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Liberation Therapies & Coaching, The Coach House, Brand Lane, Ludlow (2026)

12/02/2026

For Camilla.

There are some griefs that arrive like storms.

And others that sit quietly in the cupboard… just waiting.

When parents die and after the paperwork, the phone calls and the strange administrative business of death, there was the other job - the one nobody really prepares you for.

Emptying the house.

Not just furniture and photographs, but the ordinary, domestic archaeology of a life. Half-used bottles of washing up liquid, spare loo rolls, cleaning spray under the sink, a bag of clothes pegs, three different kinds of lightbulb no one uses anymore…

And a giant bag of Yorkshire Tea.

I remember, I brought the practical things home with me. It felt wasteful not to. Sensible, respectful even. As if Dad was still, in some small way, provisioning me.

For months, without really noticing, I had been making tea with teabags my dad bought.

Then one morning I reached into the bag.

And there was only one left and that hollow crinkle of empty packaging.

And I stood there, absurdly, in my kitchen, holding a bag of air, and burst into tears.

Because it wasn’t about tea.

It was about the fact that this was the last thing of his.
The last ordinary thing he chose in a supermarket aisle.
The last small, unconscious act of care that had quietly stretched forward into my life.

Grief is a peculiar creature.

It doesn’t always come when you expect it. It slips in through the back door, disguised as something mundane. A teaspoon. A supermarket brand. The end of a box.

And yet, as I made that final cup, there was something else there too.

Comfort.

Because for a moment, the kettle boiled in the same rhythm it always had. The teabag sank in the same way. The smell was the same. And I was, in some strange, tender way, sharing a cup of tea with my dad.

Not in memory.

In continuity.

And perhaps this is how love lingers.

Not in grand gestures or dramatic anniversaries, but in the quiet disappearance of the last teabag, the last sq**rt of washing liquid, the last worn towel that finally gives up.

The things we don’t notice are keeping us company.

Until they’re gone.

I see you.

Art ~ Julia Abele

10/02/2026

Inspired by my friend Lil whose husband, Dave Myers died nearly two years ago.

It always comes down to the little squares.

Those polite, well-behaved boxes lined up on a form like gravestones in a neat row, asking you to choose where to bury your truth.

Each one no bigger than a fingernail, yet somehow heavy enough to carry the weight of your whole life.

And there you are, pen hovering, as if this is a moral decision rather than an administrative one.

On paper, you are alone.

In your chest, you are still in conversation.

You are still saying “we.”
Still turning to tell a story.
Still mentally setting aside a comment for later.
Still living in a house where the echo hasn’t quite caught up with the silence.

The form doesn’t know about any of that.

The form wants clarity.
The heart offers continuity.

You scan the options like a traveller looking for a destination that doesn’t exist on the map.

Married - well, that feels like a lie.
Single - oh no, that feels like betrayal.
Widowed - that feels like a door slamming shut in a room you still sit in every day.

None of the boxes say:
My person has gone, but my belonging hasn’t.
The body has left, but the bond hasn’t.
I am still devoted to a conversation that no longer has replies.

But the form doesn’t care about nuance.
The form wants a tick.

So you make it.

Not because it fits.
Not because it’s true.
But because there isn’t a square for the reality you live in…

… where love is still present, and only the person is absent.

I see you.

Art ~ Jacobien De Korte

09/02/2026

When I was about twelve, I was sitting at the table with my mum, watching her count pound notes into little piles. The cash to pay the bills for the month ahead.

She spread them out between us like cards in a game I didn’t yet understand.

“Look at that,” she said. “That’s a lot of money, isn’t it?”

It looked like abundance.
Like more than anyone could ever need.

Then she said something that quietly slipped past my ears and lodged itself somewhere much deeper.

“Imagine each of those notes is a year of your life. Does that look like a long time?”

I remember looking again.

And feeling the picture change.

What had looked like plenty suddenly looked… fragile.
Finite.
Spendable.

Then she gently removed some of the notes.

“Most people don’t get all of these,” she said. “So we’ll take a few away.”

The space on the table grew.

The pile grew smaller.

“And some people get even fewer. So you have to think about what you’re going to spend yours on.”

I didn’t fully understand.

