I feel it in the air before I know it in my mind.

It comes as I pull trousers up over my legs after seemingly endless days in shorts.

It comes in the darkening night sky, blanketing us more heavily as each day in August stretches out.

It comes with the blackberries turning from ruby red to inky purple and black, and the ferns shifting from lush green to a rusty bronze.

It comes with the sound of geese flying over head in the early evening, their voices telling us it’s almost time to move on.

It comes with peeling sticky labels from plastic sheets and placing them on my daughter’s new uniform ready for a new year of school.

It comes with a fresh breeze flowing through the window after months of balmy warm air.

It comes in the ache in my chest after my birthday passes. Another year older, another year grown.

It comes with a flicker of excitement at the thought of new beginnings, finding steadiness in routine and creative projects yet to birth.

It comes with a well of sadness as the scribbled height chart on our kitchen wall becomes etched with another inch… what an honour and heart break it is to watch them grow.

I feel summer ending more viscerally than any other season. It speaks to me in an ache in my chest, a lump in my throat, a fizziness in my belly a hope in my heart.

Summer — a season that I have a complex relationship to if I am honest — coming to a close and bringing with it a threshold crossing like no other.

The new year my body understands

Perhaps because of my birthday. Perhaps it will forever be the ‘new term’. Perhaps because I forever find the winter my most creative season.

Whatever the reason, I have a felt sense in my body tells me that September is my new year. But of course, with every new start comes an ending.

August comes to a close and I find hope and excitement meets a raw kind of goodbye.

The only way I can describe it is as ‘griefy’.

Not the kind of grief that takes you out like a tidal wave. More the kind of grief that bruises you a little. You know it will fade but it feels a bit raw and sensitive. There is this sense of loss, alongside a knowing that with ending, something new and often expansive is coming.

AND ALSO…

This time of year is by far my favourite. I feel at home in Virgo season, lining up my metaphorical pencils and opening a new blank page.

As I gather up my daughter’s wellies and water bottle, preparing her rucksack for the first day of school as a year 2 on Wednesday, I too get a glimmer of that ‘back to school’ feeling and it is ripe with possibility.

Hope intertwines with heartbreak

To be human, I have learned, is to carry it all. I see now that the most potent practices in my life have all been to prepare me to hold multiple feelings at once, and not make any of them ‘wrong’. To not deny myself the gift of feeling, even when those sensations feel excruciating.

This week I watched my two daughters, one who will be 7 next month and the other who will turn 4 in December, creating imaginary games as we walked the dog. As they got lost in their own world of play and magic, I thought… I wonder how many summers we will get when they play like this. I want to keep them little like this forever, and yet I crave the days when leaving the house doesn’t take mass negotiations and I am needed a little bit less.

The summer has not been easy. I was unwell at the start. There has been squabbling, over-stimulation and raised voices at times. Parts of me are more than ready to say goodbye to the holidays and regain some semblance of routine once more.

But in some ways it has been easier — no stressful morning drop offs, less time-related pressure, fewer meltdowns… however as a neurodivergent woman who thrives on creativity, completing projects and having space to immerse in work, I can’t pretend that it is a struggle to let parts of me go dormant during the holidays.

This has been a summer of very little and yet oh so much.

This has been the summer where I have learned that doing less is more than enough.

This has been the summer I broke down to my Dad and let him see me at my most vulnerable after years of trying to be strong.

This has been the summer I have honoured my own needs and factored rest days after big days out and really felt the benefit of this.

This has been the summer I have felt a deeper understanding of how I operate and treated myself with so much more compassion for needing what I need after being diagnosed with AuDHD at the start of the year.

This has been the summer I have let my daughters get bored enough to conjure up the most wonderful imaginative games while I wrote, read and created, and not felt bad about it!

This has been the summer I fell back in love with my yoga practice thanks to a beautiful Yin training immersion with .

This has been the summer I turned 43 and watched a Disney movie with friends in the comfy seats at the cinema, then ate caterpillar chocolate cake which fed my inner child in more ways than one.

This has been a summer that I will long for in years to come, and yet also so much of it will undoubtedly blur into nothing but memories of the mundane.

As we edge towards late summer and August comes to a close I feel immensely full to the brim with gratitude, and also a little bit griefy…

It is all tangled up together.

Earlier in the month I described August as the pause between sentences. And now the pen has been picked up ready to write again…

What are we going to write next?

Until next time.

Love

Lauren x

What began as a creative outlet to share words on motherhood, womanhood, business, life and all the in between somehow turned into fitting a specific shaped cog into a machine that I never really agreed to get involved with.

Simple words and musings on life as an experience turned into ‘maximising’ and ‘curating’. It was all about headers, footers, calls to action, email sequences, notes, numbers… and what was once initiated purely for the sake of an expressive outlet during the early days of postpartum with my second baby, having loved writing since I was a child, became tainted.

The joy and the aliveness drained from my words, and with that a little piece of myself went missing. After an initial glorious 18 months (perhaps it was the honeymoon period) over the past year or so I have found it harder and harder to show up here.

What used to give me a place to share spontaneous bursts of creative energy in an hour or so, became a day (or several days) of writing, editing, selecting dividers and images and making sure I had taken advantage of all the functions in my dashboard. The exhilaration and freedom I felt pressing publish turned into anxious anticipation as I watched for engagement, waited for comments, and questioned myself when those things dwindled or didn’t come at all.

In this season of my life, with two young daughters, a business, a home to run and a nice collection of health and wellbeing needs I am navigating — I simply don’t have the space to dedicate hours and hours to writing, and somehow, instead of letting myself write short and sweet contemplations or poetic ramblings, I just… stopped.

But it has never been because I don’t have anything to write about, it just became too overwhelming to bring those ideas and inspirations into form in the format I believed I needed to in order for it to be ‘useful’, ‘worthwhile’, or be visible amongst the many other publications here.

Over the last few years I have learned that completion is a vital part of my creative process and if something feels like it will take too long to finish, or I don’t have big chunks of time to bring it to a neat and tidy close, I just won’t bother.

I also know myself well enough now to understand that I need a certain level of accountability to show up to my craft. Enough pressure, but not too much… that is a delicate balancing rope to teeter across, but actually when I had a weekly writing schedule I felt more attuned and aligned with myself because my words have always been a part of my processing.

HOWEVER… there are parts of me suppressed and frustrated because words are bursting out of me, desperate to spill over the edges and take shape in whatever form they are meant to.

They sit inside and almost fester like a blockage and the more they stay there, the more they stagnate, and the harder it is to begin.

I have been really enjoying ’s Summer Writing Sanctuary over the past week or so, involving my 6 year old daughter in it as well as we are knee deep in the summer holidays, and it has reminded me how much I love to write.

To write without a set purpose. To write without a big clear value (the essence of the words is value enough). To write in different tones on different subjects depending on where my hands and fingers take me.

Tomorrow is my 43rd birthday. The past 18 months have been a deep and shadowy unravelling. I am in a personal 9 year and it feels as though missing pieces of my personal puzzle have been falling into place and I know myself more than ever.

I have so much to share. More than ever I suspect.

I know what feeds me. I know what drains me. I am much more aware of my capacity.

Writing here is my art. It is my playground. It has many different dimensions (Manifesting Generator vibes of course). The minute it becomes something too ‘shaped’ is the minute it loses it’s sparkle to me and the moment my sacral switches from fizzy and lit up, to getting the serious ick.

So I am curious to find out… can I let these posts and pieces be short bursts of creative inspiration as they arise? Can I devote myself to the purity of writing in it’s raw form? Can I strip it back to simply tapping words on a keyboard and letting that be enough? Can I let it be rough round the edges and still see it as beautiful? Can I write about my nervous system and sacred business one week and share a poem or a meditation practice the next and be OK with that?

Because this is what my heart longs for. This is what creativity is asking me to do.

Let’s see.

With love

Lauren x

If you want to know more about me and my world head to my About page here.

Hello lovely one,

How is your heart today?

Today was our last day of term, we have been ‘broken up’ less than two hours at the time of writing this sentence and my eldest has already said that she is bored. Pray for my patience to last the 6 week break!!!

Endings like this come with a mixture of feelings.

Relief… that school drop offs and busy mornings are on pause for the next 6 weeks.

Excitement… at the adventures that lie ahead of us as a family.

Overwhelm… at the thought of getting organised for a trip away, and of keeping two spirited little beings occupied (but not too occupied) for the forseeable future.

Dread… at the squabbles and inevitable meltdowns that will arise, and the lack of space my easily overstimulated body will receive.

Peace… at the prospect of a slow days and lazy moments to lay our bodies down and rest from normality. (I am planning plenty of movie afternoons!)

Unease… at the lack of routine (despite also craving freedom from it) and how that will feel in my system.

Grief… that another school year has come to a close and my babies will never be this young again.

Hope… that we can make some wonderful lasting memories with family and friends.

Motherhood, I have learned —and life in general of course — truly is a repeating cycle of endings and beginnings, of threshold moments. Some feel ‘bigger’ than others… some pass us by without making much of a mark, others come in like a tornado and shake everything up.

I guess this one feels ‘medium sized’.

All of these moments — big or small — deserve to be acknowledged, even in the most subtle of ways.

The ‘end of school ritual’ for us was a water fight at the local park. It was fun for about three minutes until my eldest got squirted by one of the boys and decided she didn’t like it. The youngest unsurprisingly didn’t want to leave! But even with the tears, this ‘closing’ is important. A milestone moment to mark the ending of school term and the beginning of the holidays.

So now we sit in the ‘in between’.

One school year complete, another not quite ready to begin, entering liminal time where days blur into one another and we can let the dust settle on what has come before, while preparing ourselves for the opening of a new chapter.

These ‘waiting room’ phases are crucial, even if they bring a little bit of anticipation and un-ease.

The exhausting energy of Summer

The more I align my own rhythms to the outer seasons, the more I actually find Summer the most exhausting of all the seasons. The lighter, longer days mean that sleep is less present, the warmth — whilst a relief to my forever cold body for a short term — quickly turns oppressive, triggers health issues and ends up being energy sapping. The pressure to be ‘out’ seems greater with way more calendar invites and options to ‘do stuff’, not to mention the intense build up to school holidays (this term was over seven weeks long which felt quite aggressive compared to the five week one previous).

Most people I speak to are in agreement it seems. Tired. Exhausted. Drained. Overwhelmed… all are words I have heard from other women’s lips this past few weeks.

When we look at nature, summer is the peak for many of our blooms, and actually there is a sense of the hard work being ‘done’. It is time to sit and smell the roses. To observe the flowers in their full expression. To sip the elderflower cordial that was harvested earlier on in the season. It is not the ‘building’ phase anymore.

And when I look through another lens, the lack of rain in our part of the world means that the ground is dry and dusty and the lush green that resided a month or so ago has turned to a pale gold. It actually looks far from alive, which perhaps is a little bit of a reflection of so many of our own energetic capacities right now.

Writing yourself onto the page

So, as I step into 6 weeks without structured childcare, my creativity will have to fit into the edges. I am OK with this… I need a Summer just as much as my children do and I am very grateful for the opportunity to intentionally pause.

But I will also be putting my own needs at the top of the list alongside theirs because I need to restore my energy as much as they do. Of course I am there to tend to the practical side of things and there are demands on me that will be draining at times, but when it comes to our activities and our daily rhythms they need to feel good in my system, as much as possible, too.

That means days out will be things I want to do (National Trust properties and gardens are my fave for this!), I won’t be filling the diary with stuff, and yet I have a group of friends that I can spontaneously message on the day to set up a a garden play date or meet up at the park (because parenting in company almost always beats being alone). I have basic craft supplies always on hand and the simplicity of paint and paper never fails to do wonders for frazzled nervous systems in this home.

Any spare solo time that arises will be focused on filling up my own wellspring, which means early evening Yin practices in my studio, walks when I can, creative business projects tended to while the kids are watching a film and regular time with my creative journal.

I am determined to write myself onto the pages of Summer 2026 because it is my break too.

Soothing songs for Summer

I thought it might be nice to open up and highlight some of my Balm Membership practices for everyone to access over the summer holidays. I am not planning on writing here until September (unless the spontaneous urge arises) and in fact I intend to delete all social media and distracting apps so that I can disentangle myself from the quick and dirty ‘fixes’ that I have become a little more accustomed to than I would like.

So… here are some soothing songs for Summer. I hope that you can sink into them whenever you need to tend to your own wellspring. These will be available for all until September. My invitation is to save this post so that you can quickly access the practices whenever you need them.

