Sarah Hopton Psychotherapy

21/11/2025

Darker months are here, and it's time to nourish your nervous system! Explore our latest blog for tips on walking through these seasonal changes with grace. Read more: https://wix.to/F3H5zZw

Walk through the woods in November and you’ll notice something subtle: the pace has shifted. The canopy has thinned. Leaves soften underfoot. The forest isn’t blooming, but it isn’t failing either. It’s simply wintering.And maybe we need to remember the same.The darker months aren’t a mist...

21/11/2025

When your adult child walks away, you don’t just lose a connection — you lose a piece of your story.
My new article for Counselling Directory explores the silent ache of parental estrangement: the absence that isn’t mourning-but-not-presence, the “no funeral” grief of a child still alive but gone.

I talk about how this loss triggers our deepest survival patterns — the “I should’ve been enough” voice, the myth that love = perfect control.

And more importantly, how you can begin again: letting go of the perfect-parent myth, reclaiming your identity apart from the role, living without closure but with dignity.

https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/articles/how-parents-begin-again-when-their-adult-child-walks-away

If this touches something in you — you’re not alone.

Explore how parents can find healing, meaning, and self-compassion after estrangement from an adult child.

18/11/2025

Not everything we feel is a disorder. Sometimes, what we label as anxiety is just our nervous system reacting to the world around us. Join me as I explore this important topic on my blog! Read more: https://wix.to/lGQeaDN

Here’s a truth I wish more people knew: not everything you feel is a disorder.Sometimes what we call anxiety is simply your nervous system doing its job. Messy, inconvenient, too-loud maybe, but not broken.The Anxiety EpidemicSearch the word “anxiety” online and you’ll drown in checklists, d...

05/11/2025

Not broken. Just adapted.
That’s the heartbeat of my new article for Counselling Directory.
So many people come into therapy believing they’re “too sensitive,” “too much,” or “too reactive.” But what if those reactions aren’t flaws....they’re adaptations?
Your nervous system doesn’t make moral judgments. It doesn’t care about social polish or personal growth; its job is survival. And if it learned that vigilance, shutdown, or over-functioning kept you safe once upon a time, it’s only doing what it was wired to do.
The work of therapy isn’t about “fixing” that.
It’s about understanding it and slowly teaching the body that it’s safe enough to rest again.
You were never broken.
You were brilliantly adaptive.
Read the full article on Counselling Directory →
👉 https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/articles/not-broken-just-adapted-how-your-nervous-system-kept-you-alive

Discover how your nervous system’s survival responses shape behaviour – and how therapy helps your body feel safe again.

03/11/2025

Desire isn’t something we grow out of, it’s something we grow back into.

This piece is for the women who’ve spent decades tending to everyone else’s needs and are suddenly waking up hungry, for truth, for depth, for something that actually feels alive again.

It’s not a midlife crisis. It’s a reclamation.

If you’ve been told to tone it down, shrink yourself, or “be grateful for what you have,” this one’s for you.

Read the full post here: https://www.sarahhopton.com/post/reclaiming-desire-why-midlife-women-are-done-settling

You’re not asking for too much.
You’re just remembering who you are.

Desire has been misunderstood for too long. We’re taught to fear it, repress it, or channel it into acceptable forms: work harder, care more, keep everyone else satisfied.But desire is wild. It’s messy, inconvenient, and sometimes disruptive. And that’s exactly why it matters.At midlife, somet...

28/10/2025

October’s letter has just gone out, a reflection on midlife rebellion, creative courage, woodland clearings, and the quiet alchemy of change.
https://wix.to/ncivZKk
Inside, I write about:
What trees teach us about release
The joy of singing again with my choir
Creative encouragement (and a poem that’s now with a magazine!)
Seeing Caamp live and how their music became a metaphor for transformation
As ever, From the Forest Edge isn’t about being perfect or “fixed.” It’s a space for those of us living in the in-betweens, where growth, creativity, and wildness meet real life.
Same edge. Same mess. Same magic.

Sarah x

Sarah Hopton Psychotherapy, Down-to-earth counselling and psychotherapy for adults feeling burnt out, anxious or stuck. Based in Staffordshire & Nottinghamshire – online and in-person sessions available.

26/10/2025

Somewhere between who we were told to be and who we actually are, there’s a quiet rebellion happening.
It’s not loud or glittery. It doesn’t look like crisis—it looks like women coming home to themselves.