But something deep inside me did.

Life, I realised, is not a long road stretching endlessly ahead.

It is a small stack of notes on a kitchen table.

And whether you notice or not,
you are spending them.

Adults are not old.
They have simply used more of theirs.

Time is not something you have.
It is something you are quietly exchanging, moment by moment, for the life you are living.

That image has never left me.

Years and years laid out in front of me.
A diminishing pile.
A growing space.

Not in a way that feels urgent or panicked, but in a way that feels clear.

These days matter.

This day matters.

Because you are always, always,
buying your life with the notes you’ve been given.

I see you.

Art ~ Antoine Quairiat

09/01/2026

It popped up without warning.

A small square on my phone, wrapped in Facebook blue, labelled “a memory.”
My dad. Smiling. Alive. There he was, in the middle of Christmas, when the world was already soft and thin-skinned.

It stopped me dead.

For a moment I couldn’t breathe properly - as if time had folded in on itself and I’d stepped into a crack between then and now. The room around me faded. The noise. The plans. The busyness of being fine.

And suddenly I wasn’t.

I felt him before I thought about him.
The sound of his voice.
The particular way his presence filled a space.
The safety of being someone’s daughter.

Grief is like that.
It doesn’t knock.
It doesn’t ask if you’re ready. It just arrives - quietly, efficiently- disguised as a memory notification.

What surprised me most wasn’t just the ache.
It was the guilt.

A strange, sneaky guilt that whispered “How can you be enjoying your life when he isn’t here to see it?”
As if joy were a betrayal.
As if laughter needed permission.
As if loving life now somehow meant loving him less.

But that’s not true, is it?

Missing someone doesn’t mean you stop living.
And living fully doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten.

Love doesn’t disappear when someone dies - it just changes form.
Sometimes it shows up as a lump in the throat.
Sometimes as a tear that arrives out of nowhere.
And sometimes as a Facebook memory that reminds you how deeply you were - and still are - loved.

I put the phone down eventually.
Carried on with my day.
But I carried him with me too.

Because missing him means he mattered.
And enjoying my life now… perhaps that’s part of what he would have wanted all along.

I see you.

Photo ~ My Dad. December 2015

06/01/2026

For those who need this today.

Nobody really talks about the quiet kind of survival.
Not the dramatic rescues or the moments that make good stories.
But the long, ordinary nights where nothing happens - and yet everything does.

The nights with no crisis to name, no voice on the other end of the phone, no one arriving to save you from yourself.
Just you and the ceiling.
Just you and the steady, stubborn thud of your own thoughts.

You lie there counting breaths like they’re stepping stones, trying to slow the racing, trying not to tip into the dark places you know too well.

You don’t fall apart loudly.

You don’t reach out.

You don’t even cry, sometimes.

You endure.
Silently.
Patiently.
Like someone holding a door shut against a storm no one else can see.

And when morning comes - as it always does - you get up.

You make the tea.

You answer the messages.

You show up.

You wear the familiar face that tells the world you’re fine, or at least functioning.

No one sees what it cost you to be there.
No one marks the hours you spent holding yourself together in the dark.
There’s no applause for surviving something invisible.
No medal for getting through a night that nearly swallowed you whole.

And yet …that kind of survival matters.

The unseen, unspoken, uncelebrated kind.
The kind that asks everything of you and offers no witnesses in return.

It takes a depth of strength most people will never have to find.
And if you’re living that life - if you’re surviving quietly - please know this:

What you’re doing is not small.
It is not weak.
It is not nothing.

It is courage, practiced in the dark.

I see you.

Art ~ Silent Struggle
Emmanuel Ojebola

20/12/2025

“Are you ready for Christmas?”

It’s a question that arrives every December like a subtle demand.

Ready… for what exactly?

I’m a Christian, yes.
But somewhere along the way I stepped off the conveyor belt of frantic buying, plastic cheer and spending for the sake of spending. The noise of it all began to drown out the meaning.

That doesn’t mean I’ve always felt this way.

When the children were young, I loved Christmas.
I loved the gentle chaos of it - wrapping presents late into the night, the rustle of paper and secret smiles. Stockings hung with care. Trees chosen, decorated, admired. Lights twinkling. The house warm with anticipation.