If you do pause and enjoy them, please let me know. It genuinely makes my heart happy to know they are being received.

And if you crave more, you can join The Balm Membership to get access to lots more.

For when you have under 10 minutes and need a short and sweet hug for your heart…

For when you have under 20 minutes and want to connect in with yourself…

For when you have between 20 - 40 minutes and want to nourish your whole system…

For when you have an hour and want to move your body and soothe your soul…

I am so looking forward to connecting back with you in September.

You are always welcome to email me over the summer months if you wish to share anything with me at all. While I won’t be actively sharing, I will still be responding to the beautiful community here as it truly feeds my spirit.

Until next time, go gently,

Love

Lauren

xxx

If something has stirred within you as you read my words, I would love to invite you a little further into my world.

I am Lauren — mother, business mentor, website artist, human design guide, writer, sacred space holder and multi-faceted creative alchemist. The thread running through everything I do is this… creating powerful yet nurturing containers for women to remember and rise into their own unique medicine.

To explore the fuller landscape of my heart work, come find me at www.laurenbarber.co. There you will find a portal of offerings for the mystics, the dreamers, the visionaries, the mothers, the healers and the heart-centred human beings.

And if you are a woman weaving soul into the way you work and lead, my Sacred Business newsletter is a quieter, deeper conversation. Step gently in through my free Gateway experience here.

I am so honoured to hold you here. x

Welcome, lovely one. You have found your way to Held. by Lauren Barber — a digital sanctuary for your heart and soul. Here you will find words on motherhood, creativity and sacred business, together with poetry, practices and personal essays that speak honestly and openly about the living artistry that it is to be human.

If these pages feel like home to you, I would love to welcome you to come a little deeper. Subscribe to receive every piece…

Subscribe now

Hello lovely one,

How is your heart feeling?

I have missed writing to you over these past few weeks. Life has been full in a whole medley of ways. I won’t apologise for my silence because this is what it is to be human, but please know that this space, and this community are always in my awareness.

I am coming to you today from my shady front room. It is the only place in the house that is bearable at this time of day in the current heatwave we are experiencing. Even my studio outside becomes something of a sweatbox by lunchtime.

In the UK we are yet to learn the ways of managing our energy in the heat. I love the way many countries approach this, using the cooler early hours to ‘get things done’ then slowing down during the hottest hours of the day to conserve energy. I can see now why ‘siestas’ are a necessity in some parts of the world, perhaps as the temperatures rise we may adopt this in this culture too.

Alas… for now, school pickup falls around the most sweltering time of the day so we have been sinking into new daily rituals of cold baths and showers as soon as we get home (after a sticky iced lollies that is!) and then draping our bodies over the sofa either listening to audio books, crafting or watching TV.

There are high emotions all round in our household currently, and I, for one, am counting down the number of school drop-offs I have to negotiate until we meet slow and steady lazy summer mornings (and no doubt squabbling of course).

How are you finding this season so far? Do comment below, or reply to me and let me know.

I had the immense honour of holding a small group through a three hour mini retreat last week in my garden studio. We sat with Ceremonial Cacao, moved lovingly through a heart-centred Yin yoga practice and I then guided a watery-inspired Yoga Nidra practice before we painted pebbles and pulled Oracle cards.

I wish that I could sit with each of you in the same way, however, the next best thing to that, I hope, is to share the Yoga Nidra practice with you.

So, I invite you to create a little nest of comfort, to lay your body down with as much support and cushioning as you need, and to let yourself be guided through the practice below

The Sacred Wellspring Yoga Nidra

I would love to know if you enjoy this practice, please do reply and let me know, and if you do enjoy it please share it with someone you think might need to receive it too.

Share

This will be available for free to all subscribers of Held for the next few weeks. After that it will be available for paid members of The Balm. If you wish to upgrade and receive the entire library of practices please do click below.

Subscribe now

Until next time, go gently,

Love

Lauren

xxx

If something has stirred within you as you read my words, I would love to invite you a little further into my world.

I am Lauren — mother, business mentor, website artist, human design guide, writer, sacred space holder and multi-faceted creative alchemist. The thread running through everything I do is this… creating powerful yet nurturing containers for women to remember and rise into their own unique medicine.

To explore the fuller landscape of my heart work, come find me at www.laurenbarber.co. There you will find a portal of offerings for the mystics, the dreamers, the visionaries, the mothers, the healers and the heart-centred human beings.

And if you are a woman weaving soul into the way you work and lead, my Sacred Business newsletter is a quieter, deeper conversation. Step gently in through my free Gateway experience here.

I am so honoured to hold you here. x

Phewf… that was a powerful and potent session we had today in our community.

How are you feeling?

As we get closer to the Solstice, and bask in the energy of our current astrological goings on, this 90 minute session provides you with an opportunity to reflect and celebrate on the past 6 months, and then connect to the deep dreams and vis…

Read more

Welcome, lovely one. You have found your way to Held. by Lauren Barber — a digital sanctuary for your heart and soul. Here you will find words on motherhood, creativity and sacred business, together with poetry, practices and personal essays that speak honestly and openly about the living artistry that it is to be human.

If these pages feel like home to you, I would love to welcome you to come a little deeper. Subscribe to receive every piece straight to your heart…

Subscribe now

This piece of writing has been on my heart for several months, and unlike most of my other posts, coming quick and fast in a flurry of excitement, this one has been a slowly crafted piece of work… a bit like my motherhood journey if I am honest…

In September I will have been a Mother for seven years.

Seven years of learning more about myself than I did in the entire 35 years previous to that monumental threshold crossing.

Seven years of making me and breaking me, over and over, and over again.

Seven years of growing into a love that is far more complex than any other love I have ever felt.

It is fair to say that, for me, Motherhood has been the initiation I didn’t know I needed.

A lot can change in seven years and the Mother — and human — that I am now is very different to the one I was at the start… and monumentally different to the one I thought I was going to be when I was pregnant with my first daughter.

Presence as perfection

I’m laying with my littlest as she falls asleep. A ritual that has become an important part of my day and actually something I miss when I don’t get to do (I don’t miss the multiple avoidance tactics that surface in the lead up to bedtime mind you!)

This time is a pause to mark the shift from care-taking my little ones, into the small window of time I get where I’m free to care-take myself.

I would love to say that I’m fully present as I lay there and she chatters away to me, processing her day, winding down until her eyelids droop and she meets sleep. I often lay there for at least ten minutes after her breathing has shifted into that dreamlike steadiness that tells me sleep has come, just because it is so peaceful and there is something so calming about a sleeping child breathing next to you.

The truth is, I often find myself reaching for my phone.

Scrolling Instagram to numb out from the demands of the day and get a quick hit of dopamine when I spot another recipe I might (never) try.

Self-diagnosing myself with any number of illnesses thanks to a carousel of symptoms that seem to fit my own.

Or, often trying to get that quick and dirty satisfaction ‘hit’ from getting a few more tasks ticked off my ‘to do’ list.

I try to leave my phone in another room. Out of sight out of mind genuinely does work for a small period of time. But when I don’t have my phone I find myself restlessly replaying all of the ways in the day that I have ‘messed up’ or ‘failed’ my children on that day.

The snappy words. The moments I could have been more present but wasn’t (because I was likely trying to dance with multiple things). The times when I lost my patience and shouted. The constant work to regulate myself after being touched too much/screamed at/demanded of for the fifty thousandth time, or my littlest’s current favourite phrase ‘I hate you’ every time I enforce a boundary.

My self criticism when it comes to being a Mother is high.

I often find myself running through all of the ways I ‘will try and do better tomorrow’ and yet of course barely give a second thought to all of the wonderful ways I have shown up in that day.

Understanding my self criticism

In January I was diagnosed with AuADHD. In the online assessment, my father was an observer for me.

Some of the words that he spoke to the assessor have stayed with me.

Sometimes we can hear words over and over again and they don’t land, and then one day, something just… clicks. This was one of those moments, and the words have provided me with a really powerful turning point in my own self awareness.

When I was asked what my strengths were I struggled to answer — still deeply conditioned to be blind to the positive attributes that I have, yet deeply aware of all the negative ones.

My Dad stepped in and shared a few insights, including telling the assessor that I was a really good Mum but that I didn’t see that for myself and that I was very ‘hard on myself’ and that, my own self criticism sometimes made me critical of others.

Of course this was not new information to me (the self-critical part anyway) but I think that hearing it mirrored to me really illuminated it as the harmful pattern it is. With the understanding of how my unique brain operates now, and how sensitive to any form of criticism or rejection I am, it has given me permission to question this story and its motives.

I am, and have always been extremely self critical and those high expectations of myself often ripple out onto others. This trait has lead me to believe over the years that I’m not a very nice person. It’s prevented me from truly receiving praise of complements because a part of me still believes that deep down, no matter how ‘nice’ I appear on the surface… I’m a bitch.

Motherhood as the catalyst

When my mothering is anything less than the ‘perfect picture’ I think I’m supposed to be, my critical self is reinforced.

I’ve lost count of the time I’ve thought, and said, that ‘my children deserve a different Mum, they have chosen the wrong mother’.

Now, with the help of a deeper understanding of my self, knowing my own individual needs better and devoting myself to the constant practice of self compassion — all forced upon me by the initiatory experience of Motherhood — I have started to accept the Mother I am and let go of the Mother I thought I should be.

It’s not easy. That inner critic is a strong part that has kept me safe in many ways but I understand her motivation now and can see her through a loving lens instead of constantly wishing she wouldn’t exist.

Even writing these words I can sense a softness coming from the gentle parts of me, parts that over the last few years have been unearthed and actually now stay close to the surface, most of the time.

It’s taken nearly seven years of motherhood for me to slowly unravel and accept the Mother I am versus the Mother that I thought I should be, or wanted to be. It’s therapy. It’s practice. It’s compassionate enquiry and awareness. It’s Mothering myself and Mothering the parts of me that needed to be nurtured.

It is understanding my humanness and that multiple parts can be present and I am not defined by just one of them.

The truth is that I am a Mother who…

…gets bored easily and finds the daily acts of mothering dull and mundane. My brain needs excitement and spontaneity and a sense of satisfaction.

… often multi-tasks and then gets irritated and overwhelmed when my children demand something of me.

… has a tricky relationship with touch. I never understood what ‘touched out’ meant until I had children. I have to state my boundaries a lot around being climbed on, prodded and poked or even banged into. My eldest is a really touchy child and I worry that she will believe her mother to be cold because sometimes I have to ask her to stop touching me and that I need my space.

… has high aspirations. My expectations of myself and my ambitions are high and that ripples out to others. Sometimes I worry that I expect too much or my children and I would never want them to feel pressure to be perfect, but also I have big dreams and hopes and can’t help but strive for them.

… experiences low energy lulls. Peri-menopause, health challenges, neurodivergence, plus being someone who needs a lot of creative time and doesn’t always get it to feel energised… some days it is all I can do to just lay on the sofa with them at the end of the day watching a movie and heating up baked beans.

… numbs out or shuts down often. It might look like ‘calm’ on the outside but numbing out has become a default coping mechanism at times, particularly when my youngest is going through a challenging phase and her meltdowns are continuous.

… has a very sensitive nervous system. I have perceived this as a problem to fix for so long but recently I’ve been viewing it through a different lens of sensitivity and high attunement. Interestingly my hyper-vigilance has lowered as I’m being kinder to myself.

… adores working and will often choose to sit with my laptop over playing with my children. My work is my sanctuary. It feeds me on so many levels, and the balance of time spent being a Mother AND time getting to do my heart work isn’t quite aligned… yet. (I have another piece coming on this whole topic as I have A LOT of thoughts on this!!)

… finds solo parenting insanely hard on my nervous system. Some mothers appear to be able to sail through parenting alone, but if I know I even have one night without my husband here my nervous system goes into overdrive. I have for years berated myself for this, labeled myself a burden, but knowing what I do about myself now I see it with gentle eyes.

… is maybe absent at times… As I currently try and finish this piece on a bank holiday Monday while my children play around me in the garden I have just noticed that in my absence and presence with my writing, my youngest has drawn all over herself in green felt tip pen.

Unpeeling layers

Accepting myself for who I am has softened the edges and made me understand that one of the most common narratives in the past seven years of Motherhood has been ‘how come everyone else seems to cope better than me?’… but this does nothing but harm.

