Juliet Hollingsworth Hypnotherapy

08/05/2026

I woke at 6am to the sound of the birds and a cuckoo in the distance, having heard the church bells at 2am, 3am and 4am. I at least felt warm with a gifted hot water bottle and two extra blankets.

Yesterday was exhilarating. My notes are extensive but ultimately, sandwiched between a lot of singing and sharing we “facilitated” and experienced our first breath work session. This was a holotropic session (though I don’t believe that word was used). What a wild ride! In pairs we took it in turns - either side of lunch - to breath for an hour each.

Taken from my notes:

“I felt a coldness start in my hands and feet. It moved up and through my whole body. I felt scared I might pass out. I was laying under a window in the sun. I felt it go dark and cold. I didn’t know if the sun had gone or me. Prem, my partner said he put his hand on my shoulder but I didn’t feel it. I slowed my breathing. My whole body shaking. When it calmed down I started my breath again. I felt like I wanted to stop breathing and I did at times. I felt tingly all over my entire body. I really noticed the feelings in my torso too. I felt like someone had my head in their hands supporting it. We were brought back into the room by Annemarie, Peggy’s right hand lady, playing the guitar and singing one of my favourite songs from the Sundoor song book. This brought up lots of thoughts about clients and with it emotion. Prem lay beside me. At the end we shared a cuddle and took some time to speak through the experience.”

07/05/2026

Day one here in Belgium. The travel was so easy but I realised how much I really don’t like waiting around and not being where I’m meant to be yet. When I arrived I got my bed sorted in the yurt, caught up with people from last year’s course and knew I was in the right place. One person remembered I’d been writing my book and another woman gave me advice about publishing which felt really encouraging to hear.

We spent the evening singing together and listening to Peggy speak about breath, capacity and learning to live life as we’re supposed to. Can’t put into words the feeling in the room.

I am sleeping in the yurt with eight other people. It was lovely and cosy falling asleep with the fire going, although I woke cold in the middle of the night - considerations for tonight!
This morning’s walk looked like this.

06/05/2026

A week of breathwork, rebirthing, movement, ceremony, and exploring the connection between body, mind and something beyond both. The training was developed by Peggy Dylan, one of the original pioneers of rebirthing and breathwork, and focuses on how breath can be used to release tension, trauma and old patterns, while creating more capacity, connection and aliveness. M

I’m going to try and share updates along the way .

Belgium first.
Then breath.
Then whatever unfolds from there.

05/05/2026

People don’t usually arrive describing it as ignoring their body

They speak about feeling stuck, or tired, or feeling that something isn’t working anymore.

We stay with that experience and give it time, rather than trying to move away from it too quickly.

As we, it becomes clear that there was a point where they set aside their feelings.

That point matters.

It shapes how they relate to themselves now.

And it gives us somewhere to begin.

04/05/2026

Stress is part of a process, rather than a problem to remove.

When a need shows up in the body, a set of changes begins. Hormones shift, energy is mobilised, attention narrows toward what matters. The body is preparing for a response. It expects that something will follow.
For most of human history, it did. Hunger led to foraging. Tiredness led to rest. Disconnection led people back toward others. The signal and the response were closely linked, and the process moved through to completion.

Now the signals still arrive, but the response is often delayed or replaced. The body prepares, but the situation doesn’t resolve in the same way. The chemistry remains active because the system hasn’t registered that the need has been met.

What can feel like ongoing stress is often this state of continuation. The body is still engaged in something it expected to finish.

Your body is behaving exactly as it’s meant to.
The process just hasn’t completed yet.

04/05/2026

Is High Functioning Anxiety a Weakness?

Anxiety isn’t weakness – it’s sensitivity. The same heightened awareness that once kept humans alive now reacts to modern stress. Seeing anxiety as intelligence rather than failure helps you work with it instead of against it, restoring rhythm to your nervous system and peace to your mind.

Anxiety gets misunderstood as a sign of fragility, but in reality, it’s a mark of sensitivity. An ancient system tuned for survival. It’s not a flaw in your personality or a failure of resilience. Anxiety is your brain’s attempt to protect you, an overactive safety mechanism that evolved to keep humans alive and a continuation of the species. When we reframe anxiety as a form of heightened awareness, rather than weakness, we begin to see its intelligence.

For our ancestors, anxiety was essential. The humans who survived were those who noticed a threat to their survival before it arrived. the rustle in the grass, the change in weather, the sound that didn’t belong, the signs of hunger, the need to connect. The amygdala, a small almond-shaped part of the brain, is responsible for detecting threats and activating the fight-or-flight response. When it senses danger, it sends an immediate signal to release adrenaline and noradrenaline. Heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and the body prepares for movement. It’s an extraordinary life-saving system. The problem is that modern life rarely has the danger the brain thinks it does. We do not need physical action to survive, so the energy of anxiety has nowhere to go.

https://www.juliethollingsworth.com/2026/05/04/is-high-functioning-anxiety-a-weakness/

Anxiety isn’t weakness - it’s awareness. Learn how to reframe high functioning anxiety as intelligence and regain balance.

03/05/2026

“For some, this sounds 'hippy' and 'wacky' but at it's basic level, this is simply people forming a community, living in the moment without judgement and connecting. We all need more of that!”

02/05/2026

Someone told me fasting isn’t natural…

and I jumped in pretty quickly.

I showed them the research.
I talked about how the body shifts after a period without food
moving from using what you’ve just eaten
to using stored energy instead

and I talked about how we evolved

because for most of human history,
we didn’t eat constantly

there were natural gaps
between food

and you still see that today
in hunter-gatherer communities

so I’m wondering...

why does fasting feel unnatural?
and why does constant eating feel normal?

why do ultra-processed foods feel familiar…
but going without food for sixteen hours overnight feels extreme?

I’m not saying you should fast

but I am interested in that belief

because a lot of what feels “natural” now
is something we’ve adapted to very quickly

and not always in ways that support us.

01/05/2026

We’re quick to try and fix the feeling.
Less quick to ask what created it.

30/04/2026

Turns out you can’t rush fire! I am facilitating my first fire walk in September. I want to connect with our roots as much as possible - including starting the fire without a lighter and firefighter. This was a 30 minute attempt at doing so with what we had laying around the log pile and my daughter’s whittling knife. I’ve now bought myself my own knife and I’ll head into the forest this weekend to get some better wood to make the hearth … then I’ll come atcha with 2

29/04/2026

Reading more about where food comes from has led me here…

I seem to want plants that have had to adapt.
Grown in varied, less controlled conditions.

But with animals, I want the opposite.
Calm, stable lives, minimal stress.

The problem is… we often get the reverse.

Animals raised in systems that create stress.
Plants grown in tightly controlled environments, protected from it.

Because what happens in the plant becomes part of the plant.
And what happens in the animal… becomes part of the meat.

I’ve written more about this on Substack

https://open.substack.com/pub/julietlhollingsworth/p/the-difference-between-stressed-meat