watch and listen to these tiny messengers of joy.

Write a poem in pencil or pen.
If that’s too much – read a poem – preferably in a book.

Take a little meandering walk.
Find a flower in bloom.
Smell the flower.
Inhale its scent down to your toes.

Listen to your breath and figure out where it lands in your body.

Make a meal with only 3 whole ingredients.
Eat it in silence, doing nothing but savouring its taste and texture.

Use the back of your index finger
to gently stroke the forearm of a loved one
just below and to the side of their elbow.

Feel the sun, wind, rain – whatever the weather is – on your face.

Bless a part of your body that has served you well.
The feet are often overlooked.

Don’t do all of this – all at once.
Pick one or two that call to you.
That bring relief or joy.

The horrors of this world will continue.
Regardless of whether you doom scroll about them at 3am or not.
So just for now, don’t try to keep up with it.

Instead,
just slow down.
Slow all the way down.
Slow all the way down to the here and now.
Slow all the way down to the here and now of your heart.
And unfurl it like a bright green fern.

And when you return to the news – because you will –
bring all this softness with you.
And as Mr. Rogers’ mother said,
look for the helpers –
even if they break your heart wider open still.

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Stay grounded. Go gently. Let love be your compass.

I wandered among blooms and blossoms of every colour and shape. The air was rich with scent. Everything felt soft and alive and unrushed. It was sensual. Delicate. Relaxing.

What captured my imagination the most were the tight peony buds. Perfect little spheres, glowing in the sun before they bloomed. So tight. But when they did open… the fullness, the colour, the splendour.

I found myself wondering:
What might unfold in me if I could let go like that? Could I bloom?

Here’s the poem that came from that thought:

If I Could Let Go

Peony bud ball,
gleaming pink in the May sun,
unfolds into such beauty
it catches my breath.

I wonder -
if I could let go
like that tight bud does,
would I also
reveal such grace?

I’m in love with flowers. Like music, I think they’re proof of the existence of God. In spring and summer, I chase them . Magnolia, cherry blossom, bluebells, elder, and this year… peony.

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Peonies only flower for 6 to 10 days a year.
But once planted, in the right conditions, they can bloom every year for decades. Some for over 50 years.

Maybe there’s something in that too.
We’re not meant to bloom all year round.
But given the right conditions, we can bloom again. And again.
Because transitions, like flowers, follow their own rhythm.
And the most tender unfoldings often begin with a small act of trust.

And you?
What blooms are calling you right now?
Where are you being asked to soften, or unfold, or trust your own timing?
Can you trust yourself enough to let go and bloom?

Micropractice

Take a quiet moment today to notice something just beginning to open — in nature, or in you.

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