When you need to de-stress: your 4-minute reset

Some moments just need a quick reset.

Maybe something stressful has happened. You’re feeling overwhelmed, your thoughts are racing, or you’ve got something coming up: an interview, a difficult conversation, a busy day, and you need to feel a little calmer before you carry on.

This 4-minute De-Stress Reset is designed for exactly those moments.

It’s short enough to use almost anywhere, whenever you need to pause, settle your nervous system and create a little breathing space.

Put your headphones on, press play, and give yourself four minutes.

You don’t need to wait until you’re completely overwhelmed. Use it whenever you notice you’re carrying a little too much stress.

This is your quick reset. Save it, come back to it, and use it whenever you need it.

For Reset Room paid subscribers.

4- Minute De-Stress Reset

It’s amazing how anxiety can change the way a moment feels.

It’s a familiar experience for many of my clients. One minute, you’re getting on with your day and the next, your body and mind can suddenly feel very different. Your heart might be racing, your thoughts speeding up, and your attention narrowing in on what might be wrong.

But anxiety is a wave. It rises, it peaks, and it changes.

So this month, I’ve put together a little something to keep handy for those moments.

Quick Tools for Anxiety Waves is a simple seven-page guide with a few things you can try when anxiety rises helping you reconnect with the present, notice what’s around you and give your nervous system a little time and space.

You don’t need to use everything. Just find what works for you.

I’ve attached the link to the guide below. Save it somewhere easy to find, and hopefully it’ll be there when you need it.

Read more

I always think September is an interesting month. There’s a feeling that comes with it that we should somehow be getting ourselves organised again. The summer is coming to an end, children are going back to school or university, holidays are over and routines start to change. Even if nothing particularly dramatic is happening, there can be a sense that we should be ready to get going again.

And I know I can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that I’ll do something when…

When I’ve got more time.
When things are a bit quieter.
When I’m back from holiday.
When the children are back at school.
When I feel more motivated.

But I’ve been thinking about how often we can wait for the circumstances around us to change before we give ourselves permission to start something.

What I know through my therapy practice is…there is rarely a perfect point when everything suddenly feels easier.

Sometimes, the thing that helps us feel more motivated is actually taking the first small step.

It might be something really ordinary. Going for a short walk, replying to an email you’ve been putting off, getting back into a bedtime routine, booking an appointment, or simply making some time for yourself. It doesn’t have to be a big commitment or another thing to add to an already busy list.

There’s something about taking a small amount of action that can change how we feel about the thing we’ve been avoiding. Once we’ve started, it often feels a little less daunting, and our brain gets some evidence that we can do it.

I think this is particularly relevant when we’ve been feeling stressed or overwhelmed.

When your nervous system has been dealing with a lot, even fairly straightforward things can feel harder to get started. It’s not necessarily that you don’t want to do them. Sometimes your brain is simply prioritising getting through what feels most immediate rather than finding the motivation for something further down the list.

This is one of the reasons I’m going to be focusing on the nervous system and relaxation in the Reset Room throughout September.

The Reset Room

The Reset Room offers calm practical support to help you notice stress sooner, reset your nervous system and navigate modern life. Inside you'll find fortnightly 2 x live guided relaxations, relaxation audios, reflective writing & practical tools.

By Rebecca Avery

We’ll be taking a deeper look at what happens in the nervous system when we’re stressed, why relaxation can be so helpful, and how giving ourselves regular opportunities to slow things down can support us in feeling more able to think, decide and take action.

For me, relaxation isn’t about stopping everything and doing nothing. It’s about giving your brain and body a chance to step out of that constant state of doing, thinking and dealing with things, even if it’s just for a short while.

And sometimes that little reset is exactly what we need before we can work out what our next step is.

Our live Reset Room sessions in September will be on:

Tuesday 15th September at 7:30pm
Tuesday 29th September at 7:30pm

They’re 30-minute live relaxation sessions, so there’s no need to set aside a whole evening. Just half an hour to pause, switch off from everything else for a while and give your nervous system some attention.

If you’re a free member and you’d like to join us, you’re very welcome to come along to either session, or both.

You can join the Reset Room here →

And if there’s something you’ve been putting off, perhaps you don’t need to wait until September feels properly underway.

Perhaps you could just take one small step today.

Becky x

Read more

Lately, I’ve noticed something interesting happening in a lot of workplaces this time of year. Meetings thin out. Colleagues are away. The usual pace of the day quietens, sometimes considerably, simply because half the people who’d normally be filling it aren’t there. And you’d think, with that pace easing off, the people still at their desks would take the opportunity to slow down a little too.