It was a season of giving then, in the most literal and tender way.
And it mattered.
It was right for that time.

But seasons change.
And wisdom, I think, is knowing when to change with them.

I don’t put up a tree anymore.
Not because I’ve lost my love for Christmas but because I’ve learned to listen to my nervous system.

I know that the taking down leaves me tight-chested and overwhelmed. And I no longer force myself to do things that bring more stress than meaning.

Our children are grown now.
Scattered across the UK, living their own lives, creating their own traditions. Just as it should be.

They don’t need things from us - and truthfully, they wouldn’t want the weight of them either.

My husband and I don’t need anything.
We have no grandchildren.
What we have is enough.

We have friends of many faiths - and of none at all.
And what I notice is this: compassion, kindness, generosity and love are not owned by any one religion.

They show up wherever hearts are open.
Christmas, at its best, speaks a language that all of us can understand.

So for the past 17 years, we’ve chosen a different kind of gift.
Instead of presents, we donate to the homeless charity Crisis, in the name of our family.

This is our Christmas offering - to our children, and to each other. A quiet act of compassion that feels aligned with what Christmas asks of us.

On Christmas Day, you’ll find us with a flask of soup and a packet of sandwiches, heading out for a long hike… or down to the beach.
Our dog, Keava Pink, trotting ahead, nose to the wind, blissfully unaware of dates, deadlines or expectations.

In the evening, we hunker down with Keava Pink, our cats - Milo and this year we also have Little Mary. We prepare some ‘party food’ and watch the television.

No performance.
No pressure.
Just presence.

On Boxing Day, I cook our Christmas dinner.
Turkey crown.
All the trimmings.
Celebration without the rush.

No stress.
No hassle.
Just love.

Because Christ is not something to be unboxed in December and stored away with the decorations.
He is not seasonal.

To me - Christ is for every day of the year.

Wishing you all the very happiest of Christmases and thank you for following me.

I see you.

Photo ~ Little Mary, Milo and Keava Pink

07/12/2025

For my friend Gareth - stay strong!

Estrangement doesn’t usually happen overnight.
It is built quietly, in the spaces between words, in misunderstood moments, in things that were never spoken at all.

And when someone you once loved closely - a child, a parent, a sibling - suddenly feels distant or unrecognisable, the pain can cut deeper than words know how to hold.

But here is something that deserves to be said, gently:

People don’t pull away because you are unlovable.
They pull away because being close has begun to touch places inside them that feel too raw, too confusing, or too unresolved.

Sometimes your presence stirs guilt they don’t know how to face.
Sometimes your memory carries warmth that now feels like pressure.
Sometimes your love reminds them of a version of themselves they no longer recognise.

So they do the only thing that feels safe to them in that moment - they step back.

They go quiet.

They rewrite their own version of events so the distance feels justified.

Not because you are cruel.
Not because you are “too much.”
But because something inside them feels too much.

And perhaps the hardest part is this…
The mind will always choose emotional survival over emotional truth.

So if you sit with an empty chair at the table this year…
If you hold a phone that no longer rings…
If you carry love that has nowhere gentle to land…

Please remember:

You are not only the character in someone else’s painful story.
You are a whole, flawed, beautiful human, doing the best you can with the heart you were given.

Sometimes estrangement is not a final sentence.
It is a pause in understanding.
A space where healing has not yet found its language.

Be kind to the part of you that still loves them.
Be proud of the part of you that is learning to let go.

Both are acts of courage.

I see you.

Art ~ Kasia Derwinska
Let it go.

29/11/2025

I’ve had a couple of clients ask me how they explain that Santa isn’t real to their 8year + children.

Here’s a little story that might help.
Oh, by the way, Stephanie is my daughter and this is more or less how I explained it to her.

“Stephanie and the Real Santa Magic”

Once upon a time, in a snug little house at the edge of a quiet town, there lived a child named Stephanie.

Stephanie adored Christmas - the sparkle of fairy lights glowing in the windows, the smell of baking drifting through the rooms, the cosy jumpers, the stories by the fire.

But most of all, Stephanie loved Santa.
Not just because he brought gifts, but because the idea of him made the world feel safe and full of wonder.

