The healing arms of Mother Nature - a dreamy winter walk with me...

Just for beauty's sake...

I invite you to take just one or two breaths with me as you press play on the video above. All the images in this piece are taken from my walks over the weekend and I hope they offer you even a fraction of the balm they offered me.

Hello lovely one

How is your heart feeling today? How are you tending to yourself as we move a little further into 2025?

We have been experiencing a cold snap here in the UK. I had intended to write a piece about Human Design when I opened up this blank document, and yet when my fingers met the keyboard something very different poured out…

I sat with a dear friend on Monday morning, and as we both spoke with utmost honesty about our mental health struggles, our conversation turned to speaking about our different needs and how we support ourselves when things go to sh*t!

For me, when I am in my darkest places internally the most likely thing to pull me out and prevent me from drowning is walking amongst, and being awed by the absolute beauty of nature.

It doesn’t have to be exotic or anything other than ordinary nature… by that I mean the paths by my home, the sky above my house, the trees that arch over the passageway I have walked thousands of times, often pushing a buggy, often holding tiny hands.

Simply the act of witnessing the natural world in it’s innate exquisiteness... does something quite extraordinary to my system.

It is centering. It is perspective shifting. It reminds me of the vastness of our world — not in a melancholic way — but in a way that highlights the interconnectedness of us all.

I feel less panicky, less rushed, less overwhelmed when I am with her. She expresses constant change and yet that doesn’t come with even a hint of fear or scarcity, it brings an immersion of trust. A safety. A peacefulness like no other.

It is the antidote to modern life… in my opinion.

Over the last few years I haven’t had ‘enough’ of this medicine and I can feel it as a slightly jittery sense of anxiety in my being, a longing, a piece missing… maybe even I would describe it as a loneliness.

Do you get that feeling too?

I get out as much as I can, but it isn’t enough for my delicate system.

I can blame many things for this lack… time and spaciousness in my life is not that readily accessible in this season… BUT… ultimately I have to take radical responsibility for myself and my wellbeing. Only I can do this for myself.

Choosing self tending…

It’s been an intense few years — I wrote about how I was teetering on the edge of a gentle emergence in this piece a few weeks ago — and while that intensity isn’t really leaving me any time soon (because that is the nature of Mothering a 2 and 5 year old!) I do feel more capacity to choose the path of nurturing and tending to my whole self… which if I am honest feels like a rebellious and IMPORTANT act in a world that would much prefer me to stay dim and small and invisible.

I am here to disrupt patterns and make change. I am here to rebel against stories that keep women empty and depleted. I am fuelled and driven by the possibility of what magic could unfold if more and more women (and the generations beyond us) chose themself and rose into their FULLNESS. The potential power is immense and quite frankly spectacular.

I have to work at choosing my self each and every day. Over and over again. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is. And something as seemingly simple (and yet surprisingly hard) as getting my full required dose of beauty and nature to keep my mental health in a good place can’t be optional. It is essential. And the tough reality is… it is only me that can make that priority.

It is devotion in embodied action.

If you are radically honest with yourself, are you choosing your self enough right now?

Living rituals

In past lives (pre-motherhood) I had the freedom to walk out and greet the sun whenever I chose. I did it every single day. There is something about a sunrise that reaches deep into my cells and alters me in the most transformational way.

My current reality (during the week anyway) is that I have to find micro moments to satisfy the innate need to welcome the sun each day. That looks like an open window to feel the kiss of fresh air on my face as the sky’s darkness melts away, a pause to glance at the horizon through panes of glass as I make beds and gather clothing or a moment to look up at the sky before stepping into the car before the school run.

But once the weekend arrives, when my husband is home and I can step out of the door in a matter of moments with only myself to dress, I am ravenous for alone time walking with the waking world.

Over the past weekend I was awoken early both days (as always) by my little ones, a gift as we now sit and sip cacao by candlelight as the light of the day begins to creep in through the sides of the blinds. I could FEEL Mother Nature beckoning to me as she emerged from her slumber.

I couldn’t resist…

Dreaming when awake on a winter’s day…

Frozen water droplets pour like silken threads from branches overhanging the pathways. Tiny fragments of jagged ice adorns any surface it can claim, glittering like diamonds when the sun catches it. The ground feels solid underfoot… a welcome sensation after the slippery mud that was there previously — and will no doubt return soon.

Steam rises from the lake as it breathes life into this new day, just like my own breath creates what the girls would call ‘dragon’s fire’ as my physical existence merges with the air around me. If I breathe with my mouth open my teeth ache as the cold hits and their postpartum sensitivity echoes through my face.

Am I dreaming? Is this real? If it wasn’t for the tingly (not unpleasant) burning sensation making it’s way across my cheeks, I would question if I was really awake…

There is something about the colour palette of a frosty winter’s day that brings a sense of aliveness I do not get at any other time of year. Sometimes it is a piercing blue sky contrasting with the silvery crystalline shades of ice meeting earth… sometimes the softest peachy tones with velvety blues and milky whites emerging from the mist bringing a silent ethereal quality to the entire landscape.

The bare trees, without the lush greens of summer or the burnt oranges of autumn, create a set of mesmerising silhouettes as they are stripped of the appearance of life.

There is a slumbering sensation in the world around me, and yet simultaneously so much movement exists. A standstill — or so it seems — but with the hum of life coming from underground.

Rustles in the crispy leaves highlight wildlife searching for nourishment, a bushy tailed chocolate brown fox springs out of the undergrowth ahead of me and turns to view me curiously before darting back into the bushes once more. If I listen carefully enough I can hear the ice cracking and crunching under the weight of my body pressing down on it.

A downward current of energy pulling me into a stronger and more rooted sense of self. Isn’t it magical that this earth can do that to me? Pull me deeper?

Moments like these are not just a gift and are more than a glimmer. This is sustenance for the inevitable darkness of the months ahead.

As I walk, and as the sun begins to rise above the horizon, I hear myself speak the words out loud. ‘I am so glad to be alive.’

ALIVE. I am ALIVE. In this moment I am ALIVE.

And by alive I don’t just mean I am simply a beating heart. I am ALL THE WAY ALIVE.

These moments being held by frosty earth and ice beams provided me with a kind of soul medicine that I didn’t know I needed.

When I consider what success might look like this year… it would be more of this. More time drenched, and intoxicated, by the bewitching beauty of Mother Nature.

Are you with me?

Incase you missed my piece last week, I announced the details of my new Membership space The Balm — a place dedicated to the fortification of women who hold space for others (that can be through creative projects, their family life and/or their work or business). We have a live Restoration Session coming up on 25th January, as well as lots of other nourishing events. Until next week (22nd January) the price will be kept at the current investment of £5 a month or £45 a year, so if you wish to join us before it rises to £8/£70 then please check out all the details below…

Until next time.

With so much love

Lauren

xxx

PS… I am so excited, and deeply honoured, to have sat wit

Layla O'Mara

last week as we shared a conversation about our journeys with Human Design. Make sure you are subscribed to her wonderful publication

beauty & bone

to be first to receive it.

Hello to anyone who is new here… I am Lauren. A Mother of two daughters, Writer, Women’s Circle Facilitator, Sacred Business Mentor & Guide, Soul Branding & Website Creator and multi-dimensional human being. I walk with, and hold space for, others who are treading the tender path of their heart and soul work. You can find out more about this space and what to expect here.

If you enjoyed this piece and wish to explore my other spaces please use the links below to explore…

Motherhood Essays
Self-Tending Practices
The Unravelling Podcast
Sacred Living
Work With Me