What I actually see, more often than not, is the opposite. The quiet doesn’t get used for rest, it gets used for catching up. Filing the emails that have been sitting for months. Sorting the loft. Finally tackling the admin pile. Starting the thing you’ve been meaning to start since January. As soon as there’s a gap, something rushes in to fill it, and it’s rarely rest.

I think this happens because most of us are so used to measuring our days by what we’ve achieved that we don’t quite know how to be in a quieter day without filling it with something.

Even when there’s genuinely less to do, the mind reaches for a project, some way of making the slower pace feel earned or productive, rather than simply letting it be slower. So the quiet weeks of summer become, quietly, some of the busiest weeks of the year, just busy with different things.

It’s worth understanding a little of what’s happening underneath this, because it isn’t really about being unable to switch off, or trying too hard. Your nervous system has two main settings, broadly speaking one is geared towards doing, alertness, getting things done, staying useful. The other is geared towards rest and repair, the state where digestion works properly, sleep is deeper, and the body actually recovers from the wear of daily life.

The trouble is, that second state doesn’t respond well to demands. You can’t will your way into it any more than you can force yourself to fall asleep by trying really hard. It has to be allowed, not achieved.

So when we bring a checklist to our rest, even a well meaning one, we’re accidentally keeping the doing part of the brain switched on. We’re still striving. Just towards a softer looking goal. And the body, which is quietly very good at telling the difference between real rest and performed rest, doesn’t fully settle.

What I’ve noticed helps, both with clients and in my own life, is much less dramatic than it sounds. It isn’t a better relaxation routine. It’s closer to noticing the moments that already happen without any effort at all, and letting them be enough. The ten minutes on a bench because your legs were tired, not because you planned a mindful sit. The pause at the sink before you start the next thing. These moments tend to do more for the nervous system than a whole day engineered around relaxing, simply because there’s no pressure attached to them. Nothing is being asked of them. They’re just allowed to be what they are.

If you notice yourself, this summer, feeling like you’re not relaxing well enough, or like a day off didn’t quite count because you didn’t do it properly, it might be worth gently questioning where that idea of doing it properly even came from. Rest was never meant to be a performance. It doesn’t need an audience, not even an audience of one, judging how well it’s going.

Wherever you are this week, I hope you find a moment that doesn’t need to count for anything. Not a well earned break, not a properly relaxing evening. Just a pause, however small, that’s allowed to be exactly what it is.

More soon, Becky

For when your ready….

You’ll already have a little of this inside the Reset Room, and whenever you feel ready for more, there’s a paid membership too, with the fuller audio library, the live ‘Relax with Becky’ sessions, and new audios each month. No rush at all, it’ll be there whenever it feels right.

Subscribe now

The Reset Room

The Reset Room offers calm practical support to help you notice stress sooner, reset your nervous system sooner, and navigate modern life. Inside the Reset Room you'll find live guided relaxations, relaxation audios, reflective writing & practical tools.

By Rebecca Avery

A client once told me that she can’t remember the last time someone asked if she was okay, rather than telling her she was.

“You’re so capable,” people would say. “I don’t know how you do it all.”

I hear some version of this often. Women who hold it all together, small businesses, marriages, friendships, coffee dates, cleaning, activities, households, careers, and everyone else’s calendars, without appearing to strain under any of it. Women who are the ones others lean on, at work, at home, in friendships, because they always seem to have capacity, even when they don’t. Being reliable becomes part of who they are, almost a role they didn’t audition for but got cast in anyway, and got very good at.

There’s a particular kind of tiredness that comes from being that person all the time. It isn’t loud. It doesn’t look like falling apart, because falling apart isn’t really on the list of things reliable people do. It looks more like a low, constant readiness, saying yes before you’ve checked in with yourself, noticing what everyone else needs before you’ve noticed what you need, and quietly deciding, again and again, that your own rest can wait until the list is done.

The list is rarely done.

What I notice, in the room, is that the women this describes are rarely asking to do less. They’re asking for permission. Permission to say “not today.” Permission to let something drop without it meaning they’ve failed. Permission to be tired without immediately performing that they’re fine.

Nobody hands that permission over. It has to be taken, in small, unglamorous ways, a boundary here, an email left unanswered until morning, a “let me think about it” instead of an automatic yes. None of it looks like much from the outside. But it’s often the beginning of everything changing.