I am finally starting to truly accept myself for MY SELF.

Part of this softening has definitely come since understanding myself more. Un-layering the edges one at a time.

• Through deepening in my Human Design experiment.

• Through my AuADHD diagnosis.

• Through understanding my own unique nervous system.

• Through my daughters holding up a crystalline mirror.

• Through being in relationship with the multiple parts that make me whole.

• Through therapy and support.

• Through seeing the picture that I thought I should be, and creating a new image.

Ultimately though, it has come from self compassion and the awareness of the harm I cause myself when I speak harshly to the parts of me that are craving healing and understanding.

And this is very much a practice.

Catching myself when the default patterns arise and NOT considering myself a failure when they inevitably do show up but instead meeting them with curiosity and kindness.

We are not broken

I’ve always been called to study myself and my behaviours. Self development and awareness practices call to me because I am hungry to grow and evolve. I am fascinated by anything that brings me deeper into relationship with myself and I can see that running through my whole life.

But now it’s shifting away from trying to fix my broken parts, or even seeing them as broken at all, and moving into a season of accepting my wholeness, and that includes dancing with the parts and traits I’ve always seen as undesirable or unacceptable.

The deepening

Before I close I would love to offer you a few reflective questions to explore…

• Are there parts of you that you are still waiting to accept and soften into?

• Where might you be holding yourself rigidly to a standard that was never yours in the first place?

• How would your system — and soul — feel if you stopped trying to fix what was never broken in the first place?

• And perhaps most importantly, what kind of Mother/Woman/Human would you become if you dropped the storyline of who you thought you should be?

I would love to hear what rises up for you when you explore these contemplations. Share in the comments, or reply to me on email if you would prefer to share more intimately.

Until next time, go gently,

Love

Lauren

xxx

If something has stirred within you as you read my words, I would love to invite you a little further into my world.

I am Lauren — mother, business mentor, website artist, human design guide, writer, sacred space holder and multi-faceted creative alchemist. The thread running through everything I do is this… creating powerful yet nurturing containers for women to remember and rise into their own unique medicine.

To explore the fuller landscape of my heart work, come find me at www.laurenbarber.co. There you will find a portal of offerings for the mystics, the dreamers, the visionaries, the mothers, the healers and the heart-centred human beings.

And if you are a woman weaving soul into the way you work and lead, my Sacred Business newsletter is a quieter, deeper conversation. Step gently in through my free Gateway experience here.

I am so honoured to hold you here. x

Welcome, lovely one. You have found your way to Held — a digital sanctuary for your heart and soul. Here you will find poetry and practices, along with woven words on motherhood, creativity, sacred business and the living art of being human. If these pages feel like home to you, I would love to welcome you closer.

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It’s a Saturday morning. A chink of light beckons to me through the edge of the blinds. This is one of the only days of the week that I have the option of greeting the sun on an early morning walk.

Often my body feels heavy and achey in the mornings, too tired to pull myself out of bed. Like an internal rust has taken hold after a night of uncomfortable sleep as my body has tried, once again, to contort itself in shapes around my youngest daughter.

I simultaneously long for her soft warm body next to mine as I sleep, and yet also crave the freedom to stretch out in delicious spaciousness. I am not sure what it would feel like to awaken alone anymore. I don’t know that I am ready to find out yet.

But today my body feels alive, and the brightness of a May morning calls to me in a sweet, sweet whisper. The realms outside my window are awakening, and so something is stirring in me.

This week in my therapy session I spoke to my therapist about the wild rose. I hadn’t seen one at the time… but I pictured her weaving a beautiful web around my body in place of the barbed wire fence that is slowly beginning to break down as I deepen in my own healing.

And yesterday I walked around my garden and noticed some of the velvety soft, sugary peach roses at the back of my home had blossomed open while my pale pink birthday rose — gifted by a dear friend in my 40th year — had unveiled her first multi-layered flower. Pressing my nose to her petals this one’s scent is intoxicating and transports me.

The rose has been speaking to me all week

I glance behind me as I walk down my front path to greet this new day, turning to blow a kiss to my 3 year old as she waves with her face pressed up towards the window pane. My eye is caught by the deep red glimmer of the rose that climbs towards my front door. This home is full of rose medicine…

I remember the moment our home spoke to me, almost 6 years ago now. We were amongst the first people to start viewing houses during the pandemic. The moment we parked on the drive and I saw the rose bushes framing the garden path I knew that it was ours. One day I hope to name it ‘Rose Cottage’.

On this new day, as I place one foot in front of the other, watching the soft haze of a light mist rise up from the ground, I can see that the hedgerows seem to have exploded over night. Every year I am amazed and surprised at the speed in which nature shifts and changes, especially after the quiet phases of winter.

The frothy paisley patterns of cow parsley now adorn the pathways, creeping towards me as I walk, tickling my body as I brush past them. Cow Parsley will forever remind me of horse riding in my younger years, stopping to let my pony snatch a mouthful before continuing our ride with a bunch of the green and white blossoms sticking out of the edges of his mouth. A thought that makes me smile as I write and read these words.

Some of the elderflowers have come out, I gently clasp a tantalising bunch of the pretty white flowers in my hands and breathe them in. Instantly transported to balmy summer days and remembering fondly last year when I made my first batch of cordial with my eldest daughter.

The lake beckons me today. I need to see the reflections of vast sky in the water.

aSome days it is the fields, some days it is the hills, some days it is the woods… I am lucky enough to usually be able to experience all of these in one walk, but today it is the water that is speaking to me strongest.

The stillness and smoothness of the water today brought calm that I didn’t know I needed to my spirit.

Once my thirst for the water is quenched, my walk continues, along the cracked paths round fields that are crying out for moisture already. Meandering gently along the open paths where the sun is already beaming warmly.

A warmth I have longed for all winter.

I then step into the coolness of the woods, another transition to different lands, and am greeted by the strong aroma of wild garlic and bluebells coming towards the end of their days.

I am in awe of the sight of light beams peeping through the trees and the delicate shimmer that touches the woodland floor.

It is all just so… alive.

Climbing up the last hill before I rejoin the world and head home, I voice note a friend before stopping at the top to sit on a perfectly positioned bench and finish my conversation with her.

The Wild Rose… my first glance of her this season.

Instantly I have access to a childlike quality of wonder and something awakens within me. Something that has been gently simmering away within suddenly bursts forth. A piece of me comes to life.

I can’t really put into words exactly what that felt sense is, but the closest way to describe it is… magic.

She speaks to me in roses

To the ancient part.
The softest part.
The part that knows how to protect her boundaries, and yet is also unafraid to drink what she needs from the earth to nourish her, roots first.

She speaks to me in roses

The wisest part.
The wildest part.
The part that communicates through the language of beauty — but not the aesthetic kind of beauty we have been taught to chase — the kind of beauty that is raw and unkempt. The beauty that we feel way before we see.

She speaks to me in roses

The Mother part.
The messy part.
The part that lives in seasons and cycles, trusting intimately in both death and decay as well as blossom and bloom.

She speaks to me in roses

The fearful part.
The furious part.
The part that is unafraid to show her jagged edges — unapologetic for the petals that have torn in the wind or been bashed by the rain.

She speaks to me in roses

The patient part.
The quiet part.
The part that knows there is a time to be seen and a time to be dormant, a time to dance on a summer breeze, and a time to cocoon in the nourishing chambers of the darker seasons.

She speaks to me in roses.

The waking part.
The hopeful part.
The loving part.
The tender part.
Every part.
All my parts.

She speaks to me in roses.

If you would like a practice to sink into during this season of the rose, I have removed the paywall on my Wild Rose Yoga Nidra for a limited time. Let the loving arms of rest hold you dear one. Access it here.

Until next time, go gently,

Love

Lauren

xxx

If something has stirred within you as you read my words, I would love to invite you a little further into my world.

I am Lauren — mother, business mentor, website artist, human design guide, writer, sacred space holder and multi-faceted creative alchemist. The thread running through everything I do is this… creating powerful yet nurturing containers for women to remember and rise into their own unique medicine.

To explore the fuller landscape of my heart work, come find me at www.laurenbarber.co. There you will find a portal of offerings for the mystics, the dreamers, the visionaries, the mothers, the healers and the heart-centred human beings.

And if you are a woman weaving soul into the way you work and lead, my Sacred Business newsletter is a quieter, deeper conversation. Step gently in through my free Gateway experience here.

I am so honoured to hold you here. x

How is your heart feeling? And equally importantly, how is your body feeling?

My own body feels achy but content today.

I had the pleasure of holding a beautiful Women’s Circle on Friday evening in my studio, and followed that with a satisfying 12 mile walk yesterday morning in preparation for my marathon walk in June in support of MacMillan (you can support our walk here if you have the capacity to do so). This morning me and the girls virtually with other women and their little ones in ’s Beltane inspired Creative Journaling circle.

This past week I have felt the fizz of inspiration and also had the energy to take action on ideas, coupled with a lot of clarity about my next steps in my evolving business. While there still hasn’t been quite enough time in the days to fulfil all of my urges, it feels as though I am moving the needle slowly forwards.

It wasn’t my ‘plan’ to write to you today, and in fact I have been working on a long piece about Motherhood which I was expecting to share with you first, however creativity has it’s own agenda and I woke this morning with itchy fingers and a topic on my heart…

In devotional dialogue with the body and our nervous systems

There is a huge amount of information and discussion about the nervous system on the internet right now.

Ten years ago, when I started sharing about the impacts of stress on our systems and how it played out in our lives, there was very little. In the past decade this discussion topic has become a hot one and my social media feeds are now filled with carousels and reels about what I should know/be doing/not be doing to have a ‘regulated’ nervous system - which ironically contributes to the information overwhelm that can even contribute to why our systems are struggling…

Sometimes we find something that ‘works’ for a while and then we change, it stops ‘working’ and we appear to be back at square one. Over the years I have gone through long periods of time where controlling or managing one aspect of my life (food and exercise as two major examples) seem to keep a lid on my anxiety and stress levels. Until it doesn’t.

On being ‘highly sensitive’

Recently I have been coming into deeper acceptance of my own level of sensitivity.

For decades I have worn the ‘over sensitive’, ‘melodramatic’, ‘ridiculous’ labels with shame… and while I DO identify with being sensitive I have also been opening up the internal conversation that perhaps this isn’t the negative thing that we have been lead to believe it is.

Sensitivity in it’s essence is a system that is highly attuned to the environment. There are multiple ways of experiencing it, but put simply it is living life with heightened senses and perceiving much of these senses as ‘dangerous’. My therapist describes it as having my antennae up and on high alert, keeping a watch out for danger and living in this constant state of ‘watching for threats’. I picture it as the meerkat who is upright and constantly on the look out for danger with it’s nose and ears twitching!

For me personally, this is not just about the outside world, but also - and probably more so in fact - it is being highly tuned in to my internal environment and my physical body sensations.

These sensory inputs can trigger a nervous system response that perceives them as threat, even though rationally we know that a certain smell/taste/sound/touch/sight is unlikely to actually cause us harm.

While I don’t think it is inherently ‘bad’ to be sensitive in this world, it does prove challenging when we are surrounded by so much stimulus, and can make daily life and experiences feel extra challenging.

The ‘easiest’ thing to do is to shut down these heightened feelings, which I did for the first thirty years of my life. However, my own experience in the past decade, and particularly the last few years, has shown that doesn’t prove to be a sustainable long term solution.

The other solution is to learn how to work with our systems to bring a sense of steadiness and stability.

The world needs the tender beings

Being ‘sensitive’ often partners with high levels of empathy, strong intuitive senses and a natural affinity to being able to sense things in others and the world around them.

This is actually what the world needs MORE of in my opinion, however for those walking this path it can feel excruciating to navigate existing in a highly attuned system in the modern world. But what if we can find ways to co-exist with this deep feeling humanness without it costing us?

Rather than there being a ‘fix’, I have come to the understanding that it is in the accumulative patterns that we consistently return to that, over time, gently soothes our systems and leads us into being able to access our parasympathetic (rest/digest) states of being. That is not to say we are supposed to be ‘regulated’ all the time, but in those of us who spend a lot of time under chronic stress and in a sympathetic (fight/flight/freeze) state of being, dialling down the response is an important ability to have.

Daily devotion - you matter

Small moments woven through the day that add up.

This morning as I chose what to wear, it dawned on me that, while I don’t have huge amounts of space to dive deeply into one big ‘nervous system practice’, I do have dozens and dozens of opportunities to signal a sense of safety and care in my own body through the multiple decisions I make in devotion to myself every day.