One evening, winter wrapped the house in a peaceful hush. Snow fell softly outside, settling like a white blanket over everything.

Stephanie climbed into bed, her favourite doll Bonnie tucked under one arm. Her Mum sat beside her, smoothing out the cover.

Stephanie hesitated, then asked in a voice as small as a snowflake:

“Is Santa really real?”

Mum paused.
Not in fear - but with care.
She smiled softly and brushed a curl from Stephanie’s forehead.

“My love,” she said, “I have something very special to tell you.
It’s a secret - but a kind and gentle one.”

Stephanie’s eyes widened slightly, but she felt safe here with her Mum.

“You know how Santa is always shown giving presents, spreading joy, and making people feel warm and cared for? Well…” Mum’s eyes sparkled. “That part is completely real. But it’s not done by just one man in a red coat. It’s something much bigger.”

Stephanie blinked. “Bigger than Santa?”

“Much bigger,” said Mum.

“When you were little, imagining Santa flying across the night sky made everything feel magical and I kept that magic safe for you. But now that you’re older, something wonderful happens - you get invited to learn the true magic.”

Stephanie held her breath.
“What magic?”

“The magic of kindness,” Mum whispered. “The magic of compassion, of caring for people, of helping others, not just at Christmas, but every day. That is the real Santa.”

Mum continued:

“Santa isn’t one person. Santa is a feeling. Santa is the way people look after each other. When someone gives a gift to show love… that’s Santa. When someone helps a neighbour, or comforts a friend, or chooses kindness when they could have ignored someone - that’s Santa too.”

Stephanie felt something warm unfolding in her chest.

“So… you put out the presents?” she asked softly.

“I did,” said Mum gently. “Because giving is one of the ways I show my love for you. But the magic wasn’t the presents themselves - it was the love behind them.”

Stephanie looked thoughtful. “So what happens now?”

“Now,” said Mum, “you get to join in. You get to help spread kindness. You get to notice when someone needs help, or when someone feels left out, or when a small act of care can make someone’s day brighter. That’s the real Santa magic - and you’re ready to be part of it.”

Stephanie felt proud.
Not sad, not disappointed but proud.
As if a door had opened into a world where she had a bigger role to play.

“So I get to be Santa now?”

Mum hugged her close, the kind of hug that felt like home.
“You always had the heart for it,” she said. “You just didn’t know yet.”

“Remember when you invited the new girl at school to join in your game? You were being Santa.”

“When you helped carry my shopping in from the car. You were being Santa.”

And as Stephanie drifted into sleep, the snow fell more softly, the stars seemed to twinkle more brightly, and the world was quiet and peaceful and felt full of real magic.

The kind made not of fairy tales, but of kindness shared freely by people who care.

Art ~ Jocelyn Miller
Santa’s Watching

24/11/2025

Our hearts sit slightly to the left, tucked beneath bone and muscle like a secret we carry from birth.

It means the right side of our chest is a little emptier, a little quieter - a space waiting for something, or perhaps someone.

And then we hug.

In that moment, their heart finds its home in the hollow we didn’t even realise was shaped for it.

Their heartbeat settles against our right side, the place where ours is not.

Two pulses, two rhythms, two lives briefly synchronising.

A soft reminder that even though we move through the world as individuals, we are wired for connection.

When we hug, we don’t just wrap arms around a body - we exchange warmth, safety, and a wordless “I’m here.”

The body relaxes before the mind even understands what’s happening.
Breath slows.
Shoulders drop.
Something unclenches deep inside.
We let ourselves be held, and in doing so, we hold the other.

The right side of us, the side without a heart, becomes filled.
Completed.
For those few seconds, the world hushes and two hearts beat side by side, trusting each other with their rhythm.

A hug is the simplest gesture, yet it’s also the most profound.
No grand declarations, no polished speech - just presence pressed against presence.

A resetting.

A remembering.

A quiet miracle disguised as an everyday act.

And when we let go, something of that alignment stays with us.
A gentleness.
A steadiness.
A whisper that we are never entirely alone.

In that shared heartbeat, we become whole.

I see you.

Tell me - who will you hug today?

Art ~ Dalit Shahar
Variation on hugs in blue

17/11/2025

Today I learned a gentle little word: “glimmer.”