I don’t think being reliable is the problem. I think it’s forgetting that you’re allowed to be reliable and tired, capable and in need of rest, the one everyone counts on and someone who counts too.

A live Reset with me

If any of this sounds familiar, I’d love you to join me for Relax with Becky — LIVE, Thursday 16th July at 8pm. An hour to simply be held, rather than holding everything, no capability required.

If The Reset Room has been giving you a little more permission to pause — I’d love to invite you to upgrade to a paid membership. It’s £12 a month, and it means the full audio library, more live sessions like this one, and a space that’s quietly just for you. No pressure, just an open door if you’re ready.

Becky x

PS: Thank you for all your comments on last week’s post ‘The Sound of Nothing to Do’ I genuinely love to hear your thoughts and value our conversations.

Leave a comment

Last week I sat in the garden for ten minutes with no purpose other than to just sit. No phone. No notebook. Nothing to tidy or check or finish. Just the sound of the traffic and the neighbour’s hum.

And within about ninety seconds, I felt an urge to get up.

Not for anything. There was nothing pulling me back inside. Just a low hum of shouldn’t I be doing something. What I know is that this new and uncomfortable feeling requires patience and practice.

I think a lot of us know that feeling, especially now, in the middle of summer, when the world keeps telling us this is the season of ease. Longer days. Slower pace. Time to switch off. And yet so many of the people I sit with in the therapy room describe the opposite, a strange restlessness when things finally go quiet. As though stillness is the thing they have to get through, rather than the thing they’ve been waiting for all year.

There’s a reason for that. When you’ve spent a long time in a state of doing, managing, coping, holding things together, your nervous system gets used to a certain level of hum. Stillness doesn’t always feel peaceful to a system that’s used to being braced. Sometimes it feels exposed. Sometimes the quiet is loud enough to hear everything you’ve been outrunning.

None of that means something is wrong with you. It just means you’ve been busy for a while, in the way that bodies remember long after the diary clears.

What I’ve noticed helps, in the garden and in the room, is not forcing the stillness to feel a particular way. Not chasing calm. Just staying with the stillness for a little longer than usual. Ninety seconds. Then two minutes. Watching what the mind does when there’s nothing to organise. Most of the time, it settles on its own, not because you told it to, but because you gave it long enough to realise it was allowed to.

I’ll leave you with that, rather than tell you what it means. You’ll know, if it’s yours to know.

A live Reset with me

If you’d like some company while you practise sitting in the quiet, I’d love you to join me for LIVE Relax with Becky Thursday 16th July at 8pm. It’s a gentle, guided relaxation session over Zoom, and a lovely way to let the week settle before the weekend.

If The Reset Room has been a quiet companion for you these past few weeks the notes, the LIVE relaxation sessions, the mini relaxations, the small permission to pause. I’d love to invite you to upgrade to a paid membership. It’s £12 a month, and it means more of these sessions, the full audio library, and a proper seat at the table when we meet live. No pressure at all, just an open door if you’re ready to walk through it.

Becky x

Hi friends

In the last week, the UK experienced its hottest June on record. If you’re reading this from somewhere warmer, temperatures in the mid-thirties might not sound particularly remarkable. But in the UK, where most homes don’t have air conditioning and many of our buildings were never designed for this kind of heat, it’s a very different experience.

Sleep becomes harder. Concentration drifts. Even simple everyday tasks seem to take a little more effort.

There has been a lot of conversation about the heat this week. People have talked about sleepless nights, hot bedrooms, struggling to concentrate, feeling irritable and counting down the hours until the temperature finally drops.

As a therapist, I’ve noticed something else. When our usual ways of coping start to feel harder, we rarely blame the weather. We blame ourselves. “I’ve got no patience.” “I feel overwhelmed.” “I can’t seem to focus.”

The assumption is often that something inside us has changed. That somehow we’ve become less resilient than we were a week ago. But sometimes, nothing has gone wrong at all. Sometimes we’re simply asking a brain and body to function as though conditions haven’t changed, when in reality they have.

Sleep is disrupted. We become dehydrated more easily. Our bodies work harder to regulate temperature. Everyday tasks require a little more effort than usual. Individually these things may seem insignificant, but together they can leave us feeling unlike ourselves.

During the heatwave we attended my husband’s niece’s wedding. It was still around 35°C, the air was heavy and humid, yet I noticed something surprising. My frustration with the heat almost disappeared. Not because the temperature had changed. Because my attention had.