⋙ It is choosing clothes that feel comfortable on your body. Clothes that are uncomfortable are like being constantly poked or prodded. A low level of irritation that can prompt a sensitive system to be chronically overwhelmed.

It is choosing waistbands that let your belly breathe, fabrics that soothe your skin, socks that keep you warm, bras that don’t restrict you, tops that allow you to move your arms fully, garments that don’t have scratchy labels on. It is the buttery soft sweatshirt that you pull on in the evening, and the soft woollen socks that signal to your body it is ‘wind down’ time. It is in loosening your hair band if it feels too tight, or probably taking it out all together.

⋙ It is the pace you move at. There is very little that is truly, truly urgent, even if we perceive it to be unconsciously. When we slow down - even just by taking 10 seconds longer to move through some of the daily tasks we have to do - we signal to our body that we are not ‘rushing away from something’ or in a dangerous situation.

It is in letting the shower pour over you for 1 minute longer in the morning, it is slowing down the walking pace as you take your kids to school, it is taking a moment to place your hand on your body and check in with yourself before you reach for your phone in the mornings.

⋙ It is honouring our basic bodily functions. Eating. Resting when we are tired. Drinking water. Ignoring our pain and discomfort. And, perhaps the one that gets overlooked the most… going to the toilet when we need it.

Nourishing yourself physically is a big one here. Fuelling ourselves sufficiently is not just a ‘nice to do’, it is essential. This is something, that despite knowing exactly how to do it, I still find myself struggling with at times. Under-eating and the impact that has on the nervous system is huge, when we are ‘starved’ it puts our body into a heightened state which will shut down anything other than ‘essential’ systems to keep us alive.

I want to acknowledge that many of us have a complex relationship with food, so this is often a hard thing to do (and please do seek support if you need to with this), but when you zoom out and realise just how much of an impact it can have on your nervous system it provides more motivation to make the effort it takes to change things.

It is in breakfasts that balance our blood sugar levels and provide a steady release of energy. It is in the few minutes of preparing a meal you can have on the go, instead of skipping it all together. It is in lunch that satisfies your hunger, eaten slowly and chewed thoroughly. It is in choosing to sit down and have dinner when the kids are in bed so that you aren’t up and down like a yo-yo meeting their demands and giving yourself indigestion in the process. It is in the simple act of drinking water and hydrating your cells so that they can support you throughout the day.

⋙ It is in the words and ways we speak to ourselves. As cliche as it may sound, self compassion is underrated when it comes to supporting our nervous systems. Imagine for a moment that a ‘friend’ or ‘colleague’ was constantly saying critical, underhand, snipey words to you over, and over again. You would probably class it as bullying.

Your defenses go up. You start to believe what those voices say. You are effectively constantly waiting for that ‘someone’ to be mean to you. When you start to identify these unkind internal voices (and this may be something you need external support with) and understand them, you can start to reframe the narratives.

It is whispering ‘you’ve got this’ as you take a deep breath and handle a challenging situation. It is in understanding that you are human and cannot be perfect. It is in challenging what ‘good’ really means and the stories you have attached to it. It is in being gentle with yourself when you are tired/impatient/touched out/overwhelmed. It is using the words ‘no wonder’ when you react to something you think you ‘shouldn’t’ have. It is in being loving in the expectations you have in yourself, and not being harsh if you don’t meet them.

⋙ It is honouring your personal energy and your unique way of being. When we try and operate in the same way as ‘everyone else’, it often leads to disappointment or a sense of failure. Why can’t we do things the way ‘so and so’ does? The honest answer is that we aren’t supposed to, despite what we may have been lead to believe.

It is not comparing your own experience to another person who may be in a different season of life, in a different body and with a different set of circumstances. It is understanding your human design and accepting that you operate and engage with the world in your own unique way and that doesn’t make you ‘wrong’. It is being honest with yourself about your capacity and the things that you do and don’t have energy for, and not saying YES to things when they are a soul or body-deep NO. It is gaining deeper insight into your own brain and wiring and choosing to see that you were never broken, just born to break the mould.

⋙ It is choosing gentle rhythms over strict routine. Consistency is key when it comes to the nervous system but not necessarily in the way that we have been lead to believe. Small daily rituals anchor us, especially in times of uncertainty, giving ourselves some predictability makes decisions easier and can lead to less overwhelm. But, punishing daily schedules that we feel we ‘should’ be doing do the opposite and often cause MORE stress on our systems.

⋙ It is letting your practices change as your body changes. Making peace with the fact that ten years ago your yoga practice or exercise routine may well have looked radically different to what it does now can soften your own expectations of yourself and lead to less self criticism.

This year it will be ten years since I did my first Yoga Teacher Training and when I began teaching it was all about strong sweaty Vinyasa Flow. It was holding postures until I shook, breathing through it but not backing off. It was handstand practice and deep holds and stretches. It was HIIT workouts and running.

Now it is wiggling through my hips and supporting myself during restorative postures. It is choosing to step on the mat just to lie down instead of ‘work out’. It is daily walks and that being enough most of the time. It is little somatic resets throughout the day over a so-called ‘big release’.

It is choosing softness and acceptance over and over and over again.

Ongoing tending to ourselves

When we show up regularly and begin to have an internal dialogue with our body and nervous system there may not be a huge dramatic shift over night, however with daily acts of devotion we can start to build up our inner resources and over time this will have a powerful impact.

This was never about getting rid of our sensitivity but finding ways to acknowledge and understand our own needs and therefore our own actions not becoming another ‘threat’ to an already heightened system.

Some words to contemplate…

I would love to hear how this lands for you today. If you wish to explore some questions I offer you the following prompts to sit with…

What is your relationship with sensitivity and your own nervous system capacity? How do you perceive ‘being sensitive’?

How are you tending to yourself in the small moments right now? Does that feel enough or is a part of you crying out to be seen and supported?

How can you slowly integrate more moments of showing up for yourself in your daily rhythms? What might that look like for you?

Wishing you a nourishing entry into the week ahead. Please do share your thoughts on this piece in the comments, or reply to me on email if you prefer.

Until next time

Lauren

xxx

A little note before I go on. If you are looking to create an online home, the next round of my DIY Squarespace website building journey, The Hearth, is now open for enrollment and begins 22nd April. There is currently a saving of £56 available until 8th April. Explore all the details below.

Explore The Hearth

Hello lovely one

How is your heart today? How are you feeling as we ease further into April and Spring embeds itself (in this part of the world anyway) into our bones a little deeper?

I have to say that I feel nourished on all levels after the long weekend. Saturday saw a little Cacao Circle magic with with a beautiful gathering of women in my studio. Then the rest of the weekend was spent eating hearty food and spending time with family and friends.

There is now two weeks ahead of Easter Holidays and a lot of ‘writing around the edges’ so my letters will likely be short and sweet (for me!).

As we are well and truly in Bluebell season here in the UK, I have decided to open up one of my favourite Yoga Nidra practices for all subscribers until the magical blue flowers make their final flourish.

If you are craving rest and nourishment for your entire being, I would love to invite you to lay down and receive this 26 minute practice. And if you enjoy this practice and wish to soak up more, then do come and join us in The Balm membership where you can listen to dozens of practices whenever you need them.

Held. By Lauren Barber

A Yoga Nidra journey through the Bluebell Woods...

Hello lovely one…

Read more

2 years ago · 35 likes · 19 comments · Lauren Barber

How do you want them to feel?

I appreciate that not everyone here has their own business, Substack or online space, but if you do, or you wish to, then this little exploration process is for you…

One of the most important things to get clear on when crafting an online place, whether that is on Substack, a website, or any other social media platforms, is how we want others to feel when they arrive there and walking through our world.

Focusing on how we relate energetically AND what felt sense we spark when people travel into the realms of our spaces is vital, and yet is often overlooked in favour of trendy aesthetics.

Don’t get me wrong… I love the aesthetics side of Branding and business, however there is a layer that has to be explored BEFORE.

For example, when I consider my own brand and online spaces I want people to feel my grounded presence, and yet also ensure I don’t lose the mystery and magic. I want people to feel soothed and settled as they navigate my spaces AND I also want to emphasis the depth of my work, and my need to speak openly, without making it inaccessible.

I cannot, and shouldn’t have to, hide my multi faceted nature. People know pretty early on when they come into contact with me that there are many dimensions to explore.

I want people to feel my work more than they logically have to understand it… (at first anyway). The facts come later, and are an important part of the process, but they will get a felt sense first and that can come within seconds of them discovering us.

A process to support you with this…

Getting clear on the felt sense of a client’s Brand and website is a large part of my work, and so I thought it might be fun to offer you some prompts to explore for your own spaces…

Grab a journal, or a blank document, and explore the following three questions…

• What are the current connection points you are focusing your energy on in your heart work?

• How do you want people to feel when they land in these spaces?

• Do these spaces currently reflect this? If not, what changes would you like to make?

Make an inspiration list

• What websites and online spaces make you feel something when you land on them?

• What is it about these spaces that evokes a felt sense in you?

• What could you learn from these interactions and use as inspiration in your own worlds?

Bring in some visuals

Make a Pinterest board, a collage in Canva, or even a paper vision board with magazines and photos, that captures the felt sense you wish to bring into your own spaces. You can use this as a visual guide to help keep you connected to these feelings.

I want to make it clear that this doesn’t have to be a perfectly curated Instagram feed, or a slick and shiny website. It just needs to represent YOU and feel like home. And remember, it will always be a work in progress, your heart work is a living breathing process and so your spaces will forever be changing. But having a foundation to grow from is helpful for clarity for both you AND your community.

Please do comment or reply and let me know how the explorations above land for you. I would love to hear more about the felt sense you wish to create in your spaces.

If you want to go a step further and create an online space in Squarespace that embodies all that you are here to express, I would love to share my next round of The Hearth with you.

Whether you are building a website for the first time, or creating a new online space to showcase your offerings, The Hearth is a website building journey that will take you through both the energetic AND strategic steps you need to take in order to craft a space that truly feels like home.

We begin on 22nd April and journey together for 12 weeks. Until 8th April (tomorrow at the time of writing this) you can get £56 off the full price of £333. Explore all of the details below, and do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.

Explore The Hearth

I also have one space this side of the Summer holidays (in July) for a bespoke Branding and Website creation. Click here if you would like to explore more and book a consultancy call.

Until next time

Lauren

xxx

A little note before I go on. If you are looking to create an online home, the next round of my DIY Squarespace website building journey, The Hearth, is now open for enrollment and begins 22nd April. There is currently a saving of £56 available until 8th April. Explore all the details below.

Explore The Hearth

Hello lovely one

How is your heart feeling today?

This week I have felt tired. Exhausted in fact. After a beautifully FULL weekend of family celebrations these past few days I have been forced into a kind of recovery state.

I will admit I have got VERY protective of spaciousness in my weekends over the past few years. Sundays are an absolutely non negotiable family day, it is very rare for me to agree to do ANYTHING that doesn’t involve my daughters and husband on Sundays. Saturday mornings are ‘my morning’ to just float around, do a solo walk, or yoga practice, write, create… and generally just ‘do me’ while my husband takes the girls swimming.

At the weekends I need space but I also need a bit of structure (thank you AuADHD brain)… I feel daunted if there is zero ‘planned’ but also I long for the fluidity to just act on spontaneous urges. So we have some rhythms and rituals in our weekends, but also enough flexibility to go somewhere new or head off on a mini adventure if we wish. It is a delicate balance but I am learning to work with it more and more.

As I get older, and get to know myself and my own unique capacity more deeply and realise that actually I really, really NEED time to recuperate after the week, I have become more and more committed to saying NO to anything that really doesn’t set my soul on fire. Understanding my human design energy type (Manifesting Generator) has helped me greatly with this.

But there are times when of course life happens, and I was not going to miss my brother’s 40th and grandmother’s 105th celebrations. However, what I am learning, in this season of life, is that it is imperative for me to factor in some ‘restoration days’ to compensate for big expenditures of energy.

There is one part of me that still judges my seemingly reduced capacity to socialise and do ‘stuff’ when I compare this to other women, especially other Mothers. And yet, there is also another part of me, that is a lot more present these days, that is truly learning to accept my own needs with kind eyes.

Tiredness as a defect

Tiredness. Weariness. Exhaustion. Fatigue. Worn out. Sapped. Drained. Depleted. Burnt Out. Shattered. All of these words capturing a similar state of being.

