Finding Your Calm Space: Cool Water and Calm
Cool water and calm are best friends. We are mostly made of water. Water constitutes around sixty per cent of our bodies[i]. We count aquatic mammals like seals and whales…
Finding Your Calm Space: Calming Essential Oils
Calming essential oils are powerful. The remarkable properties of lavender, frankincense and many other distilled plant oils can hugely impact your mood and wellbeing. One day I burned my hand…
Finding Your Calm Space: Turning Yourself Upside Down
Turning yourself upside down is surprisingly calming. Any mention of handstands or headstands at a Yoga class used to make my stomach clench with worry. Like most people, I generally…
Finding Your Calm Space: Secure and Loving Touch
Touch is our first sense. At just eight weeks from conception, a human foetus develops the sense of touch, beginning with the face, lips and nose. By twelve weeks the…
Finding Your Calm Space: Food, Stress and Calm
I recently blu-tacked a note to the kitchen wall as a reminder for my family. It read, “If Mum is getting stressed, encourage her to eat some muesli”. I have…
Finding Your Calm Space: Restorative Yoga and Effortless Rest
Restorative Yoga involves a lot of lying down. It can look as if you are doing nothing. And that is actually the point. When I first started going to Restorative…
Finding Your Calm Space: Walking Barefoot on the Earth
Walking barefoot connects us to the calming security of the earth. Whether you think of this as a spiritual grounding or simply a physical pleasure, the soles of our feet…
Finding Your Calm Space: Paying Attention to Your Body
Paying attention to your body is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. Primary School Drama When I was aged nine or so, a slightly hippieish…
Finding Your Calm Space, Day Three: Recognising When You Need Calm
Recognising when you need calm is the first step to building calm into your life. I have to keep learning this the hard way. As a busy person, I…
Finding Your Calm Space, Day Two: Calming Your Nervous System
Calming your Nervous System When I was training to be a midwife, a health visitor, a yoga teacher and a reflexologist, one topic kept coming up over and over again:…