I was talking, laughing, catching up with family and completely absorbed in the day. It reminded me that while we can’t always change our circumstances, we can sometimes change where our attention rests. And that can alter our experience more than we realise.

This fascinates me because it’s something I see far beyond a heatwave. We are remarkably quick to interpret temporary changes as permanent flaws. A few nights of poor sleep and we wonder if we’re becoming anxious again. A stressful week at work and we conclude that we’re no longer coping. A period of hormonal change and we start questioning our confidence.

What struck me most this week wasn’t that people struggled in the heat. It was how quickly they questioned themselves because of it. We are often far kinder when explaining someone else’s behaviour than our own.

Our brains are constantly trying to make sense of how we feel. Sometimes they get it right. Sometimes they create a story that’s much harsher than reality. Understanding this can be surprisingly reassuring. It reminds us that we don’t always need to judge ourselves quite so quickly. Sometimes we simply need to ask ourselves two questions:

What has changed around me? And what is within my control?

We couldn’t change the temperature this week. But we could draw the curtains a little earlier, drink more water, slow our pace, sit quietly with a fan, lower our expectations of ourselves for a day or two, or intentionally calm our minds before bed.

That’s one of the reasons I shared a free cooling relaxation this week. I knew many people would be sleeping poorly and feeling unlike themselves. If it would help you too, I’ve popped it below

One of the things I value most about my nursing background is that it taught me to look at the whole picture before jumping to conclusions. If someone wasn’t feeling themselves, we didn’t immediately assume there was something wrong with their character. We became curious. We looked at what might be influencing how they were feeling.

I still work that way today. Whether I’m sitting with someone in a therapy session or writing here each week, I come back to the same belief. Understanding is therapeutic.

When we understand why our mind and body are responding the way they are, we often stop fearing the response itself. And when fear begins to settle, we’re usually in a much better place to decide what we need next.

Whatever you’re experiencing: if you’ve felt a little less patient, a little more emotional or a little more mentally tired this week, perhaps offer yourself the same compassion you would offer someone else. The weather changes more than the weather. Sometimes it changes the story we tell ourselves too. Try and use the free self- reflection exercise out next week for paid subscribers.

Becky x

PS: Thank you for all your kind messages following the sudden death of Freddie our family dog. I’ll share a few reflections when the time feels right, but for now I’m giving myself a little space to grieve x

Subscribe to The Reset Room to unlock the rest.

This week inside The Reset Room, I’m sharing a gentle self-reflection exercise to accompany this article.

It’s designed to help you pause, notice what’s influencing your thoughts and feelings, and gently separate what belongs to you from what simply belongs to your current circumstances.

Sometimes a few thoughtful questions are enough to help us see ourselves a little more clearly.

And when you’re ready, you’re warmly invited to join us.

Subscribe now

As a member of The Reset Room, you’ll receive:

• Weekly reflections and subscriber-only posts

• Guided relaxation audios and mini resets

• Monthly live online relaxation sessions

• Practical handbooks and self-reflection exercises

• Calm, evidence-informed tools to help you reset before overwhelm builds

• A supportive space to pause, reflect and reconnect with yourself

I’d love to welcome you whenever the time feels right.

Hello lovely,

I hope you managed some sleep last night.

If you didn’t, you’re not alone. It is going to be incredibly hot over the next few days! Heat does something strange to all of us. It makes everything feel just a little more effortful. A little more frazzled. The kind of tired that doesn’t quite go away even when you sit down.

I woke up this morning thinking about you, and went straight to my recording space.

This is a brand new eight minute cool down relaxation audio, recorded this week specifically for this heatwave. It’s designed to help your nervous system release the heat, both physical and mental, and find somewhere quieter and cooler inside itself.

You don’t need to do anything except find somewhere comfortable, close your eyes, and press play.

8 - Minute Cool Down Relaxation Audio

Read more

Last week I had an hour between clients.

No calls to make. Nothing urgent waiting. Just an hour that was genuinely, unexpectedly mine.

And do you know what I did with it?

I tidied my desk. Replied to two emails that could have waited until tomorrow. Made a list of things I needed to do later. And then, somewhere around the forty fifth minute, I realised what had happened.

I’d been given an hour of stillness and I’d filled it immediately. Without even thinking. Without even noticing.

Not because I’m bad at resting. But because somewhere along the way, the habit of doing had become so automatic that the absence of it felt uncomfortable. Like something must be wrong if there’s nothing that needs doing.

I think a lot of us live like this.