We live in a world that is capitalising on women’s exhaustion. Supplements and health advice bombarding us with more things we need to DO to combat this tiredness. Constant programs and things we ‘should’ be doing on Instagram reels and carousels to ‘fix’ our energy levels. It is almost impossible NOT to get swept up into the need to do more.

I agree that there is a serious problem when it comes to collective exhaustion. There are very few women I speak to who do not feel weary to the bone right now… BUT I also can’t help but see so much of this external input as a band aid to cover over the tiredness instead of actually looking at the deeper reasoning behind it.

It is of course very HUMAN to be tired. But this world doesn’t always celebrate our humanness… it celebrates our achievements… our productivity… our busyness… our ‘dedication’ to working hard.

The pressures placed on so many of us are in-human… they are unsustainable, treating actual living breathing works of art (yes we are all that) as commodities that will be discarded once they have been rinsed of all their ‘use’.

Pushing using various different stimulants (yup even the coffee alternatives and so called ‘healthy’ products are in some way bypassing our natural energy levels), shutting down our own physical body needs to keep going, ignoring warning signals until… we simply. cannot. any. more…

I often find myself saying to my husband, at the end of a day (or sometimes often at the start of the day!!) ‘I am so tired… I don’t know what is wrong with me?’ As if it was something defective about me to be tired and not a very important message from my body.

The old narratives that I started to unpick brought me a lot of new awareness.

As though it is an affliction to fix rather than an invitation to get curious.

On the other side of these thoughts is also the bubbling rage that simmers within me as to how much it BENEFITS a broken system to keep instilling a sense of ‘failure’ when humans cannot live up to (the impossible) expectation if operating like robots.

It keeps us feeling like we need to hide ourselves. It keeps us buying fixes. Putting on a mask to push through. It keeps us TIRED.

Different flavours of tiredness

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith developed a framework to explore the different types of rest that we need and I have always found these to be such a powerful tool of awareness.

1. Physical rest.

2. Mental rest.

3. Sensory rest.

4. Creative rest.

5. Emotional rest.

6. Social rest.

7. Spiritual rest.

We will of course oscillate between what we need at any moment, but I am often met with tired women who are doing the physical rest… doing the Yoga Nidra… slowing right down, reducing what they ‘do’… and yet they are still feeling utterly depleted. So often it is one of the lesser known types of rest that are truly needed.

As I was contemplating the different types of rest I also came to the conclusion that there are also different types of tiredness.

definition of tired

1. in need of sleep or rest; weary.

2. bored or impatient with.

There is a physical tiredness from using our body’s energy stores up. There is that bone deep tiredness where the limbs feel too heavy to move. There is emotional tiredness from carrying the weight of being human on our shoulders. There is tiredness from pushing and forcing and trying to fix things. There is tiredness from walking down paths that are not aligned with our true values and our heart. There is tiredness when we are unwell and the body needs to put all it’s effort into healing. There is tiredness from lack of sleep. There is tiredness from living our life in a perpetual state of ‘should’. There is tiredness from burning ourselves out and not honouring our needs. There is tiredness from feeling unfulfilled. There is tiredness in the frustration of having to adhere to paths that don’t light us up. There is tiredness from worrying about the state of the world and what is on the horizon. There is tiredness from holding others in a world where often the ‘holders’ don’t get held enough.

Being ‘tired’ is complex.

So just like the different types of rest, the different types of tiredness require different remedies.

When you get curious about your own tiredness… what is the root of it?

For me I will be very honest and say that I am tired of trying to heal and fix and figure stuff out (particularly in this mid-life body). I am tired of carrying motherhood on my shoulders. I am tired of not having enough space to create in a really autonomous way. I am tired of feeling like I have to adhere to a certain way of being as a woman and a Mother.

Tiredness as a trigger

Rightly, or wrongly, I have come to understand that in my system, tiredness doesn’t always feel safe. Some kinds of tiredness anyway. So for me, fatigue and tiredness often comes hand in hand with anxiety.

With the constant messaging that I need to ‘fix’ tiredness… (and as someone who has always struggled with health anxiety) I find it very easy to get into my head and make it mean different things.

On a ‘below the surface’ level tiredness means…

• I must be unwell.

• I am weak and not coping as well as others do.

• I am not useful if I am unable to be high energy.

• I am a disappointment to my children, and my husband, if I don’t have the energy to play/cook from scratch/keep the home tidy/arrange exciting outings.

• I am a failure if I am not constantly creating.

• I am inadequate.

And when we feel inadequate we stay hidden. We stop creating. We stop sharing. We shrink ourselves and the world is then starved of our own unique medicine and art.

Medicine and art that is so deeply needed at this time to be a catalyst for change.

I want to finish with something ‘useful’ because HOPE is what propels me forward. A huge part of my work here in the world is to bring ‘new ways’ into being, and to challenge outdated narratives when it comes to the way we live as humans…

But there is no one solution, because we are all so beautifully different. However a few things you might like to explore…

Some journal prompts…

• How tired are you right now? What are you tired OF?

• If you get very honest with yourself, and consider the different types of rest and tiredness, what is the root of this fatigue?

• What kind of remedies do you need to give yourself to begin tending to this tiredness?

• WHO benefits from your tiredness? What parts of you are shrunk and hidden when you stay weary?

Your Human Design

Understanding your own unique energy, and how you operate in the world can be really useful in unearthing how you might be living out of alignment with your personal makeup. If you need an overview of Human Design click here for an in depth piece I wrote.

• Are you trying to operate as an energy type that is not your own? E.g a Projector or Manifestor trying to work in the same way as a Generator or Manifesting Generator.

• Are you living in accordance to your strategy?

• Are you making decisions with your own inner authority? Or are you bypassing this and using the mind?

• Are you aware of your open centres and how you may be absorbing, and amplifying ‘stuff’ that isn’t your own?

Yoga Nidra

If you have been here a while you will know that talking about Yoga Nidra is a ‘hill I will die on’ when it comes to speaking of restoration in all ways… creatively, physically, emotionally, spiritually… There are just so many ripple impacts of this beautiful practice.

As someone who has a very active brain, I have always found that simply lying down is very unlikely to actually replenish me. But Yoga Nidra gives me a gentle holding structure to keep my brain active, while my body rests.

Try this practice of mine here if you would like to, and if you enjoy it you can join The Balm and get access to a whole library of Yoga Nidras.

I would love to hear from you if any of these words resonate with you. Are you feeling tired too? How are you getting curious with this tiredness?

I hope you can be so, so gentle with yourself.

For all the women you have been and for all of them who are still yet to come.

Until next time

Lauren

xxx

We had a beautiful Seasonal Business Planning Ceremony today in The Balm membership. Thank you to those who made it live.

As we pass the Spring Equinox, this 90 minute session provides plenty of time to sit with the past season, to connect with the essence of your heart and soul work, as well as drop in to the visions that are wishing to …

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A little note before I begin. If you are looking to create an online home, the next round of my DIY Squarespace website building journey is now open for enrolment and begins 22nd April. The super early bird pricing, saving over £100, ends this Sunday, March 22nd. You can explore all the details below.

EXPLORE THE HEARTH

Hello lovely one

How is your heart today?

I have to admit I have been in a little state of ‘freeze’ when it comes to my writing here recently. There are many reasons for this, and I know I don’t have to justify myself here, but the main reason truly is that I just haven’t known where to begin…

A few weeks ago I broke my slight Substack hiatus and shared a meditation and poetry spurred on by International Women’s Day, (you can read it here if you would like) and it re-ignited the spark that comes alive in me when I commit myself to regular writing.

I will, I think, forever dance between the delicate balance of needing a certain amount of pressure to actually bring something to life, and yet, also needing spaciousness and spontaneity, with not ‘too much’ pressure that it begins to feel forced.

As I approach my three year ‘anniversary’ here on Substack I can’t help but reflect over the versions of me that have shown up in this space.

What began as a place to pour out words around motherhood in the very early days of my youngest daughter being born, has since evolved into a place that can actually be home to all the many threads of me.

For a while I have felt a little stumped in how to fully express myself here…

The space has got noisier, the way that we connect has changed, the functions have increased and with that there can be a little more overwhelm and confusion. While I fully embrace transition, I won’t deny that I resisted a lot of this change, wished for ‘the old days’, and got swept up by other people’s opinions on the platform. As someone with an open crown and mind in human design, when I am in the shadow of these open centres I feel too easily swayed off my own path and the edges feel a little blurry.

Taking space over the winter, not having a regular writing schedule, and tending very much to my own self, has given me a chance to have a pause and notice how my body feels when I write, when I create, when I show up in this space… and coming back to it has reminded me that it still very much feels like a nourishing place for my own tapestry of art to be woven.

Nothing but the whole truth

Since the very early days of blogging I have always been one of those ‘over sharers’… or as I like to consider as a very transparent, truthful, open vessel when it comes to talking about the hardships and struggles in life. I am simply not one of those people who can make small talk (in real life or online), or create strategic content channels based on what I ‘should’ be writing based on my business visions.

I have always been, and always will be, a depth seeker. My soul longs for meaningful conversation, a place where I can show myself and be received for that instead of trying to be palatable or ‘easy to digest’.

So when I am in a period of life that feels too tender to share, it is hard for me to show up at all because it feels in-authentic. When truth is my compass, and I have to hide a version of myself in that, I simply go quiet.

But then with that a little piece of me shrinks away, and for a time that may well be needed in order to preserve myself, but it can also then be hard to bring movement back in. The safety of staying quiet becomes hard to leave, and yet simultaneously frustrating.

Despite online creativity and business being a huge part of my ‘work’, I still haven’t got this whole being human/online presence malarkey all figured out. I suspect I will always ebb and flow between periods of consistently showing up, and then disappearing for a little into the void. And actually… I am OK with that.

As the seasons change

I do feel that there comes a time in any transformational period of life that you just know it is time to share, even if you don’t feel fully ready. Perhaps it is the imminence of Spring, or perhaps it is simply my own inner season shifting. My youngest has passed the three year old mark, she is now the exact same age that my eldest was when she was born. This feels like a milestone in itself.

I also stepped into a new seven year cycle last year as I reached 42 years old in August. My body is changing. My mental health has been very fragile. But despite not having any of it tied up neatly in a bow… something in me is longing to open up my heart once more and write…

Sharing from the messy middle

This phase of my life is far from complete, or even close to it, and so one reluctance I have had to write freely is because, in reality, I am still very much in the middle (or maybe really just at the beginning!) of it all.

The phrase ‘sharing from the scar not the wound’ is something I have always found to be a loving piece of guidance, however I am not sure that there ever will be a ‘scar’ in some parts of life… or at least not a fully healed one. And sometimes, there is a lot of wisdom to be learned, and expressed, from the messy middle.

Neurodivergence, hormones, motherhood and more…

I feel like over the past few years I have been going through an internal re-brand, or as I talk a lot about in my work with others, a deep sense of remembering.

It seems that I am not alone in discovering more about myself at this middle (ish… I hope) point of life than perhaps I have in the entirety of the years that came before it. I would say that from the birth of my second daughter in December 2022 until now, which also corresponded with my 40th birthday year, I have been unravelling at a fairly spectacular pace — and not much of it willingly.

Everything about the era of my forties so far seems to have been about the undoing of me. Peeling away the person I thought I was, and re-introducing myself to the person I am.

Shapeshifting anxiety

For the past few years I have found myself crippled at times with a very physiological type of anxiety. As someone who has always had health anxiety and been labelled as a ‘worrier’, I am familiar with anxiety but this ‘upgraded’ version of it floored me.

It came with heart palpitations and massive cortisol spikes every single morning, with nighttime wakes that would leave me coursing with fear, with panic attacks that came from a single spiraling thought and overwhelm that would sweep over me like a tidal wave. It came with an all over hyper-vigilant state that made even eating a struggle at times. So much so that in the space of 6 months from last summer until Christmas I lost over 5kg and shrunk to a size 6/8… something I hadn’t been since my early teens.

I would catch sight of myself in the mirror and be overcome with sadness. Clothes hanging off me, the angles of my body showing in ways that made me barely recognise my once curvy and soft body. Strength diminshing, exercise intolerance and fatigue from simply not nourishing myself enough and my nervous system being ‘stuck’ in a heightened state. People switched from telling me I looked ‘well’ to asking if I was OK because I had lost too much weight. Of course with a history of health anxiety, this simply made me worry more.