It’s the soft opposite of a trigger -
not something that startles the nervous system, but something that soothes it.

A glimmer is a tiny spark of joy, a moment where your breath settles, your shoulders drop, and you feel - even briefly- anchored, grateful, alive.

What’s magical is this:
once you train your mind to look for glimmers, they begin to appear everywhere.

Small, almost secret at first, then multiplying like shy wildflowers
that realise the sun is finally warm enough to trust again.

My glimmers today…

A slow coffee out in a café with my husband - the kind of unhurried moment where the world feels gentle
and time loosens its grip.

Talking to my cousin, reconnecting after sixty years.
Sixty years!
And yet the conversation slipped easily into place, like a long-lost piece clicking back into the puzzle of my life.
A soft, unexpected miracle.

Watching my cats play in the winter sunshine, bathed in gold,
completely absorbed in the simple joy of light and movement.
Their ease always reminds me that contentment can be found in very small things.

Seeing the birds feasting at the seed feeder in the tree - tiny flurries of feathers, their trust in this little offering of food something tender to witness.

And finally…
a wonderful sunset that spilled across the sky, as if the day itself wanted to bow out with one last brushstroke of brilliance.

So many glimmers in a single day.

And somehow, noticing them makes the whole world feel a little softer around the edges.

Tell me - what were your ‘glimmers’ today?

Photo ~ the sunset from my garden in Northumberland U.K.

03/11/2025

For Shona

Loneliness is not the absence of people - it’s the absence of understanding. You can be surrounded by company and still feel unseen, unheard, untouched.

It isn’t empty rooms that ache; it’s the weight of unsaid things pressing quietly against your chest.

The stories you’ve swallowed.

The truths you’ve softened.

The parts of you that never quite make it into words.

Healing begins when you dare to give voice to what has long been silenced … when you let your truth find air, even if your voice trembles.

It’s the slow, tender work of allowing yourself to be known. Known, not as the version you’ve learned to perform, but as the person you have always been beneath it all.

Connection starts there: in the courage to speak what matters, and to trust that someone will meet you in that sacred space between words.

And in time, you realise loneliness was never a life sentence - it was only a signal.

A call to come home to yourself, to reach out from truth rather than fear, and to let the world see the quiet miracle of your honest becoming.

I see you.

Art ~ Warren Caplan
‘Work in Progress’

28/10/2025

When the body begins to whisper, then plead for clean air, for space,for the kind of silence that has weight and texture…
that’s when you know it’s time to listen.

You don’t make the decision all at once.
It arrives quietly in the ache that never quite goes away.

In the fog that coffee can’t lift.
In the heaviness that sits somewhere between your throat, lungs and heart.

Something deep inside begins to say, enough.

So you pack up the fragments of your old life.
The noise, the hurry, the endless doing that left no room for being.

And you drive north.

Past the places that stopped feeling like yours.
Past the lights that never dim.
Past the hum of other people’s urgency.

Until the land itself begins to breathe again.

Northumberland rises up to meet you.
A vast hush of hills, moor and stone, wind and wildness.

The sky opens.
The air feels like medicine.
The silence has a pulse.

Here, everything moves slower.
The sheep graze without hurry.
The rivers curve and meander like they’ve always known there’s time enough for everything.

And slowly, without you noticing,
you begin to match that rhythm.

Your breath deepens.

Your shoulders drop.

The noise inside your head grows quieter.

You start to hear what silence actually sounds like.
The wind, the distant cry of an owl, the heartbeat of a world that never needed your performance, only your presence.

Mornings arrive wrapped in mist and woodsmoke and the bleating of sheep.

Evenings stretch out, soft and golden,
until the first stars blink awake in the dark, deep sky.

And you realise.
You realise all the striving, all the chasing, was only ever leading you back here.

To this stillness.
To this simplicity.
To this moment of being fully, deeply alive.

They say we have two lives,
and the second begins when we realise we only have one.

But perhaps it truly begins the moment we stop running.
Turn our faces to the wind, and let the quiet find us.

I see you.

Photo ~ view from my garden.
Northumberland.

Liberation Therapies & Coaching

12/02/2026

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20/12/2025

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