We call it resting. Sitting on the sofa. Watching something. Scrolling. And there’s nothing wrong with any of those things. But if we’re honest, most of us know that they don’t always leave us feeling restored. We finish an evening of relaxing and somehow still feel tired.

Real rest the kind that actually settles your nervous system feels different.

It’s quieter. Slower. It asks something of us that has become increasingly unfamiliar.

It asks us to stop. Fully. Even just for a few minutes.

Not to achieve anything. Not to get through a list. Not to consume anything. Just to pause, to breathe, and to let your mind and body remember that they are safe to rest.

I know that sounds simple. And in some ways it is. But simple isn’t always easy, especially when the habit of busyness has become so automatic that we barely notice we’re doing it.

This is exactly why I created The Reset Room.

Not to add another thing to your list. But to create a space where stopping feels possible. Where you have permission to pause. Where someone gently guides you back to yourself, even if just for a moment.

This week I released the first relaxation audio into the paid subscriber library A 7 -Minute Reset: For When You Need to Pause.

It’s just over seven minutes of guided relaxation, designed for exactly that moment when you need to step away from everything and come back to yourself. Warm, gentle and yours to return to whenever you need it.

If you’re a paid subscriber, it’s waiting for you in your library right now. 🎧

When you are ready, everything inside The Reset Room is just £12 a month, and you can cancel any time. No pressure, no commitment beyond what feels right for you.

The audio library is just the beginning. Which brings me to something I’m really looking forward to sharing with you...

This Thursday evening — 26 June at 7.00pm — I’m hosting the very first live Reset Session inside The Reset Room.

It’s called A Summer Reset. A bespoke live guided relaxation designed for you.

20-30 minutes together, online, where I’ll guide you through a deeply relaxing session designed to help you release the weight of a busy June and step into summer feeling a little lighter.

You don’t need to prepare anything. You don’t need to know anything about hypnotherapy or relaxation. You just need to find somewhere comfortable, press the Zoom link, and let yourself arrive.

These live sessions are for paid subscribers and if you’ve been sitting on the fence about joining, this Thursday is a really lovely place to begin. It’s just £12 for your first month, and you can cancel any time.

Upgrade today and you’ll receive your Zoom link ahead of Thursday, access to the relaxation audio library, and everything else waiting for you inside The Reset Room.

I’d love to see you there. 🌿

Subscribe now

With warmth,
Becky x

Some recent posts:

What people may not understand about hypnotherapy

I wanted to write to you personally before anything else.

You were the very first person to become a paid subscriber to The Reset Room and I don’t want that to go unnoticed.

I hadn’t even finished setting everything up when you joined. And honestly, it stopped me in my tracks. Someone had taken a chance on what I was creating before I’d even…

Read more

1. For When You Need To take a Pause: A 7-Minute Relaxation Reset

Read more

The other day, I was out walking Freddie and realised I’d spent the first ten minutes mentally writing my to-do list. I wasn’t planning anything particularly important. My mind had simply wandered ahead to work, emails, appointments, things I needed to remember, and things I hadn’t quite finished.

When I noticed what I was doing, I smiled to myself.

Not because anything was wrong, but because it felt familiar. And I know so many of us experience this too.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed something. Not just in my work as a therapist, but in conversations with friends, family, clients and colleagues. People can carry a lot.

The world feels noisier than it used to. There is always another notification, another decision to make, another piece of information demanding our attention. Even our downtime can feel full.

Many of us are functioning well on the surface. We’re going to work, looking after families and pets, supporting other people, meeting deadlines and keeping things moving.

But underneath, there is often a quiet sense of exhaustion. Not burnout necessarily. Not a crisis. Just the feeling that life rarely gives us the opportunity to pause.

As a solution-focused therapist, I spend my days helping people navigate anxiety, overwhelm, stress, low confidence and self-doubt. Again and again, I see how powerful it can be when someone creates even a small amount of space for themselves.

A few minutes to reset. A chance to breathe. A moment that belongs entirely to them.

The Reset Room grew from that idea.

I wanted to create a gentle space for people who are carrying a lot, whether they’re currently having therapy or simply looking for practical ways to feel calmer and more grounded in everyday life.

It’s not another place telling you to optimise yourself.

It’s not about fixing everything.

It’s not about adding more to your already full list.

It’s a place to pause.

Inside The Reset Room, I’ll be sharing thoughtful reflections, guided relaxation audios, practical tools, monthly live reset sessions, and resources designed to help you feel a little calmer, clearer and more in control.

Because sometimes what we need isn’t more information.