Motherhood holding the mirror

With a three year old who still wakes multiple times a night, and my sleep disrupted due to newly found insomnia, night sweats, heart palpitations and the high alert my system has defaulted to having learned to go to bed waiting for the wake up… my body has felt utterly broken.

If someone had told me three years ago, when my littlest was born, that at this point three years on I still wouldn’t have had a complete night’s sleep I would have manically laughed at them in horror… yet here I am … still no sign of a full night of sleep yet.

In addition to this physical toll, the birth of my second daughter mirrored another side to me, perhaps simply coinciding with the hormonal sh*t storm and sleeplessness… but I started to explore the possibility of neurodivergence and in January this year I received my diagnosis of AuADHD. Another piece of the puzzle that has brought about massive relief AND also confusion at times.

Surrendering to support for my rollercoaster hormones

For a while I resisted the fact that these physiological changes could be being exacerbated due to peri-menopause. Some people claimed that it was ridiculous to think that I would be experiencing this at the age of 40, while others told me that it was highly likely this was all hormonal related.

I spent thousands of pounds on supplements, holistic treatments, therapy and anything else ‘natural’ that I could try. Some things helped, but nothing truly brought any form of steadiness to my system. I tried beta blockers for when the panic was too intense to get me through the morning school run… they helped soften things but were only ever a band aid.

I tried a patch form of HRT last summer and it made me feel like crap. I have always been extremely sensitive to hormones and came off the pill in my early twenties as I felt it just wasn’t working for me. After a few days of wearing the patch (which I hated because I could feel it and it would start to peel off and stick to my clothes) I gave up. It felt hopeless.

The weight kept falling off me. My eating got worse. I felt like a shell of myself. Withdrawn. Sad. Moments of highs but mostly lows. I felt sad for my children. I felt like I was disappointing everyone and was a burden on them all. I was trapped in a cycle of believing that I was broken and not knowing the way out.

A turning point and choosing support

In January this year I decided, with my GP, to try HRT again, but a different approach this time. We decided to try the Estrogen spray and progesterone tablets and start very low to build up and see if I could tolerate it.

At this point I have to say that my menstrual cycle had become very undulating, sometimes 35 day cycles, sometimes 60 days. I was struggling with PMDD symptoms in the build up to my bleed and then having severe dips on around days 7-14 where my anxiety would spike and my low mood would plummet. There were odd days where I felt I could cope, but for the most part I was simply surviving, putting on a brave face to the outer world, but internally falling apart.

I have now been on HRT for just over two months… and while there is a part of me who is terrified of ‘jinxing’ it… I feel a level of steadiness in myself that hasn’t been there in a long time. Years in fact, which makes me wonder just how long this has been ‘brewing’ in my body.

I don’t know if this will last. I am still aware of the wobbly moments. For example, today I am day 5 and for the past few days I have felt more jittery than I have in the last few weeks, but there is also a little more of a solid foundation beneath my feet. I feel, dare I say it, a little more balanced, and the ‘good days’ are outnumbering the ‘bad ones’.

I can still feel my tenderness at times being exacerbated by the fluctuations. I still lose my sh*t and feel irritated at times. I still get overwhelmed, but there is a noticeable difference in my capacity to exist. My energy is higher. My husband has noticed a difference. My appetite is better and I have actually put on 3kg since Christmas.

As someone who has always resisted medical intervention, I have opened myself up to the possibility that actually this is the support and sacred structure that my body needs to help me navigate this period of life. It isn’t my ‘failure’, it is actually a loving net that can catch and hold me when I need it.

There is so much more to write about and explore, but I am aware this piece is already very long, so I will save it for another day. As you can gather though, if you have made it this far… 2026 has already shown me a lot about my self and we haven’t even reached Spring Equinox yet!

So now, I guess I feel like I can share more authentically from this middle part of life. I have no doubt that this is a thread to be continually unravelled but I feel lucky to have a space like this to write, to share and to make meaning through the act of simply weaving words.

Until next time

Lauren

xxx

How is your heart today?

I am sharing this piece today in honour of International Women’s Day.

Over the past few years there has been a wave of women joining this collective cauldron of creativity, sparked initially by . Once more, together with , Georgia, and we are returning to lift and raise self expression and the true heARTistry of women from around the world.

This year pulled a beautiful Oracle card from the Folklore deck which speaks of the traditional act of Waulking (Scottish Gaelic: luadh) - women weaving, finishing tweed cloth in community together while singing.

Consider this thread of pieces as a virtual version of this gathering. All of us sharing a piece of our own unique expressive nature in the incredible tapestry that we are weaving and creating.

My offering on this day, and always

When I consider how I want to impact the world with my presence, and what legacy I wish to leave, it always comes down to living all the way alive.

My hope and wish for all is to feel fulfillment and nourishment on a soul-deep, and also physical, level. For many of the women I walk with, this expresses itself through entrepreneurial life, but at it’s core it is in truly seeing, and experiencing our lives as living art. And yes, that means not shying away from the messy, chaotic and often painful parts of being human because there is beauty in it all.

Unfortunately in this modern world this vitality and life force is often diminished and so a strong emphasis of my current body of work is on restoring aliveness and activating a deep remembrance in women as to what their beautiful, wild and often multi-faceted medicine is.

I hope that my share today will act as an ode to all of the above.

Rekindling the flames

As I walked through the fields the other day near my home I felt the sentence Rekindling the flames land into my awareness and so this 12 minute meditative prayer is my gift to you in the hope that it will remind you of the innate aliveness that rests within.

If you don’t have time to receive the full transmission right now (it is just over 12 minutes long), you can simply press play on the 1 minute poetry audio (or read the words) to receive the words I wish to share.

The Poetry

Rekindling by Lauren Barber

A rekindling
It starts with us
A stepping stone
To deeper trust

Unveiling hidden
Depths we stored
Beneath the ground
Behind closed doors

Worlds around us
Try to shrink
Flames and sparks
That seem to sink

But every time
A woman dances
Shares her voice
Takes those chances

A flame ignites
A passion lives
A change unfolds
A gift she gives

To those who couldn’t
Do the same
The ones they buried
Crushed by shame

And while our words
Might shake and tremble
And feet on paths
Might trip and tumble

The women who
Feed their flames
Encourage others
To do the same

And with that sparks
A turning tide
A movement forwards
Less need to hide

For when we weave
And walk together
Holding hands
Hearts we tether

Let us not
Forget our SELVES
The deeper layers
We must always delve

Under the surface
Beneath the bones
Into the soul
Our sacred homes.

Thank you for receiving my words today, I hope that you can see the miracle that you are, on this day, and all days.

Until next time

Lauren

xxx

Hello lovely one

How is your heart feeling in this moving season?

Depending on where you are physically in the world will of course shift the season you are stepping towards, however no matter where you are located, it feels as though so many of us are meeting thresholds in a multitude of ways.

Today, as I write this, we are reaching the end of January. A month that has felt long and arduous for various reasons. I wonder if this is the point though… that this month drags and feels slow because it is inviting us to go deeper into ourselves and that in itself can feel hard, exhausting and uncomfortable. It is a darker season — although there are little glimmers of light and hope in the emerging snowdrops and gradually lengthening days — the body is naturally called to move slower and rest more, to conserve energy and stay cosy, to hunker down and nurture the foundations.

The tension comes when we brace against this natural rhythm instead of EMbracing it, and in our culture, sadly, the pushing sense of productivity tends to bulldoze all sense of what our body is really asking for.

Over the next few days we greet Imbolc, the first turning of the wheel that occurs in this new calendar year. Over the passing years I have become more and more guided by the celebratory seasonal meeting points from The Wheel Of The Year, but I will not profess to being an ‘expert’ in their roots or meanings. I just know that they ‘make sense’ in my body, and for me that is enough.

I have read a few beautiful, simple pieces here to share more on the energy and transition of Imbolc. This post here by shares about Brigid, the Irish Goddess of Poetry. This post here by is a lovely grounded approach to the season, and Louise’s simple ritual invitations are always a comfort when life feels full.

Overwhelming times

We are in a time of mass information… an overload in fact. On one hand it is so amazing we have access to such a wealth of knowledge, but on the other side of this is a potentially harmful sway away from our own inner knowing.

Many of the women I am surrounded with feel in a chronic sense of overwhelm.

It is like an overflowing river that is constantly teetering on the edge of breaking it’s banks. The sacred structure, our containers, are not being given the stability they need and we tend to lean on flimsy scaffolding that is not rooted and therefore can easily tumble.

Our worlds, and our systems, feel fragile.

In Human Design there is talked of a great change coming in 2027, a shift from the more tribal mentality towards more individualism. And if you talk to any astrologer they will also say we are in wild times with the happenings in the cosmos.

It took a while for me to interpret this information in a way that I understood, but I can see now that what it is doing is bringing us back to ourselves as the medicine. A return to what feels true to us as individual beings instead of being taken over by external forces. We are already in the dismantling phase, and of course the impact of that will leave a residue far beyond the next few years, but I can feel it in myself and can see that all my work over the past ten or so years has been in support of this.

There is great opportunity here, but only if we listen in a new way.

A deeper way. To ourselves.

A call to listen deeper

When I look to the nature around me at this time there is still not a lot of visible signs of change, yet. A few signs … some daffodils in sunny spots have shown their sunshine yellow faces, the mystical white pendants of a snowdrop dangle tantalizingly in my front garden and even my favourite primroses have burst forth and offer me a glimmer of milky yellow magic. The birdsong is changing. The sun, when it pokes through, has a little more warmth, the light lands differently. There is an inner, and outer sparkle, that wasn’t there before. But it is still a small flame and must be tended to gently, we are still far from full bloom and we must remember this to protect our inner wellsprings.

My dear friend talks a lot about ‘winterspring’ and Imbolc feels to me the epitome of this. We are coming to the season that often teases us with brighter and lighter days, before plummeting us back into frozen ground and biting winds. We are at the mercy of a natural force outside of us, and so it asks us to truly, truly listen and respond to what is right in front of us in each moment.

This time of year is an opportunity to listen. To get silent, still, steady ourselves and truly hear what we are being called into next. It is only in the quiet that we can hear our longings and feel the gentle nudges from within and every time I feel myself getting into a spiral of overwhelm and confusion, I remember this.

In contradiction to what we are often ‘told’ — to use the mind to ‘figure stuff out’ — I believe that it is always through the body that we will get answers. We can use the mind to decipher those messages and take action of course, but the mind is the passenger here, not in the driving seat.

When I sit with others in a Human Design reading I always reiterate that if they find themselves ‘in their head’ too much, over-analysing and becoming overwhelmed, then they have bypassed their own inner authority and guidance system. This in itself is a really useful signal to us to return to the quieter spaces, to return back into the body, so that we can connect with, feel, and hear the signposts from within.

Now I do want to caveat this… because for many people the body is not always a ‘safe place’, and so there are many layers to this of course. There is often a process required to feeling anything at all, so please go gently with yourself and check out the beautiful work of if you need support with this.

We live in a time where we have been pulled out of the body for many reasons. In a lot of places (yes I am looking at you Instagram) we are being sold a constant cascade of narratives around our body needing ‘fixing’, or needing to be ‘hacked’, ‘optimised’, or just generally being drip fed unconsciously how imperfect we are and how we need to be ‘improved’.

Bone deep listening… an invitation

I listened to this beautiful podcast conversation on my walk today, between and . Jana is one of the reasons I fell in love with Yoga Nidra around ten years ago. I can remember lying on my bed in what I think must have been 2018, before I became a Mother, and finding one of her practices on Insight Timer. As I lay there I felt like I had traveled into a different dimension. It was shortly after that I took the leap and flew to Canada to train with Tanis Fishman and the rest is history…

Anyway, their conversation reminded me of the pure medicine that Yoga Nidra gifts us. It feels like the most nourishing medicine to bring to this threshold moment.

So, I invite you into a practice of deep listening as we meet this shifting season. To give you an opportunity to get still and let your body rest, while you open up the possibility of connecting to the unseen, and perhaps unheard, parts of you that are waiting under the surface to be witnessed.

As a gift, I have opened up two of my favourite Yoga Nidras, and one of my most popular meditations, from behind the paywall for this week ahead. I really hope that they serve as an opportunity for you to meet this quiet time of year in whatever way you need.

It is such a pleasure to share these with you, I truly hope you can carve out some time in the coming days to rest into your medicine and truly, truly listen.

