Nicola Jane Hobbs

Nicola Jane Hobbs I help women feel safe enough to rest, play and fall in love with life.

As an integrative counsellor and lifestyle consultant, I combine counselling, yoga, breath work, meditation, nutrition and psychological skills training to help people thrive. In my private practice, I work with entrepreneurs, executives, athletes, authors and anyone experiencing body image distress, anxiety and burnout. In my books, I explore healing, awakening, grief, joy, stress, rest, success, community and how we can make the most of these precious breaths we call life.

There was a time in my life where, no matter what I did, I always felt guilty.And then a therapist I was working with at...
17/04/2026

There was a time in my life where, no matter what I did, I always felt guilty.

And then a therapist I was working with at the time told me that we feel guilty anytime we break a rule. And sometimes those rules aren’t actually in line with our values or what we care about. They are simply rules we have internalised from the world around us.

And so now, when I feel guilty, instead of immediately assuming I’ve done something wrong, I ask myself:

“Did I violate my values or just an inherited rule? Am I out of alignment with what matters to me or simply not living up to other people’s expectations?”

What do you often feel guilty about that might be a sign that you’re freeing yourself from internalised rule?

♥️

It’s wild how guilty we feel simply for being human.But the more I pay attention to my guilt, the more I realise that, m...
14/04/2026

It’s wild how guilty we feel simply for being human.

But the more I pay attention to my guilt, the more I realise that, most of the time, it’s not true guilt. It’s simply a sign that I’m going against the rules I inherited about how women should behave, a sign that I’m no longer conforming to the cultural expectations of what a ‘good woman’ should be.

This kind of guilt — false guilt, inherited guilt — can be a guide, a message, a sign that we are at a threshold between a life driven by cultural values of self-sacrifice, productivity and urgency and a life rooted in intuition, trust and love.

♥️

There’s something so healing, so powerful, about seeing one another relax. About letting ourselves be seen resting, even...
10/04/2026

There’s something so healing, so powerful, about seeing one another relax. About letting ourselves be seen resting, even when our lives are full of demands and responsibilities, even when there is still so much to do.

This is what relaxing has been looking like for me lately (as a psychologist and full-time mum, with a partner who works away and a home full of unpacked boxes after recently moving house!):

1 - Pausing to watch the sunset. We’ve just moved to the countryside and the sunsets are glorious.

2 - Simple nourishing breakfasts. Usually a yogurt bowl with fruit, nut butter and granola or eggs on toast.

3 - Phone-free time. I don’t have set boundaries around when I use my phone but I find the more time I spend in nature and with the people I love doing things I love, the less desire I have to be on my phone.

4 - Low pressure crafts. I’m currently loving air dry clay for making little magnets.

5 - Not rushing. Ever since I read research showing how urgency floods our nervous system with stress signals and causes our brains to enter an ‘attentional vortex’ (a collapse of cognitive control where our actions are no longer rooted in our values), I do my best not to rush.

6 - Eating the same lunch most days. Usually some kind of eggs on some kind of bread with some kind of leftover veg.

7 - Snuggling my little one to sleep. Twice a day, I get to lay down in bed for 20-30 minutes while Huxley falls asleep. Occasionally, I fall asleep too but mostly I just daydream.

8 - Reminding myself, this is all that matters. Even when there is laundry to fold and cleaning to do and emails to reply to, right now, this - pulling my little one around the garden in a trailer or collecting acorns to put in his diggers or colouring in pictures of dinosaurs - is all that matters.

I hope they remind you that you’re allowed to relax too ♥️

I’m learning that relaxation isn’t something you do. It’s something that happens to you. Something that unfolds in momen...
06/04/2026

I’m learning that relaxation isn’t something you do. It’s something that happens to you. Something that unfolds in moments when you feel safe and held, amongst the love and laundry, the crumbs and chaos of everyday life ♥️

Let yourself be human.I have been all of these things today. Tired. Lazy. Messy. Slow. Dysregulated. Emotional. Relaxed....
29/03/2026

Let yourself be human.

I have been all of these things today. Tired. Lazy. Messy. Slow. Dysregulated. Emotional. Relaxed. But what has softened is the guilt and shame that once accompanied them.