Sometimes we simply need a moment to reset.

Thank you for being here.

And if The Reset Room sounds like something you need right now, I’d love you to join us as a founding member.

Becky

When your ready, Join my Low Cost Membership:

My newsletter is funded by paid subscriptions.

If you’ve ever felt as though you’re constantly moving from one thing to the next without much time to stop and breathe, you’re not alone.

The Reset Room is a gentle membership for people who feel overwhelmed, anxious or mentally overloaded and want practical ways to find calm again.

Members receive:

• Self empowering mini relaxation guided audios, therapeutic journalling and practical support to support calm, consistency and feeling in control

• Access to my growing guided relaxation audio library

• Practical tools for calm, confidence, feeling in control, finding purpose and healing.

• Monthly Zoom Reset relaxation sessions designed to help them feel calmer, clearer and more grounded. To avoid burnout when you are feeling overwhelmed.

Subscribe now

To relax, is to feel calm in the purest form 

Some recent posts:

Can a therapist grieve too?

What people may not understand about hypnotherapy

Functioning vs Coping

I help people with grief.

And I am a therapist who is grieving.

For a long time, those felt like two separate entities.

I’ve been living with this reality for a while now because it is not something I used to say out loud. In professional spaces, we are taught to hold boundaries, to separate personal experience from clinical work, and to be the steady presence in the room rather than part of the story. And I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Clients deserve safety, containment and a space that is fully dedicated to them. It is a privilege to be trusted with someone’s thoughts, feelings and experiences, and that trust deserves our full attention.

But over the past year, I have noticed something more honest emerging. Something I didn’t expect to feel so clearly in myself. Being a therapist who is also living through grief has changed the way I sit with people. It has deepened my own practice, in a way that helps me understand what is often not being said.

When my mum died, I thought I already understood grief. I had worked alongside it for years as a nurse and later in palliative care. I had supported families through loss, sat with uncertainty and witnessed the many ways grief moves through people and systems.

But there is a difference between witnessing grief and living inside it. Living it is slower. Less linear. Less contained.

It doesn’t arrive in neat stages or clear emotional sequences. It folds itself into ordinary life in a way that is difficult to explain unless you are there.

As the first anniversary of my mum’s death approached, I found myself reflecting on how much grief had changed me, both personally and professionally. What I have found is that this experience has not made me more distant from my therapeutic role. It has made me more attentive to what lies underneath what people say.

It was a topic I recently brought to my clinical supervision. Could I still support clients with grief while grieving myself?

Throughout my 25 years as a registered nurse, I was taught that patient care comes first. Whatever was happening in our own lives, when we stepped into a patient’s space, our attention belonged to them. Their needs, their experience, their care. I carry that same principle into my therapeutic work today. Clients deserve a space that is focused entirely on them, not on the therapist’s personal circumstances. Professional boundaries matter.

What supervision helped me validate, is that being affected by life does not make us less effective practitioners. It is not about bringing our grief into the room. It is about understanding how our experiences can deepen our capacity to sit alongside another human being with empathy, curiosity and care.

My supervisor reflected that this experience doesn’t weaken my work, it deepens it. That it allows a different kind of resonance in the room. A quieter kind of understanding that doesn’t need to be spoken but is often felt. Because there is often an unspoken assumption that grief makes you less available to others. That it clouds judgement or takes something away from professional presence.

What I am finding is more nuanced than that.

It is not that I now know more about grief in a technical sense. I don’t think grief can be fully known in that way. It is that I listen differently.

When someone sits opposite me and tells me they feel anxious, exhausted or unable to switch off, I now wonder what might have been lost along the way that has never found language. And not always a death. Often not a death at all.

Sometimes it is a relationship that changed them quietly over time. Sometimes it is a younger version of themselves they no longer recognise. Sometimes it is a future they imagined, a life they thought they would be living by now, that didn’t arrive in the way they expected. These losses are not always recognised as grief. But they are felt in the body all the same.

What my own grief has done is make me slower to assume I know what I am seeing. More willing to stay with what has not yet been named. More curious about the stories that sit beneath the symptoms. Interestingly and quite often, what looks like anxiety on the surface is something else underneath. A loss that has never quite been given space to be acknowledged.

I continue to help people with grief. And I am still grieving. The two are not in conflict.

If anything, this past year has reminded me that therapists are not separate from the human experiences we help others navigate. We are shaped by them too.

Not because our grief is the same as anyone else’s. It never is. But because living through loss has made me more aware of how much suffering happens beneath the surface, in places that often go unseen, unnamed and unheard.