Held. By Lauren Barber

The Spiral Path Yoga Nidra

This Yoga Nidra practice will be available for all subscribers for the next week, after that it will go behind the paywall and into The Balm membership. If you wish to retain access to it — along with a library of other practices — then do consider upgrading your subscription below…

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9 months ago · 12 likes · 6 comments · Lauren Barber

Held. By Lauren Barber

The Ripples of You: A Yoga Nidra Practice

Hello lovely one…

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2 years ago · 17 likes · 7 comments · Lauren Barber

Held. By Lauren Barber

Planting Seeds Of Hope - A Meditation

Hello sweet one…

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3 years ago · 18 likes · 14 comments

I would love to hear how this piece meets you today, and if you do enjoy one of the practices please do let me know. Feel free to share with anyone who might enjoy the practices, and if you love them and want more, you can join The Balm membership here.

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Until next time

With love

Lauren

xxx

We had a beautiful Seasonal Business Planning Ceremony today in The Balm membership. Thank you to those who made it live.

My intention for this session was to create a space for you to truly drop into the soil and ground that you are building on this year. So if you are feeling the wintering energy in your heart work, and want to really …

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Hello lovely one

How is your heart feeling today? How are you tending and nurturing yourSELF in these first few weeks of 2026?

Today I wanted to share a little snippet of some of the ways that I ‘winter’ in my business. Over the past ten years I have learned to really lean in to the seasonal shifts in all ways — both from a personal lifestyle point of view AND also in my business.

The result of doing this means that I feel like I truly honour the pauses and the still moments as much as the faster paced more ‘outwards’ seasons. I no longer feel anxiety about the lulls as I know that they are an important part of the process and so the energy in my business, and therefore myself, feels steady and focused instead of scattered, forceful and overwhelming.

I know that not everyone who is reading this will be in winter… but in the UK we are currently in the depths of the darker months so I wanted to share a little about how we can use this spiraling inwards time to tend and nurture our creative visions…

Wintering in our heart work

1. Honour the cyclical nature of creativity. We are not meant to be ‘on’ all the time in our business — despite what many so called experts might say. The surest way to dampen down your creative spirit is to try and enforce a linear structure to it. That said… take a moment and tune into your unique energy and what it is calling you towards. For some people winter feels extremely fertile and for others it might call you towards total dormancy.
   Where are at in the cycle of your own energy and your heart work energy?

2. It is in the quiet that we can really truly hear the whispers of our heart work. The dark mornings and evenings — this more introverted time — particularly in January and February, is possibly one of the most beautiful times to get still and really, really listen. It is perhaps one of the only times in the year we have the ‘excuse’ to stop completely and with that often comes so much wisdom. In the slow, quiet moments your intuition, your creativity, your heart and soul can finally be heard above the noise of more ‘external’ seasons.
   What quiet practices can you embrace to get quiet and listen?

3. Audit your energy output. Look at both the energetic and practical places that energy is going out from you and your heart work. This might be offerings that no longer feel aligned, marketing platforms that don’t serve you anymore or even ideas that you no longer feel connected to. Sometimes we inadvertently waste energy on things that are still in our field even when they aren’t right for us anymore. This season is the ideal time to take inventory of where your energy is going.
   Where is your energy output being placed most at the moment? Is that still feeling aligned to you?

4. Organise to gain space and clarity. Take some time to clear away over these darker months, make space for the visions, and your community, to come in. For me this looks like tidying up things like Google drive, Dropbox and Canva files, sorting emails, beginning a new Trello (or whatever other project management tool you might use) board to look at the year ahead. Doing an email list clear up to remove anyone that hasn’t engaged in my work for 6 months or so. Clearing my desktop. Checking for broken links on my website and social media bios. Unsubscribing and un-following from anything that is no longer aligned. Doing a financial check in. Updating my scheduling calendars. There are lots of little things that we can do to create a really clear channel in our heart and soul work, all from a cosy nest of blankets indoors!
   What needs to be tidied and cleared to help make space for clarity in this season?

5. Re-brand/Re-birth. The winter months are a perfect time to really dig deep into your Brand so that come Spring, when things begin to bloom, you have a strong foundation to express from. If you are not feeling in full alignment to the energetic and visual components of your Brand anymore, these next few months can be such a wonderful time to return to your true values and your north star. I often see many incredible souls hiding their medicine, and not feeling confident to share, because they don’t have that a clear pathway with their Branding. This doesn’t mean a huge undertaking, but simply re-anchoring to what is really important to you and the work you are putting into the world will set you up with lovely soil to plant your seeds into.
   What are the values that are infusing into my offerings and expression? Do they feel anchored in integrity and aligned in my system? Does the visual identity of my heart work reflect the medicine that I am sharing?

6. Nurture the foundations — i.e. YOU. When you are doing heart and soul work in the world, there is no getting away from the personal connection that comes with that. So the most powerful thing you can do for your business is to nurture and nourish yourself first. This might be infusing your days with yoga nidra, movement practices and time in nature. It might be creative projects that are there simply ‘because’. Taking time away to be in environments that really feel like they feed your soul.
   What do you need to nurture within yourself during the winter months to support your heart work this coming year?

7. Experiment with your Human Design. In the quieter times, when you have a little more breathing space, it can be a wonderful time to explore and get curious with aligning your heart work with your human design. That might mean giving yourself a month to work with your strategy and authority. Or looking into how you can utilise your profile line to your advantage in your community and marketing. Or perhaps doing a little stock take with your Not Self/Signature themes to see how they might be showing up for you and making sure you aren’t stuck in your not self theme. If you aren’t familiar with Human Design you can read more about it in this post here… and if you want to go deeper you can book a reading with me here.
   Are you honouring and following your own natural and unique way of operating, or going against it? How could you play with Human Design over the next few months to see where it might lead you?

8. Let yourself be held. I don’t know about you, but I love having someone else hold space for me to explore all that is coming up for me in terms of ideas and inspiration. The power in being truly witnessed is potent. Whether that is through an exchange with a friend who is also in business, in a community space or in a one-to-one environment — letting yourself be held in your heart work evolutions is not only wonderful for gaining clarity, but also can be very soothing for the nervous system.
   What does being ‘held’ mean to you in this season of your heart work?

Invitations for your wintering

If you long to be supported in this wintering I have three invitations for you…

The Heart Work Seasonal Business Planning Ceremony

Wednesday 14th January (tomorrow at the time of writing this) I am holding our Seasonal Business Ceremony for members of The Balm. This is a 90 minute workshop to give you space to really tend to the seeds you wish to plant over this next season. You can join the membership for £8 a month and a recording is sent if you cannot make it live.

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ESSENCE - Done ‘with’ you Branding Journey

On Monday we begin our next round of ESSENCE. This is an 8 week DIY group branding journey that will take you through my soulful process of unearthing and expressing your unique medicine in the world. We explore the practical and energetic, bringing the magic and the mystery with the structure and strategy. If you are looking to birth, or re-birth your Brand this Spring, now is the time to dig deep into this work. Running 19th January - 18th March, you can find out all the details about it on the link below.

Explore Essence

ENVISION - Creative Activation Sessions

If you would like to spend some time really exploring all of the visions and ideas you wish to bring to life this year my brand new ENVISION offering is ideal. This is truly for you if you wish to sit in a held space and gain clarity and confidence in the the ideas and offerings that you are wishing to bring into the world. Whether you are in the early stages of setting up a business, established and enhancing your current offerings, or wishing to expand into the next phase of your work, Envision will provide you a sacred container to root into what your heart and soul work is currently inviting you to step in to. This creative activation session incorporates two weeks of support to help you bring forward moving momentum. Explore all the details and book in below.

ENVISION Creative Activation Session

I hope that the rest of the week is gentle for you. If you have anything you wish to share, or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to share in the comments or reply to me on email.

Until next time

Love

Lauren xxx

Hello lovely one

How is your heart feeling as we reach these last few days of 2025?

Today I am trying to ease out of Christmas mode and into Birthday mode for my littlest who turns 3 tomorrow. As cliche as it is to say, I really struggle to get my head round the fact that it has been three years since my free spirited little one came into our world!

I have been wanting to write this post for the last two weeks but my capacity in the run up to Christmas was at it’s limits, so I have waited for a quiet moment (thanks to The Scarecrows Wedding on BBC iPlayer) to write to you one last time before the year ends.

While I am certainly not one to feel the need to fire out of the starting block on January 1st, I do find that it is potent to spend some time gently reflecting over the past season before we cross the threshold of a new year.

You may well have read a lot about 2025 being the year of the Snake in the Chinese Zodiac (which by the way doesn’t end until February so we still have a little more time in the shedding phase) as well as being the completion of a 9 year cycle. I have definitely felt a sense of clearing the path over these past few years, but while we will collectively be moving into a 1 year in 2026, I personally am moving into a 9 year… so I am interested to see how the two polarities play out in my life.

2025 has been the year where I have faced myself in many different ways.

• I committed to weekly therapy sessions in February which have been pivotal and enlightening, and quite challenging at times.

• I have felt a huge shift in my body and hormones which has been extremely awakening and confronting.

• I have been touched by personal loss and the undulating emotions that come with that.

• I have been gently evolving my own heart and soul work in new directions, and that is very much a work in progress but the foundations have been well and truly planted.

When I reflect over my year month by month it doesn’t appear that this year was a particularly ‘big year’ in terms of ‘achievements’ however it feels like perhaps the most transformative yet. Grief was one of my most present partners this year, in a multitude of different ways.

Some of the ‘stand out moments’…

• Began, and continued, therapy and EMDR.

• Deepened my Human Design studies with Erin Claire Jones.

• Spent a lot of money on my healing and wellbeing over the months.

• Rebirthed my Branding and Website.

• Started, and stopped HRT

• Opened my home garden studio.

• Got my ears pierced again.

• Turned 42 and began a new 7 year cycle.

• Welcomed our four legged friend Jasper into our family.

In terms of my heart work I have built 6 Soul Brands with clients, 8 bespoke Squarespace websites, sat with 17 different people to read their Human Design charts, held 7 in person Women’s Circles and ran 19 online group gatherings, as well as opened the doors to 3 different group online journeys to support others in their business journeys.

Three simple rituals to close this chapter

I was honoured to hold space a few weeks ago for the community in The Bridge to reflect over 2025, and thought I would share some of the practices I invited them into.

These can be done as a combined ritual all together, or you can choose what resonates with you the most and select just one. If you would like to listen to a playlist while you explore then you can find one of my favourites here.

1. A gentle audit of the year

Take a few moments to settle yourself, lying down to do this can be lovely to signal your body to rest a moment. Cast your mind over each month of 2025 in turn and see what surfaces for you without forcing when you contemplate that month.

Then once you have spent a few minutes here take out your journal and for each month note down the highlights of that month. You can go through your diary/calendar to prompt your mind, or your camera reel to see if that sparks anything.

You can take as long as you would like for this process, perhaps even doing it over time so you can let the experiences integrate a little.

Consider things like celebrations, lessons and learnings, experiences, personal and work related milestones, healing moments, pivotal realisations… try not to over analyse and just be with what arises.

I personally felt quite a lot of sadness when I did this exercise as a large chunk of my year was centered around a substantial personal loss, but I needed to acknowledge that sadness, as much as I did the celebratory moments. I think it is important to notice, and let settle, the undulations instead of only focusing on the ‘highs’.

2. Meeting yourself now

In your journal write, or perhaps even use imagery, collage, drawing or any other creative medium, to explore these questions…

You might find that this comes through as a list of words and sentences or perhaps you could write it in a letter format to your past self and current self. There is no right or wrong way, just your way.

3. Stepping into the new chapter

I would really encourage you to use Oracle or Tarot cards for this one, but if you don’t have any then you can of course just journal on the contemplation.

• Card 1 - What am I releasing and leaving behind in 2025?

• Card 2 - What is here to stay as I enter 2026?

• Card 3 - What will support me as I cross this threshold and move into 2026?

I would love to hear if you explore any of these, and also do share anything that you would like to be witnessed in the comments or by replying via email.

Join me in January for a free 5 day experience

The Heart Work Devotional is returning on 5th January for another five day email experience. I would love to share this with you if you feel called.

You will receive three workbooks to explore, three Yoga Nidra practices to help you integrate and a Human Design workshop (live or recorded if you can’t make the time).