Because once we begin to see how it’s society’s conditioning that makes us feel we should be a certain way — productive, controlled, self-sufficient, self-silencing, self-sacrificing — we no longer feel guilty for simply being human ♥️

Lower your expectations of yourself. And then lower them a little more ♥️
24/03/2026

Lower your expectations of yourself. And then lower them a little more ♥️

A few questions I’ve been practising asking myself recently. Because the questions we ask shape the world we see. They a...
17/03/2026

A few questions I’ve been practising asking myself recently. Because the questions we ask shape the world we see. They are like little instructions to our brains that say ‘focus on this’.

When our questions are rooted in threat - ‘Am I good enough? Have I worked hard enough? What will they think?’ - our nervous systems scan for danger, flaws, failure.

But when our questions are grounded in safety and compassion - ‘What feels nourishing? How can I care for myself? How can I show up with love?’ - our awareness expands and our brains orient towards possibility, connection, kindness, joy, love.

Asking more loving questions, doesn’t just open us to different answers, it gives us a different way of being, a more gentle, joyful, hopeful way of being ♥️

I’ve been thinking about something I shared in my last post: ‘I do not want to be a woman who cannot see her own light.’...
12/03/2026

I’ve been thinking about something I shared in my last post: ‘I do not want to be a woman who cannot see her own light.’

It made me realise I have so many photos of my beautiful, messy life — of my little one and our trips to the ocean, of baking brownies and building towers, of daffodils and blossom trees and wild flowers — but so few photos with me in.

It’s mainly because it’s so easy to just disappear behind the demands and responsibilities of everyday life. But I think it’s also because part of me still feels safer to be invisible, to be behind the camera rather than in front of it.

And yet, deep down I know we all deserve to be seen, to be loved in all our exhaustion, in all our joy, in all our wild and tender humanness.

One day my son will look back at these photos and I want him to see that I was there. So here are a few photos from the last week or so as we’ve been packing up to move from our little flat by the sea (including one Huxley took of me yesterday in all my breakfast eating glory!). May they inspire you to get in the photo too ♥️

It’s been 22 months of snatching sleep in the fragments between my son’s wakes. There are a million and one things I cou...
05/03/2026

It’s been 22 months of snatching sleep in the fragments between my son’s wakes. There are a million and one things I could criticise about my soft-bodied, sleep-deprived self.

But I do not want to be a woman who cannot see her own light.

So, this morning whilst we smothered our toast with peanut butter and sat eating it sticky-fingered on the kitchen step, I told my toddler ten things I like about myself:

My natural hair colour. The way I notice the phase of the moon. How I have allowed motherbood to soften me. That I no longer rush. The way I can find joy in the ordinary things. How I am untangling my worth from my productivity. That I have hobbies again. That I no longer exhaust myself trying to be perfect. How I am surrendering. Who I am becoming.

If you’re reading this, please share a few things you like about yourself. Take a moment to see your own light. I’d love to see it too ✨♥️

Moments that heal us often look like this. Messy. Tender. Unrushed. Unproductive.And although they may unfamiliar and un...
01/03/2026

Moments that heal us often look like this. Messy. Tender. Unrushed. Unproductive.

And although they may unfamiliar and uncomfortable to begin with, and you’ll probably feel that itchy restless urge to rush back to your busyness, if you can stay, your nervous system will learn that they are safe — and slowly they will begin to feel like home.

I’d love to know what kind of moments have been healing for you recently? Please share and we can inspire one another to allow ourselves to prioritise rest and love and joy ♥️

Everything is chaos. Everything is love.♥️
26/02/2026

Everything is chaos. Everything is love.

♥️

I don’t want to be a woman who is too afraid of being lazy that she runs herself into the ground to prove that she isn’t...
24/02/2026

I don’t want to be a woman who is too afraid of being lazy that she runs herself into the ground to prove that she isn’t.

I don’t want to be a woman who is too scared of being selfish that she never lets herself be truly loved or cared for.

I don’t want to be a woman who is too anxious about failing or falling behind or letting herself go, that she never relaxes and enjoys her days, that she never knows true nourishment, that she never experiences the sacred mystery of letting life unfold.

♥️

Address

Brighton
BN

Website

http://therelaxedwoman.com/book

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