Perhaps that is one of grief’s quieter lessons.

Not that it gives us answers, but that it teaches us to stay curious about one another’s stories. To listen a little longer. To assume a little less. To recognise that behind many of the struggles we carry, there may be a loss that has never quite been spoken aloud.

Sometimes, the most valuable thing we can offer another person is not certainty or expertise, but the willingness to stay alongside them while they find the words for what hurts.

I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts.

Have you ever found yourself supporting others while carrying something difficult of your own?

Or have you experienced a loss that wasn’t recognised as grief at the time?

I read every comment and value every perspective. If you’d like to share your experience, I’d be grateful to hear from you.

Leave a comment

If this piece resonated with you, I share more thoughts, tips, audios and tools over in my community ‘The Reset Room’

I write about finding peace, balance and calm, supporting your nervous systems and the quieter parts of life that often go unnoticed.

New essays, gentle guided audios, tools arrive directly in your inbox.

Subscribe now

Functioning vs Coping Well

I’ve noticed a pattern in my clinical work, when individuals express a coping response, sometimes what they really mean is:
“I’m coping.” “I’m functioning.” “I’m getting through.”

What we say to ourselves and others really makes a difference. Many people, particularly women in midlife (like mysel…

Read more

AI is here. It’s no longer something “coming in the future”. It’s already becoming part of our personal lives, workplaces, decision-making and everyday routines. And it’s moving at an incredibly fast pace.

A lot of people are trying to work out how to use it well.

How to stay relevant, how can I adapt, how can I use it within my role without falling behind.

There’s lots of excitement around that, and quite rightly so. I use AI myself, and find it incredibly useful. I’m not anti-AI at all. In many ways, I’m an early adopter.

But from a therapeutic and mental health perspective, I think there’s a gap starting to appear, and I suspect that gap will get wider.

Because while AI can process vast amounts of information within seconds, human nervous systems cannot.

Humans still need time to think. Time to process. Time to regulate. Time to decide what actually matters.

What I’m starting to notice, both clinically and socially, is a quieter kind of overwhelm. Not dramatic burnout, but more cognitive overload.

Individuals have too much information, too many options, too many tabs open mentally. And when that happens our brains cannot kept up, leading to:

• Decision fatigue

• Brain fuzz

• Difficulty switching off

Particularly in workplaces where people feel pressure to understand and adapt to AI quickly, while simultaneously trying to keep up with their existing workload and everyday life.

And I’m not sure we’re talking enough about the psychological impact of that transition yet.

Technology evolves rapidly.

Human beings adapt much more slowly.

That doesn’t mean AI is harmful.

It means we need to think seriously about how humans psychologically coexist with technology that moves faster than our cognitive and emotional systems were designed for.

I suspect this will increasingly become part of therapeutic conversations over the next few years.

Not because people are failing.

But because the pace of adaptation itself carries a mental and emotional cost

I’m not sure why it took me so long.

I’ve seen events like this before, in passing, but being there in person felt different.

There was something about it.

The runners, the atmosphere, people lining the streets and cheering on complete strangers. It felt warm, and human, and quietly moving.

I found myself really drawn in.

I used to love running when I was younger. Somewhere along the way, I lost that a bit. Life, I suppose.

Recently, I’ve started again. Very slowly. And I’m beginning to enjoy it in a way I didn’t expect.

Watching the race made me realise that no one just turns up and runs something like that. It builds over time, in small steps that don’t always feel like much in the moment.

I think that’s what stayed with me.

Not the finish line. Not the medals.

Just the steady, often unseen effort that gets people there.

Becky

If I were to casually ask you, “What do you know about hypnotherapy?”,

I suspect the images that come to mind might be very different from the reality of modern clinical practice.

Perhaps you picture a stage, bright lights, an audience laughing as someone clucks like a chicken. Or a dramatic scene from a film: a swinging pocket watch, a slightly manic hypnotist murmuring “sleep… sleep…” while someone appears to lose all control.

Most people, when they describe hypnotherapy this way, are actually describing stage hypnosis.

That was certainly my view too…before I became a Clinical Hypnotherapist.

Where the Confusion Comes From

Stage hypnosis and modern therapeutic hypnotherapy share a word, but very little else.

Stage hypnosis is performance. Its purpose is entertainment. It relies on exaggerated suggestion, audience dynamics, and volunteers who are already highly responsive and willing to play along.