Midlife isn’t a breakdown. It’s a reckoning.
A peeling away of “shoulds,” of invisible labour, of trying to fit into rules that were never written with us in mind.

This piece is about that moment—the one where you realise belonging doesn’t mean shrinking.
It means standing shoulder-to-shoulder with other women who’ve stopped apologising for existing on their own terms.

If you’ve ever felt the pull to burn down the old story and start again, this one’s for you.
Read Sisterhood & the Midlife Rebellion: Belonging Beyond the Old Rules → https://www.sarahhopton.com/post/sisterhood-the-midlife-rebellion-belonging-beyond-the-old-rules

When I was younger, I thought rebellion meant loud music, ripped jeans, and refusing to do what I was told. And in some ways, it did. But standing here in midlife, I’ve realised rebellion looks different now.Rebellion is saying no to what empties me. Rebellion is claiming space where I was told to...

21/10/2025

Struggling to maintain productivity while battling ADHD at work? You're not alone! Discover strategies to navigate burnout and enhance your work experience in our latest blog: https://wix.to/UFHhku4

On paper, you look fine. You’re hitting deadlines (mostly), keeping up appearances, and working harder than most people realise. But underneath? You’re running on fumes. Your brain’s juggling a thousand tabs, you’re masking mistakes, and burnout is always one step behind you.This is the hidd...

21/10/2025

Is therapy making you feel frustrated and lost? You're not alone! Sometimes it can seem pointless, but that's just part of the journey. Embrace the messiness and know it’s leading you somewhere meaningful. Read more here: https://wix.to/1uFTKWQ

No one tells you this when you start therapy: sometimes it feels like nothing’s happening. You show up week after week, spill your guts, cry a bit, rage a bit and then you leave wondering: what was the point of that?You’re not imagining it. Therapy is messy. It can be frustrating, uncomfortable,...

18/10/2025

Therapy isn’t tidy.
It’s messy, frustrating, sometimes feels completely pointless.
That is the point.

You’re not failing because you still cry in week ten or can’t explain what’s “working.”
Healing doesn’t happen in straight lines or Instagram quotes, it happens in the muddle, the silence, the small choices to show up again.

Messy counts.
Always.

🪶 Read more: https://www.sarahhopton.com/post/therapy-is-messy-frustrating-sometimes-feels-pointless-that-s-the-point

No one tells you this when you start therapy: sometimes it feels like nothing’s happening. You show up week after week, spill your guts, cry a bit, rage a bit and then you leave wondering: what was the point of that?You’re not imagining it. Therapy is messy. It can be frustrating, uncomfortable,...

16/10/2025

Let’s be honest, most of us have told our hairdresser more than we’ve ever told a therapist.
There’s something about the ordinary spaces, a salon chair, a checkout line, a neighbour’s fence, that feels safer than the therapy room. No clipboard. No pressure. Just a human who listens while life happens around you.

But that tiny exchange, the moment someone notices you’re not quite yourself, is where healing often begins.

My latest article explores why we open up in those places first — and what that reveals about what we truly need when life feels overwhelming.

It’s not that therapy replaces the everyday listener. It’s that both remind us we’re wired for connection, not perfection.

You can read it here →
https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/articles/why-we-confide-in-hairdressers-before-therapists?_gl=1*1n8qrle*_gcl_au*NDY3MjMyNzc1LjE3NTUwMDc3NjY.*_ga*NTc3MDgxNzQ3LjE3MzkyOTYxMzI.*_ga_BMWGCG64PD*czE3NjA2MjI2MDckbzEyNyRnMSR0MTc2MDYyMjc5MCRqNTMkbDAkaDA

You’re not broken. You’re human. And sometimes, the conversation starts with a haircut.

09/10/2025

Sometimes the hardest part of healing isn’t talking about what happened. It’s learning to feel safe in your own skin again.

When your body’s been in survival mode for years, slowing down can feel like danger. Stillness can feel like falling. But safety isn’t a switch you flip. It’s something you rebuild — one breath, one moment, one gentle return at a time.

This new piece explores how to come back to your body when your nervous system doesn’t quite trust you yet. It’s for anyone who’s tired of being told to “just relax” and ready to understand why that’s so much easier said than done.
Read the full post:

Coming Back to Your Body: Finding Safety One Step at a Time https://www.sarahhopton.com/post/coming-back-to-your-body-finding-safety-one-step-at-a-time
You’re not broken. You’re just learning what safe feels like again.