If you wish to spend the first week of the year gently tending to the seeds within your heart around your work and business for the 2026 then this will be a nourishing and potent activation for you. Click below to find out all the details and sign up…

The Heart Work Devotional

I truly wish you a soft and gentle closing of 2025 and am so grateful to you for devoting your time and energy to my offerings and words this year.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Until next year…

Love
Lauren

xxx

How is your heart feeling today? How are you navigating these final few weeks of 2025?

We are deep in the fullness of the last few days of term before school finishes on Friday. I am in a constant state of excitement, exhaustion, joy, overwhelm, gratitude, grief, over stimulation, awe and wonder… plus many other emotions, often simultaneously! This time of year certainly illuminates the multi-faceted nature of being human.

I hope you are being kind and gentle to yourself through it all. No matter what we are experiencing, the greatest, and most important thing we can do, is to treat ourselves with kindness and compassion. That isn’t always the easiest path, but some words I wrote at the weekend in my journal which have stayed with me and might support you too, are…

It is more straightforward to be compassionate to ourselves when things feel light and bright, but when the inevitable lows arise — which they do in varying degrees because our linear nature as humans means striving for constant highs is an impossible expectation — instead of trying to fix/judge/berate ourselves and seeing these moments as a failure or a signal of our worthiness, can we love ourselves through it? Or if love feels a stretch, can we at least weave the intention of loving kindness into our actions and the way we talk to ourselves as we ebb and flow?

I am certainly taking this reflection into the next few weeks as I know that this season brings with it a rollercoaster of emotions, and if there is sadness, disappointment, frustration, or any other more challenging emotion to sit with, I hope I can use this question as an anchor.

Maybe you can use it too?

A potent conversation

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to speak to the wonderful for her podcast A Thought I Kept. I absolutley love podcast conversations and it was such an honour to be asked to share a perspective that had stayed with me and shifted my outlook and experience in life.

The thought that kept coming to me was a very simple one — almost too simple I thought — but it has always served as a powerful anchor for me.

This thought was the prompt for me to start my own business over 20 years ago, as well as embrace multiple pivots over the past two decades. It is the thought that has kept me going during challenging phases, and I hope it is a thought that I pass on to my children as they grow older.

The conversation took us in many directions and I adored the questions that Claire asked. We talked about… anxiety and my experience with panic, about self tending and how we can find goodness throughout our days, about sustainable change in our systems and so much more.

I hope you enjoy listening to this episode. You can read more and listen through the link below, or on Spotify here and Apple here.

More Good Days

From Anxiety to Aliveness: Tending to the Self with Lauren Barber

Hi, How are you arriving into this week…

Listen now

9 months ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Claire Fitzsimmons

Begin your year with me

If you are someone who considers themselves to be following the path of their heart and soul work, I would love to invite you into a 5 day free event that I am holding from 5-9 January.

The Heart Work Devotional is a guided experience that will provide you with a beautiful grounding for the year ahead. During the five days you will be invited to connect to the essence and values of your work and creative dreams in varying ways, plus there will be a free live Human Design workshop held on the Wednesday during our time together.

You will also get access to a daily Yoga Nidra each day to support you in integrating the experience. This restful practice is so potent in the dreamlike month of January as we seed intentions for the months ahead.

If you would like to join me, and begin the year with your heart and soul work at the forefront, do explore all of the information, and sign up below…

The Heart Work Devotional

I hope that the coming days are soothing and gentle for you. Do let me know if you listen to the podcast, or if any of my words resonate today.

Until next time

Love
Lauren

xxx

This Yoga Nidra practice will be available for all subscribers for the next week, after that it will go behind the paywall and into The Balm membership. If you wish to retain access to it — along with a library of other practices — then do consider upgrading your subscription below.

Subscribe now

Hello lovely one,

How is your heart feeling today? Have you been tending to yourself gently this week?

As we descend into December, and life tends to get a little more hectic, I wanted to share a practice with you that will hopefully provide you with a balm for your body, your heart and your soul.

I recently started sharing in-person Yoga Nidra experiences at my home studio, and was so beautifully reminded of the immense privelege and honour it is to hold someone as they rest.

My inspiration for this practice was the spiraling nature of being human. The ever undulating expansion and contraction, and how there is so much wisdom and magic in each phase if we are willing to be curious with it.

I hope that this 35 minute practice will give you a chance to rest, and come home to your own unique medicine. Find yourself in a comfortable space and get cosy with blankets, cushions and anything else that will keep you warm and support your body to relax. If you think you might be disturbed by outside sounds then do pop in earphones.

The Spiral Path by Lauren Barber

In and out
round and round
the path is rarely
easily found

But perhaps that’s what
makes life so sweet
that nothing is ever
tidy and neat

Expanding wings
ready to soar
retreating inwards
behind closed doors

Forever shifting
between our worlds
constant movement
like nature, we unfurl

Stillness counts
slow steps matter
the soul’s true shape
moves in unknown patterns

An oscillating journey
with no clear beginning
it waxes and wanes
a continual spinning

The bold and brave
choose to dance this way
taking spiral paths
of rest and play

Step into the portal
of becoming you
it’s the only certainty
the walk of truth.

Thank you for being here, I hope the next few weeks are nourishing for you in whatever way you need them to be. Do let me know if you enjoy the practice and feel free to share with any friends who might also need the restorative moments over the coming week.

Until next time

Love
Lauren

xxx

PS… if you are local to my studio in Kent I would love to share Yoga Nidra in person with you. You can explore all the studio offerings here.

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How is your heart today? I hope you are feeling nourished and replenished as we walk through this week.

Today I want to celebrate a new chapter with you. A rebirthing of sorts… but before I unveil my latest visual expression and online home, let me share a bit of the ‘below ground’ bits that have been essential in the process to get ‘here’…

Rebranding/Rebirthing begins in the deep

There has been a lot of healing and underground ‘work’ going on within me over the past 18 months — I have written about some of it most recently here and here incase you need a catch up.

Of course there is always inevitable growth and change as a human, but the past year has been very much an ‘under the surface’ season. Health, energy levels, hormones, motherhood, loss, grief… all have forced me to face some of the things that have long been buried. It’s been intense, gritty, arduous and unpleasant at times, it’s also been awakening and brought parts of me back to life.

After months of feeling like I was going round in circles, at times despairing and feeling hopeless, I am starting to notice the subtle shifts in my being.

I went to a somatic movement practice and sound healing at the weekend — the first time I have attended any form of in-person class all year — and as I lay down with my belly to the earth I suddenly had this sense of… safety… my body didn’t feel quite so hyper-vigilant. I was present. I was calm. I felt held. I wasn’t waiting for danger, I was resting in a sense of trust.

It was quite a huge moment for me as for so long my internal antennae has been on high alert… and I realised that even the simple fact that I had felt confident enough to book a class ahead of time and step into a studio space again, with an unknown teacher, showed change.

The subtleties in healing

It can often feel like nothing is changing within us, we are taught to seek big cathartic experiences that give us a huge epiphany, that awaken us and make us operate in a completely new way, but the reality is that true healing and recovery, or replenishing our system, is oh so subtle. In truth, we are rarely able to integrate and ‘hold’ the big experiences and so chasing a huge release and shift can be a perpetual cycle of disappointment.

Sustainable healing, embodiment and restoration is in the accumulative, mundane moments. It’s here that we really start to see our ‘progress’. Subtle responses — or even the lack of response — signals that we are somewhat different and that perhaps an old pattern has fallen away.

But with these changes can come a lot of ‘who am I?’

Who am I without these protective mechanisms?

Who am I without intrusive thoughts, anxiety and panic?

Who am I without the holding patterns that have formed the structures of my being for so long?

Familiar themes fall away and for me there has been this ‘in between’ state that I’ve had to sit in.

When habits that have ‘held’ us in a certain shape start to disintegrate (even if they are not healthy or helpful habits) there is a need to re-acquaint ourselves with our SELF and that takes time. It takes compassion and gentleness and it can feel strange, unsettling even, to embody a new reality despite it being what we wanted.

I have danced between these worlds a lot over the last few months, at times even saying to my therapist that I felt so wobbly and vulnerable in this new state of being that it would be easier to stay in the ‘old’ me due to it’s familiarity.

I have had to learn to trust my own capacity again. To trust that my body can tolerate certain things. To trust that even if I wobble, I have more resources within me now to upright myself again.

It takes a lot of effort to change. I think that’s why, for so long, I couldn’t even fathom doing this underground ‘work’. We have to have a certain amount of life force to even have the capacity to begin.

During these times I think we often have to switch to a slight ‘survival mode’. And by that I mean tending to the tasks that need to be done, but not pressuring ourselves with new creative projects or anything above and beyond what we need to do. I won’t pretend it doesn’t feel a little bleak in those moments, especially when creativity and productivity have become bench marks that we value ourselves by, but I am growing a little more trusting of these emptier seasons.

Branding from within

My body has become a home for me again… moment by moment I am finding my way back to a sense of trust and union with her. I am not saying that things won’t wobble again… I know by now that is an unrealistic expectation… but there has been a new layer of awareness and integration that has occurred and I feel more hope and excitement than I have in a while.

As I’ve deepened into my own medicine, and my own inner home, the desire to express that outwardly, through my creative work in the world, has become stronger and more clear.

Rarely do we talk about the process that happens in the shadows when we are rebranding our work, especially for those of us creating something that is so reflective of our own values, our own skills, our own tender visions and dreams.

Creating a visual identity is so much more than just selecting a font and a couple of colours. It’s a communion with our creativity and that is rarely a linear process.

What you see on the outside, in the finished ‘product’ is a culmination of emotions and energy. It is pure magic really because we are effectively turning the unseen into something tangible and recognisable.

Now for some people I know that a website and branding is not important, but for me it is the outward facing iteration of my creative inner world. It reflects the transmission that I wish to bring to earth during my time here and it has the potential to invoke feeling and movement in others.

Living Breathing HEARTistry

Over the years I have built many, many websites for others. It is a huge piece of my own heart work puzzle, to co-create and build a space that someone feels proud of. A space that represents their soul work. A place to share their medicine with those who need it.

I see a website as a living, breathing piece of art… it is never ‘complete’ because there is always something calling to be evolved or transformed, but that is its beauty.

I knew that my own online home was calling for attention this year and I began the rebirthing process in the Spring. Usually I would create in a fast and furious way — hyperfocusing on it until it was complete — but, like all of my offerings recently, the calling was to approach this rebirthing differently. It was a slow and long process. At times I even wondered if this site would see the light of day, there was nothing ‘wrong’ with my old site, but it didn’t quite feel like home, and so I had to lean in to trusting my sacral energy to guide me.

There is often this feeling that something big might happen when you press publish on a website… and it rarely does to be honest. At least on the outside. However, within there is usually a sense of relief combined with a little tenderness about how this version of ‘you’ will be received.

Today I am excited (and a little nervous) to share this space, this rebirthed version of my heart work, with you.

You can explore her live by clicking the button below… or you can just sit with the visuals and see how they make you feel. I would love to hear what you feel as you walk the pathway through my digital world.

Explore my online home

A few invitations…

The Gateway - a free 4 day email experience weaves together some of my favourite tools and practices to support you in stepping further towards your heart work. You can get instant access to the first email right now by clicking here.

The Heart Work Devotional is returning in January for the third time. This is a free 5 day live journey that offers you time and space, and contemplations, to connect deeply with the work you want to bring into the world. Join us by clicking here.

Essence - my ‘done with you’ DIY Branding Journey is going to be opening in the next week or so for the pre-launch ahead of beginning again in January. If you want to be held and guided through a 6 week process to create your own visual identity… this is for you. You can find out more, and join the waitlist here.

‘Done for you’ Websites & Branding - I have space for bespoke branding and website design from mid January. Click here to explore my offerings.

Human Design Sessions - In addition to my popular one off readings I am now offering a new 6 week journey that offers a deeper container to support you in really integrating and embodying your design. If you would like to embark on a beautiful journey of remembering and reclaiming your truest self, you can find out more here.

Look out next week for a brand new Yoga Nidra practice that will be available for all subscribers for a week before going into The Balm membership library. Perhaps book yourself 30 minutes in your calendar so you can soak and savour it.

Thank you so much for being here, for walking this journey with me. I would love to hear from you if you get a chance to have a little look at the site, or if any of my words have felt familiar.

Until next time

Love

Lauren

xxx

PS… if you are local to my studio in Kent I would love to share next week’s Women’s Circle with you. Friday 5th December at 7.15pm. You can explore all the studio offerings here.