Therapeutic hypnotherapy, on the other hand, is clinical, ethical, and collaborative. Its purpose is to support wellbeing, behaviour change, and emotional regulation. The intent, structure, training, and outcomes are fundamentally different.

Yet the stigma remains, and it’s one of the biggest barriers preventing people from exploring what is, in reality, a very calm, grounded and positive form of therapy.

So, What Is Modern Hypnotherapy?

In simple terms:
Hypnotherapy is therapy with hypnosis.

Without hypnosis, hypnotherapy is simply therapy.

Hypnosis itself is not something strange or mystical. It is a natural state of focused attention and deep relaxation, one that we all experience in everyday life.

You might recognise it as:

• Driving on the motorway and suddenly realising you’ve arrived without consciously noticing every mile

• Watching television and missing five minutes because you were completely absorbed

• Daydreaming, drifting, or becoming lost in thought

In hypnotherapy, we use this familiar mental state intentionally and therapeutically.

“Am I in Control?” - The Question Almost Everyone Asks

This is one of the most common questions clients ask me, often quietly, sometimes apologetically.

The answer is always the same: yes.

You are aware. You can hear me. You can move, speak, open your eyes, or stop at any point. Hypnosis is not something done to you, it is something we do together.

Most people are surprised by how ordinary ( and naturally relaxing) it feels.

What a Session Actually Feels Like

A hypnotherapy session looks much like other one-to-one therapy sessions: conversation, reflection, gentle questioning, learning, and goal-setting.

The difference is that we also include hypnosis.

This usually involves closing your eyes (often lying down), allowing your body to become comfortable and relaxed, perhaps with dimmed lights, a blanket, and a sense of safety, while listening to a guided, often bespoke, therapeutic script.

There is no performance. No loss of control. No “doing it wrong”.

It is simply an opportunity for your brain to rest, reset, and restore.

And yes, sometimes clients drift into a light, restorative sleep. That is not failure. That is the nervous system finally feeling safe enough to switch off.

In a world that constantly demands productivity, stimulation, and effort, intentional rest can feel surprisingly unfamiliar. But it is not indulgent. It is essential.

Why Solution Focused Hypnotherapy Feels Different

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is a modern modality that blends:

• Talking therapy

• Solution Focused Brief Therapy

• Neuroscience-informed understanding

• Hypnosis

Rather than analysing problems in depth, we focus on:

• Where you are now

• Where you want to be

• What already works, even a little

We acknowledge the past, because it matters, but we do not dwell there. Instead, we work with what is present, practical, and meaningful to you, we work towards your goals.

Your goals lead the sessions. They can change, evolve, and clarify over time. My role is to help create the conditions in which your brain feels calm and resourced enough to find its own solutions.

Why People Find It Surprisingly Positive

Many clients arrive tense, overwhelmed, or mentally exhausted. I often see them leave calmer, lighter, and clearer, sometimes after just one session.

Hypnosis frequently becomes their favourite part of the work, not because it is dramatic, but because it is restful.

We do not dig up painful memories. We do not repeatedly relive distressing experiences. We focus on what is good in your life, what matters to you, and what helps you move forward.

When we repeatedly focus on what is wrong, the brain can become more vigilant, unsettled, and stuck. When we focus on what is possible, the brain becomes more flexible, motivated, and hopeful.

Is Hypnotherapy “Quick” Therapy?

I tend to describe it as focused and efficient.

Many people are surprised by how few sessions they need to notice meaningful change. This is not because problems are trivial, but because the brain is remarkably adaptable.

Neuroplasticity, the brain’s amazing ability to learn, unlearn, and rewire continues throughout life. Given the right conditions, change does not have to take years, but like any new habit, you need to repeat and be consistent.

A Gentle Boundary

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is not primarily a past-focused therapy. If your aim is deep exploration of childhood experiences or long-term psychodynamic work, another modality may suit you better. We welcome this, and if so, I can recommend other excellent therapies you can see.

However, if you already understand why you feel the way you do and are now asking, “What do I do about it?”, this approach can be incredibly effective.

Different therapies serve different needs. This is one option and for many, a very empowering one.

A Final Thought

Hypnotherapy has positively changed my clients’ lives.
It has also changed mine.

Often, the hardest part is not the therapy itself, but giving yourself permission to try something different, especially something that involves rest, gentleness, and trust in your own mind.

The truth is:
You don’t know what you don’t know.

If you’re curious about how the mind works, how change can feel calmer and more positive, and how rest can be a powerful therapeutic tool, you’re very welcome here.

Subscribe now